f^olmEDGE & Sorts. 2 O 5 THE GREAT CITIES OF THE MODERN WORLD. THE GREAT CITIES MODERN WORLD HELEN AINSLIE SMITH (HAZEL SHEPARD) SECOND EDITION WITH TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTY ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS 9 LAFAYETTE PLACE IN UNIFORM STYLE. Copiously Illustrated. ONE HUNDRED FAMOUS AMERICANS HEROES OF AMERICAN DISCOVERY. GREAT CITIES OF THE ANCIENT WORLD. GREAT CITIES OF THE MODERN WORLD. PAUL AND VIRGINIA. ILLUSTRATED POEMS AND SONGS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. LABOULAYE'S ILLUSTRATED FAIRY TALES. SPORTS AND PASTIMES OF AMERI- CAN BOYS. THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF ROBIN- SON CRUSOE. THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON. LAMB'S TALES FROM SHAKESPEARE. WOOD'S ILLUSTRATED NATURAL HISTORY FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. All bound in handsome lithographed double covers ; also in cloth. George Routledge 6 Sons, 9 LAFAYETTE PLACE, NEW YORK. Copyright, 1885, By JOSEPH L. BLAMIRE. lancroft Library PREFACE. THERE is a saying, as old as it is true, that he who would be a writer must first of all have something to write something new to tell, or some new or better way of putting forth what is already known. This volume has not been called into existence as some- thing new, but because there was not, so far as could be found, any work devoted en- tirely to a description of the outward appearance and real position of the GREAT CITIES OF THE MODERN WORLD. A metropolis represents a focus of power; the chief forces of a country's civilization are centered in its great towns; and it has been believed that in giving a description of the large cities of the chief countries of the world, and bringing them together in a classified volume, there will be presented in a condensed form the leading features, not only of the great cities of the world, as a whole, but also of the civic national life of all the important countries of the globe. The endeavor has been to prepare a book instructive and interesting to readers of all ages, but especially to place before young people a clear and, in a measure, complete idea of the greatest cities of our time, rated according to size, importance in intellectual, commercial, and manu- facturing power, and descriptive of population and architectural appearance. In all cases the aim has been to make the leading features either of a single city or a national group stand out prominently and leave the strongest impression. To combine all these characteristics into a single volume upon so broad a subject it has been necessary to consult a multitude of authorities; and, although these are far too many for the briefest enumeration, it is but just to acknowledge that valuable aid has been received from the standard encyclopaedias and from nearly all the leading works of reference of both special and general character whose scope comes in any way within that of the Great Cities of the Modern World. HAZEL SHEPARD. ORANGE, N. J., September, 1885. CONTENTS. RUSSIA: St. Petersburg ........ 7 Moscow ......... 10 Lower Novgorod . . . . . . 19 Riga ........ . 28 Odessa ......... 28 ENGLAND: London ......... 30 Liverpool ... . .... 46 Manchester ........ 50 Birmingham . . * . . . . .52 Leeds ......... 55 Sheffield .... . . . . . .56 Bristol . . . . . . . . 58 Bradford . . . . . . . .58 Newcastle ........ 59 Eton . ........ 59 Rugby ........ 60 Oxford . . . . . . . .60 Cambridge . . . . . . . . .61 FRANCE: Paris . ........ 63 Lyons . ........ 95 Marseilles ........ 97 Nimes .......... 101 Toulouse . . ...... 101 Bordeaux . . . . . ... . . 102 Nantes . . . ...... 103 iv Contents. PAGE FRANCE: Havre . . ....... 104 Rouen . . ....... 104 Lille . . ....... 107 St. Etienne ....... . 107 GERMANY: Berlin . . . . . . . ... 108 Hamburg . . . . . . . . 132 Breslau . ........ 135 Dresden . . . . . . . . . 136 Munich ......... 139 Bremen . ........ 141 Bremerhaven ........ 142 Frankfort . . . . . . . . 142 Cologne ......... 143 Leipzic ......... 144 Magdeburg . . . . . . . . 146 SCANDINAVIA: Copenhagen ......... 148 Stockholm . . . . . . . . 151 Christiania . . . . . . . .152 NETHERLANDS: Amsterdam ......... 155 Rotterdam . . . . . . . . . 158 The Hague ......... 160 Schenevingen ........ 161 Utrecht .......... 161 Leyden ......... 162 Haarlem .......... 162 BELGIUM: Brussels ......... 165 Antwerp . . . . . . . . . 168 Ghent . . . . . . . . .176 Liege .... . . . . . .176 Bruges . ........ 176 Mechlin ......... 176 Louvain , ........ 176 Contents. SWITZERLAND: Geneva . . . . . . i?7 Basle . ..... l82 Berne . .... .182 IRELAND: Queenstown . . *^4 Belfast .... . .186 Dublin ....... 186 SCOTLAND: Edinburgh ... . .189 Glasgow ...... 193 Dundee .... . . 194 Aberdeen . . . . . J 94 SPAIN: Madrid . - 195 Barcelona ........ 200 Malaga . ........ 202 Valencia . ...... 203 Seville . ........ 204 Granada . ....... 207 Cadiz . . ...... 209 PORTUGAL: Lisbon . . . . . . . .210 Oporto . . . . . . .213 ITALY: Rome . . . . . . . . 216 Naples . . ...... 230 Milan . . ...... 232 Turin . . . ...... 234 Palermo . . ...... 235 Florence . , . . . . . . 235 Genoa . . ... . . . . 242 Venice . . . . . . . . . 244 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: Vienna . . . . . . . . . 249 Buda-Pesth . . ...... 262 Prague . . . ...... 264 Trieste . . . 266 vi Contents. PAGE THE LEVANT: Constantinople . . .....* 267 Damascus ...... 277 Cairo ....... . 280 Alexandria . . ..... 285 INDIA: Bombay . . ..... 288 Calcutta . . . . . . . 295 Madras . . . ...... 298 CHINA: Pekin . ........ 3 Hangchau ...... . 308 Canton . ........ 3 10 Nanking . . . . . . . . .312 Suchan . . . . . . . . . 3 12 Shanghai . . . . . . . . 3 X 4 Tientsin . . . ... . . . . 315 Si-ngau ......... 316 Fuchan . . . . . . . . 316 JAPAN: Tokio ......... 3 J 9 Osaka ......... 326 Kioto ......... 327 Miako ......... 327 Sai-kiyo ......... 327 SOUTH AMERICA: Rio de Janeiro . . . . . . . . 328 Buenos Ayres . ... . . . . . 330 Santiago ......... 331 Lima ......... 331 CANADA: Montreal ......... 333 Toronto . ....... 336 Quebec . ........ 337 Ottawa '. . . . . . . . 337 MEXICO . . . ... .... 339 UNITED STATES: New York City ........ 343 Contents. vn UNITED STATES: Brooklyn . Buffalo Albany Rochester Troy Syracuse Boston Cambridge Lowell Worcester Fall River Providence New Haven Hartford Portland Philadelphia Pittsburgh Allegheny Scranton Reading Harrisburg Wilmington . Newark Paterson Jersey City Hoboken Baltimore Washington Chicago St. Louis Cincinnati Cleveland . Louisville Detroit Milwaukee San Francisco New Orleans 366 368 37 37i 372 372 372 384 384 385 386 386 387 388 389 390 397 398 398 398 399 399 399 400 400 400 400 402 406 4i5 420 421 422 422 423 424 426 Great Cities of the Modern World. RUSSIA. THE Empire of Russia lies in Europe and in Asia ; from Sweden, the Baltic, Prussia and Austria, eastward to the Pacific ; from the Arctic Ocean to China, Turkestan, the Caspian Sea, Persia, Turkey and 1 the Black Sea. This is a very large part of the globe, nearly one twenty-sixth of it, and more than one-sixth of the land of the whole earth. The population of this great empire is about one hundred millions. The principal cities are in Europe, where the " smaller half " of Russia lies. St. Petersburg is the capital, and largest city of the country. Its population is nearly nine hundred thousand, which is greater than Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It stands upon the lower branches of the clear blue Neva River. Before the time of Peter the Great, this was only a tract of marshes ; but the great " reformer " said his country needed "a window by which the Russians might look into civilized Europe." So the marshes were drained, and in 1703 a magnificent city was begun. Most of it lies on the southern bank of the river ; the remainder is scattered over the northern bank and the islands. Fourteen arms of the Neva flow through St. Petersburg, beside many smaller branches, and seven canals. The different parts of the town are connected by bridges. In summer time, little two-oared ferry-boats ply from one shore to another, while small steam launches are ready for greater distances. In winter the scene is very different. Then we see the snow-picture, which lasts from October until April. Boats are useless. Bridges are largely neglected. King Winter binds the streams, even the " Big Neva," with a coating of ice that will bear the heaviest of burdens. All the people who do not walk or skate are carried about over streams and through the snow-paved streets by sledges and hand sleighs. It is a beautiful sight then to see the splendid palace-lined streets with their red, stucco-ornamented fronts and gilded balconies glittering with ice, while the snow-white roadway is filled with handsome sleighs drawn by spirited horses, who toss their plumed heads and jingle merry sounding bells. IO Cities of the World. The most important of the islands of St. Petersburg, is Basil Island, or Vassiliostrof. It is connected with the southern bank of the river, in one place, by a beautiful, large stone bridge, named after the Emperor Nicholas. The shore of Vassiliostrof is lined with quays and shipping docks ; and upon it are the Custom House and Exchange, beside some fine university and academy build- ings ; for many of the most important insti- tutions of Russia are in or near St. Peters- burg. On another island stands the pic- turesque Fortress and Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, where the Imperial Family are buried. There are dungeons under- neath the church, used for a State Prison. It is a massive building, with slender, gilded spire almost four hundred feet high. Every thing in St. Petersburg seems planned to be large. The streets are broad ; the squares, palaces and public buildings are all on a grand scale. It stands on a noble river, an Impe- rial city, the capital and European door- houses are built in such STREET IN ST. PETERSBURG. way to the largest empire in the world. Even the private large blocks that many of them hold twenty separate families. Seen covered with a layer of hoar frost, the majestic, gilded dome and red pillars 12 Cities of the World. of St. Isaac's Cathedral are one of the most beautiful sights in the city. The lofty doors are always open ; and although the visitor may think the inside gaudy and in poor taste, it is certainly magnificent. From the richest of Russia's limitless mines there has been brought countless precious stones, metals and marbles, which by skillful hands have been wrought into glittering and showy decorations. The Russians are also very proud of the Kazan church, which stands on one of the wide streets that spread out fan-like from the great Admiralty Place. This square is on the south bank of the Neva, and contains one mass of buildings for naval use, which make a noble fafade along the river for half a mile. Close by it is the Palace Square and Alexander's Column, which is a THE EXCHANGE, OR PALACE OF THE BOURSE, ST. PETERSBURG. shaft made of one piece of red granite eighty feet high. It is adorned with bronze made of captured Turkish cannon, and altogether one hundred and fifty feet high. St. Petersburg is sometimes called the City of Palaces, for there are a great many other magnificent homes beside the famous Winter Palace ; and, although there is not another in the world so large, some of the smaller ones in the city are thought to be more beauti- ful. The Hermitage, a palace connected by several galleries with the Winter Palace, has a very fine collection of paintings, and the grand city squares abound with works of art in statuary and monuments. The noblest of them all is the statue of Peter the I 4 Cities of the World. Great on horseback, in Peter's Square, which is opposite St. Isaac's and close to the river. In the Russian capital there are large manufactories, and trade is carried on in tapestry, glass, porcelain, malachite ornaments, and many other things. One-third of all Russia's foreign trade is at St. Petersburg. The port of the city is at Cronstadt, not far away, on the Gulf of Finland. The waters of the Neva will not admit large vessels to St. Petersburg, although the floods sometimes rise high enough to do the city a great deal of damage. By whichever way one leaves the capital, unless he go by water, he must pass ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, ST. PETERSBURG. through several hundred miles of uninhabited forest and morass. To the south-east, is a carefully cultivated and fertile country in the center of which, about 400 miles from St. Petersburg, is Moscow. Very rich and magnificent it appears from a distance this " city of domes in the air " with its cupolas of many colors, blazing in silvering and gilding and the battlements of the Kremlin high in the center. It is the home of about seven hundred and fifty thousand people, which is nearly three thousand more than there are in Brooklyn, New York. It stands on the " mossy river," Moskva, a branch of the Moscow. 1 5 Volga. Until the year 1712 Moscow was the capital of Russia. It is now the wealthiest city of the Empire. The Kremlin, which is the center of the town, stands on the north bank of the river, within a wall, guarded by eighteen towers. Five gates open -from it into the ''ity. They are all wonderful. Over the principal one, called the Redeemer Gate, is a picture of Christ ; and the Emperor, even, takes off his hat and bows as he passes through. Above the St. Nicholas Gate is a figure of the patron Saint of Russia, and a large square STATUE OF PETER THE GREAT, MOSCOW. tower. The fortifications of the Kremlin inclose the monuments and important build- ings of Moscow. Here is the Cathedral of the Annunciation, over whose precious paved floors of jasper, agate and carnelian, many processions have passed, to the baptism of an imperial baby, who, in later years has led his bride to the same altar. Perhaps, in the Cathedral of the Assumption, near by, he was crowned ruler of all the Russias, the " Czar " before Peter the Great's time, the " Emperor," since : and after a stormy or a peaceful rule the Czar i6 Cities of the World. was laid to rest in the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael, but the Emperors lie buried in the Fortress at St. Petersburg. That great bell one sees standing on the ground, is the famous " Czar Kolokol," the largest bell in the world. It fell in the fire of 1737 and was injured. Until 1837 it was left sunk in the earth. Then it was raised, and made the dome of an under-ground chapel. Moscow has also another large bell which is in use. It weighs eighty tons, but is a little more than half the size of the " great " bell. CZAR KOLOKOL. It is two hundred feet, up the Tower of Ivan, near by, to the cross on that immense gilded dome, which contains a chime of thirty-four bells. From the Tower one looks down upon the ancient city, with its painted green roofs and picturesque turrets, and sees that its streets run in all directions from the Kremlin like spokes from the hub of a wheel. About a mile from the walls of the Citadel a broad boulevard makes a circle about the Kremlin, on the north side of the river, crossing all the streets. About a half- mile further another is seen running the same as the first, but, of course, making a much Moscow. larger circle. To the east of the Kremlin, inside the first boulevard, is the Kitai Gorod, or the walled " Chinese Town," made up of the principal stores of the city and the great bazar, which covers three squares, but is divided into many small shops. CHURCH IN MOSCOW. Also within this boulevard is the Belvi Gorod, or " White Town," with its many public buildings. The new marble cathedral, the great " Temple of the Saviour," stands here. It is just finished, but was begun in 1812 as a monument to the success of Russia i8 Cities of the World. against the invasion of Napoleon. It is in the form of a Greek cross, and is large enough to hold ten thousand people at once. The inside is said to be the most beautiful and gorgeous in the world. St. Saviour's dome is three hundred and forty feet high. Beyond the first boulevard is the HI Zemlianoi Gorod, or the "Earthen Town," which was given this name, long ago when the city was surround- ed by an earthen rampart. The ancient cap- ital of Russia, like the new, has fine libraries and muse- ums and a famous university; its churches are said to number " forty times forty." It does more manu- facturing than any other town in Russia, making woolen, cotton and silk cloths, jewel- ry, glass, porcelain and other valuable articles. Trade is carried on by railroads and ca- nals in summer and by sledges in THE GREAT THEATER, MOSCOW. winter The Russians do a large part of their buying and selling at fairs, held regularly in certain parts of the Empire. The most important of these is held every summer at Nijni Novgorod. Novgorod. 1 9 This city is not the Novgorod near the Gulf of Finland, the most ancient and a very interesting town of Russia ; but Nijni, or Lower Novgorod in another part of the country. Lower Novgorod is a picturesque town of two parts about 260 miles east of Moscow, where the Volga and Oka rivers meet. On the south side of the Volga, the fortified " upper town " stands, and in it the citadel or Kremlin, two cathedrals and the palaces of the governors. On the flat ground below it is the other part of the town, made THE WINTER PALACE, ST. PETERSBURG. up mostly of wooden buildings. This is where the business is done, for as long as the rivers are open Lower Novgorod has a large trade, especially in manufactured goods. It is connected by the rivers with twenty-four of the states of Central Russia, with the Baltic, the White and the Caspian Seas ; so that the town people can easily find regular markets for their famous Russian leather, steel goods, wax candles, pottery and many other wares, beside the numbers of ships they build. Crossing the bridge of boats over the Oka, the Fair Ground is reached. It is a broad space, the shape of a triangle, between the Oka and the Volga Rivers, certain to be dry 2O Cities of the World. only in summer time, and lined on both shores with ten miles of wharves, sometimes piled hundreds of feet high with goods. There are three annual fairs held in the town every year. The first two are of small account compared to the third, which begins the 13111 of July and does not close until the yth of September. This is by far the largest annual fair in the world. As the time for the opening draws near men gather at the city from every part of Europe, Asia and northern Africa. A woman is rarely seen at the Fair, it is said. The Fair Ground is well built, upon sewers of hewn stone ; and the forty miles of streets are kept clean and pure by the watchful police. The enormous market hall has sixty blocks of buildings for booths, which are separated into more than twenty-five hundred apartments by fire-proof walls. Usually there are about forty-five thousand people living in Lower Novgorod ; but during the Fair the population is eight times its regular size. So, extra churches and buildings of all kinds are kept for the visitors throughout the town. The rivers are so crowded with boats that the water can scarcely be seen. There are fully fifty thousand people living on the water during the Fair. The governor of the province makes his home in the midst of the bustle and confu- sion from the day the Fair opens until its close. All around are showy booths and squares, overloaded with goods for sale, useful and ornamental, and all to be had at " wonderful bargains." Behind the booths are restaurants and the little tea-houses, always to be found in Russian towns. The tea-houses are full of small tables ; and from morning till night there are merchants and their customers sitting there, making bargains over cups of tea. One sees great numbers of foreigners here, and men from every part of the Empire. The Russians say that their countrymen are not divided into classes ; but there is a difference among the people of Russia as there is, according to circumstances, in every country. The highest class in Russia are the nobles and landed proprietors. They have usually the most money, and if they do not serve the State, live upon the rents and products of their property. They used to own serfs or slaves ; but in 1861 all the slaves in Russia were made free, and now the proprietor's former slaves are his tenants or his servants. The merchants make another class, and are the larger part of the visitors at the Fair. They are usually well educated, live in towns, and some of them have very rich homes. The greater part of the people of Russia are peasants. They are active, work hard, and are healthy, cheerful and kind. The peasant always has a bushy beard, and wears a round hat, and a coarse coat of drugget, reaching to the knee. (This coat is made of wool and skins in winter.) His trowsers are of thick, coarse linen, and instead of a stocking, the Russian peasant wears a woolen cloth bound round his leg. His shoes or sandals are made of bark, and fastened round the ankles with strips of bark. You would find his home in some small square cottage, which 22 Cities of the World. he made himself of whole trees, piled one on another, and fastened together at the four corners. The gaps are filled in with moss ; and the roof, in the form of a penthouse, is covered with bark of trees under a layer of turf and mold. He cut out his windows and those very small doors after the house was finished. The greatest differences that are seen in the Russian people are marked according to where they come from ; for the Empire is made up of many nations unlike each other, and each with its own customs and characteristics. The police, who keep close watch here in Novgorod that no one defile the streets, or in any way disturb the health or peace, are Cossacks. The COSSACKS are natives of the southern part of the Empire, which is sometimes called " Little Russia." Their wealth is mainly in horses and cattle ; but their bravery and warlike spirit has long made them the soldier-race of the people. They are famous horsemen, and can stand fatigue, cold, hunger and thirst with great strength and courage. The men spend most of their time away from home in military duty ; so the strong and handsome Cossack women take care of the families and manage the villages, which are prosperous and enterprising, surrounded by vineyards, cornfields, and pastures for great herds of cattle. Cossack homes are described as clean and refined, and the people as intelligent and hospitable. The TARTARS are another people of southern Russia. They once claimed a large part of Central Asia ; but are now confined to Turkestan and the countries near it. They, too, are powerful and warlike ; but are also fierce and roving natures. Tartars are seldom tall, and usually thin. Their faces are small and fresh looking. A Tartar has a small mouth, and small, dark, lively eyes. His shaved head is covered with a leather cap over which is a red-crowned bonnet or cap. A great many of them are seen here. The poorer men have an inner coat of a sort of linen, covered by a coarse cloth gown ; but the rich Tartar has a fine outside coat of cloth over his inner coat of lustrous silk. They bring quantities of honey with them ; but most of their trade is barter, for they are little used to handling money. From western Russia are seen the POLES, many of whom are Jews. They too raise large quantities of bees ; but send most of the honey to foreign ports. The Polish mer- chants at Lower Novgorod do a great business in wool, cotton, linen, liquors, oil, vinegar, paper, glass, earthenware and other things. Poland was once an independent kingdom, but was united to the Empire in 1864. The country people raise horses, cattle, pigs and sheep, beside their bees. Poland is very thickly settled, and an important part of modern Russia, especially in manufactories. Talking earnestly with a Chinese tea merchant, a Finn is seen, known by his bearded face, and by his long hair, hanging loose under a felt hat. He belongs to another important race of Russia. His home is in the northwestern part of the Empire, which took Finland from Sweden in 1809. Russian Types. The Finland merchants are mostly dressed in coarse cloth made by the women of the families ; but, as this is a holiday time, some of them have on their best clothes, which are manufactured cloth, finer than the home-spun goods.- Among the Finns here many wear wooden shoes ; some have shoes that are made of skin, and others of tree-bark laced together. They all wear a leathern girdle, some of them are unmanned, in which a knife is stuck. Occasionally a Ger- man or a Scandinavian is seen, who belongs to some of the Baltic provinces. There is a Siberian, an Archangel merchant, with furs for sale ; a Bukharian with turquoise and other beautiful gems ; Kalmuck and Kirghis, who have come with wild ponies and Siberian iron ; and Persians with per- fume stands. Merchants of western Europe are selling watches, pipes, jewelry ; and Orientals have come across the bor- der with their curiously- wrought ornaments and bric-a-brac. At the Fair every one A GROUP OF RUSSIANS. is in earnest. The faces of all are thoughtful and serious. The reason is because most of these merchants and traders and bankers count on this annual fair for their fortunes. Some of them come from so great a distance that they spend nearly all the year going to Lower Novgorod and returning home. 24 Cities of the World. Everything is very systematically arranged in the market-hall and bazars, accord- ing to the classes of goods ; but on the outskirts, monks, jugglers, beggars and venders, clad in all sorts of garments, and babbling in all tongues, make a scene of noise and confusion. The Empire is divided into provinces or governments, which are looked after by governors appointed by the Emperor. There are few towns, in Russia, but many villages. The villages are governed according to the commune. A village, or COMMUNE, is something like a large family, with the Village Elder at the head of it, and the Village Assembly to regulate it, chosen by the people. All the people who belong to a certain commune are responsible alike for the debts and taxes of the whole village. All have a share in the farm and pasture land, which they care for sep- arately, and all are protected from losing the use of their land. They must all pay into the common treasury a certain sum of money. This binds the people of a commune very much together. If one man lets his business run down and gets out of money, all the members of the commune can complain, because, together, they must pay his taxes. The good land of a commune belongs to the community in common, and no part of it to any one member ; so every household by itself, as well as all of them together, is respon- sible for all the money that the commune has to pay every year into the Imperial Treasury. The amount is supposed to be set according to the number of men and boys in the commune. This is the general plan of the system of village government in Russia called the Mir, or Village Community ; but many communes follow out in the details, a plan for themselves. However these may differ in various parts of the Empire, all are subject to one great power, the Emperor. He has no limit to his will. His Empire is a despotism, and there is no Congress or Parliament to question or control him. Every Russian subject knows that if he break the law, the Emperor may put him to death, without hearing or trial, the moment his crime is known. But worse than death, the Russian fears the punishment of being banished to SIBERIA. Although this name is usually given to all of Russia in Asia, the Russians themselves only use it for the northern part. Even this is much larger than Europe, and has as many people living in it as all of the Netherlands nearly four millions more than one-half of which are exiles. Part of the country is barren, and most of the time covered . with ice and snow ; but there are portions rich and fertile which give the eastern world its great sup- ply of grain, and afford good pasture to flocks of sheep and droves of horses, reindeer and cattle. But the exile only thinks of the long, dreary marches, carrying his chains from one post to another, over the barren country. If he does not die on the way of cold, hunger, filth or abuse, the worst of criminals finally reaches his journey's end in 26 Cities of the World. some of the central or western provinces. Here, he is put to work for life in one of those rich mines beneath the ice-bound surface of dreary Siberia, to get out the gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc, antimony, iron or arsenic, which seems to be deposited in unlimited quantities. If he is not one of the blackest of the criminals, he may be taken to a less dismal spot, and be put to work at carving or making into beautiful filigree, the RUSSIAN PENAL COLONY. precious metal brought to the light by his brother prisoner. There is plenty of material for all kinds of such work ; for, beside the precious metals, Siberia yields topazes and emeralds, porphyry, jasper and malachite, which are made by cunning hands into objects of wonderful beauty and art. There is still another class of Siberian exiles. Those who are guilty of smaller crimes are taken to comfortable places, and under the eye of the police, do what 28 Cities of the World. they please. Most of them are trappers, for Russia has a wealth of furred animals in her north country. A great deal of petroleum and salt come also from Siberia. Salt is so plentiful that it hardens on the surface of some of the lakes in summer, so that men and even horses cross, as if it were ice. There is scarcely any manufacturing here, no large cities, and little farming. The native Siberians are short, yellow complexioned, and have deep red hair. They are a wild people who get their living by hunting and fishing. Their principal wealth is in reindeer, which they keep to draw their burdens. One man sometimes owns a herd of two hundred. They keep no other animals. The people dress in skin garments that cover them entirely, head and feet. Some of the tribes nearer the central part of Asia are more cultivated ; but it is usually the settlers, not the natives, who till the earth. The great yields of Russia are from the north and east ; but the ports and cities are in Europe. The second great port on the European side of the Empire is Riga. The city stands about 370 miles from St. Petersburg, on the river Dwina, eight miles from the Gulf of Riga. It has a population of about one hundred and seventy thousand, and is one of the most important manufacturing and commercial cities of the Empire. St. Peter's Church, the Castle, or Dom, and many fine public buildings are very inter- esting. The gloomy " Old Town" shows traces of the ancient German rule ; but the new quarters are handsome and extensive. Riga's busy cotton and woolen mills are large and growing ; and, besides being the most noted of all Russian towns for ship- building, it is in a good position to have a large trade with central and eastern Europe. The country is constantly sending in for shipment great quantities of flax, timber, hemp and grain. But the great grain port of Europe is Odessa. It has about two hundred thousand population, which is some less than San Francisco, California. It is built on a table-land, ending in bluffs on the northwest coast of the Black Sea, and is described as a town of " straight streets and butter-colored houses." There is a famous Russian University here, and among the fine city buildings are the Cathedral of St. Nicholas, the Admiralty, and the Custom House. A promenade is along the face of the cliffs, where the statue of the benefactor of the town, the Due de Richelieu stands, and a broad stairway of two hundred steps leads down to the shore. The great interests of Odessa are commercial. By river and railroad the products are brought from the interior of the country to be shipped. The harbor is so deep that even the largest men-of-war can come close to the shore, which, except for a few months in the winter, when the water is frozen over, is always a scene of loading and unloading vessels. Out and in through the Bosphorus they pass between this port of Russia and the cities of the Mediterra- nean and Atlantic. Russia. 29 Among the other notable cities of Russia are Warsaw, a large manufacturing town and the most important of Poland ; Vladimir, another large manufacturing town of Tula, which is as noted for its cutlery in Russia as Sheffield is in England. In Siberia the largest town is Irkutsk, which has a population of twenty-seven thousand. It is the great center of Siberian trade, especially in tea, and stands upon the principal route between Eastern and Western Siberia and between China and Russia. THE ALEXANDER COLUMN. ENGLAND. THE largest and most important city of England, indeed of the world, is London. It covers one hundred and thirty-two square miles, nearly three times the size of New York city, and contains four times as many, people, or four million inhabitants. This great city lies on the rolling ground of the Thames valley, sixty miles from the winding river's mouth, on both sides of the stream. Its greatest length is thirteen miles extending east and west in the direction of the river, whose banks are walled by massive granite dykes. As London has been growing since the third century it has come to include many places that were once outlying villages, each with its own peculiar name. The larger and more important part of the city lies north of the river, and is made up of two divisions, the business, money-making " City" and " East End," and the " West End," with its homes, parks, and places of amusement ; while between the two, in the heart of the town, is the famous old law quarter called the " Temple." For many miles before the Thames reaches the center of London it is lined with wharves, warehouses, and immense inclosed docks. The broad stream is crowded with all kinds of vessels of not more than eight hundred tons burden bearing cargoes from every nation in the world. This is the Port of London, from which the commerce of England extends all over the globe. Out and in the ships are constantly sailing, and the work of loading and unloading seems never to cease. From London alone comes one-half of England's customs-revenues, while one-quarter of the whole ship-tonnage of the kingdom and one-quarter of its exports are centred in this busy scene. The Pool, the great rendezvous for coal boats, is further up the river and just below London Bridge, the oldest, the most used, and the most famous of the dozen bridges that span the Thames as it runs through London Town. It is built of granite and has cost about ten million dollars. Its long rows of lamp-posts are made out of the French cannon captured in the Peninsular War. But Waterloo Bridge is the handsomest. It is nearly fourteen hundred feet long and so high that it commands a fine view of some of the greatest sights of London. At night this is lighted by electricity. Between here and old London Bridge is Blackfriars' Bridge, which.crosses the river in the heart of the city, and stands 32 Cities of the World. at the eastern end of the broadest and finest of the river walls, the Victoria Embank- ment, which is a favorite walk, stretching on the north side of the river to Westminster Bridge. The Albert Embankment, the finest on the south side of the river, begins at WATERLOO BRIDGE, LONDON. Vauxhall bridge, near the western end of the city, and extends past Lambeth Palace to Westminster Bridge, opposite Westminster Palace, and the Parliament Houses. Lambeth Palace has been for six hundred years the London residence of the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, the primate of England. It is a massive old pile of brick and stone which has been the scene of many important events in the civil and church history of England. It is entered at the southern end by the old, tower-guarded Morton gate- way, of red brick and stone dressings, which was built in 1484. It is said that probably no other piece of architecture in Europe has brought so much of beauty and grandeur as safely through four centuries of so many trials. This leads to the outer courtyard within the Palace walls along the right side of which is the Library and Juxon's Hall. The body of the Palace is beyond, where, at the north-western corner, are the Guard Room, Portrait Gallery, Chapel the oldest building of Lambeth and several other rooms and towers, the outermost of which are the Post Room and the Lollards' Tower, a massive, square keep of stone. The rest of the Palace, which extends toward the eastward, faces the northern end of the inner courtyard, and is the princely dwell- ing of the Archbishop. Above is the Medical School, and, extending nearly eighteen hundred feet along the Albert Embankment to Westminster Bridge, are the seven great red brick buildings of St. Thomas's Hospital, which are each four stories high and united by arcades into one immense institution, where over sixty-six thousand patients London. 33 are treated every year. On the other side of the river, directly opposite, are the Houses of Parliament. This magnificent building, close to the water, covers about eight acres of ground at the head of the Victoria Embankment. This is where the Lords and " Commons " meet, who help the Queen to rule the country, somewhat as our Senate and Congress come together at Washington. It is built of stone in the richest late-gothic style, which is also called " Tudor" or " Perpendicular" architecture ; and beside the Parliament Chambers, include official dwellings and other apartments, numbering eleven hundred in all, with eleven open courts and one hundred staircases. The river front, which is nine hundred and forty feet long, is adorned with rich decorations and statues of all the sovereigns of England. The Palace has three towers, the lowest of which is the Middle Tower, three hundred feet high. The square Clock Tower or St. Ste- phen's Tower which stands at the north-western corner, contains "Big Ben," the famous old bell, which, in calm weather, is heard over the larger part of London. It takes half a day to wind the striking part of the great clock in this tower, whose dials are on each of the four sides and measure twenty-three feet in diameter. At the southwestern corner is Vic- toria Tower, the highest and largest of the three, containing the royal entrance through which the Queen passes when she visits Parliament. Within Westminster Palace, as without, all is handsome and imposing, while some of the apartments are really magnificent. Between the Victoria Tower and the House of Peers lies the long Royal Victoria Gallery, with floors richly paved in mosaics, ceilings paneled and gilded, and the long side walls covered with two great historic paintings in fresco. The House of Peers is an immense room lying beyond, which occupies about the center of the southern half of the Palace. It is probably the most gorgeous apartment in Westminster. The walls and ceilings are HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT, LONDON. 34 Cities of the World. handsomely decorated, and in the twelve beautiful stained glass windows are the por- traits of the kings and queens of England since the Norman Conquest. At night the House is lighted from without through these windows, between which are niches rilled with statues of the Barons who secured the Magna Charta of King John. The floor is occupied by more than four hundred red benches, seats of the "members." The cele- brated woolsack of the Lord Chancellor a kind of cushioned ottoman standing almost in the center, is in front of the magnificent canopied throne of the Queen, at the south end of the hall. On either side of this are the thrones of the Prince of Wales and the late Prince Albert, while above are seats for foreign ambassadors and other distinguished visitors. Opposite the throne, at the north end of the chamber, is the Bar, where com- munications to the Lords are delivered and law-suits pleaded ; and above it are galleries for reporters and strangers. The situation of the House of Commons in about the center of the northern half of Westminster Palace, corresponds to that of the Peers in the southern part. The two halls are the same in width, but the Commons is neither so long nor so high as the Lords' ; and, although very handsome with its oak paneling and stained glass windows, it is but plain and substantial looking as compared with the gor- geous decorations of the other House. Midway between the Houses is the spacious eight-sided Central Hall, which stands beneath the Central Tower in the middle of the building. Skirting its floors of inlaid pavements is the inscription in Latin : " Except the Lord keep the house, their labor is but lost that build it." The stone vaulting, sup- ported by massive and richly embossed ribs, is decorated with Venetian mosaics, many statues of English sovereigns rest in niches by the windows, and the lofty door- ways which lead in four directions to corridors connecting with lobbies, halls and courts belonging to and surrounding the Houses. The Parliament building stands upon the site of the old Westminster Palace, which from the time of the Anglo-Saxon kings to the reign of Henry VIII. was a royal residence. In 1840 all was destroyed except West- minster Hall, which is on the western side of the present Palace. This is now used as a public vestibule to the Houses, and is entered from the northern outer-court, called New Palace Yard, new in the time of William Rufus, who laid it out when in 1097 he built this great hall for banquets, as the first step which was also his last toward a new royal residence. We see it as remodeled and enlarged just three hundred years later by Richard II., who built upon the old walls a magnificent new roof, which hangs in mid-air now with its peak ninety-two feet above the pavement, as solidly as it did five hundred years ago ; its massive timbers of oak and chestnut interlocking each other in a great gothic arch, which is still a wonder to architects as a masterpiece of beauty and skill. From St. Stephen's porch, at the southern end of the Great Hall of William Rufus, Old Palace Yard, extending to Victoria Tower, lies between the western fagade of the Palace and the extreme end of Westminster Abbey. This grand old minster, one of the greatest of London's fifteen hundred churches, London. 35 is built in the form of a cross, mostly in Gothic style. It is over five hundred feet long, and, besides the great nave, choir and transept, contains nine chapels dedicated to differ- ent saints, and many cloisters. At the western end are two square towers, two hundred and twenty-five feet high, with a Gothic window between and a Gothic door below. WESTMINSTER ABBEY, LONDON. Standing at this end of the nave a superb view of the ancient building may be had. From the stained glass windows far above, a beautiful light falls on the lofty arches, the magnificent colonnade of pillars ending in the chapel of Edward the Confessor, hundreds of feet away. A wonder of architectural beauty is on every side, with choir, transepts, cloisters and chapels filled with sculptures and bas-reliefs, keeping alive the illustrious names of England's dead. 36 Cities of the World. An iron screen separates the nave from the choir, with its great organ and hand- some wood-work ; and beyond the transepts is the chapel of Edward the Confessor, in which stand the ancient coronation chairs and the shrine of the Confessor, built in 1269. In front of the altar of the church is a curious old mosaic pavement ; the reredos is very elaborately wrought in red and white alabaster ; a picture of the Last Supper, in fine Venetian mosaics, occupies the recess above the table, while the niches are filled with large figures of Moses, St. Peter, St. Paul and David. The Poets' corner is in the south transept. Here tombs, statues and monuments keep green the memory of the greatest names in English literature. Beyond the shrine of Edward the Confessor is the Chapel of Henry VII., the most beautiful and extensive in the Abbey. It consists of nave and aisles, with five small chapels at the eastern end. The Gothic ceiling, resting on lofty arches, is exquisitely wrought in fan-tracery, whose rich and delicate fret-work seems, in the distance, more like silver filagree than stone carving. On every side is a mass of rich ornamentation, especially of roses, since it was the marriage of Henry VII. (of Lancaster) with Elizabeth (of York) which brought to a close the War of the Roses, and founded the House of Tudor. The carved choir stalls on either side are appropriated to the Knights of the Order of the Bath. In this chapel alone are a thousand memorial statues and figures, in the midst of which are those of the founder and his queen, lying upon richly-carved tombs, surrounded by an elaborate and curiously-wrought screen of brass. Beside the solemn beauty and grandeur of this edifice, the old Abbey is a wonder in age, having been begun in the seventh century, and was the scene of many great events. All the English sovereigns from the time of Edward the Confessor have been crowned here and here, too, many of them lie buried. Not far from the Abbey is St. James's Park and the Queen's palace of Buckingham, which stands with its beautiful grounds at the head of the Mall. The building forms a large quadrangle, or hollow square, the principal front facing St. James's Park. A portico of marble columns leads from a spacious court to the rooms of state, the finest of which is the Throne Room. The walls are gorgeously hung in red striped satin and gilt, above which is a marble frieze around the vaulted and richly decorated ceiling. The marble staircase is magnificent ; its ceiling is decorated in frescoes of Morning, Noon, Evening and Night. The Picture Gallery, Dining Room and Sculpture Gallery contain choice pictures by famous artists, and busts and statues of members of the royal family and eminent statesmen. Queen Victoria's London residence is in the northern end of the palace, looking toward Green Park, while the Palace Garden is at the west. St. James's Park is a long, fan-shaped green, covering thirty-six acres from Buckingham to Whitehall, between the Mall, a broad, tree-lined avenue running north- east, and Birdcage Walk, which, on the south side, leads to Westminster Bridge. It is handsomely laid out with trees, gardens and walks, while across the long, narrow lake, extending almost the full length of the park, is a suspension bridge making a beautiful Cities of the World. short cut from the most fashionable quarter of London to Westminster Abbey and the Parliament Houses. Next to St. James's Palace is Marlborough House, the London home of the Prince of Wales. This is on Pall Mall, a short distance from St. James's Square, where stand the mansions of the Duke of Norfolk, Earl of Derby, Bishop of London and other members of the aristocracy of England. This is West End, the fashionable part of London, the center of which is Belgravia, beyond Buckingham Palace Garden. St. James's Palace, on the north side of the Mall, faces the center of the park and extends back to the Pall Mall, a street filled with the small palaces of the famous London clubs. St. James's was built by Henry VIII., and has been a royal residence ever since. Excepting the old brick gateway on the north-west, the Chapel Royal and the ancient Pres- ence Chamber, the present buildings are of the nineteenth century. It is now used for Court purposes, especially for the Queen's levies, the royal receptions at which gentlemen are presented to Her Majesty. The Drawing Rooms, or ladies' receptions, are held at Bucking- ham. In the Chapel Royal, which is regularly used for church services, Queen Victoria and some of her daugh- ters were married. Whitehall is a broad, crescent- shaped street lying between the large end of St. James's Park and the Thames. It is lined on both sides with public buildings ; in the center, facing the open Parade, overlooking the Park, is the celebrated Horse Guards ; opposite, ,, Ar , ,- , , ST. JAMES S PALACE GATE. extending to the Victoria Embank- ment, are many far-famed institutions, particularly old Scotland Yard, the great police headquarters of London. At the head of Whitehall is Charing Cross, where nearly all the omnibus lines of the West End meet, for these great coaches, which are found in all parts of Londoj|/.^| - Paris. 8 9 660 ; this one is an immense pile, made up of three distinct sets of buildings which serve for a large hospital, and a college for training in medicine and surgery, famous throughout all Europe. Below the Hotel Dieu, which with the Parvis Ndtre Dame occupies the entire width of La Cite", is the famous old Bridge of Notre Dame, connecting the main street of the island with St. Martin Boulevard. Opposite the great hospital are the flower markets, the headquarters of the Parisian police, the firemen and health officers, which with five buildings of the Tribunal de Commerce are separated by the second of the parallel boulevards from the Palais de Justice. This vast collection of buildings occupies nearly TRIBUNAL OF COMMERCE. all the remaining portion of La Cite. The land was once covered by the ancient palace of the Kings of France, presented to the supreme court of justice in the fifteenth cen- tury. Four towers of the old palace are still standing, which, with the Kitchens of St. Louis and the Sainte Chapelle, are all that are left of the original buildings. Even the new buildings were so destroyed by the Commune that most of the Palace of Justice which we now see are mainly buildings of the last twenty years. In the Grand Court, adjoining the boulevard, are the broad steps of the principal entrance, adorned by 90 Cities of the World. statues and surmounted by a great square dome. The court-room is one of the largest in the world, being about two hundred and fifty feet long and almost two hundred wide, in the form of two vaulted galleries ; it is embellished with statues and decorations, and opened into by many courts. Other galleries and halls of the Palace are taken up by the offices of the law. From the Grand Court three vaulted passages lead toward the Sainte Chapelle, which was in olden times the palace chapel, and is now, to-day, the most perfect gem of Gothic architecture in the world. The "Mass of the Holy Ghosts," the only service now held in the chapel, is celebrated once a year when the courts open after the autumn vacation. It consists of a lower chapel, containing tombs of saints, from which a spiral staircase leads to the upper chapel, where the service is held. The magnificent stained-glass windows framed in beautiful tracery, take up almost the entire walls, while the other parts of the interior are richly decorated in many colors, harmon- izing with the windows. Statues of the Apostles are placed against the pillars, and behind the altar is a Gothic canopy in carved wood. The lower part of the Palais de Justice on the north side of the river is occupied by the Conciergerie, a famous prison of France, whose grim walls and strong locks have confined Marie Antoinette, Danton, Robespierre, and many others whose names will never fade from the history of France. Beyond the Palais are the flower-beds and brick houses of the Place Dauphine, and the renowned New Bridge which stretches from the left to the right bank of the Seine, across the western end of La Cite", with a notable bronze statue of Henry IV. in the center. South of La Cite" is the thickly settled Latin Quarter, with its schools and colleges, centuries old. The famous Sarbonne, built by Cardinal Richelieu, is here. It contains lecture halls, class-rooms and four laboratories of the University of France, beside a large public library. Near by is the College of France, where free public lectures are given by eminent scholars and teachers ; the Polytechnic School ; institutes of medicine, law, arts and all branches of knowledge. The Pantheon is not far away from the Sar- bonne, on the continuation of St. Martin Boulevard. This was begun as a church in 1764, but before it was finished was converted into a temple to the great men of the nation by the Convention of 1741 ; but a late emperor again made it a church of St. Genevieve. The great and beautiful building is in appearance partly a church and partly a temple, with its colonnaded peristyle, beautifully carved pediment and lofty dome above, surrounded by columns ; the same is seen within, lofty arches, galleries and pillars, majestic and magnificent. The fine frescos in the cupolas are but a part of the works of art in painting, sculpture and statuary which still tell the story of the two uses of the Pantheon. A short street from St. Genevieve leads to the Gardens and Palace of Luxembourg, facing a broad, straight avenue running to the Palace of the Institute. Luxembourg was built by Marie de Me"dicis, in the Florentine style. It is adorned with pillars, and consists of pavilions which are no longer royal apartments, but have been converted into the use of galleries for paintings and works of art by great 9 2 Cities of the World. artists, and to the Senate during the building of the new Hotel de Ville. The halls and galleries and other parts of the palace are of handsome size and beautifully decorated. The grounds, representing the famous Boboli Gardens at Florence, are the only ones in Paris which have been allowed to remain in the Renaissance style. They are laid out with lawns, marble fountains, flower-beds, balustrades, steps, terraces, shade trees and statues, through which an avenue runs to the celebrated observatory of Paris. This is a very important little place in connection with the science of astronomy, and MILLER. FISH SALESWOMAN. MASON. GASMAN. COMMISSAIRE. WASHERWOMAN. MECHANIC. PERAMBULATING PLUMBER. contains a rare museum of instruments over which astronomers pore with delight, especially the great parallactic telescope in the copper dome. The meridian of Paris runs through the center of the Observatory, which is connected by telegraph with others of the greatest importance in Europe. Beside all the gayety and all the grandeur in Paris, there is a great deal of industry NEW BRIDGE AND THE BELLE JARDINIERE. NEW BRIDGE. 94 Cities of the World. and hard work. There are over two millions of people to live and be supported here. The majority of them earn their own living, save money and are happy. An immense trade is carried on at the shops and stores, while in making rich and costly fabrics Paris leads the world. There are many factories of all kinds throughout the city, but particularly for watches, clocks, scientific instruments, silks, valuable shawls, and the famous Gobelins tapestries, which have been standing in the same place in the southern part of Paris since 1450. Paris fancy goods, known as articles de Paris, are a special branch of trade. and are made with so much refined taste that they are always in demand ; but about every kind of French manufactures have the peculiarity of elegance in form and color, cheapness and durability. There are about four hundred and fifty thousand artisans in Paris, who, whatever their trade, labor with clever hands and fine judgment for pay that ranges from eighty cents to a dollar and a quarter per day ; but some, especially quick and able, make as much as four dollars a day ; there are all sorts of people at work here, artists, scholars, merchants, mechanics and laborers, from all nations. Paris boasts of being the most cosmopolitan city in Europe, with all that is remarkable and characteristic of the entire French nation gathered in and about it. The great walls and moat make it a gigantic fortress. Round it lie a number of independent forts, each with a history dear to the people, whether of glorious victories or sad defeats ; and adjacent are famous parks and chateaux. At St. Denis, on the north, is the Cathedral La Basilique, once the burial place of the French kings ; on the west lies the palace and garden of St. Cloud, the favorite residence of the Napoleons, where many important conferences were held, and great events that affected the entire government started ; on the south-west is old Versailles, which has been associated with long chapters of the public and private history of the French Court ever since 1682. The magnificence of the chateaux, Grand Trianon, Petit Trianon, and all the palaces, the gardens, the celebrated fountains which grace this town and noble park, these alone repay many a traveler who has crossed high seas for the sight of Paris ; still further south is Fontainebleau, splendid and beautiful now, with wonderful associations of three centuries clinging to its massive walls and verdant surroundings. The extensive palace, made out of a medieval fortress in the first part of 1500, stands at the south-west side of the town of Fontainebleau in " the most beautiful forest in France." To the French people all these environs, with their valuable museums and galleries, are as a part of the beloved capital, the grandest, the most beautiful, the most desirable place in the world. " The whole nation is accustomed to be governed from that center, to follow every movement that originates there, whether it leads to revolution, to monarchy, to imperialism, or to republicanism." Long live the Republic! Lyons. 95 Lyons is the most important manufacturing city of France, and, after Paris, the largest. It stands where a long, low and narrow peninsula has been made by the rivers Rhone and Sa6ne. At the southern end of the town the Rhone receives the waters of the Sadne and then flows directly southward to the Gulf of Lyons, on the Mediterranean. The city extends to the low hills surrounding the peninsula, and is encircled by a wall of fortifications thirteen miles long. From the rivers, gradually becoming less closely LYON. set with buildings some of which are large and handsome, others small and old the town stretches out toward beautiful vineyards, gardens and villas. Water-ways and rail- ways branching from it show Lyons to be an important commercial city, and the looms, factories and markets tell that its trade is chiefly its own manufactures and the products of the vicinity. Silk stuffs of all kinds made here are the most important in the world ; while in other mills are made nets, cotton goods, blankets and hats ; and some factories 9 6 Cities of the World. and shops supply a large trade in gold and silver lace, chemicals, drugs, liquors, earthen ware and other things. This busy town has about four hundred thousand people living in it, about as many as Birmingham, and more than our own Boston in Massachusetts. The two rivers are crossed by twelve bridges over the Saone, to the western part of the city ; and by seven over the Rhone, which lies to the eastward. There are about thirty quays lining the four banks, to accommodate the large traffic which centers at Lyons, the " great warehouse of Southern France and Switzerland." Soon after entering the city the Saone makes a bold eastward curve toward the Rhone at the foot of the hill of Fourvieres, on the west bank. Convents, hospitals and semina- ries stand here overlooking the town, while high above all, on the summit, is the famous cathedral, Notre Dame de Fourvieres, visited by one and one-half million pilgrims every year. It stands over four hundred feet high, and has been called Fourvieres from the ancient forum, which stood on the spot in the days of the Romans, who occupied the town about fifty years before Christ. The interesting old church, with its lofty tower and figure of the Virgin, two hundred feet high in air, was built in the ninth century. From this hill the view of Lyons is very fine. Below are the splendid quays, full of merchan- dise, crowded with ships and busy people ; opposite is the narrowest part of the peninsula, except where the rivers meet, and the principal part of the city in the great square, called the Terreaux. Here are the Hotel de Ville, famous throughout the Republic for its size and beauty ; the Opera House and the Palais St. Pierre, which was once a convent but is now an institute for science and literature, the art school and library, picture gallery, and museums of sculpture, archeology and natural history. Broad, straight streets and public squares, with fine buildings, extend southward to the great Belle Cour, which is one of the largest squares in Europe. On the east and on the west are large monumental fronts, while in the center is a statue of Louis XIV. on horseback. Along the quay, past the Cour, is the fine old military hospital of Hotel Dieu. Other places, broad avenues and fine buildings in this vicinity extend to the Perache Quarter, which is the aristocratic part of Lyons, and about half-way from Fourvieres to the meeting place of the rivers. Below are the railway station, docks and factories, prison and arsenal, not beautiful parts of Lyons, but full of life and interest. Across the Rhone from this lower part of the city is a wretched quarter of working- men's houses, crowded with old buildings eight or ten stories high, through which it seems impossible to put any broad thoroughfare ; but above, opposite the Terreaux, is the long range of medical college buildings, and, extending to the eastward, the newer part of the city, with fine, broad streets, comfortable and even handsome blocks of houses. It is not far from this pleasant quarter of Lyons which is growing very fast that the city park lies, being north-eastward from the Terreaux. The Pare du Tete d'Or, with its lawns and trees, its botanical and pharmaceutical gardens, green-houses of orchids, palm trees and rare plants, and its cages of wild animals, covers almost as much Marseilles. 97 ground as Hyde Park, in London, and is said to be one of the finest in France. On the whole it is a stately city that lies here upon the rivers, within the circle of the garden-covered hills ; fine old Roman aqueducts tell of ancient palmy days, while crowded quays, bustling streets and smoke curling from a hundred chimneys bespeak for Lyons a growth with the times, and greater wealth, life and importance to-day than ever before. Although Lyons is about two hundred miles from the sea, it is constantly in MARSEILLES. communication with it, through large vessels which make their way back and forth, up and down the rapid, picturesque stream. The Rhone enters the Gulf of Lyons so near Marseilles that the river may almost be said to flow from the largest manufacturing city of the Republic to its greatest seaport. The entrance to Marseilles is guarded by three fortified islands and marked by light-houses. Here, outside, are also great docks or basins, extending for over a mile, and including about a hundred acres, with magnificent 98 Cities of the World. great warehouses looming up behind them. Now, a round peninsula is seen standing out on the right side, with its military parade ; beyond is the Chateau du Pharo, which Napoleon III. built himself for a marine villa ; now the narrow strait is reached, guarded on the north by Fort St. Jean and on the south by Fort St. Nicklas ; beyond is the inlet, running right up into the heart of the town. This is the famous Old Harbor, or Port of Marseilles, and, lying around like the seats of an amphitheater, is the ancient town the Massilia which Julius Caesar took from the Greeks after they had occupied it for more than six hundred years. The Port covers nearly seventy acres, and can accommodate twelve hundred vessels. Altogether the harbor of Marseilles, old and new, has an area of nearly five hundred acres and four and a half miles of quays, which, it is said, is not enough for the immense traffic of the city. From the margin of the inlet the ground, rising on all sides, is thickly set with buildings and encircled beyond by hills covered by vineyards and olive gardens, dotted here and there with white country houses. The old town lies on the north side of the inlet, with the spire of the ancient Church of Accoules marking the center. At the foot of the spire is a " Calvary," and a curious modern chapel built in rock-work. Here the old streets are narrow and closely lined with irregularly-built houses ; but few ancient buildings or even ruins now remain. There is the new Cathedral of Notre Dame of Mount Carmel in about the center, near the coast ; standing where the Massilian citadel did when besieged by Caesar, it is on the site once occupied by a temple to Diana, and before then by an altar of Baal. The cathedral is scarcely finished now. It is built of gray Florentine stone, blended with white, a Byzantine basilica in the form of a great Latin cross. The Bishop's Palace is near by and a grand seminary, both fine buildings, which are connected with the newer part of the town by a few broad modern streets, that have been pushed through the old quarters. The main thoroughfare of Marseilles extends through the center of the city to the eastern outskirts, from the inner end of the harbor. On this, near the Port, is the Bourse, with its Corinthian portico and sculptured vestibule and handsome interior, larger than the Bourse of Paris. The Hall of the Chamber of Commerce is the finest part of the building, its walls being magnificently decorated with paintings and gildings. The main street crosses many other fine and busy avenues, containing great stores, cafe's and restaurants, some of which are almost as splendid as those of Paris ; at the upper end is the Longchamps Palace of Arts, which was built about fifteen years ago. With its two long pillared wings and the beautiful fountain in the center this is said to be one of the most beautiful buildings of La Belle France. The terminus of the Marseilles Canal is here, and bringing the waters of the Durance into the city, have made the dry and bare suburbs into blooming, fertile gardens. The second great thoroughfare of Marseilles runs the length of the town and crosses the first above the Bourse. It extends from the triumphal arch of the Aix Gate at the north to the opposite suburbs, where the broad Prado Promenades make Marseilles. 99 an angle near the Hippodrome and the park of the Palais Bore"ly, where all the Grecian remains of Marseilles are collected. Toward the sea from here the rocky hill of Notre Dame de la Garde is seen, one of the most venerated churches on the Mediterranean shores. Sailors look with devotion toward the gilded dome and statue of the virgin holding the Infant Jesus in her left arm and extending the other toward them in blessing. Within, this Byzantine shrine is filled with the votive offerings of sailors, FOUNTAIN OF LONGCHAMPS PALACE OF ARTS, MARSEILLES. fishermen and their wives : miniature ships and ostrich eggs hang from the ceiling, while many other quaint and strange gifts are seen from grateful souls long since passed away. On both sides of the steps below Notre Dame are shops and booths, with medals, chaplets, and other objects of devotion for sale. It is on this side of the port and in the southern half of the city that the handsome streets and buildings of Marseilles are seen. On the Rue St. Fevreol is the palace-like build- 100 Cities of the World. ing of the new Hotel de la Prefecture, adorned with statues and bas reliefs, and containing a fine staircase, a large reception room, decorated with paintings. On the Rue Paradis is the Palais de Justice, with fine pediment and peristyle decorated with bas reliefs, and NOTRE DAME DE LA GARDE, MARSEILLES. outer hall surrounded by pillars of red marble. The imposing new School of Art is near the center of the city, with the Library and other notable educational institutions. The other parts of Marseilles, although not so imposing, do their share toward the beauty of the city by their brisk trade in shipping and manufacturing, which employ thousands of people and bring in a great deal of money. In population it is about as large as Lyons, Nimes, Toulouse and Bordeaux. 101 but being the packet station for Italy and the East, and connecting with many cities by rail, it has also a large number of transient stayers, people who are constantly coming and going. Marseilles in the South of France is connected by rail with Bordeaux in the western part of the country, which is the fourth city of the Republic. One of the two most interesting cities on the route is Mimes, with its Roman ruins and busy mills. It is made up of three hand- some suburbs and a dirty little town, where ten thousand looms are constantly at work in weaving silk and cotton. Among the beautiful remains of Roman buildings are the Amphitheater, the Maison Car- ree, of the Corinthian style, AMPHITHEATER, NIMES. the Temple and Fount- ain of Diana, the Great Tower, baths, and two Roman Gates. The Pont du Gard is the fine old ruin of an aqueduct, also built by the Romans. In ancient days Nimes was one of the chief cities of MAISON CARREE, NIMES. pally given up to making shawls, handkerchiefs and lace, besides brandy, wines and other things, and has scarcely seventy thousand people. Toulouse, further west, is much larger, having about as many inhabitants as Washington, the capital of the United States, or one hundred and fifty thousand. This, too, is an old city, with a IO2 Cities of the World. cathedral, a fine town hall, called the Capitole, and a great many schools, academies and museums, besides a large public library. The city is celebrated for duck-liver and truffle pies ; its manufactures are woolens, silks and leather, cannon, steam engines and other things. It is nearer to Spain than any other large city of France, and so has a large trade with the kingdom across the Pyrenees. Toulouse stands near the head waters of the river Garonne, about two hundred miles from its mouth and a hundred and fifty miles from Bordeaux. This city lies near the western coast of France, in about the same latitude as Bangor. Maine, or St. Paul, Minnesota, which is nearly midway between Lyons and Marseilles. It is mostly on the western bank of the Garonne, and in shape very much like a broad, old-fashioned lace collar, with meshes of spacious squares made by handsome streets and avenues running in every direction, and surrounded by a broad and beautiful boulevard. At high tide vessels of a thousand tons can come up from the sea into the capacious harbor, where the river expands to a width of two thousand feet. The splendid sweep of this water front is one of the sights of Europe, with its fine quays and great buildings, from above which an antique spire and great Gothic towers cast their shadows over a forest of shipping and one of the most magnificent stone bridges in France. The heart of the town is the Place des Quinconces, fronting on the river, with two lofty columns, and opening into fine avenues and streets leading in all directions. Here are the principal hotels, warehouses and public offices of the city, which are all large and attractive-looking buildings. The Grand Theater is particularly noted, with its portico of Corinthian columns and beautiful Italian architecture. Adjoining the Place beyond is the " Cours of the 3oth of July," a short but very wide avenue connecting the main thoroughfares from all parts of the city, and leading to the Jardin des Plantes. This is a public garden which also has a botanical garden and large conservatories. Near by are picture galleries, a collection of armor and war weapons of all ages, a museum of antiquities and cabinets of natural history, showing shells, birds, fossils and marbles, which are very valuable and interesting. Bordeaux was a prosperous and important town in the days of the Romans in Gaul, who built a great amphitheater here, the arches of which are still standing near the Gardens. The northern part is new and openly built, a " sprawling city " ; beyond the great cross-town thoroughfare, south of the Place Quinconces, are old streets, narrow and thickly settled, but among which several broad new avenues have been laid out. This is the business part ; on the quay is the Bourse, with its great glass dome, and beyond, at the head of a magnificent promenade leading from the bridge is the ancient Palace Gate, which in olden times was the entrance to the Palace, where Louis XI. established the Parliament of Bordeaux. This promenade, called the Cours Napoleon, extends to the most notable group of build- ings in the city, near the south-eastern limits. These include, among others, the Hotel de Ville, St. Andre's Hospital and the old Cathedral, with its tall Gothic spires, pointed portal, beautiful rose window, statues and bas reliefs. Part of the Cathedral of St. Nantes, Havre and Rouen. 103 Andre was built by the English, who, about a century after the Norman conquest, took possession of Bordeaux and held it for three hundred years. The brilliant court of the Black Prince was held in the palace, and in the cathedral Richard II. of England was christened. The great tower, detached from St. Andre's but near by, is the Tour de Pey Berland. It is two hundred feet high. The square buttresses which sup- port it at the base gradually grow less, and the tower becomes circular at the top, where it is crowned by an immense statue of the Virgin and Child. A great deal of the business BORDEAUX. of the city is connected with its commerce. There are courts, banks, offices and ware- houses in great numbers ; railways and canals employ many people in the trades of the celebrated Bordeaux wines, or claret, corn, fruit and produce of the farms and vineyards of Southern France ; the most important manufacture of the town is ship-building ; the foreign trade is mainly with the United States, South America and Mexico, Great Britain and the French colonies. Nantes, further north, near the coast of the Bay of Biscay, IO4 Cities of the World. is on a deep harbor near the mouth of the Loire river. It has nearly ?ne hundred and twenty-five thousand people, but, although having but about one-naif the population of Bordeaux, it is next to it in importance, and in some parts rivals the beauty of Paris itself. Among the most striking buildings are the Cathedral of St. Pierre, with its splendid monuments ; the old castle, which was built in 938 and has been the temporary residence of nearly all the kings and queens of France since Charles VIII. Nantes stands on a noble part of the Loire, where the channel is studded with islands ; many bridges span its various branches, and fair, green meadows skirt its shores. The quays are pleasant promenades, lined with houses and planted with trees, and the broad Cours which extend through the city are bordered with elegant houses, and ornamented with statues and several rows of trees. The import and export trade is large and the indus- tries of the little city are almost as many as those of Birmingham in England. Besides the linens, cotton, calicoes and flannels spun here, there is a very different kind of occu- pation which employs many people in making musical and scientific instruments, and still others, in refining sugar and salt, making chemicals, distilling brandy, and in foun- dries, tanneries and ship-building. The great seaport at the mouth of the Seine is Le Havre, or the Harbor, which, next to Marseilles, is the most important commercial town in France, being also the port of Paris. The population of Le Havre is scarcely a hundred thousand, but nearly one-fourth of the foreign trade of France is centered here. It has lines of vessels running to nearly every large port in the world, and railroads to all parts of the Republic and to Germany. It has also large manufactories in many important articles of trade, and the great shipyards send out the finest vessels of France. From the heights on the northern side of Havre, where from the pretty suburbs of villas and gardens a fine view of the town and harbor is to be had, the streets are regularly laid out in squares, with the Rue de Paris, running north and south, the center of traffic. At the head of it stand the Public Gardens and the Hotel de Ville, built in the style of the Tuileries, and near the lower end, toward the outer port, is the famous old church of Notre Dame, which was built in the sixteenth century. Great basins of water, sur- rounded by broad quays and overlooked by commercial offices, stretch from the harbor into the center of the town. Scarcely half way from Havre to Paris, on the north bank of the Seine, stands the ancient capital of Normandy, Rouen the most picturesque city of France. The town is forever associated with the memory of Joan of Arc, the heroic Maid of Orleans, whom the English are said to have burned alive in 1431 in the city square, now called Place de la Pucelle. The history of Rouen has been very eventful since the days of the Northmen, who made it their capital in 842, and even after the sackings of the Huguenot wars and the Revolution, is now more rich in ancient architecture than any other city of France. The old ramparts have been made into broad, tree-lined boule- vards ; some of the new streets are lined with fine, modern stone houses ; but for the Rouen and Lille. most part Rouen is a city of ill-built but picturesque streets and squares, with tall, narrow and quaintly-carved houses, timber-bound and gable-roofed. The unsymmetrical old Cathedral of Notre Dame is a grand piece of ancient Gothic architecture, with its lofty towers, ornamented chapels and carved statuary. There are fine rose windows in the cathedral, memorial figures and tablets, and in the museum of antiquities the heart of the Cceur de Lion is preserved, which was originally buried beneath the choir. Among the other interesting buildings of Rouen are the Tower of Joan of Arc, where in HAVRE. the ancient citadel built by Philip Augustus some time in 1260, the soldier-maid was imprisoned ; the Church of St. Patricia, with its gorgeous colored windows two hundred years old ; the Palais de Justice, a picturesque pile lining three sides of a square ; the Belfry is a tower of the fourteenth century, connected by an arched bridge across the street with the Hotel de Ville. These stand upon the Grande Rue, with its cluster of quaint, interesting houses, close together. The Hotel du Bourgtheroulde is of the fifteenth century, and represents the scene on the " Field of the Cloth of Gold " in reliefs, while its graceful six-sided tower is sculptured with scripture subjects. But the io6 Cities of the World. most interesting of all these medieval buildings is the Church of St. Ouen, which surpasses the cathedral in beauty and size. Although nearly a hundred years passed in the erec- tion of St. Ouen, the plans were not changed, and one of its greatest charms is that it all seems to belong together, or its harmony, as architects say. The tower is over two hundred and fifty feet high, surmounted by an eight-sided, open-work lantern and a PALACE OF JUSTICE, ROUEN. gallery from which there is a fine view. The portals are adorned with statues and reliefs ; above is a magnificent rose window, and still higher an arcade with eleven statues, crowned by a pediment bearing a figure of St. Ouen, Archbishop of Rouen. Rouen is growing to a large importance in trade now. In manufacturing it stands among the foremost cities, with large products in cotton, checked and striped goods and cotton yarn and velvets ; in nankeen, dimity, lace, shawls and hosiery, and also in wool Rouen and Lille. 107 fabrics, yarns, blankets and flannels, besides hats and cordage, steel, shot, lead, chem- icals and paper, and in building ships and machinery. There are about as many people in Rouen as in Albany, New York, a hundred and five thousand. The most important city in the extreme north of France is Lille, once called L'Isle, or The Island. It is fortified and kept as one of the chief defenses of the north, and is named from the castle which once stood in the midst of salt marshes, and around which the town grew. Lille has a modern appearance of wide streets and imposing squares and houses. The Bourse, richly ornamented in the Spanish style ; the five-sided old citadel with its splendid equipments in case of need, and the Church of St. Maurice, are all fine and interesting. The tall chimneys of numerous mills show the activity of the town, which is chiefly manu- facturing and twisting flax into the celebrated Lille or Lisle thread, extracting oil from rape and poppy seeds, and manufacturing sugar from beet-root. To these industries the neigh- boring country contributes in raising flax and other products and bringing them ready to use into town. Lille has about two hundred thousand inhabitants, making it the fifth city of the Republic. The Newcastle of France is St. Etienne. It is a short distance from Lyons, and surrounded by coal beds, and has been mined until the streets of the town stand upon galleries. Its mills for tempering iron and steel are supplied with water from the Furens, a branch of the Loire, upon which St. Etienne is situated, always shrouded in smoke. Most of the town is badly built ; but it can not even derive any beauty from the immense new lime-stone buildings, which are, some of them, six and eight stories high, for they are soon tarnished and begrimed from the factories ; there are also great quantities of rich and beautiful ribbons, velvets and laces made here for all parts of the world, and firearms, bayonets and all kinds of steel and iron implements. In population it is about the size of Nantes. GERMANY. THE most important kingdom of the German Empire is Prussia, and Berlin, itscapi. tal, is the seat of the imperial government. The city stands nearly in the center of Northern Germany, on a level, sandy plain between the Elbe and the Oder rivers, with the smaller streams and lakes of the Havel to the west. The brqad, sluggish Spree, flowing across it, enters Berlin on the south-east, and, after separating so as to form a long island in the center, unites again, and flows out through the north-western quarters. These rivers, and the canals they feed, form a system of water-ways in and about Berlin extend- ing to the Baltic and the North seas, which, with the still more important net-work of railroads centering at the capital, makes it a great headquarters for the art and industry of western Europe and the natural products of the eastern part of the continent, at the same time drawing to it the town manufactures of the Empire, besides petroleum, metals and many more of the rich country products. These are for Berlin's own use and for shipment to other markets far and wide, so that the German capital now ranks among the most important markets of Europe. It also attracts greatness in art, works of science and literature, but even more than these, great men. So many celebrated scholars and teachers, and people famous for their powers of mind live here, that it is called the world's Capital of Intelligence. Although more than six centuries old, nearly every part of Berlin seems to be as modern as New York. It -is about the same size as our own metropolis, but with fewer people : the population of Berlin being about one million two hundred thousand. This makes it the third city of Europe and the sixth of the world. Like most German towns it shows very plainly that it has spread out to its present size from the small original settlement in the center. In Berlin the " old town " is marked by the lowest houses, some of the most extensive buildings, and greatest activity and life. Gradually the streets grow longer and the houses higher, till the far reaching suburbs stretch up to the hill-sides in regular blocks of six-story dwellings, and the tumult of business or social life is gradually lost in districts of great factories or in broad, tree-planted streets lined with aristocratic homes. Some of these are plain, others magnificent ; but no part dwindles away into tumble-down hovels, dirty sheds or rook- eries. Berlin is made up of many quarters, called stddte, differing widely, but all thrifty and progressive, for this is a city of the present. The people are living for what they no Cities of the World. can do now ; they preserve with care and honor what their fathers have done, but in a way to make their monuments and treasures give service, enjoyment or education to the living nation. Berliners are nearly all Germans ; the capitals of other countries are made up of people from everywhere, but in that of Prussia, ninety-nine out of every hundred were born in the land, true Germans, full of life and push, hard working and loving pleasure. For this last there is plenty of provision in gardens, promenades, concert halls and theaters. Among the most attractive of all the city resorts is the great park called the Thiergarten. When Berlin was a smaller city than it is now this lay on the western outskirts ; but now it is close to the center and adjacent to the most fashionable part of town. The vast pleasure ground is about twice the size of Hyde Parkin London, and nearly three times as long as it is wide. It is more than six hundred acres taken out of a natural forest and graded with smooth lawns, set with flower beds and beautiful statues. The grand old trees still stand in groves and, bordering fine promenades and winding paths, cast their deep shade or moving shadows on many pretty streams and lakes, especially in the western end, called the See Park, and around the Rousseau Island. This is never so gay as in winter, when the ground is covered with snow, and the glassy ice of the lake is crowded with merry skaters. In the upper part there is a royal chateau Bellevue near the winding Spree, which forms the northern boundary of the garden. Some distance east of the chateau, within a bold upward curve of the river, lies Konigs-Piatz, or King's Square. This is one of the most beautiful places in the city, laid out with large flower beds and fountains. In the center stands a great monument in the form of a fluted column. From the terrace above the level of the Platz, a circular flight of granite steps leads to the massive, square pedestal, where beautiful bronze reliefs tell of many Prussian victories. Above it is an open colonnade, or large gallery of columns, running around the base, which is inlaid with Venetian mosaics. The column is of yellowish gray sandstone, divided into three tiers, with a row of cannon standing in the recesses of the fluting at the base of each. There are sixty guns in all, which were captured from Denmark, Austria and France. The whole monument is two hundred feet high, with the crowning statue of a colossal figure of Borussia, above the sculptured eagles of the capital. This is surrounded by a high railing, for many visitors go out upon it to enjoy the fine view of the Thiergarten and the city beyond. Above the extensive space of the King's Square is another, also adorned with fountains, statuary and flower beds, and flanked by lofty buildings ; from here the broad Alsten street, planted with double rows of trees, leads to bridges that connect with the city beyond. Above the garden and further westward is Moabit, once a dangerous quarter, " with the material for a riot always on hand " ; but now you would think it contained every thing to prevent a disturbance, with its extensive barracks overlooking the great tree-bordered Exercier Platz, or parade ground, at either end ; Germany. 1 1 1 its vast prison-houses, built out from one large center like a star ; its penitentiary and its criminal court buildings. There are some noted churches in this quarter, too ; but for the most part it is made up of factories and mechanics' homes. The great Borsig engine works, the most extensive factories in the city, are here. A hundred and sixty locomotives are made in these shops every year. Near by is the Villa Borsig, surrounded by beautiful grounds and containing palm houses, filled with fine tropical plants and trees, and hot-houses of rare, cultivated flowers. These attractions make this part at least of the despised suburb a very desirable place to visit. Looking down from the capital of the great monument, on the east side of the Platz, the new Reich- stags-Gebdude or parliament house, is seen, which is for the meetings of the body of men elected by the people to help the Emperor rule the country. On the other side is a long, showy-looking building, called Kroll's Establishment, or the Casino and Winter Garden. This is one of the most brilliant and popular resorts in Berlin, containing concert-hall, theater and restaurants. The principal part of the establishment is the hall, which is almost four hundred feet long and one hundred feet wide, made to look like a vast garden. On every side the walls are covered with plants and flowers growing in pots or in vases and festoons. On the floor there are great plants, palm trees and flowery banks, green and blooming, and growing beneath the glass roof as luxuriously as in their native land. Three bands relieve each other in making a continuous concert of good music, which attracts thousands of people. Hundreds of little tables are standing about, around which men and women gather in animated groups, chatting to each other over their refreshments, listening to the music, or watching the others who are promenading up and down. In the evening the place is brilliantly lighted with hundreds of gas jets. It is made warm and pleasant in winter, or delightfully cool in summer. Then the great pavilions are open and seem almost to be a part of the shady avenues, filled with merry promenaders, leading to the Zelten, or tents, along the river. The Zelten is a sort of outdoor Kroll's, lighted through the trees, where gay groups of people enjoy their friends, listen to music, or quietly take an evening of recreation after the day's work. The main entrance to the Thiergarten is through Brandenburg Gate, which stands on the eastern boundary not far from the King's Square, and at the head of the Charlotten- burg Road. This broad avenue runs the full length of the park past the imposing new Technical School and the famous old Royal Porcelain factory at the further end, and on through the scattered western outskirts to the town of Charlottenburg. This is likely to soon follow many other places in becoming incorporated with the city. Its chief inter- est now is connected with the old Royal Palace. A stately avenue of pines from the garden leads to the famous Mausoleum built by Frederick William III. as a tomb for his beautiful young queen Louise, who died in 1810. After a long and busy life the old king was laid by her side; and above them rest the marble statues whose beauty and skillful workmanship would have made the sculptor, Christian Rauch, famous if he had H2 Cities of the World. never done any thing else. At the upper end of the town there are several acres inclosed in the Winter Garden of the Flora Society, which is another famous and delightful Berlin resort for all seasons of the year, where excellent music is heard in the midst of luxurious southern trees and rare tropical plants. A canal forms the lower boundary to the See Park, and in one place separates it from the Zoological Gardens. This is also an exten- sive and beautiful park, where people often gather by thousands to hear fine open air con- certs. The Berlin collection of animals kept here is one of the finest in the world, while their attractive houses and sheds add very much to the looks of the garden. The Antelope House is built in the Arabian style, and the gay colored Elephant House is in the form of an Indian pagoda, or temple. This quarter, called the Outer Friedrichstadt, is the most elegant in the city. Between the Thiergarten and the canal which crosses the upper portion on its way to the south-east manufacturing district and a distant point of the Spree are the magnificent villas and charming grounds of the wealthy people of the capital. Below the canal the broad tree-planted streets are lined with blocks of majestic mansions, the large squares are set with fountains and statues and crossed by avenues running in every direction. There are few public buildings here but some fine schools and colleges. These are to be seen everywhere in German cities ; they are for all ages from the " play school " of the Kindergarten to the philosophical lecture halls of the great scholars ; for Prussia has long been proud of the minds of her people and has pro- vided handsomely for their education and training. Before the last conquest and the form- ation of the new empire, it was disparagingly said that Berlin was a bare, flat place, made up of schools and barracks. Perhaps it was in a large measure ; but the schools turned out men who have taken first rank among the scholars of the world ; and the soldiery has beaten back the foes and made this city of " magnificent distances" the capital of one of the leading nations of the world. The Thiergarten and the Outer Friedrichstadt are separated from the more central part of Berlin, called the Inner Town, by the Koniggratzer strasse, which is a long handsome boulevard running in rather a south-easterly direction to a large square in the lower part of the city, known as the Belle Alliance Platz. This is a large circular place where the principal streets of the Friedrichstadt a quarter directly east of the Outer Friedrichstadt come together. The Platz is very pretty, with its blooming gardens, and in the center stands the great Column of Peace, which was raised on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the victoriously won peace of 1815. The Column is of granite standing on a lofty pedestal and with a marble capital or top, as you would say, upon which is a beautiful figure of Victory, by Herr Rauch who made the statues in the Charlottenburg mausoleum. She holds a twig of palm as the emblem of peace, in one hand, and extends the wreath of victory toward the city with the other. Four marble groups are at the base of the monu- ment, representing Prussia, England, the Netherlands and Hanover, the four great powers that took part in the war of 1815. The continuation of Koniggratzer strasse, which skirts Germany. 113 the canal on the south side of the Platz, is reached by a flight of steps, adorned by figures in white marble. At the top of the staircase is the sculptured arch of the Halle Gate, from which the canal is crossed by a beautiful, broad, granite bridge with large marble groups of statuary upon its buttresses. This leads to the Schoneberg Quarter, and the large Botanical Gardens, below the Outer Friedrichstadt. ' The western part of the city seems to be unusually rich in lovely parks ; the Botanical Gardens are not only very extensive and beautiful, but have many thousand species of classified plants. In the Palm House there are graceful southern palms, various kinds of the cactus and other rare importations that are wonderful and interesting. Adjoining the Victoria Regia House is the new Botanical Museum and Herbarium, with some of the best collections in the world. The Tempelhof Quarter toward the south is growing with many new buildings, handsome squares and broad streets. There is a fine view of this new part of Berlin from the Kreuzberg or Hill of the Cross, near by, which is a sand hill about a hundred feet above the city. There is a Gothic obelisk on the summit adorned with statues by famous sculptors, which Frederick William III. erected and dedicated to his people. Some distance to the south-west is the village of Potsdam, on the Ringbahn, a railway which encircles the city and suburbs of Berlin. Here, on the lakes of the Havel river, surrounded by fair wooded hills, Frederick the Great built his palace home, which he called Sans Soua, or " Without Care." The beautiful chateau with its lovely grounds and adornments, beside many other palaces and magnificent villas which were put up in this vicinity after the example set by the king, make Potsdam one of the most charming and interesting places belonging to the German capital. The Potsdam railway has a hand- some station in the Friedrichstadt near the Koniggratzer strasse. The streets which radiate northward from the Belle Alliance Platz are broad, even and very handsome ; they are crossed by others which are also large and straight, making the Friedrichstadt the most regularly built quarter of Berlin. Years ago this part of town was dull and tiresome, but now its blocks are filled with fine stores, places of amusement and important offices ; the largest retail trade in the city is done here. The center street, run- ning from the Peace Column, is the Friedrich strasse, which extends in a straight line across the center of the Freidrichstadt into the new northern suburb of the Freidrich-Wilhelm-stadt, lying above. This is one of the largest streets in the inner town ; with public and private buildings, bright stores, restaurants, cafes and places of amusement ; it is full of life and activity, especially near the center, where the lofly facades of splendid buildings are unbroken for many blocks. At the cor- ner of one of the handsome cross streets are the Germania Insurance Company's offices^ the high imposing front richly decorated and set with polished granite columns. The beautiful place opposite is occupied by A. W. Faber, the famous pencil maker. The Leipziger strasse is the most important street in this quarter. From the old house of Prussian Deputies near the Spittel Market at one end, to the Potsdam Gate H4 Cities of the World. at the other, it is filled with a constant throng of people, intent upon business during the day and pleasure in the evening. Among its showy stores, handsome offices, concert halls and restaurants are dignified old houses that have looked down upon all the chang- ing scenes of this " verdant, flowery crescent," as somebody calls the street, for the last hundred years. One of the most interesting buildings to visit is the Government Post Office. Its business part is entirely for the use of the postal authorities of the empire ; but any one is allowed to visit the Post Office Museum in another part of the building. This stands near the corner of the Wilhelm strasse, the third great street running from the Belle Alliance Platz. From its stately rows of official mansions, occupying the deep lots extending to the Thiergarten, the Wilhelm strasse is often called the Privy Councilors' Quarter. Just within the Koniggratzer strasse, it runs in the same direc- tion but much further north. It crosses the Spree by the Marschalls Bridge, round which are clustered the schools and colleges belonging to the medical department of the Berlin University, and on past this " Latin Quarter " of the German capital into the Freidrich-Wilhelm-stadt. At the head of Leipziger strasse is a large eight-sided platz laid out like a park, adorned with bronze statues and overlooked by residences and offices of the govern- ment ; adjoining it is the square of the Potsdam Gate, while into it come broad, tree-lined avenues on many sides. Toward the Wilhelm strasse is the Herrcnhaus, or Upper Chamber of the Prussian parliament ; adjoining the extensive buildings of the Reichstags-Gebaudc or Hall of the Imperial Diet. These inclose several courts and are very long, extending the depth of several blocks between the handsome gardens of the adjoining houses. These buildings were hastily put up in 1871, and will not be used by the Reichstags after the new ones in King's Square are finished ; they are not hand- some enough to be very interesting except as the place where that important power in the German empire, the Reichstags, holds its meetings. Below the vast block occupied by the houses of the government, upon a new street leading to the Koniggratzer strasse is the German Industrial Museum, built in massive stories of hewn stone, ornamented with mosaics and reliefs in terracotta, and adorned with statuary upon the staircase leading to the doorway. The apartments are in groups, around a large court in the center, which is encircled by slender pillars of a rock very much like granite, called syenite ; above this colonnade are two rows of arcades, the upper one crowned by a beautiful sculptured frieze, colored like majolica. The collections of this Museum are very interesting articles of all ages and from many countries. Here are ancient chairs and other pieces of furniture, ivory carvings, perforated leather ; Chinese and Japanese lacquer work, mosaics and things made of plaited straw, of wood, paper, hammered iron ; vases and plates of rare majolica ; earthenware, pottery and porcelain, gold and silver ware, precious stones, woven goods, embroideries and many other curious and beautiful things that belong to an exhibition of the world's progress in industrial art. There is a large school 1 1 6 Cities of the World. connected with the Museum and a fine library. There is another important Museum in the corner of the Koniggratzer strasse, and near by is the Ascanischer Platz, and the finest railway station in Berlin. It is very large and beautifully decorated. The starting pavilion of this Anhalt Station is the largest on the Continent. There are other grand or interesting places all about here, and not far above the line of palaces on the east side of the Wilhelm strasse is broken by the open space of the Wilhelms Platz, adorned with flower-beds and bronze statues of six heroes of the Three Silesian Wars of Frederick the Great. The square is overlooked and surrounded by grand public and private buildings of Prussian government officers and foreign embassies, which also ex- tend, with their variously decorated fa9ades and handsome gardens to the great avenue and true center of the city, Unter den Linden. This most famous street in Prussia is scarcely a mile long, running from the King's Palace in the center of the island made by the Spree, to the principal entrance to the Thiergarten, the Brandenburg Gate. From one end to the other it is just two hundred feet wide and planted with four rows of lime trees interspersed with chestnuts from which it is called Unter den Linden, or under the limes. Brandenburg Thor was the most important of Berlin's nineteen gates, when the city was surrounded by walls. It is about a century old, and associated with many great events in Prussian history. On the top stands a great car of victory, drawn by four horses abreast, which the French carried to Paris in 1807 ; but, the successes seven years later restored. This quadriga is made of copper, but the Gate itself is of sandstone and built to imitate the famous Propylasa, which in ancient days stood upon the Athenian Acropolis. The center passage is reserved for the royal car- riage ; by rows of massive Doric columns, nearly fifty feet high, it is separated from a gate- way on either side. The entire Gate is a little less than a hundred feet high, and more than two hundred feet broad. Two wings like Grecian temples adjoin the Gate on each side ; one is for telegraph and pneumatic tube offices ; and the other for the use of the soldiery or guards stationed here. Outside there are handsome open colonnades for foot passengers. Within is the Pariser Platz, a square broader than the Linden and overlooked by handsome lofty buildings. The new French Embassy is on the north side, and opposite is the Officers' Casino and two grand palaces, one of which was Prince Bliicher's. Although this is now a private residence, to the German people it is forever associated with " Marshal Forwards," whose great generalship and swift marches won the victory over France in 1814, from which the Square of Paris is named. Here begin the two lines of noble buildings which extend the length of the Linden, unbroken. Handsome palaces, spacious hotels and attractive shops, theaters, restaurants and cafe's on both sides of the way, make this the gayest, the busiest and the most interesting part of the great city. It is a never ending picture of the daily life of Berliners, with carriages of every description rolling along the drive, officers on horseback and equestrians out for Germany. 117 pleasure, idling or cantering through the bridle paths, while the sidewalks are thronged with promenaders of every class. There are a great many fine galleries in the city ; one of which is in Count Redern's palace, the Florentine building adjoining the Pariser Platz. It is open every day, and any one is admitted who has made " previous applica- tion." On the corner of Wilhelm strasse is the great Hotel Royal, where the nobility and diplomats of the empire stay while they are in Berlin. On the other side is the Aquarium, a fairy-land of grottoes, little lakes, and beautiful plants, and containing fresh and salt water fish, amphibious animals, apes, birds, and many other things that boys and girls love to see. All along here are rich and imposing buildings of the government departments, interspersed with brilliant stores, and gay cafes, which have no equal in any part of the city, and the Kaiser gallerie, or passage running to the next street below, is said to be the handsomest and busiest arcade in Europe. The lower entrance is on a corner of the Friedrich strasse, which crosses the Linden in about the center of the long lines of trees, and is another great artery pouring life and activity into the beautiful street. On one of the corners is the Cafe Bauer, which any Berliner will tell you is the handsomest, the best and most visited of any in town. Its walls are painted by great artists, its beautiful fittings are in excellent taste, and its lofty mirrors reflect a constant throng of brilliant, fashionable people. Beyond the Linden, the Friedrich strasse enters the quarter called the Dorothe"en stadt, which contains most of the great hotels, the fashionable restaurants, clubs, large banking houses, important schools, lodges, and churches. In the upper part near the bank of the river is the Central Hotel, the most famous in the city, the Fifth Avenue or Astor House of Berlin. It is an immense establishment containing more than four hundred rooms, celebrated for good entertain- ment and a most attractive winter garden. Beyond the Friedrich strasse the Linden is crossed by Charlotten street. Here the buying and selling life of the Linden ends and a vast group of massive and splendid buildings of a different kind begins. Instead of stores it is a grand vision of architecture, sculpture, color, and design, to which is added at midday the greater charm of military music from the Band of the Royal Guards. On the left rises the vast Academy, with a great clock above the gate, which always tells the correct time. This massive building, devoted to the advancement of arts and sciences in Germany, is the seat of one of the famous academies of the world, that of Paris alone being more important and celebrated. Behind the Academy and extending toward the river there are a great many schools and institutes, to which students and teachers come from all parts of Germany ; but the center of student life in Berlin is the University. The main building stands just beyond the Academy, overlooking the Opera House Square, which is a continuation of the Linden. Next to her armies the pride of Germany is her great universities. There are twenty-one of them in all, large and noble institutions that are known all over the world. The University of Berlin is next to the youngest and also next to the largest. It 1 1 8 Cities of the World. has two hundred professors and twelve times as many students coming from every part of the globe. Behind the buildings is a " campus," or " green," called the Chestnut Grove, a large park, overlooked on all sides by fine buildings, most of which are in some way con- nected with the Academy or University ; a smaller square adjoining, but fronting on the Linden, is included in the name of the Grove, but belongs to the House of the Royal Guard. This was built by the great architect Schinkel in 1818, after what is called the Doric style, in the form of a fortified gate, guarded by three large cannon taken in war. Between the Guard House and the river rise the beautiful sculptured walls of the Arsenal. It was built during about twenty years in the last part of the seventeenth and the earlier years of the eighteenth centuries, under Frederick I. Each of the sides of the great square structure are nearly three hundred feet long, and inclose a large open court or quadrangle in the center. Over the principal portal is a bust of King Frederick. Opposite the vestibule groups of cannon adorned with flags, both captured from the French in the war-time of '71, guard the entrance to the glass roofed court, from the back of which two flights of stairs go up to the Hall of Fame. This has three sections or rooms, adorned with historical frescoes, statues of Prussia's monarchs and busts of its great men in military life. In another part of the Arsenal there is a fine display of Prussian firearms, besides a large and almost complete collection of all the varieties of firearms ever used. Many of the foreign pieces are spoils of war. In the room to the west of the entrance are implements used in engineering, models of old French fortresses, brought from Paris in 1814, and the keys of several real ones that the Prussians captured ; among other interesting war things are some historical pictures ; the flags draping the pillars also came from Paris in 1814. On the upper floor is a large collection of ancient, medieval and modern weapons. The buildings on the lower side of this platz are even more extensive and magnificent than those above, while between them stands the chief monu- ment of the city, Rauch's bronze statue of Frederick the Great on horseback. It occu- pies a space in the center of the broad platz between the Academy and the Palace of Emperor William. So, the center of Berlin life and the most beautiful street in Germany begins at a triumphal arch crowned with a car of victory, and ends at the feet of the great victor who raised Prussia from a petty kingdom to one of the five principal powers of Europe. The people love this statue of "Old Fritz," raised by their later sovereigns,Frederick William III., and his son Frederick William IV. ; and they have reason to be proud of its workmanship in the massive grandeur of the rider and his horse, and the finish of the smaller parts of the work. The groups of life-like sculptures surrounding the pedestal tell the story of the king's life, his boyhood, education, the great achievements of his manhood, and represent his chief officers and other illustrious men of the time. The Palace of Emperor William, opposite the Academy, extends through the block ; it is lofty and handsome outside, and within contains a suite of apartments sumptuously I2O Cities of the World. fitted up for the emperor, an immense reception room over two hundred feet long, and a summer and winter garden. The emperor's apartments are on the ground floor facing the east. Adjoining is the Royal Library, which was built over a hundred years ago, in imitation of the Royal Winter Riding School at Vienna. Sarcastically it is likened to a great chest of drawers, but it is really a very fine looking building with elaborate ornaments after what is called the Rococo style. On the ground floor is the reading-room and the collection of maps ; and above are some rare manuscripts of Luther and Melanchthon, Gutenberg's Bible on parchment, over thirty volumes of por- traits and autographs of celebrated people, Chinese books, a small eight-sided Koran, and many other ancient, valuable books and papers, which, with the other contents of the Library, make nine hundred thousand volumes and fifteen thousand manuscripts. The king's residence and the Royal Library face the Opera House with the long and statue- adorned Opera Platz, extending the full depth of the block between. The Opera House with its colonnaded portico, is a fine large structure built about fifty years ago, but copied after and taking the place of the seventeenth-century building which was burned. The interior is large and handsomely decorated with oil paintings framed in gold on the ceilings, and seats for eighteen hundred people. The partitions between the boxes are only a foot high, so that the beautiful dresses and jewels worn by the ladies are very elegant under the brilliant light of the massive bronze chandelier, and the many smaller lights in the vast auditorium. This is the first theater in Berlin, where good operas and the most celebrated dramas are given, besides the fine symphony concerts regularly held once in two weeks during the winter in the Concert Room. At the back of the Opera House is the Roman Catholic Church of St. Hedwig, built about a hundred and fifty years ago and copied from the Pantheon at Rome. A short distance to the south-west- ward is the extensive Gensdarmen Markt, or Military Square, which is said to have the most effective group of buildings in Berlin. The large square is surrounded by broad streets, all of them handsomer than Broadway in New York, and faced by several grand old private mansions of the last century. The Market takes up three large squares in about the center of the eastern part of the Friedrichstadt ; it is situated two blocks below the Linden and two above the Leipziger strasse. The center is called the Schiller Platz, from a marble statue of the poet Schiller on a magnificent pedestal in front of the principal faade of the Schauspielhaus, of Royal Theater. This is a large, handsome building in the Grecian style, and several stories high, with a grand entrance below the fine Ionic portico, with its magnificent, broad flight of steps opposite the statue. On the sides of the staircase there are bronze groups of genii riding on a panther and a lion. Above the portico the Children of Niobe are sculptured in sandstone, while still higher, the principal part of the build- ing is crowned with a bronze group of Apollo in a chariot drawn by two griffins, above a pediment with two large figures of muses. On the other side a Pegasus in copper looks Germany. 121 toward the west from the roof of the theater, while on both the northern and the south- ern sides there are pediments with scenes in relief which are considered the finest work ever done by the great artist Frederick Tieck. The Schauspielhaus itself was designed by Schinkel, who has many famous works in the German capital. His best interior is the Concert Hall of this theater, which is a beautiful shape, adorned with paintings and sculptures. It holds twelve hundred people, and is entirely separate from the theater auditorium, in which fifteen hundred people may gather comfortably. In the lower portion of the Market stands the odd-shaped, five-sided New Church, or German Cathedral, with handsome high-domed towers separate from the main building. Above the theater is the old French Church, built in the early part of the last century. Eastward from the Market lie the narrow and irregular streets of the upper part of the quarter of New Kolln on the Water ; here are fine modern business houses and great throngs of lively people, although it is one of the very oldest parts of the city. One of the first things you would notice here is the noble looking and extensive Imperial German Bank, it is so gay with its mixture of sandstone and brick, handsomely adorned with sculptures. The inside, too, is very richly and tastefully decorated. Above the Bank stands the lofty Venetian fa9ade of the Central Telegraph office, the headquarters of a splendid system of quick communication, which is a necessity to the active Berliners. It is not alone in the newness and the bustle of Berlin that it is like the great cities of the United States, but in the force and energy of the people to whom " time is money," and in all matters of business as little to be wasted ; so the telegraph wires, which, besides connecting with far-away places, are very much used to send messages from one part of the city to another. Without a moment's delay, for about seven cents, the clerks will send twenty words to any of the twenty stations of Berlin; and from there it will be delivered to whatever address is given, in a surprisingly short time. Near the Telegraph Office and the Bank is the Old Mint, which is newer than many finer buildings of the city. This has been dismantled of its chief beauty, the sandstone frieze representing the process of obtaining and treating the metals for the fine New Mint, which occupies a large square, opposite the Werder Church. On the east the Mint overlooks the water, and on the north it faces the large, square building of the Bau Academy or Academy of Architecture, which accommodates seven hundred students, and contains a museum of several interesting collections. On the ground floor is the Beuth-Schinkel Museum, with a large collection of drawings and designs of buildings and plans which were made by Schinkel for the finest of his works. There are also exhibits of models of architecture, and some engravings be- queathed by Beuth, who did a great deal to help Prussia in industrial pursuits. The museum building itself was designed by Schinkel, and, an architect would tell you, is a masterly work, in the style of the middle ages, finished with an ornamentation of brick and terra-cotta copied from Greek patterns. The staircase is the handsomest part of 122 Cities of the World. the interior, the remainder being devoted to school and exhibition rooms. The long, triangular-shaped platz along the river bank above the Academy is named after the great architect, and has a fine bronze statue of him in the center, between those of Beuth and Thaer. It is a gay nook of the capital here, among the picturesque buildings of the Werder market, and through the arched street leading to the Linden, between the Palace of the Crown Princess on the left and the grand Palace of the Crown Prince on the right, whose sculptured fagade, set with long tiers of shining windows, stands opposite the Arsenal. From the platz adjoining the Linden the Spree is crossed by the beautiful Schloss-Briicke or Palace Bridge, leading to the great open space in front of the Schloss or Royal Palace, beyond which the eastern arm of the river is crossed by a smaller bridge leading to the " old town " of Berlin, so that there is one unbroken thoroughfare all the way across the center of the city. The Schloss-Briicke is large and very broad, with handsome parapets and immense groups of marble sculptures, representing the life of a warrior from the days of boyhood, when he is learning about the heroes of history, to the glorious end of his life on earth. Above the Palace extends the old Lustgarten, once the Palace Pleasure Garden ; now an immense tree-planted public park with plain, regular walks and a great statue of Frederick William III. in the center. Toward the east stands the old Cathedral, which has some monuments and tombs of the early electors, and the buiial vaults of the royal family beneath, but other- wise is about the least interesting thing on the island. An avenue through the center of the Lustgarten leads directly to the beautiful Greek building of the Old Museum, in front of which is a huge basin hewn out of a solid block of granite weighing seven hundred and fifty tons. The long building overlooks the Lustgarten from the colonnaded portico, extending all the way across the building, and reached by abroad flight of steps on which are placed great pieces of statuary in bronze, representing an Amazon on horse- back defending herself against a tiger, and a battle between lions. Both of these are widely known as the Amazon, by Kiss, and the Lion Slayer, by Albert Wolff. The central part of the building rises above the rest, and bears at the four cor- ners other colossal groups in bronze. Handsome bronze doors open from the por- tico into the spacious vestibule, which contains a marble statue of Schinkel, the designer of the Museum, said to be the finest Greek building in the city ; and the large and beautiful frescoes which adorn the lofty walls ; a still finer statue of Rauch is here, and of several other worthies. The frescoes are upon a great many different sub- jects and are very beautiful and instructive. From each side at the end of the vestibule a double staircase leads to the upper vestibule, where there are more Schinkel frescoes and a fine view of the Lustgarten, the Schloss and its surroundings from the open spaces between the great columns. A doorway opposite leads to the gallery which runs around the glass-covered rotunda ; the gallery is supported by columns, between which are eighteen ancient statues on the ground floor. To the right A STREET CORNER OF BERLIN. 124 Cities of the World. and the left is a large square court. The upper walls of the rotunda are hung with the celebrated tapestries woven at Brussels for Henry VIII. of England from designs by Raphael. Passing from one part of the Museum to another one feels that the rooms are very pleasantly arranged, and on a simple plan. The contents of the Museum are carefully divided or classified and arranged according to the age of the different pieces. Below the first floor is a basement or ground floor containing the library used by those who are in charge of the Museum, and the Cabinet of Coins. There are many thousand ancient pieces of money, almost half of which are rare speci- mens of the Greek and Roman ; the other large cases are filled with Oriental coins ; those in use during the Middle Ages, and a fine collection of German coins and medals. The second floor is a vast picture gallery; a series of cabinets running around the entire building contains the German national collection of ancient paintings, these, too, arranged in classes according to the age of the pictures. All the important schools of European paintings are represented, in which among a host of others are the famous names of the Van Eyck brothers of the old Netherlandish school, Giotto of the early Italian painters, and Raphael of the golden time in Italian art, a few portraits by Titian of the Venetian school, and Albrecht Diirer of the early German painters, a small choice collection from the Flemish master, Paul Rubens, and the school he founded, and a number of good works by Rembrandt of the Dutch school. The fame of the Berlin Gallery rests more upon the completeness of its collection in representing the history of painting than on any great single pieces ; but wherever its collectors are able to secure masterpieces t>f any school, they do so, and in this way it is an exhi- bition of the growth of the beautiful art, containing some wonderful works of the highest class. Adjoining the northern side of the Old Museum is a staircase and passage leading to the plain, stately building, the New Museum, which, looking like a high Grecian Temple, stands at right angles to the older edifice. The arrangements and decorations of the interior of the New Museum are the handsomest of any in Berlin. The magnificent paintings on the staircase walls and other adornments of the building almost put the collections in the shade. The general plan of the rooms, halls and courts is much like that of the other museum, the great staircase taking the place of the rotunda with the^ courts on either side. The easterly corners of the building contain a rotunda at one end and cupola at the other, from which last is the passage to the Old Museum. These collections, like the others, are in representation of the history of art. On the ground floor are tiles, pieces of sculpture, tombs, monuments, mummies, gems, jewelry and other rare and valuable antiquities of Egypt, sculptures and other remains of the lost Assyrian nation, and sculptures of the first .years of the Christian Era. The first floor is all taken up with a large collection of casts, and on the top floor is one of the largest Germany. 125 and finest collections of engravings in Europe, a large cabinet of rare and artistic manuscripts, and the rooms of the Antiquarium. This, to the visitor who is not an artist, is perhaps the most interesting part of the New Museum. It is made up of beautiful and very old bronze toilet-caskets, metal mirrors, weapons, household articles, showing what the Greeks and Romans used to keep house with ; and some of the terra-cotta reliefs with which they ornamented their buildings, at the same time recording their history. Besides these there are here a great many handsome vases and cameos, intaglios, other gems and precious metals. A glass cabinet in the center holds the famous silver treasure of Roman plate which was made in the time of Augustus. (You remember this was the reign in which Christ was born.) The Berlin collection of modern paintings, which numbers about five hundred, is in the elegant new building, which stands to the east of the New Museum. The National Gallery of paintings and sculptures, cartoons and drawings is in the form of a very long and broad Corinthian tem- ple. It stands in a square, beautifully laid out with flowerbeds, fountain and statues, and inclosed by a Doric colonnade. Above the Gallery and the New Museum, the island comes to a point, and the river reunited flows to the westward. On the opposite bank, upon the turn of the eastern branch, the extensive old garden of the royal chateau of Monbijou lies along the shore. The long, irregular building of the chateau is made up of a villa, built for a German countess almost two hun- dred years ago, and the additions, which were made before this century, after the place became Schloss Monbijou and the residence of the queen of Frederick William I. It is now mainly used for what is called the Hohenzollern Museum, which is a collection of articles that have belonged to the rulers of Prussia from the time of the Great Elector to the present day. They are arranged in groups; the portraits of a certain monarch's family with articles they used, clothes they wore, beautiful things they owned and some- times the work of their hands, are all placed together with portraits and statues of the noted people of that time. In the room of Frederick William II. are portraits of the king's generals, the orders of Napoleon, captured at Waterloo, and also the orders worn by General Bliicher. The most interesting rooms of all contain reminiscences of Frederick the Great, in which are the clothes he wore from the time he was a child till the time of his death, and many other belongings of the great hero. Above Monbijou the streets extend irregularly in many directions ; but they are broad, and often lead into handsome open squares. From one, near by, is the Sophien Kirche, with its elegant rococo spire, rising opposite the large Gothic hospital of St. Hedwig ; adjoining is the interesting old Jewish cemetery, while further to the north-west is the fine new Synagogue, with its gilded dome and Oriental appearance, in the combination of granite and sand- stone trimmings upon the structure of brick. This is a very handsome, attractive building. There are three doors of bronze, separated by columns of green granite, within which the vestibule leads to the Small Synagogue, for the minor ceremonies of 126 Cities of the World. the Jewish religion, while the apartment of the Principal Synagogue is beyond. This magnificent long room and its curious vaulted ceiling with iron tie-beams and cramps, supported by slender iron columns, is most gorgeously decorated, especially in the apse, which is very beautiful at dusk, when the softened evening light falls through the cupolas and the stained glass windows. In the vicinity of the Synagogue there are several other Jewish buildings, altogether the finest collection of religious edifices in Berlin. Here, too, the largest part of the Hebrew people of the capital live, forming quite an extensive Jewish quarter. They are important citizens, wealthy, intelligent and holding a high position in society. Their children are carefully educated, and they themselves attract to their homes, their small companies and receptions, some of the finest and most agreeable among all the people of the capital. When Berlin was first known in history it was a small city of two parts ; the most easterly was separated by the right arm of the Spree from a smaller town called Kolln, which lay on the lower part of the island. In 1451 the Elector Frederick II. built a castle on the river bank, above Kolln and facing Berlin, to which, nearly a hundred years later, Joachim II. added a wing. He placed it at right-angles with the original building, little thinking that the other monarchs who came after him would, in turn, add to this wing till it should extend all the way across the island and form the main part of the royal palace of a great empire. With many additions and alterations, it now incloses two large square courts, while the old palace of Frederick is but one small suite of apart- ments at one side. Altogether the Schloss is an imposing and massive pile, which the German rulers have never quite finished altering and embellishing ; so it has the appear- ance of being neither old nor new. The ornamentation on the northern fa9ade is light and elegant ; the portal on the west is in imitation of the great triumphal arch of Septimius Severus of ancient Rome, 1 and the high walls that look toward ancient Kolln are like some grim and severe monument, with scarcely any attempt at ornamentation. The handsomest of the inclosed courts is the inner court ; it is surrounded by arcades on three sides, separated from the outer courts by a block of sixteenth century buildings, which have been ornamented by modern architects. There are about six hundred apart- ments in the building. In the time of Frederick the Great, who lived during the larger part of the seventeenth century, almost all the royal family made their homes in the Schloss ; it then held all the royal collections, and was the seat of several government officials. But in later days the growth of the nation, and of the desires of the monarchs, have caused other buildings to be raised for the residence of the emperor and the officers and the meetings of the State. The second story, overlooking the Werder Bridge, Prince Frederick Charles occupies, and on the ground floor on the south Prince Leopold lives ; 1 See chapter on Rome of " Great Cities of the Ancient World." 128 Cities of the World. but the other parts of the palace are now unused except as reception rooms for royal guests and for the dwellings of a few officials. One after another stately corridors stretch on to ante-chambers leading to grand halls lined with portraits of the Prussian royalty and gorgeous rooms furnished as when they were in use. Here are the apartments where kings and queens have lived and died. Frederick the Great was born in this palace; and in one of the rooms is the handsomely decorated Bridal Chamber, still used for royal mar- riages. The most richly ornamented of all these gorgeous rococo reception halls is the Ritter Saal or Old Throne Room. Above the side doors are groups representing the four quarters of the globe ; another large and beautiful carving is over the central door, where there is also a gallery which used to be of solid silver, to correspond with the massive thrones ; above the thrones is a great shield of the same metal, which the town of Berlin pre- sented to Frederick William IV. The massive silver column in front of the window is another gift. It was made to the present emperor in 1867 by the army and navy officers, on the sixtieth anniversary of his admission to the military service. The palace chapel is a high, eight-sided building, seventy-five feet across one way and a trifle longer the other. This odd shaped little sanctuary is like Aladdin's cave, with its frescoes on gilded walls, its linings and pavements of marbles in different colors, the four yellow Egyptian marble columns of the altar, and the pure white pulpit and candelabra of Carrara marble. The Schloss Platz, or the Square, below the Palace, is a large open space, extending across the island from the Werder Bridge to the old Bridge of the Electors, over the eastern stream, and connecting Alt Kolln, as the Berliners say, or Old Kolln, with Alt Berlin. The lower part of the island broadens somewhat till it is almost square ; it is crossed in both directions by many streets. In about the center is the Church of St. 'Peter, which is built in the Gothic style and has a slender, graceful spire that is the highest in Berlin. Almost adjoining on the east is the old Kolln Fish Market, where the Kolln Rathhaus, or Town Hall stands, with its unfinished tower and museum of ancient articles in flint, bronze and iron from the lake dwellings and early settlements ; there are also cabinets of weapons, armor, ancient instruments of torture, old articles of church use and furniture, coins and medals, and antique pieces of porcelain, glass, ornaments, clothing and other things. Just below the Royal Mills on the river here is the Miihlen- \ damm, or mill-dam bridge, lined with an ancient colonnade, occupied by the shops and offices of the small Jewish dealers. The Royal stables are above, and contain perhaps the best horses to be seen in the capital ; for Berlin makes no boast of fine teams ; the best display it can make, royal equipages and all, is very poor compared to the hand- some spans and gorgeous carriages that we see in our own land. The stables are near the Schloss Platz, the great thoroughfare connecting " the new and the old, the elegant and the fashionable, with the busy and toiling Berlin." The Bridge of the Elector is the >ld Lange Bridge, renamed from the fine bronze horse-back statue of Frederick William, Germany. 129 the Great Elector, which was placed here in 1703 ; this grand majestic figure, with four slaves round the pedestal, stands between the quiet repose of the museum island and the continual activity of the Old Town ; it is at the head of the narrow winding pass of King Street with its high houses and vast blocks of buildings, leading into the busiest quarter of the whole city, where " from morning till night there is no moment of quiet or rest from the unceasing throng and rattle of wheels." The low, four-wheeled drosky, or cab, dashes over the bridge with a merchant or a humble marketer, lumbers up King Street amidst the crowded throng of people and vehicles, past the great post-office, the vast block covered by the Berlin Town Hall, and many other buildings, to the rail- way station beyond, in Alexander Platz, or out into the suburbs of Stradlau or Konig- stadt above with its pretty Frederick's Park, perhaps ; or turning into some side street, may set down its occupant in the front of store or office or dwelling, for the cheap drosky with its good-natured driver, called schwager brother-in-law carries all sorts of people to all sorts of places ; and the Old Town is full of both. From here come wholesale quantities to supply all the material wants of the city ; it is the " down town " of New York, or the " City " of London, densely peopled and crowded with business. Below the Konigs strasse, which runs through the center of Old Berlin toward the north- east and ends in the Alexander Platz, below this crowded thoroughfare is a very closely built up and thickly settled quarter, bounded on the east by broad promenades, laid out over the ancient ramparts. In this old quarter are many of the important and most-used public buildings of the city. At the head of the Muhlendamm is the Molken Markt, the oldest square in the city, in front of the principal police court and the criminal court houses, which form a large group of ancient-looking buildings with some of the wings extending along the river. Above is the oldest church in Berlin, St. Nicholas, with its two lofty towers, and picturesque interior. In another respect than age this is also a remarkable building ; every kind of artistic style in architecture since the end of the Gothic period, which was about the sixteenth century, is here represented, some- times by work of great value and beauty. Numbers of tablets, screens, and some famous tombs are in this old church, which has seen Berlin grow to its present size and import- ance from a little town of the thirteenth century before it was united with Kolln, across the river. Near by is another ancient building the Kurfursten haus, or House of the Electors, the great princes, who used to elect the emperor or the king in the earlier days of the first German empire. To the east of this is an imposing square of brick buildings with granite facings and terra cotta ornamentation, occupying a large space fronting on the King Street. This is the Berlin Rathhaus, or Town Hall, and is entered by the main portal under the lofty clock tower, which is always illuminated after dark, and tells the time, day and night, over a large part of the city. 130 Cities of the World. One very interesting part of the outside of this great building is the set of reliefs on the front of the balcony, representing important scenes in old and new Berlin. Entering the Rathhaus one passes the bronze statues of Emperor William and Elector Frederick I. ; beyond, the main staircase leads to the star-vaulted passage with beautiful stained glass windows bearing the arms of eighty-four Prussian towns. The Library is on the right, with vaulted ceilings and paintings on the walls. On the book- case doors are medallion portraits of celebrated men, connected with the books within. Passing through the small reading room, with ceiling paintings of the German legends and busts of Bismarck and Moltke, the handsome Fest-saal is reached. This beautiful room is too interesting to pass through quickly. Visitors " break their necks," they say, before they can take their eyes from the fine coffered ceilings, with their sunken panels, bearing pictures by a celebrated artist. From the roof hang massive candelabra, while the doors are of oak richly carved. Beside the statues in the Saal, there is the great picture of the Berlin Congress of European powers to settle the " Eastern question," which was held in the residence of the Chancellor of the Empire on the Wilhelm strasse, from the i3th of June to July 13, 1878. Among the most important places in the Old Town is the extensive Central Post Office, which is the head of a postal system as prompt and sure and far-reaching in its way as the telegraph, I told you about, is in a similar kind of usefulness. In the upper part of Alt Berlin is the old " New Market " in which stands the second parish church of the ancient town. It is five or six centuries old, with a very peculiar Gothic spire about three hundred feet high. Among the many streets running in all directions from here some lead to the river and the imposing Borse or Exchange, opposite the cathedral on the island. Berliners point this out as their first modern building made of stone instead of brick. The main front overlooks the river with a double colonnade ; a fine large carved group in sandstone is above in the center, and smaller ones with other statuary on the wings. The Great Hall is the largest in Berlin ; it is lined with an imitation of marble and divided by arcades into the money department and the corn exchange. The gallery, which is above the hall, is often filled with visitors, watching the busy crowds below, where more than three thousand people meet every day. From every quarter of the inner town there are many streets leading directly to the more openly built suburbs, whose streets are broader and squares are planted with trees and flower beds ; the dwellings are nearly all vast apartment houses, built of brick, plas- tered or stuccoed outside. Their balconied fronts are like hanging gardens in summer, filled with flowers from ground to roof. All the rented houses in Berlin are now-a-days built in flats. They are to be seen in almost all the newer parts of the city. They are immense structures, many stories high, and extending the entire depth of the block. The social standing of the family is gauged by the location of their flat. The poor class FREDERICK STREET, BERLIN. 132 Cities of the World. and often the low class live below ground in what are called the sunken floors. It is said that one-tenth of the population of the capital lives in this way below the surface of the ground. Certainly this is where the dens of wickedness are always found ; and many a counterfeiters' cellar and thieves' resort of Berlin is in full blast in some sunken floor, so carefully concealed that none but the keen, watchful eyes of the trained police and detectives ever spy it out. But there are others, respectable people, who are con- tent or compelled to take a modest seat on the social ladder of Berlin, who live year after year in the cellar of vast apartment houses under the same roof with people who are "respectable," "quite proper," "desirable," and " very much sought," on the various floors above them. Those who occupy rear rooms do not stand so well as those who have front rooms ; the basement, or ground floor, and the first, second, and third floors, even the fourth sometimes are good apartments : " but the fifth and sixth fall in the social scale as they rise into the fresh pure air." The Luisenstadt, another new quarter, lies below the island, and occupies the southern part of the city, below the Wall strasse, which runs in the same direction as the lower part of the island, just below the left arm of the river. The Luisenstadt, with all its thrift, its streets lined with lofty buildings and filled with large numbers of people, has sprung up during the last thirty years. Its great public buildings are few. St. Michael's Church is very handsome outside ; St. Thomas', inside ; and the large, gloomy Bethanien Hospital, with its three hundred and fifty beds, makes up for being homely in taking excellent care of the sick and wounded, who are brought to it day and night. This is a manufacturing district. Here are crowded, one on another, establishments for making furniture, working metals, tanning leather, and opposite to them are the great shawl factories and cloth mills, and near by hundreds of people are at work in the gigantic buildings where sugar is refined, spirits distilled, paper, silks, sewing machines, and other valuable articles in Berlin trade are made. Bordering upon the factories are vast blocks occupied by yards for wool and for wood and coal. The vegetable gardens are fur- ther out and near them are immense markets for garden produce and cattle. In the midst and the vicinity of all these many of the poor of the great city live in their great shabby tenements, so striking in contrast that one would scarcely believe that these unpleasant, busy, dirty quarters on the southern and eastern outskirts belong to the same city as the palace-lined streets of the Outer Friedrichstadt and the Privy Councilors' Quarter. Some of the important cities in Germany and other monarchies are free ; that is, they can make their own laws and are under the protection of the Emperor, but subject to no other power. The largest of German free cities is Hamburg, which is also a free port, having to pay no tax itself for the right of navigation, but receiving a toll on all foreign shipping.- These good privileges were granted in the Thirteenth Century by the Emperor Francis I., who saw that the insignificant city, five hundred years old then, was in the right place to become a strong outpost and wealthy seaport ; it began to improve at Germany. '33 once, and has ever since been one of the most important commercial cities of the world. With its port of Cuxhaven it commands much of the open sea-coast of Germany at the mouth of the mighty Elbe river, which here forms a harbor from three to five miles wide. In this situation, open to direct connection with all the ports of the North Sea, and with- in a short distance from the Baltic, Hamburg ranks among the first ports of Northern Europe, and is second only to Berlin among all German cities. Nearly all traces of its flourishing medieval days were swept away by the great fire of 1842. The city therefore is now mainly made up of new streets and modern buildings, except down by the harbor. The harbor itself, with many vessels from all quar- ters of the globe, is always full of life and activity, with locks and canals overhung by great cranes and derricks entirely cutting up the central and eastern part of the city. The old fortifications which encircled the inner town have had an eventful history ; they kept out every enemy during the Thirty Years' War ; but had to yield to Napoleon in 1806, whose garrison suffered deprivation and death under the Russian siege ; in the next year Hamburg joined the German confederation and de- voted itself to its own affairs ; the walls are leveled now, and are only marked by the handsome green ring of boulevards and promenades between the old town and the suburbs. These are very extensive, including some adjoining cities and a popu- lation of four hundred and fifty thousand. Travelers say that Hamburg is one of the most beautiful cities in Germany, although one part is old and dingy, and its narrow streets CANAL AT HAMBURG. 134 Cities of the World. are overhung with half decayed houses of a former century. "But as we go back from the river, we mount higher, and come into an entirely different town, with wide streets, lined with large fine buildings. The peculiar beauty of the town is formed by a small stream, the Alster, which runs through the city and empties into the Elbe, and which is dammed up so as to form two very pretty sheets of water, one within the northern promenades, separ- ated from the outer lake by a handsome bridge." Around the inner lake are grouped the largest hotels and some of the finest buildings in the city, and this is the center of its joyous life, especially at the close of day. When evening comes on all Hamburg flocks to the " Alster- dam','' or lake-em- bankment. Then it is the brightest, gay- est of places. The water is covered with boats, gliding about among the tame swans ; "the quays are lighted up bril- liantly and the cafes swarm with people ; all ages are abroad enjoying the cool evening air." Among the few grand old buildings that escaped the fire there are three beautiful churches, especially HAMBURG MARKETWOMAN. Germany. 135 the Nicholas Church, now standing in an open square on one of the largest canals, in the vicinity of imposing new buildings. The spire of this church is said by the Ham- burgers to be a few feet higher than the Cathedral of Cologne ; the guide-books give it at four hundred and seventy-three feet, or the third highest in Europe Cologne and Rouen being more lofty. On the western side of the city is a peculiar district or suburb between Hamburg and the adjoining city of Altona, called St. Pauli. This is the great sailors' rendezvous, best known as the "burg" of Ham- burg. The place, from water front to its furthest northern limits, is full of theaters, gardens, cafes and all kinds of places of outdoor and indoor amusements, with booths and cheap bazars, and any number of hawkers and venders, thriving off the continual stream of transient tars from every clime. Active, busy Breslau, with its woolen mills and silk looms and the branch- ing Oder calmly flowing through it, does not look like a city of checkered history. The handsome lively streets or the grand old buildings do not show SPRING FLOODS AT HAMBURG. any traces of its having been stormed and captured, retaken and fought over for centuries ; but its old walls saw the sieges ; and, whether they wanted to or not, did their stoutest to guard the Bohemians against the Poles, as shortly before they had shielded the Poles from the Bohemians ; or it was the Prussians and the Austrians that alternately held or stormed the city. If walls only had tongues as well as ears ! But after all it would do us no good now, 136 Cities of the World. for they have been taken down and a beautiful tree-planted promenade lies in their places, just within the old moat, called the City Canal. These are crossed by some very fine bridges and overlooked by many fine buildings, old and new. The Old Town thus inclosed, is laid out in regular squares, and crossed about midway between the canal and the center by a set of three parallel streets, describing almost a complete half circle below the Oder, where the main part of the city is situated. Every thing tends toward the Ring, a large square in the center, which has always been the busiest part of the town, the heart of trade from which the main arteries are the central streets running from it to the north and south and to the east and west. Breslau is the third city of Germany, and the second of Prus- sia, having about three hundred thousand people ; it is the capital of Silesia, and stands in the center of a large manufacturing district, from which it keeps up an extensive trade by water and rail with important cities on every side. Its own manufactures yield a large income, for the dress goods of all kinds, the ornaments, machinery and articles used in housekeeping made here in the Oder Valley, are in constant demand. The gay stores and steady business push of the inner town is in strange contrast with irs som- ber, massive buildings of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The City Hall and Coun- cil Chambers, standing in the Center of the Ring, are among the most magnificent build- ings in Prussia, " noble monuments," they are called, " to the prosperous age of Charles IV. and other Luxemburg monarchs." The University stands in the upper part of the Old Town, on the bank of the river, with some of its buildings on an island opposite called the Sands. The most celebrated churches of Breslau are on the upper bank, reached from the island and the main-land by several bridges ; chief among them is the old cathedral, which was finished in the fourteenth century after four hundred years of building. Dresden has long been famous for the china-ware manufactured at the adjacent town of Meissen, where the Royal Porcelain Manufactory is still carried on. Unlike most of the cities grown from medieval towns, the capital of Saxony was of no importance until the end of that sleeping-time in art ; and it came into note with the Renaissance at the close of the fifteenth century, introducing the ornamental designing in its pottery and architecture, for which it has been called the " Cradle of Rococo Art." It is truly German in having a center stadt or old town, with newer parts grouped about it ; but this is not so distinct in Dresden as in many older cities. It is about the size of Bordeaux in France, with two hundred and fifty thousand people ; without count- ing the many visitors always in the city, for the fame of its collections has spread to every part of the world. The greatest center of attraction is on the lower bank of the swift- flowing Elbe, along which there are many of the most magnificent buildings in the city. To the right is the new Court Theater, adjoining a fine openplatzon one side and pretty garden on the other, both embellished with fountain and statues. The front of the building, in which are the ante-rooms and auditorium, stands out in a large semi-circle, Germany. 137 with a magnificent turreted portico, adorned with statues. The interior is gorgeously decorated with sculpture in marble, colored columns and paintings upon the walls and ceilings by eminent artists. Near by, with the great square of the Theater Platz separat- ing it from the river, is the elaborate Zwinger (or Great Court), which, vast and grand as it is, was intended only as the vestibule of a palace by Augustus II., called the Strong, who died in 1733, before his splendid plans were completed. They were never carried out, but the Zwinger was finished in later years, in a set of pavilions, connected by a gallery of one story and inclosing a large oblong court, which is laid out in pleasure grounds adorned with statuary and, in summer, with orange trees. The north-east wing of the Zwinger is the museum, made up of the famous picture gallery, engravings, draw- ings and a room of casts. The remainder and the pavilions are occupied by the museum of zoology and minerals and a collection of mathematical and physical instruments. The pictures are arranged in a long series of rooms, lighted from above with side courts ; so you are not bewildered with a host of beautiful objects at once, but, following on, see one distinct collection after another. This gallery was founded about the middle of the last century, but already ranks with the Paris Louvre, the Pitti and the Uffizi Palaces of Flor- ence, as the finest in the world. Opposite the eastern end of the Zwinger there is a fine open platz with some handsome churches adjacent and large public buildings at the head of the parallel rings of streets ; Prince's Palate is part of the vast, irregular old pile of the King's Palace which occupies the principal place among the massive group of build- ings. The Green Gate in the northern fa9ade is surmounted by the loftiest tower in Dresden, and leads to the Great Court of the Palace, through which you pass, full of admiration for the beautiful work of by-gone kings you see on every side, to the Green Vault, a wing named from the color on the walls of one room. Here is the most precious collection of curiosities in the world, jewels, trinkets and small works of art, ornaments wrought by goldsmiths of the sixteenth and seventeenth cenuries, enamels of Limoges, carved ivories and cut crystals. There are also other most interesting cabinets in the Palace, and the Royal Gallery of Arms, adjoining ; but still further beyond rises the old Johanneum on the corner of the New Market, where the celebrated historical museum is kept. This is the most important and valuable collection of historical relics in Ger- many. There are weapons and armor, household articles and wearing apparel labeled and arranged according to date ; they range from objects used in the sixteenth century down, showing the life and customs of people of earlier days. Besides these there are many things that have been owned and used by famous people : a chair, a cabinet, and two rings that belonged to Martin Luther and a suit made of silver for Christian II. of Saxony. The collection is divided into different sections, there being the Pistol Chamber, the Battle Saloon with suits of armor, blood stained clothing, swords, weapons and many other things from the famous battle fields of Germany ; the Saddle Chamber, with ancient trappings of the Saxon Kings and Electors ; the Cos- 138 Cities of the World. tume Chamber, in which are the coat and boots worn by Napoleon I. at the battle of Dresden, and many others. The Johanneum has also a collection of porcelain contain- ing about fifteen thousand pieces arranged according to their age. It is the finest col- lection in the world, and includes ware made in China, Japan, East India, France and Italy ; while that of Dresden itself, from the first attempt of Bottger early in 1700 down to the present day, the other modern European manufactures of SeVres, Berlin, etc., is most interesting of all. All around the Johanneum there are other buildings, Academies, collections and galleries, and in front of them is the Briihl Terrace, a celebrated promenade along the river. A broad flight of steps, decorated with gilded groups of Night, Morning, Noon and Evening in sandstone, descends from the gardens, the pretty walks, cafe's and other out-door attractions of the Terrace, to the Schloss Platz, which stands at the head of the Augustus Bridge, leading to the Neu Stadt. This is the center bridge and the finest of the three crossing the Elbe at Dresden, all of which are masterpieces of bridge-building. The Marien Bridge further west leads to the gardens of the Japanese Palace, which is chiefly noted for its collection of antique vases, bronzes, terra-cottas, tombs and statues, and the more important royal public library, which was founded some time in 1500 by the Elector Augustus. The center of the New Town is a large circular place called the Alberts Platz, from which very broad and handsome streets radiate in every direction. One of them leads to the Japanese Palace, with its beautiful gardens on the upper bank of the river ; others go through a district entirely built up with large barracks and military hospitals, a town in themselves ; but the main avenue and the handsomest one is wider than all the others and planted with double rows of trees ; it connects the Platz with the Augustus Bridge in the great Market Place above the quay. This is a lively place at all times, but especially so on market days, when you have the best of chances to see Dresden at work. The chief play-ground, or pleasure garden of the city is tr\e Great Garden (used the same as we say park}, on the south-eastern outskirts. It is reached from the Old Town by a long and slightly curving set of promenades planted with trees called the Biirgerweise. About midway along this beautiful set of garden-streets stands the grounds and stately buildings of Prince George's Palace, while the adjoining streets con- tain some of the most magnificent new residences to be seen in any city. The Great Garden is a royal park of about three hundred acres, with the Lust Schloss or Palace of Pleasure in the center. This was built for a royal chateau in 1680, but is now used for the royal Museum of Antiquities, chiefly of objects made during the Middle Ages. This park is large and particularly beautiful, the resort of all classes of people. There are plenty of restaurants and cafes and in summer-time a band plays regularly. The people stroll in family groups or seat themselves in pleasant companies in the cafe, when one and all drink the national beverage. On a holiday evening, thousands enjoy themselves in this way. There are a number of fine animals in the Zoological Garden, which occupies the lower part of the park. Germany. 139 With its academies, schools, institutes and superb collections, Dresden has better opportunities for education than almost any city on the continent ; there is a large English quarter, made up of families, who have found they could live economically and comfortably while giving their boys and girls the best instruction and associations. The most famous art city in Germany is Munich. It is made up of an endless succession of extensive and magnificent palaces in which are gathered some of the richest treasures of paintings, sculpture and all other branches of art in the world. It lies at a height of THE BAVARIA AND THE HALL OF FAME, MUNICH. almost two thousand feet above the sea on the southern bank of the " Iser, rolling rapid- ly." It was a little town, known in the twelfth century ; the capital of the kingdom but without any celebrity, until the reign of Ludwig I. Now almost every church, palace and public hall, representing all the fine styles of architecture, is worthy a separate description, with their galleries and cabinets, nearly all of which have been raised during the last fifty years. To visit Munich thoroughly is a journey, almost wearisome, through broad streets, extensively laid out with one sumptuous edifice after another ; but many strangers go 140 Cities of the World. there to live. It is a cheaper place of residence than any other in Germany, and in addition to its vast attractions in art has a fine university, called the Ludwig-Maximilian, and a great many special schools and institutes for scientific and literary study. Although it is as large as Dresden in population, it is not very thriving in a business way, excepting the iron, brass and bell foundries, and its numbers of engravers, lithographers and manufacturers of fine scientific instruments, who have a world-wide fame. The Germans think much of Munich as the place where their best Bavarian beer is made ; the enor- mous breweries are royal institutions and an important part of the city, employing a great many people. Other factories supply moderate quantities of some common articles of general use. One can hardly remember the names of all the galleries, museums, and palatial buildings ; it is difficult to pick out even half a dozen more interesting than the others. One that is the oftenest referred to, perhaps, is the Old Pinakothek, which is named from the Greek and means, " repository of pictures." It is said to be the noblest picture gallery in Europe ; it contains hall after hall of almost fourteen hundred beautiful paintings. The New Pinakothek, although it is not so grand a building, is celebrated for the great frescoes representing the development of art, on the outside ; it has, within, a vast collection of paintings by the greatest modern artists. The Glyptothek is the " repository of sculptures ; " a building of the Greek style outside, with Roman interior, devoted to ancient statuary. The Ruhmeshalle, or Hall of Fame, that stands above the city, is almost always visited by strangers, less on account of its collections than to see the wonderful statue of Bavaria standing at the head of the staircase on the terrace leading to the Hall. The bronze figure, with a lion by her side, is about seventy feet high, and of splendid workmanship ; a spiral staircase in the center leads to the head, from which there is a wide view of the city. The Royal Palace, about the most ancient building in the place, has many apartments of the most unique and curious collections in Munich, beside paintings and sculpture ; the curiosities are of crystals, miniatures and a fantastic shell grotto. In the Festsaalbau, or building of festive halls, six of the saloons are decorated with wall paintings from the Odyssey, telling the story of the principal events in the journey of Ulysses, the Greek hero, who was carried by storms and oracles far out of his homeward way, after the Trojan war. The apartments called the Konigsbau, adjoining, are in imitation of the Pitti Palace at Florence, and have a series of frescoes telling the story of the Niebelungen Lied. This famous legend comes from some old manuscript copies of a poem, whose age and author are unknown. It is the greatest epic poem in the German language and describes the wonderful deeds of the the race of Niebelungen, who are finally conquered by Siegsfried. The miraculous achievements of this hero, his death and that of his avenged queen make up the prin- cipal part of the story. The Munich cemetery, which Mr. Longfellow has told us is called " God's acre," is also called the " Friedhof," or " Court of Peace ; " it is very Germany. 141 extensive and contains some interesting monuments and the scene once common in Ger- many, but now confined to Munich, of depositing bodies " with coffin lid raised to show the sleeping form " in a kind of corridor behind a glass screen, where they lie until the regular time of burial, when the lids of the coffins to be buried are closed, and the priest or pastor comes, and holds a short service at the grave. A large number of the Ger- man immigrants to this country come from the thriving manufac- turing city of Bremen. This is situated on the Weser river, about forty miles from where it empties into the North Sea ; and next to Hamburg it is the largest free city of the Empire, being second to that city also in maritime trade. The Old Town is on the upper bank, with its garden-promenades on the site of the medieval fortifi- cation, where the serpentine moat is still full of water ; the quaint market place is in the center, and many fine public buildings of another century, stand in large, open squares, or the irregular curving streets ; several bridges cross the main stream, or the Weser branch to the left bank, where the New Town has been built up since the Thirty Years' War. Bremen is larger in extent for the number of people living LUTHER'S HOUSE, FRANKFORT. in it than most towns, because the houses usually have only one family; the people are mainly occupied by the great fac- tories, where woolens, cottons, paper and cigars are made ; in shipbuilding, brew- 142 Cities of the World. cries, distilleries, and sugar refineries. The river will not admit large vessels at all tides, so it has a port, Bremerhaven, about ten miles from the sea. This has fine docks and quays, furnished with improved magazines and cranes, and carries on an active trade with foreign countries, particularly the United States. An equally famous city of the size of Bremen two hundred thousand people is Frankfort-on-the-Main. Its reputation is not so much for work, however, as for wealth, which is said to be greater for its size than any other in the world. " If its wealth were equally divided among its inhabitants, every man, woman and child would have, it is said, 20,000 marks, or some $5,000 apiece. Although there are a good many poor people in the town, most of the citizens are in unusually comfortable circumstances. It is stated that there are one hundred Frankforters worth from about $4,000,000 to $7,000,000 each, and two hundred and fifty who are worth $3,000,000 and upward. The city is one of the great banking centers of the globe. Its aggregate bank- ing capital is estimated at $2,000,000,000, more than one-fourth of which the famous Rothschilds own and control, whose original and parent house is there. Its general trade and manufacturing industries are not small ; some of the most important are the making of carpets, jewelry, sewing-machines and tobacco, and the publishing and selling of books. These interests have greatly increased since the formation of the German Empire, to which Frankfort was originally averse, being a free city and an opponent of Prussia. It was coerced, in July, 1866, by General Von Falkenstein, who entered it at the head of an army and imposed a fine of 31,000,000 florins, \>r over twelve million of dollars, for its insubordination." I " The old watch-towers show the jealously guarded limits of the ' Free Imperial City, but, as in Vienna, the vast ancient ramparts have been leveled and the Ring, here called Anlagen, beautifully planted and adorned with sumptuous private and public buildings, gives an air of nobleness to the city." Beyond the tower of St. Bartholomew's Cathe- dral there are few attractive buildings. Its real interest is in its history, beginning with the time when Charlemagne selected the " Ford of the Franks " for a great convoca- tion of bishops and nobles. This was the beginning of the city's growth, after which it increased in importance, till it finally was chosen as the place for the imperial elections. In Frankfort stand two private houses which to many are of greater interest than any thing else in the city in the Hirschgraben, is the place where Goethe was born ; and not far from it, in the Cathedral Square, the long, narrow house, with its three- sided abutment of bay windows from first story to its gabled roof, is where Martin Luther once lived. The Frankfort Jews' Quarter, like those in Prague, Vienna, and other German cities, was long kept apart from the rest of the city, and was a gloomy ^ close and squalid and almost separate colony ; but it is not a poor quarter in another sense. The Rothschilds and other famous and wealthy houses were founded here : the Jews now mingle with other residents on equal terms. Germany. One of the most famous cities in the world is Cologne. It is the largest town on the Rhine, and although comparatively little of it is ever described beyond the wonderful Cathedral, without this it would be far from insignificant. It was founded about half a century before Christ, bift later came to have the name of Cologne, from being called the Colonia Agrippina, after the wife of the Roman Emperor Claudius, whose colonists settled here. It is surrounded by strong walls and protected by forts. On the opposite bank is the town of Deutz, which is a suburb of the city, reached by a bridge of boats and a fine iron suspension bridge for railway and carriage traffic. Cologne is the capital of Rhenish COLOGNE, AND THE BRIDGE OF BOATS. Prussia a frontier country and is well situated for commerce, which has always been extensive and is now growing important. There are several kinds of manufactures carried on, too : articles for household use and furniture, chemicals, tobacco, and the spirits of wine, beside the hundreds of thousands of bottles of perfumery water, named after the city eau-de-Cologne (water from Cologne), and famous all over the world. The streets are the narrow, crooked by-ways of medieval times, overhung by massive and picturesque buildings, a great many of which are churches. It used to be said that 144 Cities of the World. Cologne had a church for every day in the year. Several of them are of beautiful archi- tecture and decoration, and contain relics to which the guides attach the most improbable stories ; but none can compare with the majesty and beauty of the grand old Cathedral, the most magnificent Gothic structure ever erected by human hands. It is a forest of stone, in the form of a cross, five hundred feet long, two hundred and thirty feet wide, rising, tier on tier, to its lofty pointed roof, above which the two front towers rise to five hundred feet, with a smaller iron spire in the center of the roof. No other work of man can com- pare with its long nave and pillared aisles ; perhaps " the avenue of New Haven elms comes nearest to it." The mighty work was begun some time in 1200 it is not known just when, nor from whose design and was finished in 1880. It is said to be the largest in the world ; and its towers the highest. There is nothing in Europe so high, but the Monument to Washington, at the United States capital, towers fifty feet above them. The greatest .university city in Germany is Leipsic, the "town of the lime-trees," near the western border of Prussia, with the Elster, the Pleisse and the Parthe rivers flowing through or past it. The laboratories and halls of the university are scattered through the quaint, narrow streets of the Inner Town, or upon the wide, well-built avenues and spacious squares of the newer quarters ; but the main building is one of the beautiful group surrounding the Augustus Platz, between the Old Town and the eastern suburb. This is a stately, vacant looking platz usually, with its magnificent buildings and sculptured monuments ; but when the great Eastern fair is held, it teems with life. Then book- sellers throng the city from far and near, to attend the annual trade convention in the Book Sellers Exchange ; for Leipsic is the principal place in Germany or the world, after London and Paris, for every thing connected with the "book-trade. At the Eastern fair over a thousand selling or publishing houses are repre- sented, in this city ; there are three hundred book-stores in Leipsic alone, and over fifty ^printing establishments, which has led to a great type-foundry business here, also, which is the largest in the empire. Altogether, the transactions during the three or four weeks of the Eastern fair amount to fifty millions of dollars. This is not entirely from books but largely so, in the bargains for the regular yearly trade and special sale of rare vol- umes and literary curiosities. It is attended by Europeans, Americans, Jews, Turks, Greeks, Armenians, Persians, and even Chinese. There are two other fairs held here every year ; the most important being the June Wool Market. The Augustus Platz is overlooked by the magnificent buildings of the museum, the New Theater, one of the finest in Germany, and the Augusteum or main part of the University. Adjoining this there are handsome gardens with a lake, skirted by the promenades laid out over the old fortifications. These now serve to mark the dividing line between the Old Town of the eleventh century, and the newer city lying about it on all sides. These promenades are a favorite resort for students and town people, who linger here by thousands " when .comes still evening on." The walks are planted with beautiful avenues of lime and Germany. '45 chestnut trees, which broaden out into little parks in several places. In the center of the Old Town is the Market Place, where the quaint tower of the ancient Town Hall rises above lofty antique mansions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In a walk through any of the streets running from here you would see a great many of these old houses, standing closely packed together, as if to leave no space room for modern archi- tecture to wedge itself in. Near the Market Place, on the finest street leading to the University, is Auerbachs' Cellar, the famous restaurant where Goethe has laid a scene in his drama of " Faust ; " it has always been a rendezvous for students ; the great poet TOWN HALL, LEIPSIC. who used to come here very often, saw, as you and I can see now, the Faust legend in ancient fresco paintings on the walls. Schiller lived in Leipsic once, too ; the house is above the Market Place, in Hain Strasse, where, also, the great composer, Richard Wagner, was born. This street is now a resort for Jews who come to the fairs, and is taken up with the fur stores and other shops of a great many Jewish dealers. Everywhere in the midst of the life and pleasure of the living Leipsic there are monuments and tab- lets, reminding you of great men who have been here in the past. In the Concert Room of the Library Mendelssohn conducted the orchestra and chorus some fifty years ago ; 146 Cities of the World. and the conservatory of music, which is the most famous in Europe, has a long, long list of celebrated men that have been connected with it ; but greater names than these stands on the roll of the University. This is chief among all other places in the city ; it was established in the first years of 1400, after the dispute at Prague between the Ger- mans and Bohemians. There are about a hundred and fifty professors and lecturers, and about three thousand students, more than any other in Germany, the land of Universi- ties, with Halle excelling in theology ; Gottingen, in jurisprudence, with Tubingen and half-a-dozen others, to say nothing of Berlin and "enchanting Heidelburg," as famous for its beautiful scenery as its great lecturers. It is due to the University that Leipsic is so great a center for literary and intellectual life, and that it is so wonder- fully well supplied with libraries, museums and other educational advantages as it is. Magdeburg, on the Elbe, in Prussian Saxony, is one of the most strongly fortified towns in the kingdom ; it is also famous for commerce and trade by water and the great railways that meet here, and is a familiar name in history. Martin Luther spent his boy- hood here ; he used to sing in the streets and receive the bounty of the people. Otto von Guericke, who invented the air-pump and astonished the imperial diet with his " hemisphere experiment," was burgomaster of Magdeburg, and named his great experi- ment with air the " Magdeburg Hemispheres." The city has had an important place in the religious troubles of Germany ever since 967, when it was chosen by Pope John XIII. as the see of the primate of the Old Em- pire. The archbishops and town officers were often at war during the Middle Ages ; and when the city adopted the doctrines of, reform, it drew down the wrath of both the emperor and the archbishops. But even these troubles were far short of the calamities that fell upon the fortress during the Thirty Years' War. For twenty-eight weeks it stood the siege of the imperialists, but, betrayed by one of the inhabitants to Tilly, who entered it and spent three days in sacking it ; the enemy put it to flames and the most wanton destruction from which the cathedral and only about a hundred and fifty houses escaped. Thirty thousand people were slain, and a great many thrown into the river. In house No. 164 in Breiteweg Broadway the betrayer of the city used to live ; in front of it you now see : REMEMBER THE IOTH MAY, 1631. This street is long and wide, but throughout the rest of the town the busy thoroughfares are nearly all narrow and crooked. Magdeburg and its archbishopric became a duchy in 1648, of the house of Brandenburg ; in the early part of the century it was taken by the French, but restored again to Prussia with the fall of Napoleon, eight years later. It is now the Prussian Saxony capital, thrivingly busy, and inhabited by about a hundred and fifty thousand people, as many as there are in Montreal, Canada. ENCHANTING HEIDELBERG. SCANDINAVIA. THE great sea-girt countries of Scandinavia are far more familiar to most young people as the land of the Northmen than of any nineteenth century greatness ; but the adventurous old sea-kings are gone like the fairies, " ages and ages ago," and in their places large and civilized nations possess the beech groves and pine forests, lakes, fiords and rocky shores of the Land of the Midnight Sun. Of the three kingdoms, Denmark is the smallest, the most southerly and the most important. Adjoining the German state of Sleswick-Holstein, this little kingdom is situated on the peninsular of Jutland and on the group of islands that crowd the Kattegat, a broad arm of the Baltic between Jutland and Sweden. On the most easterly of these, looking across The Sound to Sweden is Copenhagen, the capital. The city lies partly upon the island of Zealand and partly upon the upper point of the much smaller island of Amager in the Sound, separated by a deep strait, which forms the Copenhagen Harbor. It is this, now lined with docks and always filled with ships, that first gave the city an existence as well as its name, which means Merchants' Haven. Some of the quays are broad, well paved and planted with trees. The grim, unsightly old ramparts have been replaced on the land side by boulevards, but the batteries and fortifications toward the sea still stand. The appearance of the city has altered very much during the last fifteen years. The walls have been leveled, the streets enlarged and new buildings raised, all in welcome of returning commerce and trade after the troubles with Germany that came to an end in 1866. The fashionable quarter occupies the north-eastern portion of the city, with lofty gabled and dormer houses, often six stories high, and great buildings severely decorated with escutcheons and national devices. To the northward is the citadel and adjoining public gardens and walks on the shores of the Sound, and near by the handsome Amalienborg square, is where the royal palaces stand, which are occupied by the King, Christian IX., the Crown Prince, and one of the state ministers. The north-west corner of the town is a mariners' quarter, where sea-faring men and their families have had their homes for two centuries in the one-storied houses that line the blocks of parallel streets. Below the vicinity of the Jack Tars' cottages is the most beautiful place in Copenhagen, the Rosenberg Palace, standing at the end of a stately old garden. This was built for a royal residence early in 1600, but it has been a museum-palace for the last century and a half, with many 1 50 Cities of the World. rooms full of things that belonged to Christian IV., the first Danish monarch who lived in it, and all who have followed him ; the latest things are of the date 1863. Adjoining the Palace is the Rosenberg Garden, which is usually filled with children and their nursery maids. " There in the sunny afternoons of the long Northern summer days one may see children sporting in the long avenue overhung with grateful shade, at the end of which, in a little garden plat, stands the statue of Hans Christian Andersen," the great Danish story-teller. Copenhagen was Andersen's home during a part of his life, and here many of his wonderful tales are laid. You can see the very East Street mentioned in the " Goloshes of Fortune," narrow, winding, and now-a-days lined with many French-looking stores ; in front of the Fredericks Hospital is the iron picket fence " through which the unfortunate young man thrust his head," and there is also Holmens Kanal, from which Andersen started in his " Journey on Foot." From the Kanal there is quite a fine view of the business part of the city, which lies below the aristocratic quarter. In about the center, between the two, is the Kongens Nytorv, or King's New Market, a modern-looking circular place with trees surrounding a statue in the center. From here a canal with its broad quays, its shipping and warehouses runs eastward to the Harbor, and the broad Gothengade (street) in the opposite direction, leads past the Rosenberg Gardens and Boulevard to the pleasant walks of the Botanical Gardens. Thirteen streets radiate from the Market, of which the Oestergade is the gayest and the handsomest with its fine shops and steady stream of people. Copenhagen is a city, full of active, energetic people ; they are mainly merchants and students, " each all Dane " for the time, though natives of many lands. In this lower part of the city, with its narrow, crooked and irregular streets, an arm running from the Harbor forms a large and almost square island occupied by the Christianborg Palace and adjoining buildings, the most notable group in the city. The vast courts of the palace contain the halls of the Royal Picture Gallery, the Upper and Lower Chambers of the Danish Parliament, the Supreme Law Courts, the fine Royal Library, the Royal Stables and the Arsenal. Adjoining the Palace, on the harbor quay, is the picturesque red brick building of the Exchange, with its famous dragon spire, formed of three marvelous dragons with their tails, twisted together in the air, reaching a height of a hundred and fifty feet. " A queer building, in the shadow of the palace, which attracts notice by its frescoed walls, is the Thorwaldsen Museum, where Denmark has collected all the works and memorials of her greatest artist, Bertel Thorwaldsen." It contains either originals or copies of all the statuary the celebrated sculptor ever made. Crossing the Harbor by the lower bridge you reach the Vor Frelsers Kirke, or Church of Our Redeemer, which has a winding staircase on the outside of the steeple to the figure of the Saviour on the summit. The view from here extends even to the coast of Sweden, across the Sound. The Vor Frue Kirke, or Church of Our Land, with its beautiful marble statuary by Thorwaldsen, and the Trinity Church, with its famous old Round Tower, ascended by a winding brick Stockholm. 151 causeway, so wide that horses can be driven up and down it, are in the south-west corner of the city, in the vicinity of the great University. This is attended by over a thousand students, and here is a Danish " Latin Quarter," where many men are supported by the government while they carry on studies in the highest branches of learning. It is a great center for other than Danish students and is the seat of many important societies for the advancement of art and the literature of the North. English is much spoken here and the people wear the plain European dress, familiar to us. The Danes themselves are cosmopolitan, that is, not bound to old national customs, and the capital is peopled from all nations. With the population of the adjoining suburbs it is the size of New Orleans, Louisiana, having about two hundred and fifty thousand people. The great city pleasure ground lies beyond the southern boulevard, opposite the University quarter. At the Tivoli, as it is called, all kinds of evening amusements are provided in the illuminated gardens and woods some of the beeches for which Denmark is so famous and the tiny lake. All classes of people meet here on an equality ; they ride in the " rush-railway," whose little cars sweep down curves and up in a most delightful take- your-breath-away fashion ; they see the dramas, or the dancing, loiter in the restaurants or cafes, or stroll through the pleasant walks. Another promenade is along the high dam or mound leading northward along the shores of the Sound and commanding a view of the vessels sailing through the narrow branch of the sea between the city and Amager. The second city of Scandinavia is Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. It stands at the head of the lovely Lake Malar, the last of a chain of water-ways made up of lakes and canals, that cross the peninsula. Lake Malar is dotted all over with islands of every form and size, some surmounted with castles and others studded with peasants' houses and fishing hamlets. Stockholm is a city of the most striking contrasts, situated on seven islands or holms, at the outlet of the lake into the Baltic. It is the most beautiful of all Northern cities and bears the name of the Northern Venice more appropriately than Amsterdam. But it is far from a copy of the famous city of the south, having its own peculiar beauty ; its islands are made by natural arms of the sea and its surroundings are majestic hills, crags and wooded landscapes. The most picturesque of the islets is the Sodermalm, on whose steep sides the houses, connected more by steps than by roads, rise in terraced rows to the summit, which is crowned by the church of St. Catherine. This island was once a rugged mountain, but is now a southern suburb ; from its built-up heights there is still a magnificent view of the water-streets, the life and northern architecture of the capital ; on a holm near by is the Deergarden, a great pleasure ground that is full of attractions and of people winter and summer. Other little parks and delightful promenades are scattered throughout' the city. The center isle of the group is occupied by a huge palace built in the middle of the last century and " the old church of Riddarholmen, where Gustavus Adolphus, the 152 Cities of the World. greatest soldier and most faultless king of Sweden, and many other royal persons repose beneath the banner-hung arches. The bridge at the junction of the lake and the Baltic is the center of life, and below them is a little pleasure garden," where hundreds of people are constantly eating and drinking under the trees, and where strains of music are wafted late into the summer night ; the little steam gondolas, filled with people, dart and hiss through the waters from one island to another, for bridges are few in the city and the water-ways innumerable, and the little boats are the chief means of communication, a passage only costing what is equal to one penny. The streets of the older quarters of the town are narrow, crooked and poorly paved. The capital was founded in about the thirteenth century and called Stockholm, or the Stake Island, because the islands were enlarged by piles or stakes. The newer parts are made up of fine, straight streets and large squares built up with stone houses ; the suburban dwellings are mostly of wood. The king and his court reside in Stockholm ; the government and the courts meet here ; it is the center of Swedish society and literary culture and has a great many institutions both for education and doing good. It is the great commercial depot for Sweden in the country's products of iron, deal planks and timber, and for -the manufactures of the land, in which cabinet making and other branches of wood- working take the lead. Sweden is an industrious country with a wide-spread interest in education. The kingdoms of Sweden and Norway have the same monarch, crowned by each ; the same representatives abroad and a common mint. Otherwise they are perfectly distinct, each with its own institutions and laws. In Sweden there is a titled nobility, but not in Norway, although the large landed proprietors are really a sort of aristocracy. Norway, o*n the whole, is a nation of less cultivation than Sweden, with a population growing too fast for its resources. Still, education is compulsory and free and always includes several branches of useful knowledge with a large amount of training in Bible-history, Bible-reading, and psalm singing. The capital of the country and its largest town is Christiana, at the head of the Kattegat. It is the seat of government, a university town and a commercial port of the North Sea, but withal can not compare with Copenhagen or Stockholm. There are some pretty places about it, but none beautiful. " From the avenues upon the ramparts you look down over the broad expanse of the fiord, or strait, and see the low blue mountains in the distance. Little steamers dart backward and forward and convey visitors from one place to another among the surroundings. The town of Christiana proper was laid out by Christian IV. in 1614 in the form of a regular parallelogram of a thousand paces in length and breadth ; but the capital now includes several other quarters and suburbs, having altogether a population of about a hundred and twenty-five thousand people. The* excellent university here is the only one in Norway and has about a thousand students in its various departments. The city has good schools and some celebrated learned societies. The manufactures carried on here are mainly in oil, cotton, paper, 154 Cities of the World. soap and bricks, with a number of distilleries and corn mills. There is quite a large export trade carried on with the ports of Denmark and England. What there is lacking of scenery in the dull town is fully made up in the beautiful bay with its steep and rocky shores and forests of Norwegian pines. The brave and hardy Scandinavians that you see here now are not unworthy descendants of the heroic race of Northmen. Being somewhat out of the course of the great stream of national intercourse, they keep many of their ancient characteristics in simple living, energy and national pride. " Al- though in Norway and Sweden there are many mines and mills, most of the people gain their living either out of the soil or the sea. The farmer in either country is a marvel of industry and thrift ; he would live upon what an American farmer wastes, and live more comfortably than most of our farming people do. The amount of labor done at the special dairy-farms, to which cattle are driven in Summer, generally by girls, would horrify a Western maiden ; but the Swedish and Norwegian girls thrive on it, enjoying rare good health, and the happiness that it brings." But a very large proportion of the people follow the sea for a living. In 1880 more than a thousand Norwegian vessels entered the port of New York, and seven times as many were busy elsewhere. More than sixty thousand sailors man those vessels, and yet Norwegian sailors are nu- merous in the merchant navy of almost every other country. About a hundred and twenty thousand Norwegians are engaged in fisheries. As a race the people are pro- foundly religious and also intolerant of all but the Protestant faith, although the State allows freedom of worship. Drunkenness and profanity are rare everywhere in Scan- dinavia ; there seems to be no idle, dangerous class. At fairs and feasts there is a great deal of drinking, but it is only for a short time and the fun never culminates in fighting. They are all very hospitable, Mr. Du Chaillu tells us, and " as in all other countries that keep primitive habits, hospitality in Scandinavia means eating and drinking. The poorest farmer or fisherman always has something to offer the visitor, and if the guest show a lack of appetite it is felt to be a slight." One time to avoid giving any offense, Mr. Du Chaillu ate thirty times in two days, and drank thirty-four cups of coffee. An old farmer will fiddle all the evening while his family children and servants included dance. He is very fond of visiting ; and a wedding is sufficient excuse for a three days jollification. Altogether, with the extensive preparations and the festival itself, a Scandinavian wedding is a very important affair. At all times a great deal of care is given to dress and to the beautifying of homes ; and a pleasant part of it is that the people do not let their love of display overcome good taste. THE NETHERLANDS. ACROSS the waters from the lower part of the North Sea coast of England, lies the low, canal-cut country once called Holland; now the UNITED KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS. It is about the size of the State of Maryland, with four and a half times as many people living in it ; and made up of many large towns in its various provinces. Most of the country in the western part, being below the water level, has been walled in by dunes, or long hills of sand banked up by wind and waves. Where these fail there are strong dykes built of stones brought from Norway, timber, turf and clay, which are carefully watched and kept in order. A large part of the four million of people of the Netherlands live in towns, of which Amsterdam, the capital, is first, smaller in size but with about the same population as Baltimore ; that is between three and four hundred thousand. The " Venice of the North," it is called, but very inappropriately, for it lacks the color, the stateliness and every thing that distinguishes the " Bride of the Adriatic " from all other island-built cities of the world. The Zuider Zee is an arm of the German Ocean, or North Sea, about as large as the State of Rhode Island ; and near its southwestern corner, where the river Y, or Ij, is met by the Amstel, is the great, low-lying, half -moon shaped city, the town of Amstel's dyke, or " Amstel dam," as it is often called. The view of Amsterdam from the harbor is very fine ; walled in from the sea by dykes on one side, and on the other, surrounded by rich grassy meadows ; quaint and flat, it is skirted by the old ramparts leveled into broad, tree-lined promenades, and studded with fantastic gabled roofs, chimneys, wind-mills, turrets, church-towers and spires of all shapes and sizes. Canals and branches of the Zuider Zee, running in every direction, divide the city into about ninety islands, which are connected by nearly three hundred bridges, made of stone, iron, or wood, and high enough for vessels to pass under. The town is built over a peat bog, upon piles driven through forty or fifty feet of loose sand and mud into firm, solid, clay below. Vessels have to unload part of their cargo outside in the Zuider Zee, for it is neither safe nor easy to cross the shallows and bar at the mouth of the Y. At one of the entrances of the city stands the "Crier's Tower," which was built in 1482, and called the Schreyerstoren, because it was always a scene of parting between friends and sailors leaving for all parts of the globe. Near where the river Amstel enters the city is a large exhibition building, which has also a fine collection of paintings and a beautiful garden. This " Paleis voor Volksvlyt," 156 Cities of the World. as the Dutch call it, is nearly four hundred and fifty feet long and three hundred feet broad, while its great dome towers upward two hundred feet. The Amstel flows almost through the center of the city, dividing the modern part on the west from the old town on its eastern banks. The old town was a fishing village six hundred years ago, and is made up of narrow and irregular streets. In the center reaching to the moat on the outskirts, is the chief park of Amsterdam, the Plantation, where there are many fine walks, the botanic and the zoological gardens. The only other recreation ground of Amsterdam is Vondel's Park, on the southern outskirts. In the modern part of the old Dutch capital the streets and squares are handsome and spacious. Some of the principal canals run in semi-circles, one within another, and are bordered with tree-lined avenues of handsome houses, their picturesque gables toward the street. It is said that there is not a straight building in the whole place ; " they lean forward and lean backward ; they lean to the right and lean to the left ; " all of which is caused by the sinking of the piles on which they are built. On the great public square called the Dam, near the center of the city, is the Palace. This royal residence is almost square, adorned with handsome stone carving and resting on many thousand piles. It is nearly three hundred feet long with a tur- reted cupola rising sixty-six feet above the main building, which is one hundred and six- teen feet high. The most beautiful room in the Palace is a great hall, nearly as long as the building, more than fifty feet broad and ninety high, lined entirely with white Italian marble. Across the Dam is the Exchange or Beurs, an immense building, which is the front of a fine square, or quadrangle as architects say, in handsome Ionian style. The " Niewe Kerk," near the Palace, is where the Dutch kings are crowned. It was built in 1408, and is a very fine church, containing many monuments to celebrated Dutchmen, wonderful work in a carved pulpit, and bronze castings. The " Oude Kerk," or Old Church, which was built in the fourteenth century, has also some great monuments, beautiful stained glass windows and a fine organ. There are other churches of many religions in Amsterdam ; the synagogue of the Shepardin Jews is one of the finest in the world, but excepting the Moses and Aaron Church, and the new Lutheran meeting house, with its cupola of green copper, few are either handsome or interesting. The city has beside many galleries of pictures by the old Dutch masters, art schools, museums, and a great number of noble institutions for giving help or care to people that are sick and afflicted. The Society for the Public Welfare has branches in nearly every town and village in Holland. Amsterdam has a large share in almost all the industries of the Netherlands : she sends out by canal and railway in greatest quantities, cheese and butter, madder for medicine, dyes and paints, clover and rape, linseed oil and gin ; and makes soap, oil, glass, iron, dyes and chemicals, beside refining a vast amount of sugar, and employing many people in brewing, tanning leather, founding type and making tobacco and snuff ; 158 Cities of the World. while there is more diamond cutting done here than in any place in the world. Cen- turies ago Amsterdam was the center of the world's banking business, and one of its greatest commercial ports. With the exception of Frankfort-on-the-Main, it now ranks as the richest city for its size in the world ; and its entire wealth has been earned by the greatest toil and perseverance in the face of every difficulty. Among the powerful banking firms of the world Hope & Co. stand next to the Rothschilds. Gem cutting has long been a specialty of the city ; the diamond mills as they are called are owned by the Jews, where there are nearly ten thousand Hebrews employed. The city has had to undergo many hard trials from jealous nations and home troubles which have altered its condition very much. But the people are good, industrious and enterprising ; they have recovered a great deal by building railroads, a great ship canal across North Holland from Mars Diep, which, in addition to the new canal being opened to the North Sea, will probably bring back to Amsterdam much of its lost importance in trade and commerce. Its quays are once more being thronged, its streets are crowded, its shops full of men and women ; and its warehouses are active and busy. No man, woman or child seems to be idle, every body seems to live up to the unspoken creed of industry, perseverance and prosperity, although a great deal of time might be better used by employing modern labor-saving and time-saving inventions. Rotterdam, the second city of the Netherlands, is a little more than half as large as Amsterdam. Standing where the little Rotte river meets the Maas, about twenty miles from its mouth, the city is shaped like a triangle, apex pointing toward the north, and base stretching along the Maas in a fine set of quays called the Boompjes ; these are bordered with elms planted nearly three hundred years ago and faced by a fine row of houses. Rotterdam is divided into two parts by Hoog Street, on a dyke built to keep out the water when it rises. The section on the north side is Binnenstad ; and on the south, extending to the Maas, it is Buitenstad. This lower part of town is cut into many is- lands by " havens," or broad canals, whose docks are faced on both sides by lofty houses shaded by rows of beautiful trees. There are seven of the largest canals, which are so deep that immense ships can go their full length ; two run from the Maas, up into the city, while five are parallel with the river. Beside the great ocean traffic carried on by Rotterdam with other countries, it is an important port for vessels bound to and from the Rhine provinces of Prussia, not only for its own trade, but as a stopping place for foreign vessels, as the Maas is the great highway from the open sea to the Rhine and the interior of Europe. Beside all this shipping business, which includes the country products, many manu- factured articles, live stock, great ship-yards and steamboat factories, Rotterdam makes articles of gold and silver, and the gin and liquors distilled here are shipped in great quantities by water or rail to all countries of the globe. The hall of the Rotterdam Ex- 160 Cities of the World. change is, at three o'clock, crowded with merchants and visitors of many nations. Gei mans, Flemings, French, Italians, Spaniards, Armenians, Greeks, Poles, Russians, Eng lish and Americans; and all of these, speaking at times in their native tongue, get greatl excited over advancing or declining prices. In all this excitement you would almos forget that you were in the land of the quiet, unruffled Dutchman, who would scarcel be startled enough to look around if a pistol were shot off directly behind him. Nearl all the " nice " houses have little mirrors at each side of the windows, that reflect i: opposite directions so that, without stopping their work for it is almost a sin to be idl in Holland the people in the house can see all that is passing outside without bein seen themselves. The buildings of Rotterdam seem not to have been put up to be handsome ani majestic, but serviceable ; a few, however, are both. There are churches, schools c all kinds, and institutes for the study of art, science, architecture, music, medicine, an many other things. There are some galleries, too ; but the great pictures and works c art once the pride of the town were burned about twenty years ago, and can never b replaced. The hospital in the Coolsingel is a very fine and perfectly arranged building The great St. Lawrence Church, with its high towers and Gothic pillars, raised in th fifteenth century, has a splendid organ and several beautiful marble monuments in hone of distinguished men. On the open market-place there stands a bronze statue c Erasmus, and on the street that leads to the Breede Kerk the famous scholar's birtt place is still pointed out. Rotterdam is now growing verj' fast. It is about the size c Riga in Russia, Hull in England, or Cleveland, Ohio ; and has about a hundred an seventy-five thousand people living" in it more than twice as many as there were fift years ago. Although Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands, the Dutch Parliament meei at The Hague, and here also the king, his family, and the principal officers of the Stal live ; for this country has much the same form of government as Great Britain. It is rule by a king or queen, according to the Constitution, and limited by a Parliament. The Hagu is nearer the sea-coast than the other cities, and connected by railway with Amsterdai in the north-east and Rotterdam in the south-east. It is said to be one of the finest citi( in Europe ; canals and shady avenues of linden-trees run in every direction, while besic stately houses, fine libraries, museums and churches there are grand parks an many palaces. One of these, the Mauritz Huis, has a splendid collection < pictures, including some of the most precious of the works of the old Dutc masters, and other interesting collections of various kinds. The Hague h; twenty churches. The finest of all is the Great Church, built almost s hundred years ago. In its lofty six sided tower there is a chime of thirty-eigl bells. Connected with the thrilling history of Holland and the Hague is the Gevangei poort, or prison gate house, which has at different times confined many great men ; an Scheven ingen. 1 6 1 the irregular drawbridge-guarded and moat-inclosed Binnenhof and the Buitenhof, a mass of public buildings, raised at different times and built by many different hands. The Hague is one of the best built and least Dutch towns in Holland. The French language is much spoken, and Parisian manners and customs, shops and society are very marked. Many of the streets are broad, brick-paved and bordered with trees. A number of tame storks are kept in a small house in the Fish Market and strut about there with a grand air of importance. The arms of the Hague are represented by a stork, and throughout the kingdom the bird is almost sacred ; it is never disturbed or injured ; to kill one is little less than a crime. Great pains are taken to induce them to build their nests in the roof of farm houses and on the edge of a gable or near the chimney of town dwellings. On the outskirts of the town is a noble forest, in the midst of which stands what the Dutch call Y Huis in Y Bosch, the House in the Wood. This is a royal palace, where some beautiful tapestry may be seen ; and many fresco works of the Antwerp painter, Peter Paul Rubens, who, with some of his greatest artist pupils, painted the ceiling and walls of several rooms in the House. The Hague is a fashionable town, supported chiefly by the court and nobility. It is also a busy manufacturing place, in all the trades belonging to book making, carriage building, cabinet work, rope spinning and dressing leather. Scheveningen, the old port and fishing village on the North Sea, a favorite bathing place, is reached from the Hague by a broad causeway, bordered with rows of trees. The suburbs of the town have many beautiful country seats. There is nothing a Dutch- man sets more value on than a country seat, which is generally a brightly painted wooden house called a summer house or garden house with carefully laid out gardens and a fish pond. Ryswick, where the treaty of peace was made in 1697, is not far off, and on the way to Rotterdam is the famous town of Delft, where the first European crockery table ware was made. The oldest city of the Netherlands is Utrecht, which was built by the Romans and is now about the size of Richmond, Virginia, with over seventy thousand people. It lies about twenty-five miles south-east of Amsterdam, surrounded by a beautiful and cultivated country, of woods, hills, meadows and orchards, through which railways run in many directions from the city, while the Old Rhine and River Vecht connect it with other cities and provinces of the continent. Thus favorably situated for trade, Utrecht plays an important part in the Dutch commerce, especially with grain, cattle, and its manufactures, which are principally woolens, plush called " Utrecht velvet," carpets, furniture, baskets, tin, copper and silver work, sawing wood, rope-making, iron founding and book printing ; besides making salt, and large quantities of tobacco and cigars, which last are the leading industries of the place. Here, also, good people have built homes and hospitals for those who are not able to take care of themselves. The handsome houses of many noble Dutch families stand in Utrecht, and there are besides, a high military court, the Mint and other important 1 62 Cities of the World. national institutions. The " Pope's House," built by Adrian VI., who was born ii Utrecht in 1459, is the building used for government offices. The " Domkerk " is a fim old cathedral, consecrated to St. Martin about the year 720. The body of the building was destroyed by a hurricane about two hundred and fifty years ago, and is now a ruin leaving the great tower, which is over three hundred feet high, standing alone. Utrecht is famous in history as the place where the union of the northern province: called "the Netherlands" was formed in 1579; and in this place the great peace treaty of 1713 was signed by ambassadors from nearly every country of Europe. It ha; always been noted for education. The grand old University was founded here in 1636 and there are also many fine common schools, special academies and societies for train ing teachers, military surgeons, musicians and students in a great many branches ol learning, especially science. The ancient walls which used to surround the city hav< been leveled and made into beautiful tree-planted walks and carriage ways. The most famous educational town of Holland is Leyden, of a little more than forty- two thousand people, and about the size of Wilmington, Delaware. It is low and flat, with many canals, broad streets, and handsome squares. Studded with windmills it stands amid beautiful meadows on the bank of the Old Rhine. William of Orange founded the University, whither students from all parts of Eu- rope have come for more than three hundred years, calling it the " Athens of the West." Here the great chemist, Cuneus, discovered how to gather electricity in what is called the Leyden jar. The Pilgrims from England lived in this old town for ten years before they came to America. Haarlem, directly west of Amsterdam, three miles from the sea, is a town noted foi cleanliness, even in the clean country of Holland. It is about the size of Utica, New York, the home of more than forty-three thousand people. In the nursery gardens on the outskirts, large quantities of tulip and hyacinth bulbs are raised, which by railway and canal are shipped to all parts of Europe, along with a great deal of woven goods made in the town. St. Bavo's Kerk, built in the fifteenth century, is the finest of Haar- lem's thirteen churches, and the largest in the Netherlands. It has a lofty tower, and one of the most immense organs in the world. From the roof of this cathedral hang quaint little ships, under full sail, models of old Dutch galleons, placed there as offer- ings by sailors starting on long voyages. In the square before the church is a marble statue of Laurenz Coster, the inventor of printing, the Dutch say. The Museum has a splendid collection of paintings, visited by the greatest artists in the world ; and in the Town Hall, long ago the residence of the Counts of Holland, are some fine carvings. These, with the palace of the States-General and many of the educational and charitable buildings, are well worth seeing. The beautiful pleasure-grounds near the city are known as the Woods of Haarlem. In the sixteenth century the overflowing of the sea made a great lake fourteen miles long and ten broad, between this town and Amster- 164 Cities of the World. dam. After twelve years' labor with steam pumps, the Dutch succeeded in draining this off, and in 1850 the work was done, and the bottom of Haarlem Lake is now a country of rich farms and the home of about ten thousand people. Haarlem is noted in history for its heroic defense against the Spaniards in the seven- months siege of 1572, when even the women formed a company of three hundred sol- diers. But it was all in vain. The town had to surrender after the last mouthful of food was gone, and the faithless Spaniards broke their promise and put the people to death. In Holland, winter is perhaps the most welcome of all seasons. Directly the ice bears there is an army of skaters and sledgers appears ; visits are made and distances traveled over canal and river, which can not be done in Summer ; few American boys and girls know any thing of such ice sports and winter fun as are then abroad ; the Dutch do not go round and round a lake, or up and down certain stretches of a stream, but make up parties and pay visits to some neighboring towns or villages. The bracing air of a bright Winter morning rosies the faces of many a gay little Dutch company out for the day. After a severe frost some of the rivers or large canals flowing through the cities, are a perfect show, like a great fancy fair, with thousands of skaters in their Dutch costumes, gliding in and out, among sledges, ice-boats, stalls and booths. When all the water-ways about a city are frozen the trek-schuit or drag-boat traffic gives way to sledges, large -and small. " Near dwelling houses are seen little box-sledges for the chil- dren. These are precisely the same as the seventeenth century contrivances ; the child sits with just room for its feet, and, with stick in each hand, pushes astern and propels itself ahead. Some of the sledges for grown up folks are of many different shapes, some of them are gorgeously fitted up with most picturesque gear, harness and trappings. They are generally of the swan-like shape, the ' sleighers ' sitting in the body, the driver perched at the back, as on the tail, the sweeping-irons following the curve of the swan's neck; over these run the reins." One horse is all that is usually driven before a sledge ; but a particularly sumptuous equipage, requiring more would have them in tandem. BELGIUM. THE country of the Belgians is almost the size of the State of Maryland, and, be- tween Holland and France, occupies a gradual slope from the hilly districts of north- ern Germany to the level shore of the North Sea. It is free and independent, surrounded by some unloving and mighty neighbors. The nation is made up of both Keltic and Teutonic people ; more than half speak the Flemish tongue, but the language of the Court and nearly all the people of the high class is French. According to the size of the country there are more people in Belgium than any where in the world, excepting the island of Malta. Brussels, the capital, stands not far from the center of the Belgian territory, in the midst of a beautiful and fertile country ; it is picturesquely built on the top and sides of a hill, which slopes down to the Senne, at about fifty miles from the sea. Around the original town there are extensive new districts ; but the old city is the most import- ant. It is pentagon-shape, with a labyrinth of short, straight or curved streets, cut through here and there by a long avenue or irregular square, and bounded by boulevards 1 66 Cities of the World. which occupy the site of the old fortifications. On fine summer evenings the northern and eastern sections of the boulevards are thronged with carriages, riders, and walkers, who make a gay and animated stream, which under the grand old trees on. the south-east, usually flows into the Avenue Louise on its way to the Bois de la Cambre. This is a beautiful park which is the Bois de Bologne of " Little Paris," as Brussels is often called. The Cambre is one-fifth the size of Bologne, as Brussels has a little more than one-fifth as many people as Paris ; but beyond lies the Forest of Soigne, which is much grander and more extensive than any suburban wood of the French capital, even Fontainebleau. In many respects Brussels suffers by comparison with .other great cities ; the Senne is a wretched little stream ; but this is now arched over, and flows unseen beneath a long line of boulevards above it, running the longest way through almost the center of the inner city. The main part of the city is within the five-sided figure anciently described by the ramparts ; beyond there are residences, broad and regular streets with many tree- planted squares, and notable buildings ; but the center of life is within the lines. The pentagon is made up of two parts', each with characteristics of its own. The New Town, or upper part, occupying the south-east side, is dry, healthy, and contains straighter and broader streets than the Old Town, with the great boulevards and a number of sump- tuous houses and private offices, foreign ministries, and extensive hotels. There are innumerable fountains, some of which are handsomely ornamented with sculptures in stone and bronze. The streets are macadamized ; but the most of them are causewayed ; with sidewalks or trottoirs the language of Brussels is French either flagged or paved with flint-stones. Some of the streets are remarkably handsome, with shops and cafes much like those of Paris. 4 Many of the squares are used as market-places. Adjoining the boulevard that separates the New Town from the aristocratic eastern suburb called the Quarter Leopold, is the Public Park. This fashionable summer resort is beautifully laid out with walks, along which you come upon groups of sculpture every little way, beneath the shady trees on the soft turf that is kept fresh and green. At the northern end almost the entire width of the Park is overlooked by the National Palace, where the Belgian Senate and the Chamber of Deputies hold their sittings ; at the end stands the Palace of the King, or Palais Royal, a handsome group of buildings with beautiful apartments and a number of ancient and modern pictures. The Rue Royale bounds the Park on the west, running along the margin of the height upon which the upper town stands. The traffic in this or any of the adjacent streets is not important, although there have been some attractive new shops opened here lately. The row of stately houses facing the Park is often broken by small terraces, over which you get glimpses of the lower town. But a better view is to be had from the beautiful Gothic cathedral of St. Gudule and St. Michel, a little beyond. This is one of the most imposing buildings in the capital ; being surrounded by a boulevard and large open place, its rich walls, towers and chapels are open to the view. The paintings, stained glass, and wood Brussels. 167 carvings are very fine. The tower commands a beautiful view of the town as it descends rather abruptly toward the boulevards over the river. The Old Town is the most ancient and the most interesting quarter of Brussels ; the canals are many ; the streets are mostly narrow and somber, overhung with medieval houses that tell of ancient char- acteristics and early glory ; the whole is now devoted to ihdustry and commerce ; the latter is not very large, but the manufactures of lace, furniture, bronzes, carriages, and leather articles are very important. The principal streets and the great streams of people always tend to- ward a common center in the very midst of the old town. It is the Grande Place, or market place, the liveliest and most crowded place in all the city ; around it are grand old buildings of the Middle Ages, and over it hover associations of the most important events in Brussels history. The florid, antique houses date from the Spanish pos- session ; and the majestic Hotel de Ville, " with daring irregularity and inexhaustible combination of shapes and colors," is one of the noblest and most beautiful buildings to be found in the kingdom. The ornamented and irregu- HOME WORK, BELGIUM. lar quadrangle, with ancient court inclosed, and graceful tower, three hundred and seventy feet high, was built in the first half of 1400 ; the elaborate niches are filled with statuettes, and on the open spire a gilded figure of the Archangel Michael tells all the town which way the wind blows. The decorations of the interior are so beau- tiful and so full of historical interest that the old Town Hall is one of the chief museums in the city. There are other exhibitions also that attract many tourists to Brussels. The 1 68 Cities of the World. Royal Belgian Museum is some distance to the south-west of the cathedral, and contains a valuable gallery of paintings, which has no equal in the country ; adjoining are the Royal Library and the Palace of Fine Arts, and near by several other sumptuous palaces extending to the Palais Royal ; many stand on the Rue de Regence, which leads to the pride of the city, the great and grand Palace of Justice, which was opened in 1883, when the jubilee over Belgium as a separate kingdom was held. It is the largest architectural work of the nineteenth century, being considerably larger on the ground than St. Peter's at Rome ; it cost ten millions of dollars. The Royal Palace of Justice is near the Royal Museum. At the point of the pentagon, the old Porte de Hall marks the extremity of the inner town. This ancient-looking prison-house was built in 1381 ; " it was the Bas- tile of Alva during the Belgian Reign of Terror ; " but its vaulted chambers and project- ing tower are now peacefully employed as a museum of weapons and antiquities. The stretch of country called Flanders occupies nearly the whole of Belgium between Brussels and the coast ; it is like one vast garden of naturally rich and fertile soil that has been under wise and careful tillage for centuries. There are so many people that the land has become cut up into many small portions,which, limited as they are, support an extremely prosperous race of small peasant farmers and villagers, the villages often numbering as many as eight thousand souls, who are busily engaged in almost every handicraft. ;% The rich and picturesque dress of the people of Flanders is of medieval fashion ; the women, wearing long dark-hooded mantles, look something like nuns, except that the attire is more comfortable and comely, and is usually made still more pleasing to see by valuable ear-rings and brooches set with genuine brilliants, old family heirlooms that tell the story of long generations of uninterrupted prosperity." The principal outlet for products of Flanders and all other parts of Belgium, as well as some of Germany, is Antwerp. This is a great and a growing city now ; but the height of its power and glory was in the Middle Ages, especially after Columbus's discovery of America, and the finding of a pas- sage through Europe to India. The centuries between then and now brought great changes to the great city ; but in these latter days it has once more, and this time peace- fully, advanced to prosperity. To-day it is one of the greatest European seaports, with a population of two hundred thousand, and a commerce up and down the river Escheldt that has increased faster since 1837 than that of any other place in Europe. It is now said to be almost equal to Hamburg and Marseilles. The " lazy Schelde " is a third of a mile broad at the city and very deep ; on its quiet surface there are always many vessels tugging at anchor or lining the docks, while hundreds, even thousands of workmen are busily loading and unloading many kinds of merchandise. There are steamers large and small, and sailing vessels of all descriptions here ships, barks, and schooners, of American and English rig, or the heavier Dutch craft ; vessels from further north, riding the waves beside the lateen-sail boats of the south and east, all mingled in a fantastic group, flying the colors of many nations. The country should ever be indebted to TOWN HALL, BRUSSELS.. 1 70 Cities of the World. Napoleon for the acres of majestic ports and miles of noble dpcks which make up and line this harbor ; and among all the ports to which the great transatlantic liners enter, they rarely, if ever, rest by finer or busier quays than those of Antwerp. On one of these quays stands the sculptured Gate of the Escaut (another name for the Schelde), which was designed by Peter Paul Rubens. The docks lie at the northern end of the town, and are quite distinct from the quays. Their two hundred and fifty acres are usually filled with large steamers and merchantmen, receiving or discharging cargoes by the means of gigantic and noiseless hydraulic cranes, which are worked by underground water power. Immense bales and boxes of goods are carried by the cranes directly from the vessels to the railway trucks, of which about twenty-five hundred leave Antwerp every day for different parts of Europe. Around the docks stand large warehouses, with powerful steam elevators for raising merchandise to the lofty stores. The largest of these buildings is the Entrepot Royal ; but the most interesting is the Maison Hansfatique, or Hanseatic House, a massive and venerable magazine, almost three hundred and fifty years old. This was a great warehouse of the Hanse-cities in the days of the Hanseatic League, when that famous trade union was mistress of nearly all the commerce of Europe. It bears even now the armorial bearings of the three cities of the League, with the inscription in Latin : " The warehouse of the German Hanse, protected by the Holy Roman Empire." In 1863 the Hanseatic towns ceded it to Belgium for all river dues that could be demanded from their vessels. The best harbor view is from the Vlaamsch Hoofd or Tete de Flandre, a fortress on the left bank of the river, opposite the Gate of the Escaut, in the center of the river front. Along the river lies the old town, whose ancient double ramparts you can trace in the two parallel sets of boulevards or avenues that form a regular and gentle curve above the river ; beyond lies the new city, covering about six times as much territory, and with it forming almost a perfect half- round on the right bank of the stream. Always a famous citadel, Antwerp has a fine new set of fortifications now, with massive bastioned walls, detached forts, and great moats, making a grand semi-circular sweep all the way around the land sides of the city. It is the principal arsenal of the kingdom, and, in case of need, will be the rendezvous of the Belgian army. It would take fully a hundred and seventy thousand enemies to conquer it under siege, and the inhabitants could live for a year cut oT from outside supplies. Antwerp is the most interesting town in Belgium, and, as the people are nearly all Flemish, it is much like a Dutch, or a German city, but with one great difference ; no one would accuse Antwerp of the Dutch cleanliness. In place of the high but narrow houses, common in the Netherlandish cities, thefoare here older and often more preten- tious structures ; the streets and sidewalks are built with the smooth Belgian pave- ment, and between rows of costly modern buildings there are many lines of American horse-cars. No Dutch or German galleries have any Flemish pictures to compare with STREET SCENE, BRUGES. 172 Cities of the World. Antwerp's wonderful works of Peter Paul Rubens, which, alone, draw hundreds of people every year. Every other attraction in the city is second to the majestic old cathedral where these gems of art are kept. " The glory of the Cathedral of Antwerp is in the great paintings which it enshrines." There are three in all, " The Assumption," and two others still greater representing the Saviour's " Descent from the Cross," and the " Elevation of the Cross." A celebrated writer says, These are paintings whose treatment, like their subject, is divine, and although the " Descent " is generally thought to be Rubens's masterpiece, 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 in the earth. The form is that of a living man. The hands and feet are stream- ing with blood, and the body drops, as it hangs, with all its weight on the nails. But the look is one of life and not of death. The face 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, it is the dying God. 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." They dignify the plain whitewashed interior of the cathedral ; they honor the city in which they rest ; and even make the country famous as the land where the great Rubens lived, worked, and died, though he was born in Cologne. " Out of meanness and dirt, the cathedral lifts its head toward heaven." There is a view from the single finished tower, that costs about fifteen cents and a steady mount of*six hundred and twenty-five stone steps to obtain it, but repays you with compound interest. " The eye ranges over almost the whole of Belgium, a vast plain dotted with cities and villages." In this lofty tower of open arches, which Napoleon said looked as if made of Mechlin lace, there hangs a chime of bells which ring out some soft, delicious melody every quarter hour, like heavenly music from the clouds. The roof below is supported by a hundred and twenty-five pillars, and beneath it are six aisles. There is no other church in Europe with so % many. The church was founded in the Middle Ages, is of the handsome Gothic style, in the form of a cross, five hundred feet long, two hundred and fifty feet broad. There are only a few cathedrals more grand than this in the world ; but the shops that hedge it in, and back up against its walls, shamefully cover and mar its beauty. It stands adjoining the Place Verte, which is in' the very heart of the old town, and the meeting place of an innumerable number of streets, among which are about half a dozen of the busiest and most important in Antwerp. Near the principal portal is the Well, the famous old fountain with its graceful iron-work canopy of Quinten Massys, "at one time a black- smith, afterward a famous painter," as the inscription on his tombstone reads. Upon the short and ancient streets, running in every direction, from here toward the river and -- *-'^ '---:. 3 Pr^r^CTi J ^^^*^Sf!^ c ^ ' ' - ,. t * THE BELFRY, BRUGES. 174 Cities of the World. toward the boulevards, there stand most of the remaining celebrated buildings of Ant- werp. The Hotel de Ville in the Grand' Place, close by the river, is imposingly built in stories of columns and arcades and circular arched windows ; it is almost bewildering inside with its colored Belgian marbles, its wood carvings, scenes in ancient Antwerp, and other paintings. The other buildings around the Grand' Place, are mainly Guild houses or trades halls, which are peculiar to Belgian cities, and especially in Antwerp, Ghent, and Brussels, are among the most notable sights. They are grandly proportioned and richly decorated halls, once belonging to the proud guildes, or trade societies ; many of the buildings are still known by their old names, as the Guild Hall of the Archers, Hall of the Coopers, House of the Sailors, and the Hall of the Carpenters, all of which are at least two hundred years old, and many are nearly twice that age. With museums and fine public institutions, Antwerp is well supplied, and among the best streets running through the center of the old town toward the new, one of the most notable is the broad and handsome sweep of the Longue Rue Neuve } where the gay shops are richly stored and well patronized ; almost parallel with it is the Place de Metr, a broad avenue, formed by arching over a canal ; it is built up with handsome new houses, but also containing the Royal Palace, Rubens's house and a few other par- ticularly fine old mansions. The inner set of parallel boulevards is very wide ; and shaded with rows of trees near the center of the city. Bordering on one of the outer "rings " is the park, which is shaped like a perfect triangle and occupies the site of an old lunette, with the moats made into a large and ornamental sheet of water. There is a charming view from the high chain bridge crossing this lake. To the west and the north-west is the old town, skirting the river, with all the most quaint as well as many of the most imposing buildings churches, museums, hospitals, and barracks, among less pretentious houses. On the north these old and the newer quarters are skirted by the great inclosed docks ; on the south-west are large schools and exhibition buildings, with many of the military institutions, while on the south of the triangle-shaped park lies the most openly built part of the city, with several long, fine avenues, few of which run regularly, but meet in crescents, acute angles, obtuse angles and every shape except in even right angles. The east and north-east quarters are also occupied by many resi- dences, by the Zoological Gardens and churches ; the districts beyond the fortifications are laid out in avenues and streets, more sparsely settled. There are a few other parks, but the Belgian cities are not so richly supplied with pleasure grounds as Germany, nor even as well as France, although the people much like the French in many things are very fond of out-door life and use what parks they have to the best advantage. Beside these two leading cities of the " land of belfries, town halls, stained glass and carved pulpits," there are several others belonging to the world's list of great cities. Cities of the World. Ghent was the most populous city of Europe in the Middle Ages, and has now about a hundred and thirty-five thousand people, who are chiefly occupied in the great cotton-spinning factories, the largest and finest in the kingdom. Liege, with a hundred and twenty-six thousand people, is also feeling a return of bygone prosperity, and is now the center of the Belgian iron industry ; Bruges (forty-five thousand people) is a town " whose splendid garments are too large for its shrunken body," and can only tell in a mute way of past magnificence ; Mechlin, or Malines, with about the same popula- tion, famous for lace, is now the railroad center of Belgium ; Louvain, too, of thirty-six thousand people, is celebrated for having had the greatest university in Europe in the sixteenth century. THE PIERS AT OSTEND. SWITZERLAND. '"T^HIS small country of Europe is about half the size of the state of Indiana with a JL third more people. It is a sturdy, independent little republic, occupying the highest land of Europe, grandly protected by the Juras and the Alps from the larger and more powerful nations of Germany on the north, Austria on the east, France on the west and Italy on the south. The southern portion of the country is the most beautiful and mountainous district in the world ; there is a broad and lovely plain above, extending to the Juras in what are called the Swiss Lowlands. Here lie the prin- cipal cities. There are not many, and although they are all more or less famous, none rank among the first of the world's great cities. The largest town in Switzer- land is Geneva. It stands on both sides of the southern end of Lake Leman, where it narrows to a point and ends as it began in the river Rhone. A breakwater forms a safe harbor for the many steamboats run- ning between this and various other im- portant places on the lake. The swift rushing Rhone flows through the city in two branches forming two islands, which with the two large divisions also are con- nected by several wooden bridges and a very fine stone bridge. One of these islands is a small public pleasure ground, where there is a bronze statue of Jean Jacques Rousseau, " who first made Leman and the Rhone beautiful in literature, and so in the eyes of the world " The island THE JUNGFRAU FROM INTERLAKEN, is named after the great Genevese author ; IN THE ALPS. it is described as "just large enough to hold the statue and two or three Lombardy poplars, and to form in its lee an inclosure for a large and quar- 7 8 Cities of the World. relsome colony of swans." On the second island stand "tall old-fashioned houses of workmen and washerwomen, that form a part of the St. Gervais quarter of the city, or the Geneva of the right shore." This is an antique and picturesque quarter backed by a range of snow-capped mountains, with Mont Blanc looming up still higher forty miles away in a straight line. The washerwomen are an odd sight. " They pound and rinse their clothes in plain view of all comers every week- day in the year in the covered boats anchored by the banks of the Rhone ; the water THE LAKE AND CITY OF GENEVA. rushes past them swift and pure ; behind them are the old Savoyard houses, almost pre- historic in their quaintness. The old town occupies but a small part of the present city, with its " tall, queer houses, standing thick and dingy, one looking over the others' shoulders as they crowd upon the hillside. The chimney pots reach out over the tiles in all sorts of angles and tilting with the sky as you look up, and mark the towers of the old cathedral of St. Peter, and the Hotel de Ville, rising from their midst." The Cathe- dral was raised in 1124, and around it centered the medieval history of Geneva there Geneva. 179 the words of the wonderful invalid John Calvin rung out for the first time and spread abroad till now they guide the religious opinions of fifty millions of people. " The building inside or out is not imposing ; the classic facade dates only from the eighteenth century, for the statues and many other beauties were swept away by the reformers " ; but within it is very much as Calvin left it, over three hundred years ago. " The canopy of the pulpit from which he preached, and the chair in which he sat when others preached, the front seats with the names of the old pastors and the other seats bearing the names of the old Genevese families, all are there as when the city was Cal- vanistic Rome, the school and printing press of Protestant Europe, the refuge of reformers, a center of energy and activity in the making and Spreading abroad of Bibles or martyrs that has probably never been equaled in the history of the world. The cathe- MEMORIAL HALL OF THE REFORMATION, GENEVA. dral has been the forum or center of city life as well as the sanctuary of Geneva ; there year after year the citizens have assembled in general council, elected their magis- trates and voted their laws." Next to this in historical importance, and surpassing it in architecture is the Hotel de Ville with its quaint squat tower, about which zigzags a wide paved carriageway up to the different stories of the building " containing the various chambers used as the seat of the cantonal government, which in Switzerland corresponds to our state legislatures, for the management of the Swiss cantons is much like our states government. Here on certain days of the week the magistrate performs the civil marriage, which must legalize all unions. In front of the building, the remains of the old ramparts form a handsome terrace, from which there is a i So Cities of the World. fine view of the Plainpalais and the valley of the Rhone and Arve. Across the street from the Hotel de Ville is an arsenal, or rather a museum of old arms and armor, where some of the spikes, petards, and scaling ladders captured at the famous Escalade the last struggle of Geneva with the dukes of Savoy, in 1602 are shown. A fountain in memory of this victorious event stands at the bottom of the crooked street leading from the Hotel de Ville to the Rhone. It is the street in which Rousseau was born and is called the Grande Rue. During the past thirty or forty years Geneva has been altered and improved very much. The ancient ramparts have been taken down, the narrow, close streets widened and well-paved, and new and spacious quays have been built along the lake and river. One of th'e favorite resorts is the English Garden, a promenade laid out along part of the new quay on the left side of the river. In the plain into which the new city is spreading a botanic garden has been laid out, and the Muse"e Rath, or Rath Museum, and other fine looking buildings for the use of science and art have been raised. The fame of Geneva's watch-makers is world-wide. Above the washerwomen's sheds there is a square tower, known as the Tower of Caesar. It stands almost in the center of the city and after all its thrilling history is now the home of a peaceful watch-maker* and serves with its three dial faces standing in a row and looking toward the water, to tell at once the time of Paris, Geneva, and Bern. On all sides, especially toward St. Gervais, it looks down on the homes of a great hidden army of watch-makers. Out of the city's population of about seventy thousand there are about five thousand men over one third of the male inhabitants constantly engaged in making watches, while two or three thousand more are employed in making musical boxes. The remainder are mostly jewelry workers. These three industries are the chief occupations of the people. It is supposed that about one hundred and fifty thousand watches are made in Geneva every year. The work is separated into two departments, the watch-makers and the case-makers. There are no very large factories, and all the men usually work at home. Where a quaint old house reaches out for light high above the dinginess of its narrow court you may be sure that it contains the work room of some watch-maker, or engraver, some case-maker or enameler. Geneva is a remarkably well-governed place ; you only see policemen when they are needed ; every one who takes up his home here can share in the freedom, and, whether he is liked or not, he is undisturbed so long as he is quiet. There are always many exiles in Geneva, aliens for right or for wrong, but there are no foreign beggars here, or any other kind in fact, for beggars are not allowed. Altogether this little city, which has ever stood well in the eyes of the world, " was never more prosperous nor more deserving of her position of honor than at present." There is one set of inhabitants that always have a great many visitors ; they are the eagles of Geneva. There are six of the great birds kept in a large double cage, par- STREET SCENE, BERN. 1 82 Cities of the World. tially overhanging the river. They are the property of the city, and like the bears of Bern, are kept at the public expense. The eagles occupy, like Bern's bears, a pictorial position in the shield of Geneva, and if one dies another is procured to take its place. The second town and the wealthiest of the country, is the trading city of Basel, 01 Bale. The entire place, including great Bale on the south side of the Rhine, and little Bale on the north bank, has only about sixty thousand people now, though in the middle ages it was very large and important. You would not think as you pass through its clean streets and among its well built houses that it is the richest city of this thriving republic ; but if you were a close observer you would soon recognize its prosperity, when you visited the fine schools, hospitals and places provided for orphans, and unfortunate people who are deaf, dumb and variously afflicted. For the use of the city and the celebrated university, there are some unusally good museums with coin collections, natural history cabinets, libraries, picture galleries and an attractive botanic garden. The university was a very important one during the Reformation. Erasmus and many other great scholars taught within its walls. Switzerland leads the world in its interest and atten- tion to education. One-fifth of all the money the government spends is on education and religion. An Austrian who is an authority, says : twenty per cent of the taxes paid by the Swiss are used to improve the education, morals and religious sentiments of the population. Switzerland has one university for every four hundred thousand inhabi- tants ; all other European countries are in this far behind the little highland republic, which uses nearly fourteen per cent of its whole income to educate and train its young people, with splendid elementary a'nd high schools, gymnasia and academies, universities and polytechnic institutes, all modeled upon the best of systems. The capital of Switzerland is Bern, the third city, with about forty-five thousand people. It stands on a lofty sand-stone promontory seventeen hundred feet above the sea. The winding Aar river surrounds it on three sides, and is crossed by two stone bridges, one of which is very handsome and adds a great deal to the natural beauties of the city. On the fourth side the old fortifications have been made into pub- lic walks. From a distance Bern is a fine, imposing looking city, and on nearer view is equally pleasing, with its quaint streets and handsome houses. These are massive free- stone structures and in some places built above arcades, in which the shops of the city are situated, lining the covered walks on both sides of the streets with their odd signs and showy windows. Whichever way one walks he is almost sure to find it lead to some pleasant public promenade, in full view of the snowy Alpine peaks, and even within the town the streets are pleasantly adorned with fountains and have fresh rills of water flow- ing through them. The Gothic cathedral, over four hundred years old, and several other buildings in Bern are of special interest ; the new Federal Council Hall is a magnificent structure, and the mint, the hospital, the university, libraries and museums are all a Bern. 183 credit to the capital. A favorite walk toward evening or on Sunday afternoon is to the bear pit, where these animals are kept and cared for at the public expense, after a custom that is centuries old. It is believed that the town was once the native home of bears, from which it was named Bern, meaning bear ; many traditions are told about them ; and throughout the place the figure of a bear is a familiar ornament. There are not large manufacturing industries at Bern ; gunpowder, firearms, leather, straw hats and paper are chiefly the articles made here ; while considerable outside trade is also carried on. The living is cheap, for the corporate property is so large that all the city expenses are paid from its income, and all the citizens are provided with fuel gratis and receive an annual distribution from the surplus. There is no coal to be had in Switzerland ; the forests that cover one-sixth of the whole country are of great importance. Wood cutting is one of the chief employments of the people, and some of the finest of wood work and wood carving is done there ; the mountain pastures and the meadows cover two-fifths of the land, and feed the herds and flocks, while silks and cotton are raised and manufactured in considerable quantities. Although Switzerland is inland its commerce, carried on across the lakes and up the great rivers, in proportion to the population, has long exceeded that of any other country on the continent. It sends out wood and charcoal, cattle, tallow, cheese and butter, silks, cottons, watches and jewelry, in exchange for metals used in making jewelry and watches, corn, salt, fruits and products that this mountainous country can not grow. There are excellent roads from one part of the republic to another, and approved modern steam- boats ply from place to place across the lakes. The steep mountains have been tunneled and the plains overspread from one end to the other with railways that make a complete network of communication closely connecting the numerous small towns and villages in all parts of the country. IRELAND. Among Americans the most widely known place in Ireland is the bold cliff-guarded harbor of Queen stown. It is not unlike the New York harbor, with Roche's Point instead of the Narrows, and the circular bay beyond with its islands and hilly shores, It has anchorage for thousands of ships and is deep enough to admit the largest at any QUEENSTOWN. tide. " At the head of the bay, in an almost straight line from the Point, is the town of square, white houses, built in terraces, on a wooded and heathery bluff." It is a pretty sight of green and white, almost like some tropical scene, when the sun is shining. " At the foot of the cliff and along the quays is a street of shops and taverns ; the higher terraces are principally dwellings, and the higher they are the better is the class to which Queenstown. they belong ; the top ridge of all is crowned by a few beautiful palace-like villas. The town itself is a dull place, its use being very largely as a touching place for transatlantic steamers." All the mail steamers between New York, Boston, and Philadelphia and Liverpool call at it whichever way they are bound, to receive and deliver mails ; vessels stop long enough for a great deal of business to be done by telegraph and writing, or a short trip to the lakes of Killarney ; it is an important emigrant station and landing place for tourists bound for the North. There are so many Americans in the town that LAKES OF KILLARNEY. it seems more a part of the United States than of Great Britain. The name of Queens- town was given in honor of the queen, when her majesty visited the port in 1850. Before this it was called the Cove of Cork, being situated but a short distance above the city of CORK. This has about eighty thousand people and is the third city of Ireland. Not- withstanding Father Prout's praises of the "beautiful " city, Cork is small in size, with uninteresting houses of old red sandstone, and untidy streets, though of considerable commercial importance and forever famous for Blarney Castle and the Blarney stone, which you must not fail to kiss whenever you go there, for it will give you the gift of eloquence in return for your salute. . 1 86 Cities of the World. Belfast, the second city of the country, with its active, wide awake population ol three hundred and fifty thousand, is a very different place, and a seaport too. It has all the life and trade of Manchester and Glasgow, with far less smoke and dirt to obscure its outline of lofty and handsome buildings against the background of green hills. Along the extensive and well built quays lies the mercantile quarter, while the manu- factories stand on higher ground on the north and west of the city. Many villas are L__^__ _u in n - _^znaMc along the northern shores of the bay, and the White Linen Hall quarter is made up of well built and spacious streets, always full of people, for Belfast is the chief center of trade and manufacture in north- ern Ireland. It is well situated for yiilflllilSK commerce, and is growing so fast that before long it may become the first city in Green Erin. Beside the staple industries of linen and cotton DONEGAL PLACE, BELFAST making in all their branches, there are many houses employing thousands of hands in iron founding, flour and oil mills and other occupations, to fill the demands of shipping and outside trade. The exchange buildings are some of the most important in the city. The harbor has been improved very much lately, with many fine new docks and a tidal basin ; it now ranks among the best in Great Britain. The chief port of Ireland is at Dublin, the capital, which is not only a very important city but a beautiful one as well. Surrounded by grand mountain scenery, it stands on slightly rolling ground, much of it reclaimed from the sea, with the " watery highway " of the Liffey dividing it almost in the center, before emptying into Dublin Bay. The favorite drive of the Dubliners is CASTLE PLACE, BELFAST. Dublin. i8 7 the Circular Road, which makes a circuit of nearly nine miles around the city, inclosing its widely contrasting quarters, where live the high and low, the rich and poor of a strangely broken nation. The .river runs from west to east and is the main highway of the capital. The north-east and south-east quarters are occupied by the aristocracy, with lofty houses overlooking beautiful squares, lining the splendid streets or standing upon terraces above them. Dublin is famous for its squares ; there are a great many, always large and well kept, and often embellished with statuary. Stephen's Green, the largest, covers twenty acres, and is about a mile around ; and Merrion square, more elegant and aristocratic, is thirteen acres in size. The most imposing thoroughfare THE FOUR COURTS, DUBLIN. is Sackville street, which is a hundred and twenty feet broad ; it begins at Rutland Square in about the center of the upper town and from the beautiful building of the general Post Office, leads the way, with many a handsome edifice and noble monument, to the river and the Carlisle Bridge, which is the finest of the many that connect the two towns of the Irish capital. A continuation of the handsome street leads to the large park or square of the Trinity College and University, which forms a triangle whose point is al- most at the foot of the Bridge. This is in the center of the city, which vies with the north-west quarters in the style of its great emporiums of trade. In many of the shop- i88 Cities of the World. windows you can see magnificent quantities of rich linens and damasks, and lustrous pieces of the famous Irish poplins, made nowhere else in the world. There are many residences of the middle class of people here, while in the " Liberties," or the south-west division, the narrow, crooked streets are filled with huts and shanties, which are the homes of thousands of the most squalid and degraded sons and daughters of the Emerald CUSTOM HOUSE, DUBLIN. Isle. The Phoenix Park, which became of familiar name soon after the murder of Lord Cavendish and Mr. Burke, adjoins the north-western portion of the city. It is more than twice the size of Central Park in New York City and is a great and popular recreation ground, where military reviews, polo matches, and fine games of cricket are often held. The name is said to have come from the word feitn'ski, or clear water, there being a mineral spring in the neighborhood. The People's Garden is a small part of the Phoenix Park, toward the City Gate ; it is laid out with flower gardens and promenades and is visited by all classes of people. SCOTLAND. THE famous land of Bruce and Wallace, of Scott and Burns, is associated with a thou- sand thrilling stories in legend and in history. Scotland is divided into two distinct portions ; the Highlands of the North are occupied by the Keltic or Gaelic races, while in the South the descendants of the ancient Teutons possess the Lowlands. Herein are the centers of culture and industry, the largest cities and richest country. The most celebrated city is Edinburgh, the largest, Glasgow. Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland, and stands in a most prominent position on the slope and summit of three hills, dominated by the grand old cas- tle in the center. From here there is a view that takes in almost the entire city, and gives a better sight of the contrast between Old Edinburgh on the eastern ridge and New Edin- burgh above, than any other of the high and commanding points. The east of New Edinburgh is guarded by a craggy mound called Gallon Hill, whose base is encircled by broad roads of the town. " You mount by stairs in a cutting of the rock to find yourself in a field of monuments, among which you see that of Dugald Stewart, Burns, and Lord Nelson, as befits a sailor, on the top- gallant of the hill. The old Observatory a quaint brown building on the edge of the steep and the new Observatory a classical edifice with a dome occupy the central portion of the summit. All these are scattered on a green turf, browsed over by some sheep. Immediately below is the famous old Cannon-gate Churchyard. From here you see almost the entire city, tilted by the inclination of the ground, each building standing out in delicate relief against the rest : a prospect full of change and of things moving." The New Town surrounds the castle-hill, on all but the east and south-east sides, with its trim and regular streets, its gay and attractive gardens, its pillars, steeples, and KEYS OF THE CITY, EDINBURGH. 190 Cities of the World. monuments ; " the rest is the Old Town of bulky, endless-storied buildings, and steep descending closes ; it is a city that is set on a hill, grim and sooty among the fair and classic stretches of the newer quarters." In the early days of danger, when Old Edinburgh's walls were the only safeguard for the heads of the Scottish government, it became a place of great importance in the kingdom and grew so rapidly in population that every possible inch of room was used for houses, which soon rose to a height of from five to eleven stories, one side being EDINBURGH. often built against the natural ridges of rock ; throughout the whole city only one or two broad public thoroughfares were left, most of the houses having only steep paved lanes or "closes" between them. The main avenue, the backbone of this u Attld Reikif" as it has been called, led from the Grand Esplanade in front of the Castle, along the ridge to the Palace of Holyrood, or the Holy Cross. The first section of this famous old thor- oughfare is Castle Hill, which was the most aristocratic part of town a century and a half ago. Then comes the Lawn Market, continued by High Street, the broadest of the sec- Edinburgh. 191 tions, and long Cannon Gate, at the end of which stand the ruins of Holyrood Abbey, with the palace beyond, " A deserted palace where no monarch dwells ! " The grand old pile, once the home of the Scottish kings and the fair, unfortunate Marie Stuart, stands almost the same as when the beautiful queen lived here ; it is a museum palace now, although the royal apartments are occasionally occupied. The Queen's Park lies around the Palace, and to the south- ward " the high belt of semi-circular rocks called Salisbury Crags," rises "by knoll and rocky bulwark and precipitous slope to the top of Arthur's Seat." On this great hill the grandly rugged Crags are toward the west, and the fabled knoll of Arthur's Seat is on the south, towering over eight hundred feet above the Firth of Forth on which the port of the city stands. The Queen's Drive round the hill and the rifle ranges in the valley have carried every-day life and society to the spot now ; but for ages it stood in the grandest solitude almost in the midst of the " busy and stormy capital." Sir Walter Scott* whose beautiful monument is on " merry Princes Street " in the New Town, used to wander over this lonely spot, and loved " that wild path winding around the foot," and the view from the heights above " commanding a close-built, high-piled city, stretching itself out in a form like a dragon." Sublime he called it ; and full of sublime associations he and others have left it for us. The heart of Old Edinburgh, where John Knox and Cromwell, David Hume, Boswell, Dr. Johnson and hundreds of other great men and women lived, lies directly between the Salis- bury Crags and the Castle. In the midst of the dense labyrinth rise the stately old college and university buildings, among the most famous in Europe, and the Royal ROYAL EXCHANGE, EDINBURGH. Cities of the World. Infirmary and the extensive Industrial Museum. Above, on High Street, are the long and picturesque Parliament House, Union Bank, Sheriff's Court House, Signet Library and County Hall, all dominated by the lofty spire and beautiful Gothic walls of St. Giles Cathedral. This is the view of " Stately Edinburgh, throned on crags." " Beautiful exceedingly, in the gray morning, in the garish noon-day, and in the golden evening, * * * sublime in the summer afternoon ; and grandly solemn by night when the enormous masses of buildings are illuminated by countless lamps that only make the darkness visible." When the moon is up, its slender spires and Gothic towers are transformed into long streaks of silver light rising here and there out of oceans of massive shadow, while clear and bold against the sky the venerable castle of strength broods over all. In whatever light and at any point the vision of this acropolis is the most alluring sight of all. On all sides but one the rock is bare and rises almost per- pendicular out of the town, with the great buttresses and stone parapets, the walls, batteries and massive round tower of the castle occupying the highest plat- form. Mons Megs and its celebrated artillery com- mand a height almost four hundred feet above the sea. " Frowning like the brow of some colossal Gor- don," some one says ; but to me it seems like a grave but tender guardian, preserving the regalia and great relics of the kingdom, while keeping watch guard over all its capital. In the view from the Castle, " half Scotland stretches around ; on the south, the blue bulk of the Pentland Hills ; on the north, the green, gnarled, round-headed Ochils, with the Firth flowing between ; BANK OF SCOTLAND, EDINBURGH, and on the extreme far north-west, the hills of Rob Roy's country, Ben Lomond, Ben Ledi, Ben Voirlich, and the rest, lifting up their kingly foreheads ; seaward are Inchkeith, the Bass, North Berwick, Law and the Leith ; eastward, the Lion of Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags," while close below the solid limestone of man's rearing, in Edinburgh, old and new. Much of Edinburgh's wealth comes from its banks and insurance offices ; but, except- ing the distilleries, ale and beer breweries, many of which are in the vicinity of Holyrood printing and book publishing houses, and manufacturing of coaches, India-rubber articles and a few other things, the city is quite unimportant in industries ; it is famous for literary, artistic, scientific, law and medical institutions and associations, and its good society. Many of the Scottish landed gentry have fine residences here. There are about two Glasgow. 193 hundred and fifty thousand people living in it, while in Glasgow there are more than twice as many, or five hundred and twenty-five thousand. The port of the river Clyde, the city encircled by hills and uplands with its shipping, its tall chim- neys and two million spindles, is strikingly a city of the present. The old part of the town is level and lies along the river banks, but in the last seventy years it has increased to five times its former size, and now stretches up to the rolling ground of the northern part of the valley. This immense growth is due to the Clyde, which connects the city with a world-wide commerce, especially for the vast quantities of iron and coal abounding in the adjacent districts. It is a well-built and health- A FAMILIAR BIT OF EDINBURGH WEATHER. GLASGOW. 194 Cities of the World. fully managed place, although acres upon acres are occupied by manufactories necessarily dirty and even noxious. There are many fine streets and noble buildings entirely devoted to business and always densely packed with busy people. There is the Cathedral, which was built in the twelfth century, and even compared wifh all the grandeur of Gothic Edinburgh is said to be the finest church of that architecture in Scotland. The University, too, is a celebrated place, with its twelve hundred students and ancient buildings, founded in 1443. Glasgow impresses you as an enterprising, thrifty town ; the fame of its great docks and noble river, its large trade and enormous manufactories have spread all over the world ; part of its wealth is seen in commodious docks, warehouses and places of business, in comfortable homes, good schools and institutions, and pleasant park and pleasure grounds. Thousands of chimneys rear their heads above the roofs of cotton mills, glass-works, paper-mills, dye-works and engine- factories, but all are distanced by the smoke-stack of the St. Rollox chemical works ; these are the largest in the world, and this chimney is four hundred and fifty feet high, as tall as the great pyramid of Egypt. The ship-yards and steamer factories of Glasgow are GO celebrated that the name of " Clyde " is often used for any great ship-yard, especially where iron vessels are made. Nearly all of the coarse linen of Great Britain comes from Dundee, which is a city of about a hundred and fifty thousand people, no larger than the coal city of Newcastle in England. It stands on the left bank of the broad Tay, ten miles from the North Sea. It has some splendid quays and many buildings that surpass those in larger cities, and its schools, public parks, charitable homes and hospitals show how good hearted and public spirited the people are. About the only important jute factories' in the world are here, and form the cheapest textile fabrics made in Great Britain. The dry plants are imported from India and made into a great many things, from the coarsest kinds of bagging and sacking to very fine and beautiful carpets. The fourth city of Scotland is Aberdeen, which has about as many people as there are in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, or a hundred and twenty-five thousand. This is the chief city and seaport of northern Scotland, a thriving and progressive place, doing much for the importance and benefit of its own people, and a large manufacturing and shipping trade for the world at large. Almost every little English and American girl has worn a " round " comb made in Aberdeen, and many of you have also seen or heard of its great linen mills. Our very best table-cloths and napkins come from here, and almost every Scotch lad has had his plaid and lassie her frock from the woollen mills along the river Dee. Paper, polished granite, cattle, grains, and preserved provisions and fish are also exported in large quantities. The old town, which was a royal burgh in the twelfth century, was mostly burned in 1336, and lies on the banks of the Don, about a mile above the present city, which was built up soon after the burning and called New Aberdeen. The oldest part of the celebrated University of Aberdeen is in the old town. SPAIN. THE principal cities of Spain are the capitals of the sixteen kingdoms and principali- ties, which, when first united, formed the great Spanish monarchy under Ferdinand and Isabella. Each of these principalities has kept a certain independence and char- acteristics of its own to this day, although the country is now divided into new depart- ments, and instead of the old historic names, each is known from the name of its capital. Madrid is nearly in the center of the country, on the side of the almost waterless River Manzanares. The site was chosen for the capital by the Emperor Charles V., whose gouty limbs were more comfortable here than in the old capital of Valladolid, but none of his successors have been able to see any natural charms in the ill-situated and un- healthy city. For these, and many more disadvantages, gouty and phlegmatic, Charles has been held solely accountable during almost three centuries. Nevertheless, Madrid has become a great city of nearly four hundred thousand people now, and to every true Spaniard it has no equal in all the world. It is of circular shape, with a low wall hedging it in from the dry hilly and barren plateau which surrounds it. The center of the city, where strangers free at last from the confusion of porters, guides, hackmen, guards and boys that welcomed them at the stations draw their first breath and take their first inde- pendent view of the Spanish capital, is the Puerto, del So/, or the Gate of the Sun. " It is a stupendous sight, an immense semi-circular square, surrounded by high buildings, into which open, like ten torrents, ten great streets, and from every street comes a con- tinuous, noisy wave of people and carriages, and every thing seen there is in proportion to the locality. The sidewalks are as wide as streets, the cafes large as squares, the basins of a fountain the size of a lake ; and on every side there is a dense and mobile crowd, a deafening racket, an indescribable gayety and brightness in the features, ges- tures, and colors, which makes you feel that neither the populace nor the city are strangers to you." As you go about there are " no great palaces nor ancient monu- ments of art ; but there are wide, clean, gay streets flanked by houses, painted in livid colors, broken here and there by squares of a thousand different forms, laid out almost at random, and every square contains a garden, fountain, and statuettes. Some streets have a slight ascent," so that you see the sky in the distance, as through a vista. The walls are covered for some distance with play bills ; in the shops and on every side there is an incessant coming and going ; the cafe's, too, are crowded. There are some very splendid cafes in the Gate of the Sun, where the Moorish custom of calling waiters by two claps of the hands is kept up. Those who can afford it sip beer and wines ; but the lower classes " sit down contentedly for a whole evening to a glass of azucarillo, a 196 Cities of the World. kind of sugared water, or to a snow lemonade. Another esteemed cooling beverage is a kind of cream made from pounded cypress root and then half frozen. The height of luxury is to order with this, at an added cost of some two cents, a few tubular wafers fancifully named barquil- los, or little boatsthrough which the half-liquid re- freshment is sucked." You see the plain Euro- pean dress everywhere in place of the bright pictur- esque national garments of other days, except among the peasants ; but all provinces are repre- sented in the capital in greater or less numbers, and perhaps the gay, fantastic costumes of the various localities are more picturesque than ever among the plainer clothes that modern fashion has given almost half the city-living world to wear. Churches " smeared with gold and stucco and paint in tasteless extravagance " are very numerous and nearly all devoted to the Roman Catholic religion. Other buildings and many of the entire streets through the middle and on the edges of the city look like Paris ; portions STATUE OF PHILIP iv., MADRID. have a resemblance to Bos- ton, Massachusetts, and bordering upon these parts there are narrow ways and much of the old Spanish architecture to be seen. One of the broad streets run- ning toward the southern outskirts is the Calle de Toledo, or Toledo street, " an BULL FIGHTING. 198 Cities of the World. old meandering mart full of mantles and sashes, blankets, guitars, flannel dyed in the national colors of red and yellow, basket work and wood work, including the carved sticks known as molinillos little mills with which the beverage of chocolate is mixed." The donkey is at home in the narrow thoroughfares about here, and the stifling odors, which in the finer streets are somewhat scattered on the air, are here gathered in full force, especially in the dingy, unconventional and attractive little cafes. On the western side of the city several thoroughfares come together at the Square of the Orient, where arises the monument of Philip IV. in the midst of a garden surrounded by thirty colossal statues. Here are the Naval Museum, the Theatre or theater Real, the Royal Stables, and, more prominent than all, the Royal Palace with adjoining buildings of state and the royal collections ; between this grand pile and the river lie the Gardens of Moro, where the king usually takes his morning walk. The park of the city, the Madrid Park, is on the other side of town, lying along the eastern outskirts, while the favorite promenade of the people, the Prado, lies between. It is reached through the street Alcala, which is so wide that it seems almost like a rectangular square, dividing Madrid in half ; it runs from the Puerto, del Sol toward the east, and ends in an immense plain, that extends all along the side of the city and contains gardens, walks, squares, theaters, bull-circuses, triumphal arches, museums, small palaces, and fountains. The Prado is a very broad avenue, not very long, flanked by minor avenues, which extend to the east of the city, at one side of the famous garden of the Buen retiro, and is shut in at the two extremities by two enormous stone fountains ; it is hedged in on the sides by thousands of chairs and hundreds of benches belonging to water and orange- venders, a class of people that seem to make up a large portion of the population. The most frequented part of the Prado is called the Salon del Prado. At the fashionable hour it looks like a gay festival. The upper northern continuation is called the prome- nade of Recoletos. This runs between a very long chain of little palaces, villas, theaters and new buildings painted in bright colors, on the left, while opposite nearly two miles of country places make up the " smiling suburb of Salamanca." As regards promenades, theaters and shows, Madrid is, without doubt, one of the first cities in the world. There are operas, comedies of all grades, from the elegant and aristocratic to the poorest and commonest ; all are crowded. The most celebrated singers in the world make every effort to sing at the capital of Spain ; the artists there are sought after and feted ; the passion for music is the only one which equals that for bull-fights, which is the supreme, the national pastime of Spain. It is patronized by all, from the king to the poorest vender, and the espadas or matadores the bull-fighters are looked upon with admiration that from the warm-blooded Spanish nature is almost equal to idolatry in our eyes. " In every crowd and cafe you see the tall, shapely, dark-faced, silent men, with a cool, professionally murderous look, whose enormously wide black hats, short jackets, tight trowsers and pig-tails of braided hair proclaim them chulos, or mem- Madrid. 199 bers of the noble ring. Intrepid, with muscles of steel and finely formed, the higher class of these professional fighters are the idols of the people. Songs are made about them, their deeds are painted on fans and people crowd around to see them in hotels or on the streets as if they were heroes or star tragedians." Madrid is the seat of the bull- fighting art, and the circus here is the foremost of all places for the contests. The season NATIONAL DANCE. is opened in the spring and lasts till fall. The opening day of the bull-fights is said to be regarded as a far more important occasion than a change in the ministry of the government. The Bull Ring lies in the west of Madrid, and when the long-looked-for inauguration day arrives, people begin moving toward the spot fully three hours before the appointed time. The route is lined for a mile with omnibuses, 2OO Cities of the World. tartanas, broken-down diligences and wheezy cabs moving along with files of pedestrians and the showy turn-outs of the rich, all finally getting into one great mass rushing to the scene of action. " The mule-bells ring, whips crack, the drivers shout wildly as the vehicles dash by windows full of on-lookers, by the foaming fountains of the Prado and up the road to the grim Colosseum of stone and brick, set in the midst of scorched and arid fields." The great ring within is surrounded by a vast amphitheater of terraced granite, around the top of which runs a gallery whose roof is supported by slender col- umns. The circus holds at least ten thousand people, and is divided into two parts : one is sunny, the other in the shade. The rich and aristocratic sit in shady seats and the boxes below the gallery, which cost more than the sunny seats, where the common people sit in a fantastic assemblage, with their gay dress and paper fans and parasols of red, yellow, purple and green. But the great and all-absorbing sight, as soon as the trumpets announce the grand entry, is in the arena, and there only. The colors of the fighters' costumes ; the bulls, and then the dash of the mad animals and the maneuvering of both bulls and espadas ; the skill and the suspense, and the thrilling horror or depraved delight, these are the fight itself, which an artist with colors and canvas can partly pic- ture, but where words alone entirely fail. Barcelona, with only the Pyrenees above and the narrow arm of the Mediterranean on the east to separate it from France, is rather a seaport for French trade than a gen- uinely Spanish city. " In appearance it is the least Spanish city of any place in Spain. There are large buildings, of which few are old ; long streets, regular squares, shops, theaters, great superb cafes, an/i a continuous coming and going of people, carriages and carts from the shore of the sea to the heart of the city, and from here to the distant quarters. A broad, straight street, called the Rambla, shaded by two rows of trees, crosses nearly the entire city from the harbor up. A spacious promenade, lined with new houses, extends along the sea-shore on a high walled dyke, in the shape of a terrace, against which the waves dash ; an immense suburb, almost a new city, stretches along the north, and on every side new houses break the old boundary lines, are scattered over the fields, on the hillsides, and extend in interminable lines as far as the neighboring villages. On all the surrounding heights rise villas, little palaces and factories, which appear one behind the other until they form a wreath around the city. On every side there is transforming and renovating and manufacturing mainly machinery for ship-building and all kinds of iron work. The people work and prosper and Barcelona flourishes." The greatest architectural sight in the city is the Gothic Cathedral, with bold towers, splendid jewel-like stained glass windows ; and the greatest living show is the Carnival. When this is in progress " the streets are traversed by long processions, and giants, princes, Moors, war- riors, and a troop of figures dressed in yellow with a long cane in their hands, at the top of which is tied a purse that they poke under every one's nose, into all the shop win- dows, even up to the balconies of the first floors of the houses, asking for alms." One of Barcelona. 201 the most curious things in the Carnival is the masquerade of the children. " It is the custom to dress the boys under eight, some as men, in the French style, in complete evening dress, with white gloves, great mustaches and long hair ; some as grandees of Spain, covered with ribbons and trinkets ; others as Catalan peasants, with cap and man- tle ; the girls as court ladies, amazons, poetesses, with the lyre and crown of laurel, and both, too, in the costumes of the various provinces of the state ; some as flower girls of MALAGA PORT, QUAY, AND CATHEDRAL. Valencia, some as Andalusian gypsies, others as Basque mountaineers, altogether the oddest and most picturesque dresses that can be imagined." Barcelona lacks great buildings of interest ; there are a few historic palaces ; " several enormous Roman col- umns in the Street of Paradise stand in the midst of modern houses, surrounded by tor- tuous staircases and dark rooms ; but there are beauty and diversion in the fountains 2O2 Cities of the World. with rostral columns, pyramids, statues ; boulevards lined with villas, gardens, cafe's, hotels ; a bull circus capable of holding ten thousand spectators ; a suburb which extends along a promontory that shuts in the harbor, built with the symmetry of a chess-board and inhabited by ten thousand sailors ; many libraries ; a very rich museum of natural history and a building containing archives, in which there is a very large collection of historical papers relating to Spain from the ninth century to the present day, that is, from the first Counts of Catalonia to the War of Independence." " The cafes of Barcelona, like almost all the cafes of Spain, consist of one immense saloon, ornamented with great mirrors and as many tables as it will hold, of which one rarely remains empty for a single half hour during the day. In the evening they are so crowded that one is often forced to wait quite a time in order to procure even a little place near the door. Around every table there is a circle of five or six caballeros, with the capa over their shoulders (this is a mantle of dark cloth, furnished with a large hood), and in every circle they are playing dominoes. It is the favorite game of the Spanish. In the cafes from twilight you hear the dull, continuous, deafening sound, like the noise of hailstones, from thousands of markers, turned and returned by hundreds of hands, so that you would be obliged to raise your voice in order to make yourself heard by the person sitting near you. People drink chocolate, most delicious in Spain, generally served in little cups ; it is thick almost like preserves, and hot enough to burn one's throat." Altogether this un-Spanish, flourishing city of Spain, with its mixed population of three hundred thousand people, is very attractive, and Don Alvares Tarfe in Don Quixote is not the only visitor* who had left it with the heartfelt words on his lips : " Farewell, Barcelona, the home of courtesy, refuge for strangers, country of the valiant, farewell." The second seaport and third city of Spain is Malaga, which has impressed many travelers as a grand sight from the port. It lies up from the shore, outlined against wild and rocky mountains on the right. On the slope, below the blackened ruins of the Castle of Gibralfaro, the cathedral rises majestically above all the surrounding build- ings, with two beautiful towers and a very high belfry pointing toward heaven, while a multitude of smoky houses, one above the other, seem to have been placed at random between. " On the left of the cathedral, along the shore, is a row of houses, ash, violet and yellowish in color, with a white line around the windows and doors. Beyond lies a garland of green and reddish hills that inclose the city like walls of an amphitheater ; on the right and left, along the sea-shore, are other mountains, hills and rocks, as far as the eye can reach. The interior of the city contains very little of note. The new part, occupying the space formerly covered by the sea, is built with broad straight streets and great bare houses ; the rest of the city is a labyrinth of tortuous streets and a conglom- eration of houses without color or without grace. There are spacious squares, with gardens and fountains, some columns and arches of Arabian edifices, but no modern Valencia. 203 monuments, much filth and not many people," though the population is said to be about the same as Valencia, a hundred and fifty thousand. Valencia is below Barcelona, following the coast line to the southward, and is the capital of the fertile and beautiful Kingdom of Valencia. By land it is reached through " gardens, vineyards, thick groves of orange trees, white villas surmounted by terraces, gay villages, all painted in bright colors, in groups and rows ; thickets of palms, pome- granates, aloes and sugar cane, endless hedges of Indian figs, long chains of hills, cone- shaped heights, converted into kitchen, flower-gardens and swards. Everywhere, in fact, there is a luxurious vegetation, which covers every vacancy, overtops every height, clothes each projection, rises, waves, sweeps along, crowds together, interlaces, impedes the views, shuts in the roads, dazzles you with green, and wearies you with beauty. * The first building you see upon entering Valencia is an immense bull circus, formed by four rows of arches, one above the other, supported by large pilasters, built of brick and resembling in the distance the Colosseum at Rome. The city is built on a vast and arid plain on the bank of the Guadalquiver, which separates it from its suburbs, a short distance from the bay,- which serves as a harbor ; it is all tortuous streets, flanked by high, ugly and many colored houses. On the left bank there is an immense promenade formed by majestic avenues and beautiful gardens, which are reached by leaving the city through the gate of the Cid, flanked by two great embattled towers, and named after the great Spanish hero, because he passed through it in 1904, after having driven the Arabs from Valencia." Besides the cathedral, which has many historical associations, but is not very fine, there are several places worth seeing, beautiful palaces, where great events in the history of the kingdom have occurred ; but above all is the Lonja, or merchants' exchange, where there is a famous room, formed by three great naves, divided by twenty-four twisted columns, over which curve the light arches of the ceiling. Val- encia alive and gay must be seen during the annual festival ; then it is bright, gay, spirited and busy. Amusements of all kinds are held at all hours ; and trade is at its briskest pace. You should see the shops and the people then in the Mercado, " that quaint business street, crowded with little stalls and with peasants in blue, red, yellow, mantled and cothurned, their heads topped with pointed hats or variegated handkerchiefs deftly knotted into a high crown ; " or in " those peculiar shops behind the antique Silk Exchange, which are named from signs they hang out, representing the Blessed Virgin, Christ, John the Baptist, or the Bleeding Heart. One had for its device a rose, and another, distinguished by two large toy lambs placed at its door, was known as the Lambs of God." " The most beautiful thing to be seen at Valencia is the market. The Valen- cia peasants are more strangely and artistically dressed than any in Spain. They have the air of Greeks, bedouins, jugglers or rope-dancers, in their ordinary best clothes. They wear a full white shirt in the place of a jacket, a variegated velvet waistcoat, open 204 Cities of the World. at the chest, a pair of trowsers like those of the zouaves, which only come to the knee, and stand out like full shirts ; a red or blue sash around the waist, a kind of white em- broidered woollen leggings, which show the bare knee, and a pair of rope sandals like the Catalan peasants. As a covering for the head, which is shaved almost like the Chinese, they wear a red, blue, yellow or white handkerchief, twisted in the shape of a cartridge, and knotted on the temple or nape of the neck. Upon this they place a little velvet hat. When they go to town they generally carry over their shoulders or arms, sometimes in the shape of a shawl, mantle or scarf, a woolen capa, long and narrow with bright colored stripes usually white and red and ornamented with tufts of fringe and rosettes. A city square, where hundreds of men dressed like this are gathered, is like a carnival scene." In the more modern quarters, the shops are after the model Paris sets. Their articles are prettily arranged, and the window curtains are very cleverly painted with figures and scenes, some of them being quite funny. Altogether, Valencia is the cheeriest of Spanish cities except Barcelona, which is half French and has besides a good many sights peculiarly its own. The Street of the Cavaliers is lined with somber, strange, shabbily elegant old mansions of the nobility, with Gothic windows and open arcades in the top story. The new houses are gayly tinted in blue and rose and cream- color ; and the gourd-like domes of the cathedral and other large buildings glisten with blue tiles and white, set in stripes. A broad boulevard, hedged in with sycamore trees, leads to Grao, the port, which is two miles distant. In summer this is crowded with tartanas bouncing little covered wagons, lined with crimson curtains, usually filled with pretty senoritas young Spanish ladies and with more imposing equipages, adorned with footmen in the English style. Every body goes to the shore to bathe toward evening. The little bathing establishments extend for a long distance on the sands, and are very neat. Between them and the water are refreshment sheds and tables, and every one eats or drinks on coming out of the sea ; after that the whole concourse returns again to the city, to sleep away the short summer night, and loll away the long day, till it is time to come again. Of all the races of Spain the finest, the handsomest and the most attractive in every way is the Andalusian ; and Seville, their capital, is a city famous in Doetry and song. The place itself is modest enough, but here every body is satisfied with life, and if once you should live in it, you would feel something of the same affection as the Spaniards for this " Queen of Andalusia." It is the quaint, interesting town of Cordova, enlarged, beautified and enriched, with the same spotless whiteness though not so very white as Cadiz the same intricate network of small streets, with the scattered odor of oranges and lovely air of mystery and oriental appearance. Beside the modest white houses rise sumptuous marble palaces, differing in luxury and size, but often on the same plan, each window with a balcony, and all with the patio in the center. " The passage and windows Seville. 205 of the court correspond with the front windows, so that the passer-by looks into the very heart of a genuine Seville abode, as through a sort of lantern." The patio is seldom larger than an ordinary room, surrounded by shady cloisters, containing the summer apartments of the family, or several households, as there are sometimes in one house. " Even the poorest dwelling has its airy court, set with shrubs, and perhaps provided with water. They are tiled, or paved in marble, as most rooms are in Spain. The well- to-do people protect them from the open vestibule by gates of ornamental open iron." Jets of water play in the center, and all around are flowers, pictures and statuary, while SEVILLE. above, an awning is stretched across to keep off the sun. At night the doors are left open, and the moonlight, the odor of roses, and the splashing sounds of water extend into the sleeping rooms. In one corner is a work stand, in another a chess-table, or light, mov- able screen ; here and there are chairs, foot-stools and all the summer comforts and luxuries the house can afford. The people sit here in delightful idleness, at work, or receiving their friends. In the evening coffee is brought out, and among the flowers and statuary, laughter and sweet songs to thrumming of the guitar mingle with the murmur of the fountain. In winter they all disappear, furniture, ornaments and people ; the 206 Cities of the World. patio is deserted, for the household then lives upon the upper floors. This peculiarity of the Seville houses makes the city remarkably gay and attractive, and adds an oriental charm to its "little tortuous streets that emerge on immense squares, filled with orange trees, or the deserted and silent cross-road, from which one comes out, after a short turn, into a street traversed by a noisy crowd." Various foot-streets, where no carriages go, " are lined with attractive, bazaar-like shops, and overhung by ' sails,' drawn from roof to roof, which make telescopic booths, narrow, shady avenues. In these now and again you see the picturesque cigarette-girls, or other venders, gayly dressed peasants, or, perhaps, a long-cloaked figure, with his sharp-pointed stiletto concealed in the folds of his dress, ready for some revengeful deed. These callcs, or alley-ways, squirm among the houses with no visible intention of ever coming out anywhere." At every window, in every garden, there are some of the famously beautiful Andalusian women, dressed in white, half hidden among the graperies and rose bushes. On the bank of the Guadalquiver, one of the finest promenades is an arbored road, two or three miles long. Toward evening it is an enchanted spectacle, with its pedestrians and equipages ; some of the horses seen here are the most magnificent in Spain. " The Christian Promenade extends from the famous Golden Tower to the palace of the Duke of Montpensie, and is entirely shaded by oriental plane trees, oaks, cypresses, willows, poplars, and other southern trees. A great bridge crosses the river, and leads to the suburb of Triana. A long row of ships, the light boats, called golettas, and barks extend along the river, and between the Golden Tower and the duke's palace there is a continual coming and going of boats. Toward setting sun a crowd of ladies swarm through the avenues, troops of workmen pass the bridge, the work on the ships increases, a band hidden among the trees plays, the river is tinged with rose tint, the air is filled with the perfume of flowers, and over all is the flaming color of the evening sky. Then the city becomes another sight ; as night settles down the patios of all the houses are illuminated and the marbles of the vestibules, the mosaics of the walls, the glass in the doors and the crystals of the tapers shine in a thousand colors. To pass through the streets full of promenaders seemed like going through so many ball rooms, crowded with ladies and overflowing with music, voices and laughter." In the daylight the fairy land has vanished and you are yourself again, the dazzling spell has left, and you are free to see the " lions " of the famous city. " First of all comes the cathedral, grand and magnificent outside, in the center of its spacious square ; wonderful, bewildering within, with pillars that in the distance appear too slender to support the building, though they are large as towers. There are five naves, each one of which might form a church ; all of them together form sixty-eight bold vaulted ceilings which ^eem to expand and rise slowly as you look at them. The chapels are worthy of the church, for they con- tain the masterpieces of over a hundred painters and sculptors." There are so many marvelous things in art and historical interest about the Cathedral that I can not even Granada. 207 name them. There is the Court of the Oranges situated on the west of the church, surrounded by a great embattled wall, and set with a fountain in the center encircled by a grove of orange trees, and the Giralda, that are especially famous and beautiful. " The Giralda is an old Arabian tower, built, it is said, in the year 1000, after the designs of Gaver, the inventor of algebra. Although it has undergone some important changes it has still an Arabian appearance, immense and imposing as an Egyptian pyramid and . at the same time as gay and lovely as the chiosk of a garden. It is a square brick tower iof a very beautiful rose color, quite bare up to a certain point, after which it is orna- mented with little Moorish mullion windows, scattered here and there at random, and furnished with small balconies ; then there rises a Christian bell tower three floors in height : in the first is the bell ; the second is encircled by a balustrade, and the third is formed like a kind of bell tower, upon which turns, like a weather vane, a colossal statue of gilded bronze." From afar and near it is a landmark, and in all the range of view from the pinnacle there is nothing so fair as Seville itself, white as marble, " encircled by a wreath of gardens, groves and avenues in the midst of a country scattered with villas and covered with oriental beauties." On the same square as the Cathedral is the Alcazar, an ancient palace of the Moorish kings, like a fortress with its high walls and embattled towers without, but within is the most elegant Arabian-Christian royal palace in the world ; next to it is the Casa de Pilatos, a simple and plain looking palace on the outside, marvelous within the courts and grand halls. Seville is now an intellectual city, though it no longer deserves the name of the Spanish Athens, which it once so proudly bore ; and after Madrid it is the most flourishing in art, literature, and university education in Spain. Its people number about a hundred and forty thousand, and its interesting sights they are legion. Granada is the most celebrated city of Southern Spain, although with its population of seventy-five thousand it is now but the shadow of the powerful city of the Moors, which, before the Christian conquest, held five hundred thousand people. " Granada rests in what might pass for the Happy Valley of Rasselas, a deep stretch of thirty miles, called simply the Vega, and tilled from end to end on a system of irriga- tion established by the Moslem conquerors." It is a town of " spacious squares, some beautiful straight streets and others tortuous and narrow, lined with houses, painted in imitation bas-reliefs, with cupids, garlands, bits of curtain and veils of a thousand colors, without that oriental aspect peculiar to the other Andalusian cities. The lowest part of Granada is almost entirely built up with the regularity of a modern city ; " they lead to the picturesque Alameda, which is said to be the most beautiful promenade in the world ; it is " a long avenue of extraordinary width through which fifty carriages in line could pass, flanked by minor avenues, along which run rows of immense trees that form at a great height an enormous arch of verdure, so thick that not a ray of sunshine can shine through it ; and, at the extremities of the middle avenue, two fountains, which throw up 208 Cities of the World. water in large streams, that fall again in fine vaporous rain ; and between the avenues crystaline springs ; and, in the center, a garden filled with roses, myrtle, jasmine and springs of water ; on one side is the river Xenil, which flows between two banks shaded by groves of laurel, and far away are the mountains covered with snow, upon which the dis- tant palms rear their fantastic heads ; and all about a vivid green very thick and luxu- riant, which allows one to catch a glimpse here and there of blue sky that is bewitching ; " dominating all is the Alhambra, situated on a high hill, looking like a fortress in the distance. This great palace of the Moorish power in Spain is the grandest COURT O7 BLESSING, ALHAMBRA. monument in the country, though battered and partly fallen by the wanton abuse of enemies and time. It is but a relic of the past now, and yet is so wonderful that many other writers beside our own Washington Irving have filled whole volumes in description of it and the history connected with it. One view of it that should never be missed nor the visit itself omitted is from the Generalife, the Moorish sovereigns' summer villa, on the summit of a flowery mountain rising on the right bank of the Darro opposite the hill of the Alhambra. Nearly all traces of by-gone days are here super- Cadiz. 209 seeled by a small, simple, white villa, with few windows, an arched gallery and a terrace, and is hidden in the midst of a thicket of laurel and myrtle. Cadiz, on the other side of the grand old rock of Gibraltar, though not very large, is also a famous town of Spain. From the sea it looks like an " island of plaster, a great white spot in the midst of the sea, without a dark shading, a black point, or a single shadow upon it. A long narrow strip of land joins it with the main- land, and it is bathed on all sides by the sea, like a ship ready to set sail and only fastened to the shore by a cable. As you approach it every thing seems whiter and whiter ; it is the whitest city in the world. In the houses, within or without, their courts, the walls of the shops, the stone seats, pilasters, even the most remote corners and darkest houses of the poor, or most unfrequented streets, are all white. No servant, who does not understand whitewashing, is received in any family. The' streets are straight, but very narrow, so that, as they are very long too and most of them cross the whole city, one can see at the end, as through the crack of a door, a small strip of sky. The houses have a large number of windows, and every window is furnished with a kind of project- ing inclosed balcony, which rests on that of the window above and supports the one of the window below ; in many streets of this fashion houses are completely covered with glass. You hardly see a bit of wall, and seem to be walking through the corridors of an immense museum. Here and there, between the houses, project the superb branches of a palm ; in every square there is a luxurious mass of verdure ; at all the windows there are tufts of grass and bunches of flowers." From one of the many towers the view of Cadiz is like a great white play-city. Who would ever think it had been burned, bombarded, devastated by plague and the scene of such horrible massacres ! it lies so perfectly pure- looking now, who would ever guess at its thrilling history ! From the midst of the build- ings as from the sea it is milk-white. " There is not a roof in the entire city. Every house is closed at the top by a terrace, surrounded by a whitewashed parapet. From almost all these terraces rises a small tower, white, too, which, in turn, is surmounted by another terrace cupola or species of sentinel box ; every thing white. All these little cupolas, points and battlements, which form a curious and very varied outline around the city, stand out and appear whiter still against the blue of the sea. The cathedral is an immense marble edifice of the sixteenth century, of a bold and noble architecture, and rich, like all the Spanish churches, in every kind of treasure." Above the high altar in the Cadiz convent is the picture which Murillo was pain ting when he had the fall from the scaffolding which caused his death. The bull circus and the picture gallery are in- teresting, but they are not so fane as many others in Spain, while the promenade along the sea shore, among oranges and palms, is perfectly charming. In the evening the band plays and the broad walks are filled with gay crowds of gallant Spanish cavaliers, and beautiful, dark-eyed women. Sunny Spain, with its half-tropical climate, and easy-going, pleasure-loving people, 2io Cities of the World. seems a land where work is very unimportant. It is easy to live, where the natural pro- ducts are cheap, palatable and nourishing, and the weather is warm enough to spend most of the time out of doors ; then, a great many people especially in the cities belong to the nobility and are supported by the government in offices of civil trust, in the army, clergy and different orders of nuns, to say nothing of the numbers who live as prisoners, or as beggars all their lives. But there are some workers ; in the fertile plains and valleys farmers raise olives, almonds, grapes, nuts, oranges, lemons and raisins, which are valuable exports, although common enough at home. It takes many hands to make these into oil and prepare them for the foreign market, even before they can go to the merchants or the shippers. There is a great mineral wealth in Spain that is worked somewhat, and many peasants are employed day after day as shepherds to care for the flocks that pasture on the hill-sides. Tradesmen and shopkeepers copy something of the French enterprise in their stores ; artisans and servants are many, while in and about Barcelona there are extensive cotton mills. In other places the making of silk and paper are thriving industries. In addition to all these occupations there are large numbers of men and women employed in factories for making tobacco, fire-arms and gunpowder, which last are controlled altogether by the government. PORTUGAL. IT is a stange fact that tourists go all the way around Portugal, to France, Spain, and to Italy but leave this tiny kingdom of the Iberian peninsula unvisited ; and yet travelers who have been there are enthusiastic in praise of its beautiful scenery and interesting places. Lisbon, from the Tagus, is compared to the majestic city of Constantinople, to Genoa, and is even said to be as fair and queenly as Naples, of which Goethe said that no man who remembered seeing it could be perfectly miserable. From the tops of the hills, " crowned by castle, cloister and cathedral," its houses, " built of creamy, marble-like sandstone, terrace the hill-sides, forming a stately staircase, down which Lisbon steps as a queen to the water's edge. The tiled fronts of the houses which, seen nearer make one think of patchwork bed-quilts hung out to air in the distance flash back the sunshine from their glazed surfaces like so many great gems " among domes and cupolas, church towers and palace trades. If some of the enchant- ment is lost after you have landed, surely there is full compensation in interesting sights. " The mountainous streets wind and climb, criss-cross, angle, and lose themselves in labyrinthine tangles, blind alleys or pleasant squares ; " the balconies of the houses Lisbon. 211 are draped with bright rugs or gay shawls and overhung by parti-colored awnings. " The people live much upon the street ; the houses of the poor open to it, and from the narrow sidewalk there is a full view of the home life. In the more elegant quarters the wistaria droops in purple festoons over the balustrades which edge the roof, while spots of rosy pink or vivid scarlet tell of blossoming oleanders or cacti, for the roof of one row of houses often forms its own garden, or that of the houses upon the next terrace. Here and there roofs of red semi-cylindrical tile project over the house fronts, suggest- ing the fluted frill of an old lady's cap. Everywhere there is sparkling color and daz- zling light. Sometimes the tiles on the fronts of the houses form mosaics of gigantic figures, vases of flowers, or baskets of fruit. A prominent feature in street life are the Varinhos, or fish and fruit women, natives of Ovar, in the north of Portugal. They form a strong contrast to the native Lisbonese, by their odd peasant costume and by their business-like, hustling and bustling manners, and the untiring industry with which they run barefoot all day over the rough pavements, balancing a heavy basket of fruit or fish nicely upon their heads, and shrilly calling their wares as they go. In the fruit market these Varinhos are the huckster women, who, in a little umbrella encampment, sell poultry, bouquets, and heaps of apricots, ' eggs of the sun,' grapes, plums, and purple figs ; or who, in the fish market at early morning, fill their baskets from the slimy, shining heaps, that the fishermen have just brought in. Their costume is a loose jacket and short blue stuff skirt, with a sash knotted about the hips. They are all fond of jewelry, and several chains or strings of gold beads, with two pairs of heavy ear-rings that look like two united water jars, are often seen in company with bare feet and tatters. Another class of people familiar in the Lisbon streets are the Gallegos. These are burly thick-set men with bushy black side whiskers and clean shaven upper lips. They are natives of Galicia and the hewers of wood and drawers of water for the Portuguese, who feel it a degradation to bear any kinds of burdens. " The public squares of the city are numerous and generally charmingly laid out, with a profusion of semi-tropical plants, statues, and fountains. You can scarcely walk in any direction without soon passing a number of ehaf arizes they keep the Moorish name for fountains trickling from a carved head, or iron tube set in the wall, into a capacious stone basin ; they are supplied from the Alcantara Aqueduct, which is con- sidered the greatest piece of bridge architecture in the world, it being eighteen miles long and higher than Trinity steeple in New York. Thirty Gallegos fill their casks at each fountain and carry water about the city to all who are not directly supplied by the water-works or by wells. The water carriers also form the fire department, and other Gallegos act as porters. These are usually men of immense strength ; a couple of them will carry, by means of a yoke, from which a swinging platform hangs, huge burdens of- tentimes weighing as much as half a ton." During the day the streets are usually rather deserted, especially of ladies, who, after attending mass, spend the rest of their 2 1 2 Cities of the World. time in sitting by the window or occasionally doing a little needle work. But at night Lisbon wakes up and is seen to the best advantage. The parks glitter with gas jets and numerous bands vie with each other in creating a crash of sound. The senhoras ladies descend from their watch-towers, in resplendent Parisian costumes, visit the theaters and the public gardens with the handsome Portuguese gentlemen, who, even on foot, have a cavalier appearance from their elegant manners, their dress and the enormous spurs that many wear who never mount a horse. Lisbon, devout as well as gay, has numerous churches and noble charities. The church and monastery of Sao Jeronymo, at Belem, the western suburb of Lisbon, is one of the most interesting build- ings in Portugal. Through the richly carved doorway in the great massive walls with their florid decorations, you enter the imposing interior. Tall, richly wrought columns shoot upward, supporting the vaulted roof, which has been described as so delicate that the immense mass of stone groining looks as light and feathery as the underside of a clump of palm branches. At the time it was being built, every one felt sure that the roof would fall as soon as the scaffolding was taken away ; the architect himself was so afraid his work would prove a failure that he ran away to France before the trial was made. The king appointed condemned criminals to remove the supports, promising pardon if the covering did not fall. Contrary to all expectations the roof rested securely on its slender piers ; the liberated felons used the scaffolding to build houses for themselves ; the storms and even earthquakes of four centuries have swept by the structure and still it stands unshaken from its delicate poise. " Within the cloister garden great bushes of pink hydrangeas relieve the cool gray architecture with their brilliant color. Rose trees bend with ghostly white and passionate crimson blossoms. Unfamiliar flame-colored flowers from China, palms and ferns, vines and shrubs, are grouped in hot-house profu- sion within the low hedges of trimly-cut box." This ancient monastery is now used for an orphans' school, called the Casa Pia. In the old refectory, hung with portraits of the kings of Portugal and wainscoted with tiles representing the history of Joseph, is now the dining-room, and around the long, low tables five hundred or so of happy, intelli- gent-looking boys gather for every meal. Although "charity scholars, educated at the government expense, they are not only taught the ordinary branches with the addition of French and English, but are allowed to make choice of a trade, and after this is learned, to leave the institution with a new suit of clothes and a set of tools as an out- fit. The little beds in the well-ventilated, pleasant dormitories are clean and sweet, the food nourishing, and in the upper cloisters " an American visitor saw the bathing suits in which the boys frolicked on the beach laid out to dry in the sun. On the sea- shore, not far from the monastery, stands the Tower of Belem, which, though built in 1495, i g wonderfully fresh and perfect. The great crosses of the Order of Christ, bla- zoned on the shields which faced the battlements, show like a narrow edge of embroidery from below, and the whole edifice is singularly light and graceful for a fortress against Oporto, 213 pirates and a military prison, whose delicate watch towers, hanging in raid-air on the corners of the building, have stood centuries of storm as unshaken as its foundations have resisted the "relentless smiting of the waves." Many relics of Lisbon's former greatness are to be seen in the city. " The roofless, vine-grown arches, the broken ribs of the once noble vault " of the old Carmo church are " a most striking monument to the power of the great earthquake of 1755 which shook the city to its foundations ; " in one of its chancels is the Archaeological Society's Mu- seum ; but " the true museums of Lisbon are the curiosity shops," with their motley stock of things curious, old and beautiful ; " more directly connected with the known Portuguese history is a collection of antique royal carnages of tattered and tottering but still pompous relics of former pageants that bring back vividly the epochs of the men they served." Among them are " two queer pickle-jar arrangements on wheels that are used by the image of the Virgin when on holy-days she takes an airing in festal pro- cessions. Chief of these religious carnivals is the festival of Corpus Christi. On this occasion St. George a Gallego in a suit of armor parades the street upon a handsome horse, and the king is obliged to follow on foot and bare-headed. But it is in the north of Portugal that religious fetes are to be seen at their best ; " in Lisbon the popular en- thusiasm reaches to its height in the bull-fights. *' A Portuguese bull-fight is a very different affair from the disgusting and brutal national sport in Spain ; neither bulls nor horses are killed, and the fighters run very little risk, as cylinders ending in wooden knobs cover the animal's horns and it can only inflict a knock-down blow, instead of piercing and tearing. This seems, of course, very tame to the Spaniards, but the Lis- bonese revel in the sport," and make it a very brilliant entertainment. " Royalty honors the scene by attendance, and the beauty and fashion of Lisbon shine in full opera dress in the upper boxes, their white elbows resting on richly embroidered silk shawls which drape the boxes in front in graceful folds," while the most elegant and accomplished sons of nobility are often the principal figures in the ring. Throughout the narrow, crooked and badly-paved old part in the eastern portion as well as in the more stately New Town, Lisbon has many churches and chapels, monas- teries, homes and hospitals, numerous educational and scientific institutions, libraries and museums ; and among the industries there are extensive shipbuilding docks, powder mills and arsenals, and factories where quantities of silk, porcelain, paper, soap, and other things are made ; and along the busy docks the vessels are loaded with oranges, citrons, wool, oil and leather, chiefly for the foreign markets of Great Britain and Africa. There are about two hundred and fifty thousand people in the capital, which is a little more than twice as many as live in the largest Portuguese seaport, Oporto. This is " an oddly gabled city with many balconied facades ; gleaming now bizarre, now pure white, among the trees in irregular terraces that stretch along the Douro as far as the eye can reach ; high, narrow houses shoulder each 2 1 4 Cities of the World. other steeply up the hill, crowding, overhanging, and grudging every foot of the tortuous streets that zigzag among them or plunge precipitately like torbid torrents into the river. It is a city of contrasts. Rickety, toppling structures, swarming with life, look into the spa- cious arched corridors, and shaded gardens of a handsome palacio ; smart and modern buildings ablaze with gaudy colored tiles press the crenellated wall of a time-blackened line of fortifications. In the background tower the slender campanile of the Torre dos Clerigos Tower of the Clergy and the pretentious dome of the Crystal Palace. The suspension bridge throws its delicate arch across the gorge of the Douro, and the ship- ping files in the mouth of the river. Crowds of gayly dressed peasants swarm the quay, and little boats ply from either shore. It is a scene of infinite variety and animation, for the Douro is Oporto's principal thoroughfare, where the little bizarre, gondola-like boats, with their stout oarsmen or oarswomen, row you where you want to go." The port is always well filled with craft "steamers and sailing-vessels bound for Brazil, or just in with codfish from the Banks, queer fishing craft from the coast, fetuccas with lateen sails, flat caiques from the bar, and galleys some of them with double banks of oarsmen in ancient style from the vinelands. They wait at the foot of the Queen's Stairs, with idle, flapping sails, while the procession of market-women ready for home troop down the broad flight of stone steps, with nests of empty crates forming high columns upon their heads. Women engaged in coaling ships trot briskly up and down with sooty baskets, and the sinewy arms of many others often pass their brother oarsmen or give them a close race. The Serra Convent ' Half church of God, Half castle 'gainst the Moor,' looks down upon this busy scene from its high eyrie of numerous unoccupied buildings. The Douro is like the people of its great city ; it is strong, wild, and turbulent, and though forced to serve the interests of commerce and manufacture, its riotous disposition shows itself in sudden freshets, like the passionate outbreak of opinion among the factory operatives and lower orders of the city, who, for the most part are engaged in the silk and glove factories, the linen, wool and cotton mills, or the large places that make tobacco and segars, and earthen ware and leather. Oporto is abundantly supplied with water by means of public fountains, around which, as at Lisbon, interesting groups are formed of picturesque women and brawny men, who gossip and wrangle while awaiting the slow filling of their water pots and casks : " and the streets of this city are as interesting in their way as those of the capital. " There is not so much elegant sauntering, but the people seem to have the art of blending enjoyment with business. Oporto is a commer- cial city more than any thing else. Its palaces are those of merchants, and have an air of newness and of modern improvements. Enterprise is the order of the day. New build- Oporto. 2 1 = ings are constantly springing up, and there is scarcely a quarter to be found where th< clink of the trowel and the sharp blow of the hammer are not heard. The citizens havi a busier and more energetic air than those of Lisbon. The spirit of trade pervades al classes ; the children even barter their toys, and boast of their good bargains. Th< markets have far more of a provincial character than those of Lisbon," and to i stranger they are full of endless amusements, as he " wanders among the booths am tables, and admires the types of magnificent womanhood always there. All through th< market the women are busy, filling the intervals of trade with spinning or some othe: useful employment. The poultry sellers have pigeons and partridges, in rustic cage; formed of sticks thrust into two round pieces of cork ; and noisy ducks, protruding thei: necks through the wire netting stretched across their baskets." Then there is the onior booth, with its braided clusters of enormous red bulbs ; the pottery merchant, with hi: display of gayly painted plaques and vases, while " skirting the principal market, like ar outlying line of fortifications, stand the ox-carts which have brought in the fruits anc vegetables of the farmers. The ornamental carved yoke of the oxen is a flat boarc pierced with a tracery, often reminding one of Moorish lattice-work, and often colorec in the same oriental fashion. A favorite resort in evenings, is the finely laid-ou park adjoining the Crystal Palace, where bands and fireworks rend the air with imita tion thunder and lightning." The Crystal Palace was raised for an exhibition building and is a fine one for its purposes ; fairs and various different amusements are now helc in it. " Characteristic evening spectacles at Oporto are the funerals, which always tab place at night. Attendants run beside the hearse carrying links, forming a ghastly an< insufficient torch-light procession. At the church the coffin is laid upon a bier in th< center of the nave and draped with a heavy pall. When the funeral is that of a persoi of wealth, tall waxen tapers are handed by the beadle to everyone who enters the church and lines of choir boys extending from the altar to the main entrance chant with thei clear youthful voices the service for the dead." The Cathedral is one of the oddes pieces of architecture in the world, with its " ugly serpents, griffins and other Gothi< hobgoblins that climb and leer from every cranny. Extraordinary blue tiles face th< walls of the cloisters within, from the pavement to the upper story, and depict mos amazing scenes from the Song of Solomon." Besides these places of interest there ar< several hospitals and a good many other fine institutions that are among the best in th< kingdom. This is the second, and after Lisbon the only real important city of Portugal It has about a hundred and ten thousand people, nearly the size of Jersey City, Nev Jersey and deals a great deal in wine, especially port, which takes its name from th< city, and makes it full of extra life and activity during the vintage season. Much of thi: cargo and the other shipments from Oporto are carried in vessels made in its own ship yards, which send out famously fast sailers. ITALY. A LL persons who travel at all visit Italy. No other country combines so many JL\. attractions, or speaks so many different voices of invitation." The greatness of that country is not in population, commerce or industry ; it is the greatness of beauty and art. "A land Which was the mightiest in its old command, And is the loveliest, and must ever be The master-mold of Nature's heavenly hand ; ******* Fair Italy, Thou art the garden of the world, the home Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree." In all ages, poets and painters have celebrated the charms of this fair land ; every trav- eler feels the spell, and turning his face toward Italy, first goes, as a matter of course, to Rome. This is beyond any other in the world a city of art and artists. There are end- less numbers of museums and collections, churches, chapels, palaces, and magnificent ruins and every other facility for the study of art. Here on the banks of the yellow Tiber there are two cities ; the Christian capital of a new nation lies beside and even above the Rome of the Caesars and the emperors which once ruled the world. The city rests on the seven ancient hills and several other heights or promontories rising out of the plateau, which was once the beautiful verdant Campagna, but is now a great sandy waste in the midst of which a living and a dead city lie side by side. Modern Rome lies on both the west and the east bank of the Tiber, the larger part of it being on the east side and in the valley of the old Campus Martius, and stretching along the slopes of the Capi- toline, Esquiline, Viminal and Quirinal hills ; the Palatine, Aventine and Coelian, the re- mainder of the original Seven Hills, lie to the south-eastward and are in the partially deserted district of " Old Rome," surrounded and partially covered with the magnificent remains of the classic city.* Both cities lie within the present walls which make a circuit of fourteen miles. Only a little more than one-third of the five and a half square miles thus inclosed is occupied by houses, streets and squares ; gardens and vineyards cover the rest. But these are gradually being encroached upon, for Rome, the eternal city, once more become the capital of a great state, is now rapidly growing. The river which is spanned by five bridges is now a turbid choked-up stream at Rome, taking a * For description of ancient Rome, see " Great Cities of the Ancient World." Rome. 217 zig-zag course, from north to south. The main part of the new city, and all of the old, stretches beyond its eastern shore. One of the principal entrances to Rome is the Porta del Populo, or Gate of the People, in the northern wall. " The Gate itself, although designed in part by Michael Angelo, is not particularly noticeable, but the Piazza del Populo, upon which it opens, is an imposing square covering three or four acres. In the center rises the noble obelisk of Rhameses, with a fountain at its base having four rounded basins radiating from a common center like the leaves of a stalk of four leafed clover, a stream of water gushing into each basin from the mouth of a lioness carved in stone. The sides of the piazza are crescent shaped, with a fountain in the center of each, adorned BRIDGE OF ST. ANGELO, AND THE BORGO. with a colossal marble statue ; it is bounded on the right by a row of trees, behind which are some of the finest private residences in Rome, and on the left, by the sloping and terraced walks which lead to the heights of the Monte Pincio. Opposite the gate rise the domes of two churches exactly alike in size and form and making the point from which the three principal streets of Rome branch out. The Corso in the center leads southward to the capitol, beyond which lies the site of the Forum, and ancient Rome ; the Babuino, on the east, or left, leads to the Piazza di Spagna and the English quarter ; the Ripetta on the right, leads by on^ westward turn to the Castle of St. Angelo and St. 218 Cities of the World. Peter's across the river. Each of these avenues leads to a multitude of interesting places ; but the narrow Corso, a mile in length, lined with balconies in front of shops, palaces and private houses, is chief among all. It is the finest street in Rome. Grand old palaces, handsome churches and many other buildings of mingled ancient and modern architect- ure, with innumerable numbers and styles of balconies, line the famous streets on both sides, while here and there it broadens into a piazza, or is met by a side street which also leads to a chapel, gallery or some other great monument of beauty and time. Just beyond the end of the Corso, the Via della Pedacchia turns to the right, and ends in the sunny open space at the foot of the Capitol. An immense flight of steps where the famous staircase to the Temple of Jupiter used to stand, leads up the hill. At its foot are two lions of Egyptian porphyry, and at its head are colossal statues of the twin heroes, Castor and Pollux, and beyond are other statues and precious relics of Imperial Rome. Above the grand staircase is the spacious piazza where Brutus harangued the people after the murder of Julius Caesar. In the center of the square is the famous statue of Marcus Aurelius, the most perfect ancient equestrian statue in existence. You can still see the traces of the gilding with which it was covered when it stood in front of the Arch of Septimius Severus. At the back of the piazza a double staircase leads to the palace of the Senator, and all about are statues and fountains, with which modern Rome has been embellished from the ruins of her glorious mother-city. On either side of the Senators' Palace are the handsome lofty palaces built by Michael Angelo and filled with choice collections ; from the center rises the square, majestic Tower of the Capitol, from which there is a magnificent view " not only of the City of the Seven Hills, but the various towns and villages of the neighboring plain and moun- tain which one after another fell under its sway." To the south-west is the Tarpeian Rock with the Mamertine Prison, and the Temple of Vesta beyond on the bank of the river ; fur- ther toward the south, with many historic churches and picturesque ruins between, is the Aventine Hill ; beyond that are the remains of the old Servian wall and the Protestant Cemetery with its ancient pyramid of Caius Cestius, built in the present wall, and eastward of this the ruins of Caracalla's Baths the finest ever built while nearer by the ancient Forum Romanum, the great center of Imperial and Republican life, lies between the Capitol and the Palatine Hill, with its massive fluted columns and rich capitals solitary and dismantled, towering above a few mean unsightly palaces set amid the rubbish of ages. At the further end it leads to that most noble skeleton of bygone magnificence, the Coliseum. If we were travelers we would linger here : the Palatine Hill lies on the west, and the Coelian on the south, while eastward extends the once beautiful plain where the Roman villas lay, which have never since been equaled, and are even now awe- inspiring in their remains of stateliness and beauty. What was once the Baths of Titus stand near the Coliseum on the north-east. This circuit covers " Old Rome ; " to the northward is the Esquiline Hill, and next to that the, Capitoline, which with the Quirinal Rome. 219 some distance above and the Viminal, have buried their desolation under a living city. The most notable thing now on the Quirinal is the Royal Palace, which has been called one of the largest and ugliest buildings in the world. It was originally a papal palace, begun by Pope Paul IV., and continued by a long line of his successors ; but is now the resi- dence of the royal family. Between the foot of the Capitol and the river is the Ghetto, or the Jews' Quarter, which was once cut off from the rest of the city, and the loathsome place where all the Hebrews of Rome were compelled to live. None could appear out- side unless the men were in yellow hats, or; the women in yellow veils ; and although almost all the intolerant restrictions have now been removed the life of the Jews in Rome' is far from independent. The quarter, which is entered by eight gates, is entirely made THE CAPITOL. up of narrow, crooked and dark streets, small squares, tall houses, moldy and sometimes half-decayed, with here and there the seven- branched candlestick carved on the walls ; remains of ancient palaces and shops. Shops are without num- ber ; every thing may be obtained in the Ghetto ; behind these heaps, out of which the women sew all that is capable of being sewn, are precious stones, lace, furniture of all kinds, rich embroidery from Al- giers and Constantinople, striped stuffs from Spain but all is con- cealed and under cover. The Jew shop-keepers hiss at you, Cosa cercate as you thread their narrow alleys, trying to induce you to bargain with PYRAMID OF CAIUS CESTius. them. The same article is often passed on by mutual arrangement from shop to shop, and meets you wherever you go. On 22O Cities of the World. Friday evening all shops are shut, and bread is baked for the Sabbath, all merchandise is removed, and the men go to the synagogue and wish each other ' a good Sabbath ' on their return. The Ghetto is divided into five districts or parishes, each of which rep- resents a particular race, whose fathers have been either Roman-Jewish from ancient times, or have been brought hither from Spain and Sicily." Everywhere it teems with life and dirt. " The people sit in their doorways, or outside in the streets, which do not get much more light than the damp arid gloomy chambers and grub amid their old trumpery or patch and sew diligently." As you walk through these close muddy by-ways THE COLISEUM BY MOONLIGHT. " the whole world seems to be lying about in countless rags and scraps. The frag- ments lie in heaps before the doors, they are of every kind and color gold fringes, scraps of silk brocade, bits of velvet, red patches, blue patches, orange, yellow, black or white, torn, old, slashed and tattered pieces, large and small. Here sit the daughters of Zion, at work of mending, darning and fine drawing. It is chiefly in the Fiumara, the street lying lowest and nearest to the river, and in the street corners that this business is carried on by men as well as women, girls and children, pale, stooping, starving figures, with misery Rome. 221 staring from the tangled hair and complaining silently in the yellow brown faces," which have not even a trace of beauty. " The women have such great skill in mending and repairing garments that their services are in demand all over the city ; many of them spend their time in finer kinds of needle work and beautiful lace work, so rich and massive that it seems to have been carved rather than wrought. The lower streets of the Ghetto, especially the Fiumara, are every year overflowed during the spring rains and melting of the mountain snows, which makes great misery and distress. Yet in spite of this and of the teeming population crowded into narrow alleys, there was less sickness here during the cholera than in any other part of Rome ; and malaria," which drives peo- ple from their homes every summer in almost every other part of the city, " is unknown here. This may be due to the Jewish custom of whitewashing their dwellings at every festival." On the south the Ghetto faces the Island of the Tiber ; this having been the site of several important buildings of ancient Rome and the scene of some notable his- torical events, it has more interest in the past than the present. Beside the picturesque remains of earlier towers and castle, the Island is now occupied by the Church and Con- vent of St. Bartholomew, which stands in the center, with a broad piazza in front decor- ated with statues and pillars, and the Hospital Ben fratelli opposite. Near here a nar- row lane leads to the end of the Island, where there is a little quay littered with fragments of ancient temples from which a very interesting view of the river and its bridges is to be had. A bridge of 6ne large and two small arches connects the Island with the quarter of Rome called the Trastevere, or city " across the Tiber," " which is almost unaltered from medieval times, and whose narrow streets are still overlooked by many ancient towers, gothic windows and curious fragments of sculpture." The people who live here " differ in many respects from those on the other side of the Tiber. They pride themselves on being born Trastevertni, profess to be the direct descendants of the ancient Romans, seldom intermarry with their neighbors, and speak a dialect peculiarly their own. It is said that their dispositions also differ from the other Romans; that they are a far more hasty, passionate and revenge- ful, as they are a stronger and more vigorous race. They are very fond of keeping up their old national games, especially the morra. This is a game played by the men ; consists in holding up, in rapid succession, any number of fingers they please, calling out at the same time the number their antagonist shows. Simple and even dull as this seems to us, the Trasteverini play it with such eagerness and violence that they get terribly excited, and when disagreements come up, and they must from the rapidity with which the game is played, the men are in a perfect frenzy and often end their dispute with murder. The buildings in this quarter are among the most interesting in Rome, especially the church and convent of the sweet virgin saint, Cecilia; the immense Hospital of St. Michele. At the upper end of the Via Lungaretta, which runs across this quarter from the river, is the Church of St. Maria in Trastevere, which is said to be the first church in Rome, 222 Cities of the World. dedicated to the Virgin and contains a great deal that is both beautiful and interesting. Above this quarter of the sons of ancient Rome lies the Janiculan, " the steep crest of a hill which rises abruptly on the west bank of the Tiber." Betsveen them runs a section of the ancient Aurelian wall, with the Porta Settimiana, on the site of the gardens of Sep- timius Severus, and at the head of the Via Lungara, a street which is three-fourths of a mile long and occupies the whole length of the valley between the Tiber and the Janicu- lan. On one side stand the villa and gardens of the Farnesina, a sixteenth century IN THE FORUM, LOOKING TOWARD THE CAPITOL. residence, which the Duca di Ripalda now owns with all its treasures and famous Raf- faelle frescoes. Opposite, on the western side of the Lungara is the Corsini Palace, where Queen Christiana of Sweden lived in the latter part of 1600, and gathered about her some of the finest collections that have ever been in the city ; although the present pic- ture gallery and magnificent library, with all the other Corsini collections, have been founded since the queen's death. The Corsini Gardens extend over the Janiculan to Rome. 223 the present wall ; above the western end is the Villa Lante, and around on many sides are other old buildings and celebrated churches partly or wholly in ruins. Further on is the Torlonia museum, containing a magnificent collection of sculpture, which has been formed within the last thirty or forty years and is beautifully arranged in seperate cabinets. From several places on the top of this hill, especially near the northern end, where the Church of St. Onofrio stands, the view of Rome is lovely. The garden of the con- vent attached to this church is a " lovely plot of ground fresh with running streams ; near a picturesque group of cypress are remains of the oak planted by Torquato Tasso, the great Italian poet who died here in 1595. " One of the principal entrances of the Catacombs is on the Janiculan. These under- ground passages extend in almost every direction, and cross each other like the streets of a town. How this subterranean net-work came to be here, it is not known, only guessed ; they have probably been for ages. They are principally connected with the early Christians, but long before their time it is said that they were the secret dwellings of thieves and outlaws. In some gardens adjoining the Appian Road, about two miles from Rome, is the entrance to the most celebrated of the catacombs. A flight of steps leads down to an oblong chamber with an arched doorway. Galleries about eight feet high and five feet wide branch out with twists and turns in all direc- tions, damp and black in their darkness, the passages often broadening into wide and lofty chambers, containing tombs, inscriptions, and even frescoes on the walls, and when examined by the light of a torch are seen to have been made by the Christians during the persecutions of the Church. At the head of the Janiculan, within its own wall, and off the north-westerly angle of the Tiber, is the Borgo, or Leonine city, wherein are great St. Peter's and the Castle of St. Angelo. These walls, ten thousand eight hundred feet in circumference, were begun in 846 by Pope Leo IV., to defend St. Peter's against the Saracens, and, being finished, were consecrated six years later, " by avast procession of the whole Roman clergy, bare- footed, with their heads strewn with ashes." In about the center of this inclosure is the basilica of St. Peter, the most famous church in Christendom. From afar its great dome attracts the eye, and under its enormous wings the whole city seems gathered ; TOMBS, IN THE CATACOMBS. 224 Cities of the. World. but nearer by it are the surroundings that attract your attention more than the church, itself. Going toward it from the east, with the minor church and a great hospital on either hand, at the end of the Piazza Rusticucci, is the opening of the magnificent semi-circu- lar colonnades, which branch out from the palace-like fafade and majestic dome of the mighty church. The colonnades are supported by four rows of columns, inclosing space enough between the two inner rows for two carriages to pass abreast, and are like two sickles, some one says, with the straight galleries uniting them to the fafade of the church for handles. Including the column and the sculptured entablatures above them, these porticos are sixty-four feet high, and yet every thing is so well proportioned in correspond- ing colossal size that " from the center of the Piazza, the whole effect is light, airy and graceful ; under any circumstance it never seems crowded, and never desolate." The center of the piazza, or the vast space thus inclosed, is marked by a red granite monument called the Obelisk of the Vatican. This was brought to Rome from Heliopolis by Emperor Caligula ; it adorned the circus of Nero, and in 1586 was placed in front of St. Peter's, with the fountains on either side. There is no point on the piazza from which the whole of the sublime proportions of the dome can be seen ; and as you walk across the long stretch of pavement, fresh with the " silver spray of glittering fountains," the lofty fafade with its two stories and attic, its windows and nine heavy balconies, " awkwardly intersecting the Corinthian columns and pilasters," is not majestic and imposing, but just bunglingly big. A broad flight of steps that lead up to the five entrances of the vestibule are adorned with statues ; the central door is of bronze, made for the old basilica that stood here in the first half of the fifteenth century. From the loggia above the pope gives the Eastern benediction. " The vestibule is a noble and spacious building in itself. Standing in the middle, a vista in architecture of more than two hundred feet, on either hand, is open to the eye, set with pieces of statuary or mosaics, while in front the heavy double curtain separates you from the interior. Beyond the curtain St. Peter's is " resplendent in light, magnificence and beauty, one of the noblest and most wonderful works of man." The nave does not seem over six hundred feet long and four hundred feet high, and it is only as you go through it step by step that you half realize its actual beauty and extent. The grand central nave, with its arcades on either side, and its noble roof, is shaped like a semi- circular vault, coffered and gilded ; and below it, the pavement is inlaid with colored marble, and on all sides there seems no limit to the number and the beauty of the statues and ornaments. The most sacred spot in the church is the tomb of St. Peter, at the foot of a double flight of steps, leading from the ground floor. Attached to the balustrade, a circle of eighty-six golden lamps is always burning above the tomb and close to the high altar, which, except on most solemn occasions, when the pope celebrates the mass, is never used but kept covered with a bronze and gilded ornamented canopy called the Baldacchino, an unsightly thing, beneath the truly glorious canopy of the SISTINE CHAPEL. 226 Cities of the World. cupola. Under this majestic vault, " with the tribune before us, and the transept on either hand, we are face to face with the sublime genius of Michael Angelo ; " it is the Mount Olympus in a world of art, for all around the main body of the church are side chapels, splendid in themselves, filled with pictures and statuary and any of them large enough to serve for an independent church. The dome of St. Peter's is double ; and between the outer and inner wall is a series of winding passages and staircases, by which the top is reached, while the visitor is continually filled with fresh wonder over this great edifice. "From the galleries inside the view of the interior below is most striking, "like a world of tiny people moving among miniature images men and women are half lost in immeasur- able depths of architecture, almost impossible to believe, for the ascent has been made very gradually on the paved incline. The roof of the church is like a small village with its domes and workmen's houses ; its broad walks, a playing fountain and many other signs of life. Here are the two cupolas that flank the fagade and five smaller ones, crowning the chapels " like dwarfs clinging about a giant's knee." There is a railway unseen from below running around the base of the ball on top of the great dome, which in a short time affords a wonderful view of Rome, and "the Campagna, the Tiber, the distant Mediterranean, the Apennines, the Alban Sabine hills, and the isolated bulk of Soracte." Even above this the interior of the ball may be ascended, and still further an outside ladder leads to the dizzy height at the foot of the cross. Adjoining St. Peter's on the upper side is the Vatican, entered through the magnificent Scala Regia, or Royal Staircase, probably the finest in the world. Beyond the Swiss guard in the quaint picturesque uniform designed for them by Michael Angelo, at the great bronze doors lies the Sistine Chapel, celebrated the world over for the frescoes of Michael Angelo. The Vatican comprises the palace of the pope, a library and a museum, and is said to contain eleven thousand apartments. The small portion occupied by the pope is plain and in all things lonesome and unprincely ; but the museum of art is the finest in the world, in sculpture surpassing all other collections put together, as it outrivals every gallery in containing among its paintings the greatest works in fresco of those two masters, superlative Raffaelle and Michael Angelo. The Vatican gardens cover almost one-quarter of the Borgo within the north-western wall ; it is a common saying in Rome that the Vatican with its gardens and St. Peter's occupies as much space as the city of Turin. The broad street that leads to the castle of St. Angelo, leads to the St. Angelo bridge also, and so away from the solemn to the busy and lively Rome once more. " The castle of St. Angelo is but the skeleton of the magnificent tomb that was built by the Emperor Hadrian, because the last niche in the imperial mausoleum of Augustus was filled when the ashes of Nerva were laid there." Between the Tiber and the Corso, the most interesting place is the Piazza Navona, an irregular shaped square about eight hundred and fifty feet long and one hundred and eighty in width, with an immense fountain in the center, and several others standing about, out of which the Rome. 227 pure and abundant water gushes, which is so important a feature of all Rome. Once a week a vegetable market is held in this Piazza attended by the country people from the neighborhood in their picturesque costumes. Shops and stalls for the sale of all sorts of second hand articles fill every available space and display quantities of broken pottery, old iron, and a great variety of other trash, among more pretentious stores. These make little effort toward outside show, but within con- tain great bargains in pictures, engravings, cameos, antique gems and such things. On Saturdays and Sundays in the month of August the sluices which carry off the waters of the great fountain are stopped, and all the central portions of the Piazza are overflowed to the depth of one or two feet. This temporary lake is immediately the liveliest place in the vicinity ; horses, oxen and donkeys are driven into the cooling waters ; vehicles of all kinds, from the stately coach of a Roman principe to the clumsy wagon of a contadino, roll through them ; and boys with bare feet and rolled up trowsers splash their elders with noisy satisfaction ; while the outer margin of the Piazza, not reached by the water, and especially the capacious steps of the Church of St. Agnes, are occupied by crowds of idlers ; the windows of the shops and houses are filled with gay faces and bright dresses ; and altogether the sight is one to be marked with a red letter in any one's memory of Rome. About midway between the Piazza Navona and the Corso, with streets leading directly to each, is the Pantheon, the most perfect pagan building in the city. It was built twenty-seven years before Christ as a heathen temple ; but in A.D. 608 was* consecrated as a Christian church. " Its majestic pillared portico and huge black rotunda, stand almost at the central point of the labyrinthine intricacies of the modern city," a stately, unornamented, time-stained edifice three stories high, and crowned by a dome that has been the model of the best temples in the world ever since, St. Peter's across the river, St. Sophia's at Constantinople and many others less famous. The open portico is borne by lofty columns and divides the temple into three naves, with great niches around the PEASANT CHILDREN. 228 Cities of the World. walls once containing statues of different gods and goddesses. "The world has nothing else like the Pantheon. So grand it is that the pasteboard statues over the lofty cornice do not disturb the effect any more than the tin crowns and hearts, the dusty artificial flowers and all manner of trumpery gewgaws hanging at the saintly shrines. The rust and dinginess that have dimmed the precious marble on the walls ; the pavement, with its great squares and rounds of porphyry and granite, cracked cross- wise and in a hundred directions, showing how roughly the troublesome ages have trampled here ; the gray dome above, with its opening to the sky, all these things make an impression of solemnity, which St. Peter's itself fails to produce." These austere, sublime monuments of the great city are in the strongest contrast with the inhabitants ; the richness and splendor are vanished from the temples, but the love of it remains with the people. You see it in their dress and in all their customs. " On all holiday occasions they hang out from their windows strips of bright-colored cloth. They take great pleasure in illuminations, torch-light processions, and especially in fire-works, which are nowhere more perfect even the fuuerals share it ; those of distinguished people taking place at night, illuminated by torches and attended by solemn music and trains of ecclesiastics." Once a year for eleven days just preceding Ash Wednesday this love of gayety and show reaches a climax in the Carnival, and altogether transforms the Corso and streets" close to it. Added to the overhanging balconies built on purpose for this festival that permanently line the lofty buildings, temporary structures of wood fill every available place ; thus the already narrow space for the Corso only averages about thirty-five feet in width is made still smaller. They are filled with gayly dressed and animated people, mostly women who have secured their places at unmentionable prices some time before, and intend to have the full worth of their money in fun. " The street below is filled by two rows of carriages slowly moving in opposite directions and filled with gay occupants, while there is a motley crowd on foot of men and boys, with a few women, some with masks and some without, but all engaged in the common occupa- tion of pelting one another. Here the lowest ragamuffins in Rome or a milord from En- gland crowd each other in the utmost good nature, each perhaps with the same object in view of attracting the attention of the pretty young ladies in some balcony, half hidden among the gay streamers of red, yellow or blue that flutter among the heavier pieces of vivid colors comprising the balcony canopy or hanging from the windows adjacent. Most of the fun is in pelting one another ; for this there are three kinds of missiles. First come the confetti, or little pea-sized bits of lime, which are hurled by hand or with a kind of pea-shooter, or, when the fun grows more hilarious, are sent in little dipperfuls, while the gay antagonist holds a wire screen ready to protect his or her face from the return volley. But confetti-throwing is but the first stage of the fun, and is soon supplanted by coriandali, or missiles of flowers and bon-bons. For many days before the Carnival opens load after load of flowers are brought into the city, and with them the attentions of the Carnival Rome. 229 partakers begin. There are bouquets of all prices and description, some of them marvels of flower structures, often crowned with a living bird whose legs and wings are impris- oned in flowery bands. The candies are also of all varieties and qualities, sometimes put up in boxes and cones of gilded paper. Much of the cheap sugar plums with which the gay companies pelt each other " fall upon the pavement, and are eagerly scrambled tor by the ingenuous youth of Rome, who dart in and out under the wheels of carriages and the hoofs of horses with a courage worthy of a better cause." The sport begins at about two o'clock on each day, Sundays and Fridays excepted ; then the fast-filling balconies and the two straight lines of carriages begin to gather into one dense mass of animation ; some of course are only lookers-on ; but the majority are there for the fun, and many appear in plain dress, or in fancy or grotesque costumes, and borne upon all kinds of devices on wheels. Now a ship with showy sailors passes a rainbow-like balcony full of pretty girls ; and what a shower there is of sugar-plums and bouquets. One young lady by her looks or graceful movements attracts particular at- tention. " Bella" some one cries ; " beautiful, most beautiful," others shout, and for a time the gayety of the neighborhood will center at that one particular balcony, from which and to which will rain and hail the greatest quantity of bouquets, bonbonnieres and unique favors ; while a pretty play of funny maneuvers keeps all the neighborhood in shouts of merriment. Then the ship sails on, an ordinary carriage, an open platform or a moving festival takes up the merry war, and carries it along from one balcony to an- other, or extending it to carriages on the opposite line. Nearly all are grown up men and women, behaving like a jolly crowd of boys and girls. At five o'clock the Corso is cleared for the horses, mounted dragoons appear, and the carriages turn off into the side streets ; after none but foot passengers are left a detachment of cavalry moves slow- ly down the Corso and returns on a brisk trot. In the Piazza del Populo, but a short time before filled with the brilliant equipages of the proud Romans who disdained the carnival, a great crowd of spectators fill the ampitheater of temporary seats and look down into the Corso. In front of these the horses are rearing and snorting with impatience to be let go. When the center of the street is cleared each horse is led up by a showily- dressed groom, who lets go at the given signal, and the splendid animals rush down the narrow Corso without any riders, goaded on by sharp pointed leaden balls in their trap- pings. The people, like a vast sea, break away before the horses and close in behind them, taking eager interest in the result, which is declared by the judges, who sit in the temporary seats in the Piazza Veneziana, when the horses bring up at the other end of the Corso. This closes the out-door amusement of the Carnival ; the streets become as quiet as usual, and the sport is continued by the peasants and lower classes and people at the shows in the Piazza Navona, where the beautiful square is brilliantly lighted and is thoroughly thronged in every part and at every booth ; but most of all at the lottery booths, " for lotteries to the Italian are what opium is to the Chinaman, the strongest 230 Cities of the World. appetite of his nature." A multitude of interesting sights, day and night, belong to the Carnival season ; there are the picturesque peasant dances in the city squares ; the brilliant receptions ; and the balls, especially the masked balls, which really " cap the climax " of the festivities. The public masked balls are given at the two principal theaters, the Apollo and the Costanzi, where prizes are given for the best masks ; and the scene is one of many beautiful faces among the grotesque false ones, graceful forms and gay colors, winding in and out to the sound of dance music. The trade of Rome is insignificant ; the manufacturers are all small and supply BAY OF NAPLES. cheap, unimportant articles, such as hats, silk scarfs, gloves, artificial feathers, false pearls, trinkets, and other things to attract the fancy of artists and visitors. There are three hun- dred thousand people in the city, a large number of which are artists, while another great class are beggars. In population the Eternal City now stands third in Italy, while Naples takes the lead in size as it does also in beauty. A common Italian saying is, " See Naples and then die," and true it is that the earth scarcely has a more lovely scene than the white and terraced crescent of the city stretched along a winding coast of the magnificent sea Naples. 231 and over the spurs of a range of semi-circular hills, commanded by rugged heights ; fertile plains and vine-clad slopes lie around and beyond, all under the glow or solemn shadow of old Vesuvius. " The extieme points of the two projecting arms which in- close the bay on the north-west and south-east are about twenty miles distant from each other in a straight line, similar in shape and character. The southern promontory stretches further out to sea ; but the island of Ischia corresponds to this on the north, being much larger and further from the land than its southern sister Capri. The cliffs that line the tide- less shore are often crowned and draped with luxuriant vegetation ; on numberless points stand villas, monasteries and houses linked together by a glowing succession of orange groves, vineyards, orchards and gardens. Of all this fertile and populous shore, swarm- ing everywhere with life and glittering with dwellings, Naples is the core." Although this is a city where " the sun shines his brightest, and the zephyrs blow their softest ; the sea is of the deepest blue and the mountains the most glorious purple, with the finest fish, sweetest fruit and best game, Naples is still an ill-built, ill-paved, ill-lighted, ill- drained, ill- watched, ill-governed and ill-ventilated city," whose narrow, crowded, dirty streets, with scarcely any sidewalk, and only lava-paved roadways, with their balconies almost meeting overhead, have nothing imposing, or striking, except the smells. One magnificent museum contains a great collection of ancient art works and curiosities from Pompeii and Herculaneum, and the theater of San Carlo is said to be one of the finest in the world. There are several interesting ancient castles here, many palaces, more than three hundred churches, several colleges and libraries, and a very fine aquarium. But none of these are so interesting as the people of Naples, especially along the sea- shore. All along the quays are rows of wooden counters or tables stand covered with fish, oysters, and mussels, and protected from the sun by an awning slanting down toward the rear. Fruit, roasted chestnuts, and other things to eat are offered for sale by the market women in their quaint costumes. Boats, rowed by scantily dressed men in red caps, are constantly putting off and coming in with their loads of passengers or goods for the strange little chaises that roll up and down or stand about in great num- bers hitched to their small but fast going single horse. The quays, like the open squares and one or two of the streets that are broad enough, are filled with a moving and ever changing and interesting crowd. Now it is a group around some Improvisator, listening with delight to the ragged reciter of whole cantos of Orlando Furioso ; again it is some Policinella, whose antics form the attraction. Under the arcades of the Piazza del Muni- cipio, a " Public Letter Writer " is bending over his task. Notwithstanding that there must be some grounds for the general belief that all Neapolitans are lazy, the most reli- able travelers say that it is as busy and industrious looking as any town in Europe. Yet it manages to have a good many idlers ; for one thing it is over populated ; five hundred thousand people being more than it can keep occupied, and as their support costs next 232 Cities of the World. to nothing, very many are not at all backward in accepting a large portion of nothing for their allowance. These make up, not the largest class of Neapolitans, perhaps, but certainly the best known to foreigners, " careless and idle ; good natured and thieving ; kind hearted and lying ; always laughing except if thwarted, when they will stab their best friend without a pang." Whole families live huddled together without cleanliness or decency, and the air resounds at once with blows and cries, singing and laughter. There are thousands who consider a dish of beans at mid- day to be sumptuous fare, while the horrible condiment called Pizza made of dough baked with garlic, rancid bacon, and strong cheese is esteemed a feast. Every one in the town who is not working, and as many as possible of those who are, spend the day in the open air, encumbering the narrow streets with their chairs, lathes, carpenters' tables, or cobblers' stalls. Every body seems to be amused, and occupies himself in amusing his neighbors. He feels himself to be in the happiest place in the world and holds a poor opinion of most other lands. The Lazzaroni, once a common sight in Naples, lounging about half-clad, are gone now, with many other "institutions" that belonged to the city before the present government. Although the new government's improvements have caused some serious losses to the beauty and attraction of Naples, it has done considerable good too ; it has opened the noble terrace of the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, where the fine Hotel Bristol stands, and a glorious view is given of the town and bay below. Above is the old fortress of St. Elmo, now used as a prison, and near that the ancient convent of St. Martin, which is now being altered for a National Museum and Library. Most of the better classes of Neapolitans are poor nobles, whose motto is " all for show." They are fond of bright colors in their dress ; soldiers in gay uniforms ; and wherever they can, Neapolitans display all the richness and splendor possible, some- times at the sacrifice of a good many everyday comforts. The nobles are often of worthless character, lazy, fond of gambling, and making no pretense of following a pro- fession. The manufacturing class is comparatively small, and are engaged in making macaroni and vermicelli, which are the principal food of the poor people in Italy, and are sent from Naples to all parts of the world. Among the other manufactories the principal things made are silk cloth, carpets, glass, perfumery, porcelain, and glass. Milan, the second city of Italy, is in the northern part ; it stands in the Lombard plain below the Alps, and is the center of the country's inland trade. It is also a very pleasant city, with its broad streets lined with fine buildings on either side. Although it is not a desirable place of residence, as the summers are extremely warm, and the winters severely cold, about three hundred and fifty thousand people live here ; the most thickly settled part is surrounded by a canal, and outside of that, inclosing the suburbs, is a wall with twelve gates. The great center of interest at Milan must always be its glorious Gothic cathedral. It is built of brick covered with marble. One part after another having been added at so many different times the marble is of many Milan. 233 shades, and its walls are so covered that its great extent may best be measured by the roof, although even this is overpowering with " rich ornaments, delicately carved flying buttresses, and a wilderness of pinnacles." The niches and spires are occupied by about three thousand marble statues, making the exterior seem at a little distance " like a piece of jeweler's work magnified a million of times." It is like being in another world to walk among these statues on the roof this quiet marble assembly this " aerial host Of figures human and divine." From the gallery of the octagon tower above there is a living picture before you of the fair broad plains of Lombardy, glittering with towns and villages closed in on the north and west by the eternal snows of the Alps. The first appearance of the interior is most strik- ing the great height of the pillars, their exquisitely sculptured capitals, the great solem- nity and the rich effect of light which streams in from the upper windows upon the golden pulpits at the entrance of the choir form a picture to be revisited again and again. A far older church than the cathedral, and in many things the most remarkable in Milan, is the Church of St. Ambrogio, which is named after its founder, who dedicated it to All Saints in 387. The exterior, of red brick with stone pillars and arches, is highly picturesque. On the north is a fine colonnaded portico, and the atrium or vestibule is surrounded by open arches, with ancient inscriptions, altars and fragments of carving filling the arcades." Many very interesting and valuable relics and works of art are kept within, and besides these and the beauty of the church itself, it is famous as being the place where St. Augustine was baptized and where the grand and familiar anthem of the Te Deum was first recited by Ambrose and Augustine as they advanced to the altar. Among many other great and venerable churches in Milan, are those of St. Eustorgio, the beautiful Maria delle Grazie, which was built in the fifteenth century, and adjoins the convent, where, in the old Refectory, is the most famous picture in the world, the " Last Supper " by Leonardo da Vinci. Behind this church, occupying a large palace, entered on the other side, is the celebrated Ambrosian Library, founded in 1609 by the then Archbishop of Milan. Beside some of the most valuable and most ancient of vellums and manuscripts, the Library has a fine picture gallery of some of the old Italian masters. The largest gallery in the city is the Brera in an old Jesuit palace, also occupied by a scientific institute, a library, a museum of coins and medals and an archaeological mu- seum. In visiting all these and the countless other sights of Milan, the great square called Cathedral Square would become very familiar, and here, if any where, you would occa- sionally see " nurses and peasant women, with the picturesque national head-dress of silver pins arranged in a circle like rays of the sun," once characteristic of the city. 234 Cities of the World. Here is the entrance to the Gallery of Victor Emmanuel, which is the handsomest and loftiest arcade of shops in the world. The houses are eighty feet high, covered in with glass the entire height, and occupied by such brilliant stores and restaurants that in the evening when it is lighted up, and filled with people walking or sitting under the cafes, it looks like an immense ball-room. The other entrance is on the Piazza della Scala, and faces the magnificent theater of La Scala, which is large enough to hold nearly four thousand people. San Carlos at Naples is the only finer one in Italy. Toward the westward from Milan is Turin, which though next in population to Rome, is said to cover less ground than the Borgo. Turin is now one of the most prosperous of European cities ; it is regularly built like an American city, with long straight streets, traversing it from end to end, and each at right angles with its neighbor. Many of the streets are lined with colonnades which form a pleasant shade from the scorching sun in summer ; those near the palace being a favorite resort for the fashionable people, are crowded after sunset, with stylish civilians and showily dressed officers. The streets, in spite of their regularity have a picturesqueness of their own from the richness with which the palaces are decorated, and the ever present arcades. While the bitter Alpine winds make it piteously cold in win- ter, in summer it is a very attractive place, especially by the river Po, among the beauti- ful wooded hills on the further bank or in the charming walks of the Public Garden, near the palace of // Valentino. From the station the Via Roma leads into the heart of the town, passing through the Piazza St. Carlo, surrounded by open colonnades filled with book stalls, and ending in the square occupied by the old castle of Turin, called the Palazzo Madama, or the palace of the Queen Mother. Its high tiled roofs are crowded with chimneys, rich fragments of terra cotta cornice, and four clumsy brick towers, two of which are somewhat modern and two very quaint and perforated with holes, which with the other nooks and corners are always crowded with birds. Behind the castle the handsome modern palace and the cathedral tower rise. The armory, which is one of the few places of real interest in Turin, is in the wing of the Palace, although the Egyptian Museum, the Pinacotfaa or picture gallery, and some of the other collections in the Academy of Sciences are said to be fine. " The avenue along the river-side leads to the Public Gardens, where, beside the dressed walks, there is a park of elm and chestnut glades, with wide, green lawns undulating to the water's side, and lovely views up the still reaches of the river, fringed with tufted foliage which is re- flected in its water ; or into bosky valleys and the hills on the opposite bank, with old turreted villas and convents rising on the different heights and looking down into the luxuriance of wood and vineyard lying between. Beyond all rises the great church of La Superga on its blue height, and pleasure-boats with white sails or striped awnings, give constant life to the scene. At the end of the gardens, where they melt into the open hay fields completely in the country though so close to the town the grand Palermo. 235 old Palace of // Valentino rises from the river bank. It is of rich red stone, with high pitched roofs, tall chimneys, and heavy cornices. In view of all this those who see Turin in May when the white and crimson chestnuts are in bloom, can not fail to call it a picture of perfect Italian loveliness." In the number of inhabitants two hundred and fifty thousand Turin's twin city in Italy is Palermo, on the northern coast of the island of Sicily. The situation of Palermo is wonderfully beautiful, surrounded by a vast garden of orange and olive trees which fill the Conca d'Oro or Golden Shell, as the lovely plain is called which is bounded by the red crags of Monte Pellegrino on the west, and the wooded Capo Zafferano on the east, and backed by Monte Griffone and other dark mountains of rugged outline. " The hills on either hand descend upon the sea with long-drawn delicately broken and exquisitely tinted outlines." " Within the cradle of these hills and close upon the tideless water, lies the city," with a few great streets running across a labyrinth of alleys. " The main street, like all the main streets of Italian towns, is the Corso Vittorio Emanuele; the houses for the most part are stately, with bold cornices and innumerable iron balconies. The ground floors are almost always used for the mean-looking shops, of which the fronts, eastern fashion, are generally an open arch. The first floor is the piano noblle or family residence ; the second and third floor are usually let as lodgings ; wooden lattices, too, are often seen, belonging to convents frequently far in the background, but arranged to allow the nuns, themselves unseen, to look down on all that is going on. Here and there a church breaks the line of houses, plain enough outside, but within covered with Sicilian jaspers, of which there are fifty-four varieties rich to a fault." The palaces and even more par- ticularly the churches of Palermo are very fine. Next in size to these come another pair of cities. Florence, in the upper part of central Italy and Genoa, the Mediterranean port and fortress for the north, each with about two hundred thousand people. "Of all the fairest cities of the earth, None is so fair as Florence * * Search within, Without ; all is enchantment! 'Tis the Past Contending with the Present ; and in turn Each has the mastery." So, many writers, in verse and in prose, have celebrated the City of Flowers and Botany Bay of society. Like most of the Italian cities its beauty is more in the situation and surroundings than the city itself. It stands at the central point in that basin of the Arno which extends from Arezzo to Pisa, and in the midst of a high plain with picturesque swells of land all about it. " The radiant loveliness of this country renders Florence the 236 Cities of the World. most delightful of all Italian cities for a spring residence, and no one who has once seen the glorious luxuriance of the flowers which cover the fields and gardens, and lie in masses for sale on the broad gray basements of its old palaces, can ever forget them." Firenze la bella, Florence the beautiful, the Florentines call their beloved city ; nor is this confined to the distant view ; the walks, the gardens, the palaces, and their superb galleries are in themselves beautiful enough to enrich a dozen ordinary cities. The gal- leries and museums are due for the most part to the Medici family, who were the first rulers after Florentia the flourishing ceased to be a republic. After the Medici, the Austrian Grand Dukes encouraged art and beauty in the city, so that even now, more than three hundred and fifty years after the fall of the city's independence, it contains great palaces filled with inexhaustible treasures, suited to almost every taste. " Other, though not many, cities have his- tories as noble, treasures as vast, but no other city has them living and even present in her midst, familiar as household words, and touched by every baby's hand and peasant's step, as Florence has." The city lies mainly on the up- per bank of the Arno ; its streets are generally narrow, running be- tween massive and rather gloomy buildings, and past church fronts, often unfinished. Avenues run along the quays, and in irreg- ular stripes through the heart of the THE LEANING TOWER, PISA. city. Most of the celebrated palaces are near the center of town, mainly in the vicinity of the famous Lung' Arno, where the houses rising out of the river are " bright with soft tints of color, irregular, picturesque, various, with roofs at every possible elevation, the outline broken by loggias, balconies, projecting walls, quaint cupolas and spires ; the stream flowing full below, reflecting the whole picture even to the clouds on the blue LOGGIA DE LANZI. 238 Cities of the World. over-arching sky." Almost on the quay is the celebrated Uffizi Palace, with its stately porticos and open arches toward the river, set with great Florentine heroes in marble ; above, story after story rises in massive stately beauty, stretching on to the Piazza of the Signoria, to the Vecchio Palace, with its " enormous projecting battlements and lofty square bell tower stuck upon the walls in defiance of proportion, partly overhanging them." Uffizi is an immense palace over three hundred years old, and filled with most precious books, letters, and papers in the library, paintings, statuary, and other riches in the corridors, halls, and, above all, in the famous Tribune. This is an eight-sided room, about twenty feet across. The floor is paved with rich marbles, and the vaulted ceiling is inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The light, which comes from above, falls on some of the most remarkable works of art ever produced. Here are the beautiful Venus de Medici, the Knife Grinder, the Dancing Faun, and other sculptures known by name and by copies all over the world ; on the walls are hung paintings of the great masters, Raphael, Titian, Michael Angelo, and Correggio. The Palazzo Vecchio della Signoria was built in 1298. A magnificent staircase leads from the court up to the vast hall in which Savona- rola met with the citizens in his earnestness to restore their ancient liberties ; from the tower you see the prison of the great Florentine reformer, and every step you take from the vestibule to the halls, through all the corridors, and even into the beautiful, solemn little colonnaded inner court, is upon historic ground. If you are acquainted with the city's history, there is not a spot that will not remind you of the events that took place here during all the ages that the Signorian Palace was the center of the political life of the Florentines. In front of the Vecchio Palace is the sunlit Piazza della Signoria, which is the center of Florentine life. Until the recent change in the Italian Government, it had for two hundred years been called the Grand Duke's Square, but it is now given back its original name. This is like an open-air art gallery of sculpture and architecture. On the east is the grand old palace of the Signoria. On the south is the Loggia de' Lanzi, or gallery of the (Swiss) lancers who attended Cosimo I., and on the other sides are narrow streets and quaint buildings, with tablets marking their historical associations, while in the center is the great Fountain of Neptune, and hard by a grand equestrian statue of Cosimo I. In the Loggia, which consists of three open arches inclosing a platform raised by six steps above the square, stand some of the finest statues in Florence. It is a strange sight, these works of genius standing in the midst of the coming and going of all the every-day Life in the busiest square in Florence, which has seen many remarkable events beside the closing scene in Savonarola's life. Several of the narrow, closely-built streets opening here reach the Duomo cathedral which, westward of the Piazza della Signoria, stands in about the center of the city. This was begun in 1298, the same year as the Vecchio, to be, the builder said, " the loftiest, most sumptuous edifice that human invention could devise or human labor execute." Centuries have passed since it was fin- ished, and sometimes with a heavy hand on the great works of Florence, but even yet the THE CAMPANILE. 240 Cities of the World. cathedral stands in wonderful beauty. The regular side walls are encrusted with precious marbles and filled with sculpture like the apse with its buttresses. A small dome is at the South, above which rises the largest dome in the whole world. A century later Michael Angelo, on his way to Rome to build St. Peter's, looked at this noble work of Brunelleschi, the architect, and said. " Like you I will not be ; better, I can not be." The interior of the Cathedral is disappointing at first. The somber brown pillars and arches, and walls bare of enrichment or decoration seem extremely meager ; but by degrees you come to enjoy the simple grandeur of the broad arches and magnifi- cent dome and feel that all the color that is necessary comes in through those little jewel- like windows. At one corner of the Cathedral, stands the Campanile, or Bell-tower of Giotto the pride of the city. It is a square structure nearly three hundred feet high, with a heavy cornice and other striking Grecian features, in the midst of which are tier after tier of Gothic windows. Mr. Ruskin says this is the one building in the world where Power and Beauty are highly developed and combined, " the model and mirror of perfect architecture." Across the square in front of the Cathedral and Campanile, is the Baptistry of St. John, which is famous for its three sets of bronze doors, one of which the eastern gates Michael Angelo said were worthy to be the gates of Paradise. They quite overshadow the rich mosaics on the floor and ceilings of the Baptistry, or the frescoes round the walls. They are not large, but the delicate and perfect workmanship of the little bronze figures in relief tell in bronze the stories of the Baptist. A little west- ward of the Cathedral is the Church of St. Lorenzo, interesting for its association with the great Medici family, and rich m the works of Michael Angelo and other masters of sculpture. From here one of the widest and the busiest streets in Florence runs, as straight as an old Italian street can so long a distance, to the Ponte Vecchio Vecchio Bridge which is the most famous of the six crossing the Arno at Florence, and leads to a smaller part of the city lying on the right bank of the water. The Ponte Vecchio is at the head of the long and broad Via Romana, which crosses this upper part of Florence, and lined with palaces ends at the Roman Gate in the north-eastern angle and the fortifications. Not far above the bridge is the huge, imposing structure of the Palazza Pitti. Its great fapade four hundred and sixty feet long is of three stories, each forty feet high, surmounting a basement and huge blocks of stone. There is no palace in Europe to compare to it for grandeur, though many may surpass it in elegance. Built in 1441 by the treacherous Luca Pitti fora residence, it soon passed out of his family and after long serving for the palace of the Grand Dukes, it has now become the property of the Italian government. Its chief use is as a fitting storehouse for some of Florence's treasures of art, although there are apartments occasionally occupied by the King. This palace is connected with the Vecchio by a long passage built by the Medici in imita- tion of the passage which Homer described as uniting the palace of Hector to that of Priam. It was also intended as a means of escape if required ; it is now an additional 242 Cities of the World. art gallery which forms a delightful walk, especially in wet weather, through a long avenue of art treasures that it begins and ends in a museum. Behind the Pitti Palace, from the Arno to the Roman Gate, extend the famous Boboli Gardens. In front of the palace is an amphitheater of seats, raised one above the other, whence walks, between clipped avenues of bay and ilex, lead to the higher ground, where are the Fountain of Neptune, statuary and the little meadow called Z' Uccellaja, from its bird snares. From the high places in the gardens the view of Florence makes a pleasant picture of the fair city to be always carried in the memory. Genoa has been called the key-note of her coun- try. " No place is more entirely imbued with the characteristics, the beauty and the color of Italy. Its ranges of marble palaces and churches rise above the blue waters of its bay, interspersed with the brilliant green of orange and lemon groves, and backed by swelling mountains ; it well deserves its title of Genoa the Superb." From the rail- way from Savona you see " the queenly city, with its streets of palaces rising tier above tier from the water, girdling with the long lines of its bright white houses, the vast sweeps of its harbor, the mouth of which is marked by a huge natural mole of rock, crowned by a magnificent light house tower." This is the city of Columbus, the one above all other Italian cities to which we Americans feel the nearest. Along the edge of the port all the principal hotels are ranged beyond the high terrace of white marble. Many days may be spent in the city among its glorious palaces filled with treasures, or walking about the streets sight-seeing. The Jewelers' Street is bright with shops where the Genoese coral, fantastic silver and gold filagree-work and many other rare and beautiful ornaments are for sale. Then there are the two Cathedrals and Churches of St. Matthew, the beautiful palaces, especially Spinola, with the frescoes in its grand entrance court, its rooms opening on the marble terrace ; Doria Tursi with its hanging gardens, its statuary, and mosaics, bronzes and statuary ; the Red Palace, containing pictures and a valuable library ; and the Balbi, entered by a most lovely court, inclosed by triple rows of slender columns, through which a brilliant orange garden is seen. This is the most comfortable and well furnished of all the Genoese palaces. The family live in the upper apartments, but generously allow it to be shown to strangers. Besides these there are many others, and as you walk along some of the streets especially the Strada Nuova and Strada Balbi it seems as if each new palace is nobler than the last. Then there are other narrow streets in the strongest con- trast, with " great heavy stone balconies one above another, doorless vestibules, massively barred lower windows, immense public staircases ; thick marble pillars and vaulted chambers. The terrace Gardens lying between the houses, have their green arches of the vine, and groves of orange trees, and blushing oleanders in full bloom, twenty, thirty, forty feet above the street ; the steep, uphill streets of palaces with marble terraces look down into close by-ways ; and a rapid passage " carries you " from a street of stately edifices into a maze of the vilest squalor, steaming with unwholesome stenches' 244 Cities of the World. and swarming with half naked children." The poorest and most populous quarter of Genoa is made up of " narrow alleys and tall houses, where cats can jump from roof to roof across the way and where only a narrow strip of blue sky shines down upon the darkness." Here you see a "wonderful novelty of every thing, jumbling of dirty houses, passages more squalid and close than any in St. Giles's (London), or in Old Paris ; in and out of which not vagabonds, but well-dressed women with white veils and great fans are passing and repassing." There is a " bewildering vision of saints' and virgins' shrines at the street corners ; of great numbers of friars, monks and soldiers ; of red curtains waving at the door-ways of churches ; of fruit stalls, with fresh lemons and oranges hanging in garlands made of vine leaves. The houses are immensely high, painted in all sorts of colors, and are in every stage of damage, dirt and lack of repair. They are commonly let in floors or flats. There are but few street doors ; and the entrance halls are, for the most part, looked upon as public property." Lastly among Italy's great cities is Venice, the queen city of the world. Volumes have been written in prose and verse on its charms ; book after book has been made on its history, and thou- sands of canvasses covered with its scenes ; and yet there never was a gifted writer, a poet or a painter who felt that his efforts had done justice to the charm of Venice. I can tell you how it lies in a gulf, called a lagoon, in the northern angle of the Adriatic, spreading its pal- aces and churches over more than sixty THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS, VENICE islands of sand, marsh and seaweed, and I can tell you how it became a republic that once "lorded it over Italy, conquered Constantinople, resisted a league of all the kings of Christendom, long carried on the commerce of the world, and bequeathed to nations the model of the most stable government ever framed by man ; " all this and many more things about the " Sea Cybele " may be read again and again, and yet Venice is unknown to all who have Venice. 245 never seen it and lived in it themselves. Just within the island girded lagoon, and near a splendid opening to the sea, something like a decanter with its neck toward the open water, Venice lies, a queenly city even now, after years of decay. In all directions without the least regularity it is threaded with narrow canals, some finding outlet in the lagoon, some in each other, and some in the broad Grand Canal, which sweeps with many stately curves like an S reversed through the center of the city, from the railway station on the western limit to a great arm of the lagoon on the south. The salt waves of the Grand Canal lap against the marble steps of the railway station, and outside the portico no demonstrative hackmen are clamoring to rattle you through the streets of the city ; but like a row of sable hearses, innumerable black gondolas are waiting to float you off into the green water. Your senses grow be- wildered by the lights above and below, the dense shadows from great buildings on the brink, or the grave-like darkness of the small canals, the splashing of an oar or a song or the weird cries of the gon- doliers, being the only sounds you hear. By and by all these things become familiar, and losing their wonder strengthen their charm. The heart of Venice is the Place of St. Mark. Of all the open spaces in the city that THE GRAND CANAL. before the church of St. Mark alone bears the name of Piazza, and the rest are called merely campi, or fields. " It is a great piazza on whose broad bosom is a palace more majestic and magnificent in its old age than all the buildings of the earth, in the high prime and fullness of their youth. Cloisters and galleries so light, they might be the work of fairy hands ; so strong that centuries have battered them in vain. At no great distance from its porch, a lofty tower, standing by itself, looks out upon the Adriatic Sea. Near to the margin of the stream are two ill-omened pillars of red granite ; one having on its top a figure with a sword and shield ; the other a winged lion. Not far from these again a second tower, more richly decorated and 246 Cities of the World. sustaining aloft a great orb, gleaming with gold and deepest blue ; the twelve signs of the Zodiac painted on it, and a mimic sun revolving in its course around them ; while above two bronze giants hammer out the hours on a sounding bell. An oblong square of lofty houses of whitest stone, surrounded by a light and beautiful arcade, forms part of this enchanted scene ; and here and there gay masts for flags rise." To come from one of the cool somber buildings "upon spaces of such sunny length and breadth set around with such exquisite architecture, it makes you glad to be WEST FRONT OF ST. MARK'S, VENICE. living in this world. It is the great resort, in summer and winter, by day and night ; " and of all the brilliant scenes of this out-of-door-living people none can compare with St. Mark's Place, "which has a night time glory indescribable coming from the light of uncounted lamps " on the surrounding buildings. There are always flocks of pigeons here, sacred birds in Venice, which are so tame that they never move out of your way, but run before you as you walk, and perch on the sill of your open window. They were Venice. 247 formerly maintained by the republic, but are now provided for by the bequest of a pious lady and by the grain and peas given them by strangers." The greatest object is the church on the eastern side, with its portico surmounted by the four famous bronze horses brought from Constantinople by the Venetians after the fourth Crusade, with its lofty proportions and its undescribable treasures of relics, mosaics and other magnificent decorations. Beside St. Mark's stands the old Doge's Palace, extending southward ; this was first built by the Doge of Venice in 820, and then, after being partly destroyed by the fires of 1419, another Doge rebuilt it. Mr. Ruskin says : " The first hammer stroke upon the old palace was the first act of the period properly called the Renaissance." This was in 1422, and so we know where and when that great revival of ii( ,.,. .,., ancient art, which has had ,r-^^^-M ; J> .^ an influence on all the world, began. As the Palace now stands it is remarkable for thing, that instead of one appearing to grow lighter as it rises from the basement, the ground floor seems to be the most delicate part of the building, and as it rises story after story toward the sky, it appears to increase in heaviness and massive proportion. The Bridge of Sighs led from the criminal courts in the palace, to the criminal prisons on the other side of the Rio Canal. On the north side of the Piazza on the Procuratie Vecchie, then comes the Clock Tower, the arch beneath it leading into the busy streets of the Mercedia. On the west side of the square are the New Procuratie and the Library, which extends to the quay on the west side of the Piazzetta, which, opening from the Piazza opposite the Clock Tower, extends to the steps leading down to the waters of the lagoon at the end of the Grand Canal. Opposite the Library, the Zecca, or old Mint, adjoining the Doge Palace, overlooks the eastern side of the Piazzetta. There are many water cities in the world, with grand canals, too ; but nothing can in the least compare with that of Venice. Here the public gondolas cross as ferry boats, and from here, in the shade, the most picturesque groups may usually be seen, of facchini gossiping with the gondoliers, or market women from \ ARCADE OF THE DOGE S PALACE IN THE PIAZZETTA. 248 Cities of the World. Mestre waiting with their baskets overflowing with fruits and greenery. Here are the grab-catchers, a peculiar class of beggars who pretend to pull your gondola to the shore for you. Along the way on either side of the broad water,rich, stately palaces lie in lines of mingled Gothic and Renaissance architecture, for while other cities are famed for ten or twelve great buildings, Venice numbers hers by hundreds. Near the center the Grand Canal is crossed by the famous bridge known in English as the Rialto, but spoken of by Venetians as the Ponte di Rialto, as this part of town was the ancient city of Venice, and derives its name from Rivo-alto, as the land here on the left of the canal was called. The footway of the famous bridge is lined with shops, and near at hand is the market place, which if not the scene of " such vast multitudes that it is celebrated among the first in the universe," as a writer of the sixteenth century tells us, it has still plenty of life and many interesting sights ; and so, if you were there in the enchanting city, you might go on and on, never coming to the end of the beautiful palaces and the galleries of paintings and sculptures they contain, or the noble and the quaint churches or the picturesque campi, the tortuous, narrow canals or the few close streets ; at other times you might spend pleasant hours out in the lagoon, visiting the islands or quietly floating along watching the golden sunsets, and then again it would be in Florian's or some of the gayest cafes you would be enjoying your cosmopolitan friends, or chatting with some passing acquaintance, while the band played outside, and gay groups of people moved about or stood chatting all around in the caf, the vestibule or on the Piazza below. There are about a hundred and fifty thousand people in Venice, many of whom are artists, others are occupied by the city trade and in commerce, which has revived very much since the Austrian yoke was taken off and the unhappy city joyfully became incorporated with the kingdom. Beautiful glassware is made here and articles of iron and bronze, beside machinery, silverware and mosaics. AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. VIENNA, the great city of the Austrian monarchy, stands between the Carpathian mountains and the last hills of the Wiener Wald. Its broad plain is threaded by the arms of the Danube river, into one of which the little river, Wien, flows that gives the Austrian capital its name. Wien is the German for Vienna. In olden times this spot was first settled by the Romans. They chose it as a central point to command the VIENNA, FROM THE UPPER TERRACE OF BELVEDERE PALACE. plain between the great natural barriers of the mountains, and set up a guard here as an outpost to protect their possessions from the Barbarians of the North. For a long time the two streams formed the upper and the eastern boundaries of the town ; but it seemed to be in just the right place to grow. Once, in the twelfth century, its boundaries 250 Cities of the World. became too small, and outer walls were built ; before long these could not hold the people, and then the city was extended on all sides in new buildings and districts or towns called stddte, laid out so that they could be extended almost any distance, like the beams of a star. Then, in 1704, when Francis Rakoczy came down with his Hungarian invaders, another rampart was built to inclose these "suburbs," which had grown to be an important part of the city itself. So, until after the French occupation of 1809, when Napoleon, successful in the battles of Austerlitz and Wagram, held the city, Vienna had a double girdle of fortifications. After the French left, the inner lines were broken down and a circular set of streets built upon them, called the " Rings," or the Ringstrasse. These are very much like the boulevards of Paris, broad, handsomely built up and planted, forming a distinction between the old town, or "the City," and the outer stddte. The other ramparts are still kept as the regular outposts, and their gates, which the Viennese call the Lines, lead to the real suburbs or outskirts of the capital. These extend for miles sometimes to the outlying towns in factory districts, quarters of plain dwelling houses and dusty, unpaved streets, or in parks surrounding the palatial homes of wealthy citizens and noble families, who generously keep their beautiful grounds open to the public. It is an easy matter to get from one part of Vienna to another, for the city is covered with a net-work of tram-ways, or street car lines, public carriages and omnibuses. The oldest, the grandest, and the liveliest part of the capital is the inner town, The City. Here one street only is long and straight, another is long and broad but crooked ; most of them stand in parallel groups of threes or fours, apparently there as the shortest distance from one important point to another ; the points probably being in the center of a block or on some particularly winding thoroughfare. These tortuous streets and narrow squares, or pldtze, are full of old relics and historic interest. They are gloomy, to be sure, for the great six storied stone houses are black with age, but they are interesting and beautiful with their grand gate-ways, their massive caryatides, their quaint walls set with tablets telling you of all the great men who have lived and died beneath their gabled roofs. Here and there, sometimes beneath the houses, covered passages add to the labyrinth of picturesque highways and by-ways which worm them- selves about, which meet and separate, and which carry you back with your thoughts for several centuries. About all the streets in the city lead to the Stephans Platz, where the sharp pointed watch tower of St. Stephen's Church, rising in the mist of the Stadt, has thrown a slender, moving shadow over its steady growth and the solemn grandeur of four centuries and a half. The lofty western facade of the church, set with ancient Roman sculptures, looks down severely upon some of the most crowded business places in all the city. The great Giant Door, which, though the principal entrance, is only used on the most solemn wT O 252 Cities of the World. occasions, is guarded above by two eight-sided towers, ending in short spires. These are ornamented and so is the rest of the building with its long peak roof, over which the Austrian eagle figured in colored tiles spreads his wings ; the gables above the side windows are flanked at the other end by the great south tower. The graceful spire stretches upward for four hundred and fifty feet, in a series of arches and buttresses, regularly growing smaller and covered with most elaborate carving. From the top there is an extensive view of the picturesque walled city with its river, moats, and distant hills. The old church was built after Vienna became the seat of the Hapsburg dynasty, in the years between 1300 and 1510 ; and the solid limestone is gray with age black even inside, where the " mighty forest of pillars " adorned with statues support the rich vaulting of the ceiling. The effects of light in the church are very peculiar ; " the great length of the central aisle is divided into three. Near the doorway all is bright, then comes a great space of shadow so deep you can scarcely see through it, and then another flood of light falls upon the chancel. All over, from the tombs of the dead to the traces of the old Roman temple which is said to have stood on the ground, St. Stephen's is full of legends and the 'strange wild history of Austria.' The bells were cast from Turkish cannon, captured during the famous siege, when the crescent, that you still see, was raised to induce the enemy to spare the grand old tower." There are legends, too, connected with the building of the old church, but the story of the Stock tnt isen, or " log of iron" near by, is more interesting than all. This is the stump of an old tree that once stood here, it is said, to mark the ancient limits of the Wiener Wald, the most easterly hills of the Alps ; but do you wonder why it is clasped round by an iron band held by a padlock, and why so many nails have been driven in it ? That is what belongs to the legend of Martin Mux, a Viennese locksmith's apprentice, who filled in a dream an order for a great " iron circlet to be secured by a padlock that no mortal strength could force ;" and this was clasped by the customer around the stem of " the old tree in the horse-market." Years after, the principality offered a large reward for undoing it, at a time when Martin, who was a wanderer in his trade, chanced to be again in Vienna. He, of course, undid it ; and was thereupon acknowledged as the greatest among locksmiths, and became a man of wealth and im- portance. Ever after that all young locksmiths, starting out to make their fortunes, have driven a nail in the Slock im Eisen, for good luck. The old horse-market stands at the head of the Graben, a street named from the moat which lay here onee, outside the city fortifications, in the twelfth century. The Graben is a short street, so wide that it is almost like a platz, lined with beautiful imposing buildings, behind its spreading trees. At the other end is the gay Kohlmarket. The Stephans Platz, the Graben, and the Kohl- market, one adjoining the other, form the great center of life, trade and fashion in the gay city. The Stephans Platz is the starting place for most of the omnibus lines in the city (bone-shaking affairs that don't give as much convenience as they do discomfort, Vienna. 253 rolling over the uneven pavements with their load of crowded occupants) ; and in all three you would see the largest hotels, the finest stores, and the gayest throngs of people in Vienna. A constant stream of people is passing to and fro. On all sides there are open streets, and squares leading to and from the many important places around about. Most of the buildings here are new now ; with their richly decorated fronts and gor- geous store windows they make a very imposing show, mingled with great walls of advertisements, for which definite spaces seem to be permanently kept. In the center of the Graben there are two large fountains, standing above and below a large and tall group of statuary called the Trinity Column. The monument is a representation of figures among clouds, raised in 1694, by the order of Emperor Leopold I., when the dreadful plague was over. The cafes here, and in the Kohlmarket, are the best in the world, for the Viennese, who introduced this kind of refreshment-house into Europe, take pride in keeping ahead of all other cities in having the finest and the greatest number. A Vien- nese cafe" is part of the city itself. It may be a plain looking, neat little restaurant of the Leopold stadt (one of the sections of the outer town), where the Magyars, Greeks, and Turks are dressed in their native costumes to serve, or themselves gather about the tables ; or a quiet little out-of-the-way place, where artists or writers go ; or large, luxu- rious institutions in the center of the city in any of them you see a kind of life that belongs only to Vienna. Most of these places are open at any time ; if you stray in before two o'clock, you will see the little tables, and the decorations and other attractions offered by the proprietor, and get an excellent cup of coffee, some sweet bread and but- ter, or whatever you order that comes within the moderate caf6 bill of fare. The Vien- nese are most celebrated for their ices, which are of many different kinds, often so clev- erly combined that the waiter who takes your order is asked to come back with the ice, when he has set before you a bouquet of roses, a basket of grapes, a litter of fluffy puppies, or a miniature dog, so perfect that you are deceived at first sight. A good cafe is tempting to idleness. . You may loiter about for a long time if you wish, reading some of the papers. There is an astonishing number in the cafe", not only of those published in Austria, but in almost every land. Perhaps there will be a few other " stragglers " like yourself, who sit about for a while, sipping some refreshment, reading or smoking ; but the life of the cafes is to be seen between two o'clock and four in the afternoon. Then all the well-known places are filled packed, rather, with a regular Viennese crowd, representing every nation in the world ; and while different places 'are fre- quented by people of a particular nation, as also of kindred professions, in the largest places, like the European Cafe in the Stephans Platz, or the Pfob in the Graben, you will see an oddly mingled throng of Turks and Greeks, Jews and Poles, Bohemians, and Germans of every kingdom, Europeans, Orientals, and swarthy skinned Southerners, too. They jostle each other in a strange looking crowd of widely different people, 254 Cities of the World. chattering in their foreign tongues, and carrying with them their national manners. All the men smoke ; you see them puffing at everything, from the long porcelain pipe to the paper cigarette. You can not but be interested, and you can not help liking them all ; they are so kindly, so jovial and good-natured ; they will take any trouble to be courteous to you or to another ; they have plenty of time, and love to " enjoy life as they go along ;" they come here to chat with each other, to smoke together, to read, hear the music, for some kind or other of enjoyment. With all Viennese, and every other son of the German race, their greatest pleasure is in music. Nearly all the cafes have bands of music, where the beautiful wild Hungarian airs are played by women. It is principally dance music that they play ; more brilliant and fascinating music than you hear in any other place in the world. But the finest music is not in the cafe's ; it is in the out-of-door concerts, especially those given in the Volksgarten, by Edward Strasse and his merry men. The famous Johann plays only at the Emperor's good pleasure nowadays. This too, is dance music, but carried to an art, soft, light, and exquisitely full of melody. In this paradise of spreading trees, promenades, cafe-tables out-of-doors, the genuine Viennese finds perfect bliss in music, tobacco, and Dreher's beer. " Gayety in every form, and at all times, and an unlimited capacity for enjoyment, seem to be the leading characteristic of the Austrian disposition." You see this in the beautiful theatres they build, and the great numbers of concert halls, ball rooms, and other places of recreation abounding throughout the capital. Vienna has about ten great theatres ; three of the finest are in the Stadt ; the chief one of all being the Imperial Opera House. It is just within the city limits, on one of the southern sections of the Ring strasse. The best operas are given here, before the largest, most fashionable and brilliant companies of people that gather to any of the indoor amusements. The building itself attracts a great many visitors. It has made its four architects so famous that their portraits were made in medal- lion to adorn the handsome staircase. Seven marble statues stand on the parapets and great winged horses are above the open balcony, or " loggia." This is decorated with fine frescoes and bronze figures, and the foyer is richly embellished with scenes from great operas, and busts of celebrated living composers. The interior is large enough to seat three thousand people, and sumptuously decorated with paintings and gilding. The ceilings, walls and curtain are each a separate work of art. On the main curtain is the legend of Orpheus, the poet who could move lifeless things by the music of his lyre. On the box-fronts there are thirty medallions of distinguished members of the Viennese opera during the last hundred years. Not even the famous boulevards of Paris have such a show of magnificent buildings as the Rings of Vienna. On the west of the city, they begin at the broad Franz- Josephs Quay, which is itself a great tree- planted and store-lined boulevard, skirting the lower bank of the Danube Canal as the river arm is called connecting on the east with the other end of the encircling THE JEWS QUARTER, VIENNA. 256 Cities of the World. thoroughfare. One of the best ways to see these " lions " of the great capital is to take a drive through them. There is a never ending panorama among the people, for this is a favorite promenade, and contains some fine stores, and of course, many good cafes ; but the imposing double ring of buildings that line the great tree-planted avenue on either side, will draw your attention from every other sight. Beginning the circuit on the western side of the city, first there are the extensive Rudolf barracks, where hundreds of soldiers are housed. Barracks are a common sight in Vienna, for Austria has one of the largest standing armies in the world, and in the capital alone there are soldiers enough to make a general parade of over twenty thousand men. Nearly opposite is the Vienna Exchange, or Borse, a great rectangular building, profusely set with marble, terra cotta and sculptures in relief, with a stately portico of arches and columns in front of a mag- nificent vestibule, leading to the vast business hall, where the Viennese stock brokers gather in such noisy and excited crowds as those of other countries. The first floor of the building is occupied by the fine Oriental museum of natural products, manufactured articles, models and other things, mostly from Eastern Asia. Further along in your drive you would see a pretty little garden, triangularly shaped, between two fine broad streets, radiating westward. Above it is the Votive Church, built by the Austrian people in 1856 and the twenty-three following years as a votive offering for the Emperor's escape from assassination in 1853. It is celebrated as one of the most beautiful of modern Gothic buildings. It stands alone in the center of a large platz, solitary and beautiful, with its richly carved body covered with tracery and statues, and its slender spires above the open-work towers. The statuary carving and coloring of the handsomely propor- tioned interior is finer than any thing else in Europe, except the king of cathedrals at Cologne. Beyond it in the Alsergrund stadt, are some of the great hospitals and cele- brated charitable institutions of the city. Opposite the point of the triangular garden, a narrow street in sharp contrast with all this spacious modern magnificence runs between the grim, black walls of the Schottenhof and the Melkerhof. These are a couple of the great abbeys belonging to some of the powerful religious orders or societies of Austria. There are many of these ancient hofe in Vienna ; they occupy some of the most valuable property in the city, and the inmates of any of them are enough to people a small town. This narrow picturesque Schottenstrasse also leads to the large irregular platz called the Freiung, overlooked by ancient palaces of the honored Austrian nobility, whose gal- leries of magnificent old pictures are open to the public. Underneath the National Bank is a Viennese bazar in a passage that makes a short cut for pedestrians to the Hof, or Court, an ancient square, which is one of the busy fruit markets of the city. Like almost every platz it is embellished with a monument and overlooked by noble mansions or city buildings of some special interest. The old Hof is the largest and one of the liveliest open spaces in Vienna ; on the east it is connected with the Graben, and not far above it lies the Hohen Market, which was the center of ancient Vindobona, the town Vienna, 257 of the Romans. Marcus Aurelius died in the fortress that stood here, and in the third century it was the forum of an active Roman town and military station. But, if you were taking a drive through the Rings you could not have wandered away over here ; you would have left the Votive Church behind, and joining in the stately pageant of the afternoon drive, would probably have passed the grand new University building and the celebrated New Buildings near by, to the finely laid out grounds below,which, divided into exact counterparts by a wide avenue, lie between the gay drive and the imposing new buildings to the Rathhaus or City Hall, standing about four hundred feet back from the Ring strasse, apart from any other buildings. It is built in the style of the magnificent Italian palaces of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, everywhere lavishly adorned with statues, and surmounted by a tower, rising above the principal facade. Below this there is a great reception hall, the largest of three contained in the building for festive times, which are in addition to all the spacious and handsome council chambers, com- mittee rooms and offices. The various apartments of the Rathhaus are built around seven fine open courts ; the largest one, in the center of the block, is very handsome and inclosed by arcades. Opposite, one of the great theaters stands in a large platz just within the Ring. This is the new Court Theater, which, standing alone, shows off its cold but stately magnificence and numerous columns to the best advantage. Below is the pretty green, the noble shade trees and lovely walks of the Volksgarten where another Grecian building stands, the Temple of Theseus, as it is called. Toward the Ring the regular paths and sparkling fountain of the garden are opposite the main front of the Austrian Houses of Parliament. This, too, is a Renaissance structure, with its fine colonnaded wings and sculptured pediment above the noble portico. The upper stories are in two parts, connected behind the portico by the lower story, in which are the offices and com- mittee rooms belonging to the Senate, occupying the upper wing, and the Chamber of Deputies on the left wing. The temple-like building further on is the Palace of Justice, where the Supreme Courts of the empire meet. The magnificent hall in the center of this building is one of the sights of Vienna ; in vaults underneath, some of the precious papers of the nation are kept. One of the chief reasons that this drive is so magnifi- cent is that nothing is crowded, all the mighty buildings are separated by wide paved streets and squares or prettily laid out flower-beds and lawns, where the ease-loving people stroll about talking in small groups or smoking in peaceful content. They wan- der through the Volksgarten or the Outer Burg Platz, adjoining, into the Ring strasse, crossing it, perhaps, to go through the Imperial museums, which, with a platz of flower- beds between, lie beyond the Palace of Justice. They are built alike, magnificently adorned with art in sculpture and painting and contain celebrated collections, one of Natural History and the other of Art. There is an immense building behind these that is not handsome, but yet very interesting : it is the emperor's stables, where hundreds of blooded horses are kept for the use of the imperial family, and finer carriages than you 258 Cities of the World. have ever seen, I am sure. They are for four, six or eight horses, too many to be counted, and gorgeously covered with gold and rich colors. One of them is two hund- red years old and has panels decorated with paintings by the great Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens. The collections in the gun-room, saddle-room, riding school and other apartments of the stables are also very interesting. Below the Volksgarten there are two other parks, lying along the Ring strasse, and extending almost to the Opera House. The lower one is the Court Garden, and the center one is called the Outer Burg Platz. The entrance to this is through a large gateway the Burg Thor in which there are five passages separated by Doric columns. It leads to that vast, irregular pile of the Hofburg, or imperial castle. This is commonly called the Burg, and has been erected, altered, and enlarged at different times since the thirteenth century, when the Austrian princes first set up their residence here. Here are the apartments of the present emperor, who has numberless other places in Vienna and elsewhere ; and the wings occupied by Maria Theresa and her son, Joseph II. The right wing is called the Schweizerhof, or Swiss Court. Adjoining is the Treasury with its halls and cham- bers lined with precious and historical collections. Heralds' robes hang on the long walls of the entrance chamber, with beautiful embroidery of heraldric devices. Here are two silver caskets containing gifts to the emperor ; and an ebony box wherein are the keys of the coffins of the ancestors of the imperial house, and among some beautiful objects in rock crystal and smoky topaz the development of the art of the lapidary may be seen from the fifteenth century to modern times, while in other cases are magnificently rich and jeweled articles, a fountain head made of a single emerald, handsome tankards, drinking cups of lapis-lazuli and enameled gold, private jewels of the Austrian imperial family, the Austrian regalia, crown and scepter ; the celebrated Florentine diamond and the Frankfort solitaire diamond, stars and other emblems of Austrian orders. Among the other interesting buildings adjoining the Burg is the old Court Theater, and the Imperial Library, facing the Joseph Platz, with the bronze statue of the emperor on horseback. There are only a few libraries in the world more cele- brated than this with its thousands of precious volumes, manuscripts and music scores. The churches of the Burg are St. Michael's, where the aristocracy attend, Burg Chapel, adjoining the Schweizerhof, the old court church, or Augustiner-kirche, which was begun in 1330 ; in the Lorettc chapel are the embalmed hearts of the royal families (their bodies lie in the Capuchin Church in the New Market, near by, where a long pass- age in the solemn vault is lined by almost a hundred copper coffins). Below the Hofburg, near the Imperial Opera House, is the old palace of the Archduke Albert, containing his collection of engravings and drawings, known all over the world as the Albertina. It is said to be the most valuable in Europe ; the old palace is connected by a covered passage with the Archduke's new palace, which overlooks the court garden, and is adjoined by the smaller palace of the celebrated and wealthy banker, Baron ST. STEPHEN'S CHURCH, VIENNA. 260 Cities of the World. Schey on the Ring strasse, next to the Opera. Another and a more famous imperial residence is Belvedere, in the south-eastern part of Vienna, between the outer stddte of Wieden and Landstrasse. This chateau was built for Prince Eugene of Savoy in 1693, and about thirty years following. . It consists of two palaces called the Upper and the Lower Belvederes. The Upper palace is the main chateau ; it was built in the shape of an open triangle around a large court which opens on one of the city streets. This con- tains the Imperial Picture Gallery, which ranks among the greatest in the world. To the Lower Belvedere it is a pleasant down-hill walk through a large terraced garden. The upper part is laid out with grass plots, flower-beds, fountains and statuary, beyond which are shady avenues under groves of noble trees. The collections of the second palace are of antiquities, armor and curiosities. The eastern sections of the Ring strasse are not so imposing, although they too are lined with handsome houses, but there are more stores here and more business of buying and selling. Just below the Opera House the Wien makes a turn and flows about a block outside of the Rings all the way to the Danube Canal ; it is crossed by many bridges, leading to the Wieden stadt, on the south, where the great art schools and museums are, and to the Landstrasse stadt on the east. Here are a great many barracks and splendid institutes, with extensive gardens and long straight avenues lined with huge apartment houses, for the dwellings of Vienna, like those of all other really handsome cities, are in blocks of flats that hold many families under one roof. On the eastern part of the city the Wien is skirted by gardens, bordering the promenades along the quays ; the best of these and the most popular is the old Stadt park, which is a great rendezvous in summer evenings. People loiter in the vicinity of the music stands, in the walks beneath the trees, or in the pavilion by the pond. This, the Danube, and many other stretches of water are always gay in winter with skaters, their fanciful sledges and hearty ice sports. A bridge, crossing the stream, leads to a section of this park on the other side of the river, which is a charming children's play ground called the Kinderpark. The buildings of the Horticultural Society are just out- side the park on the Ring, adding another to the numerous places of amusement that the Viennese support. This is something like the Flora near Berlin, with its capacious halls decked with plants and flowers, concealing band's that play the delicious music of celebrated composers. This is a busy part of town, where a cluster of fine stores fill the colonnades and a great many of the old University buildings stand, while the bridge at the head of the park with its steady stream of people passing east and west, leads to the Central Market, the Mint of Vienna, the Skating Ring, and the Custom House, which has three immense courts in the center, with railway tracks the whole length. The Ring strasse ends at the confluence of the rivers with the Franz- Josephs Quay in a large drilling ground in front of a magnificent set of barracks. Along the quay several bridges lead to the Leopoldstadt above the canal, which is famous Vienna. 261 principally for its two spacious pleasure gardens, opened to the public in about 1775. by their much-misunderstood Emperor, Joseph II. The Augarten lies on the north-western part of the Leopoldstadt, and is visited by the manufacturing people of Brigittenau, adjoining ; the other park is the Prater, the finest and most extensive in the city. It covers about four thousand three hundred acres along the eastern side of the city, between the canal and the main stream of the Danube. It is almost twice the size of Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, and is reckoned the most beautiful in Europe. For about two centuries before the reign of Joseph II., it had been in the possession of the imperial family, and used exclusively by them for a hunting ground. Much of the fine forest still stands, and here all the people, to whom out- door life is part of their exist- ence, may come to enjoy themselves after their own fashion. On the main street of the Leopoldstadt is the busy Prater strasse, which ends in the Prater stern, a circular space at the park entrance, from which two avenues run into the Prater, dividing it into three fan-shaped sections. The Haupt-allee, or principal avenue, running to the right, is the favorite resort of the fashionable world in May, where, beneath the quadruple row of fine chestnut trees, there are to be seen the beautiful horses, elegant carriages, and most brilliant people of the gay capital, led by the Emperor's carriage, taking the prescribed drive of a mile and a half to the Rondeau, or a mile and a half further to the LustAaus, a fine restaurant, where the e"lite of the capital eat an ice or sip some drinks in the cool of the afternoon's shade. There are three cafes in the Prater ; one is particularly attractive from an artificial mound opposite, with miniature lakes and waterfalls. On the terrace, above the Prater, is the magnificent new Stddtischc Badeanstalt, a city bath. This includes a large swimming bath two hundred feet long and about a hundred and fifty broad, four smaller basins for bathers who do not swim, and an ample supply of private baths, in all accommodating twelve hundred persons at once. The center of the park, between the two allies, is known as the Volkprater or the Wurstel (buffoon park) ; this is the favorite haunt of poor people, or lower classes. There are numbers of cafe's, restaurants, pavilions, a w/fo-theater, and other places of amusement for them ; and sometimes fireworks are given. This part of the park is fullest of people on Sunday and holiday afternoons and is one of the best places to see the great sights of Vienna, which are the people. The International Exhibition of 1873 was held in the Prater, where the large Rotunda, the Art Hall, and the Pavillion des Amateurs have been left standing, and are now used for regular exhibitions, large concerts, and extraordinary entertain- ments. From the roof of the Rotunda, to which you are admitted for twenty kreuzers, about equal to ten cents, there is a fine view of the Prater, the Danube, and the new- suburbs lying beyond. Notwithstanding all their love of pleasure and gayety, that is dissipation sometimes, the Viennese are not a shiftless people ; some of them, at least, work. It is the center of a very important railway system, which radiates in all direc- tions, connecting especially with Russia and Turkey, running through Hungary till it 262 Cities of the World. reaches the Levant and Italy. Some of the manufactures of the city are of world-wide fame, particularly fancy leathers, meerschaum pipes, jewelry, clocks, musical and optical instruments, silks and velvets. There is refinement and culture, too, that attract people from all nations ; you see it in their dress, their manners, and their way of living ; but it is not an intellectual city, although the university is five centuries old and numbers two or three thousand students and almost a hundred and fifty professors. The entire population of Vienna is one million two hundred thousand. The great central state of the new empire of Austria-Hungary, is the territory of the ancient and powerful kingdom of Hungary. It is united with Austria proper, by having the same ruler : the Emperor of Austria is king of Hungary. The kingdom is large and has great resources in fertile plains, vineyards, gardens, forests, and orchards, and is one of the most favored countries in Europe for its valuable minerals. The Hungarians, or Magyars as they call themselves, are more inclined to raise stock and crops than to manufacture, and for that reason they are not a race of city-building people. It has been said, with exaggeration, that there is only one noteworthy city in Hungary. This is the capital, Buda-Pesth, on the Danube, which makes up for the others in overflowing with life, in active trade, and brilliant society. Next to Vienna it is the most important city on the Danube, and is connected by railway with all the large towns in the country. The center of trade is along the magnificent quays that border the banks of the river, which, in the center of the city, is about fifteen hundred feet wide, and always full of almost every variety of river craft. Part of this shipping trade is in the products of the country round about corn, flour and timber, or wine and brandy ; some of these come from the lovely vineyards surrounding the town, and the wool or cattle brought in from the farms of the peasantry. There are markets held every week when the country people bring in what they raise ; during each year there are four large fairs held. The factories of Buda Pesth make beautiful dress goods, meerschaum pipes, leather, gold and silver articles, besides heavier things like carriages, machinery and iron wares. The railway keeping a regular com- munication open between the capital and country places, has taken away the great need of the fairs of late years ; but they are still important occasions, when almost half of Hungary is supplied with what is needed for daily living in exchange for what their work or land produces. These gatherings have many odd and fantastic sights ; hundreds of peasants in their various costumes are gathered in the city, making living pictures of the fourteenth or fifteenth century set in the modern surrounding of magnificent new build- ings and broad streets. The peasants, often wearing leather jerkins and undressed skins, are very merry and light-hearted, and enter heartily into the gay dances and lively songs, or the rough-and-tumble games that are to them an important part of the fairs. They partic- ularly delight in contests with their horses, which are taught all manner of tricks. One of their chief enjoyments is to see how long a rider can stay on a horse trying to Buda-Pesth. 263 unseat him. Men and women enjoy this sport alike, and being quick and supple, take any amount of tumbles in great glee, without being hurt at all. The common people of Hungary live in a primitive way, and have most simple wants. "At the fairs they prepare their food like gipsies, wrap themselves in their blankets or sheep-skin coats and sleep soundly on the ground or under their stalls or wagons, the earth being their couch and the sky their roof. They are ignorant and superstitious, but they are also sturdy, independent and exceedingly patriotic." Beside the native Hungarians there are people from many other places of southern and eastern Europe, and almost every country adjoining. But this also is the character of the city, especially the part on the right bank of the river, which was the separate city of Buda, until 1872, although the two places had been connected by a large suspension bridge for about twenty-five years. The Germans call it Of en or oven, from its great sulphur and hot spring, and by this name it is most generally known. This is really a city in itself, with characteristics distinct from the level, stately Pesth, on the opposite bank of the river. The streets and squares of Ofen, with their mingling of quaint and modern buildings, range like an amphitheater around the base and up the sides of a rocky hill; the top is level and crowned by a fortress and castle from which it is named the Schloss-berg, or Castle Hill. This is the center of observa- tion for both sections of the city, the majestic hills near by with their fortifications and precipitous fronts toward the water, and the fair green vineyards on the plains almost encircling the adjoining suburbs. The citadel is almost five hundred feet above the sea-level, and incloses within its walls a beautiful royal palace which Maria Theresa built in 1770. It was partially destroyed some thirty years ago, but was restored and now stands in regal splendor as the residence of the king (Emperor of Austria, but king in Hungary), when it is his pleasure to stay here. The garden surrounding the chateau extends down to the river, with a fine view of Pesth and the water even from the Palace Bazar, or from the cafe on the bank. Ofen differs in appearance and in people from most of the Danubian cities. There is a somber Mohammedan mosque over the grave of the saint Sheik Giib Baba, fre- quently visited by pilgrims from Turkey ; numerous buildings are partly or wholly in the style of the East ; many of the customs of the people and their manners of business dealing are from the Orient, and the Moorish baths are an important feature of the place. For more than a century during the Middle Ages, Buda was held by the Turks ; and some of the baths they established are still used a great deal. One of these, the Kaiser- bad, is a favorite resort ; adjoining is a Turkish fortification on the river. It has eleven springs that vary in temperature from 80 to 150 Fahrenheit. There are large swim- ming basins for gentlemen and ladies, and adjoining are fine colonnades, and cafe's looking out upon the gardens. There is always music here, which adds to the other attractions things to eat and drink, and draws many people. 264 Cities of the World. The Hungarians are fond of music and company, and frequent restaurants and cafes a great deal. Sunday is chief reception day at all cafes, the laws and customs of all Ger- many being different from ours in regard to the Sabbath. The people gather by hund- reds, in their peculiar national costume ; they stroll about, or sit at the tables consum- ing hours in smoking, talking and drinking beer, which is said to be the German equiv- alent for water. They are overflowing with love for their country, so their conversation runs mostly upon the past and the future of Hungary ; few of them are satisfied with a government united to Austria. Mingled with the native Hungarians there are Jews, Turks, Greeks, and men and women of all nations. It is quite another class of people that you see in the Raitzenbad, a bath for the poor, also in Buda, between the Schlossberg gate and the larger hill of Blocksberg. The bath itself is a large and dismal vault, with a few openings for light ; but the sight is "the people, who gather about the huge basin of .hot water in the center. They plunge about, screaming and jumping, jostling and pushing, wrestling and playing leap-frog, like frantically gay creatures that seem to belong to some other world ; the hot sulphurous water seems to affect their spirits like liquor, although many of them are old men and women. Bathing is not a German custom, but it is thoroughly seated here ; and in the beautiful parks on Margaret Island, just above the city, there is an elegant new bath, with fine hotels and villas, for patients who are staying in Buda-Pesth for the benefit of the waters. The finest part of Pesth is the site of the old twelfth century settlement, the Inner Town, that lies along the river. Unlike Buda, it is level, and so low that it is diked in from the river. The broad quay is like a fine boulevard, terraced and flanked by imposing buildings, with the magnificent academy in the center, opposite the suspension bridge. This is the seat of the leading scientific society in Hungary, and contains also a picture gallery famous for some great works by Murillo, Raphael, and other old masters. Throughout the city there is a fine display of large public and private buildings. The Inner Town is the center of fashion and trade, and around it are grouped four stddte or towns in a semi-circle, laid out in short and regular cross streets between the long avenues that radiate from the Old Town. These thoroughfares are wide, straight, and well paved, and lined with handsome buildings. The aristocracy, university, law courts and government buildings, with the most mag- nificent stores, are in the Inner Stadt. Altogether four-fifths of the people of the city live on this side of the river ; the entire population is about three hundred and sixty thousand, more people than live in Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands. " The brightest jewel in the imperial crown of Austria is Bohemia," with its fertile soil, wealth of minerals, abundant resources, and industrious people. In the center of this rich and beautiful land is the famous city of Prague. This is the third city in the monarchy in size ; but for its beautiful situation, its quaint architecture and important place in history, it has no equal among all the cities of Germany. On both sides of the Moldau, spanned by many tower-guarded bridges, it stretches up the sides of its rocky basin in Prague. 265 a lovely picture of some thriving city of the Middle Ages, framed by the verdant sum- mits of the hills. It scarcely seems possible, as you gaze at it from the Carlsbruke, that PRAGUE. it can be an active, wide-awake place of the nineteenth century, with about a hundred and seventy-five thousand people, who almost lead the Empire in manufacturing and trade. Yet, it is all true ; and the well-equipped University, after centuries of neglect, is alive 266 Cities of the World. with students and professors. It is the oldest University in Germany, and in the fifteenth century was the most celebrated in the world, with twenty thousand students. The city is surrounded by walls and bastions, entered by eight antique gates, and commanded by the grand old fortified citadel above the river, which was once the residence of the early dukes of Bohemia. The gates and towers, the quaint houses with their fantastic decora- tions, lining the narrow streets, and even the foot-ways, wrought with blue and yellow limestone, with Arabesque patterns, are unlike any other sight in Europe. There are new buildings and push enough in the people ; but they are proud of keeping their Bohemian character ; they take care to preserve their language, too, and will not exchange it for the most " polite high Dutch " of the Empire. Placards and signs on shop fronts and walls are all in the vernacular. " A few leisurely strolls through the streets would almost serve the purpose of grammar and dictionary, especially as several of the advertisers are so considerate as to give a German translation alongside." But they are Europeanizing gradually, especially in dress. " The dark- colored long coat, with belt and plume of dyed cock feathers in a dark felt hat, worn by the for the most part unoccupied police, is about the only characteristic costume you see now among this busy good tempered and well-conducted people," except on some of the market days. There are a remarkable number of book stores in Prague, and the photographs in the shop windows seem without number. Like most other German cities, Prague has an old town, the most busy and full of people, and new stddte beyond. At every turn there are statues, tablets, and historical relics, reminding the visitor of the great men and important events that have been connected with the city that has been great for so many centuries, and is growing still. The principal seaboard trade of Austria is centered at Trieste, at the head of the Adriatic. Nearly one-third of all the sea trade of the monarchy is carried on here ; it is also the chief port of the Adriatic. It is a beautiful city, of a hundred and fifty thousand people (the size of Washington, D.C.), at the foot of the cliffs of the Karst, the heights of this desert tract of limestone bluffs in the background being covered with gardens, orchards, vineyards and many elegant villas. The Schlossberg, crowned with an old castle and fortifications, overlooks the old town, whose crooked, narrow streets, with a number of great public squares, either creep by its rocky sides or lie at its foot on the southern side* of the semi-circular harbor. Separated by the handsome cross, the main street of the city, lies the New Town. This is made up of wide, regular streets, lined with handsome houses, and skirting the east and north shores of the port ; it is divided into two parts by a great canal running up into the center of the city. There are many noteworthy places in this celebrated seaport, the finest of all being the Tergesteum, which is a splendid modern building in the New Town. It is named from the ancient Romans, who held this port as early as fifty years before Christ, and called it Tergestum. Trieste is very proud of the title of " the most loyal of towns," which it has borne since 1816. THE LEVANT.* ALL the regions beyond Italy, bordering the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea, are commonly known in Europe as the Levant. This usually includes Asia Minor, Turkey, Syria, Greece, Egypt and the adjacent country, but it does not extend east of the Euphrates River. In the time of the ancients and during the middle ages some of the grandest cities of the world flourished here, but nowadays the most important places in the Levant take second or third rank among our great cities. The greatest Levantine city is Constantinople. To come into Constantinople on a fine morning is a great moment in a man's life. You enter the Bosphorus that arm of the sea which divides Asia from Europe, and joins the Sea of Marmora to the Black Sea then go up a narrow roadstead which lies at a right angle with the Bosphorus, and penetrates for several miles into the European land, curving like the horn of an ox. This is the Golden Horn, or, horn of abundance, because through it flowed, when it was part of Byzantium, the wealth of three continents. At the angle of the European shore, which on one side is bathed by the waters of the Sea of Marmora, and on the other by those of the Golden Horn, where once Byzantium stood, now rises upon seven hills, Stamboul, the Turkish city at the other angle, marked by the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, stand Galata and Pera above it, the Prankish cities opposite the mouth of the Golden Horn, upon the hills of the Asiatic side, is the city of Scutari. That then which is called Constantinople is composed of three great cities, divided by the sea, but placed the one opposite the other, and the third facing the other two. From the hill tops to the sea, quarter after quarter stretch along the water thickly sown with houses and dotted with white mosques, rows of ships, *See " Great Cities of the Ancient World." A HAREM WINDOW. 2 68 Cities of the World. little doors, palaces rising from the water, pavilions, gardens, kiosks, groves ; a glow of colors, and all the sublime glory of Constantinople is in full view. The Golden Horn is like a river, and on either shore are two chains of heights on which rise and lengthen two parallel chains of city, embracing eight miles of hills, valleys, bays and promontories ; a hundred amphitheaters of monuments and gardens, houses, mosques, bazars, seraglios, baths, kiosks of infinite variety of colors ; in the midst of thousands of minarets with shining pinnacles rising into the sky like columns of ivory ; groves of cypress trees descending in long lines from the heights to the sea, engarlanding suburbs and ports ; the green of trees and vines springing and gushing out everywhere, waving plume-like in the summits, encircling the roofs and hanging over into the water. Galata is faced by a forest of masts and sails and flags ; above Galata, Pera, the vast outlines of her European pal- aces drawn upon the sky; in front, abridge |j connecting the two shores and traversed by two opposing throngs of many col- ored people; opposite Stamboul stretched upon her broad hills, upon each of which rises a gigantic mosque with leaden dome and golden pin- FOUNTAIN ST. SOPHIA. nacles; Saint Sophia, white and rose colored ; Sultan Ahmed, flanked by six minarets ; Soliman the Great, crowned with ten domes ; Sultana Valide, mirrored in the waters ; on the fourth hill the Mosque of Mahomet Second ; on the fifth the Mosque of Selim ; on the sixth the Seraglio of Tekyr ; and above them all the white Tower of Seraskiarat, which overlooks the shores of both continents from the Dardanelles to the Black Sea." This is Constantinople from the ship ; but when you enter it you find it more the skeleton of a great city, than the vast metro- polis it appeared to you. " It is in the process of transformation now, and is made up of ancient cities that are in decay, new cities just built, and others being built ; on every side are traces of gigantic works ; " great plans not yet completed give the whole place an appearance of civilization cutting its way through tracts of decay, or of natural wilds. Constantinople. 269 " You go to the head of a fine street, it is closed by a ravine or precipice ; you come out of the theater to find yourself in the midst of tombs ; you go up a street, there is no more city. The streets bend into infinite angles, wind about among small hills, are raised on terraces, skirt ravines ; pass under aqueducts, break into alleys, run down steps, through bushes, rocks, ruins and sand hills. Here and there the great city takes as it were, a breathing time in the country ; and then begins again, thicker, livelier, more highly colored ; now it is all red, now all white, again all gold colors, and further on it presents the aspect of a mountain of flowers. In the midst of Turkish houses rise European palaces ; behind the minaret stands the bell-tower ; above the terrace the dome ; beside the dome the battlemented wall ; the Chinese roofs of kiosks hang over the fagades of theaters ; the grated balconies of the harem confront plate glass windows ; Moorish lat- tices look upon raised terraces ; niches with the Madonna within, are set beneath Arabian arches ; sepulchers are in the courtyards, and towers among the laborers' cabins ; mosques and synagogues, Greek churches, Catholic churches, American churches, rise one above another, amid a confusion of vanes, cypresses, umbrella pines, fig and plane trees, that stretch their branches over the roofs. At every hundred paces all is changed. There are points of France, strips of Italy, fragments of England, relics of Russia ; there is a con- vent of Dervishes in one street, a Moorish barrack in another, and Turkish cafs, bazars, fountains, aqueducts, at every turn." The great differences in the people add very much to the infinite variety of the city. The population is made up of people of every race and religion ; in one place densely crowded ; in another sparsely scattered ; the numbers have never yet been thoroughly counted, although the estimate is six hundred thousand about the same as Chicago, Illinois, or Liverpool, England. The best of all places to see the people is on the floating bridge, which extends from the most advanced point of Galata to the opposite shore of the Golden Horn, facing the great mosque of the Sultana Valide, a distance of about one-quarter of a mile. Both shores are European territory ; but the bridge may be said to connect Asia to Europe, because in Stamboul there is nothing European but the ground, and even the Christian suburbs that crown it are of Asiatic character and color. Standing on this bridge one can see all Constantinople go by in an hour. The crowd passes in great waves, each one of which i is of a hundred colors, and every group of persons represents anew type of people. Behind a throng of Turkish porters who pass running, and bending under enormous burdens, advances a sedan-chair, inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl, and bearing an Armenian lady ; and at either side of it a Bedouin wrapped in a white mantle or a Turk in muslin turban and sky-blue caftan, beside whom canters a young Greek gentleman followed by his dragoman in embroidered vest, and a dervise with his tall conical hat and tunic of camel's hair, who makes way for the carriage of an European ambassador, preceded by his batistrada, or running footman, in gorgeous livery. All this is only seen in a glimpse, and the next moment it is a crowd of Persians, in pyramidal bonnets of Astrakan fur, 270 Cities of the World. who are followed by a Hebrew in a long yellow coat, open at the sides ; a frowzy-headed gipsy woman with her child in a bag at her back ; a Catholic priest with breviary staff ; while in the midst of a confused throng of Greeks, Turks, and Armenians comes a big eunuch on horseback, crying out Larya ! make way ! and preceding a Turkish carriage, painted with flowers and birds, and filled with the ladies of a harem dressed in green and violet, and wrapped in large white veils ; behind a Sister of Charity from the hospital of Pera, an African slave carrying a monkey, and a professional story-teller in a necroman- cer's habit, and what is quite natural, but appears strange to the newcomer, all these diverse people pass each other without a look, like a crowd in London ; and not one single countenance wears a smile. An Albanian in his white petticoat and with pistols in his sash, beside the Tartar dressed in sheepskins, the Turk astride of his caparisoned donkey, threads pompously two long strings of camels ; behind the adjutant of an imperial prince, mounted upon his Arab steed, clatters a cart filled with all the odd domestic rub- bish of a Turkish household ; the Mohammedan woman afoot, the veiled slave woman, the Greek with her red cap, and her hair on her shoulders, the Maltese hooded in her black faldetta, the Hebrew woman dressed in the antique costume of India, the negress wrapped in a many colored shawl from Cairo, the Armenian from Trebizond, all veiled in black like a funeral apparition ;" all these and countless others jostle each other as they pass along. " Now it is a water carrier with a colored jar on his back ; now a Russian lady on horseback : now a squad of imperial soldiers in zouave dress ; now a crew of Armenian porters, two and two, carrying on their shoulders immense bars, from which are suspended great bales of merchandise. "Camels, horses, sedan-chairs, oxen, carts, casks on wheels, bleeding donkeys, mangy dogs ; so it goes on in greater multitudes of men and beasts, than can even be named, a steady tread of many, many feet and a murmurming sound of voices above which you hear in every tongue the shrill cries of newspaper sellers ; the shout of the porters, the giggling laugh of the Turkish women, the falsetto trill of blind men chanting verses of the Koran, the noise of the bridge as it moves upon the water, the whistles and bells of a hundred steamers," the striking of hoofs, sometimes clear and distinct and sometimes mingled in one mighty roar. " All this throng of people embark in the small steamboats that leave every moment for Scutari, for the villages on trie Bosphorus, and the suburbs of the Golden Horn ; they spread through Stamboul, in the bazars, in the mosques," far and near they go and return, blending together in a constant stream of life between " ten cities and a hundred suburbs." " In Stamboul every thing is strictly Oriental. The houses on either side the thousand alleys that wind about the hills are all of wood, painted in different colors, their upper stories projecting over the lower ; and the windows protected in front by a sort of grated gallery and closed by small wooden lattices that almost touch from opposite sides in some of the narrow streets. Mysterious by-ways often open on a sudden turn into one of the great Constantinople. 271 thoroughfares, flanked by magnificent monuments, and lined with mosques, kiosks, arched galleries, fountains in marble and laph-lazuli, mausoleums of departed sultans, resplendent with arabesques and gold inscriptions, walls covered with mosaics." The Jews' Quarter is a filthy place lying at the foot of the sixth hill in Stamboul ; it runs along the shore of the Golden Horn, where it was once ornamented by gorgeous palaces ; it is now full of ruins and sadness. One of the chief sights within the city is the Great Bazar in Stamboul. It is reached by a street that begins at the fish market, so narrow that the upper stories of THE BOSPHORUS. the houses almost touch each other, and lined with a double row of low, dark tobacco shops, and ending in a low, dark archway, festooned with vines. Beyond this is a vast stone building, through which runs a long, straight, covered street, flanked by dark shops, and crowded with people, cases, sacks, and heaps of merchandise. This is the Egyptian bazar, full of wares from India, Syria, Arabia and Egypt. It is a street of noisy coppersmiths, beyond this, where there are bad smelling Turkish taverns, and a thousand little black holes of shops. Then comes the Great Bazar itself, which outside does not attract you nor show any signs of its contents. It is an immense stone build- 272 Cities of the World. ing of Byzantine architecture, and irregular form, surrounded by high gray walls, and sur- mounted by hundreds of little cupolas, covered with lead, and perforated with holes to give light to the interior. The principal entrance is an arched doorway ; beyond which you are in a moment bewildered by the sight of a labyrinth of arcaded streets flanked by sculptured columns and pilasters that stretch out before you. It is a real city, with its mosques, fountains, cross-ways and squares, dimly lighted and filled with a dense throng of people. Every street is a bazar, almost all leading out of one main street, with an arched roof of black and white stone, and decorated with arab- esques like the nave of a mosque. In this dimly lighted thorough- fare, carriages, horsemen and camels are constantly passing, making a deafening noise. At every turn, by the side doors, are seen perspectives of arches anc * P^ asters > l n g corridors, narrow alleys, a long confused aspect of bazars, and shops, with merchandise piled up or hanging from wall and ceiling, busy merchants, loaded porters, groups of veiled women, coming or going, the merchants calling out to the passers-by and en- deavoring in every language to induce them to buy. But the confusion is only apparent. This immense bazar is or- dered like a barrack. Every kind of goods has its own par- ticular quarter, its streets, its MUSSULMAN WOMAN. corridor, and its square. There are a hundred little bazars contained in one great one, and opening one into the other like rooms of a vast apartment, and each bazar is at the same time a museum, a market and a theater, where you may look on without buying any thing, take coffee, enjoy the coolness and lose yourself in the fantastic scene around you. The costumes of Constantinople are undergoing a change, and before long a great deal of the charming variety that has for so long a time been a great feature of the Turkish capital will be a thing of the past. " The inflexible old Turk still wears the tur- Constantinople. 273 ban, the caftan, and the traditional slippers of yellow morocco ; the Turk who is on the side of reform in dress and old time customs and belief, wears a long black frock coat, buttoned to the chin, trowsers with straps, and nothing Turkish but the fez, and some of the younger men even wear cut-away coats, light pantaloons, and elegant cravats, watch chains and seals, and a flower in the button-holes. Many, between these extremes, are in part Oriental and part European dress. The women's clothes, too, are gradually undergoing a change, but they still keep to the custom of the veil and mantle, but the veil has become transparent, and the mantle often covers a dress of Paris pattern." What can one not do in Constantinople ? There are two continents and two seas within sight. " Horses stand saddled in every square, sailboats in every cove, steamboats at every flight of steps, the darting caique, the flying talika, and an army of guides speaking all the lan- guages of Europe." One of the best ways to know what Con- stantinople is is to make the journey skirting Galata along the northern shore of the Golden Horn. Galata is built upon a hill that forms a pro- montory between the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, and upon the site of the great cemetery of ancient Byzantium. The TOWER. IN BOSPHORUS. streets are almost all narrow and tortuous, bordered by taverns, pastry-cook shops, butchers' and barbers' shops, Greek and Armenian cafes, merchants' offices, workshops and the ever present barracks ; the whole dark, damp, muddy and sticky as in the lowest London quarter. A dense and busy crowd throng the streets, constantly opening before carriages, porters, donkeys and omnibuses. Almost all the trade of Constantinople passes through Galata. Here are the Exchange, the Custom House, the office of the Austrian Lloyds, those of the French Messageries, churches, convents, hospitals and warehouses. An underground railway unites Galata to Pera, and there is nothing Ori- ental here except turbans and fezzes. European languages are spoken on all sides. There are two long modern streets : one mounts the hill toward Pera, and the other runs parallel to the sea-shore from one end of Galata to the other, and leads to the Sultan's 274 Cities of the World. palace. The city has the form of an opened fan, and the tower of Galata represents its handle. After threading your way through a series of dirty winding alleys you reach the Tower. This is a land-mark, which rises upon the line of the wall that once separated Galata from Pera, and now marks the limit of the Genoese quarter. The tower is round, very high, of dark color, ending in a conical point formed by its copper roof, under which runs a range of large windows, where night and day a guard watches for the first sign of any fire that may break out in the city. Near the tower you enter the principal street of Pera, which is the center of pleasure and elegance, especially for the European colony in Constantinople. The street is bordered by English and American hotels, handsome cafes, glittering shops, theaters, consulates, clubs and palaces of ambassadors. Here swarms a crowd quite different from Galata. In some of the adjacent suburbs the people are almost all Greeks, while near by is the Mussulman suburb of Kassim-Pasha, the heart of Turkey ; it is thickly set with mosques and con- vents of dervishes, full of flower and vegetable gardens, and occupies a hill and a valley, and extends to the waters of the Golden Horn. From the heights of Kassim-Pasha the spectacle is an enchanting one. Below upon the shore is the arsenal of Ters-Kane ; a labyrinth of docks, factories, squares, store-houses and barracks, that extends for a mile along that part of the Golden Horn which is used as a port for vessels of war ; the light and elegant building of the Ministry of Marine, that seems floating on the water, is seen upon the dark green background of the cemetery of Galata \ the harbor is full of small steamboats and caiques loaded with people, that dart about among the iron-clads lying at anchor, and old frigates dating from the Crimean war ; and on the opposite shore Stamboul, the aqueduct of Vanentinian, that throws its lofty arches against the blue sky, the great mosques of Soliman and Mahomet the Second, and myriads of houses and min- arets. Other quarters, Turkish and Israelitish, each with its own peculiarities, extend beyond, from height to shore, all interesting and every thing new. The Halidgi-Oghli is made up of a mixture of people ; it is " a little city, where at every turn one meets a new race and a new religion. You go up, you go down, you climb, you wind about among tombs, mosques, churches, and synagogues ; you skirt gardens and cross squares ; you meet handsome Armenian matrons, and veiled Turkish women ; and you hear Greek, Armenian, and Spanish spoken." What a wonderland yoti are in ! Among the things peculiar to this city are the birds. They are infi- nite in number and of every kind. All places resound with the song, the whis- tling and twittering of birds. The Turks love and care for them. "Spar- rows enter the houses boldly and eat off women's and children's hands ; swal- lows nest over the cafe doors, and under the arches of the bazars ; pigeons are maintained by legacies from sultans and private individuals ; seagulls dart and play over the water ; thousands of turtledoves coo among the cypresses in the cemeteries ; crows croak about the Castle of the Seven Towers ; halcyons come and go in long files 276 Cities of the World. between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmora ; and storks sit upon the cupolas of the mausoleums. For the Turk each one of these birds has a gentle meaning or a kind virtue, so he protects and feeds them in gratitude and piety." His feeling for them is sincere like that for the dogs, which make up " a second population, forming a great free vagabond republic, living in the streets, where they dig little dens, and live undisturbed during all their lives. They are masters of the public highways ; the people, the horses, the camels, and the donkeys, all make way for them. They are remarkably lazy. They lie down in the middle of the road, five, six, ten in a line, or in a ring, sleeping the whole day, and among throngs of people, the most deafening noises, unmoved by either cold or heat, rain or shine, and scarcely by the imminent danger of being run over. Although at some hours of the day Constantinople seems to be industrious, in reality it is perhaps the laziest city in Europe. Turks and Franks or Europeans are alike in this. Every body gets up as late as possible. The sun is high before it is possible even to get a cup of coffee. Then there are the holidays : the Turkish Friday, the Jewish Sabbath, the Christian Sunday, the innumerable saints' days of the Greek and Armenian calendar, all scrupulously observed. There are offices that are only opened twenty-four hours in eight days. Every day one or the other of the five peoples of the great city goes lounging about the streets, in holiday dress, with no other thought than to kill time." Everywhere you see a great amount of liberty, which results in the different nationalities keeping their own manners and customs, or adopting any others that they choose, within the bounds of law and order. The greatest things to see in Constantinople are the mosque of Saint Sophia, the Old Seraglio, the palaces of the Sultan, and the Castle of Seven Towers. In the square of St. Sophia is the famous pagoda-like fountain of Sultan Ahmed Third, a little edifice all of white marble covered with richest ornamentation. There is not a space as big as a hand that is not carved and gilded and embroidered. From this colossal jewel is seen the mosque of St. Sophia, filling up one side of the square, with its high white minarets that rise one at each of the four corners upon pedestals as big as houses. The dome, which looks so grand from a distance, seems small near by ; it is a flattened dome, flanked by two half domes covered with lead, and perforated with a wreath of windows, supported upon four walls painted in stripes of pink and white ; on the eastern side there is a door ornamented by six columns of porphyry and marble ; at the southern side another door by which you enter a court, surrounded by low, irregular buildings, in the midst of which bubbles a fountain, covered by an arched roof with eight columns. From the outside Saint Sophia's would never pass for the " greatest temple in the world after St. Peter's ; " but within is the marble-lined vestibule, glittering with ancient mosaics, the grand nave, with its domes and columns, its galleries and porticos, its tribunes and gigantic arches ; its wonderful great dome, whose stateliness, color and variety bewilder you ; and as you go from one part to another the magnificence of art grows upon you Damascus. 277 with every step. " St. Sophia's stands opposite the principal entrance of the Old Seraglio, the great historic monument of the Ottoman dynasty. It was at once a royal palace, a fortress, and a sanctuary ; a city within a city, a monstrous palace placed upon the most eastern of the Stamboul hills, which descends gently toward the Sea of Marmora, the mouth of the Bosphorus, and the Golden Horn. The whole hill is encircled at its base by a battlemented wall with towers. Along the sea this wall is also the city wall. The Seraglio stands on the hill-top, with a circlet of walls immediately surrounding, But it is no longer in its Ottoman grandeur. The railway passes through the outer walls ; hospitals, barracks, and military schools stand in the devastated gardens ; and many of the old buildings that remain have been changed in form and use. The famous residence of the Sultans is the D'olma Bagtche, and rises from the shore of the Bosphorus ; it is only possible to get a view of the whole of it from a boat. The facade, which is half a mile long, is turned toward Asia, and can be seen for a great distance, shining white between the blue of the sea and the dark green of the hill ; it presents, with its many styles of architecture, the majestic appearance of the royal palaces of Eu- rope, combined with the graces of the Moorish buildings of Seville and Granada, altogether a vast Imperial City, as they say in China, with its palaces, its temples, its theaters, endless in variety, magnificence, and fantastic beauty. The old Castle of the Seven Towers stands where the land wall of the great triangle of the Mussulman city joins the sea wall. It is now nothing but a skeleton of a castle, a state prison, guarded by a few soldiers. The Turks call it Jedi-Kul, and it is for them what the Bastile was to the French, and the Tower of London to the English ; a monument recalling the worst epochs of the tyranny of the Sultans. The largest city in Syria, or in Asiatic Turkey, is Damascus. It is probably the most ancient of cities, as it is the most Oriental, and at a distance one of the most beautiful places in the world. From the lofty hill on the west the view is one of the sights of the earth. The Damascenes say it is the earthly reflection of Paradise. In the midst of charming gardens, brightened by flowers of every hue, rich cornfields and blooming orchards, with the river Barrada and its branches winding through until they lose themselves far to the east in the lake Bahr-el-Merj, into which the Phege, a smaller stream, also flows, in the midst of all this indescribably beautiful picture, the bright buildings of the city rise, gleaming snow-white in a long and rather narrow stretch. On the outskirts rise multitudes of tall poplar trees in dark and stately forms, and rich groves and orchards of walnut, fig, pomegranate, citron, and apricot. The city is famous for this magnificent picture, and equally famous, alas, for disappointing every one on nearer view, with its old, tumbledown walls, shabby houses and narrow streets. The mean looking houses so cramp the dirty streets, that a loaded donkey blocks the way, and foot-passengers hasten to get into the doorway of the nearest house until the blockade has passed by. The outsides of the houses have nothing but a door-way to break the stretch 278 Cities of the World. of dead wall with their projecting upper stories, shutting out all but a thin strip of sky. But after you have recovered from your first disappointment in Damascus, it will grow interesting to you, especially if you study any thing of its history. The houses which look so unattractive outside are often very beautiful within, with fine marble-paved courts, ornamented with trees, shrubs, and fountains, rooms with roofs and walls decorated with arabesques, and most luxuriously furnished. In the south-eastern part of town is the Jewish Quarter, and above it is the Christian Quarter, where the lanes are narrow and the houses are in a ruinous condition, while between them runs the only broad, respectable street in the old city, Derb-el-Mustakim, familiar to us in the Scripture as " the Street that is called Straight." Muslims occupy the other parts of the town. These quarters are subdivided into smaller sections, each closed off from the other at night by wooden gates, kept by blind public paupers. " The present form of Damascus is something like a spoon, with the new quarter of Meidan for a handle." This is about a mile long and occupies only one street, and is quite different from any other part of the town. The whole suburb is comparatively new, and none o'f the many dilapidated mosques on each side of the broad, badly-paved street, are over a couple of centuries old. This is very modern for a city mentioned in the book of Gene- sis. The bazar, occupied mostly by smiths and corn-dealers, is particularly interesting when a caravan arrives. "A long string of camels stalks through the street, accom- panied by ragged Bedouins with matted hair and wild appearance. In the midst of the procession the Hauranian is bringing his corn to market, and the Kurd shepherd, clad in his square cloak of felt, is driving his flock to the slaughter-house. The Bedouins, poor as they are, often ride beautiful horses, guiding them with a halter only ; they are usually armed with a long lance, and rarely with a gun. In the midst of the noisy city these half-savages are quite out of their element. Some of them called Shebis, live chiefly by gazelle hunting, and wear gazelle skins, but these do not often come to town. Sometimes a Druse of high rank comes in riding at the head of an armed troop. His appearance is imposing, his turban is snowy white, he is equipped with a lance, handsome pistols, a sword, and perhaps a gun also, and his horse is often richly caparisoned. There are two days in the year when almost every type of the countrymen pass through here. These are on the day when the great caravan starts for Mecca, and on the day of its return. The Pilgrimage passes in and out of the gate at the end of the Meidan, which from its connection with this religious mission, is called God's Gate. In 1873 tne P^" grimage caravan returned on April i6th, and each successive year it arrives about eleven days later than the year before. The grotesque camel-litters of this procession are rudely made of wood covered with colored cloth, and open in front ; they carry several people, reclining on Oriental-looking couches. The litter is sometimes borne by two camels, one before, and the other behind, which are trained to keep step with each other. The camels are adorned with a headgear of leather straps, to which shells, coins, and small Damascus. 2 79 bells are attached. A handsome, richly caparisoned camel bears a large litter, which is hung with green cloth embroidered with gold, and contains an old Koran and the green flag of Mohammed the prophet. The party is accompanied by many half-naked der- vishes, and by an escort of soldiers, Druses, and Bedouins. The pilgrims, who have an eye to business as well as religion, bring back goods from Mecca." The great bazar of Damascus is in the inner part of the city, and is divided into sections, on the same plan as that of Constantinople. In among them are cafes, one that is particularly attractive is situated on a terrace, near some of the khans or wholesale houses ; the Great Khan is a splendid building of black and white marble, and all about it is a vast crowd of quaint, picturesque Oriental life. "The bazar is an exceedingly noisy place, with the lusty singing of beggars and vendors rising above the constant din of ordinary voices, mingled with the noise of workmen, and the sonorous repetition of the Mohammedan creed by the muezzins, which resounds from one minaret to another throughout the whole city, for mosques are at every turn. The handicraftsmen of Damascus appear to be very industrious as a class. The barber, too, in his stall, hung round with mirrors, incessantly and skillfully plies his trade of shaving heads and bleeding. The .public writers, who sit at the corners of the streets, are often surrounded by peasants and Bedouins, and sometimes by women. The engraver of seals is another important personage here, as a man adds his seal and not his signature to important business papers. The Persians are particularly noted for their skill in seal engraving and caligraphy. All these craftsmen begin their daily tasks at a very early hour, but the merchants do not open their shops till eight in the morning, and close them at about half an hour before sunset. Persons who walk about the streets after dark are liable to be arrested if they do not carry a.fdnds, that is, one of the tin or paper lanterns common in the city. At the gate of each quarter one must shout, ' Open, O watchman ! ' for the poor old gate-keeper to let him through." In the midst of one of the bazar streets the Citadel of Damascus towers above the shops, and surrounded by its reedgrawn moat. This was built in 580, with thick walls and twelve great projecting towers and overhanging stories. Toward the east there is a small postern ; but the main entrance is the Western Gate. There are four antique columns in this side, which once partly supported a large reception room, whose roof has now fallen. The chambers of the castle that are still preserved contain collections of ancient weapons, and the sacred tent which is carried by the caravan of pilgrims to Mecca. Not far away through the crooked, narrow streets is the Great Mosque, once very beautiful, but now much marred and partly in ruins. The famous swords of wonderfully-tempered steel for which ancient Damascus was so noted are not made here now. No manufactures are very extensive ; the silks, cottons, jewelry, saddlery, arms and other things, of which you see such quantities in the bazars, are rarely enough to supply any foreign trade. There are said to be about a 280 Cities of the World. hundred and fifty thousand people in the city and the adjoining suburbs, but the figures can not be given exactly. Smyrna, while one of the most important cities of Asia Minor now, was far greater in ancient days. It has about the same number of people as Damascus, but has more life than the " city of earthly paradise." The harbor at the head of the Gulf of Smyrna is so fine that ships of large burden anchor close to the quays. The trade, by railway also, is very extensive and important. Some of the buildings are handsomely built of stone ; but the city is mainly made up of ill-paved, narrow, crooked, dirty streets, with low wooden houses, generally no more than one story high. After the usual Turkish custom, the Turks, Greeks, Jews, Armenians, and Franks each have distinct quar- ters. The trade is in importing goods and products from Europe that the country does not supply for itself, while in exchange there is a thriving export business in wools, cot- ton, silk, carpets, olive-oil, drugs, gums, figs, raisins, and many other articles which are considered great luxuries in England and America. Two thousand years ago, when Egypt ruled the world, her numerous cities were the most magnificent ever built. Now, of them all, there are only two of importance left ; and these are greatly changed. Cairo, near the point of the Delta, is the capital of the present State, and a city where modern improvements are strangely combined with the medieval and oriental character. Its low wall, inclosing three square miles of oblong territory, and about three hundred and fifty thousand people, rises out of a sandy plain between the right bank of the Nile and the rocky ridge of Mokattam. From these heights, which lie on the south-east side of the town, the citadel rises two hundred and fifty feet. The citadel is in itself a small and interesting town, gathered about the hand- some palace and mosque of Mohammed Ali. The courts of the mosque, paved with white marble and inclosed by columns, the round arches with fancy capitals, and the vaulted domes, are all overlooked by a clock tower on the west, and surmounted by a large principal dome. This is supported by four great piers, and embraced by four half domes, with four smaller domes above the angles. Small stained glass windows with round arches are just below. The interior is very rich and striking with painted decora- tions, a great luster in the center and numerous small lamps. The casing of Mohammed Ali's tomb and the surroundings are of alabaster, which is also much used in the columns and domes of other parts of the beautiful building. From the ramparts of the citadel the entire city with the surrounding country is plainly in view below. " The vastness of the city, as it lies stretched below, surprises every one. It looks a perfect wilderness of flat roofs, cupolas, minarets, and palm tops, with an open space here and there present- ing the complete front of a mosque, and gay groups of dusky-skinned people, and moving camels. The wonderful aqueduct runs off for miles across the plain, The fawn-colored domes of the famous tombs of the caliphs rise against the somewhat darker sand of the desert. The gleaming river winds away from the dim south into the STREET IN CAIRO. 282 Cities of the World. blue distance of the north ; the green strips of cultivation on its banks glow amid the yellow sands. Eight miles away to the west the Pyramids of Gizeh seem to rise in their full height, while the eye measures the full distance between. The platform of the Great Pyramid is seen to be a considerable hill of itself ; and the fields and causeways which are between it and the river lie as in a map, and indicate the true distance and elevation of these mighty monuments. The Libyan hills, dreary as possible, close in the view behind them, as the Mokattam range does above and behind the citadel." Between the old fortified city and the river there lies a new district of broad streets and regular rows of houses called the quarter Ismaileeyah, not generally included as a part of Cairo proper. The city itself is walled off into quarters, which used to be separated by gates, and are still known by distinct names. " The majority of these quarters are built up in dwelling houses and are known by a name taken from some public building, from some person who once owned the property, or from some class of people who live there. Through the crowded districts of tortuous lanes and narrow, unpaved streets which once made up the entire city, fine new thoroughfares have been laid lately, and some of the dreary, neglected and choked-up lots have been transformed into open squares surrounded by handsome houses and some pretentious shops. From the foot of of the Citadel the Boulevard Mohammed Ali, the finest of the new streets, crosses the city in an almost northerly direction, ending in the Esbekeeyeh, the largest and best known public place in Cairo. At the head of this Boulevard with some fine open squares leading to it on all sides is the finest mosque in the city. There are four hundred of these Oriental temples in Cairo, but no other is as magnificent as this of Sultan Hassan, almost under the shadow of the Citadel. It was finished in the year 1360 A. D., and as one of the most superb monuments to Mohammedan religion has made the reign of Hassan memorable forever. This, like the mosque on the Citadel, was built of blocks of stone brought from the Pyramids ; but has quite a different appearance, for that is built after the Constantinople fashion, and this in the Egyptian style. It has a lofty and beautifully ornamented porch, towering walls bordered with rich cor- nices and surmounted by graceful minarets, and broken by arches leading to the spacious court. There are many other fine mosques, among the shops and palaces, the houses and bazars that line the Boulevard Mohammed Ali, while into it open a great number of narrow, small streets. Those from the eastern side come from the medieval part, while among the lane-like thoroughfares on the west there are some of the new, broad streets of the modern districts. By one of them the Palace of Abdeen is soon reached, where the Khedive usually lives during the winter ; and further west, near the river bank, are the palace and gardens of Shoobra. This was the favorite residence of Mohammed Ali, and is now the terminus of one of the most fashionable afternoon drives out of Cairo. There are other smaller palaces along the river both above and below Shoobra, extending to Boolak on the north, and to old Cairo on the Cairo. 283 south. Around the Esbekeeyeh, the square in which the Boulevard of Mohammed Ali ends, are most of the principal hotels, the Opera House, the French Theater, the palace occupied by the Mixed Tribunals or Egyptian Parliament, the old palace of Mohammed Ali, several other palaces, consulates and many substantial looking buildings of stores and houses, some of which are built in arcades occupied by handsome shops on the ground floor, and spacious stories above let for offices and private residences. The Esbekeeyeh is very large, the thoroughfares surrounding it are long public squares and embellished with statuary and fountains. The roadways are broad, well kept, and well lighted with gas ; the foot pavements are wide and planted with trees. The center of the place is like a European public garden, with cafe's, places of amusement, grottoes, and ornamental water. It is a great resort where a band plays toward evening, and little children run and have a good time in the early morning. Above, on the east, and partly below the Esbekeeyeh, lie the old quarters of the city, the true Cairo surrounding a bit of transplanted Europe. The quarters are no longer shut off from each other by gates, but they are still quite distinct, each having its sheykh, who keeps order among the people, and who must be consulted for permission to live in his quarter. In all these sections the streets are very narrow. This is due to the Cariean mode of building houses, each story projecting beyond that below it. Two persons may almost shake hands across the street from the upper windows ; in fact, in the Jews' Quarter many of the houses of the two opposite sides actually touch each other at the upper stories. Narrow streets are very common to places in hot climates ; for it makes both the houses and the streets cooler. Another reason, often the cause of setting buildings close together, was that the city was then more safe from the attack of enemies. " The streets of Cairo stand alone in their remarkable picturesqueness and Oriental character. Its narrow thoroughfares, with their quaint projecting balconies, and here and there the large walls of a mosque whose minaret pierces the blue far up in the sky ; the thronging, turbaned crowd with every variety of strange costume and adornment ; the camels with their silent tread, and heads lifted up as if sniffing the desert air from afar ; the bazars and inner courts with their glowing colors flung from Persian rugs, and carpets, lighted up by strong sunbeams, piercing the shelter- ing awnings." The most of the poor people's houses are miserable mud hovels with filthy courts, dilapidated windows and tattered awnings, but the dwellings of the rich are both beauti- ful and comfortable. Usually they are elaborately built in arabesque style, the basement story of the soft stone from the neighboring hills, and the upper story of painted brick. The stained glass windows are shaded by cornices that extend out from the wall in grace- ful ornaments. A winding passage leads through the ornamental doorway into the court, in the center of which is a fountain shaded with palm trees. The principal apartment is generally paved with marble ; in the center a decorated lantern is suspended over a fount- 284 Cities of the World. ain, while round the sides are richly inlaid cabinets and windows of stained glass ; and in a recess is the divan, a low, narrow cushioned seat running around the walls. Throughout Cairo in all quarters there is a liberal supply of public fountains, which provide water to all free of cost. Some of these in the oldest parts are curious and beau- tiful pieces of Oriental art, while others are modern affairs after the style in Constantino- ple. Above the fountain there is usually a room where the free day school is held. Another picturesque sight in this Oriental city is at the baths. The places themselves are not as fine nor as handsome as in many Eastern cities ; but they are always intrusting ; they are all vapor-baths, and one may go alone or in a party to submit to the heat, the sham- pooing, the rubbing with horse-hair gloves and all the rest, which when done certainly is a success in the way of cleanliness, though at the cost of considerable discomfort. The baths are usually given up to the men in the morning, while only women go in the after- noon ; but some places have special days in the week devoted to women, while others are carried on exclusively for men, or for women at all times. The interior of the baths are gay and picturesque with a bright-colored entrance and passages prettily inlaid with colored stones. In every thing Cairo is an Oriental city, and is more interesting in this respect than any other Eastern town. It is full of romance, of picturesque Oriental wonders, of strange sights, strange noises and strange smells. Every little narrow lane, every turn and the turns are incessant every mosque, and every shop creates fresh surprise. Then there are the people, not the white skinned European and American visitors, but the Cairean people : Muslims in gorgeous turbans, and long sashes, and a long chibouque bound with colored silk and gold threads," followed by their slaves holding their gorgeous garments from the dirt of the streets; there are Copts, Abyssin- ians, Nubians and other native Africans ; there are Turks in baggy trowsers and fez ; and Jews, recognizable in any costume. Occasionally there is a lady, in a vast silken bag, bulging like a balloon over her donkey ; or in the twilight a long string of donkeys ambling by, each bearing one of the inflated balloons. This is a harem the women of some household " taking the evening air, with the eunuch, like a captain riding before." The next sight might be Sakkas, men with hog-skins slung over their backs, full of water, which they sell from house to house ; or peddlers with turbaned heads, walking about in their long robes, crying their wares. Now you see a gay bazar, and, walking in, inspect its stock of silks and embroidered stuffs, rich Persian carpets, or fine cloth. One of the finest bazars is the Khaleel, which is almost six hundred years old. Here there is nearly every thing for sale. One part is given up to carpet dealers, another to tradesmen in copper, in a part called " within the chains " are silks and other goods from Constantinople. Most of the shops in this and other bazars are kept by Turks, and are built open in front, very much resembling a cupboard. Mondays and Thursdays always being market days, there are special sales in the bazars, carried on by appraisers or delldls, who " wade Alexandria. 285 through the crowd, carrying drawn swords, fly-flaps, silk dresses, chain armor, amber mouth pieces, guns," and a multitude of other kinds of articles, which they auction off, calling the price they are bid for them as they move along. Near the Khattel is the Mar- ket of the Coppersmiths, and further on is the Bazar of the Gold-and-Silversmiths ; in another, crape, silks, cloths and other goods mostly made in Europe are sold ; in another attar of roses and other perfumes along with drugs and spices ; and another has ostrich eggs, Nubian spears ami arrows and gum arabic ; and so on, even more numerous than the mosques, there are bazars large and small, whose showy booths offer for sale an endless variety of articles of every conceivable sort of use and ornament. The chief native manufactures of Cairo are gold and silver jewelry, silk and cotton stuffs, embroidery and native saddles, although many European industries have lately been introduced ; but a very large part of the people are occupied as porters, and venders of eatables ; many also are glaziers, boatmen on the Nile, donkey and camel drivers, water-carriers, coffee- house keepers, and in various other ways make their living in doing service to others. The hemalee supplies passengers with water, pouring it out of his brass spouted skin into a brass cup by which he measures it into the purchaser's earthen vessel, which has a sprig of orange stuck in its mouth. The sharbetlee sells an infusion of raisins or licor- ice, or some other sweet substance ; and the mttscllikattt Qi pipe-cleaner goes about with a bundle of long wires and a bag of tow ready to clean any body's shibook or long pipe. A favorite occupation at Cairo is that of beggar. Very little food and clothing are necessary in this climate, and starvation is a thing almost unheard of. The language of the Caireans is Arabic ; but in a city so full of many nationalities all tongues are heard, and everywhere European languages seem to be spoken and pretty well understood by the citizens of the Egyptian capital. Cairo is now, as it was of old, a great place for learn- ing. There are many students at the government colleges and national schools, while several thousand pupils attend the theological university attached to the mosque of Ezher. The most important people of Cairo now, the ruling class, are Turks, although there are greater numbers of Arabs, the former conquerors, than any other race. The Copts are descendants of the ancient Egyptians, but are no more numerous here now than Jews, Armenians, Syrians or Europeans. In ancient days Alexandria was the most grand, powerful and celebrated city of Egypt ; the times have changed, and with them the fair city has gone through many stages of decline and decay, followed by reviving importance, till now it is, next to the French city of Marseilles, the greatest port on the Mediterranean Sea. The modern Alexandria lies rather westward of where the old Ptolemies' capital stood, much of it where, then, there was no land. The city is situated chiefly on a broad neck between two harbors, originally a mole built out to the island in the sea. The ruins and soil that have gathered about the old dike, have made it a good sized peninsula now. The harbor on the East is called the New Port, while the westerly harbor is known as the Old Port. 286 Cities of the World. This is encircled almost half way round by the end of the island, which is now a part of the neck ; from this the port is further inclosed by a fine large breakwater. The city extends considerable distance along the lower banks of the harbors, and in scattered districts nearly to Lake Mareotis, which for a long way is only separated from the Mediterranean by a strip of land but a few miles in width. Alexandria is not a handsome nor a very interesting city ; it lies low, amid sandy, flat, and sterile surroundings. The way from the harbor lies through the narrow and irregular streets of the Turkish quarter, in which the houses seem to have been thrown together by chance ; and few have the Oriental appearance which is so interesting at Cairo. Here and there, however, you see a lattice work window or a Saracene arch, which make the street look picturesque. In the road through the bazars, which is a long one and can only be made on foot, there are many novel and eastern scenes. Beyond this, at the eastern end of the town, is the European quarter, the furthest from the Old Port, because, European vessels being formerly confined to the eastern harbor, the con- suls and merchants built their houses and carried on their business in that direction. This section of the city, called the Frank Quarter, is like an European town with handsome streets and squares built up with solid, stately buildings and occupied by excellent shops. Nearly all the streets have been paved lately. The principal hotels, shops, and bankers' and merchants' offices are situated in the Great Square forming the European center of the city, which the native Alexandrians call the Place of Mohammed AH. At one cor- ner is the English church, beside the handsome French Consulate ; the open body of the square is a favorite promenade, planted with trees and provided with seats. Here, pass- ing and repassing the fountains and the statuary, there is something like the same fan- tastic crowd you see in the great square of Cairo, except that the people of Alexandria are more mixed if any thing. About one-fourth of its two hundred thousand are Greeks, Italians, and in fewer numbers other Europeans. The avenues around the great square are broad and attractive thoroughfares leading to all parts of the city. The houses are built in large blocks called Okelles, but the public buildings are all plain and insignifi- cant, and neither mosques nor churches have any particular interest. There are Cleo- patra's needle, however, and some other remains of ancient Alexandrian glories that every visitor goes to see. Pompey's Pillar and some of the old tombs and churchyards are also full of historical interest ; but modern Alexandria has a long way to go yet before it can draw to itself any thing to compare with the interest felt for its magnificent pre- decessor. The principal means of traveling around the city is in carriages or on donkeys, both of which abound everywhere. The commerce of the city is in exportation of cotton, beans, corn, and sugar, gums, coffee, ivory, wool, linseed and mother of pearl to England and France ; and in importation of manufactured goods and coal from England, wood, oils, wines, and liquors, from the lower European countries ; raw silk, provisions and marbles, Alexandria. 287 and stones. The native industries are principally embroidering in gold and silk, cotton weaving, making pipe-stems, tobacco, arms and some other old established crafts ; while the Europeans have introduced many factories for supplying home needs, like starch, soap, gas, candles and such things. The Eastern or New Port has only been used by small native vessels for a long time, being too much exposed to the north winds and un- safe from the rocks and shoals. The only noteworthy canal nowadays, is the Mahmoo- PLACE OF MOHAMMED ALI, ALEXANDRIA. dceyeh, which begins at the village of Atfeh, on a branch of the Nile, and extends fifty miles eastward with an average width of about a hundred feet. For some distance the right bank is bordered with the houses and gardens of wealthy Alexandrians and is the fashionable afternoon promenade. The terminus of the canal is at the Old Port, near the western outskirts of the city, where there are storehouses and quays and busy scenes of commercial life. INDIA. THE largest city of Hindostan is Bombay. It covers part of the lower end of the island of Bombay, which lies not far from shore, at about the central point of the western coast line of the great peninsula. The view of the city from the entrance to the harbor is a beautiful one. Forests of motionless palm-trees cover the lower hills, along the margin- of the shore. The bays and river-like reaches of the sea are thick with islands whose masses of tropical green stand out clearly from the back- ground of singular hills, which in terraces, mounds or sharp pinna- cles lift themselves up to the cloudless sky above and from the gleaming blue sea sometimes over- hung by a soft bright haze. In the harbor are ships from every clime, of every size, lying at anchor, crowding the wharves, and num- berless boats with their large mat- ting sails and covered poop, and regular splashing oars gliding on countless errands here and there among the larger craft. The island of Bombay has an area of about twenty-two square miles, consist- ing of a plain about eleven miles long and three miles broad sur- rounded by two parallel lines of low hills. At the south-west of ., , , j c ., BEDOUIN AND FELLAH. the island an inward sweep of the sea forms a large shallow basin called the Back Bay ; but the frontage of the city is to- ward the east, overlooking the capacious harbor. This is not connected with the Bay, which is separated from the sea by small islands, connected with the larger one by cause- Bombay. 289 ways. The most southerly of these is Calaba, and next above that is Old Woman's Isle ; both are a sort of suburb of the larger island of Bombay. Above the Old Woman is the Fort, and beyond that a great railway terminus, and immense barracks extending to the European town, while about a mile still further north is the much larger native city, known as Black town. Beyond the net-work of masts and rigging that almost hides the docks, there are steeples and white houses showing among the trees the first glimpses of the famous city of Bombay, " with its worshipers of fire and fine gold." The first sight on landing at the celebrated port of Western India is a multitude of busy, half dressed black men. They are Coolies, or the laborers and porters of the city, a numerous class, whose rights and wrongs have been matters of serious discussion among great men. The town is well built, with spacious streets and'substantial houses, but with very little grandeur. There are no imposing temples or mosques, no mighty public buildings,overlooking grand avenues or handsome squares ; nor ^^^te^te is there any thing particularly ori- ental looking about the place, not even the camels, the radiant colors and fantastic crowds of Cairo. Notwithstanding it is so much further East it seems far less orien- tal than the Levantine towns. It is simply a broad level commercial city in India, but of England it is an Indian Liverpool. Neat broughams and carriages of Euro- pean build roll through its streets, carrying natives or aliens in much the same style ; but among these there are also numbers of the " wooden cabs dak-gharies with their Venetian blinds, buggies, buffalo carts and wagons, and sometimes quaint native conveyances. The crowds that walk along are chiefly made up of naked coolies, with legs like those of a crane ; and of white-robed, soft- faced, large-eyed Parsees with white stockings and polished shoes ; of Hindoos, broad fea- tured or fine featured, dark complexioned or olive complexipned, all in turbans, and many holding white umbrellas as they waddle along, some, even of the better sort, with bare feet. There are no armed natives to be seen, but everywhere the commerce of an Euro- peanized city where every one is up to the ears in cotton." Cotton cloth and yarn are the greatest manufactures of the city, while dyeing, tanning and working in metals are also ac- tive trades. Many people are employed in cultivating cocoanut trees and in preparing intoxicating drinks .from the juice of different species of the palm. DAK-GHARI TRAVELING. 290 Cities of the World. Many of the fine dwellings look like huge Swiss cottages nestling among trees. These are one story buildings called bungalows j they are surrounded by a magnificent veranda, built on a platform raised about ten or twelve feet above the ground, and with a sort of corridor, having many doorways leading into beautiful rooms furnished after European fashion j with some Oriental ad- | ditions. On every side the veranda and the rooms beyond are open to catch all the breeze possible. The bunga- low usually stands in the midst of a garden full of flowers and roses, large leaved plants, Eastern exotics, the home of big butterflies, huge moths, and many sweetly piping birds. Every thing is arranged with the greatest com- fort, elegance and lux- ury. There are always great numbers of serv- ants connected with such a house about forty in doors and out all men, or boys, wearing turbans and white cotton garments, and going about bare- footed. Enormous sums are paid for the rent of such houses; but then the expense TEMPLE AND SACRED ELEPHANT. of living in Bombay is great in every way, beyond that of any other town, in India, or perhaps in Europe. The private houses of the European residents lie apart both from the native and from the mercantile quarters of the town. The favorite of these suburbs is along the lower end PALACE OF THE SETHS. 292 Cities of the World. of the western shore of the island from Breach Candy to Malabar Point. The hand- somest houses are on the high ridge called Malabar Hill, which, terraced to the top with noble villas, fornjs the western inclosure of Back Bay, and commands one of the finest views in the world. The end of this hill is called the Malabar Point. Here stands the Government House close to the edge of the steep cliff overlooking the water. One of the most beautiful drives on the island is along the sea here, as far northward as Breach Candy. A short distance from the Government House throngs of Hindoos are fre- quently seen coming from the temple of Vdlukeshuar, or Sand Lord, which is quite a celebrated place, with its water tank and a noble flight of steps leading to it. The tank is shaded by fine trees and encircled by snow-white pagodas and neat houses of brahmans. The Hindoo temples usually have several small chapels or deep niches in the platform at one end where the strange looking images are kept. Three or four wretched looking yogies or ascetics usually sit on the ground, their bodies covered with ashes, their hair matted, and their blank faces looking too ignorant or too weak to be earnest or enthusiastic about any thing. Offerings to the holy men and to the gods are placed before \\-\eyogies, such as little bouquets of flowers with vessels of holy water, fruit and rice. These yogies live on charity. The milk of the sacred cows, which are kept at the temples, is theirs. They are looked upon as holy men, but are, as a rule, beggars, liars, and in many ways a most unworthy set of human beings, who behave unlike men with divine natures. Another, and different sort of temple, of which there are many in Bombay, is devoted to fire worship, the Parsee religion. Unbelievers are not permitted to visit the most sacred of them. One that is near Malabar Point is a little square house with a pent roof and small iron-grated windows and a door strongly padlocked. Within a fire is kept burning with the sweetest kind of woods. It is never allowed to die out, and to throw any thing impure upon it is a crime. The Parsee cemetery is on the Hill, inclosing within its walls the Towers of Silence, which are about as high as a four-story house. " When a fire-worshiper dies, his body is placed in the tower upon an iron grating that gradually slopes downward toward a sort of pit in the bottom. Vultures are generally to be seen perched on the top of the towers ; it is generally believed that they live upon the flesh of the dead, although this has been denied. Parsees will not tell, and strangers are not allowed in the towers when any bodies are exposed, so the matter remains an open question." The small eastern peninsula of Bombay which lies between Back Bay and the har- bor is mainly occupied by the fort, but the city is well built up all the way around the bay, and has some fine streets, and a long, broad esplanade leading from Malabar to the fort, or lying between the latter and the closely built-up city above. The old castle stands in about the center of the fortifications overlooking the harbor, while on the land side a long semi-circular line of ramparts and moats extends from about a half-mile above to a half-mile below the central point. The castle, which is the oldest part of the Bombay. 2 93 fort, was built, or partly built, by the Portuguese, who held the island in the sixteenth century. Adjoining the castle to the south is the Hornby battery, with its score of guns; next to this is the Custom House with other batteries beyond. The Town Hall, which is the best, and about the only really fine building in Bom- bay, stands in front of the castle, its colonnade overlooking the fifteen-acre park of the fort familiarly known as the Green, and it is partially shaded by tamarind trees, embel- PARSEE CHILDREN. lished with statuary and surrounded on all sides by large public buildings, including the Grecian-looking mint and the cathedral. If the European quarter seems an ordinary commonplace looking town, it is clean and respectable, which can not be said of Black town. " No Irish village of the worst kind has a look of greater poverty, confusion and utter discomfort. The low huts are covered with palm leaves, the drains are open, the naked children have naked fathers and miserable looking mothers, and no one seems to attempt to make the homes look decent." The houses of the wealthy are little better managed, but stand out of sight in the midst of a cool garden. 294 Cities of the World. The climate is so warm that their home life is almost all out of doors ; the children are round, plump and shiny ; no one needs much clothing, and a little rice is all the food necessary. Perhaps the most interesting places in the city are the great bazars. The build- ings are three or four stories high, with elaborately carved pillars and ornamental work on the fronts, lining both sides of the narrow streets. They are crowded with people and over-loaded with goods of every description. The chintz bazar, the most curious of any, skirts that part of the bay, where the native shipping gath- ers. Here the " merchandise and produce of all nations seem garnered in one common store. Piles of rich gums and aromatic spices, carboys of oil AT SCHOOL. and rosewater, pure ivory from Ceylon, rhinoceros hides from Zanzibar, the richest produce of Africa, India, Persia and Arabia, is here cast in large heaps, mingling with Coir cables, huge blocks, and ponderous anchors," for they are soon to be exported to craftsmen who will make the rich materials doubly valuable by their skillful handling. " On the highway porters bending beneath square balls of tightly compressed cotton, stagger to and fro ; Arabs with ponderous turbans of finely checked cloth and Aabas loosely flowing lounge lazily along ; Persians in silken vests with black lambskin caps, the softest produce of Bokhara, tower above the dense crowd of human beings, jostling Bombay. 295 against each other in one great dusty, noisy throng. Banians, dirty and bustling, wear- ing red turbans, bristling with memoranda ; Bangies with suspended bales, or well-filled water vessels ; Fakirs from every part of India ; Jains in the snowy vests, and with staff and brush ; Padres with round black hat and sable coats ; Jews," and countless others make up the ever changing, moving mass, through which a bullock carriage will now and then force its way, or a Parsee will dash in his gayly painted buggy. The Arab stables TOMB AT AHAR. which occupy a considerable space in the great bazdr, are a great attraction to the gentlemen of the Presidency, for all military men in India consider it necessary to own at least a couple of horses. Most of the eight hundred thousand people in Bombay are Hindoos and Mohamme- dans, while about ten thousand are Europeans, and three times that many are Parsees, or descendants of Persian fire-worshipers. These are among the richest and the best people of the Presidency. The capital of British India is Calcutta. It is a city of about a thousand less people than Bombay, and lies on the Hoogly River, about a 296 Cities of the World. hundred miles from where it empties into the Bay of Bengal. This substantial, stately city is very unlike Bombay. It is " in every respect worthy of being the capital of the xealm, incomparable to any other Eastern city." It lies on the left, crupper, the eastern bank of the broad river, skirted by a canal on the land side, threaded by broad hand- some streets, running at right angles to each other, with an intricate net-work of narrow lanes between. Along the river runs the Strand, much as in the greatest English capital. None of the streets are paved, but the water carriers keep the dust down from their great skin vessels and the splendid blocks of mansions are finer than those of any other Hindoo city. " The breadth of the great thoroughfares, the size and the imposing style of the residences which line them, the spacious arrangements for air and gardens for shade which the climate makes necessary, all tend to spread the European portion of Calcutta over a greater extent of ground than any other capital ; and give, it must be added, a certain sadness and dullness to the place in spite of the brilliant sunlight." The heat is so intense that the interiors of all houses have to be darkened by somber green blinds on the windows. Some of the houses have rather a dilapidated look, from the blotches and stains that the weather, with its mortsoon rains and scorching summer heat, makes on the plaster with which the walls are built. The glory of Calcutta is the Maidan or Park. It is a large parallelogram, with the Government House, stately and imposing, standing at one end, with the Town Hall, Treasury, and High Court near by. Opposite is Fort William, occupying the center of the plain, which lies for a mile and a half along the river's edge at the southern end of town. Along the one side is the noble street of Chowsinghee with its princely dwellings ; while parallel with and opposite to it flows the great river. No other city has a fine stream so near to the Park, the fashionable drive and the beautiful homes. And, moreover, this river is the Hoogly branch of the old Ganges, whose waters are sacred to the Hindoo nation. In the evening every body seems to enjoy this luxury. Carriage after carriage rolls along with native drivers and footmen, without shoes or stockings. The Viceroy's carriage is often among the rest, with its outriders and splendid looking mounted body-guard dressed in high boots and scarlet uniform, and bearing lance and pennon. Na- tive gentlemen but never ladies of every title, rank, from the prince, or the rich merchant, down to the most ordinary and commonplace Oriental, pass in equipages and dress cor- responding to their respective rank and wealth. Only, no one goes on foot, for such exercise, if taken at all, is at early morning. Flowing beside all this busy stream of human life is the grand old river, with the finest ships of the commercial navies of all nations riding on its broad tide. Here there are no ugly wharfs or storehouses ; they are further along. The banks and the waters of the river are both fair and pure. But along the shore near the busiest haunts of the commercial city dying creatures, half immersed in the sacred waters, may be seen at any hour ; and there, too, are dead bodies in the process of burning. Calcutta. 297 The Indian side of Calcutta is quite as characteristic of its Eastern inhabitants as the other is of its Western. Miserable-looking huts are huddled together in the midst of which cows, buffaloes, goats, naked children, and lank-looking grown folks rove about, every one as it wishes. There are about sixty thousand such huts in the city, for this is the most densely peopled part of the capital. Out of the sixteen square miles covered by Calcutta, six are occupied by the native town, and contain more than half the popu- lation. The streets are generally narrow, and the dusty brick houses which line them have not a single picturesque feature, even the bazars are uninteresting, except for the MOSQUE AT BENARES. crowds, whose turbans of various shapes, sizes and colors, look like a bed 01 moving tulips. In some of the streets there is a small stream of water in an open channel raised two or three feet above the roadway. This rivulet of Ganges water has great value in the eyes of the natives, who sit by it at their work, or have their shops open upon it. The hour of dinner in India is generally eight o'clock, in the cool of the evening after the labors of the day are over ; and these are very substantial affairs with European residents. It is the custom also, to rise early, so as to enjoy the cool of the morning. The houses of the native aristocracy in Calcutta are always large, but seem to be in a state of confusion, neglected and dirty. The rooms or cells, off its verandas, are fur- 298 Cities of the World. nished in the native style, which to us would look decidedly unfurnished ; but one room kept for show, or for entertaining Europeans, is filled with comforts and luxuries familiar to us. An English traveler, describing the most aristocratic house he saw in India, says : " It was a large, square-looking palace, surrounded by a considerable space of ground, high railings separating it from the streets of the native town. A huge bull was feeding in the large ' compound,' or, as we would say, on the grounds. There was a guard of native infantry at the main entrance to the house, the owner being of high rank. Around the compound was a very large and interesting collection of beasts and birds, many of them rare, and arranged as in the Zoological Gardens ; among the ani- mals was a huge and venerable tortoise, which had been in the possession of the family for about seventy years, having been more than that age when purchased by them. The house was built in the form of a square, with an inner court. The drawing-room and all the apartments for guests were splendidly furnished in the best European style, but none of these are occupied by the family." The private life of all natives is in very simple apartments with more or less disorder and neglect ; but these the visitor does not see, and would never imagine from the polished manners and extravagant luxury of their reception-rooms. Representatives of all the leading races and forms of religious belief in the world are to be found here. Calcutta has over a hundred and seventy heathen temples. Many are insignificant, many others important. Altogether, the English capital of India has so many fine buildings, that, like St. Petersburg, it is sometimes called the City of Palaces. It is the greatest commercial center in Asia ; it sends out large quantities of jute, cotton, rice, sugar, indigo, coffee, tea, saltpeter, linseed, shellac, buffalo horns, hides, and other things ; its industries are many, but the principal ones are sugar works, mills for cotton, flour, and oil, and extensive shipbuilding. One of the best built cities of India is Madras, an important southern seaport in the Bay of Bengal. The Hindoo temples and palaces are few ; the buildings have an European look. Among the finest of these are three cathedrals, several colleges, a museum, and an astronomical observatory. As in Calcutta, the streets of the native town are narrow and squalid, while those of the European part are wide and hand- some. With its nine suburbs Madras lies along the coast for nine miles, and extending inland about three and a half miles wide. The fort is in about the center of the shore line, with the public buildings. The low lying native district on the north is Black town, defended from the sea by a strong stone bulwark. The city carries on a large trade, although it has no harbor. Ships anchor two miles from shore, while their cargoes and passengers are landed through the surf in light flat-bottomed boats ; but sometimes the surf is too high for these, and then the fishermen go out on log rafts, or perhaps do not attempt to breast the waves. Madras. 299 Coffee is the largest export from Madras, while it has also a large trade in rice, cot- ton, hides, and skins. The population of the city is about four hundred and fifty thousand, the same as the great German seaport of Hamburg. HINDOO IDOLS. CHINA. ABOUT one-twelfth of all the land on the globe, and about one-third of all the people in the world belong to the Empire of China. For more than four hundred and fifty years the capital of this vast nation has been Pekin, which next to London and Paris is the largest city in the world. It stands at the base of a hill on the river Tunghin, about a hundred miles from the China Sea. Long before the Christian era it was the capital of the Yen kingdom, and was the imperial seat of many of the later dynasties. Its ancient wall, of earth with brick put on the outside, is about twenty miles long, and incloses nearly twenty-six square miles, and between one and two million people. The wall varies from thirty to fifty feet high, and from fifteen to sixty feet thick. Every fifty feet there is an opening for cannon or muskets, and in many places there is an incline on the inner side, so that horsemen can go, without slipping, from one level to a higher one, till they reach the top of the wall, which is paved like a roadway. There are square towers or buttresses built out from this parapeted wall^ only about fifty yards apart all the way around. Outside of each of the thirteen gates leading from the city to the open country, there is a small suburb, which, altogether, forms quite an important part of Pekin. The gates are very interesting and curious, each with its watch-tower nine stories high, perforated with many cannon holes. The moat around the city is fed from the Tunghurei River, which also supplies all the other canals leading across or through the city. Pekin is in two parts, that are in reality two separate cities ; the Northern or Tartar city is longer than it is broad, and the Southern or Chinese city, adjoining it on the south, is broader than it is long, so the general shape of Pekin is like the letter T upside down. The Northern, also called the Tartar and the Manchu City, is a trifle the larger, containing fifteen square miles, and most of the important places of the capital, and its walls, which on the south inclose it from the southern city, are twice as thick and much higher than those of the other division. The northern city has three parts, one within another. The smallest, occupying a square in the center, is inclosed by a wall covered with bright yellow tiles, guarded by numerous stations of bannermen and soldiers, and surrounded by a deep wide moat ; it is divided into three sections by two walls running from south to north. In the center division are the buildings especially devoted to the Emperor, and whenever he passes through it a bell placed in the tower above is struck ; when the troops return in triumph, a drum is beaten, and the prisoners are presented to him, and other state ceremonies take place. 3Q2 Cities of the World. Beyond the southern gate leading to this division there is a large, handsome court, and beyond that another, paved with marble, and ending on the sides by gates, porticos, and pillared corridors. At the head of this is a superb marble structure, over a hundred feet high, and standing on a great marble terrace. Five flights of stairs, decorated with balustrades and sculptures, lead up to this Hall of Highest Peace, and five doors open through into the next court-yard. Upon the great throne in the midst of this spacious pillared hall, the Emperor holds his levees on New Year's Day, his birthday, and othei state occasions ; about fifty courtiers stand near him, while those of noble and lower dignity and rank stand in the court below in regular grades. Beyond this are the Hall of Central Peace, and the Palace of Heavenly Purity, that is, the Emperor's dwelling. The last is the most important, and the loftiest and most magnificent of all the palaces. In the court before it is a small tower of gilt copper, adorned with a great number ol figures, and on each side are large incense vases, for religious use. Beyond it stands the Palace of Earth's Repose, where the wife of the Emperor, "Heaven's Consort," rules her miniature court in the imperial harem. There are numerous smaller buildings in this part of the Forbidden City, and adjoining the northern wall is the imperial Flower Garden, adorned with elegant pavilions, temples, and groves, and interspersed with canals, fountains, pools, and flower-beds. In the eastern division of the Prohibited city are the offices of the Cabinet and the Treasury of the palace. North of it lies the Hall of Intense Thought, where sacrifices are offered to Confucius and other sages Near by is the Library or Hall of the Literary Abyss, and at the northern end of the division are numerous palaces and buildings occupied by princes of the blood. Th< western division contains a great variety of edifices, among which are the Hall of Distin guished Sovereigns, the Guardian Temple of the City, the Court of Controller, for states men and literati, and the Printing Office. The Court paper, generally called the Pekit Gazette, has lately somewhat altered its form, and changed its name to King Pao, whicl means Metropolitan Reporter. This is the oldest newspaper in the world ; it was estab lished in the year 911, and has been published regularly since 1351. Under the nev arrangements three editions are published ; the first, the King-Paou, printed upon yellov paper, constitutes the official gazette of the Middle Kingdom ; the second, the Using Paou (commercial journal), also printed upon yellow sheets, contains information inter esting to the trading community ; while the third, the Titani Paou (provincial gazette) printed upon red paper, consists of extracts from the other two editions. The total cir culation of the three issues is fifteen hundred copies. The editorship is confined to i committee of six members of the Academy of Han-Lin. The second inclosure, or Imperial City, is about three times as large as the Prohibite* City, oblong in shape, with a gate in each of the four walls. Outside the southen entrance there is quite a large space walled in, with a gate on the south called that o Great Purity ; and no one is allowed to enter it except on foot, unless by special permis STREET IN HONG KONG. 304 Cities of the World. sion. In the Imperial City are the palaces of the princes, temples, and some of the government offices. In all Chinese buildings, from palace to hovel, both temples and private dwellings, there is one general style of steep concave roof. Dwelling-houses are usually of one story, having neither cellars nor basements, and lighted by lattices opening into a court ; they must not be as high as the temples near by, nor be ornamented in the same fashion as the palaces and religious buildings. The houses are commonly made of bricks, adobe or matting for the walls, stone for the foundation, brick tiling for the roof, and wood only for the inside work ; stone and wooden houses are so rare that they always attract attention. In the better sort of houses the stonework of the foundation rises three 'or four feet above the ground. This is not stone from the solid rock of the earth, but a manufactured article, made of sifted earth, that is, decomposed granite or gravel and lime mixed with water, and sometimes a little oil, pounded into a solid mass. The frame- work under the wide eaves of the palaces is tastefully painted in green and gold, and protected by a netting of copper wire. The yellow and green glazed tiles of public buildings, and the dragons' heads and globes on their ridgepoles, and the earthen dogs at the corners of temples and official houses make some of the streets very pictur- esque. The rooms of the dwellings are arranged in sets, separated and lighted by courts between, and reached by corridors. Town houses have no opening on their fronts except the door, and when the outer walls of several houses join those of gardens and inclosures, the long line of the whole street is unbroken by steps, windows, bal- conies, porticos, or front yards. The bricks are the same size as our own, and usually burned to a grayish slate color. The walls are often stuccoed, or occasionally rubbed smooth and pointed with fine cement. In place of a broad cornice the top is frequently relieved by a pretty ornament of molded work of painted clay figures in high relief, representing a battle scene, a landscape, clusters of flowers, or some other design, de- fended from the weather by the projecting eaves, a covered corridor communicating with each, or by side passages leading through the courts. Here, and in all cities where the houses are cramped and the lots irregular in shape, the size and shape of the rooms vary. In the second inclosure are the Great Temple of the imperial ancestors and other altars and temples, very holy to the Chinese, and most interesting to foreigners. In the northern part of this division of the city a moat and wall, more than a mile around, inclose the Prospect Hill. This is an artificial mound nearly a hundred and fifty feet high, with each of its five summits crowned with a temple, while trees of various kinds border its base, and line the paths leading to the tops. The western part of this inclos- ure is chiefly occupied by the beautiful Western Park ; a lake in the center is adorned with the splendid lotus, crossed by a fine marble bridge from one bank to another, shaded by groves of trees, under which are well paved walks, leading to other parks adjoining. Although these parks are designed to be as handsome as possible, the effect Pekin. 305 of their beauty is marred by poor keeping. There are about two hundred palaces in the inclosures, each of which is said to be large enough to accommodate the greatest of European noblemen with all his retinue. Along the avenue leading south from the Imperial City to the division wall, are the principal government offices, a temple for the worship of ancestors in the midst of a grove of fir and other trees, and, partly upon the wall, is the Observatory, under the care of Chinese astronomers. The instruments are arranged on a terrace higher than the city wall, and are beautiful pieces of bronze art, though now too antiquated to be useful for practical observations. Some distance from here is one of the many lamasaris of the city. This is the Buddhist Convent of Eternal Peace, wherein about fifteen hundred Mongol and Tibetan priests study the dogmas of Buddhism, or spend their days in idleness, under the control of a Genen, or living Buddha. Directly west of this, presenting the greatest contrast to its life and activity, lies the Confucian Temple, where, embowered in a grove of ancient cypresses, stands the imposing Literary Temple, in which the " Example and Teacher of all Ages " and ten of his great disciples are worshiped. The division of the Northern Pekin, lying outside the Imperial City, is called the General City. This is the home of the people ; it is more densely populated than the other parts and contains the most important of the public offices, all the foreign lega- tions, and many other places of special note in the empire. The Chinese government is a remarkable one for many reasons : it is very ancient ; it rules vast multitudes of people, who are, in the main, quiet, able and industrious. The general plan is like that of a great household. The Emperor is the father, or sire, the head of the house ; his officers are the responsible elders of its provinces, depart- ments, and districts, as every father of a household is of its inmates ; and nowhere has this system been so thoroughly regulated and so consistently carried out for so long a time, as in China. Nominally there is nothing to correspond to a congress or parliament in the Chinese government, still there are two imperial councils, the Cabinet, or Imperial Chancery, and the Council of State, each of which has different power, the Council more than the Cabinet. Subordinate to these two Councils are several Boards, each of which looks after special divisions of the government interests, and below them come rank after rank of inferior officers, none of which are in any way elected by the people. All officers of government are supposed to be ready to see visitors on special business at any time, and the door of justice is open to all who claim a hearing ; and in fact, courts are held at all hours of night and day, though the regular time is from sunrise to noonday. Magistrates are not allowed to go abroad in ordinary dress or without their official retinue, which varies for the different grades of rank. North of the Imperial City lies the extensive Yamun of the Ti-tuh, who has the police and garrison of the city under his control and exercises great authority in its civil 306 Cities of the World. administration. Close by are the Drum and Bell Towers on the street that leads through the center of the northern part of the General City to the Wall. Each of the towers is over a hundred feet high. The drum and bell are sounded at night watches, and can be heard throughout the city ; an ancient clypsydra is still kept to mark time, although clocks are now in general use and correct the errors of the clypsydra itself. Outside of the south-western angle of the Imperial City stands the Mohammedan Mosque, and a large number of Turks whose ancestors were brought from Turkestan about a century ago live in its vicinity ; this is the chief resort of Moslems who come to the capital. There are religious edifices in the Chinese metropolis appropriated to many forms of religion, for the inhabitants of the city are divided into sects of the Greek, Latin and Protestant Churches ; Islams, Buddhists, Rationalists, worshipers of ancestors, of State, of Confucius, and other mortals whom they look upon as having become gods, beside a great number of popular idols of the country. The principal streets of the General City are from a hundred and forty to two hundred feet wide ; they are unpaved, and lined with rows of shops, painted red, blue and green, and decorated with curious signs of Chinese characters in gilding or gayly painted colors, and balustrades and terraces on the roofs. The broad thoroughfares leading across Pekin, from one gate to the other, appear even wider than they are from the lowness of the buildings ; the center is about two feet higher than the sides. The cross streets in the main city are generally at right angles with them, not over forty feet wide, and for the most part occupied with dwellings. The inhabitants of the avenues are required to keep them well sprinkled in summer ; but in rainy weather they are almost impassable from the mud and deep puddles, the level surface of the ground, and obstructed, neglected drains, preventing rapid drainage. The crowds which throng these avenues, some engaged in various callings, along the side or in the middle of the way, others busily passing and repassing, together with the gay appearance of the sign-boards, and an air of business in the shops, make the great streets very bustling and to a foreigner a most interesting scene. Shop-fronts can be entirely opened when necessary ; they are constructed of panels or shutters fitting into grooves, and secured to a row of strong posts set into mortises. At night, when the shop is closed, nothing of it can be seen from without ; but it is gay- and full of life in the day- time when the goods are exposed. The sign-boards are often broad planks, fixed in stone vases on each side of the shop-front, and reaching to the eaves, or above them ; the characters are large and of different colors, and in order to attract more notice the signs are often hung with various colored flags, bearing inscriptions setting forth the excellence of the goods. The shops in the outer city are often built in this manner, others are more compact for warmth in winter, but as a whole they are not brilliant in their fittings. Their signs are, when possible, images of the articles sold, and always have the red pennon attached ; the finer shop-fronts are covered with gold-leaf, brilliant when new, but fading soon, and then shabby enough. So the appearance of the main streets 308 Cities of the World. is a curious mixture of decay and decoration, increased by the dilapidated temples and governmental buildings everywhere seen, and which the treasury of the Empire is not full enough to remedy. The most picturesque of all the Chinese capitals is Hangchau, of the maritime country of Chehkiang. This is about the size of Ohio, and while it is the smallest of the eighteen provinces, it is one of the richest of all. Hangchau is but one of its great cities, and is situated in the northern part near the river Tsientang. One half of the people live within the city walls, and the other dwell in the surrounding suburbs or on the waters. The southern city, beyond the southern walls, or cross-wall, as it is called, of the Inner City, is mostly inhabited by Chinese, and has more dissipation and lees dignity and good behavior than the northern city ; contains hundreds of lewin-kwan, or club-houses, erected by the gentry of cities and districts of all parts of the empire to accommodate their citizens while staying at the capital. Its streets are narrow, but every thing about its buildings and markets shows that the people are industrious and full of life, and store- houses, theaters, granaries and markets attract or supply their customers from all parts of the country. During the night the thoroughfares are quiet ; they are lighted a little by lanterns hanging before the houses, but generally are dark and cheerless. Carts, mules, and donkeys and horses are to be hired in all the thoroughfares. Nearly one half of the Outer City is empty of dwellings, much of the open land being cultivated. But the principal part of the provision required for the supply of this immense city comes from the southern provinces, and from flocks reared beyond the wall. It has no important manufactures, horn lanterns, wall papers, stone snuff-bottles, and pipe mouth-pieces being the chief ones. Trade in silks, foreign fabrics, and food is limited to supplying the local demand, inasmuch as a heavy duty at the gates restrains all enterprise. No foreign merchant is allowed to carry on business here. The government of Pekin differs from that of other cities in the empire, in its divisions and officers. The environs beyond the suburbs outside the gates, are occupied by tombs, tem- ples, private mansions, hamlets, and cultivated fields, in or near which are trees, so that the- city viewed from a distance appears as if situated in a thick forest. About seven miles to the north-west at Yuen ming Yuen is the Emperor's summer palace, occupying about twelve square miles of beautiful country. The land in this direction rises into gentle hills, and has been made to present a great variety of hill and dale, woodland and lawns, interspersed with pools, lakes, caverns, and islets joined by bridges and walks. Some parts are tilled, and groves or tangled thickets occur here and there, and places are purposely left wild to contrast the better with the cultivated precincts of a place, or form a rural pathway to a retired temple or arbor. STREET IN CANTON. 310 Cities of the World. At the foot of the White Cloud hills, on the north bank of the Pearl river is Canton, in wealth the first city in China. The part of Canton inclosed by walls is about six miles in circumference ; having a partition wall running east and west, which divides it into two unequal parts. The entire circuit, including the suburbs, is nearly ten miles. The population on land and water is said to be over a million and a half. There are at least as many houses without the walls as within them, besides the boats. The city is constantly increasing ; many new streets in the western suburbs have been entirely built up within the last ten years. The houses stretch along the river from opposite the Fa //, or flower grounds, to French Folly, a distance of four miles, and the banks are every- where nearly hidden by the boats and rafts. The foundations of the city walls are of sandstone, their upper part of brick ; they are about twenty feet thick, and twenty-five to forty feet high, having an esplanade on the inside, and pathways leading to the rampart, on three sides. The houses are built near the wall on both sides of it, so that except on the north, one hardly sees it when walking around the city. There are twelve outer gates, four in the partition wall, and two water gates, through which boats pass into the moat from east to west. A ditch once encompassed the walls, now dry on the northern side ; on the other three, and within the city, it and most of the canals are filled by the tide, which, as it runs out does much to cleanse the city. The gates are all shut at night, and a guard is stationed near them to keep order, but sometimes the idle soldiers cause considerable disturbance. From the hill on the north, the city is a tame sight of red- dish roofs often hidden by frames for drying or dyeing, or shaded and relieved by a few orange trees, and interspersed with high, red poles for flag-staffs. Far above the watch- towers on the walls, the five storied tower on the Kwanyin shan near the northern gate, and the two prominent pagodas, shoot up above the level of the roofs. Amid all this shines the river, covered with boats of different colors and sizes, some stationary, others mov- ing, and all resounding with the mingled hum of laborers, sailors, musicians, hucksters, children, and boatwomen, pursuing their work or pleasures. On a low sandstone ledge, in the channel, off the city, once stood the Sea Pearl Fort, called Dutch Folly by foreigners. Beyond, on its southern shore, lie the suburb and island of Honam, and green fields and low hills are seen still further in the distance ; at the western angle of this island the Pearl River divides, at the Macao Passage, the largest body of water flowing south and leaving a comparatively narrow channel before the city. The hills on the north rise twelve hundred feet, their sides for miles being covered with graves and tombs. The streets of this vast city are more than six hundred, with some of the strangest of names, as Dragon street, Martial Dragon street, Golden Flower street, New Green Pea street, Physic street, and many more equally odd. They are not dirty, as those of some other cities in the empire, although they can not be compared to modern cities of the West. Along the water side, wherever the river rises into the city, the houses are built upon piles. There are many temples and many public build- Canton. 3 1 1 ings in Canton. The temples throughout all China are generally cheerless and gloomy abodes. The entrance courts are usually occupied by hucksters, and beggars, and idlers, who are occasionally driven off to give room for the mat-sheds in which theatrical performances got up by priests are given. The principal hall, where the idol sits enshrined, is lighted oddly in front, and the altar, drums, bells, and other furniture of the temple do not enliven it much ; " the cells and cloisters are inhabited by men almost as senseless as the idols they serve, miserable beings, whose droning, useless life is too often only a cloak for vice, indolence, and crime," which make the Chinese priests, as a class, despised by their countrymen. Canton is the most influential city in Southern China, CHINESE MODES 'OF TORTURE. and throughout the empire it has a reputation for riches and luxury, from the fact that for two hundred years, up to 1843, it engrcssed all the foreign trade of the country. A series of troubles and some bad fires greatly distressed the city after that, but it has recovered largely and is in a flourishing condition now. The trades and manufac- tories are mainly connected with the foreign commerce. Many silk fabrics for the Canton market are woven at Falshan, a large town on the west of the city ; fire-crackers, paper, mat-sails, cotton cloth, and other articles are also made there for exportation. There are, including embroiderers, about fifty thousand people in Canton engaged in 312 Cities of the World. weaving cloth, while seven thousand as barbers, and four thousand two hundred as shoe- makers are stated as the number licensed to shave the crowns and shoe the soles of their fellow citizens. The recreation grounds of the Cantonese are on the opposite side of the river, among the fields of the suburb of Honamy, or in the cool grounds of the great temple. The flower gardens, where pleasure parties go, are a couple of miles up the river. The chief sights of the city are said to be the peak of Yenhsin, just within the walls on the north of the city, the Lyre Pagoda at Whampoa, and the Eastern Sea Fish-pearl, the ledge where Dutch Folly stood ; the pavilion of the Five Genii, with the five stone rams, and near by, the print of a man's foot in the rock, always filled with water, the natives tell you ; the rocks of Yu-shan ; the lucky wells of Fankin in the western suburbs ; and a famous red building in the city. But to a stranger the ordinary sights of this vast metropolis are the most interesting ; they are the narrow streets, houses and shops huddled together, the numerous temples and assembly halls, people, and the gardens, tea houses and pools that are open to the public and always thronged with people. The gayest and the best built cities of the empire are in the province of Kiangsu, which lies along the sea-coast and is about the size of Pennsylvania. Here the beauties and riches of China are collected and displayed by nature in vast fields producing grain, cotton, tea, silk and rice, and watered by the Great River, the Grand Canal, many smaller streams and canals, and a succession of lakes along the line of the canal. From here come the most perfect of Chinese manufactures ; so that any thing of extra fine workman- ship is attributed to the capital, Nanking, which is called by the natives Kiangning fu. It was once the metropolis of the Ming dynasty, and is now compared to Rome in its partially deserted condition, with so many melancholy remains of departed glory stand- ing round. Both of these, however, have no brighter prospects for the future. Not far from the walls there are several ancient guardian statues of warriors cased in armor, which form an avenue leading to the sepulcher where the Emperor Hung wu was buried about 1398. Some distance further are a number of rude colossal figures of horses, ele- phants, and other animals, all intended to represent the guardians of the dead. Nanking is most celebrated abroad for the great Porcelain Tower which stood here until about thirty years ago, when the Tai-pings blew it up from a superstition that it would work against their cause. The manufactures of the city are extensive in fine satin and crape, Nankeen cotton cloth, paper, so-called India ink, and beautiful artificial flowers and pith paper. It is renowned, too, as an official center, for its scholars and literary char- acters, and stands among the first places of learning in the country, with large libraries and book-stores. In Suchan Kiangsu has a still larger and a richer city than Nanking. It is situ- ated on islands lying in the Ta hu, and from this sheet of water many streams and canals connect the city with most parts of the province. The walls are about ten miles in cir- 314 Cities vf the World. cumference ; outside of them are four suburbs, one of which is said to extend ten miles beside which there is an immense floating population probably about a million in all The whole space includes many canals and pools connected with the Grand Canal anc the lake, through highly cultivated surroundings. The Chinese regard this as one o their richest and most beautiful cities, and have a saying " that to be happy on earth, on< must be born in Suchan, live in Canton, and die in Lianchau, for in the first are th< handsomest people, in the second the most costly luxuries, and in the third the best cof fins." The high buildings, the elegant tombs, the picturesque scenery of waters anc gardens, the politeness and intelligence of the people, and the beauty of the women o: Suchan give it a high reputation. Its manufactures of silk, linen, cotton, and works ir iron, ivory, wood, horn, glass, lacquered-ware, paper, and other articles, are the chie: sources of its wealth and prosperity ; the kinds of silk goods produced here are mor< rich and in greater variety than those woven in any other place. Vessels come up to th< city by several channels from the Yangtze-kiang, but junks of large burden anchor a Shanghai. The whole country is so cut up by natural and artificial water-courses tha the people have hardly any need of roads and carts, but get about in barrows and sedans Small steamers find their way to every large village at high tide. South-east of Suchan, leading through a continual range of villages and cities i; Shanghai, whose name means" approaching the sea." It is one of the leading commercia cities of Asia. It is on the north shore of the Wasung River, about fourteen miles frorr its mouth, with communications to many of the large cities on the Grand Canal of China Like nearly all the cities of the empire, it is surrounded by walls and ditches and enterec by lofty gates. The population is about five hundred thousand. It is a dirty place, anc poorly built. The houses are mostly made of bluish square brick, and the streets, which are paved with stone slabs, are only about eight feet wide, and, in the daytime, crowded with people. Silk and embroidery, cotton and cotton goods, porcelain, ready-made clothes, beautiful skins and furs, bamboo pipes of every size, bamboo ornaments, pic- tures, bronzes, specimens of old porcelain, and other curiosities, highly valued by the Chinese, are gathered in the Shanghai shops in great quantities. The most extensive trade, however, is carried on in articles of food. It is sometimes difficult to get through the streets from the immense quantities of fish, pork, fruit, and vegetables which crowd the stands in front of the shops. Dining rooms, tea houses, bakers' shops, are seen al every step, from the poor man who carries around his kitchen or bake-house, altogethei hardly worth a dollar, to the most extensive tavern or tea-house crowded with customers. For a few cash, a Chinese can dine upon rice, fish, vegetables and tea, his table in the street or on the ground, in a house or on a deck. Large warehouses for storing goods, granaries and temples are common in Shanghai, but neither these nor the public build- ings are either striking in themselves or peculiar to this city alone. The contrast between the narrow, noisome, and reeking parts of the native city, and the clean, spacious, Tientsin. 315 well-shaded and well-paved streets and large houses of the foreign residents, is like that seen in India. One of the greatest ports of China is Tientsin. This is a large and important city and river port, situated eighty miles south-east of Pekin. It is one of the most important places in the empire, and is the key of the capital, although Lung Chan is really its THE GREAT WALL IN CHINA. port. Only the central part of Tientsin is well built with peculiar and regular houses, while the larger portion of the city consists of narrow, unpaved streets with houses of mud or dried bricks. But it is a bustling place, where junks crowd the shores in great numbers that can not be counted, and contains a very important part of the half million or more of people which make up the population. Cities of the World. The city of Si-ngan is the capital of north-west China, and is said to stand next to Pekin in size, population, and importance. It is of great historical interest, and during many centuries of activity has upheld its ancient name of the city of Continuous Peace. The population somewhere near a million occupies the entire space within its imposing walls ; a mingled company of Tibetans, Mongols and Tartars, many of whom are Mos- lems. The city has been taken and retaken, rebuilt and destroyed, since its establish- ment in the twelfth century B. C. by the martial king, but it has always held some con- trol of the trade between the central and western provinces and Western Asia. Some miles to the north-west lies the temple of Ta-fu-sz', containing the largest statue of Buddha in China. It stands in a cave hewn out of the sandstone rock ; its height is fifty-six feet, the figure and gaiments richly covered with color and gilt. ^^^^ The " Happy City "of the Chi- *E^&^. nese, which we call Fu-Chow-Foo, or Fuchan,isone of the most beauti- fully situated in the empire. It lies in a plain, surrounded by hills form- ing a natural and most magnificent amphitheater, as fertile as it is beau- tiful. Suburbs extend from the walls three miles to the banks of the Min, and stretch along on both sides of the stream. They are connected with each other, and a small islet in the river, by a stone bridge built in the eleventh century. The scenery is bold, with pines covering the sur- rounding hills not occupied by graves MUTUAL ASSISTANCE. or by cultivated fields. Some of the hills north of the city are three thousand feet high. Opposite Fuchan the land is lower and the suburb is built upon an island formed by the division of the main channel seven miles above the city ; the branches reunite at Pagoda Island. The river is crowd- ed with floating dwellings, ferry-boats, and trading craft. The river is always a lively place, and is gay and picturesque, too, from the flowers growing in pots on the boats, and worn by the boat-women in their hair. The city is divided into wards and neighbor- hoods, each of which is under its own police and head men, who are responsible each for their own districts. One of the best views of Fuchan is from a height on the south, whence the square battlements of the wall are seen extending in a winding and irregular circuit for more than eight miles, and inclosing most of the buildings, except on the south. On the south-east, a steep hill partly built up with dwellings, and another on the Fuchan. extreme north is surmounted by a watch-tower. Two pagodas within, and fantastic looking watch-towers upon the walls, look-out houses standing upon the roofs of buildings, or over the street, large, regular built granaries, and a vast number of flag- staffs in pairs indicating temples and offices, rise out of the level of the ordinary roofs partly hidden by large trees. Everywhere the city is equally well-built, with few vacant spaces, the margin of West Lake lined with temples and other buildings ; a bridge crossing its expanse, and fishing nets and boats floating upon its bosom. About eight thousand Manchus one of the great races of the empire, and perhaps the finest people in the entire population of Asia occupy the eastern side of the city. The hill of the Nine Genii on the southern part of town is a very attractive place, to citizens and to strangers. The city wall runs over it, and on its sides little houses are built upon rocky steps ; numerous inscrip- tions are carved on the face of the rocks. Near the eastern entrance, called the Bath Gate, is a small suburb, where Chinese and Manchus live together, and take care of many wells filled from springs near by ; people come here in large crowds to wash and amuse themselves. The citizens of Fuchan are a well educated, reserved, proud, rather turbulent people, unlike the polite, affable natives further north. Many culprits wearing the cangue or Chinese form of punishment are to be seen in the streets, and in passing you do not hear the sounds of merriment com- mon to other towns. There is also a gen- CHINESE WOMAN'S SHOE AND MODEL OF A eral lack of courtesy between acquaint- ances meeting in the highway, which is very unusual in China. The beggars that crowd the thoroughfares seem to touch the feelings of the people as little as the other and more serious abominations, allowed in the streets of almost every quarter. The streets of Fuchan, after the fashion of Chinese towns, are usually thronged with craftsmen, hucksters and shopmen, who seem to feel that the more they get in their customers way, the more likely they are to sell them something. The shops are thrown open so widely and show such a variety of articles, or expose the workmen so plainly, that the whole street seems to be rather the stalls of a market, or the aisle in a manu- factory, than the town-thoroughfare. There are few important manufactures here ; most of the business, as well as the supplies of the city, coming from the interior by way of the River Min. One half of the men of Fuchan are said to be opium-smokers ; and mill- 318 Cities of the World. ions of dollars are spent here every year for the drug. The population of the city and suburbs is reckoned at over a million souls, including the boat people ; it is one of the chief cities in the Em- pire in size, trade and influ- ence. The island in the river is settled by trading people, most of whom are sailors and boatmen. The country women, who bring vegetables and poultry to market, are robust and strong, a great contrast to the sickly-looking, little- CHINESE CHILDREN. footed ladies of the city. Fishing-boats are numerous in the river and many of them are furnished with cormorants. CORMORANT FISHING. JAPAN. THE island empire lying off the north-eastern coast of Asia is known to us as Japan, to the people themselves as "Great Nippon." It is composed mainly of four good sized islands lying like a crescent, separated from the continent by the Japan Sea. Yezo, the northern island, is thinly inhabited, but the main island, Hondo, or Niphon, as it is known to us, and the other more southerly ones are well peopled. Besides the four main islands there are about four thousand others of all sizes, some large, with STREET IN YOKOHAMA. several towns, others mere specks of rocks. The entire area of the empire is about equal to that of the New England and Middle States ; the population is larger than that of Great Britain, and somewhat under that of France. This sea-girt empire has altogether between sixty and seventy cities, fifty of which are somewhat smaller than Portland, Maine, six have about as many people as Troy, New York, and another six are rated as nearly twice the size of Richmond, Virginia. Besides these there are three great cities, the chief of which is Tokio, once called Yedo. The Gulf of Yedo is a large and sheltered arm of the sea, in about the center of the eastern coast of Niphon, and at its head lies the city ; but the bay is shallow here, so large vessels stop 320 Cities of the World. eighteen miles below at Yokohama, on the western shore of the Gulf. This is a nev and American-looking town, which was only a fishing village when Commodore Perr] anchored his fleet in the Mississippi Bay, not far away, while he negotiated with th< government for the treaty with the United States, which undid the gates of th< TATTOOED JAPANESE. WOMAN AND CHILD. forbidding empire to all the civilized nations of the world. A railroad runs directl) from Yokohama to the capital, and takes you there in an hour. After London, Tokic is the most extensive city in the world ; but in population is about the size of Berlir and Vienna. It stands on a great plain which is one of the most fertile in Japan The surrounding country, which is tilled with great care and skill, yields handsomely : 322 Cities of the World. it is abundantly watered by several large streams, while smaller ones intersect it in every direction, forming many rich and lovely valleys. The Great River, or Ogawa, divides the city into an eastern and western portion, which is united by half a dozen broad bridges. The western part is the largest and most important. After the same fashion as the Chinese cities Tokio is built in three sections, one within another. The innermost is the citadel, in which the palace of the Shoguns used to stand. Many times the palace was burned and rebuilt, but since it was destroyed in 1872 the great beautiful parks surrounding the spot have been kept in good order, but so far the palace itself is wanting ; but the wall inclosing the grounds still preserve this the highest point in the capital as a citadel. There are great stones in this rampart which were brought two hundred miles. Outside the citadel, is O-shiro, and engirdling it, is Soto-shiro, a part of the city made up of palaces, temples, universities, and schools for arts and trades, for Tokio has many excellent institutions for young men who would study law, engineering, medicine, and chemistry. Since Japan has opened her doors to the world there has been in every part of the country a great deal of interest taken in education ; many mor schools have been opened ; scientific, industrial and other institutes, such as there are in Europe and in our own country, have been founded. The center for all this educational interest is at the capital ; the Imperial University has more than a hundred foreign professors. There is a fine naval college here, too, and the main body of the new imperial army is located and drilled here. The famous Bridge of Japan is in this part of the city. It is considered the center of the empire and all geographical distances are reckoned from this. Through the eastern part of Soto-shiro runs the great highroad of Japan, the Tokaido. Beyond, surrounding both the others, lies the outer section, the general city. Here is the temple of K'wanon, which is the most venerated of any in Japan, and that of Kanda-Niyojin, the guardian deity of the city. The old temple of Confucius is now a public library, stocked with Japanese, Chinese, and European books. The foreign quarter is part of the old district of Yedo, called Filled-up Land ; it faces the river and is surrounded on all sides by canals. It is well paved, cleaned and lighted ; but all Tokio is modernized now, and as many parts of the city are more favorable for dwellings than this, the foreign officials at the consulates, missionaries, and a few merchants are the only persons who live here. The streets in this quarter and leading from it are lined with open houses and shops, showing the doings of the family as freely as those of the workman. You can see the mechanics at work as you pass along. They are all down on the floor. There is a blacksmith pulling the bellows with his foot while he is holding and hammering with both hands. He keeps his dinner pot boiling with what flame there is to spare from keeping his many irons hot. Here are shops full of ivory carvings, some of them most delicate and beautiful works of art, and nearly all put to one use, the nitsukis. Tokio. 323 This is a large button, made with two holes through which runs a silken cord that holds a gentleman's pipe and pouch in his girdle ; for no Japanese is without his smoking apparatus, made up of a tiny-bowled, brass-tipped bamboo pipe in its case, one bag containing flint, tinder and steel, and another to hold his tobacco. The branches of trade keep together in different streets. In one there are quantities of bureaus and cabinets ; in another, folding screens, or dyer's shops. One street has a forest of bamboo poles for sale. The main street of the capital is the Tori ; it is much wider than Broadway in New York, which measures about seventy-five feet across. The shops here are gayer, the goods are richer, and the crowds are more dense than any where else in the city ; but, according to our ideas, there is not one really handsome looking store the whole length of it. The crowds are mainly of copper colored natives, but they have a fa- miliar appearance, for most of the men dress in the Eu- ropean fashion, showing more clothes and less skin than used to be the native custom. Thousands wear hats, coats, trowsers, and carry watches. Carriages are numerous, but in and out among the throng the jin- TRAVELING IN TOKIO. riki-shas are almost as plentiful as ever. These " man-power carriages " are cur- ious little cabs on two wheels, like an overgrown baby carriage with shafts, and drawn by Japanese men of the lower classes. When you wish to go very fast you hire two men, one to push ; and sometimes three are employed and run tandem with the jaunty little car. Sometimes these ska are made in the shape of a boat, and many of them very finely ornamented. There is an air of bustle and energy here and all through the city now that was wanting a while ago. The modernization of the Mikado's capital has banished beggars, guard-houses, and the sentinels that used to keep watch at the black gates in the high fences which inclosed the foreign quarter. Foreigners are safe nowadays, and a uniformed police are ready to preserve the peace among all alike. One of the peculiar kind of Japanese buildings is the yashiki, which :\ -i.'^ ' " 3 2 4 Cities of the World. means the "spread out house," and is a sort of feudal castle. It is usually in the form of a hollow square, inclosing from ten thousand to one hundred and sixty thousand square feet of ground. On the street front it looks like a continuous house on stone foundations, with rows of wooden barred or grated windows. The four sides of the square within are made up of four rows of houses, usually extending in four unbroken lines. In the center are the mansions of the daimio, or military prince, and his THE STREET BALLAD-SINGER. ministers. The retainers of lower rank occupy the long houses which form the sides of the square. The remainder of the space within the inclosure is used for pleasure and produce gardens, recreation grounds, tarket walks, and fire-proof houses. All the largest yashikis have three divisions, the superior, middle, and inferior. In the third the servants and least important followers live ; in the second the ordinary clansmen are housed, while the lord of the clan dwells in the central building. This is approached 3*5 from the great gate by a wide stone path and grand wood portico. Long, wide corridors, laid with soft mats, lead to the master's chamber. The wood work in natural colors is interspersed with black, lacquer-like enamel. The walls are gorgeously papered with gold, silver, or the fanciful designs and brilliant colors peculiar to Japanese art. The sliding doors or partitions of which three sides of a Japanese room is composed are sometimes decorated in beautiful painting of the bamboo and lily, the stork, tortoise, marvelous fans and other favorite studies. These buildings were the DOMESTIC ALTAR OF THE GODS OF HAPPINESS. glory of old Yedo, but the almost nightly fires have swept many of them away, and they are not rebuilt, for under the new government they are not needed ; feudalism forms no part of the present empire of Japan. The chief importance of Tokio is as the national capital ; but there is considerable export trade passing through it to Yokohama. The whole business part is studded with clay fire-proof store houses, not only for mer- chandise, but to receive all the valuables in the neighborhood as soon as a fire breaks out. As soon as the building is filled the massive iron doors and shutters of these dova are cemented air-tight and preserve their contents while all the light buildings round about are swiftly swept away. For many years the houses burned down have 326 Cities of the World. always been replaced by the same style of light, inflammable structures ; but solid brick and stone houses are now taking their places. Ozaka, the second city of Japan, is but about one -quarter the size of Tokio, having a population of about three hundred thousand. It is situated on a large river some twenty miles from the south-east coast of the main land, in the most central and thickly settled part of the empire. It is a very important trading place, chiefly because it is in the midst of the great tea districts. It is clean and regularly built, with hundreds of wooden iron bridges spanning streams that thread their way through the city in every A DOMESTIC SCENE. direction. These waterways are some of the busiest thoroughfares of Ozaka; house- boats fitted up comfortably for passengers, and all sort of freight-craft, glide back and forth past the wooden houses, in much the same numbers and interesting variety as others of a far different build float over the palace lined water streets of Venice. This, like all places in Japan, has many temples to Buddha and other deities, and two Christian churches. Some of the public buildings are imposing structures, especially the municipal hall, and the extensive Roman-looking mint, where a large part of the coin in Japan is cut. It is a thrifty and a gay city with plenty of theaters, singing-girls and other popu- lar amusements. The ladies here are even more tasteful and fashionable than those in the capital; perhaps it is because they are more beautiful. The ancient capital and the Kioto. 327 residence of the emperor, when he was only the mikado, or spiritual ruler, was at Kioto, which is also called Miako, and Sai-Kiyo. It is now the third of the great cities of the country, with about the same number of people as Ozaka. This was the chief center of the national religion, at the time of the double rule in Japan, and has still some vast and splendid temples. The houses are mostly of the better class, and the streets that cross each other at right angles, are broad and clean. When the great revolution broke out in 1868, and the shogun, or temporal ruler, was deposed, the mikado was given com- plete authority over the affairs of the empire. He then removed his court to Yedo, which became Tokio. This took away many of the wealthy people of the city ; but it is still the seat of a large interior trade and is a very flourishing place, famous for the manufacture and dyeing of silks. It is also the center of Japanese literature and art. JAPANESE CANDLESTICKS AND CENSERS. SOUTH AMERICA. THE largest and most important city in South America is Rio de Janeiro, the capital of the Brazilian empire. It stands on a magnificent harbor just above the tropic of Capricorn on the eastern coast of the continent. It is land-locked, entered on the south by a mile-wide passage, and often described as the most beautiful, secure and spacious in the world. It extends seventeen miles inland, and in the widest place measures twelve miles across ; although its entrance is guarded by mountains and many islands are scattered through the bay, its waters are so free from danger that pilots are not needed to take ships in and out. There are fifty square miles of anchorage within the harbor, not a tenth part of which is now used. The bay is girded with mountains and lofty hills of every variety of picturesque and fantastic outline, and across the blue waters lies the city, old and new, along the western shore ; the white-walled and vermil- ion-roofed houses climbing the seven green and mound-like hills, or clustering in the valleys between. Convents or churches stand on the summits of some of the hills within the city limits, and streets, sometimes only scatteringly lined with houses, climb part of the way up others. The city is a great sprawling, shapeless place ; and while the main business part near the bay is compactly laid out in regular squares of narrow paved and flagged streets of granite houses, roofed with tile, beyond that there are spider-like reaches extending up and down the shore and backward to the mountains. One of the most beautiful of these outer districts is Botafogo, with its well built aristocratic houses and its crowning glory of stately tropical gardens, with avenues of royal palms, gorgeous flowering shrubs and dense, dark foliaged trees. Beyond this is the Botanic Garden, a most beautiful spot laid out in shady walks, groves of tropical trees, green lawns and a noble avenue of royal palms, a hundred feet high. During the fine afternoons hundreds of people come here from the city for a few hours' pleasure, part of which is the ride out in the open horse-cars mule cars more properly speaking. The route between the Gardens and the center of the city is through a succession of lovely scenes, for the environs of Rio abound in picturesque valleys and hillsides, pierced by beautiful roads and by-paths. The most fashionable street in the Brazilian capital is the Rua do Ouvi- dor. It is only a narrow alley too ; but here are the best retail shops with brilliant and tastefully arranged windows, coffee rooms opening on the street, and some poor pic- ture galleries. It is always lively and pleasant here, and in the evening it is extremely gay with crowds of handsomely dressed Brazilian gentry. During carnival-time and when festivals are held, it is thronged with people, filling sidewalks and roadway alike, while Rio de Janeiro. 329 arches of gas jets over head, light it up like a great hall or pavilion. The new town is west of the old, and separated from it by the Campo de Santa Anna, an immense square or park, on different parts of which stands an extensive barrack, the town hall, the national museum, the palace of the senate, the foreign office, a large opera house, and other buildings for public or government uses. The population of Rio is about three hundred thousand, that is, somewhat larger than Cincinnati, Ohio. There is a compara- tively small number of really good people in the capital. The largest class have many vices and most of them are too poor to be idle and too proud to work ; they feel that there is a broad gulf between them and the working folks, as there is between the free laborers and the fourth and lowest class, the slaves. One of the main business streets is the Rua Primeiro de Marco, running parallel to the water front, about the only wide and pleasant thoroughfare in the old part of the' town, where stand row after row of tall plain warehouses and offices, among the buildings of the new post-office, the Agricul- tural Hall and a few notable churches. It is thronged with a crowd of people taking life so leisurely, that a bustling, newly landed New Yorker could scarcely believe it to be the center of wholesale trade, filled with the principal banking and commission houses of the largest city in South America. The commission and importing business in the great counting houses here is largely carried on by English and German firms ; there are some Brazilian and a few French and American houses. Only a few carts and carriages are seen ; most of the lighter carting is done on the heads of negro porters, while the heavy burdens, like bags of coffee or grain, are carried through the streets on platform cars drawn on tracks by mules. At the street corners there are groups of laborers gathered round a kiosque a gayly-painted pagoda-like build- ing wherein they get their coffee and lunch, and find plenty of tables to sit at and talk. Lottery tickets are sold in the kiosques too, and the chances of success with the tickets displayed make up a large part of the conversation. This is the great curse of Brazil. By the water side, not far from the banking streets, is the large, square building of the market. In one small square on the land side there is a gathering of noisy fruit women, and on the bay side, where immense docks or basins are walled in, nearly all the market- boatmen of Rio unload their cargoes of fish and vegetables ; a strange, dense, and busy crowd they make in the mornings, these black-bearded Portuguese mulattoes, on the wharves and in their broad, heavy flat-bottomed boats. The main part of the market is built much like those of New York, with stalls and passages. Besides these there is a court, with hucksters walking through, and stalls on either side, and stands covered with fish or tropical fruits and vegetables in the middle, attended by turbaned negro women, sitting under huge white umbrellas. The market is the center of the huckster life of Rio, which spreads through all its streets, and forms a marked characteristic of the city. Be- sides the market men there are traveling cloth merchants, rapping their jointed yard- sticks, candy-boys, newsboys, cake-women, tinkers, who beat on one of their pans with 330 Cities of the World. an iron rod as they pass along, and followers of almost every calling, for the Braziliar women do not like to go out shopping or marketing. The great warehouses and docks lie in the northern part of the city, where the streets are narrow and not always over' clean. Here during the sickly season the yellow fever rages cruelly. It begins gener ally with the boatmen in January, and, little by little, spreads over the whole city as the warm and oppressive weather of March and April comes on. But from June or Julj until January Brazil is usually quite free from the scourge ; and when the draining anc proper cleaning are enforced all the danger may be done away with. The old buildings some of which have stood for two centuries, in these narrow, dirty streets, make then very interesting. The Portuguese colonists built solidly of stone and cement, and sc their tile roofs, and the stout walls, covered with black mold now instead of whitewash are as good as ever. Somber and venerable, they look down nowadays on horse-cars anc crowds of people bearing no trace in dress or in manners of the old colonial days ; bu even they are adapted to nineteenth century uses, for the ground floors of some of th< most stately of them make very good coffee-packing establishments. Further on then are the new Pedro Segundo docks, where all except very heavy draught ships take ir cargo from the wharfs. Like nearly all the public works in Brazil, these are handsomely ornamented, and are very popular with shippers. The trade and commerce of Rio ar< great now, and are increasing year by year. The chief export is coffee ; after that com< gold, diamonds, tobacco, hides, cotton, timber and other things far exceeding the valu< of imports, which are mainly silk, linen, cotton, and woolen goods. European steam ships arrive and leave almost daily, while the commerce with other foreign and do mestic ports is also extensive. In all the many squares of the modern part of th< capital there are fine fountains of pure water, brought by a splendid aqueduct fron the springs on and around Mount Corcovado. For two or three miles, where thi: aqueduct runs along the mountain side, the government has built a carriage-road which is shady, quiet, and beautiful, a favorite strolling place. Here and ther< are glimpses of the bay and the city below. The peak of Corcovado is two points will a bridge between them and low parapet walls from which there is a view worth all th< work of climbing up. The city and bay lie on one side of the forest-covered base of th< mountain ; on the other, the Botanic Garden, with the picturesque Rodrigo de Freita. lake before it ; in front is the pretty suburb of Botafogo, built along the shores of one o the side bays opening into the harbor, and beyond is the towering cone of Sugarloaf, it twelve hundred feet of rock standing like a sentinel at the mouth of the bay, a view tha the most unenthusiastic travelers have declared to have but two rivals in the world Constantinople and San Francisco. According to size, the second capital in South America is Buenos Ayres, of thi Argentine Republic. It stands on La Plata river, which even here, a hundred and fift] miles from the sea, is thirty-six miles across. The city is divided by granite pave( Lima. 331 streets into great blocks, about a hundred and fifty yards square. Horse-car lines run in every direction. The principal buildings are the cathedral and churches belonging to it, some Protestant churches, benevolent institutions, a military college and university. The importance of Buenos Ayres comes mainly from a very extensive inland trade especially with Chili. It is unfortunately situated, with a harbor exposed to bad tides and winds, and in a country wanting timber and stones. Its largest industries are cigar making, carpet weaving, and the manufacture of furniture and boots and shoes. The exports and imports are much the same as those of Rio ; it has also about the same number of people as the Brazilian capital, fully one-third of them being Europeans, principally Spanish, Italian, French, and British. The Chilian capital is Santiago, a squarely laid out city with about a hundred and seventy-five thousand. people. The city stands on a broad plain at the western base of the Andes, eighteen hundred feet above the sea. Its climate is delightful, and its sur- roundings beautiful and productive. Toward the mountains the scenery is most magnifi- cent, and round about are broad acres covered with growing vines, figs and melons. The houses, until recently, were always built low around a court or garden, in the best way possible to protect the inhabitants from the constantly recurring earthquakes ; but some of the newer buildings are costly edifices, two, three, and four stories high, with beautiful facades overlooking the streets. Among the handsomest buildings are the mint ; part of this is one of the President's palaces, while other apartments are devoted to public offices. The Cathedral stands on one side of the Great Square, and at some distance away are the university, library and museum, and several very fine schools. The life of the capital is best seen on the Alameda, a promenade shaded with poplars, and cooled by two streams of running water. Santiago is the export market for the mineral wealth of Chili, and receives in exchange for its gold, silver and lead, manufac- tured goods, wines and spirits for the most part. Its chief trade is with Valparaiso, which is ninety miles away by the way of the Valparaiso and Santiago railway. The handsomest city of South America is Lima, capital of the Republic of Peru. One of the noblest thoroughfares on the continent is the Alameda, running from the capital to its port, Callao, which is on the Pacific coast, six miles away. At a distance, the spires and domes glitter in the sun, and the Moorish looking architecture is very striking and attractive. Most all the public buildings are magnificent ; the dwellings and other houses are low and irregular, but give variety to the long regular streets. The principal business locality is the Plaza Mayor, or great square. It has a fine fountain in the center and is overlooked by the President's palace, the Cathedral, the Archbishop's palace, and, on the south, the old palace of Pizarro stands at right angles with the Town Hall. On one of the alamedas, or avenues, there is an immense amphitheater for bull fighting ; for Lima was founded by the Spaniards, and has many of their national traits. The city is shaped like a triangle, with its longest side extending along the bank of the 33 2 Cities of the World. river Rimac. Every morning the city streets are flooded with a stream of water, which is turned on to carry away what has collected the day before. Besides this cleans ing there are quantities of buzzards that finish the scavenger work of the Peruviar capital, and keep it healthful and pleasant. Many of the monasteries and convents which once were very numerous, have been suppressed ; but the convent of Sar Francisco is still actively devoted to the church. The University of Lima, which i: in a rather neglected condition now, was the first great educational institution in the new world ; it has a valuable library, and is still attended by Peruvian and other South American students. The trade of the city is exporting and importing for the coasi people, with some interior trade. The business of the capital is. in a most unsettlec condition now from the recent troubles that have shaken the whole state to its founda> tions. CANADA. ALMOST all the country of America north of the United States, is the Dominion a Canada, belonging to Great Britain. This is a little less in size than our own posses- sions, but contains about one-twelfth as many people. The largest city is Montreal on an island in the St. Lawrence River at the mouth of the Ottawa. It has about a hundred and fifty thousand people, or about as many as Louisville, Kentucky. It is finely situated, with its stately architecture surrounded by the gleaming river, and standing out against MONTREAL. the green of maples and elms on the Royal Mount, with the Victoria Tubular Bridge spanning the great distance to the further bank. Crowds of shipping lie along the heavily- built stone wharves. Steamers nearly six thousand tons in burden are there, and fleets of three masted sailing vessels. The most prominent buildings on shore are the Catholic Cathedral, with its two tall square towers, and a great market and customs-buildings a minor Somerset House to Londoners. The Cathedral is the finest church on the 334 Cities of the World. American continent. It is built in the Gothic style with six towers, the highest three being on the main front. It comprises seven chapels and nine aisles, and is large enough to hold between six and seven thousand people. There are also several other Roman Catholic churches belonging to the order of St. Sulpice. Montreal was founded chiefly by mem- bers of this order, who still hold possession of the island. Adjoining the Cathedral is the seminary of St. Sulpice, and several of the largest convents in the world are seen in. SECTION OF THE VICTORIA BRIDGE. various parts of the city. The Catholic church has long owned a great deal of the property here, which has increased in value so vastly that through it the church has become enormously wealthy. The new Church of England Cathedral and the Scotch church of St. Andrew are also fine structures, but comparatively small. As almost all the buildings are of gray limestone the streets have a substantial and stately appearance, which, combined with the green of the trees, make the city very attractive. Near the waterside the thoroughfares are filled with busy crowds of active, energetic Canadians, Montreal. 335 continually moving in one direction or another. Almost all the business seems to be transacted in this quarter. Here lie vessels from almost every great foreign port, from the United States and South America. Here negotiations are made and trade carried on extending to the large Canadian lumber districts, to the produce and manufacturing centers of the whole Dominion, and many places in the United States. The city is admirably situated as to rivers, canals and railways, and is fast becoming of great commer- cial importance. From the beginning of December to about the middle of April the CANADIAN AMUSEMENTS. harbor is closed by ice ; and during that time ocean steamers put in at Portland, Maine, and goods are shipped from there to Montreal by the Grand Trunk railway. In the other quarters the avenues are planted with trees ; pleasure grounds, and places of entertainment are seen ; and the buildings and surrounding grounds are sometimes handsomely adorned. The McGill University is one of the chief seats of learning in the country. The Museum has a collection of implements, weapons and carved pipes of the old North American Indians, and specimens of all that is remarkable in the geology of Canada. The great pleasure season of the year is in winter. Then every thing out of doors is 336 Cities of the World. covered with snow ; great tobogganing hills are set up for coasting. Sledges, snow shoes, and skates are brought out. The entire city puts on its holiday appearance, and thou- sands of strangers come to enjoy the sports, which reach their height with the opening of the Carnival. Then the great ice palace is built and all the members of the snow shoe clubs, clad in colored blanket coats, blue " Turque " caps, and moccasins, and other societies of the province are mustered in the capital. The stores put out their gayest decorations and show their richest stock ; every spare room, from those of the great hotels to the modest little private house, is rented, while nearly all kinds of business foreign to the Carnival is partially or wholly suspended. In and around the palace the most picturesque and charming fetes are held every evening ; processions oi torch-bearing snow shoers and militia are held ; public balls and private parties are given, excursions are made up, and for about one week every kind of winter enjoyment imaginable, sleighing, tobogganing down steep hills at a take-your-breath-away rate ol speed, curling, skating, and countless others are kept up with the greatest enthusiasm. Then the wonderful, fairy-like palace, with towers, battlements and glittering walls, inclosing immense corridors and stately halls built of ice blocks and illuminated with a thou- sand lights of various colors, is stormed and captured, and after one more ball, the mosl brilliant of the season, the Carnival is over. Toronto, the second city of the Dominion, is the capital of Ontario. This is the large province which lies across the lakes from New York, and into which we go when visiting Niagara Falls. Toronto is nearly hall the size of Montreal in population ; it lies low and flat on a spacious' inlet of Lake Ontario called Toronto Bay. The largest vessels on the lakes can come in here past the fort, and, some of them, up to the quays. In summer it is a gay and beautiful sight when the fleet of the yacht club is out, or the cutters and schooners of Toronto and Hamilton have the regattas, which bring out hundreds of people to watch the contests. There are many fine buildings and broad handsome streets in Toronto ; it is well paved and lighted and carefully kept ; most of the city is built up with brick ; but there are churches and colleges, public halls and the stately Law Courts in stone. The highest quarter is the Queen's Park, on the west, reached from King street the greatest and longest thoroughfare of the city by a double avenue. The Park is prettily wooded, and contains some handsome private dwellings, the observatory, and the university. Toronto is'the fountain-head of the Canadian school system, and has, beside Trinity, Knox and Upper Colleges, many very fine common and normal schools. The University Park, with its beautiful monument to the volunteers who fell at Ridgeway and the Horticultural garden, is a favorite resort for all the people of the city. Miss Rye's Home for friendless little street children is one of the most noted places, as it is one of the grandest benevo- lent works near Toronto. Every year in September the great provincial fair of Ontario is held here. This is the best time to see the people and what they do. Every thing belonging to education and Quebec. 337 schools has one of the chief places, and there are countless exhibits of beautiful woods and wood-work, of books, magazines and papers, of all kinds of household articles, from fine soap to expensive furniture, and nearly every other product and manufacture of the city and the province. The chief fortress of Canada, and the only walled city in the American continent is Quebec. Although it has only about sixty thousand people, as many as New Haven, Connecticut, it is an important city, with railroad connection with all the cities in the United States. After Montreal, it has the largest com- QUEBEC. merce in the Dominion, the principal trade being in lumber, grain and ships. There are large ship-yards where vessels, noted for beauty and strength, are made ; and immense rafts of logs are always moored along the shore below the city. The harbor is fine, and so deep that the largest vessels can come close up to the wharves. Quebec is divided into two parts ; the lower town is on a plain along the shore, and has many narrow crooked streets lined with quaint old buildings. The upper town is on a steep promon- tory about three hundred feet from the river. It is surrounded by a wall, and there is a great citadel overlooking the city, which, with the other forts, has given Quebec the name of the Gibraltar of America. There are fine buildings and public institutions here; and the people, two-thirds of whom are French Canadians, enjoy one of the finest promenades in the world, and live in full view of some of the most picturesque scenery in the Queen's possessions. The Canadian capital is Ottawa, a minor city, on the banks of a broad tributary to the St. Lawrence. The Houses of Parliament, with their towers and high 338 Cities of the World. pitched roofs, are built on a cliff jutting into the stream. At the western side of the city the Ottawa rushes over a precipice and forms the famous Chaudiere Falls, and at the north-east the Rideau falls into the Ottawa in two other cataracts. A suspension bridge hangs over Chaudiere Falls, connecting Upper and Lower Canada. The principal trade STREET IN QUEBEC. of the capital is in immense quantities of sawed lumber, and some manufactures from other mills, also run by the immense water power furnished by the rivers. Rideau Hall, the house of the Governor-General, is at New Edinburgh, near the city. Ottawa is about the size of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, its population being thirty thousand. MEXICO. r I ""HE capital of Mexico, our country's nearest neighbor and sister republic, is Mexico. It is beautifully situated in the center of a great table-land about mid- way between the Gulf and the Pacific. The plateau is surrounded by snow-capped mountains, and studded with five lakes, near the largest of which lies the city. The heart of the capital is the Grand Plaza, or Great Square, which measures about a thou- sand feet each way. It is the finest open place in America, and one of the finest in the world, with a pretty tropical garden in the center and noble buildings ranging in lofty stories on all sides. On the south is the President's palace, an extensive pile that is palace, garrisoned castle, and hall of state. Here are kept the archives of the govern- ment and supplies in case of siege. The state apartments take up an immense wing, the Hall of Embassadors alone being large enough for a palace; it is a picture gallery too, lined with portraits of Mexican grandees, among which Bolivar and Washington are given a place as successful American revolutionists. Across the long stretch of the Plaza, opposite the palace, is a long arcade, wide and shaded, and full of shops of every description. Here are silversmiths at work or selling their famous filigree; feather-work shops; toys of all kinds; earthen trinkets; hat stores full of broad sombreros and rebosas, the brown and blue mantles, such as you see over the head and neck of every working woman who passes by. Here are coffee-stands and book-stalls and all sorts of trade and traffic, opening off of the broad walks, filled with a Mexican crowd. On the left of the palace, there are plain, strong-looking lines of barracks, and on its right, stands the Moorish-looking cathedral. It stands on a large platform several feet higher than the pavement of the Plaza, a grand and imposing building, which was raised on the ruins of the great teocalli, the old Aztec temple to the god Mixitli. The circular calendar stone covered with Aztec hieroglyphics, representing the months of the year, is preserved in the corner of the building. The inside of the cathedral is grand but not gloomy. It is partitioned off for different classes of people. The altar is a gorgeous piece of marble sculpture and precious stones, and some of the carving, metal work in the screens, and other ornamentation, set with gems, is very beautiful. The 340 Cities of the World. open space in front of the cathedral is full of people selling their wares, especially Sabbath mornings. Lottery ticket sellers, usually old men and women, are more numerous than any other venders; and among them are match-boys, ice-cream sellers, picture venders, and scores of others offering bargains to the passers by, or the worshipers as they go toward or leave the church. The streets running northward from the Plaza are the chief thoroughfares of the city. Each block is known by a different name. The first is called the Street of the Silver- CITY OF MEXICO. smiths; now there are some few of the craft, once very numerous here, who have their forge and work their silver in plain view of the passers by. But jewelry and cigar shops and dry goods stores have crowded out the silver workers. Further along stands a church and some other of the old religious buildings, now converted into every-day use. The fifty-year old palace of Iturbide, too, is now a hotel, the stateliest private building in Mexico, it is said, with its fine carved front, facing the President's dwelling. Further on is a porcelain-faced house of quaint Dutch tiles, while above and below it are the Mexico. 341 residences of the wealthy and aristocratic of the city. Beyond is the public park, the Alameda, forty acres of winding paths, fenced off from plots of shrubs or flowers, with fountains encircled by stone seats. The eastern side of the Alameda is the street of San Cosme, the broadest and liveliest thoroughfare in Mexico. It has another interest, too, than the people. It is the road over which Cortez tried to escape on that night which has passed into history as the Trieste Noche, or saddest of nights. It passes by the aqueduct of San Cosme', that extends toward the city in solemn gray arches, moss-grown and majestic. Swiftly running horse cars, loaded donkeys, cavaliers, men and women promenading or bearing burdens make the thickest and the busiest throng in Mexico, beside this solemn old arcade. A mile or so out, in the vicinity of the English and American cemeteries, the aqueduct suddenly turns westward toward Chapultepec; not far from here is the favorite site for gentlemen's villas, with most lovely surroundings. The country is full of parks, ponds, groves, pleasant walks, flower beds, rare trees and tropical plants. San Cosme also ends in the Plaza, in the heart of the city; but it contains one greater attaction than the busy square, in the Tivoli Gardens, which surpass many of the most celebrated pleasure grounds in Europe. Here in the midst of de- lightful scenery, the gentry breakfast between twelve o'clock and four. Tables are ar- ranged in the most charming and unlooked-for places: they are in quaint looking boxes high in the tree-tops, in sequestered arbors, in open plots; everywhere for variety or differing tastes. All that is good to eat or drink in the country is served here, and the music is delightful. One road from the Tivoli leads to the square where the burnings of the Inquisition took place. The Inquisition building is used for the custom-house now; a great fountain is in the center of the road, and a church stands across the way. Beside the beautiful Alameda, Mexico has remarkably long and handsome paseos, or raised paved roads, planted with double rows of trees, and extending far into the country from every quarter of the city. The water gardens, which were a celebrated attraction in ancient days, are not floating nowadays, although there are a few of them still kept in luxurious beauty in the midst of the swamps, which the modern Mexicans have allowed to spread around the lakes. The trade here is chiefly transit business, although there is a considerable quantity of manufactured goods imported, and some home manufact- ures shipped in exchange. Superior cigars are made in the capital, beside gold lace, hats, carriages, saddlery and some other things; these, with gold and silver and some of the valuable products of the plateau, are carried on mules, usually to Vera Cruz and other ports, for foreign shipment. THE UNITED STATES. metropolis of the United States and the greatest city of the Americas is New York. All foreign commerce, all domestic trade, all travelers from abroad or tourists at home, some of all that is good, bad, or indifferent, find their way sooner or later to the water-bound city of the Empire State. Every railroad on the continent is connected THE CITY HALL. with it; the main canals and natural water-ways tend toward it, while the great Atlantic itself reaches out a strong, safe arm to the very steps of the Custom House. It has beer said that no country in the world can boast of such a harbor, where the turbulence ol the sea is shut out by a bar that admits the largest vessels at high tide. Its circle 01 344 Cities of the World. hills encloses a basin large enough to shelter all the fleets of the world, without danger from shifting shoals, or strong treacherous currents; while from the Fire Island light or the first sight of land, the beacon lights and buoys are so numerous and distinct, that any accident other than one vessel colliding with another is almost unknown. The approach to the great city is beautiful as well as safe and commodious. The Highlands of Navesink, with their tall lighthouse towers, attract the visitor's eye by day or night; BARGE OFFICE, BATTERY, NEW YORK CITY. above them the long point of Sandy Hook runs out to the north, with its lighthouse, a white monument by day, and a flashing light by night; opposite this is the Coney Island shore, leaving a broad entrance to the Lower Bay, with the quiet, shining waters of Raritan Bay opening upon it on the west. On a sunny day this sparkling bay on the left, and the long sandy stretch of Coney Island with its great pavilions and piers on the New York. 345 right, make a very pleasant first impression. But the scene grows fairer as you cross the Lower Bay; now and then an island is passed, and above Raritan, the wooded hills of Staten Island curve out to meet the green bluffs of Long Island, forming the pretty strait called the Narrows. Just above the forts the shores retreat, and New York Bay comes full in view. The Staten Island heights are crowned with scattered villas and suburban villages; the green of the Long Island shore is soon broken by the lines of Brooklyn wharves and docks, which extend for miles along the whole length of the eastern shore of the Harbor, up the East River to Long Island City, several miles beyond. To the left the shore of Staten Island ends at an angle, and the broad Kill von Kull, connecting the Harbor with Newark Bay, beyond, lies between the island and a long factory-built and barge-lined peninsula of New Jersey. This runs out from Jersey City, whose southerly point is just opposite that of New York at the mouth of the Hudson River ; near the head of the Harbor there are several small islands, the most notable of these, although not the largest, being Bedloe's, the site of Bartholdi's colossal statue of Liberty Enlightening the World, the gift of the French to the American people. From Bed- loe's Island the full harbor view of New York lies clear and distinct. On the blue waters ride ships from every large European port; sloops, schooners, and square rigged vessels from far and near; harbor barges, great excursion boats and Sound steamers with their pointed prows, double and triple tiers of decks, and immense side wheels; bulky, low ferry-boats, trim yachts with their snow-white sails and yellow masts; black hulled, black rigged government vessels; with puffing little tugs steaming about from one point to another, sometimes darting away like a messenger in hot haste, some- times laboriously dragging a trail of four or five heavily laden scows or train boats, or towing a disabled vessel into port. Amongst all these, especially as you near the shore. BARTHOLDI S STATUE. 346 Cities of the World there are countless row-boats to be seen, with brawny armed boatmen sending them over the swells or under the lee of a ship with perfect ease and indifference to any sort of danger. The rounding point that lies out between the Hudson and Jersey City on the west, and Brooklyn and the East River, spanned by the great suspension bridge, on the east, is Battery Park. To the east rise the green walls and red sheds of the Barge Office of the New York Custom House, to the west is the round, flat roof of Castle Gar- den, with the green tree-planted park, and the broad promenade above the river wall, between. From here, on the banks of both rivers extend wharves and docks, densely crowded with shipping; great covered piers filled with goods, which laborers of every nationality are constantly transferring to or from the vessels lying along the sides; and ferry-boat slips, where the big double-enders. come in and go out all hours of the day and night, weighted to the water's edge with people and vehicles. For thirteen miles along the.city shore every foot of the Hudson River may be used as anchoring ground for vessels of the greatest tonnage; and the same is true, or nearly so, of nine and a quarter miles of the East River. So, including the capacity of the Harlem River in the upper part of the city, New York has a hundred and fifteen square miles of safe anchorage in almost any kind of weather. Another approach from the sea to the city is by way of Long Island Sound, out of which, with the irregular bays and rocky strait of Hell Gate for a connecting link and the Harlem River for a tributary, comes the East River. The Sound is wide and deep, a long and somewhat narrow sea sometimes touched by rough weather; it is separated from the ocean by the very considerable barrier of Long Island, dotted by lovely summer houses, fashionable watering places, and charming suburban cities. New York now includes the East River islands, Blackwell's, Ward's and Ran- dall's, where the city prisons, work-houses and hospitals are situated; Governor's, Bedloe's and Ellis' s Islands in the Bay, occupied by the United States government; Manhattan Island, where the main part of the city is situated; and a portion of the mainland sepa- rated from the original New York by Harlem River, flowing into the Sound, and Spuyten Duyvil Creek, flowing into the Hudson. It is bounded on the north by the city of Yonkers, east by the Bronx and the East Rivers, west by the Hudson, and south by the Bay; its extreme length is sixteen miles, its greatest width is four and a half miles. The whole area is forty-one and a half square miles or twenty-six thousand acres, the home of one and one third million of people, a very large part of whom are crowded into the lower part of the island. The main thoroughfare of the city is Broadway; it begins in Bowling Green above the Battery Park, and makes a straight line till within a few blocks of Union Square, where it bears off toward the Hudson and extends in a di- rection nearly due north, through a quiet almost deserted part of upper New York, to about io5th Street, where it is lost in another avenue, a block away from Riverside Park. At one end like the country; 'at the other, narrow, crowded, and thickly set with mag- nificent business houses towering hundreds of feet upward in noble fa9ades. Through WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH BUILDING. 348 Cities of the World. all its distance it is a varying scene of wholesale trade, retail business, great hotels, fashionable promenades, open squares, places of amusement, and long blocks of private houses. The Battery, named from an old fort which once stood here, is green and pleasant, with winding paths and lines of benches where hundreds of people walk and sit all day long, enjoying the sea breeze and lively harbor view; but just above it, and on the roadways on all sides, there is a great confusion of horse-cars, carriages, trucks, and countless other public and private vehicles, dashing this way and that, rumbling over the stone pavements to the ferry-houses, the wharves, down side 'streets, or joining the dense throng of the Bowling Green, that pours into Broadway. The great office build- ings in the vicinity of the Battery are some of the finest in New York, particularly the THE OLD POST OFFICE. MADE OUT OF THE ANCIENT DUTCH CHURCH. THE SITE OF WHICH IS NOW OCCUPIED BY THE MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE BUILDING. large stone-trimmed structure of the Washington Building, which stands facing the Battery on the corner of Bowling Green, the site occupied by the hotel where General Washington used to stay in the days of old. To the east of it, across the crowded way, is another great red brick building with rich red terra-cotta ornamentation and a lofty square tower two hundred feet high. This is the newly finished Produce Ex- change, which is already famous for the broad view of the harbor, suburbs and city from the tower, and for its vast size and office-room, its handsome fittings and great hall 35O Cities of the World. make it one of the chief buildings in New York. A few blocks up Broadway, in the midst of crowds of men with preoccupied and eager faces, hurrying up in one line, down in another, along the encumbered side-walks, past boxes and bales of goods, small fruit dealers, news and candy stands, beggars, and policemen, you are presently at the head of Wall Street. Great insurance offices, banks and business houses of various kinds and large importance, loom far skyward on all sides, and line the narrow easterly running side-street as far as one can see. Wall Street is the center of a network of thor- oughfares and alley-ways, in which the greatest banking and railway business of the country is concentrated. Wall Street proper extends from Broadway to the East River, a distance of half a mile; it is densely crowded with the offices of nearly all the money princes of the United States; here, too, are the Custom House, the Sub-Treasury, the Drexel Building, offices of stock brokers, lawyers, financial managers, and all the multi- tudes connected with these branches of business. The name Wall Street comes from the old Dutch wall which ran along here in the days of New Amsterdam, and made the northern limit of the settlement, and where the Sub-Treasury now stand the first Con- gress of the United States after the adoption of the Constitution assembled, and on its marble steps a fine bronze statue of Washington has been placed in memory that it was under this portico that our first President was inaugurated. Near by is the entrance to the Stock Exchange, which stands on Broad Street, near Wall, and is reached from three different streets. The interior is occupied by a spacious and lofty hall, having a gallery across one end for visitors. When business is at its height, the " Floor" seems to be covered with a tangled mass of men and boys, shriek- ing and waving their arms aloft like maniacs. The entire " Street," as all this vicinity is called, partakes of the same excitement, and from ten till four it is filled with a vast throng, which, on a great field day, seems almost delirious. Bank messengers with bags of gold and packages of bonds, saucy office boys, quiet looking, but shrewd detectives, telegraph boys in their blue uniforms with brass buttons, carrying messages from all parts of the world; railway kings, who control the convenience, even the life and sustenance of thousands; spruce clerks, and gray haired speculators. These and hundreds of others, whose lives are bound to the rise and fall of the market, make up the great surging tide of Wall Street in New York, from which run wires that hourly carry the news of successes and failures, large and small, to all parts of the world. Facing all this turmoil and confusion and these lines of stately architecture, stands the somber church of Old Trinity, the most venerated if not the oldest building in the city. This site was granted for a church before the year 1700; but the old church was burned in the great fire of 1776, and the building put up later was found unsafe, was pulled down and replaced by the present handsome Gothic sanctuary, which was finished in 1846. The brown sandstone of its walls and graceful steeple is in strong contrast to the majestic granite, brick and marble buildings which have since been built New York. 351 around it on all sides; but the old church does not suffer by comparison; and even if it did, New Yorkers would not be able to see it. The spire is two hundred and eighty-four feet high, and from it there is a fine view of the turrets, gables and towers and upper stories crowning the down-town buildings; the chimes ring out the hours in a solemn sweetness that is heard above the rumble and roar of the traffic filling a score of streets close by. The gates to the old graveyard, with its many quaint headstones and the Martyrs' Monument, and the doors of the church, are usually open in the daytime. Inside the heavy walls the noise without is but dimly heard. The gray outlines of the groined roof and carved Gothic columns are lost in deep shadows, and richly brought out in warm colors from the stained windows. The beautiful red and white marble altar and reredos were built to the memory of William B. Astor. Trinity Parish owns some of the most valuable property in New York, and is a very rich church, as well as a most active and far reaching one in charitable work. Few of the down-town streets are more interesting and full of variety than Fulton; it runs across the island, which gradually increases in width from the Battery northward, not far above Trinity. At its two ends are two of the greatest markets of the city Fulton Market on the East River; Washington on the Hudson. It is the main thor- oughfare leading to Fulton Ferry, which carries over more people than any other, the boats being so packed sometimes that there is not a foot of unused standing room; it also reaches the other water front near a large Hudson River ferry, and has a larger number of well dressed men and women than any other place down town excepting Broadway. The street itself, like many of those running parallel and at angles with it, is lined with small retail shops on the ground floors and manufacturers' lofts above, inter- spersed with large wholesale houses. There is a greater variety of articles offered for sale here than in any other one street in New York probably, from pins and needles to heavy iron-work, from guns and fishing tackle to expensive jewelry, from books and stationery to all sorts of cheap and cast off clothing, from paintings and bric-b-brac to old iron. A district extending for some distance above Fulton Street on the east side is the center of the hide and leather trade. It is called the " Swamp," from the overflows that used to occur here at very high tide. The streets are short and narrow, and the air redolent with the odor of salted hide and fresh sole-leather, mixed with the smell of kid, morocco and calf-skin. The approaches of the East River Bridge skirt the " Swamp " on the north, and beneath the lofty arches of the incline is New York's only arcade of stores. This runs through a quarter of the most mixed up and irregular, narrow and encumbered streets of the city, and comes out finally and suddenly, upon the smoothly- mown and well-kept green of City Hall Park. Around and upon this stand a magnificent group of white marble buildings. Chief of these is the Post Office and United States Court Building, which covers a great tri- 352 Cities of the World. angle-shaped block on the south of the Park, and faces down Broadway from a point where several side streets open. Park Row branches obliquely off toward the east. From morning till night the press of pedestrians, and the noisy throng of every kind of New York vehicle, surge incessantly around this point. Half a dozen horse cars are coming down Park Row to the Broadway line, or starting up again all the time; coupes, hansoms, gentlemen's coaches, with here and there a light buggy dart in and out amongst lumbering drays, four-horse express wagons, carts, lumber wagons and conveyances without number, so thick that the whole passage on the Broadway side is NEW COURT HOUSE, CITY HALL PARK. ' often blocked for ten minutes at a time, and crossing is unsafe except under the escort of a policeman. Facing the Post Office on the south is the tall, handsome entrance of the Herald Building, and above it lies Printing House Square. Opposite, the sombre gray building of the Astor House fills a block on the western side of Broadway; and reaching away in \I.\V YORK HERALD PARK. BANK. 354 Cities of the World. every direction are tall warehouses, newspaper offices, publishing houses and great busi- ness establishments of the wholesale trade. The Post Office and Court Building is the most imposing edifice in New York; the width of the south front is occupied entirely as an entrance; it measures a hundred and thirty feet, or a little more than one third the width of the fa9ades on Broadway and Park Row, and less than one half that of the northern front. The basement is one great apartment, devoted to the sorting of letters and making up of the mails; the first floor, reached by handsome staircases and a dozen elevators, is the receiving department; off from its stately corridors open the sections for money-orders and registered letters, the stamp and envelope bureaus and the private rooms of the postmaster and secretaries. The United States Court rooms are on the second and third floors. The Post Office is never closed; over twelve hundred men are employed, and mails are sent out to over thirty thousand post offices. During a year about a hundred and thirty- four millions of letters and other mailable articles are sent out. Nearly a hundred and fifty millions of letters and packages are received per year, about one half of which go into the boxes of the main office for delivery; about one fourth are distributed by carriers, the remaining fourth being sent to the stations in the other parts of the city. The City Hall, the seat of the city government, stands in the center of the Park. It was the first of the public buildings of the city, and was built between the years 1803 and 1812, near what was then the outskirt of New York, and cost over half a million of dollars. It is a white marble structure, with a square clock tower, sur- mounted by a high dome, and a long front with a stately portico in the center. In it are the Mayor's Office, the Common Council chamber and other city offices, and the City Library. On the second floor is the "Governor's Room" where official receptions are held. There is a desk in this room, at which Washington wrote his first message to Congress, and the chairs in which the first Congress sat, and the one which Washington used at the time of his first inauguration. The room is hung with a gallery of paintings, containing many portraits of men who have been of importance to New York or the nation. Above the City Hall is the new Court House, fronting on Chambers Street, the upper boundary of the Park. It is a stately Corinthian hall of white marble, with a colonnaded portico and steps, which are said to be the finest piece of work of the kind in America. NEW YORK TRIBUNE. New York. 355 The interior is equally beautiful and elaborate in the apartments fitted up for the State Courts and several city departments. Like nearly all the thoroughfares running away from Broadway, Chambers Street the center of the hardware trade in New York takes a straight course to the river, crossed by two elevated railways and ending among the commission docks and produce warehouses of West Street; but New Chambers, on the East side, is lost a short distance from the park in the tangled network of criss-cross roads, where large manufactories, publishing houses and other mercantile warerooms, are hedged in by great shabby dwell- ings, and some of the lowest shops anywhere seen. Five Points used to be not far from -- ----- NEW YORK ACADEMY OF DESIGN. here; it is now marked by the neat Boys Lodging House, and city mission that was founded more than twenty-four years ago in the midst of the worst slums of the city. Although lower New York is fast becoming exclusively devoted to business, and is growing to be, like " the city " in London, the scene of the greatest activity during the day and absolute quiet after business hours, there are many thickly populated districts here, yet. Families of five to fifteen live in a single room; little children are born and brought up in cellars, dark rooms and sky parlors; sometimes in buildings partly devoted to business, sometimes in the great blocks of five or six story tenements. The tenement house regions swarm with miserable, shiftless men and women, and dirty vagrant chil- dren, whose wretched little lives may have only one bright spot the Fresh Air Fund's Cities of the World. two weeks' trip into the country in the summer. From these quarters come the great mass of the city's cheap labor, and the greatest number of petty criminals. Numerous grog shops and low gambling dens stand on every block, and make a center of attrac- tion for groups of men and women. Sometimes these houses have a cramped inner court reached by narrow alley-ways beneath the buildings; but they have no yard room; nothing fresh or green, save here and there a poor little plant in some sewing woman's window, or a bunch of flowers that has found its way here through the Flower Mission. Clothes are either dried on the roofs or by ropes extended from a window to the oppo- site wall. Further up town these tenements are succeeded by better built brick buildings with two or three rooms to a family, and a small grass plot in a little back yard; and in the broad new streets of the upper districts there are substantial flats, let in floors, a fam- ily to each; and enormous, finely built apartment houses, that are among the most luxu- rious homes and most imposing buildings the city can show. These are in the vicinity of Central Park, and along the streets and avenues near the center of the city, while the poor tenements are mostly near the river fronts. The localities adjacent to the wharves and docks teem with a sort of life peculiar to themselves. The streets, the dirtiest and most unsightly you can find, are always choked with heavy drays, trucks, bag- gage and freight wagons; the sidewalks and the wharves, lined with shipping whose bow- sprits extend far across the street, are crowded with "waterside characters," lounging New York. 357 amongst the roughest of the laboring classes who find employment here. Low " dives " and rum-shops and eating houses are at every turn. But in the midst of all this, much of which hinders rather than helps traffic, there is more important business carried on in the vicinity of West Street along the North River, and South Street on the East River, than it is possible to estimate. In the vicinity of the Hudson River block bounded by West, Little Twelfth, Washington and Gansevoort streets, known as the Market Wagon Stand, is a strange sight in the early mornings. For nearly a mile, within a few blocks of the river, the streets are packed close with market wagoners from the country, who have brought in part of New York's vegetable supply for the day. By ASTOR LIBRARY. seven o'clock, the tanned faces and big wagons of all the farmers, gardeners and huck- ster women have disappeared. Their produce is scattered far and wide through the city, into the markets, or on the wagons of the licensed venders, who cry their wares through the poorer of the uptown streets. The handsome new Jefferson Market is about a half mile from here, toward the center of the city, built in the same style and adjoining the house of the Third District Court of New York, commonly known as the Jefferson Market Police Court. The 358 Cities of the World. buildings are of brick trimmed with light stone and terra-cotta, with gabled roofs, sur- mounted by several small ornamental t'owers and one large round clock tower, rising far above the Metropolitan Elevated Railway. The important retail stores for which the avenue is famous, begin in this vicinity, and extend in handsome lines of tall glass fronts, for several miles up. Next to Broad- way, it is the busiest and most crowded street of first class retail establishments running north and south. Not far above the Court House it crosses Fourteenth Street and, further on, Twenty-Third Street; both of these connect with Broadway, and combined, are the seat of the best stores for every kind of goods that fashion, taste, comfort or necessity could demand for household or personal use. Fourteenth Street crosses Broadway at NEW YORK CITY COLLEGE. Union Square, the first open space of any size on Broadway above the City Hall. This little park, skirted and crossed in several directions by broad, smoothly paved side- walks, covers about three and a half acres, planted with trees, laid out with green, vel- vety lawns. There is a large fountain in the center, surrounded with gay plants, one or two drinking fountains at the sides, and at the lower end there are large conspicuous statues of Washington, Lincoln and Lafayette. The boundaries of Union Square are Fourteenth and Seventeenth streets south and north; Broadway and Fourth Avenue, east and west. The thoroughfares are very wide on all sides, and are built up with 3 6 Cities of the World. some of the most imposing business houses to be seen, with several large hotels anc theaters. The crowd here is always interesting, always dense and well dressed. Below, Broadway is lined on both sides with great dry goods stores, extensiv< hotels, and a few theaters, all the way to Canal Street. Up and down in the road am on the sidewalk the greatest streams of people anywhere to be seen are constantly mov ing. Early in the morning it flows chiefly downward, and is made up of working people sewing girls, young clerks, and countless others pouring into it from every side street and disappearing as suddenly as they came. At eight or nine o'clock the procession still moving downward, is chiefly of business men on their way to counting rooms am GRAND CENTRAL DEPOT GRAND UNION HOTEL, FORTY-SECOND ST. AND PARK AVENUE. offices. From ten to three, there are two streams, one going down another up; ther are ladies shopping, errand and messenger boys, strangers, collectors, sellers and othe " outside " business men, darting in and out of doorways, with not a moment to lose. Am between the sidewalks, each with its two throngs keeping to the right, all manner c vehicles pass up and down, with the densely packed and frequent running horse car between. At four o'clock the promenading begins, when Broadway's most elegant am fashionable crowd appears, to vanish in the course of an hour or so, and be followed b an upward stream of homeward bound workers. After nightfall the crowds are thinner ' New York. 361 and made up of pleasure seekers, midnight prowlers, and guilty souls that shun the day- light publicity. A few blocks to the east the scene is duplicated on a cheaper and shoddy scale beneath the Elevated Road of Third Avenue and the Bowery A few blocks above Union Square at Twenty-Third Street, Broadway and Fifth Avenue the great street of palatial dwellings and Sunday promenades meet at an acute angle just below Madison Square, the pleasantest little park in the great city. The settees beneath the fine shade trees and bordering the trim lawns, are often filled with guests of the hotels, or some of the residents near by, reading the morning paper or enjoying a neighborly chat. The white -capped nurses, and children playing running games, and flying about on roller skates, have a more aristocratic look than those you BOW BRIDGE, SKATING POND, CENTRAL PARK. see in any of the lower parks, and there is no square in the city but has them. In the vicinity tnere are eight or ten of the finest New York hotels and restaurants, including the Fifth Avenue Hotel and Delmonicos', and the elegant caf of the Hoffman House and the Brunswick Restaurant) The most stately avenue of residences in the country lies between this square and Central Park. The artistic porches and windows of the Fifth Avenue mansions, the stately churches and noble halls that line it for miles, the smooth roadway and broad sidewalks, make it the most popular and agreeable drive and promenade in New York; here is the majestic St. Patrick's Cathedral, and other fine churches; above Fifty-ninth Street it is bounded on the west side by Central Park, for more than fifty blocks. Now, 362 Cities of the World. the buildings, still extensive and elegant, are rather more scattered, till finally it end after a long stretch of vacant lots, interrupted once by Mount Morris Park, at a ga little bay on the Harlem River. At some little distance below Union Square, the plan of the streets undergoes change; and from thence upward the whole width of the island is laid out in reguk squares, streets known by numbers, extending from east to west, crossing at right angl< the avenues running lengthwise. A few of these are occupied wholly or partially t stores, manufactories, and for other business purposes, but chiefly in solid blocks ( dwellings, where one family to a house is rather the exception than the rule, especial! out of Fifth and Madison Avenues. THE PROMENADE, CENTRAL PARK. New York is below most large cities in the number of its pleasure grounds an breathing places, there being only nineteen in all, scattered among its closely built street: even Central Park is small compared to the great parks of European cities; but it lad nothing in beauty and variety, and in gayety or delicious quiet it ranks with the bes It is a regular oblong in shape, covering a little less than eight hundred and fifty acres ( naturally beautiful grounds, comprising rocky hills, ravines, and picturesque lak< with banks overhung by fine shrubbery or noble shade trees, dotted here and thei with fancy boat-houses, or arched over by rustic bridges. Long magnificent drive: bridle-paths and winding foot walks extend in every direction, crossing ravines b beautiful marble bridges, tunnelling hills with massive archways, branching off inl sequestered arbors or terminating in lofty summer-houses. It is a popular resort fc all classes and all ages. In it is the fashionable drive, where some of the finest horse 364 Cities of the World. and most elegant carriages, as well as the richest and most celebrated people in th country may be seen almost any pleasant afternoon, riding in stately magnificence amon every other grade of equipage, including the poorest hacks, or the commodious ope park stages. The greatest mass of people is always to be seen on the Mall, a broa and beautiful tree-lined avenue, which extends from the vicinity of the old Arsena Museum and zoological collections to the lake, in about the center of the lower half c the Park. The finest of the museum buildings is that of Natural History at Seventy-sevent Street on the western outskirts, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, nearly opposit< VINERY NEAR THE CASINO, OVERLOOKING THE PROMENADE, CENTRAL PARK. overlooking Fifth Avenue. On a knoll near by stands the great stone Obelisk, whic was made by the ancient Egyptians, more than fifteen centuries before Christ, an erected at Heliopolis, afterward transferred to Alexandria during the reign of tt Ptolomies, and to the United States as a gift of the late Khedive of Egypt, a few yea: ago. About opposite the Natural History Museum and westward of it, is the lower end < Riverside Park, a charming place for a ramble or drive, extending in a long and narro strip for about three miles along the high shore of the Hudson River. The head of tt Park, almost all of which is comprised in one broad picturesque drive, has been chose for the monument to General Grant, whose body now rests in a temporary tomb, bui on purpose. Above Central Park, especially across the Harlem River, the city is more or le: New York. 365 scattered. Blocks of brick or brown-stone residences and flats extend, with now and then a vacant lot or set of shanties, in many of the streets and avenues, while in some places there are long stretches of unused land, and but partly improved avenues, intersected OLD ARSENAL IN PARK, NOW THE MENAGERIE. by roads, some of them old and irregular, leading to the Jerome Park Race-course, Woodlawn Cemetery, and various parts of Westchester and Yonkers. The manufactures of New York include thousands of industries, and are greater MUSIC STAND, CENTRAL PARK. than those of any other American city. It has the largest trade centered at any one place in the world, being the headquarters for more than one half the United States' commerce, and the greatest grain market in the world. Corn and wheat brought from 3 66 Cities of the World. the Western States are stored here in immense elevators, from which they are loadec into ships and taken to Europe. The schools, colleges, universities and special institutes, the public libraries anc benevolent institutions are very many, and stand among the best in the world. New York's greatest suburb is the city of Brooklyn, lying beside the metropolis or the opposite bank of the East River, and connected with it by the magnificent suspen- sion bridge, which is the largest and finest of its kind in the world. The sister city is quite distinct in its management and its characteristics from Gotham, as Washington Irving has called New York. Many fine broad streets near the ferries are occupied BRIDGE CONNECTING BROOKLYN AND NEW YORK CITY. with stores that rival those across the river, and the public buildings and city institu- tions are beautiful and imposing; the religious buildings are so many that it is well known as the City of Churches; but in the main this is a vast home city, where the great over- flow of New York's poor, well-to-do and wealthy workers and business men make their homes. There is an air of comparative quiet here, though the streets are lined mile- after mile with closely packed buildings, and teem with life, especially at night, when the city gathers to itself about six hundred thousand souls. The most attractive anc aristocratic portion is the commanding bluff above the river, known as Brooklyn Heights. The streets here are built up with the same taste and elegance seen in the Fifth Avenue 368 Cities of the World. mansions, to which Clinton Street and Columbia Heights correspond as a fashionable pron enade, while Clinton Avenue, with a great width ornamented with splendid shade tree and lined with beautiful residences, surrounded by handsomely designed grounds, su passes anything to be seen in New York. The Heights are below the Suspension Bridg about 'Opposite the Battery. Along the shore below, and extending out of sight in bol directions, the entire water front is occupied by piers, slips, warehouses, ship-yards an ferries. At an angle some distance above the Bridge, opposite Corlears Hook at tt foot of Grand street, New York, is the United States Cob Dock, encircled by the Wall; bout Bay, a deep channel which separates it from the Navy Yard. Below the heights, separated from Governor's Island, where Fort Columbus stand and General Schuyler rules supreme, is the great Atlantic Dock. This encloses a basi of forty acres' extent, and a uniform depth of twenty-five feet. Hundreds of the large; ships that enter the New York port can be accommodated here at once. Brooklyn's great resort is Prospect Park, which lies on the southern outskirts ne; Windsor Terrace and Greenwood Cemetery. It was not laid out until after the close ( the Rebellion, but has no unpleasantly new appearance, in its vast extent of groves an lawns, grassy knolls and quiet dells; the roads are hard and smooth, the walks plante with trees and shrubbery, and amply supplied with drinking fountains, seats and shad resting places; and in many places there are little pavilions for refreshments. Tl- lake covers over sixty acres, and is a grand place for skating in winter, a charming she* for rowing in the warmer months. Lookout Carriage Concourse, the highest point, is a large knoll almost two hundre feet above the sea, with a fine view of the harbor and the distant points of beauty, extent ing down the Bay, up the Hudson to the Palisade.s, and westward to the Orange Mountain: At the southern end of the Park twenty-five acres have been cleared and fitted for th National Guard Parade Ground, where all the well-drilled regiments of the two citie are inspected twice a year, and at other times games of polo, cricket and baseball ai frequently played. Buffalo, the third city of the Empire State, is twelfth in the Union, exceeding i size and importance many of the State capitals, even that of New York. It stands i the head of Lake Erie, at the mouth of the Niagara River, the granite tower of the Cit Hall stretching haughtily above the surrounding acres of countless factory chimne) and steam pipes, which send up filmy volumes that hang like a curtain over the se; board districts. " Northward, past the high bluffs crowned by the ruins of Fort Porter and the ston copings of The Front , flows the Niagara. Parallel with it, packed with long lines ( freighted boats towed by slow- paced horses, is the Erie Canal. South and westwarc Lake Erie spreads out in endless billows; and at the east, forming a noble backgroun to the city, rise the Chautauqua hills and the highlands of Evans and Wales." Bitffalo. 369 In the foreground stands an imposing row of nearly forty grain elevators, extending a mile along Buffalo Creek; one of them on the spot where the first invention of a steam storage transfer elevator was built as an experiment in 1842. Part of the creek has been made into a capacious and well protected harbor, extending in front of the city and opening on the lake; but the great grain port is growing to need more than this, so the government is now building immense breakwaters to form a large outside harbor. All through the summer the harbor is full of life; tugs dart hither and yon, lake vessels, big and little, receive their cargoes, huge steamers and propellers take on passengers or freight for the upper lake, while numerous pleas- ure yachts steam toward the International Bridge, which opens in the center with a massive swing to let them pass. Finally, and most important, stretching in all directions, are the railroads between the Great West and the Eastern sea- board. The Queen City of the Empire State is the starting point or terminus of twenty different railway lines. The transfer yards at East Buffalo are the largest in the world, and the network of tracks that extends around the harbor side of the city, pours out a vast quantity of coal, salt , . ., , , ERIE CANAL, NEW YORK STATE. and petroleum in the lake vessels, in return for cargoes of grain, flour, lumber, iron and copper ore. " Commercial Buffalo is like a portly and self-satisfied spider, supreme in the center of her web." There are more than four square miles of territory within the city limits owned by railroad corporations; and so immense is the coal trade here, that if it were not so celebrated as a railroad center, it would be famous as a coal depot; without either of these interests it would stand as one of the leading live stock markets of the country; this gone too, it would be a famous grape-sugar manufacturing place; the city originated this industry, and leads it before the world; and world-wide also is its fame 24 370 Cities of the World. for the building of the cantilever bridge of the Michigan Central Railroad, over th< Niagara River. Beside these there are immense oil refineries, malt-houses, breweries distilleries, chemical works and ship-yards, hundreds of large factories that supply ; thriving trade in carriage wheels, stoves, engines, farming tools, boots and shoes, t< say nothing of the many active smaller establishments, in all making the number o Buffalo's manufactories into the thousands. The streets of the city run out diagonally from Park Terrace, and adjoining Niagar; Square, which lies up from the lake shore just above the mouth of the river-like harbor The arrangement of the Buffalo streets is very peculiar, for while they nearly all rui out from this common center, they are long and straight, excepting where Genesee Batavia, and a few other streets crossing obliquely form regular square or oblong blocks The chief business thoroughfare is Main Street, and crosses the town a few blocks eas of Niagara Square. In the buildings here, as everywhere in her business sections, you see a picturesqui combination of the old Dutch town and the new enterprising American city. But whil< Buffalo may be justly proud of her wealth and trade, it has little to boast of in publi< buildings. The City and County Hall is a fine Venetian structure in granite, with ; clock tower almost as high as Trinity steeple in New York. Its main front is 01 Franklin Street; on the other side it overlooks Delaware Avenue, which, like nearly al the other thoroughfares, is broad, well-paved, and lined with noble shade trees. The Jai is opposite the City Hall, a massive limestone building; the other noteworthy structure; are the United States Custom House and the Post Office, the State Arsenal, the Eri< County Penitentiary, and surpassing all the others perhaps, the large and imposing Stat< Insane Asylum. Of the seventy-five churches in Buffalo, the Roman Catholic Cathe dral and St. Paul's Episcopal are the finest, and although none of the schools or othe: educational institutions are particularly noteworthy as buildings, the city and the Stat< has reason to be proud of them for their usefulness. The homes, hospitals anc asylums are many; they comprise some of the noblest institutions of the country; es pecially those where poor or homeless little folks are cared for in the day nursery, o where they live under the motherly eyes of matrons and nurses in great happy families fostered by benevolent people. Buffalo is almost as much of a cosmopolitan city as New York. Germans, English Italians, Swedes, Poles, Japanese, Turks and Arabs, most of them dressed after Ameri can fashions, make up a large part of the throng in the crowded streets; have thei: names in the membership books of the leading clubs and societies; take their part in al the industries one long business street is called Germantown have their festivals, anc in every way hold a very large share in the interests, the welfare and the importance of the Queen City. An hour's ride brings you to the famous Niagara Falls. The capital of New York is Albany, a city of about a hundred thousand people Rochester. 371 and ranking fourth in the State. It is finely situated on the Hudson River, not quite a hundred and fifty miles from New York city. Its importance as a river port is in- creased by connection with the North through the Champlain Canal, with the West by the Erie Canal, and by several lines of railroad meeting here. It is one of the largest timber markets in the world; receiving about seven million dollars' worth every year; it is also a center for other business operations, and is especially noted for its stove factories. The streets are not generally very regular, nor its houses especially elegant, but its schools, colleges and other institutions are many and well planned; its public works, with a fine marble City Hall, are good. The arrangements and departments for the STATE CAPITOL, ALBANY. State government are very fine, particularly the new building of the Capitol, which is one of the noblest in America. It is built of granite, and covers more than three acres of ground, while in its fair proportions and its magnificent fittings, it can only be com- pared to the national capitol at Washington. The second city of western New York is Rochester. It is somewhat east of Buffalo, on the Genesee River, seven miles from its mouth in Lake Ontario. It has about a thousand less people than Albany, and has one of the best universities in the country. The river has four high and beautiful falls in the city, which are of practical benefit as well as picturesque value to the locality, and furnish water power to many large mills and factories. Among the most important industries are the manufacture of flour, clothing, boots and shoes, beer, locomotives, steam-engines and tools. It is also cele- 3/2 Cities of the World. brated for great nursery gardens, from which plants and seeds are sent to all parts o the United States. Some of these nurseries bring a great deal of wealth into the place and their owners have built magnificent villas surrounded with extensive grounds in o near the city. Nearly all the houses lining the handsome wide streets have prett^ yards and gardens. The public and private buildings, exhibitions and art galleries are fine also. The Warner Observatory is one of the best in the country, and the geo logical cabinet at the University has not many superiors in the United States. The head of steamboat travel on the Hudson and the great seat of iron-works 01 this side of the Alleghany Mountains is Troy. The stove-works and bell foundries, foi which it is celebrated throughout the world, are the largest in the United States, am there are great manufactories of railroad cars, machines, tools and many orher things The water power for all these industries is furnished by the great dam crossing th< Hudson opposite the city, and by the falls of some smaller streams in the vicinity The almost limitless water supply is also used in running great steam laundries, whicl wash and iron vast quantities of clothes; some of which are sent from Boston, Nev York and other large cities. In population Troy is a little more than half the size o Buffalo, and about the same as Syracuse. Syracuse is one of the principal inland cities of the State; it is a meeting-place for many railroads and canals, lies in the midst of a fertile and thickly populated par of the country, which gives it a large trade. It is principally noted for its salt works which are the most extensive in the Union. The salt is made from the water of sail springs, and deep wells near the shore of Onondaga Lake. The salt water drawn frorr the wells by steam pipes, is left to grow thick in large wooden tanks, which covei several square miles of ground, each one having a roof which can be rolled over it ir rainy weather. When thick enough, the water is drawn out and boiled in kettles, unti it all passes off in steam. Boston, the capital of Massachusetts, and the metropolis of New England, stands fifth in size among the cities of the United States. According to the new census, there are nearly four hundred thousand people living there, and it is one of the most famous places in the world. It is the center of culture for the country, a wealthy and influential city, which is jokingly called the "Hub of the Universe." The original settlement, around which there lingers so much of historic interest, is now part of what is known as the North End, and is abandoned to the poorest dwellings and great warehouses, while in every direction new districts are spreading out into fresh business quarters and ex- tensive avenues of dwellings. When you leave the broad expanse of Massachusetts Bay, and enter Boston Harbor, unless you are in a sloop or schooner that can find its way in through the northerly passage, called Broad Sound, it must be through the deep mile-wide channel, which connects the Bay with the Harbor beyond; sheltered from the stiff est gale by many Boston. 373 islands, that afford no beauty but a great obstruction to free in and outward passage. Large ships are not now as frequent visitors as they used to be in these waters; but there are many coasters and fishing schooners, while a few transatlantic lines, East Indiamen or some of the great Liverpool cattle steamers, are nearly always to be seen. The harbor is very safe and large, and Boston's commerce, like its wealth, its banking capital, and the valuation of its property, stands next to that of New York. The water frontage of the city is immense, Old Boston is a great long peninsula; South Boston on the east of that, separated from it by the South Bay and the channel leading to the Harbor, is another peninsula FANEUIL HALL, BOSTON. protruding a long distance to the east; on the west of the city proper is Cambridge with the Charles River, itself like a bay, lying between and mingling its water with Millers River and the other streams that sweep around the head of North End, from East Cambridge and Charlestown, and mingling with the Mystic and Chelsea Creek, flow down between Boston and East Boston into the Harbor. It is a curious grouping of penin- sulas here, some of which have been much enlarged by filling in the little bays that once indented their shores, and all the ponds and creeks around, besides. In earlier days, the city was almost cut off from the mainland on the south and southwest, but that has been made as wide as the broadest part of the peninsula, and is so built up that not a trace of the old " Neck," as it was called, remains; and to it has been annexed the ad- 374 Cities of the World. jacent land on almost every side, so that Boston now includes almost twenty-four thoi sand acres, more than thirty times its original area. This includes the water forke districts of the built-up city, and the pleasant suburbs skirting them on all sides. The upper part of the city proper, with Charlestown above on the left hand, an East Boston on the right, is the old North End, skirted back of the long wharves t Commercial Street, with its solidly built warehouses. Here are great stores, whei WASHINGTON STATUE, BOSTON. grain, ship chandlery, fish and other articles are sold; and a continuation of it on tl east Atlantic Avenue, keeps up a lively commercial aspect, way round to the New Yoi and New England Railway Depot at the turn of Federal Street, from Fort Chann toward the Post Office. From the head of North End, Hanover Street, lately widened, takes its long curvir course southward into the heart of crooked, irregular, busy-streeted Boston. Th street has always been a well-known stand for cheap goods of all kinds. It is the mai Boston. 375 thoroughfare to the northerly wharveSj and the Winni- simmet Ferry, from the center of the city. The streets here, above, below and all sides, are crooked, irregular, narrow, broad, broken unexpectedly by squares, resumed or discontinued without any plan or uniformity, so that a stranger is constantly getting lost, even now, when many streets have been straightened, widened and re-named. Adjoining Dock Square, from which several of the newly improved streets of old Boston radiate northward toward the water-front, is famous old Faneuil Hall. There all the town meetings were held, from the time the Hall was first built until 1822. Before the Revolution it was the scene of so many stirring events and earnest discus- sions against oppression, that it is called " Cradle of Liberty." In every crisis in our history since then these old walls have rung with the eloquence of patriotism, as firm for the right and powerfully prevailing as that of the early heroes and statesmen whose portraits line the room. The present Hall was built to take the place of the old one presented to Boston in 1742 by Peter Faneuil, and destroyed by fire about twenty years later. It was enlarged to its present size in 1805. There is a provision in the city char- ter forbidding its sale or lease; but it is at the disposal of the people, whenever a suffi- cient number, complying with certain reg- ulations, ask to have it opened. Part of old Mr. Faneuil's 6bject in building the Hall, was to provide a town market on the ground floor; but after the fire a new mar- ket called Quincy, after the mayor, was built opposite. It is a busy scene here during market hours; the place is large and crowded; the streets surrounding it are broad and full of life, and lead to the wharves facing the harbor inlet. On the other side of Hanover Street are several more interesting old places; Copp's Hill Burying THE NEW (OLD) SOUTH CHURCH, BOSTON. Cities of the World. Ground, Salem Street and Christ Church and several others of the fast disappearing landmarks. Within the North End district, four of the eight railroads terminating in Boston, have their convenient, and in some cases, imposing stations. The Boston and Maine Railroad comes quite into the city, discharging its passengers and freight at Haymarket Square. This is another meeting-place for a whole radius of broad streets, coming mainly from Dock Square and the market on the east, although one or two busy thoroughfares lead toward the intricate labyrinth in the vicinity of Scollay Square. COMMONWEALTH AVENUE, SHOWING THE BRATTLE SQUARE CHURCH AND THE VENDOME. From this most irregular triangle, with its statue of Governor Winthrop, its network of horse-car tracks, its Court Street and Tremont Row, you can take a direct road ap- parently to every part of Boston; but almost all of them take you a few blocks and leave you facing half a dozen courses, with names that mislead instead of guide you. But to the east lies a safe course for the present at least (if you are a sight-seer), in the group of buildings around Court Square, and to the south, the broad sweep of Tremont Street leads to the Common. The district east of Tremont Street, and extend- 378 Cities of the World. ing south and eastward from Scollay Square, is now the great business center of Boston State Street is the bankers' and brokers' headquarters; through and around Franklin Chauncy, Summer and Devonshire streets are great dry goods establishments, a brand: of trade in which Boston leads the country; and further on is the seat of the wool in terests, another staple in which the "Hub" is a leading market. Besides thes< branches of trade, you will see wholesale houses in iron, groceries, clothing, paper fancy goods and stationery, books and pictures, music and musical instruments, jewelry tea, coffee, spices, tobacco, wines and liquors, and many other branches of trade al clustered within a compara tively small area, in the cen ter of the city. Here is thi retail trade too, and an arm; of lawyers guarding its out skirts; from here the grea Boston papers are issued and the fame of actors an< singers spread abroai through the city. It i the center of business, o thought and influence and much of the pleasur of the New England cap ital, and contains at th same time, several of th chief buildings, public am partially so. Perhaps the most no ticeable of the group neares Scollay Square, is the tal square Concord granit structure of the City Hall with its dome crowned by an American eagle. Upon the lawn in front are statues o Franklin and Josiah Quincy; and back of the Hall, fronting on Court Street, is tin County Court House. These substantial, plain, gloomy walls, with massive Doric por tico held up by huge columns of fluted granite, will be superseded before long prob ably by a new and more suitable one on Beacon Hill. In the pleasant looking Quinc] granite structure on the corner of Tremont Street and Temple Place, the United State; Courts meet. Its long, arched windows, massive towers and gray walls, make it loot more like a church, than St. Paul's, next door, with its severe Ionic portico and plair attic above. STATE HOUSE. Boston. 379 Several of the narrow old thoroughfares and some of the newly broadened streets around this block are always filled with a stream of men and women, going toward or coming from the general Post Office. The building is also devoted to the Boston Sub- Treasury, and is a great massive structure occupying a large block and facing a spacious triangular square, at a point where the busiest streets of Central Boston come together from every direction. Three corridors, parallel and nearly on a level with the adjacent streets, run around the ground floor of the building, partly surrounding the great hall, where the post office work is carried on. The Sub-Treasury is in the second story, and POST OFFICE. has a splendid large hall, profusely adorned with rich marbles and variegated marezzo slabs, bronze chandeliers, plate glass and other costly trimmings. The Post Office is surrounded by the Equitable Building and Signal Service Offices, fine large insurance companies' buildings, the Simmons Buildings and other imposing looking structures, or important seats of business; while on the adjacent blocks to the west are the offices of the great newspapers, the Advertiser, Post and the Transcript, near together and a little beyond the Old South Church on Washington Street, the Herald, Journal, and the Globe are printed in the vicinity of some of the great hotels. The Old South Church, quaint and interesting of itself, is one of the most famous historical buildings in the United States. It is now preserved by the Boston people as a loan museum of histori- 3 8o Cities of the World. cal relics. A tablet above the entrance on the Washington Street side of the tower gives the main facts connected with the history of the church, which often served as ; town-hall in the troublous times, when popular feeling ran high, and the early orator drew crowds too great for Fanueil Hall. There is not much of the old appearance lef now; but the records are preserved, and the museum is full of interest to all Americans with its Revolutionary weapons, its flags, quaint old furniture, portraits of the Ne> England fathers, and other curious and valuable mementoes. A little further on is th Old State House, which has been restored within the past few years, and now looks ver much as it did when the meetings of the general colonial court were held here, and afte cm the Revolution those of the Commonwealth. Above the Old State House, Court Stree opens into Scollay Square, and below it, State Street leads past the stately Custoi House to Long Wharf. There seems to be no end to the interesting places, new an old, within this small district of Central Boston, with its great mercantile activity, an its public buildings. Following Tremont Street, from its head at Scollay Square, the most prominer building you see is the Boston Museum, by far the oldest, the handsomest, most con" plete and brightest place of amusement in the city. The museum part is of little irr Boston. 381 portance, while the theater is of great note. Adjacent are the Parker and Tremont hotels, and Tremont Temple, one of the most popular assembly halls in the city. On Tremont Row, in this vicinity, was the court quarter of old Boston, where stood the houses of Governor Endicott, Sir Harry Vane and Richard Bellingham, and the famous RECTORY OF TRINITY CHURCH, BOSTON. ministers, Cotton, Oxenbridge and Davenport. Close to the museum is the granite home of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the oldest organization of its kind in America. The library of books and manuscripts is very large and fine, and many rare historical curiosities are preserved here with great care. Beyond is the first burying 3 82 Cities of the World. ground established in Boston. Its curious monuments date back to the middle of the seventeenth century, and the remains of many of the most illustrious people of Ne\* England have been buried beneath its sod. It is not now used for interment, and is only occasionally opened to visitors. Adjoining this acre of the dead in the heart oi the busy capital, stands old Kings Chapel, the chief Episcopal meeting house in old Boston; it was built in 1754, and afterward became the first Unitarian church. This stands on the corner of School Street, where the old Latin School used to be, the place where so many of our great New England men spent the best of their study days. YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION BUILDING. The western continuation of School Street is famous old Beacon Street. This rounds the block occupied by the great Athenaeum Museum library, the Boston Uni- versity, old Park Street Church, with the Burying Ground in the center, which stands at the head of Boston Common, and makes the western boundary of that famous park, till it leaves it far behind, keeping on its way across the site of the old " Neck." Op- posite this block, still on Tremont Street, stands the most perfectly classical structure in Boston, Horticultural Hall. Its noble proportions of white granite rise in three great Boston 383 stories, flanked by a colonnaded buttress and statuary, and surmounted by a colossal figure of Ceres upon the ornamental roof front. The ground floor is used for business, and the two halls above are devoted to the exhibitions and meetings of the society, to parlor concerts, lectures, social gatherings and fairs. The old artists' and musicians' headquarters, the extensive Studio Building, are opposite. The Common is a comparatively small fan-shaped park, in about the center of the city. It is planted with trees, and covered with a velvety turf, intersected by paths, and skirted by malls, shaded by fine old trees. A little west of the center is the old Frog Pond, with its fountain, where the boys of Boston skate in winter, and, in mild weather, sail their miniature fleets. On one of the little hills near by is an elaborate Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument. Charles Street, on the south, separates the Common from the Public Garden, whose monument and flower-beds contrast pleasantly for both with the simpler natural beauties of the other. From the center of the Gardens, the long tree-lined drive and promenade of Commonwealth Avenue extends far southward to the suburb of Brookline, while on either side fine streets of residences run parallel with it and the Charles River to West Chester Park. On some of the streets that cross these thoroughfares, and connect them with other main suburban avenues, there are many noble churches, institutes, schools and hotels. The largest number of Protestant churches here are Unitarian, but almost every civilized religion is represented, and the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Cross is the largest church in New England. It is in the early English Gothic style, and covers more ground than the cathedrals of Strasburg, Pisa, Vienna, Venice or Salisbury. The front is but- tressed and towered with three spires of unequal height, two of which rise high above the pointed roof. The pillars that support the lofty clerestory and open timber roof are of bronze. The great organ is one of the best in the country, and the beautiful stained glass of the immense windows is protected by outer windows of heavy plate glass. There are a great many hospitals, asylums and ref- uges in the city, which generously and ably, and often freely, provide for the helpless, homeless and dis- tressed of the great capital. It is said that there has been more labor, material, and money laid out in leveling the ground, reclaiming land from the water, straightening and widening the streets, and improving the territory in every way, than has been spent for the same LIBERTY TREE, BOSTON COMMON. 384 Cities of the World. purposes in all the other chief cities of the United States. The broad water-courses are crossed by causeways and bridges, excepting the wide channel to East Boston. This is reached by ferries, to keep the harbor open to the Navy Yard in Charlestown. This district is also noted for the Bunker Hill monument. The people of Boston are, on a whole, the most intellectual of any city in the country. It has been, and is the residence of the greatest number of literary people in the United States; its art schools are admirable; its musical instruc- tion at the Conservatory and else- where, is of the best; it leads in common school education, and in the number and excellence of its lectures and other intellectual op- portunities. This is largely due to Harvard University at Cambridge. This is the oldest and one of the most famous in the country. It is composed of a thorough classical college, schools of law, medicine, dentistry, theology, science, mining and agriculture, each with its own funds, independent of any other; but all under one general management. Some of the buildings are very fine; all are good, but Memorial Hall, built by the Alumni, or former graduates, in memory of Harvard men who fell in the Civil War, is the grandest and most beautiful of all. Not very far from the college stands the Washington Elm, under which General Washington took command of the Continental army on the 3d of July, 1775. This is the last tree of a noble forest that once covered all this part of Cambridge. A short distance away is the house where Longfellow lived, and in many directions throughout the town there are places to be pointed out, where great writers and scholars live or have lived to the benefit of the world and the glory of Cambridge. This suburb is also famous as the first place in America where a printing press was set up, and it has now some of the largest and finest printing and publishing houses in the country. Cambridge is not under the city government of Boston, as the other adjacent places are; it is a city of itself, with over fifty thousand inhabitants. The second city of Massachusetts is Lowell: it has about sixty thousand people, who are, for the most part, engaged in some of the large manufactories of the place. The Merrimac River supplies the power, and has been the chief means of the growth of the city. More cotton cloth is made here than in any other place in the United States, NEW ENGLAND CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC, BOSTON. Worcester. 385 excepting one. It has large works where calicoes are printed, and factories where woolen cloths, shawls, carpets and stockings are made. The companies owning these mills have large model boarding houses, where only operatives live; and fine hospitals where sick employees are cared for free of charge. The city has beautiful public squares, and handsome avenues, the scenery is most picturesque, especially toward the river and adjacent suburbs. It is quite an important railroad center, and is provided with public halls, libraries and excellent institutions of all kinds. HARVARD COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. Worcester, with about three thousand less people than Lowell is- another noted manufacturing city of Massachusetts. It is in the center of a fine agricultural district, in a valley surrounded by beautiful hills. The streets are broad and shaded; the court house, the hospital, orphans' home and other benevolent institutions are celebrated in many parts of the State. More than fifteen hundred people are employed in making boots and shoes, which is the chief industry of the city; but there are also other large 386 Cities of the World. manufactories, particularly of machinery and tools, thread, yarn, carpets, blankets and jewelry. The Worcester schools are among the best in the Union. In connection with the Institute of Science, there is a machine shop, where the students add to their knowl- edge by constant practice. The best library and cabinets are those of the American Antiquarian Society, which has some very fine buildings and extensive collections. Lowell's rival in cotton cloth manufacturing is Fall River, a place of about fifty thousand people, at the mouth of the Taunton River. It is also a seaport with a fine harbor, visited by many vessels. It has a woolen factory, two calico print works, machine shops and other mills. A line of large and splendid steamboats connects the city with New York, and several railroads extend to other important places in the State. PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND. After the metropolis, the State of Rhode Island has in Providence the largest and richest city of New England. Standing on an arm of Narragansett Bay, it is the principal port of entry for the State, and has steamboats from New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Norfolk, constantly going in and out of its fine harbor. The population of the city is a hundred and five thousand, and a large part of the people are interested in its manu- factories; nearly a hundred and fifty of these are jewelry works; the Gorham Silver factories are the largest in the world; and the cotton and woolen mills are very exten- New Haven. 387 sive; but beside these Providence has great interests centered in tool-making, screw-, works and the manufacture of rifles, stoves, locomotives and fine engines, beside the trade in print calicoes, which is greatest here of any place in the United States. The city being on both sides of the Providence River, as the harbor is called, it has the full benefit of its water advantages; and to these are added two small streams, which supply the manufactories with water power. Above the two bridges crossing the river, it expands into a cove, which is a mile in circuit, and bordered by a handsome park, shaded with elms. In 1764 a college was founded here, and being largely en- dowed by Mr. Nicholas Brown, was named after him, Brown University. It has five colleges with scholarships and stipends to aid the students, a good library, a museum and a portrait gallery. Mr. Brown also contributed to the Athenaeum, and his bene- faction was followed by other generous gifts toward noble institutions, of which Provi- dence now has a goodly number. Next to Providence, and a little more than half its size in population, is New Haven, the beautiful " Elm City " of Connecticut. It stands at the head of a bay opening into Long Island Sound. The city itself is nearly level, occupying a sandy plain between the Quinipiac and Mill rivers on the east, and the West River on the west, quiet, pictur- esque streams that flow through the green meadows of the outskirts, gleaming like silver in the sunshine or reflecting the green of overhanging foliage. On either side of the city rise abruptly the bare faces of West Rock and its larger mate East Rock. Between, almost hidden by heavy branches in foliage season, is the city of commerce, manufactories and education. A generous gentleman left a large sum of money, with which a smoothly paved winding drive has been made around East Rock from the base to the summit, while all the natural beauties of trees and wild flowers and bush-grown dells are preserved. From the top of the Rock the view is broad, full of variety and beauty. To the left is the broad harbor with its wharves and docks busy day and night, for the city is the terminus for several steamboat lines, and is the center of retail trade with the surrounding country, and has nearly all the coal and freight of New England passing through it. Further out toward the broad blue waters of the Sound are the boat- ing grounds, and nearer by are the half hidden chimneys of New Haven's large factories. Some of the largest of these are for clocks and carriages, but the city is more celebrated for Candee's rubber works, the second largest in the world and for the Winchester rifle, pistol and cartridge factory; but there are also many other extensive industries, contrasting strangely with the quiet studious life led by many families connected with Yale college. The center of New Haven is occupied by a great tree-planted and grass- grown square called the Green. This is skirted by four broad streets, well-built up on one side with stores and hotels. On the other side the wide pavements are planted with trees and form part of the Green, which is intersected in many directions by cross walks and occupied here and there by the College buildings, some of the old churches, and one or 388 Cities of the World. two handsome public buildings. Through the Green and some of the adjoining ground of the college is Temple Street, which for its perfect arch of graceful elms is known al over the world. Besides the various departments of the College, which is one of th< greatest and best in America, there are Hopkins' Grammar School, several other well known academies and boarding schools in New Haven. The college is a university ii all but name, and has for over a hundred years been a center for a large part of th social life of the city. Along the beautiful tree-lined avenues running from the Greei in all directions there are to be seen handsome houses, surrounded by tastefu gardens, which are pointed out as the residence of one or another of the great intellectua or educational men of the country. None of the streets have a crowded appearance i; the buildings, and many of the edifices for college or public use throughout the city ar very handsome. There are five daily newspapers, and a large number of weekly monthly and quarterly periodicals published here, while some of the most prominen scholars and writers we have make the city their home. The capital of the State, once shared by New Haven, is now solely situated a Hartford, about thirty-six miles distant. It is known as the Queen City of New Eng land, from its beautiful situation on small hills at the junction of Park River with th Connecticut. The Park River runs through nearly the center of the city, and is crossei by a dozen bridges, while the Connecticut is spanned by one long bridge leading to Eas Hartford. The city is regularly laid out, and Main Street is its great thoroughfare am principal place of business. On State House Square in the heart of the city, is the ol< brick state-house, where the Hartford Convention met in 1815; in the secretary's office the original charter of the colony hangs, framed in wood of the charter oak; and in th< state chamber, Gilbert Stuart's portrait of Washington is kept in company with portrait of all the governors of the colony and State from 1667. In the outer portions an< suburbs of the city are many fine residences; and nearly encircled by Park River are thi fair pleasure grounds named Bushnell Park. In the western part is the State capitol on the site once occupied by Trinity College. Resting on the brow of a hill, it com mands a splendid view, and its sculptured galleried front and lofty arches and column in white marble, are seen from all parts of the city. The new site of Trinity Collegi covers about eighty acres on Rock Hill, approached by avenues leading through thi most delightful parts of the city. The buildings are of brown-stone, designed to forn three great quadrangles and to be in every way the best edifices for education in th< country. There are some magnificent aristocratic family mansions in Hartford. " Marl Twain," the late Mrs. Sigourney, and several other well-known literary people, havi made their residences here. The first deaf and dumb institute was founded in Hartfon by Dr. Gallaudet in 1817; it stands on a shady hill, and usually has over two hundrec inmates all the time. There are other beneficent institutions, public buildings, churche and monuments, and a large number of wealthy societies in the city, for it is said tha Hartford. i8 9 in proportion to the number of people, about forty-three thousand, Hartford is the richest city in America. It is also celebrated for its fine libraries and schools, and its great insurance companies, which have agents all over the United States. The works of the Colt Firearms Company cover almost a hundred and twenty-five acres of ground; beside these there are other pistol and rifle works, large steam-engine and sewing ma- THE CAPITOL, HARTFORD. chine factories, carriage shops, and industries in silk, hardware, screws, gold pens and spectacles. The chief place of northern New England, and fifth in size after Boston, is Portland. It is the principal city though not the capital of Maine, and is beautifully situated on a peninsula three miles long and one quarter that width, that forms a spacious harbor on the south and west side of Casco Bay. Its streets, which are broad and shaded with 390 Cities of the World. trees, ascend from the shore to the heights above, where the finest residences and son of the large public institutions are situated. It is the terminus, or an important depot, f a large number of railways, and a great transfer station from land to water routes. ] imports and exports are each worth over twenty million dollars a year, being large with Canada, while several lines run to Europe, the West Indies, South America ai many to the principal United States ports. The water front is lined with wharves ai docks, beyond which runs a marginal railway. The Custom House,- in cold dignity granite and marble, is just above the principal wharves, while Congress Street and tl other main thoroughfares are higher up. The city is closely and well-built; the stor FRIENDS' MEETING-HOUSE AND ACADEMY, SOUTH FOURTH STREET, PHILADELPHIA. are very showy and well-stocked, and there is an air of coming and going, peculiar 1 seaport cities, all the time. Many a visitor who has to wait over several hours for tra or boat is grateful for the excellent free library he finds in Portland; or takes pleasu: in seeing the good institutions, although these do not differ greatly from those in evei public-spirited, well-managed city. Ship-building and the manufacture of iron are ir portant industries, along with works for preparing or making petroleum, carriage furniture, varnishes, boots and shoes, moccasins, cement, pipe, leather, sleighs, jewel: and many other things. The population of Portland is not quite thirty-five thousand. The second place among our great cities is claimed by Philadelphia. Bostc disputes this in general importance, but not in size; for the population of the Pennsj vania metropolis is about eight hundred and fifty thousand. New York's alone is greate It is reached from the sea through Delaware Bay, being situated on the Delaware Riv at the mouth of the Schuylkill. It is a broad, fair stream, and the bay is fine enough Philadelphia. 391 ccommodate all the fleets in the world. The commerce and other industries sustained y the rivers is of great value, not only to the city but to the interests of the nation, "he city lies on the west bank of the Delaware, but its limits extend on both sides. It ccupies the peninsula between the two rivers, and extends for some distance westward f the Schuylkill. It is said to contain three distinct cities. Uptown, Downtown and rJAMIN, } FRANKLIN DEBORAH ) 1790 IN THE BURIAL GROUND, FIFTH AND ARCH STREETS. ;he northeast portion, still called Port Richmond. This is where the coal wharves are, md the huts of the shad fishermen, along with some better dwellings. Miles of wharves ind piers line the Delaware shore, where the largest vessels come up, and a greater commercial trade is carried on than in any other city of America, excepting New York. 392 Cities of the World. The plan of the city was laid out in regular blocks, called squares by the Philadelphia! by William Penn in 1682; ^and although it has long since outgrown the limits he set, t same regularity and simplicity of arrangement have been followed. The streets i numbered from the river, and named north a south, and the houses are so numbered that one w knows anything about the city can tell just abc where a house stands, if he know the number. T first block of a street begins with number one; t second begins with one hundre the third block two hundre and so on in blocks of one hu dred throughout. The practi of numbering houses on t streets of our cities began hei it was introduced by Marsh who took the second Unit States census in Philadelph It was in that census that all t inhabitants of the country we mentioned by name. Theme im portc streets inti sect the c from opf site din tions, a i cross ea other in t center,wh( the magn cent marl building the Ci Hall stan< M a r k e THE RIDGWAY LIBRARY, PHILADELPHIA. Street TU from t: Delaware across town, over the Schuylkill, to Cedar Creek on the western outskirts; a Philadelphia. 393 Broad Street runs through the center of the peninsula, from north to south. It is in these streets and in their vicinity, that the business activity and the gayety of Phila, delphia reach their height. The thoroughfares are very broad; the stores, public offi- ces, churches and other buildings are large and handsome; and the crowd is ever present and truly characteristic. The people do not rush about wildly jostling each other with hasty apologies, if any, as they do in New York and western cities; they have an air of quiet and dignity, without being careless or inactive. There is a good deal of variety arid some magnificence in the buildings along the greatest streets of the Quaker City; but the majority of the less important and residential streets extend in regular squares VIEW LOOKING UP THE DELAWARE RIVER. of plain brick houses, trimmed with marble. These are very neat and pretty, the more so that no house- keeper fails to have the entire front of her house and sidewalk below kept spotlessly clean; so the brick is bright red and the marble a gleaming white. Al- though Philadelphia is one of the greatest home cities in the country, it has no tenement houses; a dwelling is usually occupied by one family; the average is five persons to a 394 Cities of the World. house. This is due to the building societies, which encourage the working people save money and invest it in their own homes. Some of the most interesting places in the city are scattered among the imposi retail houses, banks and public offices of Chestnut Street, which runs parallel wi Market Street. ^ The most celebrated of these is Independence Hall. This was formei the old State House of Pennsylvania, in which the Declaration of Independence \\ INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA. signed. It is a historical museum now, itself the chief relic of all. There are mai portraits on its walls of famous Americans, and some very old and valuable historic mementoes. The celebrated old Independence Bell is kept here, and you can see tl great crack in its side that came when its iron tongue sounded out the knell of Briti: rule, and the joyful news of American liberty. In 1774 the first Continental Congre met at Carpenters' Hall, on the same street, below the old State House. The nation Philadelphia. 395 Mint was the first in the country, and now more of our coin is turned out here than any- where else. Many of the banks are among the most prominent buildings in the city. The Bank of North America is the oldest in the country, although not so handsome as several near by. This vicinity is the great financial and commercial headquarters of the city, the "Wall Street" of Philadelphia. Traffic is the thickest here, under the shadow of the courts, the stately Custom House, resembling a Grecian temple, and the modern-looking French structure of the Post Office. Some of the great newspaper offices are here. One of Philadelphia's earliest interests was printing. The first type PUBLIC LEDGER BUILDING, PHILADELPHIA. foundry in America is still at work here. Large quantities of school books are issued here, for Philadelphia is far advanced in education. The schools are good and numer- ous. ' The University of Pennsylvania was originally founded under another name by Benjamin Franklin, and Dr. William Smith. Among the other colleges and universities best known, is Girard College, with one of the finest groups of buildings in the city. The main building is of white marble, and is celebrated as the finest piece of Corinthian architecture in the world. This is different from most of our colleges; it was founded by Stephen Girard, a good-hearted but eccentric gentleman, for the education of poor Cities of the World. white boys without fathers, and according to his will no minister or ecclesiastic of ai sect or church is allowed to visit the college or to have anything whatever to do with i management. In Philadelphia, the first American Academy of art was founded; tl present building is magnificent outside and in, and the collections filling its cabinets ai galleries are made up of beautiful sculptures and paintings. The Ridgway Libra is another noble structure on the same street. This is but one of many fine librarie for either public or private use. FAIRMOUNT PARK, PHILADELPHIA. The Pennsylvania metropolis has a fair share of the benevolent institutions ai charitable societies of all kinds that are to be found in every city of the United State Its churches, too, are many, representing all Christian and Hebrew religions. T Friends, or Quakers, are a larger body here than in any other city, but the Presbyteria have a larger number of churches than any other sect. It has often been said that t " City of Brotherly Love " is the most aristocratic in the country; the best society the is made up of fine old Pennsylvania families, who keep quite aloof from Philadelphia in general, but make a most charming circle, given to the most perfect hospitality amoi Pittsbu rgh. 397 themselves. When honored old William Penn-planned his city, he laid out five public squares, but the increase in size and inhabitants soon made a need for more, and now there are many pleasant breathing places in almost every quarter; while west of the northern portion the Schuylkill threads its way through one of the largest and hand- somest city parks in the world. There are nearly three thousand acres of improved grounds, covered with broad lawns, fine old trees and many other lovely spots, particu- larly along the stream of the Wissahickon. This flows through a picturesque rocky valley clothed with trees, shrubs and wild pines, and through dark dells, where it is broken by numerous waterfalls. The zoological gardens adjoining has the finest menagerie in America; the roads are the favorite drives for all the people and the river is the great rowing place in summer, and skating rink in winter. The seat of the coal and iron trade in America is Pittsburgh. It stands where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers unite, forming the broad Ohio. The city has grown from the Fort Duquesne built by the French in 1754, which the English took and rebuilt, naming it Fort Pitt, in honor of the Prime Minister of England. The Ameri- cans kept to the name after the British yoke was thrown off, because William Pitt, or Lord Chatham, according to his title, was on our side, and said if he were an American as he was Englishman, he would never yield; "-never, never, never!" Pittsburgh is now the thirteenth city of the Union. The main part of it occupies a level peninsula between the rivers, but the limits have been gradually extended till the city including Allegheny extends to the opposite banks, covering the hills, and reaching far up the stream. The eastern part is built up with houses, some of them the luxurious homes of great mill and mine owners. The avenues are planted with trees and prettily laid out; but near the point where the Ohio begins, Pittsburgh is a closely built, bustling, smoky manufacturing place. Mile after mile is covered with glass mills, steel arid iron works. Tall chimneys may be counted by the thousands, which, during working seasons, send forth such clouds of smoke, that the entire city is curtained off from view to any one standing on the fine bluffs of Washington Heights. But when the veil is lifted there is no better place to see the city; its massive buildings, its closely built business blocks, its acres of factories, cut through by thoroughfares through which a constant swift-moving stream of people is surging all day and night. There are rail- roads centering here from about every large city in the Union, and the river traffic extends up stream and down, with a port of delivery in the district of New Orleans; it is connected by steamboat lines with the whole Mississippi Valley. Among its public buildings are a fine court house, one of the largest Roman Catholic cathedrals in the country, beside almost a hundred and fifty other churches, schools, colleges, public and private institutions and a United States arsenal. There are something near a hundred and sixty thousand people in the city, a large part of them being either Irish, German or English. Many bridges span both the Monongahela and the Allegheny; six cross 398 Cities of the World. the latter river to the sister city of Allegheny, which is a part of the " Smoky City although it has a separate government. This now ranks as cne of the chief manufacturing places of the " Keystone State; and it is also a favorite place for the homes of many Pittsburgh business men. Hon car lines connect the cities, and if it were not for the river it would be hard to tell whei one ends and the other begins. The Western Penitentiary here, is the finest structui in the vicinity; it is in what is called the Norman style of architecture, and usually hi nearly five hundred inmates, who are employed in some mechanical labor. Alleghen is the seat of the Western Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian church, the Thee logical Seminary of the United Presbyterian church, and the Allegheny Theologies Institute of the Reformed Presbyterian church. The city park is handsomely laid oui and a favorite resort. The business here is much like that of Pittsburgh; it consist mainly of rolling mills for iron, cotton mills, foundries, machine shops, breweries steel works, blast furnaces, and extensive locomotive works. The water communication by rivers and canals, and the railway connections, are much the same, though not s extensive as those of Pittsburgh. The population is a little less than eighty thousand. Scranton, a city of about forty-six thousand people, is another important Pennsy vania coal center. It is in the Lackawanna valley, one of the richest anthracite coal dis tricts in the world. Bordering it are hills and mountains under which there are hundred of mines that .extend beneath the streets of the city. After the coal is brought up th shafts of the mines to the surface, it is loaded in long railway trains, and carried ovt the hills to the great manufacturing centers of the country, and the sea or river port; to be sent all over the world. There are many blast furnaces in Scranton, beside rollin mills, foundries and machine shops. Nearly half the people are foreigners, Irishmer Germans, Welshmen and others; the miners spend the best part of their lives unde ground. Some of the wealthy and generous men who have made fortunes from th mines, have done a great deal to improve the city. Its schools, churches, library opera-house and public works are good, and in one part there is an elegant park, whei hard-working men and women and little children for they also have to work in th mines have delightful outings on holidays. After Philadelphia, the chief city of the Schuylkill is the iron manufacturing center c Reading. There are rich iron mines in the surrounding country, the ore from which : brought in and used in large furnaces, rolling mills, foundries and machine shops. The iro is then carried to other extensive factories that turn out great quantities of iron-ware, naili steam boilers and iron pipe. -The water power of the river is also utilized in large brie yards, cotton mills, hat factories, which, with hundreds of work-shops, give employmer to a large proportion of the forty-three thousand people living here. The machir shops of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad company alone employ three thousan men. Harrisburgh Wilmington Newark. 399 The capital of Pennsylvania is Harrisburgh, a city of over thirty thousand people, situated on the Susquehanna River. This, too, is a manufacturing place, abounding in coal and iron, busy with rolling mills, iron foundries and other Pennsylvania industries. It is surrounded by the beautiful scenery of a fertile country and broad clear river, and is handsomely laid out with wide shady streets, stately public buildings and fine houses. There is no State of our Union that does not do its work, give its wealth, and play its part in the grand Republic. Some of them, however, are almost overshadowed in size by their larger neighbors. This is the case with Rhode Island and Delaware, which have been jokingly called the "Sleeve Buttons of the United States." But Delaware also bears the title of the Diamond State, because although it is small in size it has an important place in the Union for vegetation and commerce. But it has no very large cities. Wilmington, which stands first, is a town of forty-two thousand people, which is less than there are in Reading; and, drawing the line closely, it is even smaller than Hartford, Connecticut. Wilmington is regularly planned and finely situated on the high grounds between the Christiana and Brandywine creeks. Of its churches, which number nearly half a hundred, the "Old Swedes' Church" is the most interesting; it has stood since 1698, and is still used. Nearly all the buildings are of brick, which are made here in large quantities. The streets are regular, and in some of them there are very fine-looking buildings, especially the city hall, custom house, post office, opera- house and the public institute and library. The commerce with the Atlantic coast and the West Indies is large and important; greater probably than the inland trade, although there are a number of railroad lines that meet here. Some of the manufactures have a national reputation, such as railway-car building, morocco, carriages, paper and brick- making. Other industries are in the iron works, boot and shoe factories, foundries, machine-shops and places where chemicals, parlor matches and a number of other things are made. But the leading trade is in iron ship-building. In this it is greater than any other place in the country. The fifteenth city of the Union, and our most important manufacturing center after Pittsburgh, is Newark in New Jersey. It leads particularly in making jewelry, India rubber goods, carriages, paper, leather and machinery. The Passaic flour mills pro- duce two thousand barrels of flour a day and immense factories employ hundreds of men and girls in making the celebrated Clark thread. Although Newark was settled by a Connecticut colony in 1665, and has long been an important and growing port and manufacturing place' it has now more the appear- ance of an overgrown town than a city whose population is equal to that of the United States capital. It lies mainly on the west bank of the Passaic River, which broadens into Newark Bay further south, and is connected by the Kill von Kull with New York Harbor. Both banks are lined with docks and wharves. Near the river there are 400 Cities of the World. nothing but docks and factories, some of which are very extensive; but further west 1 long broad thoroughfare of Broad Street extends the length of the city from north south. In the center of it are the principal block of stores, city buildings, banks, offi( and insurance companies; and at either end it is lined with dwellings, and for the m part closely built up, but nearly everywhere planted with trees. The largest silk factories of the United States are located at Paterson, where a some very extensive locomotive works are situated close to the great water power of 1 falls in the Passaic River. The stream surrounds the city on three sides, and suppl it with public water. There is a small park near the Falls, which tumble over a pre pice fifty feet high. Paterson has very little attraction beyond its great manufacturi interests, which directly or indirectly employ the most of its fifty thousand people. Jersey City, like Brooklyn, is in all but -name a part of New York City, havi come into existence by receiving the commerce and trade crowded out of the metropol It stands on the low peninsula opposite lower New York, once known as Paulus Ho( now regularly laid out in wide streets crossing each other at right angles. Along t water front and for some distance back, it is made up of docks, piers, railroad termi markets, warehouses and stores, interspersed with low wooden dwelling houses, i wholesome shops and a large number of immense factories. On the heights there i handsome tree-planted avenues where many New York business men make their horn The population is over a hundred and twenty thousand, four times that of Hoboke the adjacent city to the north. The docks and piers, where vast quantities of frei^ are landed, where many lines of ocean steamers discharge their passengers, and seve great ferry lines come in, extend along the shore of both cities in unbroken lines, cc stantly half-hidden by shipping. Hoboken is mostly peopled by Germans, but in other respects differs very lit from Jersey City, of which it virtually forms a part. In the northern part, upon a heij of rock overlooking the river, stands Stevens' Institute, one of the greatest polytech cal schools in the country. An elevated railroad has just been built from the Hobok Ferry to the heights, as the cliffs west of the city are called. After Philadelphia the greatest Atlantic port for foreign goods is Baltimore. It reached from the sea through the Chesapeake Bay, and up the bay-like mouth of 1 Patapsco River. It is the chief city of Maryland, great as a port, a trading center rail and water, a seat of learning, and the residence of some of the most celebrat foreigners and Americans of the last and the present century. It stands around a sm bay running back from the "left side of the Patapsco, about twelve miles from t Chesapeake, and two hundred miles from the open sea. A rapid little stream, call " Jones' Falls " flows across the city, into what is called the North West Branch of t river, and divides old Baltimore and Fell's Point on the east, from new Baltimore a Baltimore. 40 1 Spring Garden on the west. This furnishes immense water power for manufacturing, and an abundant supply of pure drinking water. Spring Garden, once noted for its rowdyism, is now made up of the poorest dwell- ings; the new part of the city, or Baltimore proper, is the center of trade and the home of the wealthiest citizens. Its southern boundary along the North West Branch is lined with wharves, and in the center many of the broad, regularly laid streets open on Patterson Park. The principal public buildings are in the center of the city, just west of Jones's Falls, which are crossed by a great many bridges. The streets here are, for the most part, narrower than in New Baltimore, and the squares, or blocks, are some- what smaller, but the buildings are very fine. The most striking one is the new city hall; it covers an entire square of more than half an acre. The walls and stately portico are built of brick and iron cased with white marble. The fourth story is surmounted by a mansard roof with a lofty dome and iron towers above. The interior is well adapted to public offices, and is elegantly furnished. A few squares to the south is the Custom House, near the head of the Branch. The four sides of this edifice are colon- naded, each column being a single block of Italian marble. One of Baltimore's " lions " is the Peabody Institute, a gift to the city from that great benefactor to England and the United States, George Peabody. The Institute has a large free library, an academy of music, a gallery of art, and rooms for the Maryland Historical Society. It also provides free lectures by eminent literary and scientific men. There are few cities better provided with charitable institutions, and all kinds of arrangements to benefit people, from hospitals and asylums for the care of afflicted, to schools, institutes and libraries for education and intellectual advancement. Mr. Johns Hopkins, a mer- chant of the city, gave about seven million dollars toward a hospital and a university, which are among the finest institutions in the country. The University has seventy fellowships open to students from any part of the country, and a still larger number open to young men from Maryland and adjacent States, and to be gained by competi- tion. The main purpose of the University is to provide for and encourage higher edu- cation after students have graduated from the regular colleges. The number of monu- ments that embellish Baltimore in its streets and parks and buildings, have won for it the name of the Monumental City. In the extreme northwest, seven hundred acres are set aside for public pleasure grounds in Druid Hill Park. It has twenty-five miles of carriage drives, and wonderful natural beauty, including forests, lakes and lawns. Fell's Point is mostly a seamen's resort, and a place of manufacturing and ship- building. This is a leading industry, and the great yards send out many vessels over the rolling Chesapeake, and past Fort McHenry. It was during an unsuccessful bom- bardment of this defense by the British in 1814, that Francis Scott Key, an American prisoner on one of the English ships, composed our national hymn of " Star Spangled Banner." Baltimore supplies the country with a large amount of iron manufactures, 402 Cities of the World. wool, copper, cotton, pottery and farming tools, and does considerable sugar-refining distilling, tanning and saddle-making. There is no better brick clay in the world tha: that found near the city, and more than a hundred million bricks are made here am sold every year. The largest iron rolling mills in the United States are the Abbott work in the eastern section. Washington, our country's capital, although not a large, is the finest built cit in the Union. It stands, with its spacious avenues and fine broad streets, where th Potomac River receives the waters of the Eastern Branch, and takes its course south ward between Maryland and Virginia to the Chesapeake Bay. General Washingto chose the site of this undulating plateau forty feet above the broad Potomac, and h supervised the planning of the city, which was named, not by him, but after him by th THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON. nation. He called it the Federal City. The plan was laid out after Versailles by French engineer, the design being first of broad streets crossing each other at righ angles and in regular order. The site of the capitol was then selected as the cente from which eight broad avenues were laid radiating obliquely across 'the checker-boan plan; then other squares and circles were marked out and selected as the radiating point for more oblique avenues, so that all parts of the capital should be in direct connectioi with each other. When the splendid plan was completed, and the streets laid out, i was a bare network, laughed at by foreigners and Americans, and Washington was de risively called the " City of magnificent distances." But out forefathers had won ; 404 Cities of -the World. nation to themselves, and they were not daunted by the work of building up its capital; and now, in less than a century, the magnificent distances are those of well-paved tree- planted streets and avenues flanked by majestic buildings and filled with the gayest society in the country. The streets from north to south are numbered; those from east to west are lettered; and the twenty-one thoroughfares crossing these in different direc- tions are avenues named after various States. The chief point is the Capitol, which was described in 1800 as " on an eminence near the center of the immense country called ' the city;' "but it is now approached from all directions by handsome avenues, most of which are well built up, while east and west, north and south, hundreds of squares are rapidly lifting their solid blocks of architecture toward the sky. The Capitol, standing on the summit of a terraced hill, is the most conspicuous building in the city. The beautifully THE SENATE CHAMBER, WASHINGTON. proportioned dome over the center raises its pure white head above the stately wings occupied by the two great legislative bodies of the nation. The Senate Chamber, in the center of the north wing, is plainly furnished, but the corridors and committee rooms are elaborately adorned. The marble stairway is most beautiful, and the long apartment in the rear is constructed of the richest varieties of marble; and near by are the splendid room for the President and the plainer one of the vice-president. The hall of the House of Representatives, in the south wing, is said to be the largest legislative chamber in the Washington. 405 world. The Supreme Court now sits in the old Senate Chamber, and in the fine old hall of the House there are statues of distinguished men of the several States. The Library of Congress is in the western projection of the central building, and the dome is covered with magnificent painting. A copy of every copyrighted publication in the country is sent to the library, and it has now become very much overcrowded. Penn- sylvania Avenue, the busiest, the finest and most fashionable in town, leads through the principal business quarters on the west to the President's mansion. This is built of freestone with a semicircle of Ionic columns on the south, and a great colonnaded portico on the north. The British troops set fire to it in 1814, and made its walls black and unsightly; but they were painted over, and from that time the Executive Mansion has been called the White House. The rooms are most handsomely furnished; some of them are named after the color of their fittings. Twenty acres of ground around it are enclosed and handsomely laid out. The massive building of the United States Treasury faces the White House on the east, and on the west stands the granite structure devoted to the State, War, and Navy Departments. The Patent Office, the Post Office, and the City Hall, are between the Capitol and the President's..House, above Pennsylvania Avenue; while the Smithsonian Institute, one of the greatest adornments to the city, and con- taining the finest natural history museum in the country, is situated below "The Avenue," as it is called, and near the National Museum and the Agricultural Department. This is a brick and brown-stone hall, with greenhouses, graperies and grounds for agricultural experiments that cover ten acres. Somewhat west of it, near the bank of the Potomac, on a line directly west of the Capitol and south of the Executive Mansion, is the great marble shaft of the Washington Monument. This is in the form of an obelisk, fifty- five feet square at the base, thirty-four feet square at the top, with an apex above that is shaped like a pyramid, and comes to a point five hundred and fifty-five feet above the base. The outside is all of marble blocks held together by mason-work, while there are a great many iron clamps and braces, and a whole network of stays inside to support it. An iron staircase and an elevator lead to the top, where there is a most extensive view over the District of Columbia, the river and the surrounding country. It is a magnificent and fitting monument to the man who was chief general in our war for in- dependence, and the first President of our newly formed Union. The inside of the shaft is set with about a hundred blocks of stone which have been presented as a tribute to Washington's memory, from nearly every nation of the earth. The United States National Observatory is further up on the river bank between Washington and George- town, From the flagstaff on the dome of the principal building a signal ball is dropped every day at noon, sending the time instantly by telegraph to all parts of the United States. Eastern City, as the section on the other side of the Capitol is called, is less pre- 406 Cities of the World. tentiously built up than the western side. There are many residences here; and in the southern part the marine barracks and Navy Yard occupy a large section. The Arsena is situated on a little square peninsula south of the Capitol, at the point where the twc streams come together. There are many statues and other pieces of sculpture in various squares and open circles; but the chief attractions in art are in the Corcoran Gallery, which was founded by Mr. W. W. Corcoran, a wealthy Washington banker, who alsc built the Louise Home for poor gentlewomen. The benevolent institutions, the schools colleges, institutes and public city buildings are very many, and are as well managed a; they are finely built. The population is about a hundred and fifty thousand, made up of people of leisure, of merchants and tradesmen, of government employees, of negroes POST OFFICE AND CUSTOM HOUSE, CHICAGO. and many others. The climate in winter is very fine, and as soon as Congress open; the already large number of people in the city is greatly increased; and, from then unti the warm season there is no place in the United States, unless it is New York, that ii so full of life and gayety. The places of amusement are all open; brilliant reception; are given, and some of the most beautiful private houses in the country are opened t( parties and fashionable dinners. The great city west of the Atlantic seaboard is Chicago; it is the metropolis of th< lakes and the center of trade and travel between the East and the West. It is on ; made harbor at the southwestern end of Lake Michigan, on the two branches of th< Chicago River. These divide the city into three divisions, known as the Northern, th< Chicago. 407 Southern, and the Western. The southern stream is connected by canal with the Illinois River at La Salle, Wisconsin, making a direct water communication with the MICHIGAN AVENUE AND JACKSON STREET, CHICAGO. Mississippi. The harbor on the lake is protected by magnificent lines of breakwater, within which there is a large space for extensive ship-channels and docks. The lake 408 Cities of the World. frontage of the city is about eight miles; and its whole area is thirty -five square miles, The river channels have been so deepened that the current was reversed, and the Lake Michigan waters flow into them. This improved the navigation very much, and carries off the city sewage toward the Illinois River at the rate of a mile an hour. The peopk CENTRAL MUSIC HALL, STATE AND RANDOLPH STREETS, CHICAGO. suffered many attacks of fever from the low marshy situation of the city, so at about th time of the river improvements the level of the city was raised by one of the most skillft pieces of engineering that was ever tried. Block after block of heavy buildings, in eluding some of the largest hotels and stores, were raised from eight to ten feet by jack screws, worked by steam power. Its lowest grade is now fourteen feet above the lake Chicago is regularly laid out; the principal avenues run parallel with Michigan' Cities of the World. LASALLE STREET TUNNEL, CHICAGO. duce from garden, orchard, field and stream, block the sidewalk. State Street is the great shopping thoroughfare, and on any fair after- noon pedestrians and carriages fill it with a gay throng of the wealthiest and most beautiful ladies in the great Illinois capital. Michigan Avenue, Wabash Avenue and State Street, are all given up to wholesale houses near the river, but further up their character changes. The first becomes Michigan Avenue Boulevard, lined with some beautiful and picturesque city man- sions. The County Court House and City Hall is a massive and elaborate building. It occu- pies a large block in the heart of South Side, towering in majestic proportions and handsome diversified stories of buttresses, colonnades, and caryatides far above the bustling streets where men rush up and down in haste, and all kinds of vehicles go tearing by. Another imposing structure is the brick and stone work of the shore, the streets are generally eighty feet wide, and some of them are from three tc seven miles long; the paving is often ol wood, cinders or gravel; for stone is very scarce. The various divisions are connect- ed by several bridges, and a stone tunnei under the bed of each river; street-cars rur this way and that in almost every direction, The business part of town is mainly in the southern division, or the South Side; anc here, too, are the chief public buildings, the hotels and retail stores. Within a space o: about ten blocks square nearly all the whole sale business and a large part of the retai trade is carried on. South Water Street, which lies next to, and parallel with the main branch of Chicago River, is the seat o: the commission business. Trucks, vans anc carts throng the roadway, and boxes of pro- WABASH AVENUE AND MADISON STREET. 1 C I tic ago. 411 Criminal Court and County Jail, but even this cannot compare with the Government Buildings, as the Post Office and Custom House is called. This cost six million dol- lars. The Post Office occupies the basement and the first floor, in the center of which there is an immense court, covered with a great sky-light at the second floor, and open above. The upper stories are fitted up as government offices. The interior of the whole building is very richly finished. The floors are all laid with black and white marble. The grand staircases in the north and south halls are of artistic iron CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE BUILDING; JACKSON, PACIFIC AND SHERMAN STREETS. work, with steps laid in small parti-colored tiles. All the street railways start from this part of town, and radiate toward all the well-built-up quarters. The great East and West street is Madison; it is splendidly paved and lined with wholesale and retail es- tablishments in the eastern portion, which is in South Division; and in the West Side it is the principal retail street. The street extends westward from the lake till it is finally lost in a rough roadway of the open prairie. The West Side is the chief manufacturing 412 Cities of the World. district, here are nearly all the great machinery shops, steam-engine works and boile factories. There are hundreds of Irish, German and other foreign shop dealers hen and blocks of dingy wooden houses that escaped the great fire. Milwaukee Avenue : almost wholly occupied by Germans, and the poor-looking buildings here, like the peopli CHICAGO TRIBUNE BUILDING; MADISON AND DEARBORN STREETS. have a foreign appearance. Street cars crossing this part of the West Side lead direct to the Union Stock Yards. This is the center of the greatest live stock trade in tl world. The yards comprise a large tract partly covered by sheds and pens, and havir Chicago. 413 stable-room enough for fifteen hundred horses. In all two hundred and forty thousand head of stock can be accommodated within this tract. All important railroads that enter Chicago have connections here, and the company has a hundred miles of track, in- cluding switches, to aid in the ship- ment of stock. Telegraph, post and banking offices are right at hand, and in the immediate vicinity there are over thirty extensive packing houses. The offices of the company and of the numerous firms engaged in the live- stock trade, are in the building known as Exchange Hall. There is a better portion of the West Side, where there are fine dwellings, churches and lines of shade trees, interspersed with bright little parks; and so it is with North Side; the streets lying near the river are crowded with busy working peo- ple, with factories and commission houses in hides, and leathers and wool; with a foreign population chiefly Scandinavian and German; and fur- ther up, proud mansions and artistic little houses fill the avenues and streets. These houses are better built than a great many in the city; they are of red pressed brick and of stone, varying in color and style, so that there is no appearance of sameness; the houses are built separately, not in blocks. Although the "divisions" are but parts of the one great city, there is considerable rivalry among them, which has its good results as well as otherwise. Beside the small green squares scattered plentifully throughout the interior of the city, there is a magnificent system of parks and boulevards almost encircling it on the outskirts. This is a chain of parks named after great men. On the North Side, it begins with Lincoln Park; on the West Side, lie Humboldt, Garfield and Douglas NORTH SIDE WATER WORKS TOWER, CHICAGO. 4H Cities of the World. Parks, and, completing the crescent, are Washington, Jackson and Gage Parks, an midway, Pleasance, just outside the city limits on South Side. This circlet of pleasur grounds and pleasant breathing places is linked together by boulevards, gradually bein occupied by handsome grounds and stately architecture. Most of the boulevards ar bordered with magnificent elms set in grassy strips between the sidewalks and the curbing The oldest and best known of the parks is Lincoln, which stretches along the lake shor for about a mile and a half on the North Side. It covers two hundred and fifty acres, an< is full of beauty and variety, with an infinite number of fine drives and promenades PALMER HOUSE; STATE AND MONROE STREETS, CHICAGO. with a view of Lake Michigan and two good sized artificial lakes in the interior fc boating and skating. The zoological gardens have, beside the collection of in- ported animals, some fine specimens of prairie dogs, buffaloes and wolves from th western prairie, that are highly interesting to boys and girls from the East. Humbolc Park is further north than any other, and although it is a little smaller and is not s great a popular resort as Lincoln, it is in another way most delightful. Groups of tree show between lawns and meadows made out of the open prairie, and border lovely lake dotted with boats and overlooked by gay pavilions. The center of attraction in Garfiel Park are the medicinal waters of the artesian well. Each of these pleasure grounds ha its own attractiveness and beauty. All have delightful walks and drives, shady grove St. Louis. 415 and many other devices to afford rest and pleasure to the people of the great busy city. The population is growing very fast, and rivals New York in its energy and push. Fine public improvements are being carried on all the time; the schools, colleges and special institutes are some of the best in the country. Chicago has about six hundred thousand people as many as Brooklyn, New York. Next to it, with about one thousand less, comes St. Louis in Missouri. It is the chief city and commercial depot of the central Mississippi valley; made up of an old town and a new, it is finely situated on the Father of Waters, a mile below CUSTOM HOUSE AND POST OFFICE, ST. LOUIS. the entrance of the Missouri. There was a great fire in 1849, tnat destroyed many of the wooden buildings of the old town near the river, and as the rebuilding was done chiefly in limestone the narrow, crooked streets entirely used for trade have a very sub- stantial appearance. Every city has its characteristics, and its common features. St. Louis' peculiar characteristic is the river, with its eighteen miles of commercial frontage, lined with boats and smoking with mills and foundries, and its magnificent levee. This is a very wide space paved with Belgian blocks, and a gradual incline sloping to the water. Here 416 Cities of the World. enormous quantities of all kinds of goods are landed and given temporary storeroon or shipped to all the important places along six thousand miles of navigable water: with which the city is in direct communication. There are no regular wharves on th levee, but bridges run out to landing stages moored a short distance off, so as to ris and fall with the tide. Front street, extending along the levee, is full of trucks an produce wagons, laborers, porters and a constant throng of working people. Th COURT HOUSE, ST. LOUIS. levee is packed with bags and bales, wagons and kegs, and the wagons that transpor them. Alongside lie the boats, side-wheelers and stern-wheelers, packets, barges tugs, flat-boats and dredge-boats; most of them built with many decks, like floatinj pavilions. Up stream there are two great brick German breweries, and countless mill and foundries, making a little village of themselves, with a host of small shops and poo dwellings. The streets are numbered west from the levee, and mount a steady rise of groun< 6V. Louis. 417 back from the river. Fourth Street is lined with large, handsome stores, and here the greatest retail trade is carried on and the most interesting, gay crowds of people are to be seen. The roadway is crowded, and through it the cars of two horse railways are constantly running. Some of the great hotels are here. Others stand among the large wholesale establishments of Fifth Street, along with the Olympic theater, the St. Louis Times building, Mercantile Library Hall, Union Market and the Round Top Market. The city is divided into northern and southern St. Louis by Market Street, one of the LINDELL HOTEL, ST. LOUIS. busiest of the trade streets, and the location of the best public buildings. Here is the massive, dignified Court House, on whose classical looking steps slaves were once sold at auction; the Grand Opera House, City Hall, and other notable structures, built for the most part of a beautiful soft gray colored limestone or a red sandstone, which give the city streets a gay and also a tasteful, artistic appearance. Washington Avenue leads to the Bridge, through lines of large wholesale houses and palatial residences. Here, too, are the Lindell and several other large hotels, the Catholic University, Smith's Academy, Washington University, and churches, hospitals, club-houses, and other note- worthy places. It has been said that more good buildings can be seen from about the 27 4i8 Cities of the World. corners of Fourth or Fifth street and Washington Avenue than anywhere else The' are five-storied, substantial, and in some cases beautifully ornamented. The bridge i FOURTH ST. LOOKING NORTH FROM CHESTNUT. about two thousand and fifty feet long, without counting the approaches, and is one oi Captain Eads' great pieces of engineering. Its great arches span the waters to the is- 5V. Louis. 419 land now called East St. Louis, where there are many extensive store-houses and depots. The view of stream and city from the bridge is extensive and full of life and variety. The city is seen to rise gently from the water in three terraces. The dense commercial quarters first, then the fine thoroughfares and stately buildings belonging to general trade and public works, creeping up to the clusters of residences which occupy the last terrace in the handsome surburb of Cote Brilliante. This is about two hundred feet- high and four miles back. The streets going westward up this rise between Washington REPUBLICAN BUILDING, ST. LOUIS. Avenue on the north and Pine Street on the south, are built up with comfortable dwell- ings, while on some of the cross avenues the mansions are quite elegant in appearance. But on the whole St. Louis houses show more of a desire for comfort than elegance, which is a characteristic of the Germans at home or abroad. This is one of the largest German cities of the West, and in summer-time looks very much like a transplanted city of the Fatherland. The bridge is crowded with promenaders; open-air gardens are opened and summer theaters, decorated with plants, and furnished with music and re- freshments. The sidewalks in front of the principal restaurants are filled with groups 420 Cities of the World. of people gathered around little tables; they chat, sip refreshments and enjoy them selves till their rooms have cooled and the} can go home and pass a comfortable night Among the regular resorts about th( city, the Fair Grounds a beautiful parl and zoological garden always has a large gay crowd, especially during the Fair week Forest Park is a tract of nearly fifteen hun dred acres of wooded rural ground, am beyond it is Shaw's Garden. This is opei to the public by the generosity of Mr Henry Shaw, to whose private domain thi lovely stretch of flower-beds, conservato ries, rare trees and valuable plants, with ; museum and botanical library belong; tin Lower Grove, a long handsome 'strip o land adjoining, Mr. Shaw has presented t< the city. Lafayette Park is a square abou as large and of much the same sort a Boston Common, surrounded by aristocrati- houses. Beside its immense water facilities St. Louis is the center for sixteen lines o railway, some of them being the main road of the country. The chief use of thesi roads is for shipment of the articles manu factured in the city. New York and Phila delphia are the only places in America tha produce greater quantities of general arti OPERA HOUSE, ST. LOUIS. cles; and in flour-making St. Louis leads the whole country. Cincinnati, on the Ohio River, and the chief city of the State of Ohio, is a famous place for pork. " Porkopolis," or city of pork, it is sometimes called, as the killing and packing of hogs is the chief business. Nearly a million are killed every year more than in any other place except Chicago. There are great fact ories of other things too, especially for beer making. Most of the breweries are in ; Cleveland. 421 part of the city called " Over the Rhine," inhabited almost entirely by Germans. The population of Cincinnati is about the same as St. Louis, and one quarter of the people are Germans. The city is surrounded by beautiful hills, and the. river flowing by it is crossed by two fine bridges. The plan of the streets and squares is much like that of Philadelphia; the roads are usually paved or macadamized, planted with trees, and sub- stantially built up with brick. SOUTHERN HOTEL, ST. LOUIS. _ Bancroft Library Next to the Porkopolis of Ohio is the Forest City of Cleveland. It has a popula- tion of about a hundred and seventy-five thousand people, whose interest is centered chiefly in the great petroleum refineries, or in commercial and other business brought over Lake Erie, and extending up the Cuyahoga River, which empties here. Cleveland is one of the best ports on the lake; the trade in coal, iron ore, petroleum and grain being very large; and the river supplies water power for factories for making sulphuric acid, railroad cars, farmers' tools and other valuable articles of shipment. The center of the regular lines of tree-lined streets crossing at right angles is Monumental Park, beauti- fully shaded and carefully kept. The handsomest portion of town is on the high sandy 422 Cities of the World. bluff on the east side of the river. On the other bank there is another fine park callec the Circle; this has a beautiful fountain in the center. The public improvements charitable institutions and city buildings, schools and churches of Cleveland are of re markable excellence. Next in population among western cities is Louisville, Kentucky, of about ; hundred and fifty thousand. It is the largest city of the State, and nearly the size o Newark, New Jersey, and like it, rests on a plain, with hills in the background and ; river the Ohio in front. The stream on which Louisville stands, is here broken intc rapids, making a fine water power, that is as yet little used. An important business ii sugar-curing hams and pork packing, while no place in the world has such quantities o THE ST. LOUIS BRIDGE. leaf-tobacco as are brought in and shipped from here to Germany, France, England, Canada and different parts of the United States. The best harbor on any of the great lakes is at Detroit, Michigan. This is parl of the Detroit River, which receives the waters of Lake St. Clair above, and empties intc Lake Erie, eighteen miles below. The river is very deep and broad here, and the city the largest in Michigan extends along its banks for six or seven miles. The water front is crowded with warehouses, mills, foundries, grain elevators, railway stations, ship- yards and dry docks, telling you at first glance what branches of trade bring wealth to the people who live here. The shipping interests are mostly with United States ports on the Lakes and with Canada, which lies on the other shore of the river. Detroit is a great northern railway center and transfer station, and one of our most important lumber markets. The streets are remarkably broad, the business houses are solid and Milwaukee. 423 imposing, and some of the dwellings, surrounded by gardens and shaded by trees, are elegant and costly. A very large part of the population, which is about a hundred and twenty-five thousand, are foreigners, chiefly Germans. A port of about the same size and importance on Lake Michigan is M ilka u wee, the largest city in Wisconsin. The harbor and town are always full of life and activity, especially around the wharves and the grain and flour warehouses. This is the greatest wheat market in the world, and is the port of shipment for the agricultural products of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa. The business center is in the heart of the city along GOLDEN GATE, SAN FRANCISCO. the Milwaukee and Menomonee rivers. The Milwaukee gives excellent water power for manufacturing; the mills are situated on a ship canal running alongside, and their wares are loaded directly into the lake-going steamers. Iron and rolling mills are the most numerous and important; after them come extensive flour mills, breweries and tanneries. The higher parts on the east and west are occupied by dwelling houses. Nearly all the buildings are of cream-colored brick, manufactured in the neighborhood. This makes the most ordinary parts of the city look handsome; while the Court-house of sandstone, the Custom-house and the Post-office both of marble, and some others of the more pretentious buildings are really elegant. 424 Cities of the World. The metropolis of North America's Pacific slope is San Francisco. It is the capl tal and largest city in California, with one of the finest and most beautiful harbors ir the world. The entrance from the ocean is through a passage about a mile wide, callec the Golden Gate. This is between the long peninsula occupied by the city and an arrr of land that runs down on the north; together these form the barrier separating the NOB HILL, SAN FRANCISCO. open sea from the river mouths that form the bay. San Francisco owes its importance to this harbor, which is visited by hundreds of ships from the Oriental countries, from Europe, and ports on both sides the American continent. The foreign trade is verj large. The principal things sent out are grain, flour, wool, wines and quicksilver; the chief imports are tea from China, lumber from Oregon, coal from Australia, Van- couver's Island and England, and sugar, rice and coffee from various countries. There is also a very great trade by the Pacific Railroad, which has its western end near the city. The plan of these great overland railways, binding the Union from ocean to ocean, and connecting the interests of all our States, was laid here at the times when acts of secession were passed at the opposite seaboard. Many of the great mines of California and Nevada are owned by San Francisco merchants, some of whom are among the richest men in San Francisco. 425 the world. The city of 'Frisco, as it is often called, occupies the peninsula that lies between the harbor and the sea, which was barren and rocky, but has been levelled and improved by much skill and great expense. The streets are laid out in regular squares, closely built up in the business portion, but quite scattered in other places. The fashionable promenades are lined with the leading retail stores; and in about a dozen streets the buildings are re- markably fine and substantial, but in other quarters the arch- itecture is of wood, sometimes lavishly ornamented. Every- thing has a brisk, prosperous appearance, and the people are full of energy and push. There are no shade trees, but the yards around the better houses are quite gorgeous in flowers and evergreens. A great many of the people, even in families, live at the hotels. So there are a great many very fine estab- lishments throughout the city. The Palace Hotel is said to be the largest and one of the most magnificent in the world, and many others are both stately in appearance and luxuriously ar- ranged. The most interesting quarter of the city is Chinatown. Here twenty thousand China- CHINESE QUARTER, SAN FRANCISCO. 426 Cities of the World. men are crowded into a limited space, and live as they do at home. Their nation; customs have all been imported, from every-day living with chop-sticks for knife an fork, to the pagoda-like theaters and joss-houses, with opium dens and gamblin houses. This is an important flour market; large exports are made of tobacco and otlu products, and immense numbers of oysters from the Chesapeake are carried here an shipped to all parts of the world. The chief city of the lower Mississippi, and our main port for the Gulf of Mexicc is New Orleans, once capital of Louisiana. In size and population it is the ninth cit of the Union, but in the value of its exports and foreign commerce, it comes next t New York. It comprises about forty square miles; but one half of these is little bette CITY HALL, SAN FRANCISCO. than a swamp; the other half is closely inhabited. There are altogether about tw< hundred and fifty thousand people here, a mingled gathering of Americans and Germans French, Italians, Spanish and Irish. Most of the streets running parallel to the rive extend for about twelve miles in unbroken lines; while the cross streets run at righ angles to these from the river to the lake. Those in the new parts are wide, borderec with trees, and Canal Street has many handsome stores and dwellings. As New Orlean is built on rather a long, narrow strip along the curves of the river, it has an S shape; bu at one time it was only extensive enough to follow the outer curve, from which it re ceived the name of the Crescent City. The streets have ditches running through them by which the drainage is carried off in the freshet season; but they are unsightly, and i is said, unhealthful at all other times. There are, beside these, a number of canals fo: business use in the city connecting with some of the fifteen markets. There is mor< cotton sold here than in any other city in America, and very extensive trade is alsc carried on in sugar and rice. The wharves at the river levee are always crowded witl New Orleans. 427 cotton brought from all parts of the Lower Mississippi Valley, where it is packed into bales by great presses, and loaded on vessels to be sent to Europe and the Northern States. Sugar is stored in immense sugar-sheds, where it is heaped up like coal in a coal yard. Between Christmas and Lent the greatest carnival in the United States is NEW ORLEANS. held here. The grand procession takes place on Mardi Gras, or Shrove Tuesday, when hundreds of people, dressed to look like animals, goblins and all sorts of fantastic creatures, march through the streets with music and torches, and setting off fire-works as they go along. Beside this, the festival is kept up in balls, parties, concerts and other masqueradings outdoors and in. ILLUSTRATIONS. RUSSIA: St. Petersburg 9 " Street Scene . . 10 " The Neva ... 1 1 " Exchange ... 12 " Academy of Sciences 14 Moscow, Kremlin 13 " Statue Peter the Great 15 " Czar Kolokol ... 16 " Church in .... 17 " Great Theater ... 18 ' Winter Palace ... 19 Nijni Novgorod 21 Russian Types 23 Riga . . 24 Penal Colony 26 Odessa 27 ENGLAND: London Bridge 31 '* Waterloo Bridge ... 32 " Houses of Parliament . 33 " Westminster Abbey . . 35 " Royal Exchange . . ". 37 " St. James's Palace Gate 38 " New Law Courts . . 39 " Museum, South Ken- sington 41 " St. Paul's Church . . 42 " Tower of St. Paul's . 44 " Interior of St. Paul's . 45 ENGLAND : London, Tower of 47 Liverpool, Prince's Landing . 46 " Strand Street ... 48 " Brown Free Library and Museum . . 49 " Perch Rock Light . 50 Manchester, Free Trade Hall . 5 1 " The Assize Courts 52 " Interior Royal Ex- change .... 53 " Royal Exchange . 54 Birmingham, King Edward School. ... 55 " Town Hall ... 56 " White Cloth Hall . 57 Bradford, Town Hall .... 58 Rugby, School Days .... 59 Cambridge, Bridge, St. John's College .... 60 " Senate House . . 61 FRANCE; Paris, Along the Seine .... 62 Old Paris 63 Paris, Arc De L'Etoile ... 64 y Boulevard Saint Michel . 65 " Boulevard Montmartre . 65 *' Hotel Des Invalides . . 67 " Napoleon's Tomb ... 67 " Palace of Industry . . 69 430 Illustrations. FRANCE: Paris, Place de la Concorde . . 70 " Interior of the Madeleine 71 " The Madeleine .... 71 " Place Vendome .... 72 " Garden of the Tuileries . 73 The Louvre 74 " Gallery in the Louvre . 74 " Bridge of Arts .... 75 " Pont au Change ... 76 " Rue de Rivoli and Tower of St. Jacques ... 77 " Palais Royal Place . . 78 " Palais Royal Garden . . 79 " Interior of the Bourse (Stock Exchange) . . 80 " Theatre Franfaise ... 81 " Opera House .... 82 " Grand Staircase, Opera House 83 " Saint Denis Gate ... 84 " Saint Martin Gate ... 84 " Sewers 85 " The Catacombs ... 85 " Halles Centrales ... 86 " Notre Dame 87 " Hotel Dieu 88 " Tribunal of Commerce . 89 Hotel DeVille . ... 91 " Types and Costumes . . 92 " Belle Jardiniere ... 93 " New Bridge 93 Lyons 94 Marseilles 97 " Longchamps Fountain 99 ' " Notre Dame de la Garde 100 Nimes, Amphitheater . . . . 101 FRANCE : Nimes, Maison Carrie . . . Bordeaux ....... Havre Rouen, Palace of Justice GERMANY: Berlin, Thiergarten .... " The Schloss .... " Emperor's Palace . " Street Scene .... ' Cafe" Scene .... " Frederick Street . . . Hamburg, Canal ' Marketwoman . . " Spring Floods . Munich, The " Bavaria " and Hall of Fame Frankfort, Luther's House . . Cologne, Bridge of Boats . . Leipsic, Town Hall .... Heidelberg, SCANDINAVIA: Copenhagen Swedish Types and Costumes . NETHERLANDS: Amsterdam ....... Rotterdam Holland, Street Scene . . . BELGIUM: Quay Home Work Brussels, Town Hall .... Bruges, Street Scene .... Belfry Ypres, Town Hall SWITZERLAND: Jungfrau from Interlaken . . Geneva, Lake and City . 10] 10^ IOC i of IOC I 15 lie 141 MS 161 165 167 i6c 171 177 17* Illustrations. 431 SWITZERLAND: Geneva, Memorial Hall . . . 179 Berne, Street Scene . . . . 181 IRELAND: Queenstown 184 Lakes of Killarney .... 185 Belfast, Donegal Place . . . 186 " Castle Place . . . . 186 Dublin, Four Courts .... 187 " Custom House . . . 188 SCOTLAND: Edinburgh, City Keys . . . 189 " City 190 " Royal Exchange . . 191 " Bank of Scotland . 192 " Weather .... 193 Glasgow 193 SPAIN: Madrid, Statue Philip IV. . . 196 " Bull Fighting ... 197 " National Dance . . . 199 Malaga, Port and Cathedral . 201 Seville 205 Granada, The Alhambra . . . 208 ITALY: Rome, Bridge of St. Angelo and the Borgo 217 " The Capitol .... 219 " Pyramid of Caius Cestius 219 " Coliseum by Moonlight . 220 " In the Forum . . . . 222 Tombs in the Catacombs 223 " Sistine Chapel .... 225 ." Peasant Children . . . 227 Naples, Bay 230 Florence, Leaning Tower of Pisa 236 " Loggia de' Lanzi . . 237 " The Campanile . . 239 ITALY : Florence, Ponte Vecchio . . . 241 " Chapel of the Medici . 243 Venice, Bridge of Sighs . . . 245 " The Canal .... 245 " St. Marks 246 " Doge's Palace . . . 247 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: Vienna, Belvedere Palace . . 249 " 'Town Hall and Parlia- ment Buildings . . 251 " The Jews' Quarter . . 255 " St. Stephen's Church. 257 Prague 265 THE LEVANT: Constantinople, a Harem Window 267 " Fountain St. Sophia 268 " The Bosphorus . . 271 " Mussulman Woman 272 " Tower in Bosphorus 273 274 Cairo, Street Scene . . . . 281 Alexandria, Place Mohammed All . . : 287 INDIA: Bedouin and Fellah .... 288 Dak-Ghari Traveling .... 289 Temple and Sacred Elephant . 290 Palace of the Seths .... 291 Parsee Children 293 At School 294 Tomb at Ahar 295 Mosque at Benares .... 297 Hindoo Idols 299 CHINA: Pekin, High Street . . . . 301 Hong Kong, Street Scene . . 303 A Family Dinner 307 432 Illustrations. CHINA: Canton, Street Scene .... 309 Modes of Torture 311 Temple of the Gods .... 313 The Great Wall 315 Mutual Assistance 316 Woman's Shoe and Model of Foot 317 Chinese Children 318 JAPAN: Yokohama, Street in . . . . 319 Tattooed Man 320 Woman and Child 320 Christmas Celebration . . . 321 Tokio, Traveling in .... 323 Street Ballad Singer .... 324 Domestic Altar of the Gods . . 325 Domestic Scene 326 CANADA: Montreal 333 Section of Victoria Bridge . . 334 Canadian Amusements . . . 335 Quebec 337 " Street Scene .... 338 MEXICO 340 NEW YORK CITY: New York Harbor 342 City Hall 343 Barge Office ....... 344 Bartholdi's Statue 345 Western Union Building . . . 347 Old Post Office 348 New Post Office . . . . . 349 New Court House 352 New York Herald and Park Bank 353 New York Tribune .... 354 Academy of Design . . . . 355 NEW YORK CITY. Five Points Mission House . Sixth Avenue at i4th Street College of City of New York Bowery and Grand Street . Grand Central Depot . . . Central Park, Skating Pond . " Promenade " Terrace 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 Vinery near Casino 364 " Arsenal and Men- agerie . . . 365 " Music Stand . . 365 Bridge connecting Brooklyn and New York 366 Niagara Falls 367 Erie Canal 369 Albany, State Capitol 371 BOSTON: Fanueil Hall 373 Washington Statue .... 374 New (old) South Church . . 375 Commonwealth Avenue . . . 376 State Street 377 State House 378 Post Office 379 City Hall 380 Trinity Church 381 Christian Association .... 382 Liberty Tree 383 Conservatory of Music . . . 384 Harvard College . . . . . 385 Providence 386 Hartford, Capitol 389 PHILADELPHIA: Friends' Meeting House . . . 390 Burial Ground 391 Ridgway Library 392 Illustrations. 433 PHILADELPHIA : Delaware River .... Independence Hall . . . Public Ledger Building . . Fairmount Park .... WASHINGTON: White House Capitol Senate Chamber .... CHICAGO: Post Office and Custom House Michigan Avenue .... Central Music Hall . . . Court House and City Hall . Lasalle Street Tunnel . . Wabash Avenue .... Board of Trade Tribune Building .... Water Works Tower . 393 394 395 396 402 403 404 406 407 408 409 410 410 411 412 CHICAGO. Palmer House ST. Louis: Custom House and Post Office Court House Lindell Hotel Fourth Street Republican Building . . . Opera House Fair Grounds Southern Hotel Bridge at SAN FRANCISCO: Golden Gate Nob Hill Chinese Quarter .... City Hall New Orleans . 414 416 4i7 418 419 420 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 THE GREA T CITIES OF THE ANCIENT WORLD. By Helen Ainslie Smith ("Hazel Shepard"). With one hundred and five illustrations. Handsome lithographed double cover. 4to, boards, $1.50. " ' The Great Cities of the Ancient World,' a companion volume to the ' Great Cities of the Modern World,' which we had occasion to commend. Lifelike de- scriptions are given of the external as- pects and the character of the chief ancient towns and cities in the time of their prosperity and splendor, and also of the association of such places with persons and events of historical impor- tance." Courant, Hartford. " The illustrations, aiming to repre- sent the cities of antiquity as they ap- peared at their prime and the costumes of their inhabitants, are numerous and striking. ... A BODY OF USE- FUL INFORMATION. . . ."New York Sun. "A capital book for the young is ' Great Cities of the Ancient World,' a spirited presentation with pen and with pencil of the striking features of the fa- mous old cities of allusions to which history and literature are full. IT IS WELL WRITTEN AND VERY FULLY AND FINELY ILLUSTRAT- ED THROUGHOUT. . . . The volume will help young readers to a clear idea of what Rome and Athens and Thebes and Damascus and many an other antique town was really like, and it should be in the library of every school boy and school gi r 1 . " Boston Courier. " ' The Great Cities of the Ancitnt World' contains a great deal of infor- mation historical, geographical and biographical. Nearly 70 cities of an- tiquity are described in a lively way, with anecdotes of their noted inhabitants. The book is made up with a good deal of care. . . . As a real help to some knowledge of ancient history this work has received warm commendation from excellent teachers, and it might lighten the tasks of many pupils who do not take kindly to the usual text-books of ancient history." Boston Daily Adver- tiser. " ' The Great Cities of the Ancient World* gives the latest fruits of antiquarian re- search respecting the principal cities of Italy, Asia Minor, Greece, Egypt, the Colonies and Islands of the Mediterra- nean Sea, Arabia, Persia, Syria and Mes- opotamia. By aid of numerous illustra- tions the young reader is helped to a very satisfactory acquaintance with the centres of interest and influence in the ancient world." Journal of Education, Boston. For sale by all booksellers, or will be sent, prepaid, on receipt of price, by the publishers, GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, 9 LAFAYETTE PLACE, NEW YORK. THE GREAT CITIES OF THE MODERN WORLD. Helen Ainslie Smith (" Hazel Shepard "). With two hundred and seventy illustrations. Handsome lithographed double cover. 4to, boards, $1.50. " ' The Great Cities tf the Modern World,' by Helen Ainslie Smith, is an admirable book. IT IS A BRILLIANT BOOK OF ITS KIND, and few persons who open its first pages on the cities of Russia will lay it down until they have at least looked through it, section by section England, France, Germany, and all the rest of the nations of the earth, down to the United States of America. All the great cities of the world are here described in a series of panoramic paragraphs, and all are depicted by a greater or less variety of wood-cuts showing streets in action, parks in peacefulness, and public build- ings, statues, fountains, and the like. The read- ing matter, though succinct, is reasonably accu- rate and satisfactory, and, with the pictures, gives true and graphic ideas. An uncommon amount of pleasure and profit may be had from the book, and WE WONDER THAT WE HAVE NEVER HAD ONE LIKE IT BEFORE." Literary World, Boston. " The Great Cities of the Modern World is a copi- ously illustrated volume in which is given a concise description of the chief cities of the various civil- ized countries of the world, and also some ac- count of the characteristics of the various nations. It will give some idea of the scope of the book if we say that it describes and illustrates five cities in Russia, thirteen in England, eleven in Germany, eight in Italy, nine in China, and thirty- eight in the United States. Many cities in many other countries are also described. THE TEXT OF THIS BOOK IS WELL WRITTEN, AND THE ILLUSTRATIONS ARE ACCURATE REPRESENTATIONS OF SCENES, CHAR- ACTERS AND ARCHITECTURE." Courant, Hartford. "... Under the title ' Great Cities of the Modem World' George Routledge & Sons have published a very interesting volume, in which every me- tropolis of note on either side of the Atlantic is described in a most instructive manner. IT IS AN EXCELLENT BOOK FOR THE YOUNG, inasmuch as it affords an insight into the in- tellectual, commercial, manufacturing and archi- tectural features of the great centres with which it deals. The cities are grouped according to their size and importance. THE ILLUSTRA- TIONS, WHICH ARE MANY IN NUMBER, depict the most notable buildings, localities and art features of each place. ... A BOOK WHICH MAY BE READ BY YOUNG AND OLD WITH EQUAL INTEREST, AND ONE, ALSO, THAT FILLS A VOID OCCUPIED BY NO OTHER WORK OF ITS KIND." Saturday Evening Gazette, Boston. "A book which is calculated to give much pleasure and instruction. It is a collection of the best cuts of well-known buildings and views in all the large cities of the globe, supplemented by concise descriptions and explanations embody- ing much history and general information. TO BRIGHT BOYS AND GIRLS THE VOLUME WILL BE THE NEXT BEST THING TO A TRIP ROUND THE WORLD. To older people, unable to purchase costly books of travel, it will be a gratifying hand-book for reference and study, and to those who have travelled and seen the cities of Europe and the East for themselves its pictures many of which are taken from recent photographs will be agreeable reminders of past pleasures. Any one thinking of sending a useful Christmas book to a country boy or girl whose chances of library reading are small may well examine this volume." Daily Advertiser, Boston. For sale by all booksellers, or will be sent, prepaid, on receipt of price, by the publishers \ GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, 9 LAFAYETTE PLACE, NEW YORK. - ai