P^MB', ' 1: i i THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES /fi^ ,/ MR. DUNN lUiOWXE'S EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. by EulnrflctJ fvow tl)c SyvinflficlU IvcpubUcan. BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY JOIIX P. JEWETT AND COMPANY. CLEVELAND, OHIO: U. P. B. J E WETT. 185 7. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1857, by JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. CAMBRIDGE: ALLEN AND F A R N H A M, P U I N T E R S. INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE. Many of the inferior animals are migratory as it were in the positive degree ; man is migratory in the comparative degree; and the Yankee is the most superlatively migratory of all animals, biped, quadruped, or centipede ; winged, fin- ned, or scaled ; that are in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth. Being then a genuine, Massachusetts, Connecticut River Valley Yankee by birth and education, I am of course a traveller by right as well as by choice. In order to be able to appreciate fully the advantages of being born in that fa- vored spot, by comparing it with other regions more or less remote, I have wandered rather extensively up and down our own fair land, " out "West " and " down East," to say nothing about the "sunny South;" and am now about to enlarge my view by crossing the Atlantic ; in other words, to complete my sphere of observation by taking in the other hemisphere. Divesting myself of prejudice and investing myself with as many of the attributes of wisdom as possible, ^^ntf^^ IV -INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE. I sliall endeavor to contemplate the institutions of the Old World with the eye of a philosopher, to behold her ancient ruins with the eye of an antiquary, to view the grand ob- jects in nature with a poet's eye and the great works of the old masters with an artist's eye, to scan the operations at the seat of war with the eye military, and the movements in the political arena with the eye diplomatic ; in short to keep wide open my eye financial, agricultural, commercial, architectural, legal, critical, metaphysical, and quizzical. I shall also take a bird's eye view of the feathered tribes, cast a sheep's eye at the flocks and herds, and obtain dissolv- ing views of the beet sugar crop and salt mines. I shall general-eyes, and particular-e?/es, real-eyes, and ideal-eyes, scrutin-eyes, anal-eyes, very likely moral-eyes, and possibly satir-eyes, and dramat-eyes. I shall not lion-eyes, nor probably botan-eyes, geolog-eyes or natural-eyes in any way. But I will not victim-eyes you any longer with this train of eye-deas. In order that the Old World may appear as young and fresh as practicable, the " mirror held up to nature " will be kept bright and free from specks so far as may be, but no rouge will be laid on the face of the old lady, and no artifi- cial helps resorted to, to improve her beauty ; no milliner's fripperies, trinkets, and jewels, but a simple dress. Mine shall be a " plain, unvarnished tale : " no quips and quiddi- ties, sly inuendoes and oddities of language to disturb the digestion of an after dinner reading. If a joke is intended / INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE. it will be brought out fiiii- and above-board, with a good honest breathing-place for the laugh. The philosophical and metai)hysical speculations will be clothed in words of seven syllables and upwards with no conjunctions shorter than "nevertheless" and "notwithstanding:" while the more familiar chit-chat will of course be done up in the simplest language, or if any word or phrase should chance to have more than one meaning, the extra one will be thrown in gratis, without any extra charge. The similes, tropes, and figures used will all be of the strictest rhetorical orthodoxy ; not a metajjhor admitted but will be warranted tame as any sheep. The didactic, historical, and moral discourses will appear of course in their appropriate, grave, and serious costume. The poetry will be easily distinguishable by the capital letters at the commencement of each line, as well as by the capital words and thoughts that run through each line ; while the " fine " sentences in prose (to suit the con- venience of those who love that style of writing) will be marked at the end with a little point called, in punctuation, a period, at each of which the reader will be able, and is hereby requested, to stop (long enough to count four) and admire. In treating of the Irish, naturally enough, a Inill may be frequently expected; in writing from London, the "haitches" and the " wes " may be hoccasionally taken liberties vith ; in France my expressions will perhaps be sometimes " vine-clad " like her own hills. From the summit of Mont A* VI INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE. Blanc, seated on an ice bank, I shall write you a cool epis- tle, from the apex of the Cheops Pyramid a pointed one, and from the Bridge of Sighs of course a doleful one. With these brief explanations it is hoped that most readers of common sense will be able to follow the thread of the dis- course with ease, or, if they do occasionally wander off the track, will succeed in regaining it, so that, though they lose themselves, yet at the end of their journey, at least, they shall find themselves -Very respectfully, Dunn Browne. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. PAGE WEIGHS ANCIIOK 1 CHAPTER II. COMES TO SOUNDINGS 6 CHAPTER in. TERRESTKIAL SEA-SICKNESS H CHAPTER IV. THE CITY OF PRINCE BLADUD 16 CHAPTER V. IN " TOWN " 20 CHAPTER YI. LEAVES " TOWN " 25 CHAPTER VII. " UNDERGROUND RAILROAD " TO PARIS 30 CHAPTER VIII. FRENCH TALKING AND TALKING FRENCH 34 CHAPTER IX. PARIS BY GASLIGHT AND BY DAYLIGHT 38 •VI 11 COXTENTS. CHAPTER X. KXICK-KXACKS 42 CHAPTER XI. THE CHUKCIIES OF PAEIS 46 CHAPTER Xn. MUSEUMS AND AKT IX PARIS 50 CHAPTER XIII. HIS FEKLIXfiS Al'.E TuO MAXY FOK HIM 54 CHAI'TER XIV. THE EXPOSITIOX AXD THE EMPEKOK 58 CHAl^TER XV. WOMEX, DAUIES AXD DOGS 62 CHAPTER XVI. " DEMANDS Ills PASSPORTS," XOT BEIXG IXVITED TO A GKEAT PUB- LIC FESTIVAL 66 CHAPTER XVII. WAITIXG AT THE STATION 70 CHAPTER XVIII. BRUSSELS, (with WATEKLOO OMITTED,) 74 CHAPTER XIX. COLOGNE 78 CHAPTER XX. GEP.MAN RAILWAYS AXD FIRES 82 CHAl^TER XXI. A UNIVERSITY TOWN 86 CONTENTS. IX CIIAPTEU XXIT. CIiniSTMAS AT TlIU "KHO.NE" 01 CHAPTER XXIII. STAUTS FI1U THE ORIENT '-"^ 95 CHAPTER XXIV. EKFUKT TO nUESDEN 99 CHAPTER XXV. DRESDEN, THIC Sl'LENDlD 103 CHAPTER XXVI. TRAGUE, THE HOMELY 107 CHAPTER XXVII. A DOOR OPENS, AND SHUTS AGAIN 112 CHAPTER XXVIII. VIENNA, THE JIAGNIFICENT 116 CHAPTER XXIX. TRIESTE AND VENICE, PROSE AND POETRY .121 CHAPTER XXX. SUJntIT OF THE CHEOPS PYRAMID 12G CHAPTER XXXI. INTRODUCES YOU TO SUNDRY' INTERESTING PEOPLE ]31 CHAPTER XXXII. A VOICE FROM THE TOMBS 136 CHAPTER XXXIII. CAIRO, Tin; PICTURESQUE 1-il X CONTENTS. chapteh XXXIV. JOHN BULI- SEES MOKE THAN HE BARGAINED FOR 146 CHAPTEK XXXV. ALEXANDRIA T< « JERUSALEM 151 CHAPTER XXXVI. THE HOLY CITY 156 CHAPTER XXXVII. MARE ASPIIVLTICUM 162 CHAPTER XXXVIII. DOES NOT " TARRY AT JERICHO " 168 / CHAPTER XXXIX. SAMARIA AND GALILEE 173 CHAPTER XL. OVERLAND TO BEYROVT 178 CHAPTER XLI. THE ^GEAN AND THE DARDANELLES 182 CHAPTER XLII. THE CRIMEA 189 CHAI'TER XLIII. MODERN RUINS 195 CHAPTER XLIV. DOWN THE M LDITERRANEAN 199 CHAPTER XLV. ATHEN* 203 CONTENTS. XI CIIAPTEll XLVI. QUARANTINE 207 CHAPTER XLVII. RETliOSPECTIVE FROM THE ETERNAL CITY 211 CHAPTER XLVIII. IN A VETTUU.V 217 CHAPTER XLIX. HERETICAL VIEWS ON THE SUBJECT OF RUINS 221 CPIAPTER L. FLORENCE, THE BEAUTIFUL 227 CHAPTER LI. THE BIUTH-I'LACE OF COLUMBUS . ' 231 CIIAl'TER LII. THE NIGHT DILIGENCE 235 CHAPTER LIII. ON FOOT AMONG THE ALPS 239 CHAPTER LIV. INDEPENDENXE AJIONG THE CLOUDS 2'13 CHAPTER LV. DOWN THE RHINE 247 CHAPTER LVI. REPOSES IN HOLLAND 252 CHAPTER LVII. UTTERLY DISREGARDS THE CONSEQUENCES 257 Xll CONTEXTS. CIIAPTEIl LVIII. JIEEEIE KXGLANl) . 261 CHAPTER LIX. ENGLISH UNIVERSITY TOWXS ' 265 CHAPTER LX. TilE JEDBUKG IJOItDKK GAMES 270 CHAPTER LXI. EDINBORO, THE LITERARY 276 CHAPTER LXII. IN AN IRISH JAUNTING CAR 281 CHAPTER LXIII. ANOTHER TASTE OF THE BRINE 286 CHAPTER LXIV. EXPERIEXCES IN HIS NATIVE LAND 291 CHAPTER LXV. THE BEST, BECAUSE IT IS THE LAST 296 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. CHAPTER I. WEIGHS ANCHOR. Atlantic Ocean (top of it and pretty well along towards the east side). ) On board clipper ship Quickstep, Skpt. 13, 1855. ) After several days of delay beyond the appointed time of sailing, owing partly to man, (want of men,) and partly to Providence, (want of wind,) we did finally succeed in sailing from the quarantine sta-« tion in New York harbor on Monday, August 27th. The pilot, appearing on board early in the morning, in spite of a rather unfavorable wind and an im- mense amount of swearing, (I could hardly tell which was the greater obstacle to the execution of his or- ders,) was successful in taking us out of the beauti- ful bay into the open sea. Since one o'clock the same day, we have seen no land except that portion 1 2 MR. DUNN Browne's of our native soil which still remains on the faces of some of the sailors. But we hope, if our favorable wind holds, to make Land's End to-morrow, and London early next week. However this is all guess- work with us, (passengers,) for the officers of the ship take particular pains to tell us the most ridicu- lous and conflicting stories as to our whereabouts and progress. This, and frightening the women with fearful tales of the dangers of the sea, constitute their idea of wit in its highest development. First day out : Strong N. E. wind, which, as that was precisely the direction we wished to go, was not on the whole favorable to our progress. The ship persisted in leaning over at an angle of 45°, so that you could walk with equal ease on the floor and on the leeward side of the cabin. Passengers were to be seen leaning over the bulwarks contemplating the ocean waves with signs of deep emotion, and occa- sional outpourings of feeling very touching to the beholder. Second day : Precisely similar to the first. Third day : If any thing a little more so ; the wind a little stronger ; the ship a little steeper, and the pas- sengers a little sicker ; every thing, in short, slightly aggravated. The evening was delightful. Sat sev- eral hours at the stern in the moonlight, watching the bubbles of fire in the waves, and musing upon EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 3 home and friends. " Sail on the lee bow," shouted the look-out, and gradually a dark shadow became visible in the dim distance, glided like a spectre slowly past, and vanished. Waxing decidedly poet- ical under the combined influence of the moon, the waves, and the phantom ship, I was recalled to the realms of the real by a huge wave leaping over the taffrail and depositing at least a barrel of the " briny " in my lap. Thus pickled I retired dripping to my state-room, " a wiser and iveller man." Fourth day : A lurch of the ship sent three cups of coffee, two men, (one of whom was noi your humble servant, the other ivas,) one bowl of sugar, a woman and baby, three plates of ham, one hairbrush, six roasted potatoes, a jar of pickles, and a wash basin of water with a soapy boy in it, all into a corner of the cabin together. Selecting ourselves out of that heap of miscellaneous articles, and leaving the rest to be picked up by the steward, resumed our breakfast as if nothing had happened. Smart ship is the old (Quickstep, only rather playful. The first few days are a fair sample of the whole passage hitherto, fair, beautiful, dull, and stupid in the extreme. Life at sea is very poetical one hour perhaps out of the twenty-four, but prosaic enough the other twenty-three ; may answer very well one day in the week, but deliver me from the other six. 4 MR. DUNN Browne's We are but a dozen of us, passengers, mostly Cockneys returning in disgust from a brief sojourn in Yankee land to blessed Hold Hengland, the 'ome of their hinfancy. Every one of us disagreeing with every other one on all possible subjects, we yet live together in great harmony, performing mutual offices of kindness and good-fellowship ; a little bullet- headed Ducthman offering a share of his cherished Schiedam Schnapps to the sick wife of a Hungarian refugee ; a Kentuckian and a Londoner ending a wrangle of an hour and a half about the merits of their respective countries in a couple of friendly brandy punches ; a freethinking London bookseller and your humble servant, after spending the whole afternoon in the main-top-mast cross-trees in dis- cussing, metaphysically, theologically, and scriptu- rally, the Noachian deluge, afterwards discussing a bottle of porter together, (thoroughly exhausting both subjects). Though the Maine law be an admirable institution on land, yet if anybody argues in favor of it here, we silence him directly by presenting to his mouth and nose a glass of the diluted emetic which goes under the name of water on board ship. One dose is sufficient. The patient recovers immediately from his delusion, and pronounces the Maine law eminently a terrestrial animal. If our tea and cof- EXPERIENCES TiH FOREIGN PARTS. fee were decent, the case would be dift'crent; but as it is, we are absolutely driven to porter, and some of the Englishmen, I am afraid, even to stronger pota- tions. 6 MR. DUNN Browne's CHAPTER 11. COMES TO SOUNDINGS. Friday^ Sept. 14, 1855. — For the last few clays, with a strong S. S. W. wind, we have been rushing through the waves at a tremendous rate, frequently twelve or fourteen knots an hour, getting up such a momentum indeed that we begin to fear we shall not be able to put on the brakes and stop in time to keep from running down the small island of Great Britain, (an accident which would exert an important influ- ence upon the course of Mr. Browne's future travels, and also upon the issue of the war). Saturckif/, Sept. loth. — Great Britain may con- sider herself safe for the present. We have n't mo- mentum enough to-day to run down a fishing smack. In fact it is a dead calm, and very provoking too, so near land. Obtained soundings to-day for the first time in about eighty fathoms water. So there is an Eastern continent here at last, if we only go down deep enough for it. My first impressions of Europe EXPEllIEXCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 7 are, I must confess, rather vague and indefinite. Its splendors don't strike me yet very forcibly. If the rest of it is like that portion which I have already seen (what was brought up on a deep sea lead), I think the soil must be poor. Wednesday, Sept. 19lh. — I have been sick; sick at sea ; and, worse than all, sick in a calm at sea, with the ship pitching and tossing at random, instead of regularly. Woke the other night from my first sleep with quite a number of unpleasant sensations that I was already familiar with, besides several new acquaintances. A redhot needle in each eye ; sharp knives thrust through the temples ; a boa constrictor squeezing my chest and shoulders ; the hugest kind of an elephant trampling on the small of my back ; legs broken on the wheel and stretched on the rack and burned in the fire all at once ; this can only give a faint idea of the disagi-eeablcs of that night. I felt enormously large and heavy ; my head a perfect mountain; my limbs big trunks of trees; my body as large as the Colossus at Rhodes, and all made of lead. I had ever so many things to do which could n't possibly be done ; impossible num.bers to count, im-- possible burdens to lift, impossible mountains to climb and seas to cross. Every thing that can't be done I felt obliged to do at once. I had to square 8 MB, DUNN Browne's the circle, to discover perpetual motion and the phi- losopher's stone, and the philosophy of the spiritual rappings ; to inscribe a four-sided equilateral triangle in a circle whose diameter should be five times its cir- cumference, and several other geometrical problems of equal ease. Remained in this delightful state of body and mind through the night and part of the next day, but am now "complaining" of being a little better, though I can't possibly get well or calm again till this calm in the wind ceases. Thursday^ Sept. 20th. — With what joy did we rush on deck last evening to catch the first faint fannings of a southerly breeze as they began to fill the great sails of our ship and bring her round to the proper course (she had been perversely heading south-west for several hours after completely boxing the compass during the day), and started us on our way with con- stantly accelerated velocity; and all, too, as gently as 't were the breath of an infant. Truly a ship is a great thing, but it is moved by a little wind and guided by a small helm, turned by the strength of a single man. Friday, Sept. 2ist. — I am much better, but the breeze, poor thing, is dead, and a whole brood of hopes buried with it. A government steamer (for EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 9 ■ the Mediterranean probably) has just crossed our bows, gliding along c[uietly eleven or twelve knots per hour I consider it a decided insult to us that she should pass thus near just to aggravate our feelings. But now to avenge us on her, the wind is springing up again. Unfortunately it is dead against us, but a head wind is better far than none, for a ship is a contrary sort of a female, (quite unlike the rest of the sex,) and will go right in the teeth of an oppos- ing force, but let her alone and she won't go at all. The old Quickstep will coquette along up the chan- nel, now steering for the Parlez-Vous, and now back again to the embrace of John Bull, till it is a wonder if she does n't miss both parties and get off to Norway. Mondmj, Sept. 24///. — A pilot came on board yes- terday afternoon, and cheered us with the informa- tion that in a week or ten days we should probably arrive in London, beating up under the present wind. Weary with the nine days we had been already tossed about without any perceptible progress, four of us chartered his boat and came to land last evening at Torquay, a town of some 15,000 inhabitants, about 40 miles to the eastward of Plymouth. The situa- tion of the town on the bold headlands of Torbay is delightful in the extreme, and all that wealth and 10 MR. DUNX BROAVNE'S art can do to improve nature has been added. Either - my eye never beheld such a scene of cultivated beauty, or thirty days at sea warps one's judgment somewhat in reference to the dear old solid land. Yours, once more safe on " terra firma." EXPERIEXCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 11 CHAPTER III. TERRESTRIAL SEA-SICKNESS. An English inn of the good, old-fashioned sort, is just the most comfortable place in the world next to your own honrie. Small, quiet, clean, with good beds, the most admirable cookery and best of servants, giving yon just what you ask for and at any hour of day or night; a man who would gruinl)lo under such circumstances ought to attend his own funeral as soon as possible, and leave this beautiful world to more reasonable people. Early Monday morning,^ after enjoying a nice " mutton-chop," (I never under- stood the full meaning of that tender, juicy, delicious word till our bright, tidy, black-eyed, and rosy-cheeked Susan, with her coquettish muslin cap and her merry laugh, having spread the table for four in our own little parlor, brought them in all smoking hot, with the proper accompaniments,) I sallied out for a stroll, taking an umbrella, for though the morning was bright and fair, yet I knew by the accounts of travel- 12 MR. DUNN Browne's lers that it always rains in England before night, and was determined to show the weather that I wasn't to be taken in by appearances. Every thing about an English town is strange to a Yankee ; the buildings all of solid stone, and gable end to the street ; the tiled and thatched roofs ; the immense walls about the gentlemen's residences (so that you might call an Englishman's house not only "his castle," but almost his prison) ; the narrow and crooked streets; and above all the infinite variety of vehicles you see therein, of the most fantastic shapes, and generally four times as strong and heavy as they need be. Then there are the multitudes of donkeys, in carts and in carriages, with huge panniers and packsaddles, driven by little ragged urchins, ridden by big men and women, and unmercifully beaten with sticks. But I was too much intoxicated with the freedom of the land after being shut up so long in a ship to confine myself to the streets or roads even, but quickly branched off into the fields, wandering over hill and dale without any regard to direction or dis- tance, unmindful of hedges, walls, gates, and boards full of warnings to trespassers; picked the cunning little flowers under my feet, patted all the donkeys (four-legged ones) I met ; one of whom ungi*atefully EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 13 kicked me in return (I patted him considerably harder next time) ; chased the sheep (who were so fat and tame they wouldn't make much sport) ; plunged by and by into a village school among a hundred of the noisiest little rogues I ever saw ; scrambled a hun- dred yards down some steep cliffs and took a sea bath ; took a bath of another sort before I got up again ; straying a while longer, found a little one- story village, and went into a funny, black, smoky ale-house, made of stones, brick, and mud, with thatched roof sixty years old they told me, (the house may have been, for ought I know, six hundred) ; purchased of a smiling woman, as little, old, and queer as the house itself, four-pen'orth of bread and cheese and a mug of ale ; found that I was five miles from Torquay, that one of my feet was blistered, and that, after all, an ocean voyage isn't the best prepara- tive for a long walk in the country, so far as legs are concerned. To shorten the distance back, I left the road, went over a steep hill and some twenty hedges, took a wrong turn and went two miles past the town. Ac- cordingly proceeded to negotiate with the driver of a fish cart, whom I happened to find going the same way, to carry me back, he stipulating that I should stand a pot of half-and-half, and binding himself to 14 MR. DUNN Browne's set me down at the toll-gate about half a mile from my inn, which treaty was carried out to our mu- tual satisfaction. Hobbled home, lame, hungry, and sleepy, about 7 P. M., from my first walk in the mother country. My Cockney companions being bound for London by the night express, I bade them adieu at an early hour and left them in company with sundry flagons of beer, industriously preparing for their departure, but was somewhat surprised to find one of them next morning left behind, having been detained by a sudden attack of sea-sickness, accompanied by vom- iting and other disagi-eeable symptoms. He recov- ered sufficiently, however, with a light breakfast and a cup of coffee, to take the rail with me for the North, on through beautiful Exmouth and cathedral- crowned Exeter, till at last I stopped at Bristol and left him with the farewell prescription of total absti- nence from ale, as most likely to prevent the recur- rence of that sea-malady which had troubled him the previous night. This Bristol is a low, dirty, smoky, old, dilapidated town which wouldn't pay for visiting except as a contrast to some other fine ones in its vicinity. After visiting two or three fine old churches, I walked out to Clifton, two miles, to St. Vincent's Rocks, EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN I'ARTS. 15 where is a scene which amply atones even for Bristol ; a gorge about 300 feet deep with a river running be- tween its banks, on which gay, sharp little steamers some seventy feet long and about three feet wide were plying, and then the most romantic and enchanting scenery in the distance. All the hills, trees, houses, fields, and hedges for miles around are arranged with an especial reference to the view from Clifton Heights; even the flocks of sheep, I noticed, had men and dogs employed to keep them in picturesque attitudes. Tried to throw a stone across the river below. The first one fell short amongst a parcel of children playing on the bank ; the next just missed one of the little steamers above mentioned, which was crowded with people ; and the thought about that time occurring to me that this was a rather dan- gerous amusement, I desisted, and proceeded to in- vest a couple of shillings in the purchase of some specimens of the rock, which is in part composed of petrified animals and vegetables, and becomes very brilliant when properly polished. 16 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER IV. THE CITY OP PRINCE BLADUD. The air at Bristol being composed of every thing but oxygen and nitrogen,. at least every thing that is black and smoky and noxious, I decided not to risk myself through the night in such a location, and came on twelve miles towards London to the famous city of Bath, " the Queen of the West." Now it is no great matter to arrive in a strange place at eleven o'clock at night ; but when that place happens to be full of soldiers, and all the hotels crowded to over- flowing, (an English inn will accommodate from four to six individuals in an emergency,) why the case is different, and the symptoms are aggravated by every new negative to your request for a bed. After being repulsed from the " Blue Boar " and the " Golden Lion " and the " Green Dragon," as well as several other impossible animals, after attacking sev- eral "Castles" in vain, being cut loose from the " An- chor," discharged from the " Queen's Arms," and EXI'ERIEXCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 17 hissed away from the " Goose and Gridiron ; " I fol- lowed the ragged boy whom I had t-ngaged as guide up a dark lane about three feet wide, of various heights and longer even than " that lane which has no turning," for this had six or seven at least, to the " Rose and Crown," which had already its complement of half a dozen lodgers, but by per- suading two acquaintances to sleep together, I found here rest at last for my weary feet. In the morning, during the two hours that inter- vened between breakfast and the departure of our train for London, I made a minute and detailed ex- amination of this city of 70,000 inhabitants ; visi'ted the Pump Rooms, going several streets out of the way in order not to see a review of those soldiers who had troubled me so much the previous night : ana- lyzed the waters of Prince Bladud's Fount (by drink- ing a couple of glasses) : detected therein very plainly Sam Weller's " Killibbyate " taste, and two or three other distinct villanous flavors : so that, being also lukewarm, it is exactly one of those delightful com- pounds which the doctors delight to force down peo- ple's throats in gallons for the benefit of their health : visited the Old Abbey Church, one of the most beau- tiful, both externally and internally, in the kingdom ; the Crescents, Parks, Circus, etc. : climbed up from 2 18 MR. DUNN Browne's the bowl to the rim of the great basin in which the city is situated, and should have spilled myself over into the adjacent lovely country, but my time was up, my train was waiting and engine puffing in haste to take me away to London. Railway travelling is in several respects different in England from the same thing in America. You are not annoyed by the dust and cinders which are the inseparable abomination of our cars ; you enter the car at the side instead of at the end ; nobody can get in without a ticket ; you are locked in ; and the conductor whistles instead of the engine. The pas- scHger cars are much smaller and less splendid than the American; have larger wheels and no brakes at- tached. No road or street crosses the track, all are either above or below. In general, all the business of the road is managed in a much -more clumsy and more safe way than with us, and by six times more men, who know each his own duty and nothing else. For instance, I asked eleven railway employes (at least they had on the railway uniform, though they didn't seem to be very busily employed) and two of them engineers, before I could fmd out the width of the gauge of the Great Western road on which we were riding, and the last man could only answer, after measuring, that it was seven feet. Would any EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 19 Yankee be lounging about the track months, or years l)erhaj3S, and not find out how far apart the rails were ? I trow not. Shortly after leaving Bath, we plunged into the bowels of the earth, and remained in total darkness so long that our emerging at the Antipodes really be- gan to seem a thing quite to be expected. Feeling after my next neighbor and instituting inquiries, I found we were in the "Box" tunnel, which is only three miles long, though it seems ten at least. Our engine did open its mouth here for the first and last time, and uttered one shriek of triumph as we came forth into daylight again. But after all, the noise of an English engine is a mere baby's squeak compared with the hideous, terrific, unearthly roar of a Yankee locomotive. We passed over and under and through several fine towns and a great deal of lovely and fer- tile country during the day, and about five o'clock began to smell and taste London, which we also saw and heard half an hour later, and which place is the present abiding place of your humble pilgrim and. servant. 20 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER V. IN " TOWN." If London could be cut up into a dozen parts and taken in twelve separate, distinct doses, the effect might perhaps be pleasant and healthful ; but as it is, all together, swallowed whole, it nearly kills one. Yes, I am compelled to say, London is entirely too big. And yet the infatuated inhabitants, far from acknowledging and seeking to remedy this defect, go on adding house to house, and street to street, till one begins to feel that it i-i by a wise dispensation of Providence, England is an island, that so a limit must come some time to the growth of this monster. The streets have used up all the names and several times over, so that in many instances a dozen differ- ent streets are called by the same appellation, and a surname has to be taken up behind, as, " Broad st., Bloomsbury," that is, that particular Broad street, which intersects Bloomsbury street. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 21 Taking a stroll the morning after my arrival, I came ii))on a little, muckly, narrow, insignificant stream, with a few boats moving about on it and a great many more lying high and dry on either side. "Does this little creek run into the Thames?" inquired I of a very prim looking gentleman standing near. " Run into the Thames I " repeated he, darting from beneath his spectacles a look of mingled aston- ishment, grief, and indignation, (which would cer- tainly have withered me if the spectacles had'nt for- tunately been present to break somewhat the shock,) " That, my dear sir, is the noble river Thames." Of course I did not prolong the conversation under the circumstances, but couldn't help thinking the river as much too small as the city too large. Taking how- ever another view in the afternoon when the tide had risen upwards of twenty feet, I felt that I had done Father Thames an injustice, to atone for which, I have ever since admired his docks, bridges, and ships, every thing that is his, to the utmost extent. There is nothing brilliant about London, but every thing is made for service. The houses are rough, black, and grim, with walls two or three feet thick ; the carts and carriages heavy, huge, and not to be broken by any number of concussions ; and the horses that drew them, especially the dray and 22 MR. DUNN Browne's brewer's horses, perfect elephants in size and strength. Every thing is done slowly and methodically in London. It is as difficult to hurry an Englishman as it is to check a Yankee, The one can't be dragged out of a regular routine of duty, the other can't be driven into it. The English guide, how- ever, who conducts you over the public buildings, must be most emphatically excepted from the above remark. He is any thing but slow, and annihilates time and space in a way to make railways and electric telegraphs hide their diminished heads. With him a thousand years are but as a quarter of an hour, and a whole empire full of poets, states- men, and heroes, only a five minutes' walk. Having pocketed the shillings, or the sixpences, as the case may be, the object is to get rid of us in the shortest possible time, to be ready for the next pocket full of small change. An usher of the black robe conducted a dozen of us sixpences through that large and ancient portion of Westminster Abbey, which is not open to the public, in fifteen minutes; and an old fat fellow in flame color (how he came to be fat I can't imagine) circulated some twenty of us shil- lings through the Tower, with its ten thousand ob- jects of interest, in less than half an hour, including the visit to the jewel room where a glib-tongued EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 23 matron rattled ofT to ns in a sing-song tone, with- out once stopping to take breath, what I presume to have been (for I could n't distinguish the words) a description of the various crowns, sceptres, swords, rings, bracelets, and other baubles which we saw glittering in a glass case before us. After slie had finished her rigmarole and the old fellow in spangled scarlet had dragged off the party, wishing to obtain one item of definite information if possible, I asked the woman which was the great Koh-i-noor diam'Ond, but she could not inform me, though upon reflection she pointed out the Koh-i-noor bracelet, where sure enough I saw the monster gem sparkling in the midst of a cluster of inferior stones like a sun among stars. They learn every thing by rote and are puz- zled by the simplest question, if it require an answer not precisely contained in their catechism. St. Paul's cathedral again, is sold in small parcels to suit purchasers, a sixpence to go down here, one and sixpence to go up there, etc., so that it costs you something over a dollar to see the whole, and the hurrving process practised here is still more shameless than in the other places. In fact we spent about three minutes in the crypts beneath the church, and I was threatened with a locking down for lingering a moment beside Nelson's tomb. I 24 MR. DUNN Browne's knew however that another party would be along soon, and so. was not greatly terrified. Now if these plump old churchmen must make the house of God a source of profit, why can't they pocket the shil- lings, and then have a few sentinels on guard about the building to see that it sustains no detriment, and leave the spectator to roam about at his leisure, and indulge in the appropriate emotions without the abominable nuisance of an illiterate blockhead of a guide ? 1 pause for a reply. EXPERIENCES IN FOKEIGN PARTS. 2o CHAPTER VI. LEAVES "TOWN." The best thing about London, the most healthful, the loveliest, finest, and most magnificent, the super- lative of all the good adjectives, that only which redeems London from the curse of its vastness, is, the parks, hills and meadows, groves and forests, right in the heart of the city where you can hide yourself away from all its sights and sounds as completely as if a thousand miles away ; quiet, lovely green islands in the ocean of London, against which the waves of toil and business beat in vain. The palaces and prisons of the great metropolis I have seen, but, receiving no pressing invitation to enter either, have had experience only of their most comfortable side — the outside. The gloom- iest, least desirable residence of them all is St. James' palace, and Newgate prison the next. The others are very much after the common sort. Buckingham 26 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S palace is a large, substantial, plain, comfortable-look- ing, three-story house, a very respectable tenement for the queen or any one else, only the rent is rather high. About Lambeth palace I cannot speak very definitely. Walked round it the other morning, some two miles, under the shadow of a high, black wall, to see if there was any place to enter or get a view of it, and there isn't the smallest spot, save that at one corner you can get a glimpse of a few of the highest towers. How the poor old arch- bishop manages to get in and out, unless he uses a balloon, is a puzzle to me. "With regard to the new Parliament Houses, which arc consuming the people's money at such a ruinous rate, I really cannot make up my mind as yet whether to admire them greatly or not ; the work however will not be suspended to await my decision. There is one notable circumstance, though, which I can't help mentioning. In all that immense pile of building, covering acres of ground, there isn't a room capable of containing five hundred people. Even the hall of the House of Commons, which numbers six hundred and fifty-six members, I think, can only seat three hundred persons at most (a tall policeman and I counted the benches) ; so you see that a seat in Parliament requires something more EXPERIENCES IX FOREIGN TARTS. 27 than an election. I do n't \vondc>r now at there being so many "contested scats," but should think trouble of that sort would occur every night. The intelligent policeman, above referred to, however, gave me a tolerably satisfactory explanation of the matter, i. e. that one half the members of the house were always in the refreshment rooms recruiiiiig exhausted na- ture, the illiberal public sentiment of England not allowing legislators to devour peanuts and ham- sandwitches in the house during tiie sittings, as is practised so generally in our own more enlightened Congress. The only wonderful thing about the world-re- nowned Thames Tunnel is that it should cost so much money to dig so small a hole. The difficulty of its completion is only surpassed by its uselessness, now it is done. The penny admission fee, however, is well expended, for it presents the cheapest method T know of, of descending from the heights of fancy to the depths of reality. The British Museum and the Crystal Palace at Sydenham are, each, a great world into which one needs to be born and live a whole life in order to describe it, and as my existence was but an infantile one of a single day in each, of course a description is out of the question. You see every thing that 28 MR. DUNN Browne's you expected to see, and every thing that you didn't expect to see. Wonders upon wonders rise before you till the eye is tired with seeing, and you are glad to take one parting look of the huge Bulls of Nineveh, to catch one last flash of light reflected from the glorious palace of glass, and go home ex- hausted from very fulness. One portion of the magnificent grounds of the Sydenham Palace is profusely adorned with Ichthyosauri and Iguanodons and all the other imaginary and impossible monsters with which poetical geologists have delighted to people our world during those vast periods that elapsed before its creation. These animals are mostly built of bricks and stucco, rather in the grotesque style of architecture, with a decided leaning to the Tusk-a.n style in ornament. The general effect is nightmareish and bugbeary and hobgoblinical in the extreme. Young England and its nurses pass through these walks with suppressed breath and trembling steps. The Bank of England is a suspicious, ill-looking building, without any windows and shockingly low as if it had been driven into the ground a couple of stories, but it is very richly gilded within. One of the cashiers politely requested my name and resi- dence upon a bit of paper I had in my pocket, and EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 29 then very luindsomcly presented me with five golden sovereigns therefor ; witii which sum I decided to leave London at once, before I fell among any more thieves and guides. On my journey I called at Brighton with its beauti- ful beach, its suspension pier, and its pretty houses built of pebbles laid up in cement ; Chichester, with its ancient cross and fine old cathedral containing many of Flaxman's choicest groups of sculpture ; Portsmouth, with its grim fortifications and huge war-ships, (among which I visited the " Victory " on which Nelson died,) and its enormous dockyard, where I was refused admission because I was an American, and told them I would willingly wait till we came over and captured Portsmouth and could examine at our leisure ; wandered a day over the lovely Isle of Wight, a perfect paradise of verdure, and reluctantly, with many a lingering look at the romantic scenery about Osborne house, (one of the Queen's summer residences,) passed over to South- ampton and embarked for Havre. So good-by to glorious old England for the present, and " bon- jour " to her sprightly ally. 30 ' MR. DUNN Browne's CHAPTER VII. '.'UNDERGROUND RAILROAD" TO PARIS. Custom-houses are certainly among the customs which ought to be abolished as soon as practicable, but if the evil be still a necessary one, it is, surely, managed at Havre in a way to produce as little in- convenience and vexation as possible. The trav- eller's baggage is subjected to a merely nominal ex- amination without any of that searching and rum- maging which I had been led to expect. The only trouble about the matter is the delay of an hour or two, or three, consequent thereupon. There being nothing of especial interest here save a fine quay, perhaps we may as well skip Havre and rush on to Rouen as soon as possible, which place we will reach as soon as I have finished one remark by way of episode in reference to railroads. It is astonishing how many tunnels they build in France and England. They go out of their way any time to find a hill to bore through, in order to EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 31 save land damages, I 'suppose. The road to Rouen is mostly subterranean. We passed through the cellars of one or two towns (and the attics of one at least by way of compensation), and at last emerged from one grand, long, and hideously dark tunnel into the very midst of the ancient capital of Normandy. Rouen is the strangest, queerest place I was ever in; there is not a thing in it which is not strange and queer, for if you should chance to light on any thing common-place, that would be the strangest of all from its very rarity. No two streets are on the same level or run in the same direction, or in any particular direction at all ; and no two houses in the same street are alike in height, width, or nearness to the centre of the street. They arc of all sorts of materials, and the windows and doors are thrown in entirely at random. It is called a Gothic town I think, but if you can't find specimens of all the orders or at least disorders of architecture in every street, then I have studied Eschenburg's manual in vain. I made no inquiries for a map of the town, for I knew of course that such a thing would be im- possible to construct, but strolled about all the morn- ing, asking no questions for the reason that the people in France don't talk good French, and it is a wonder to me now how I ever escaped from the 32 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S labyrinth or found any of the public buildings, but fortune favored me in both respects more than I had any right to expect. The cathedral is a most noble and venerable edi- fice, shockingly disfigured by stacks of miserable little houses and shops leaning up against its walls; its facade covered with delicate tracery in stone ; its three towers of beautiful proportions and lofty, one (of iron) three hundred and eighty feet high, if I un- derstood the French numerals correctly. The huge church of St. Onen rivals the cathedral itself in all except antiquity. Here, finding a little door in one of the pillars I availed myself of the opening, crawled up a circular stone staircase some one hundred and fifty feet in the dark, and strolled over the towers and battlements a half hour, having the good for- tune not to find myself locked up when I came down. And six or seven more ancient and costly churches I visited in that morning walk, each of which would make the fortune of any other town in the way of the picturesque, but which seemed noth- ing wonderful here ; also the ancient Palace of Jus- tice and Parliament House; the statue of Joan of Arc in the market-place ; a curious old archway and tower containing a huge clock ; a very old church changed into a blacksmith's shop, and other curious sights at every step. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 33 A few more tunnels, and a great deal of lovely scenery along the valley of the Seine, (a punster would say that was only what we might expect,) bring us to Paris where 1 have just arrived, weary, sleepy, and deperately hungry. 34 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER VIII. FRENCH TALKING AND TALKING FRENCH. Most people have a particular set of organs to be used in talking, called vocal organs; but a French- man's organs are all vocal. He talks with every member and muscle of his body and every article of dress he wears. I don't think a parcel of Parisians in straisfht waistcoats could understand each other. A shrug of his shoulders is a whole sentence. A wave of the hand dispenses flowers of rhetoric. He emphasizes with his elbows and punctuates with his fingers. A flourish of his coat tail is a figure of speech. He shakes metaphors from the folds of his pocket handkerchief, and at a' pinch, even his snuff"- box serves to round a period. You ought to have seen the eloquence of one old lady's petticoat, the other day, as she was enlarging upon the advantages of an apartment, for the rent of which your humble servant was negotiating. The grace with which she flourished that article of wearing apparel about the EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 35 room, the striking attitudes it assisted her in assum- ing, the great variety of meanings it conveyed, cer- tainly gave me new ideas with reference to the capabilities of dress as a medium of thought. Of course, in this case, the petticoat was the outside garment. If its voice had been stilled under the folds of a long, awkward dress, in all liuniau proba- bility the result would have been totally different, for my own unassisted judgment would have prompted me, I confess, to have chosen some other apartment. The earnestness, energy, and passion which the French throw into even the most ordinary conversa- tion is wonderful. I have been several times on the point of interfering to prevent a quarrel, or quicken- ing my steps to get out of its reach (according as my benevolence or self-love for the moment preponder- ated), when my fears have been removed by seeing the supposed combatants wave each other a smiling adieu, and separate in peace. I have been hitherto so much engaged in seeing |)eople talk, observing the queer expressions and movements of the face and the grotesque contortions of the body, that I have had lit- tle leisure for Iiearing; or for displaying my own pro- ficiency by talking. "Whatever remarks I have had occasion to make, however, have been readily under- stood, while of the gibberish addressed to me in re- 36 MR. DUXN Browne's turn, I could hardly make out two words in a sen- tence ; which shows very plainly who speaks the best French. Indeed, it must be acknowledged by the greatest admirer of Paris, that very few indeed of her inhabitants speak French with that purity and cor- rectness of jironunciation which are imparted in most of oyr American schools and colleges. I find, how- ever, that they are improving every day, as I can un- derstand them much better now than a week since, when I first arrived. Every thing is done here in the dramatic style, as might be expected in a city where thirty thousand people attend the theatres every night. Two market women, parting for the night, bid each other adieu with all the pathos of captive princesses ordered to immediate execution. The driver of an omnibus cracks his whip and shouts to his horses with the ar- dor of a warrior charging the enemy. The vender of cabbages and carrots arranges his vegetables with an eye to the scenic effect. The blind and lame bege^ars asking alms at the doors of the churches, form them- selves into picturesque " tableaux." All are acting a part. Everybody down to the very children at their play, and every thing, even to the soups of your din- ner and the tie of your cravat, is "ct /a" somebody or something else. And not only a theatrical but also a EXPEllIEXCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 37 military air pervades the whole community, not con- fined either to the inhabitants, but extending over the face of nature. The trees in the parks are all drilled and disciplined into regular battalions, cropped, pruned, and trimmed into perfect soldierly uniformity, not a single rebellit)us branch left to grow in its own wild luxuriaiu;e, not a leaf daring to rustle out of its rank and file. So also the flowers and plants in the public gardens are drawn up with the same military precision, marshalled in battle array over against each other, poor inoffensive little things, with no weapons to discharge, save perfumes. Monsieur FEmpereur, isn't this pushing military tactics a little too far ? 38 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER IX. PARIS BY GASLIGHT AND BY DAYLIGHT. Paris has two sides, like a Brussels carpet, a right side and a \v ong side, which latter must be kept out of sight, if one wishes only to edmire. Two thirds of the city is made up of narrow, dirty, crooked, ugly streets, inhabited by poor, half-starved, ill-clad, wooden-shod operatives ; the other third is the abode of princely luxury and splendor. In one of the great Cafes on the fashionable Boulevards, a hundred francs is very often paid for a dinner, and one can scarcely get wherewithal to satisfy his appetite for less than thirty francs; while in a little eating-house not fifty paces distant, the laborer gets a meal for ten sous. Although the palaces, monuments, fountains, church- es, and public edifices are numerous and costly almost beyond belief, and many parts of the city real- ize all one's anticipatory dreams of the glory and mag- nificence of the gay capital, yet on the whole, there EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 39 is a little disappointment at finding this paradise of the world built of very common looking stones, bricks, and mortar, like other cities, the streets not very sweet smelling, and the men therein all disfig- ured about the mouth, by hair of every possible shade of the dirty colors. Every thing here is too artificial. There is not one bit of pure, unadulterated nature left wdthin the city limits. There are trees enough, but they are all shaven and shorn as I have before told you; hills enough, but they are hills that man has piled up; lakes, streams, and fountains enough, but they are only a series of ingenious hydraulic experiments by skilful engineers. A Frenchman cannot let Nature alone. Nothing that God has made is quite perfect till it has also passed under his own finishing hand. Luckily he cannot reach the clouds, or he would doubtless set himself to cut and shave them down into more regular shape, and out of the parings carve a parcel of Grecian statues to set up on the arch of the rainbow. But however Paris may appear by day, by night the scene is magnificent beyond description. Fairy tales, the Arabian Night's Entertainments, all that you have seen, read, or dreamed of that is glorious and brilliant, glimmers, fades, goes entirely oui in the 40 MR. DUNN Browne's comparison. The streets all in a blaze of gas-light and crowded with bustling vehicles and gay prome- naders ; the hundreds of theatres and other places of public amusement, brilliantly illuminated and send- ing forth peals of joyous music and laughter; the thousand and one long arcades, covered with glass and lined with a continual succession of shops full of all manner of tempting wares; the gorgeously fur- nished cafes and saloons filled with merry guests of both sexes, eating and drinking together ; the hum of the ten thousand voices, the glare of the myriad lights, the ever-changing panorama of brightness, that is passing before you, charms, dazzles, confuses, intoxicates, fairly stuns you into a state of staring wonder and amazement. You know that there is very little substance to all this show, but you none the less admire. You have seen the other end of the kaleidoscope, how it is only little bits of painted glass that are the basis of these enchanting visions, still they are none the less lovely for that. But in the morning, when the gas is turned off, and the fog is turned on, when the elegant carriages have given place to the lumbering drays, when the blouses and wooden shoes have the pavement all to themselves, and the dull shutters conceal from your view the treasures of the shops, then comes the disenchant- EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 41 ment. Bright poetry, stripped of her feathers, turns out to be only j)Iain prose after all. You see noth- ing of your last night's banquet but the broken bot- tles strewed about the floor, the chairs upside down, and the tables covered with bones and crunnbs. You find that nothing is more stupid than a theatre by daylight; you arc disgusted in fact, and turning into the first restaurant that appears, call for a cup of strong coffee and some eggs, for yourself and your humble servant, Dunn Broavne. 42 MR. DUNN Browne's CHAPTER X. KNICK-KNACKS. Paris is one vast, grand, magnificent toy-shop, for children of all ages, where every thing which can't possibly be of the slightest use to you, and which you will be sure to break in carrying away, is ex- posed for sale in endless variety and profusion. Ten thousand little images, busts, and statuettes of mar- ble, plaster, sugar, chocolate, bronze, gingerbread, soap, and porcelain, illustrating all the Heathen My- thologies and Pagan Divinities ever invented, the natural history of all animals and unnatural history of all nations: jewelry enough to supply all the in- habitants of the globe to the last naked Hottentot, with each a gold watch, half a dozen rings for the fingers, ears, or nose as fashion shall dictate, a brace- let or two, and a gold tooth-pick : a million walk- ing-sticks with ivory heads carved into such fantastic shapes and covered with such delicate tracery that the purchaser dares not lay hand u})on one, but car- EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 43 m ries it daintily under his arm: an infinite assort- ment of portmonnaies decreasing in size as they increase in price, on the very reasonable principle that the more you pay for one, the less money you will have left to put into it : dolls with staring eyes and painted cheeks, from the size of a full-grown woman away down till the waist becomes invisible to the naked eye: fans enough to blow a fleet of the line across the Atlantic: ten thousand flimsy articles of dress of which I no more know the names than I do what part of the body they are intended to cover or reveal : a world of perfumery of more strange scents than the sharpest nose ever dreamed of: in- numerable and indescribable knick-knacks to eat, twisted into an infinite variety of forms without any substance, delightful to the taste but melting into utter nonentity long before they reach the stomach : every thing in short, from a Jews-harp uj:» to a ten thousand dollars Sevres vase, and all arranged with such taste, so temptingly displayed, that you are certain to buy something, and equally certain to be sorry for it after. Your whistle is so beautifully gilded, and is delivered to you with such fascinating grace, that you never think till too late, how dearly you are paying for it. The French are just the nicest, pleasantest, most 44 MR. DUNN Browne's accommodating, and most graceful shopkeepers in the Avorld. They are perfect with but one little ex- ception to show that they are mortal after all, and that is in the matter of honesty. Their prices are entirely extempore, and vary according to the weather and their opinion of your ignorance of the article in question. It is amusing to go into a shop and get the price of the same article on different days. I de- termined not to purchase a hat till I found a man who would tell me the same sum twice in succes- sion, and was a fortnight in the operation, and pre- sume that it was only by accident that 1 succeeded at last. Perhaps, however, there is no intentional dishonesty in the thing. Nearly all the articles on sale are such as have no intrinsic value, and it is only natural, therefore, that their price should be a thermometer of the ever-varying fancy of the seller. Speaii of buying and selling, and of honesty, nat- urally leads us to the Exchange, or Bourse, the great centre of financial operations, where two or three thousand merchants meet daily, a place which, more than any other, has produced an impression on my organs of hearing, if not on my mind. Any one who has visited the New York Exchange, vividly recol- lects the effect of the reverberations of sound under the dome. But even with that for a basis, no stretch EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 45 • of the imagination can enable one to form an ade- quate idea of the " noise and confusion " of the Paris Bourse. I just begin to see for the first time why brokers are called bears and bulls. If there had been 2,000 literal bears and bulls shut up under that dome, all bellowing and roaring with migiit and main, and each with a speaking trumpet to increase the sound, they might have roared themselves hoarse before they could rival their human prototypes. They shut up about a hundred of the noisiest between the two concentric circular railings towards one end of the vast hall, and it is highly interesting to stand in the gal- lery and look down upon their frantic gesticulations.. " Operations at the Bourse" were truly "lively" the day I visited it. That Niagara of sound has beeni ringing in my ears ever since ; though Niagara is a very feeble and inadequate comparison for it, believe- me. 46 MR. Duxx Browne's CHAPTER XI. THE CHURCHES OF PARIS. The churches are the most impressive of all the buildings in this city of palaces and splendid edifices. Their great antiquity and interesting historical asso- ciations ; the solemnity of this grand old Gothic ar- .chitecture, more in unison with a place of worship than with a building for secular purposes ; their lofty arches, curiously carved ornaments, stained windows, and the fine paintings and statues which adorn them, combine to give them an interest which nothing else possesses in the same degree. And yet while the general effect is impressive and edifying in the high- est degree, when one comes to examine more mi- nutely, he is constantly stumbling upon such quaint and funny carved work, or such ridiculous and shock- ing taste in painting, or in selecting subjects to paint, that ten to one he doesn't go out of the church in any better frame of mind than he has on entering. Side by side with the most delightful pictures illustrating EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PART.S. 47 the Gospel history, you will find a herd of seven- headed and ten-horned beasts from the Apocalypse, and some of the most incredibly silly passages from the lives of the Romish saints that the wildest imag- ination can conceive. And tlien just on the line be- tween the ridiculous and sacrilegious, come their altar pieces with all sorts of representations oT the Deity, the Virgin Mary usually occupying a promi- nent position on the left hand of the Father, while the Son is on His right. Over the door of the Church of St. Vincent de Paul, appears in bas-relief " The Hl ly Trinity," the Father, a stern-looking man, something like the Jupiter of Grecian mythol- ogy, with black hair and beard, the Son, a milder personage, with light hair and blue eyes, at his side, and the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove, perched on a cloud over their heads. Apropos of pictures and graven images, I was interested in the groups which appear on the huge bronze doors of the Madeleine ; illustrations from Scripture history of the consequences of breaking the several commandments ; not only from their marvellous beauty, but from the fact that the second commandment does not appear at all, and the num- ber is made up by splitting the tenth ; " Thou shalt not covet the wife of thy neighbor," forming the ninth, illustrated by a most magnificent representa- 48 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S tion of the scene between Nathan and David. I had heard this accusation brought against the Ro- man Catholics before, but never saw any proof of it until now, as the Douay Bible, I think, has the whole decalogue correctly. There is no situation so fitted to solemnize the mind, and fill it with devotional feeling, as standing under the nave of one of these grand old churches (or still more splendid modern ones, the Pantheon and Madeleine,) always provided it be done any day of the week but Sunday, when the case is en- tirely altered. I have attended high mass one or two sabbaths, and such a conglomeration of excellent music and muttered Latin, gilt angels, holy water, wax candles, and little boys in white with red caps on, and kneelings and kissing crucifixes, and ringing little bells, and tossing censors in the air, I never saw before, certainly under the name of religion. However the audience appear extremely devout, pay the strictest attention to all the exercises, cross them- selves with holy water at the door of the church, and then go out to enjoy a fine holiday and visit the theatre in the evening, for this is the great gala-day when all Paris is to be seen in the streets and at the places of amusement, except about half the work- men, who continue their labors as on other days. The priests are a pleasant, polite, benevolent-look- EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN TARTS. 49 ing class of men, round and rosy-faced, wearing rather a graceful costume, especially the hat and feather, and, what seems to me a little strange, I confess, looking precisely alike, of exactly the same height, features, and weight, to a pound, for all the world like coins stamped in the same mould and differing only in the different degrees of wear and tear caused by the circulation. I haven't yet made a sufficient number of observations to establish the general principle, but that is the result of my inves- tigation so far. 50 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER XII. MUSEUMS AND ART IN PARIS. I AM a lover of the fine arts, and manifested a taste in that direction at a very early age, by draw- ing portraits of iny schoolmates on the slate that should have been covered with arithmetical prob- lems, as well as by executing several fine statues in snow. I admire pictures, and think the face of nature reflected on canvas, almost as beautiful as the original, and the faces of men and women even usually a trifle better looldng than their originals. But moderation is desirable in all things. The ap- petite of the eye is not insatiable any more than that of the stomach. For myself, having examined, dur- ing the past month, several hundred acres of cele- brated paintings and a corresponding amount of fine statuary, to say nothing about endless collec- tions of miscellaneous odds and ends of broken ancient cities and several immense palaces full of EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 51 Gobelin tapestry and interesting historical associa- tions, I begin to confess to a feeling of weariness coming over my powers of admiration; and to no small joy in the thought that I have only about a dozen more museums to visit in Paris. Really, it is astonishing, bewildering, discouraging, the amount of tlie fine arts one is here obliged to undergo. It affords one sincere pleasure to remember that the Allies carried away about half in 1815, and it even begins to appear an alleviating" circumstance to be mentioned in favor of the revolutions, that the mob usually amuse themselves by tearing in pieces some half a dozen palaces with their precious con- tents ; though not much is gained thereby, after all, for these same revolutions in turn furnish such a world of striking scenes for the next crop of artists to illustrate, that the loss is quickly made up, and thus the temple of the arts ever rises anew out of its ashes, built of its own cinders, by the hands of its own destroyers, in the light of its own expiring flames. (I have a faint idea that I am indebted for the last part of the foregoing sentence to the com- position of a remarkably jiromising sophomore, sub- mitted to my friendly critical inspection in days of yore.) In the first place, there is the Louvre, with its 52 .AIR. DUXN BROWNE'S twenty-three separate grand museums, (one of which occupies a room more than a quarter of a mile in length,) enough in itself to satisfy any reasonable city of a million inhabitants, and certainly enough to give any reasonable man business for a lifetime of study and meditation. Here are gathered mas- ter-pieces of all the ages and nations of history ; several ancient cities exhumed from the grave of oblivion, and transported hither bodily by sea and by land ; the sepulchres of the dead, the warlike trophies, the sacred utensils of worship, and the com- mon household furniture of all the nations, kingdoms, and tribes under the sun ; works of art illustrating every stage of its development, every epoch of its history ; the dusty and mutilated glories of antiquity as well as the still untarnished glories of modern times ; all brought together into one grand repository, the children of a most prolific mother, all entertained around one hospitable hearth. Next comes the young and mighty " Exposition des Beaux Arts," with its six acres of paintings, its drawings, engravings, and sculpture, a collection, in the opinion of many judges of no mean authority, absolutely unrivalled, at the present time, in the world. But we have even now only just begun the enumeration, for there are yet to mention the gallery EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 53 of the Luxembonrg; the splendid colleetion of the " School of the Fine Arts;" the score of Palaces in and around Paris, all lavishly adorned with the works of the most celebrated masters; Versailles, which in many respects surpasses -all ihe collections yet spoken of, and whose glories positively cannot be described nor imagined ; and aside from mere paintings and statuary, the museums at the im- perial manufactories of Gobelin tapestry and Sevres- porcelain, those rare ])ictnres in wool and in mud;, then the vast collection of coins and medals at the- Mint, and a collection of ancient seals at the Im- perial Library, besides numerous other smaller museums at the various public buildings throughout the city. All these are open to the public during the great exhibition, and from all these comes that weariness of which I have spoken, and with which" doubtless you are in a state to sympathize, now that you have endured the enumeration. 54 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER XITI. niS FEELINGS ARE TOO MANY FOR HIM. As it is one of the very first principles of Art that no amount of nakedness is indecency, and clothing is on the whole dispensed with, except an occasional Toga for some man who is as unVike an old Roman as possible, and a sort of a nondescript flowing robe which sometimes partly conceals the lower half of the female form, leaving the beholder greatly puzzled as to the way in which it is fastened up, why one gets at last somewhat reconciled to the thing and learns to look at naked realities and historical scenes stripped of all extrinsic appendages without being greatly shocked. But occasionally the paucity of apparel seems so glaringly opposed to all the circum- stances connected with the incident represented, that the sense of fitness will rebel against this rule of art. I didn't mind seeing a very lightly clothed Delilah caressing a great, silly, naked Sampson to sleep on EXPERIENCES IX FOREIGN PARTS. 55 her lap, because the probabilities do not greatly op- pose such a view of the case, nor disturl) myself very greatly at seeing a polite, naked old gentleman of a dark brown color (the servant of Abraham) offering necklaces and bracelets to a half-naked damsel of a few shades lighter complexion, whom I took to be Rebecca, for it was a warm day and they were under the shade of some trees, and the artists must have some license. But when the very next picture that met my eye was poor Ruth out in the hot sun, gleaning among the rough wheat-sheaves, with nothing on but the above-mentioned nondescript gar- ment and insanely hugging an armful of bearded grain against her tender breast, it really seemed to me that as the case is now out of Boaz' reach, somebody ought to interfere, and I have accordingly spoken out. Mr. Artist, I appeal to you, would it not have been better, by a few strokes of your brush, to have ex- tended that garment up to her shoulders, or at the very least, to have covered the poor creature's head with a broad-brimmed palm-leaf hat, as a matter of mere humanity, to avoid harrowing people's feelings with the sight of so much apparent sufl'ering? And then, again, two thirds of the female figures, besides being represented nude, are also in a state of repose without a line of expression in their faces or 56 MK. DUNN Browne's of movement in their bodies, all regular and fault- less and beautiful and stupid as images cut in blanc mange, and at last you get thoroughly disgusted ' with wandering about among a parcel of character- less Venuses, Graces, Nymphs, and Virgins, with their everlasting monotony of well-rounded limbs, plump bodies, and smooth faces. These are not all the materials necessary to the composition of a true woman, either in the world of real life, or in the ideal world of art, and therefore I pronounce half the stat- ues and paintings of females in the Great Exposition as veritable shams as the wax concerns which the dress-makers put up in their windows to illustrate the fashions. There are a few women there, though, especially the portraits, (I noticed two or three among the Eng- lish portraits this very day,) whom I should be hap- py to receive into my very selectest circle of acquaint- ances. I wonder whether these portraits are real likenesses of anybody or not. But their very superi- ority over the vapid Goddesses and fancy sketches around them, shows that they must be reflections of a real beauty which exists somewhere besides in the brain of the artist. After all the ecstacies, however, into which people pretend to fall over works of art, a real live woman and a bona fide tree are as much EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 57 superior to all artificial imitations of them, as the stripes of a rainbow to those of a calico bed-quilt, and, thank Heaven, we have both women and trees in our country in a perfection not to be attained in the Old World, so it is no great matter if our "show" of pictures at the Exposition be meagre, which it must be confessed it is, decidedly. There is a re- spectable picture of Franklin arguing the cause of the Colonies before the French king, a rather striking one of a wounded soldier leaning on the shoulder of his beloved, a spirited Broadway sleighing scene, and another whose coloring seemed to me very fine, a sharp little negro boy holding an umbrella over the head of a beautiful Odalisque, besides several por- traits, two little views of Niagara, etc. etc. 58 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S t CHAPTER XIV. THE EXPOSITION AND THE EMPEROR. The Exposition of ^55 is henceforth to be spoken of among the things that were. It is already shorn of most of its glories, and on Thursday next, Novem- ber 15th, it is to be finished, extinguished, fairly blown out by a grand blast of 1,500 trumpets and other mu- sical instruments. On the whole, considering that it had not the charm of novelty like its London proto- type, and that a state of war is n't exactly favorable to such an enterprise (though the Russian trophies displayed in great abundance have attracted much attention), it has been as successful as could well be expected. Many have pronounced the thing a failure, indeed, but on what grounds I cannot see, unless, for- sooth, it is a failure not to have gathered there every single object animate and inanimate in all creation, for I can think of nothing now, save Dr. Hitchcock's bird tracks, of all that is in the heaven above and the EXPERIENCES IX FOREIGN PARTS. 59 earth beneath and the waters under the earth, of which a specimen could n't be found in some corner of the great palace of industry. I was in momen- tary expectation of putting my foot into one of them even, but by some strange fatality, not one is to be found not only in the Exposition, but not even in the vast geological museums of the city, the magnificent and costly collections at the Garden of Plants and the School of Mines. And so the great Exhibition being closed, the Emperor will be obliged to provide something else to amuse the people with. His office is certainly no sinecure, as his very appearance shows. I have n't met in all the streets of Paris a more care-worn countenance than that of their ruler. He has labor to provide for all the workers, and amusement for all the idlers. Moreover, bread is getting exceedingly high, and the pulse of the Parisian populace always rises with the price of food. The symptoms are already slightly feverish. A little incident was whispered in my ear yesterday, which is not with- out meaning, though I cannot vouch for its truth any further than to say that it was a very respectable person who told it to me. The Emperor was pass- ing two or three days since through the midst of a large body of laborers engaged upon one of the 60 MR. DUNN Browne's bridges now in progress, and noticing that they did not take off their hats as usual, he paused a moment, and the following brief but expressive dialogue took place: Emperor — "My friends, you are discon- tented." Laborers — (Looking rather sheepish and some of them removing their hats,) " Bread is too high."' Emperor — " My friends, I am occupying my- self about you;" and passed on without another word. But it takes a very powerful decree to make the price of bread fall when the crops are short, and it is difficult to induce butchers to sell meat for much less than they are obliged themselves to pay for it. However, things are very quiet, and Louis Napoleon knows how to manage the French people probably as well as anyone ; bat, as I have just said, it is no sinecure. They need to be kept very busy. It is wonderful, though, how they love the name of Napoleon and reverence his memory. I have never heard his name spoken here even by a child without a visible feeling of pride and reverence. The splen- dor of his tomb under the dome of the " Invalides " tells the same story, as well as the crowds who flock to visit it on the two public days in the week, when the top of the Sarcophagus is removed, and you can look down into the receptacle and almost see the dust of the Great Departed. The mothers lift up EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 01 their little children to allow them to gaze upon it, as I have seen mothers do at funerals to give their little ones a last look at the features of a deceased friend. The care with which every thing is preserved that belonged to the Emperor, the rooms in the Louvre and other Palaces full of sacredly preserved relics, are all evidences of the same affection. Every article of dress that he wore, every table that he wrote upon, chair that he sat upon, handkerchief that he wiped his face withal, every sword that he drew in battle, every knife and fork that he wielded at the table, whatever he touched, has become more pre- cious than gold in the eyes of this hero-worshipping people. They bare their heads at the mention of his name, they recount his exploits with burning en- thusiasm, little incidents of his private life they re- late with tears in their eyes, they know by heart the history of all his battles and the minutest event, of his career. They hate the English, I verily believe, more from the treatment he received at their hands, than from the many centuries of hereditary hostility between the two nations. 62 MR. Duxx Browne's CHAPTER XV. WOMEX, BABIES, AND DOGS. The women of Paris, generally speaking, are not very beautiful. Their naturally dark complexion is not improved any by constant exposure, (they wear nothing on their heads but a little muslin cap,) and then the wear and tear of countenance, resulting from their energetic manner of talking, materially aids Father Time in ploughing furrows in their cheek. But, if not remarkable for beauty, they are very keen looking, with their bright black eyes, sharp features and quick movements, and make the best possible shopkeepers and accountants. Even in the eating- houses, where the waiters are men, and in the shops whore salesmen of the masculine gender are em- ployed, there is a nice, neat little woman, with smooth, dark hair, and black silk dress, nine times out of ten at the desk, to attend to the money mat- ters ; and I give you leave to cheat or catch one in an error if you can. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN TARTS. 63 Passing naturally from the women to the babies, these are the funniest, most serious, old looking little bits of well-behaved humanity that it is possible to conceive of. I counted more than forty, with their nurses, the other afternoon, down on the Boulevard, at a sort of a baby-show, which takes place every fine day in front of the Ca{6 de Paris, and there wasn't one of the whole score who didn't deserve a gold medal for its perfect propriety of demeanor and correct general deportment. " Cry ? " They would laugh you to scorn if you suggested such a thing. You might as well expect to see a cry started in an assembly of Indian chiefs, gathered in stately conclave about their council fire. Gray hairs might have learned a lesson in good behavior from these tiny things, that had no hair at all to speak of, at least I did n't see any, possibly because they all wore little white caps. On the whole it was a very edify- ing and entertaining spectacle, especially when the refreshments were served. They have four or five places called Crdches, immense reservoirs of babies, whicii receive in the morning the infantry of the la- boring women of the whole district, and distribute them again at night, several matrons of experience taking charge of the cradle and pap department through the day. I don't know whether this is ^ 64 MR. DUNN Browne's peculiar institution or not, but it strikes me as a good one, and especially adapted to a Republic, as it ac- customs the young citizens at an early age to public assemblages and teaches them to trust to their own resources. From babies, which are a species of quadruped, it is but a step to dogs, and I am constrained to say that the French taste as displayed in this direction, is truly deplorable. Every dog in the city, so far at least as my observation has extended, is of some miserable, dirty color or combination of colors, with coarse hair, of various lengths, having no shape at all, any more than a nightmare, with a most valla- nous bark, a tail without any wag to it, and a moral character worse even than its physical traits. And yet, such is the Frenchman's love foi* this vile beast, that no strictness of police regulations, no amount of taxes, nor muzzles, can persuade him to give up his dog. Nay., even his love increases with every fresh act of persecution, and will doubtless continue till the last dog has had his day and died. The tailors and dressmakers show a similar depraved taste by filling their windows with horrid little monkeys, dressed out in the extreme of fashion, with velvets and laces and flounces, miraculous cravats, and gorgeous rib- bens, fans, canes, and opera glasses, till they really EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 65 bear a frightful resemblance to some of the figures you meet in the streets, and arc ashamed to acknowl- edge as human, like yourself and your humble ser- vant, Dunn Browne. 66 MR. DUNN BROAVNE'S CHAPTER XVI. "DEMANDS HIS PASSPORTS," NOT BEING INCITED TO A GREAT PUBLIC FESTIVAL. Have spent the past week, this last week of my stay in the city, before departing to the depths of Germany to den up for the winter, amidst the meer- schaums and the gutturals, in finishing up a variety of promiscuous and miscellaneous sight-seeing, and in getting my passport vise at some twenty different legations in all quarters of the city. This last pro- cess is a trifle more serious than one would be likely, at first, to imagine. That part of Europe which I am about to visit being divided into a series of king- doms, duchies, principalities, and republics, each about the size of a good Illinois farm, and their agents being scattered over all Paris, and changing their residence continually, and each requiring at least two visits, one to find out the two hours or so in a day during which the office is open, and the other to get your business attended to certainly the EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 67 patriarch of Uz is the only man on record who would be likely to find this a pleasant and agreeable duty. And I believe that even Job, when he found that, be- sides all his trouble, he must sell a camel or two to pay fees at about half these legations, would wish himself back again among the Chaldeans. Have just returned from the office of the Prefect of the po- lice, from whom I have obtained permission to leave Paris, after informing him of my age, residence, pro- fession, destination, time of departure, and route by which I intend to go. (I did not mention the num- ber of shirts I shall carry, nor say any thing abont a large paper bag of sandwiches just prepared for re- freshment on the way.) By some unaccountable mistake, or perhaps by some intentional diplomatic slight, I did not receive an invitation to be present at the closing of the Pal- ace of Industry on Thursday, and so was obliged to take an outside ticket, and stand an hour amongst a crowd of people who were all taller than I, waiting to see the imperial procession pass by. Obtained a fine view, however, (under the arm of a tall coachman in livery,) of the emperor and empress, as they rode slowly and smilingly past in an eight horse coach completely covered with gold and diamonds and spangled footmen. The royal couple endured their 68 MR. DUNN Browne's part in the pageant very gracefully, yet looked as if they fully agreed with me in thi^nking the whole thing a decided bore. The imperial luminaries hav- ing set, (behind the doors of the great palace,) your unworthy correspondent departed from that vast concourse of the living, to find himself soon in the midst of an equally numerous, but not so noisy, multitude of skeletons of the dead, at the immense anatomical museum of the School of Medicine, a collection of wonderful interest and beauty, without any thing repulsive or shocking. Not so the Museum Dupuytren, of morbid, diseased anatomy, which I visited next; the most ghastly and horrible place 1 was ever in, full of all manner of monsters, abortions, and unsightly malformations; skeletons twisted into every possible species of deformity ; all the members and organs of the human system exhibited in every stage of the most frightful and disgusting diseases ; loathsome tumors, cancers, and ulcers which seemed to emit offensive odors though only modelled in wax; in short an abominable collection, fitted to give one the nightmare, and which ought never to be seen by anybody in a world of hope and happiness. (Re- marks to the same effect had been previously made to me, and were my chief inducement for visiting it.) Stepped into the Morgue on the way home, and EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 69 saw the body of a poor drowned man stretched out on one of those dismal benches, where so many thousands of friendless wretches have taken their turn before him, waiting for some chance passer-by to recoifnize and claim the remains for burial. Having proceeded so far in ihi.s line of sight- seeing, I attempted next to get into the Catacombs, and failing of that, went out to the cemetery of P^re le Chaise, a regular city of the dead, with narrow streets, and crowded with inhabitants. I never could rest comfortably, I am certain, with my mortal re- mains confined to such a narrow space, and packed in among such a miscellaneous multitude. Mount Auburn, or Greenwood, or the cemetery at Spring- field, or any one of a dozen others I could name, is infinitely more beautiful, yet Pere le Chaise is full of the most costly and splendid monuments, and hallowed by thousands of illustrious names. The tomb of Abelard and Heloise is the oldest, the grave of Marshal Ney the most interesting, from the fact that it has no stone and no record ; a little iron- inclosed plat of ground planted with flowers, and that is all. The common people are packed in just as closely as the coffins can lie, and the graves are marked with simple wooden crosses, which, in a few years, are all swept away, and a new generation buried on the same ground. 70 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER XVII. WAITING AT THE STATION. Having rashly entangled himself in the intricacies and perplexities of a French railway guide, your unfortunate friend and correspondent finds himself, in consequence, writing this present epistle in the Paris station, instead of being half way to Brussels on the wings of steam. Tumbled out of bed at six o'clock this morning, and hurried away cofFeeless, through the cold, drizzling rain, for the sake of an early start, and now find that our train leaves at half past nine. What nuisances railroads are, in- deed I And for people to pretend that they save time ! Let them come and stop two hours in this cold depot, that's all, pinned down here, too, as I am by a lot of baggage which can't be checked till just before the train starts. Ah! my dear reader, let me warn you never to bring any thing with you on a foreign voyage but a single change of linen, and a EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 71 heart possessed of iiatience. The amount of money and mental anxiety that two carpet bags have cost me is almost incalculable. There, I will leave the things here, while I go to yonder restaurant for coflce and a '*bifteck," and may the man who steals that baggage find it as gi-eat a plague as its present possessor has done, is the worst I can wish him I * * Those stars indicate, not the suppression of any part of this precious epistle, but only the lapse of time necessary to fill an "aching void" in a region just below the heart of the writer thereof; and may also symbolize the brightness of the pair of glorious black eyes which would doubtless have made an impression on the susceptible heart above mentioned, had not the face to which they belonged, been slightly dirty. The hair, too, of the gentle maiden was uncombed, and her dress decidedly dishwatery in its general effect, besides bearing dark evidences of a recent visit to the coal-hole ; in short, that restaurant demoiselle had not expected visitors to breakfast at quite so early an hour ; nevertheless, the grace of a true French woman did not desert her, and, by some mysterious process, those grease stains and coal-spots grew less and less noticeable, and finally disappeared altogether, like spots on the sun when you throw away the smoked glass. As I came 72 MR. DUNN Browne's out of the room, she seemed a very neatly attired young person indeed. My baggage, unfortunately, is all safe, and clings to me with the pertinacity of an inveterate bore, which, in truth, it is. You never need fear having any thing stolen in Paris, however. They know tricks here worth a dozen of that, and will entice the money out of your pocket in the most gentlemanly, courteous, friendly, and truly agreeable manner, with- out once resorting to that stupid, obsolete practice which may bring them into unpleasant relations with the police. Ah, what a volume of sound to come from the throat of such an infinitesimal of a boy! Here, thou very linnet of a gar(;on, what hast thou to sell ? The "Journal pour Rire?" Well, let us see what the Parisians have been laughing at this week. " Reserved places for the monster instrumental con- cert at the Palace of Industry." And where do you think those same places are ? Why, out around the fountains of the Place de la Concorde, about a half a mile distant. And next, here is a picture of a fat butcher, committing suicide by falling upon his own knife, having been reduced to that desperate act by reading the police regulations of the price of meat. " An ingenious method of making in a EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 73 few minutes a pair of excellent shoes," which the picture shows us is done by cutting off the tops of a pair of new boots. " Fifty years hence, the man who will invent stage-coaches will make his for- tune." This little hit at railways is very consonant with my feelings, at the present time. " Fifty years hence, the journals will record this interesting dis- covery: 'It has just been ascertained that feathers from the wings of geese, prepared in a certain m.an- iier, form a delightful substitute for those abominable little bits of pointed iron with which we now write. So this much calumniated animal is about to render us a new service by delivering us for ever from the nuisance of steel pens.'" And here is a column of most execrable French puns, to deliver me from which there goes, in good time, the bell for our train "long looked for, come at last," and just ready to g-o with. Yours in perils, by land and sea, and by rail- road. 74 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER XVIII. BRUSSELS, (with WATERLOO OMITTED). I HAVE arrived in safety at the end of ray first day's journey, as, indeed,' could not well have happened othenA'ise, for, when an individual is once ticketed and labelled for any place by a French railway, it is utterly imposi?ible for him, willing or unwilling, to avoid getting there at the precise time specified. He is so watched and guarded and locked in, and constantly looked after, that no matter how com- plicated may be the route, no matter how many changes of cars, he is not allowed to stay in, or get into, the wrong place for a single instant, he cannot get himself left behind at a way station if he tries, he cannot lose himself, nor commit suicide under the \vheels, nor escape his destination in any other imag- inable way. One can hardly help, under such ex- cessive care, being a little suspicious of a prison at the other end of his route, and looks down, from EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 75 time to time, almost involuntarily to see if his panta- loons are particolored. The country we have passed through is rather uninteresting, as indeed is almost any country in November, full of forests planted in regular rows, women working in the beet fields just like the men, ploughs with two or three wheels and machinery enough ■ for a locomotive, moss-covered, thatched houses, and clumsy wind-mills. Among the most remarkable incidents of travel to day, I saw a man in a railway station eating hard-boiled eggs shells and all, and another in the cars making his break- fast of a piece of bread and a cigar, taking alter- nately a whiff and a bite. I was greatly interested, as we stopped a few min- utes in an old French town, to see a score of little girls play hide and seek in wooden shoes on the stone pavement. The way the little, tiny creatures stole along on tiptoe over the stones in their awkward clogs, about as silently as a yoke of oxen with an empty cart, and pretended not to hear one another's echoing steps, and went spying away into corners where they knew there was n't anybody, and passed resolutely by others where half a dozen little curly heads were peering anxiously out, and so sacrificed themselves and suspended the use of several of their 76 MB, DUNN BROWNE'S senses for the good of the game, was an instance of the pursuit of fun under difficulties such as one rarely sees. And they laughed so joyously and in such good English that it was quite delightful ; and I could have found it in my heart to stop and take a game with them, if our watchful guards would have allowed me. In a bit of difficulty I fell into at the frontier, owing to the custom-house officers not understand- ing their native language very well, a handsome young Dutchman addressed me in very good Eng- lish, helped me out of my quandary, and has been my very amusing and obliging companion ever since. And indeed these Flemish people are altogether the most polite and kind, and agreeable folks I have yet seen, though they do, it must be confessed, drink the most unseemly and incredible quantities of beer ; some of the old guzzlers positively swallowing thirty 'Or forty pints in a single evening. The great room of the hotel where I am now sitting, (with a glass of that same refreshing liquid standing by the side of my inkstand,) contains nearly a hundred people, every one drinking beer, and talking — let us see — I can distinguish French, German, Flemish, and English, at least four different languages. The young Dutchman above spoken of and myself have EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN TARTS. 77 taken a stroll round the town since our arrival. It is an exceedingly weli-lniilt city with a delightful little j)ark full of noble elms and oaks; at least two- line old churches containing not much in the way of pictures, but some good statues and very curious oak carving; a tolerable palace; an arcade decidedly more magnificent than any thing of the kind in either Paris or London; and an equestrian statue of God- frey of Bouillon which is really worth a voyage across the Atlantic to see. The noble crusader has just that air of mingled valor and devotion which befits the heroic conqueror of Jerusalem, who refused to wear a crown of gold in the city where his Re- deemer had borne a crown of thorns. 78 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER XIX. COLOGNE. Succeeding by a desperate effort in getting up suf- ficiently early, I breakfasted and left the pleasant cap- ital of Belgium before 62 o'clock, A. M. Passed through a series of prettily built towns and some of the most romantic and delightful scenery along towards the Prussian frontier, but after entering Prussia,- a rather flat and dull country again, and at last, after enjoying a cold ride of eight hours and meeting no obstructions save a few police officers, we reached the ancient walled town of Cologne, (name in good odor all over the world,) with its un- finished cathedral and " no end " of guides. I never was so pestered in my life. Started from my hotel to visit the cathedral. Several beset me at once in three different languages to take a guide. I pointed to the stately old pile in plain sight before us, and politely answered them in the same number of Ian- EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 79 guages that I didn't want any guide and wouldn't have one if he would pay ine for the privilege. Th^'y polyglotically persisted in assuring me that I never could find the cathedral alone, and followed hard af- tgr me a street or two, but by preserving a resolute silence, I at length shoo!; them off; defeated two more detachments of the enemy on my way, by ask- ing them if they spoke Choctaw, and obstinately re- fusing to understand any other language whatever, and so at last came along-side the object of my search. Being fairly beaten off by the numbers who attacked me at the side door, I proceeded round to the front, and made up my mind to enter at all hazards, and enter accordingly I did, with a foe attached to each coat-tail, and others spread out behind like a pea- cock's train. Affairs getting thus desperate, I turned about just inside the door, facing my pursuers : " Gen- tlemen, I do not desire your assistance in the least. I wish to look at this old church a few moments in peace without anybody to bore me with the precise height of all the arches and age of every pillar, and name of every musty old archbishop who is buried in the chapels. I will never pay one of you a red cent. Will you be kind enough to leave me alone ? " This broadside scattered that party, but the conflict had to be renewed in every corner of the edifice. It is un- 80 MR. DUNN Browne's doubtedly much the cheapest way to hire one of these pertinacious individuals just to scare away the others, and probably by the payment of a double fee you might prevail upon hira to follow you in silence, and keep his superabundant information till it was called for. The cathedral itself, apart from the guides and the scaffoldings, is wonderfully beautiful and dreadfully shabby, so old that it is crumbling to pieces, and so new that it is n't yet half finished, and probably never will be till the world and all things therein are finished together. Having read and admired the great " poem in vStone" for a considerable time, I proceeded to pay my respects to the " 11,000 virgins," who have left their bones piled up in the church of St. Ursula as a sort of anatomical museum for the edification of the faith- ful through many generations. They are very fantas- tically arranged, arms in one place, ribs in another, etc. ; the skulls mostly under glass cases, each with its own pious legend and little embroidered cap, all very pretty and affecting. In the evening I walked over the Rhine on the cu- rious bridge of boats, also circulated promiscuously about the queer old city, (which is more like Rouen than any place I have seen,) causing the greatest anxiety on the part of my good landlord, who thought EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN TARTS. 81 I must surely be deranged to rush out into the crooked streets of a strange town where I could n't speak the language of the inhabitants. I told him it was ridiculous to think of losing a Yankee in a lit- tle city of one hundred thousand inhabitants, sur- rounded, too, by a high wall. He shook his head and remarked that the Americans were a strange people, and I noticed a look of great relief pass over his countenance as I entered, at nine o'clock, safe and sound. The most noticeable thing about the inhab- itants of Cologne and the German people generally, is their intolerable stupidity. Coming from France, where every official answers your questions with the utmost readiness and precision, I had neglected pro- curing Bradshaw's Continental railroad guide, and could not in all Cologne find out the proper route to Gijttingen, a little more than a hundred miles distant, was misdirected at last at the ticket office of the road that connects directly with that to Gottingen, sent twenty-five miles out of the way, and compelled to spend two days in getting where I might have ar- rived in eight or nine hours. In short, or rather, at length, I feel on arriving at this place that, if never before, now certainly, I have acquired a full and per- fect right to subscribe myself, yours truly, Dunn Browne. 6 82 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER XX. GERMAN RAILWAYS AND FIRES. The railway is certainly one of the best ways in which to study the character of a people. The mu- sical tendencies of the people of Belgium and Prus- sia appear in the circumstance that the conductor invariably carries a bugle to announce the departure of the trains, and its cheerful " Tra ra la " is a very pretty improvement on the groans and shrieks with which an American locomotive suggests to the pas- sengers the propriety of getting ready for a start; those ominous sounds which seem to forewarn the thoughtless traveller of the fate that very probably awaits him at the next bridge. The notes of the horn have the further advantage of enabling the guard to convey considerable information as to the size and importance of the various stopping places. A single, short, contemptuous loot of the trumpet announces a mere hamlet, not worth the trouble of looking out the windows at; a more prolonged note. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 83 or a fragment of a tune, proclaims a place of consid- erable size ; and a fine, large city calls out from the gracious official all his skill in a regular little instru- mental concert. Once, however, happening to look back, I observed quite a populous city at a station where our conductor had vouchsafed but a single note. Here, no doubt, was some private pique, some personal feud with the inhabitants, which led to their being thus slandered by the revengeful bugle, but taking for granted an honest guard, with no private animosity to gratify, I can almost promise to give you the precise rilimber of inhabitants along the whole route without once looking at the map, with no other data than that nicely discriminating bugle- horn. To the eastward from Cologne, however, the music is not heard on the railroads, and the scream of the old engine sounds out again hoarser and harsher than ever. An ordinary train upon one of these German roads is about the most leisurely method of getting over the ground that I have ever tried except walk- ing, and I did make a calculation one day whereby 1 concluded it would be easy to gain two miles an hour by going on foot, but that was before I knew the difference between a German and an English mile, so those figures were wasted. The train stops 84 MR. DUNN Browne's at every station, a man walks quietly along its whole length and unlocks the doors ; the guards, engineers, etc., go in and take a few glasses of beer ; by-and-by the man walks along again slowly and locks up the doors ; pretty soon a large bell strikes, then the loco- motive whistles, then a little bell tolls a few minutes, then the conductor bids the smiling bar-maid, with whom he has been chatting, good-by, and blows his little tin whistle ; then the large bell strikes again, the engine whistles once more, and very soon, if no new passengers have arrived meanwhile, makes two or three false motions forward and backward, and gets gruntingly under way, to repeat the same per- formance with variations at the next town. One consolation under this mode of progression is that there is not the slightest danger of accidents, for even if two trains were approaching each other, the passengers would have ample time to get out before the collision, or if they chose to abide the shock within, would probably meet with no more serious injury than a slight disarrangement of curls or the downfall of a hat. A German fire, though, is a decidedly slower op- eration than even the railroad. Fortunately the houses are built in such a substantial manner that it is almost impossible to burn one, and a fire does n't EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 85 occur, for instance, here in GJittingon, once in five years, I am told. A house managed to get kindled, however, the other night, and the ten or twelve thou- sand inhabitants of the place, with the exception of a few sick and infirm people, assembled by beatof drum, and sought to drown the fire with noise, screaming themselves hoarse, ringing the bells and blowing trumpets. Three or four little antiquated engines which had long since fallen into their second child- hood, came out and made wheezy efforts to throw water upon the burning roof, but could n't possibly play higher than the third story windows, and so, having sprinkled a part of the thick stone wall with a few pails of water, (which was brought by a long line of men in buckets and poured into them,) ceased their efforts and left the fire to expire of itself, after leisurely burning up every thing combustible within its reach. 86 MR. DUNN Browne's CHAPTER XXI. A UNIVERSITY TOWN. GiJTTiXGEN is a sort of German " Sleepy Hollow," admirably adapted for a university town, for one is absolutely driven to study as the only attainable amusement. Nothing can be more primitive and homely, and comfortable, and monotonous, and hon- est, than the entire arrangement of things, the whole system of operations, the business, manners, and cus- toms throughout the city. Every thing here was fin- ished long, long ago, and has become gray and ven- erable, crumbling and moss-covered. There isn't a sharp corner nor a fresh bit of paint anywhere to be seen or run against. The houses are bowed down with years at various angles from the perpendicular, and each has a character of its own, worn and wrinkled into its expressive old features. Not a sin- gle young upstart tenement has dared to rise in their midst for centuries, and carpenters and masons are become quite an obsolete institution. None of these EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 87 houses have but one entrance, a pair of huge doors, or gates rather, through which come and go car- riages, horses, ladies and gentlemen, loads of hay, children, servants, dogs, cows, and pigs, without in- terfering with each otiier, all alike eminently respect- able and well-behaved. Any kind of dress which is comfortable is in the fashion, and you can get a pair of boots made large enough for you. An old watch- man perambulates the streets through the night sing- ing out the hour in a monotonous, sleep-inspiring tone, together with various pious precepts and some sound advice in regard to raking out fires and fas- tening up doors, which have thus been nightly re- peated in the somnolent ears of the inhabitants from time immemorial, and without which doubtless no Paterfamilias could rest comfortably between his two feather beds. A German bedstead is a sort of coffin about five feet long and two wide, into which a body squeezes himself and passes the night com- pletely buried in feathers, and digs himself out in the morning exhausted and sutibcated by the un- wholesome covering, unless indeed he has had sufficient strength to kick it off at the first experi- ence of its stifling effects. I never endured the thing but one night, during which I dreamed of un- dergoing no less than four distinct deaths, one by an anaconda necklace, one by a hempen ditto, one by 88 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S the embrace of a grizzly bear, and a fourth in the press of a cider-mill. A German coffin on the other hand is a large, exceedingly heavy box with four stout legs, something like a French bedstead, roofed over, (the roof is just like that of a house, the two boards which compose it being placed at an angle with one another,) and is hung with festoons of flowers and ribbons. The funeral services are very impressive ; but the church fees and funeral expenses are so enormous that I don't see how any but a few of the very wealthiest people can afford to die. There are some ten or fifteen Americans now con- nected with the Gottingen University, most of them studying chemistry under the celebrated Wohler. Not having much taste for the natural sciences, and especially considering chemistry as an unpleasantly smelling branch of study, I have confined my re- searches in that direction to attendance upon a sin- gle lecture of Prof. Wohler. He is a small, thin, scholarly-looking man, with prominent features, sharp eyes, and a feeble voice, who lectured in a quiet, familiar way, without any ceremony, talking in all directions, sometimes towards the heavens, some- times against the blackboard facing the class, so that they had to catch the words as they rebound- ed, very frequently into the neck of a jar or bottle,- and sometimes pouring a sentence or two into a EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 89 drawer he chanced to open, into the coal hole or up the chuTiney ; so that on the whole, I did not un- derstand it very clearly, that part which was to be heard, that is, that part which was to be seen and smelled, (as the subject happened to be the various compounds of suljihur,) was very easy of comprehen- sion, a great deal clearer in fact than the atmosphere of the lecture room. The professor is in delicate health, looks much worn, and very likely will not give many more courses of lectures. He is rather proud of his American students, and pays them a little extra attention. They are a fine set of young fellows who have made my stay here very agreeable, and to whom I owe many thanks. I trust each one of them will rise to the head of his profession when he returns to his country. Of the German students, I have seen very little. They are a rather fine looking body of youngsters, I thought, as they passed in procession at the funeral of the late Professor Fuchs, and study probably as hard as the same class of persons in other countries, certainly infinitely better than American boys would if left to themselves without any daily recitations to attend. It seems to me that a German student's life is the most perfectly independent life that a man can live, and it is no wonder they have ever been leaders in the revolutions of Germany. 90 MR. DUNN Browne's The scenery in this vicinity is the most like that of New England of any which I have yet found, and the weather also is real New England weather, cold, sharp, and bracing. We have had about a week's sleighing, and amusing enough is it to see the way they have here of posting a man on a little project- ing seat behind the sleigh, for nothing else but to crack the whip. He is not the driver at all, but has an immense supernumerary whip which goes off con- tinually with a report like a pistol. Now take a dozen two-horse sleighs with such an accompani- ment behind, and the horses covered with great bells and going at full speed, and you can get a little idea of a grand student sleigh ride in Gottingen. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 91 CHAPTER XXII. CHRISTMAS AT THE "KRONE." To-night is Christmas eve, and all the Americans are invited to spend it with Herr Bettmann, mine host at the " Krone," (name ever dear to the Ameri- cans who have visited Gottingen,) where is to be a Christmas tree and a general jollification. We are h to draw tickets in a lottery of knick-knacks and little trinkets. We are to see the annual presents which good Father Bettmann bestows upon his children and domestics, and the little tokens which they hang on the " Tree " for him and for each other. We are to hear beautiful music and make ourselves agreea- ble to the Herr's pretty daughters in the best German we can muster, as well as listen to the Herr's gra- cious speech in Englisli in honor of his American ^ guests, and such English ! I fear me much our ut- most stretch of politeness will not enable us to un- derstand it very perfectly. We are to have a bit of a supper and see the color of our Host's best wine, 92 MR. du:nn Browne's and find out perhaps whether the real juice of the grape, without any drugs or dye-stuffs in it, is a proper article to taste or not. We are, in short, to get a little glimpse of a German family Christmas gathering, to have a quiet pleasant time to-night ; and then to-morrow your humble servant leaves for Vieima, Trieste, Alexandria, and the Pyramids, hop- ing to return by way of Palestine and Greece. "What do you think of that for a bold enterprise for an individual with less than two hundred and fifty dollars in his pocket? I think the expedition of Na- poleon into those same regions wasn't a circum- stance in comparison. I haven't the slightest idea how much it will cost to get from anywhere to any- where, nor how many camels and Bedouins it will be necessary to buy, but I have already travelled so far with one two hundred dollars, that I consider it a sinful distrust of Providence to doubt my ability to get considerably further with another ; and then as for coming back, why, whatever goes up must come down, whatever goes east must naturally come west again, along with the sun, moon, and the star of empire, and the general tendency of things, all which is in that direction. I have studied German in the last month just enough to forget my French, and now talk a jar- EXPERIENCES IN FOREION PARTS. 93 gon hashed up from tho odds and ends of three diflerent languages. When to my present attain- ments are added a smattering of Awibic, Turkish, Syriac, modern Greek, and Italian, I shall not ex- pect to be understood at all, unless perchance I should visit the site of the ancient Tower of Babel. I have greatly enjoyed studying German. My teachers have been two bright boys of seventeen who are learning English, and the way we have mu- tually slaughtered the two poor languages, has been amusing enough. They couldn't pronounce my " th " and I could n't pronounce their " ch." I have stumbled over their " g's," and they have tripped against our " w's," and we have corrected each other's mistakes, read, talked, and disputed with one another, and been of the greatest mutual advantage. It is the very best way of acquiring a language in my opinion, besides being the cheapest, as you pay the teacher in his own coin. The German, although much harder to learn, is much easier to hear than the French, but both are six times as difficult to learn as the English, because they insist on attaching an arbitrary gender to all inanimate objects instead of leaving them neuter as God made them, and as the English language wisely altevvs them to remain. What reason is there, for instance, why "spoon" 94 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S should be masculine and "fork" feminine? And yet to talk German you must remember it, reason or no reason.* I will not enter just now, however, into a philological dissertation. May something happen before I write again. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 95 CHAPTER XXIII. STARTS FOR THE ORIENT. There is no country life in Germany, as in our own beautiful New England. Everybody lives crowded together in cities and city-like villages. You will travel for miles through a beautiful region, over hills and dales, where you expect every mo- ment to see the pretty country residences and farm- houses and cottages, and find not a habitation till you come down into a little dirty low village, with the houses joining one another like a city, and the gutters in the middle of the narrow, roughly-paved streets, and the dogs, pigs, and still dirtier women and children occupying the gutters, streets, and houses all in common, promiscuously grunting, squealing, jabbering, crying, and barking in villa- nous Low German. I have never seen any thing more disgusting than three or four of these filthy hamlets, which we passed through in getting from Gottingen to Cassel by post. 96 MR. DUNI^ BIlO^YNE'S The German post-wagon or mail-coach is a huge, lumbering, inconvenient contrivance, at least four times as heavy as an American one, carrying two coachmen and having accommodations for only four or six passengers, which makes the expense needlessly great. We were seveti hours with four sets of horses (four each) in making that distance of seven or eight German miles, or about thirty English miles, over a most excellent road, too, but these stupid people can't be persuaded to make any change in the good old ways handed down from former generations. It is very hard for a Yankee to have any patience with this kind of travelling, especially in the winter, but the natives wrap themselves up in two overcoats and a vast fur cloak, put their feet into a monstrous fur bag, lay in a large stock of sausages and other favorite provisions, a couple of bottles of \yine and one of brandy, bring along a meerschaum, a bundle of cigars, and a box of matches, shut up all the win- dows closely, and in this atmosphere of comfort and smoke care not for the length of the journey. Cassel is no doubt a delightful city- in summer, with its mountain and beautiful parks, but in winter has nothing of especial interest except a fine statue of that one of its sovereigns who sold his subjects to EXPEKIEXCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 07 England for tho Amorioan war, and an irnmonso un- finished palace, which was built with Ihe money thus obtained. Some five millions of dollars were expended in raising the walls aljout ten feet high, and then the work was abandoned, awd remains a monument of princely folly. So perish all the treas- ures thus acquired I The present ruler is a very in- ferior-looking personage who has a rather pretty wife, and rides in a carriage drawn by the two finest black horses I have seen. The next place of interest on the route to Dresden is the castle of Wartburg, where Luther was im- prisoned in the house of his friends. It crowns the summit of a mountain hard by the little town of Eisenach, and commands a most magnificent pros- pect in all directions. The interior of the castle has nothing remarkable in its appearance, and the armor and other curiosities there preserved, hardly pay for the trouble of seeing, so the whole interest of the place centres in the Luther's chamber. I of course inscribed my name amidst the ten thousand that are written under and around the ink-spot on the wall that marks the place where the Devil had such a narrow escape from becoming a shade blacker than his natural color. The spot remains quite dis- tinct and fresh, and has, I have no doubt, a new ink- 7 98 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S bottle thrown at it every year for preservation. The room is not in the castle itself, but in an adjoining building now used as a beer saloon, and infested by all the roisterers of the neighborhood ; at least on the day I visited it, there were collected at least a hundred, drinking and smoking and singing at a rate which would have seriously disturbed the great re- former's meditations if he were still a resident of his " Patmos." I had barely time to examine the relics and furniture of the apartment, and sit a few moments on the whale's vertebra, which was used by Luther as a footstool, take another last glimpse at the grand and varied scenery, and slip down the icy mountain in time for the train to Erfurt, where I have just arrived, at nine o'clock Wednesday evening, December 26, 1855. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 99 CHAPTER XXIV. ERFURT TO DRESDEN. . Made an exploration of this fortified Prussian city from nine to eleven, P. M., wandering about alone, as usual, gathering information from all the people I fell in with, meeting with a variety of little amusing adventures, and getting p. magnificent moonlight view of the odd old two-storied cathedral, which is a rather stupid building by daylight I am told, but was perfectly enchanting and poetical by Luna's gentle beams. Forgot the name of my hotel, and lost my points of compass a little in wandering around and under and over the cathedral, so that I began to think it would be necessary to seek other quarters for the night, but rambling along with a young soldier who was just off duty as sen- tinel, and was .much interested in talking about America, we came to a house which looked a little natural, and going in found it was all right, so the 100 MR. DUNN Browne's young sentinel bade me a very affectionate farewell, and I soon retired to the everlasting two feather- beds, but succeeded at last in making arrangements with the chambermaid for the removal of the upper one. She imjiarted to me several items of interest- ing information, one of which was, that there are no other beds in Germany than these little narrow ones, and so husband and wife have two ranged side by side, and she evidently considered the American custom rather improper. Early in the morning after effecting an entrance almost by violence into the old monastery, where Luther first found the Bible, (which building is now occupied as an orphan asylum,) I spent a few mo- ments in his little cell, which contains most of his furniture and even his venerable inkstand, (not the same one probably which was used as a projectile at Wartburg,) whereinto I also dipped my pen, and without breaking off from the train of reflections inspired by such a visit, succeeded in getting on to the train for Leipsic, having enjoyed my little hur- ried moonlight glimpse of Erfurt as well perhaps as if time had permitted a week's visit. Stopped a half hour at the dull old university town of Halle, and spent the afternoon in busy, bustling Leipsic; busy at least now, in the time of the great Christ- EXPERIEXCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 101 mas fair; the streets crowded with booths and thronged with buyers and sellers from all Germany, and the rest of the world too, if one were to judge by the variety of costumes presented to the eye. The most curioits was that of the peasant girls, clad in long black stockings with red garters at the knee, a coarse blue or green petticoat reaching down to the same point, so close as hardly to allow any movement of the limbs, and a loose tunic of some gay color fastened with a knotted girdle at the waist. Not wishing to be a mere idle spectator of the busy scene, and noticing that leather seemed to be the leading article in the market, your humble ser- vant proceeded to examine a whole street full of sole leather, assisted by the anxious sellers of the same, setting down a variety of prices and qualities on a bit of paper, with a view to very extensive pur- chases, but before bringing any negotiation actually to a crisis, became weary of business and tired of the smell of leather, so ceasing the scrutiny of a merchant and assuming the more careless air of a mere observer, passed through the city in two or three directions, walked around the Boulevards, (which are very fine, planted with noble trees) ; reconnoitred the castle of Pleissenburg with an in- tensely military look; conversed a few minutes ill' 102 MR. DUNN Browne's reference to its strength with a very erect officer with mustachios actually at least five inches in length ; took a glass of wine with the same fiercely polite individual in the famous " Auerbach's cellar," where Goethe has laid one of the most striking scenes of his " Faust," (every one will recollect the German students' drinking scene, where Mephistophiles draws all sorts of liquors out of a hole in the table,) and hurried away to Dresden, the splendid capital of rich Saxony ; at which place we arrived too late for ray usual evening exploration of the city, and T could only contrive one little adventure by losing my way to the hotel to which I had been recom- mended, and accepting the guidance of a little curly- headed boy, who took me very naturally to an inn kept by his own father, which although perhaps not remarkably elegant in its accommodations, has at least the merit of being cheap enoug-Ji, (five groschen, or twelve and a half cents, for lodgings). The kind old lady, my hostess, has a son in America, (Rio Janeiro to be sure, but she, good old soul, doesn't know but that Brazil and Massachusetts are adjoining states or different names for the same,) and so fixes up for my meals all sorts of German luxuries and delicacies, (I have tasted five different kinds of sausages yesterday and to-day). EXrERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 103 CHAPTER XXV DRESDEN, THE SPLENDID. I HAVE seen Raphael's famous " Madonna di San Sisto," and, unlike most famous and celebrated things, it surpasses all one's expectations. The face of the Virgin is the most lovely, pure, and holy countenance I ever gazed upon, or ever dreamed of, or ever pic- tured to my fancy. It is a perfect ideal of female beauty and heavenly virtue. And it is praise enough to say of the other figures of the picture, that they are worthy of a place beside that loveliest creation of earthly artist. The sweetness and innocence of the Divine Child, and in the lower part of the painting the noble features of the pious old man (San Sisto) in contrast with the youthful countenance of Santa Barbara, both upturned in rapt adoration, as also the two lovely cherubs who look admiringly up fiom be- neath, are all in harmony, and form one simple, uni- ted whole, which produces an effect all gentle and soothing, elevating, devotional. Even the little, 104 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S chiibby-faced, blue angels which form the sky in the background, and which are an intolerable nuisance in most pictures of the kind, are so faintly portrayed and the coloring is so admirable, that they add to, rather than detract from, the general eifect. After sti'olling through the whole Dresden gallery, I sat half an hour in communion with this glorious paint- ing, (which deservedly has a whole apartment to itself,) and again just before leaving for Prague, went in to take a farewell look ; and it was like parting with a dear friend whose memory will ever abide with me, sweet and precious while I live, and such faces hope I to see in Heaven when I die. There are plenty more fine paintings in this gal- lery, but the most noted one, " La Notte " of Correg- gio, does n't at all suit the taste of the writer hereof, quite the contrary; in fact it is decidedly ugly. Every thing about it appears strained and unnatural, full of affectation and striving after effect. It may, no doubt, be decidedly original, but many original things besides original sin are not beautiful. There is a beautiful " Mary Magdalen " by Correggio though,, that one does n't need to be an artist to admire. Here are also Guido's " Christ crowned with thorns," of which everybody has seen a copy, and the celebrated " Tribute money " of Titian, and EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 105 several fine modern paintings, one of which espe- cially, I greally admired, representing Napoleon in his imperial robes, by Gerard. On ihe whole, the Dres- den gallery is an exceedingly satisfactory one to visit, admirably arranged in a noble new building, and not huge and endless like the Louvre to weary one by its vaetness. The city of Dresden, too, is worthy of its reputa- tion, adorned with magnificent buildings, having an unrivalled terrace along the bank of the Elbe, two costly stone bridges, any number of palaces and col- lections of antiquities and the fine arts, beautiful parks, one of the finest theatres in the world, and two remarkable churches, one of which, the Frauenkirche, or church of the women, (why so called, I have n't any idea ; to be sure, only women go there usually, but that is true also of all the German churches,) deserves a whole letter of description to itself. It is of wonderful solidity, and has a lofty dome. The central portion of the edifice is a perfect circle, in whose circumference are eight massive pillars, which divide the outer portion into as many separate com- partments, each of which — save one for the altar — has five stories of galleries, and all have separate entrances and winding stone staircases built in the wall ; and then these galleries have such complicated 106 MR. DUNN Browne's internal arrangements, such varieties of seats and pews and boxes closed up like rooms with win- dows in front, such unexpected nooks and corners and hiding-places, that I felt it quite a mercy to get out of the labyrinth in safety. It is possible to see and hear the preacher only in a few of the most prom- inent parts of the building, which is more of a.thea- tre than a church, and more of a beehive than a the- atre, but not much like any thing in the world save itself, and needs to be seen to be appreciated. Dresden is the first place where women have been in attendance to carry baggage from the station to the hotel. Here they do every thing. I saw three dogs and two women drawing a load of bricks not an hour ago, and a woman with an enormous basket of wood on her back leading a donkey with just about the same quantity on his back in panniers. Ah, in no country in the world are the women held in such consideration as in America, and tio other country either has such women to care for. Thank God I am the son and the brother, and would that I could add also the husband, of an American woman. With which outburst of patriotic gallantry I think I may safely close this chapter. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 107 CHAPTER XXVI. PRAGUE, THE HOMELY. Through Saxon Switzerland, along the banks of the Elbe to Bodenbach, the Austrian frontier, is a most romantic country, a virgin earth that has never been defiled by the plough, an uncivilized region that has defied the weapons of man and retained its prim- itive independence. Rough cliffs rise up abruptly from the river, some one hundred, some three hun- dred, and some a thousand feet, full of chasms and abysses, dark, grim, and frowning, yet many of them wearing a glittering crown of snow, and covered down their sides with a green mantle of firs, wher- ever a tree or a bush can catch hold, or be tied on, or driven in. Here you see how an old moss-covered house has climbed up in its youth to a dizzy height, and fearing to descend, has remained seated on a pro- jecting ledge, and grown old and shaky and venerable ; there you see a stone bridge by some magic thrown across a frightful ravine hundreds of feet in depth, 108 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S and yonder a little village squeezed into a crevice or fastened with mortar on to the steep monntain-side. Believe me, the winter is the time to travel through a wild, mountainous region. I have lost much I fear by deferring my visit to Switzerland till the approach- ing summer. The white snow, the green forests and the black cliffs, uniting in a thousand combinations, form such striking pictures, changing continually before our eyes, (an occasional tunnel answering for a curtain during the shifting of the scenes,) and pre- sent such a succession of glorious landscapes, that I feel exceedingly thankful that I am not an artist, lest I too should be tempted to put on canvas some of those caricatures of the face of nature which I have seen shamelessly paraded in the galleries, and admired and bepraised by those who pass with per- fect indifference through the most magnificent natu- ral scenery. Pictures of men and women and horses and animals and battles are all well enough in their way, but show me the man who can paint a tree as it ought to be painted not to be a mockery of that beautiful work of God, a single tree, or even but one branch, and it will be what I have not yet seen in any collection of landscapes. At the delightful little town of Bodenbach, with its great castle, gi'aceful suspension bridge, its two EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 109 railway tunnels in solid rock, aiicl above all, its curi- ous houses with cunning little curved windows pre- cisely like eyes peeping out of the roof, first appears the gray Austrian uniform, and thenceforward polite police officers hover ever about us and examine our passports just about as often as the conductor does our tickets. Everybody and every thing assumes a kind of auhdiicd, g-overned aspect; even nature lier- self seems here at last to surrender to the arbitrary power of man. The j^-oud craggy mountains hum- ble themselves into docile submissive hills, and allow their sleek sides to be curried into fertility by the har- row and the plough ; the free monarchs of the forest cower down into the tamest of fruit-trees ; all nature fairly "flats out" into a big orchard, and presents such an aspect of cowardly servility that it is quite a comfort that night approaches to throw a veil of darkness over the degenerate scene. . . . Three hours refreshing sleep by the side of a plump Austrian dame, (don't be shocked, my dear friends, remember it was in a railway car,) and we are in Prague, another of those dear old towns, like Rouen and Cologne, which are not handsome nor well built, but are more interesting than twenty fine cities, if one will but ramble about in its nooks and corners to search out its curious sights. 110 MR. DUNN Browne's After a hasty supper I sailed forth for a stroll, and it was like plunging into a bath of darkness. The lights are few and far between, and the whole city is full of tunnels and arches. You cannot get from one street into another, or on to a bridge or into a house even without creeping under a low arched passage, most curious architecture every- where I assure you. Did n't see very much in such a state of things, but talked an immense quantity of rather indifferent German with various victims who fell into my society on the way. One young musician wished to know what his prospects would be in America, and took out his flute to show me in the middle of a long bridge where it was so dark I could not teU it from a pistol. Considering that a not very sharp action, I advised him not to go to America, saying that the Yankees were not very fond of any music but that of the hard dollars ringing on the counter. Conversed with several soldiers also, who were greatly shocked to hear of the smallness of our army in the United States, and wondered how order could be preserved, property protected, etc. But I will not bore you with a de- tail of all the little adventures of an evening in Prague, which would not probably be so amusing told in the day as they were acted in the dark among EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. Ill total strangers, speaking a foreign language. Suffice it to inform you of the safe arrival, before eleven o'clock, at his hotel, without a guide, of your humble traveller and servant. 113 AIR. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER XXVII. A DOOR OPENS, AND SHUTS AGAIN. First I wish you a happy New- Year jnst as the clock has finished striking twelve, Tuesday morn- ing, January 1, 1856, in the coffee-room of a rail- way station at Briinn, some sixty miles or so from Vienna, where we stop two or three hours in the middle of the night and improve the time in eat- ing beefsteaks and drinking coffee, to which delight- ful employment I now^ turn, devoting the first hour of the new year to recruiting the system from the fatigues of the last ten hours of the old year There are about a dozen soldiers and as many fur- coated travellers lounging about the room, eating, smoking, and drinking beer, several pleasant ladies with immense muffs, several poor women with big bundles, and the usual number of railway officials. They are all exceedingly curious in regard to the " Americaner," ask me innumerable questions, re- peat my answers to one another and talk about me EXPERIEXCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 113 as freely as if I could n't understand a word thoy say, and now that I unscrew my little inkstand and sit down to write, they gaze at me with great atten- tion as if I were a sort of learned pig, and it was quite a treat to see that 1 knew how to use a j^en. It is a little uncomfortable for so modest an individ- ual as myself to be the subject of such extreme curiosity, but travellers soon get over the weakness of blushing. A grave old gentleman in gray hair and gray fur coat has just been warning me very impressively not to gamble when I get to Vienna, and I have at last satisfied him, I think, that my weakness doesn't lie in that particular direction. A little black-eyed Bohemian lass of a dozen years, asked me a few minutes ago if my mother knew where I was spending my New-Year's night. Do' you, my dear mother? Then is maternal clairvoy- ance most clear-sighted of all. But I enjoyed good, motherly old Prague so well that I must even say a few things more about her. There are lots of churches within her bounds, built with no sort of taste, according to no rules of ar- chitecture, and within all gilt and tinsel, yet rather- interesting after all. One has two queer towers with funny little towerets bursting out on all sides of them like top-onions. 8 114 MR. DUNN BROAVNE'S The fortifications are very strong, especially a sort of castle on a high hill in one corner. In my stroll this morning I walked up, as far as possible, till at last 1 came to an immense iron gate reaching quite across the street, and was turning to go away when lo, the massive folds unlocked with a tremendous crash, and swung majestically open, while two tall mus- tachioed sentinels, in steel breast plates and gray pan- taloons, armed with bayoneted muskets and swords drawn, appeared and, touching their helmets, begged to know what I wanted. Summoning up my polit- est German, I made the best explanation possible, and my interrogators, finding that no distinguished general or sovereign was seeking admittance, but only one of the sovereign Yankees taking a morning airing, retired with another grim salute, while the formidable iron jaws shut again with a snap as it were of disappointment at not catching me. This rehearsal of "much ado about nothing" being well over, your wanderer next found himself stuuibling along a sort of out of door market, over all sorts of odds and ends, old iron, tin ware, wooden ware, earthen ware, old clothes, rags, straps, and buckles, as if all the garrets in the world were emp- tied there and their contents assorted and arranged for sale, under the superintendence of sharp women, EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN TARTS. 115 seated on high stools, all wrapped in shawls and knit- ting with big wooden needles as if for dear life, with the thermometer all the while nearly down to zero. And the way they accosted me with " My pretty gen- tleman," " My darling prince, what will you buy ? " " Bless your handsome face, are you in want of a tea-kettle to day ? " etc., was certainly a caution to a timid gentleman, and a lesson in Germa?i aflfec- tionate epithets that it would take a dictionary some time to teach you. I swallowed more sugar-coated German in a half hour than I could digest in a week. 116 MR. DUI^N BROWXE'S CHAPTER XXVIIl. ^ VIENNA, THE MAGNIFICENT. Vienna, beautiful, gay, lively, rich, aristocratic Vienna : the streets thronged with liveried carriages and magnificent horses driven at a furious rate, to the imminent peril of all foot-passengers: a gor- geously dressed, fur-mantled porter with a long gilt wand, standing proudly at each nobleman's door: warlike Vienna, with armed soldiers confronting you at every turn, and every great building a casern (barracks) which isn't a palace ; pious Vienna, where people go to church at all hours of the day, men, women, and children : suspicious Vienna, where every thing you say and do is watched, and your let- ters broken open, (much good may this do them,) where you cannot change your hotel without going to the police for permission : paper-money Vienna, where you pay for a cup of coffee with two or three bank-notes of eight cents each, and don't see a bit of specie (save copper) once a week : cold, frosty Vi- EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 117 enna, where you l)ny frozen apples at the markets, and the manners of the people are as cold as their noses exposed to the icy air of the Danube: Vienna, (a great many more adjectives might be applied but time fails,) is a truly imj)erial city, full of imposing buildings and interesting places to visit, and yet somehow I like it less than any great city I have vis- ited. There isn't any thing homely, good-natured, and jolly here, but all is proud, grand, ceremonious, stiff, and splendid. Have visited one or two picture- galleries, twenty or thirty churches, a great many cabinets of natural history, a few palaces, and, most interesting of all, the imperial stables, where six hun- dred noble steeds are lodged most royally and fare sumptuously every day, dutifully attended by three hundred two-legged servants. The apartments of their Equine Highnesses are at once splendid and comfortable, free from the scent of the. stable an4 clean as a lady's parlor. Their blankets are em- broidered with the imperial crest, their harnesses, saddles, and all their equipments, are of the most costly kind, and generally in excellent taste. In one- large hall are some two hundred carriages, of which the cheapest cost two or three thousand dollars, and the coronation carriage, adorned with paintings by Rubens, and covered with diamonds and gold. 118 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S wheels and all, cost about two liundred and fifty- thousand dollars. Another hall, filled with state saddles and trappings of various descriptions, is still more magnificent. Bat the animals themselves, un- like most occupants of palaces, far outshiiie all their exterior adorntnents. The bright, fiery, intelligent eye, the proudly arching neck, (the horse is the only animal whom pride really becomes,) the form of per- fect symmetry, the delicate but powerful limbs, the grace of every movement, the gentleness and cour- tesy with v/hich they receive every little attention bestowed upon them, the high-bred nobleness and dignity of their whole deportment, filled me with ad- miration. I would rather have my choice from those six hundred horses, than the imperial crown of their owner. The carriage horses are all white, but those for riding are of all colors, some magnificently black. The imperial collections of natural history are not remarkable, excejjt the collections of birds and espe- cially the mineralogical cabinet, which is gorgeous almost beyond dcscri ption. There are about one thou- .sand diamonds, some rough, and some cnt and set in rings, a great bouquet a foot high, all glittering with jewels, and bees, bugs and butterflies made of pre- cious slones, settling on the flowers of like material. There arc huge goblets cut from crystal; necklaces, EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 119 cups, boxes, and all kinds of trinia'ts, of onyx, agates, opals, and emeralds; a glorious rock crystal from Mad- agascar, three feet long, weighing one hundred and fifty pounds, of almost perfect clearness and i)urity ; a splendid collection of petrified woods; great quan- tities or gold and silver and i)latina, some lumps of eight, ten, twenty, and even sixty pounds weight; all sorts of ores, metals, meteorites, fossils, etc., etc. I won't bore you with a description of the pictures I have seen, although there are some exceedingly good ones in the Lichtenstein palace, nor of the churches except to say that they are very numerous and costly and in execrably bad taste, all crowded with miserable pictures and images, relics and all manner of abominations that can unite to spoil the simplicity that ought to characterize the house of God. Even St. Stephen's, which has, I think, the finest tower I have seen, of exquisite propor- tions and most curious carving, and whose inte- rior is very striking and impressive, has a great re- dundancy of ornament, and is disfigured by tinsel and gilding. l>ut it is a delightiul place to visit in the evening for the music, to wander about in the dark aisles and corners of the church, and hear the solemn tones of the organ reverberating amidst the columns and arches. In the Italian church is a eel- 120 MR. DUNN Browne's ebrated copy in Mosaic, of immense size, of " The Last Supper,'' of Leonardo da Vinci, which was carried by Napoleon to Paris from a church in Italy, retaken by the allies in 1815, and finally brought to Vienna; a splendid work of art, for the sight of which, as well as of several other interesting things, I am indebted to the kindness of an art-loving tailor whom I met in the streets, and who, seeing I was a stranger, left his business and spent the afternoon in visiting places of interest about the city with me. May he be appointed tailor to His Royal Imperial Catholic Apostolical Highness (that is the right title, I believe,) Francis Joseph, and make his fortune. EXPEIIIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 131 CHAPTER XXIX. TRIESTE AND VENICE^ PROSE AND POETRY. From Vienna to Trieste is a long, liard, miserable journey, about eighty miles of it by post, through a desolate chaos of a country, apparently made up of the odds and ends that were left at the creation, pitched in together in one grand jumble of rocks, mountains, chasms, and precipices. The inhabitants speak German, ever pronouncing it rougher and harder, however, this side Vienna, so that at last 1 was obliged to remain silent half a day, because I can only speak broken German, and this was so hard it would n't break. Towards Trieste the people in the miserable villages we passed through don't seem to speak any thing in jjurticular, but communicate with each other mostly by signs, assisted a little by a Sclavonic dialect composed of equal parts of Rus- sian, German, and Italian, with a slight sprinkling of very bad Latin. From this barren desert of a coun- try we emerged at last on the verge of some tremen- 122 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S doiis cliffs where we had a fine view of — the thick fog which covered the Adriatic, and then zigzagged down the mountain some fifteen hundred feet into the dirty, busthng town of Trieste, which is squeezed in between the sea and the cliffs, and has suffered considerably in the process. There being absolutely nothing to see here, proceeded to see when I could get out of it by calling at the office of the Lloyd steamship company. Finding there were three days to spare before the steamer for Egypt left, I started at once for Ven- ice and have spent that little morsel of time in the most poetical of cities ; have made the tour of the grand canal in a gondola, (and been shockingly cheated by a gondolier,) have stood on the Rialto and the Bridge of Sighs, explored the dungeons of the palace of the Doges, have walked in the most lovely of all places, the Place St. Mark, by daylight, by gas- light, and by moonlight; and have seen as much of the romantic city of Lagunes as could well be seen in the time I believe, at least I was as tired when I came back on board the steamer for Trieste as I ever was after a week's hard labor in my father's hay-field. 'J'he most striking thing about the city is of course the canals and the utter absence of horses and vehicles in the streets, which are usually only EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 123 little alloys about three feet wide, with occasion- ally a bit of a square in front of a cjnux-h. 'I'hc churches are very magnificent and full of the monu- ments of distinguished Doges and other remarkable individuals of whom I never heard. The church of St. Mark is by far the most interesting of them all, covered with mosaic outside and in, above and below. The floor is very curious, with all manner of (|uaint figures and of all possible colors, and sunk in many places so that it presents a succession of hill and dale to your footsteps. The walls have the quaint- est mosaic pictures and queer inscriptions and strange carved figures and old gilding, and there arc so many domes, and every thing is so totally difiercnt from any other church that was ever built, and so rich in a sort of old-fashioned, faded way, and has such an Oriental, Arabian Nights kind of look, that you can't really believe in it even while you are standins: therein. So it is with all Venice. I can hardly make up my mind whether it is a dream or a waking reality ; whether I have really seen the winged lion of St. Mark and the four celebrated ■bronze horses, and elinibed llic high bell tower for a morning look at the Queen of the Seas, or it is only a vision ; if the latter, then somebody has stolen ten or a dozen dollars out of my meagre and 124 MR. DUXN BROWXE'S fast collapsing purse, that is all. And T find in my mennorandum-book also a veritable cobweb which I have a pretty distinct recollection of gathering in the deepest under-water dungeon of the Ducal Palace. Of the paintings of Venice, I only saw one gal- lery, and there is one picture worth all the rest a hundred times told, Titian's " Assumption," almost equal to Raphael's Madonna at Dresden, and with more character and expression in the countenance, I think, than in the sweet, girlish face of Murillo's " Assumption" in the Louvre at Paris. And now at last I am actually on board the steamer bound for Alexandria, and have glided past many beautiful mountainous islands in the Adriatic and Mediterranean, and have stopped a few hours at Corfu, green, beautiful, strong, fortified Corfu, and have eaten freshly plucked oranges, and to-morrow will actually be in Egypt, and see Pompey's Pillar, and Cleopatra's Needle ; unless another storm burst upon us, for we have had a storm ; a dreadful, wild, raging storm on a dangerous coast ; a sudden, ter- rific white squall that nearly carried us into eternity at the first crash ; a hard, persevering, tenacious storm that has thumped and pounded our strong, brave old ship for a day and two nights with heavy leaden blows, and has knocked into a thousand EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN TARTS. 125 pieces and carried away two of our boats and some of the upper works of tiie ship ; a storm such as I have always had a secret longing to see, but am per- fectly satisfied with once beholding; not a ]:)oetical storm where the waves rolled mountain-high and all that nonsense, but an actual storm where two stronsf winds met and struggled for the mastery, and the poor ship trembled and gi-oaned between them, where the waves were not very high but fierce and dreadfully angry and dashed against us and over us with earnest, fearful malignity, with " malice pre- pense ; " but our Father in Heaven hath preserved us, and in a measure calmed the waves, and we have every prospect of reaching xVlexandria in safety to-morrow. 126 MR. DUXN Browne's CHAPTER XXX. SUMMIT OF THE CHEOPS PYRAMID. Rather poetical is n't it, this inditing an epistle, sitting on the highest stone of the greatest and old- est pyramid, with the green valley of the Nile before me and an infinite sea of desert all around ; with the Sphynx a little speck at my feet, and the mummies of half a dozen ancient cities in sight, or rather just sinking out of sight into the remorseless sand that is drifting upon them ; sitting upon the crumbling old pyramid, which the jaws of Time himself have found too tough a morsel to crush, and must be content with gnawing off crumbs from its surface, and smoothing its sides down into a sleek mountain which posterity shall forget to have been the work of men's hands ; perched on the crown of the ragged, dilapidated old giant, whose smooth granite coat has been stripped off his shoulders to adorn the up- start Cairo, an infant of a thousand years or so on the other side of the Nile. Rather romantic, writing EXPERIENCES IX FOREIGN PARTS. 127 you from the top of the Cheops, amidst a picturesque group of Bedouins, Englishmen, and Yankees, who are noisily engaged in all the dilTerent occupations that can possibly be carried on in such circumstan- ces ; talking poetry, discussing the sites of lost cities, cracking jokes at the expense of the respectable old Egyptians who piled up the pyramids, selling and buying various rather dubiously authenticated antiquities, paying sundry shillings to see an Arab go up and down the second pyramid in ten min- utes, drinking Nile water and champagne, laughing, lunching, and dealing in relics, a foot of a mummy per- haps in one hand and a leg of a turkey in the other. Rather a case of the pursuit of literature under dilllculties, isn't it, this writing when one's hand is a little shaky with the fatigue of climbing a couple of hundred three feet steps without any help, with a little quill two inches long, paper spread out on a stone, and a Bedouin boy holding the inkstand, (a German pocket inUhorn which unscrews in half a dozen places and is as complicated as a Yankee pa- tent rat-trap) ; but I promised to date you an epistle from the pyramids, and my promise is fullllled, even though I stop here and partake of the cold fowl which my companion offers me, leaving the re- mai-nder of the sheet to be filled in Cairo 128 MR. DUNN Browne's And so at last one part of my pilgrimage is ended, I have seen the great monuments of Egypt from afar and near at hand ; have walked around them, gathered a handful of sand at their feet, climbed to their summit and crawled into their heart, surveyed their desolations, felt their grandeur, been disap- pointed at their shabbiness, sympathized with their loneliness, picked up stones that have rested against the bosom of the Sphynx, descended into the old, broken tombs, and transported myself in a granite sarcophagus three thousand years up the stream of time. The emotion of beauty is inspired only at a distance, that of sublimity only close at hand, but the feeling of sadness and desolation everywhere in their vicinity. The desert is their appropriate place ; the mutilated Sphynx, the ruined causeways, the de- serted tombs, the broken fragments of marble and granite, the half obliterated inscriptions, and the de- caying pyramids themselves, are all in perfect har- mony, harmoniously mournful; one grand Necropolis, and worse than that a deserted burial-place, so gloomy that even its dead inhabitants have aban- doned it, and the last trumpet itself shall stir into life no dust in those tenantless tombs. I was disappointed to find the stone of the pyra- mids of so poor a quality and the courses so irregular. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 129 Even the hundred feet of facing that remains at the aj3ex of the second in size is crumbling away, and has so many crevices that the ascent is by no means difficult, though the descent in one or two places where the crevices are four or five feet apart, is so slippery an operation that some of his friends watched with a little anxiety Mr. Browne's down- ward progress, and expected to pick him up in sev- eral pieces on the plain below. The accommodations in the interior of the great pyramid are much more limited than a survey of its exterior would naturally lead one to imagine, consist- ing of a very small cellar one hundred and fifty feet deep, a diminutive drawing-room on the first floor, and a tolerable bedchamber in the second story, with two or three miserable attics, and the arrange- ments for ventilation are so poor that a fat English- man in our company fainted and had to be carried out. INIy experience would not l^ad me to recom- mend it as a residence for any great length of time,, though I believe the builder intended to take up his permanent abode therein. The greatest nuisance of the visit to Ghizeeh is the swarm of dirty, half-naked Arabs, who fasten^ themselves upon you, and cannot be shaken off, not even by the payment of money, for they build up their- 9 130 MR. DUNN Browne's demands upon you on the model of the pyramids themselves, first laying down a large sum for a foun- dation, and then when you have paid that, superad- ding another not quite so large, and another, and another, like the different courses of stone, decreas- ing as they go up, till at last you get out of all patience, and knock off their apex with the biggest club you can lay hands on. Be careful to hit them on the head, however, or you may do them some se- rious injury. Yours, out of the land of Egypt. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 131 C H AFTER XXXI. INTRODUCES YOU TO SUNDRY INTERESTING PEOPLE. Would you like to call npoii me at my lodgings in Cairo ? Ah, well, I can easily direct you. After you come, by a rather complicated route, to the Italian Bazaar, turn up a narrow lane to the left, (not the one by the old shoemaker's with a long pipe in his mouth, but further on at the corner where the young woman sells oranges sitting on the ground with a baby in her lap,) then take the right along a ruined wall and some ragged beggars, and bear to the left again through a low, arched gateway, down a street lined with donkey-boys, till you come to a small door on which a torn theatre- bill is pasted, which door you enter, pass under the house, through the stable in the rear, out into another street about three feet wide, where you will probably meet a long train of camels laden with stones and with dripping water-skins, take the Second turning to the left round the decayed mosk painted in red 132 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S and wliite horizontal stripes, and then, as the way becomes now rather difBcult to find, you had better go back to the street of donkey-boys above men- tioned, and engage one of them, (the lit.tle fellow with one eye and a remarkably wicked-looking crop-eared donkey knows where "Milord Browne" lives,) and ride the remaining distance. We are in a very aristocratic part of the city, in the vicinity of several legations and consulates, near several eminent bankers, etc., and like our quarters very much, both myself and the recently arrived — Oh, I am afraid I haven't mentioned yet, the arrival of a party of old college friends, pale- faced devotees of the Muses, you know, who have burned down their lamp of existence, in midnight studies, to about the last flicker, and come out here to get tilled and trimmed again ; men who have climbed to the very summit of the Hill of Science, and are now come down on the other side to rest a little ; who have disentangled themselves from Greek roots, and the horns of logical dilemmas, and metaphysical paradoxes, to come out and take a look at the pyramids and get acquainted with the sphynx and make a cruise on " the ship of the desert." Ah, \\iell, it was better than a circus to see them ride in on donkeys, night before last, at the EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 1.33 north-western ga'fe of the city, surrounded by a halo of dusky Arabs bearing their portmanteaus, shawls, and mackintoshes. You see I was just starting out, after my custom, to take a little evening air and a bit of Egyptian sunset, with a couple of pyramids in it, and was meditating as I walked along, upon the advisability of setting off alone for Joppa and Jericho, or of waiting here a little longer, on the remote possibility that tny friends might have health enough to reach these distant shores and accompany me on my pilgrimage, when my thoughts were interrupted by an apj)roaching tumult, and there quickly appeared, emerging from a cloud of dust and donkey-drivers, a round, rosy, aldermanic individual, ambling along on an aged gray donkey, who seemed to me so much like an enlarged and improved edition of my young friend " Dick ,*' that he was seized and greeted under that familiar appella- tion in less time than I could describe the additional twenty pounds of him that I had never seen before. And the rest of that imposing cavalcade, as they successively came up, were attacked in a similar manner and robbed — of a good deal of anxiety which they professed to have felt at not finding me in Alexandria. Let us see, first there was " George, the Magnificent^^'* he of tall stature and stately mien. 134 MR. DUNN Browne's with beard and moustache black *as jet, sitting in upright dignity on the smallest of donkey-kind, obliged to lift nji his feet considerably lest his steed should go out from under him. Next, vigorously belaboring with an umbrella the most refractory of asinine species, preceded by a pair of gold spectacles and a formidable moustache, looking the very personi- fication of health, came the " Professor^'' (whose modesty prevents my designating him any more particularly,) who a year ago was nothing but an untied bundle of unstrung nerves, but now can bear any amount of fatigue, doesn't know the meaning of the word " nerve " except by tracing it out etymo- logically, and will explore more ruins and catacombs and such antique trumpery in a day than any person I know of, unless it be perhaps — well I am a mod- est individual and will pass on to the next topic, which is one of no less importance than our " Wil- liam the Conqveror^^ who approaches, guiding with unequalled skill his prancing steed, in all the glory of an oriental beard reaching wellnigh to his girdle, a regular Arab.shekh in grace and solemnity of bearing, distinguished for a certain wild, poetical enthusiasm of character and an utter contempt and disregard of every thing of a pecuniary or business nature, all which therefore devolves upon his intimate EXPERIEXCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 135 friend, the practical " Is/mm,'' (good old Scripture name you see,) who rides up next on a very demure donkey, ^^ Ishom, (lie Blond,'^ as wc usually call him, on account of a peculiar delicacy'of complexion. He is our main reliance in all matters of business, but of singular obtuseness in reference to every thing of a jocular nature, so that his friends delight to perpetrate puns in his presence, in order to watch the workings of his countenance as he vainly endeavors to find out what they are all laughing at. And here is at last our glorious " iVff/," who, if good looks were a capital offence, could n't disguise him- self so as to escape hanging six months, unless the executioners were perhaps women, in which case they never could find it in their hearts to choke him, in That way at least. Last of all appears our Ninirod, our Jehu, our lion-slayer, our horse-tamer, "IF. //. P., tlie Impetuous,^^ a Curtius, ready for any gulf you can open before him, (he will leap over it, not into it though,) a Richard the Third, ready to give his kingdom for a horse, who can ride any thing quadrupedal from a kicking donkey like that he is now cudgelling, up to a wild elephant. He is otherwise remarkable as an early riser and also for an intense determination never to be " humbugged." So now you are introduced to the whole company. May the acquaintance be a pleasant one. 136 MR. DUNN Browne's CHAPTER XXXII. A VOICE FROM THE TOMBS. Being unanimously elected dragoman of the newly-airived party, I of course, proceeded at once tb arrange an excursion to the pyramids, although I had already once made the trip. Wishing to make thorough work and visit every thing of interest in the vicinity, we determined to take provisions for two days and sleep in a tomb at Sakkara. Mounted our donkeys at an early hour, and, taking an extra one for baggage, accomplished our journey to Ghi- zeeh with great success, keeping the Bedouins at a tolerable distance ; pushed on to Sakkara in the afternoon, taking a half dozen ruined pyramids on the way. On our arrival at nightfall, inquired of our guide for some tombs, in order to make our selection for lodgings, and were told by him in the most posi- tive manner that there were no tombs at all in that vicinity, and we must put up for the night in the Arab village about a mile distant. Disbelieved him. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 137 of course, which is the only way in which you can get any good from an Arab guide, and scattered in all directions in the search, determined not to be cheated out of the romance of a tomb-hotel. As it was getting dark and the whole region is full of deep pits (out of which several millions of ancient Egyp- tians have recently been dug), this search for a tomb was quite likely to be successful in a way different from what we intended, Init at last the Professor, who is a capital guide among pits and snares and temptations of all sorts, hailed to inform us of his suc- cess. Dismissed our donkeys and guide, shouldered the blankets and j)rovisions and before the total Egyptian darkness was quite upon us, had all reached the quarters indicated, which were a rocky cliff all perforated with hewn sepulchres, with hiero- glyphics over the entrance, representing men mowing and reaping, and various jars and baskets filled with bread and fruits, which we very naturally interpreted, " Good entertainment for man and beast," and ac- cordingly invited our,selves in and took such apart- ments as suited our tastes. For our dining-room we chose a vaulted chamber, curiously painted and adorned with bas-reliefs of various agricultural oper- ations, fishes, fruits, birds, and flowers; for bedcham- bers, those which had figures of men and women 138 MR. DUNN LROWNE'S combing their hair and performing different opera- tions of the toilet. We were soon visited by some Bedouins who brought us a jar of water, whereupon we brought out our chickens, etc., and made a hearty meal, then explored a quarter of a mile of tombs by candlelight and retired to rest. Slept rather comfortably, though before morning found the tomb somewhat cold, but that I think is a quality usually ascribed to tombs, and therefore no more than was to have been expected. The "boys" amused themselves in the morning by shooting at the skull of an ancient Egyptian, at three rods dis- tance, with revolvers, and came near perforating the skull of a modern Egyptian, who appeared suddenly round a corner, bringing water for our breakfast. We made a rather successful breakfast and then pro- ceeded to visit the Serapseum, which is described in none of the guide books and has only been discov- ered within two or three years, and which consists of a series of subterranean galleries hewn out of the rock containing thirty-four enormous sarcophagi of red granite, for the reception of the mummied bulls of the ancient Egyptians. They are on an average about twelve feet long, six feet wide, and seven feet high, only one or two of them covered with inscrip- tions, but all polished externally and internally, and EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 139 each hewn from a sinirle block. The walls arc four- teen inches thick, and the cover or lid to each, from fourteen to thirty inches thick, one entirely removed and the others slipped back two or three feet, to allow the removal of the bull. They are all now empty and were found in their present condition, or with only fragments of iiminmies in them, by the Frenchman who has superintended the excavations. How these immense sarcophagi ever came into their present po- sition, down under the earth in narrow galleries hewn out of the rock, is a mystery I am unable to solve, and this whole subterranean bull-cemetery impresses one with as strange ideas of the old Egyptians as per- haps the pyramids themselves. And then there are the sepulclires of the Ibis mummies, where hundreds of thousands of those sacred birds were carefully pre- served enbalmed, wrapped in cloths and packed in earthen jars. The crocodile mummy pits are further up the Nile, and we did n't see them. But while they took so much pains to save the carcasses of beasts and birds and reptiles, the bodies of men, at least the common people, were tumbled in together, into great pits a hundred feet deep, multitudes of \\iiich have lately been opened at Sakkara, and the whole earth is covered with the bones and skulls, which latter are of wonderful thickness, though tolerably well-shaped. 140 MR. DUNN Browne's Wonder if, some thousands of years hence, anybody will be kicking our skulls about and commenting upon their thickness ! We next visited the site of Memphis, of whose ruins nothing now remains except a few broken col- umns and mutilated statues, and especially one gigan- tic granite king who lies with his face in the mud, and if the water rises six inches higher will certainly be stifled. This colossus, if he ever had any legs, (which he has not at present,) must have been fifty or sixty feet high, is very well proportioned, and has a line face, wearing a benevolent smile, which to be sure loses something of its effect in the mud puddle, but nevertheless shows a spirit not to be ruffled even in the most adverse circumstances. Having paid our respects to his majesty and offered him our condo- lence upon his fallen condition, we resumed our don- keys and took up our march for Cairo, prepared to appreciate the advantages of a habitation built for living men, (even though it must be occupied jointly with the fleas and musquitoes,) after a night in the tombs of Sakkara. Ever yours, alike among the liv- ing and in the abodes of the dead. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 141 CHAPTER XXXIII. CAIRO, THE PICTURESQUE. The ten plagues of Egypt, or at least of Cairo, at present are — Donlccy-boys, who surround you the moment you set foot in the street, and block up your path till you have cleared the way with a cane : Dragomen, who beset you in every passage of your hotel, and throng into your room to bore you with big pocketbooks full of recommendations, and who are ready to take you up the Nile, over the desert to Jerusalem, Ethiopia, or China, at a pound sterling a day and find you in provisions : 3Iusquitoes, who defy nets and curtains and puncture you at all hours of the day and night : Fleas, in countless numbers and of unmitigated ferocity, who never leave you an instant's peace, who crawl up your pantaloons and down your neck, and take delight in biting you in aggravating places where you can't possibly get at them : Cocks, who crow at all hours of the night in the shrillest of tones : wild, masterless, wolfy Dogs, 142 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S who bark always and bite whenever they dare: Flies^ which completely cover face and eyes of the little Arab babies, and carry ophthalmia from one to another: Dust, which doable and triple windows cannot keep out of your bedroom, and no amount of green veils or spectacles keep out of your eyes : Darkness, unrelieved by the glimmer of a single street lamp, and which of necessity confines you to your lodgings after six o'clock in the evening : and " Backsheesh,''^ which rings in your ears and empties your pockets, wherever you go and wherever you stay, when you rise up and when you sit down, when you go out and when you come in, a perpetual, universal, unavoidable nuisance. Barring these and a few other little inconveniences that I have n't time to men- tion, Cairo is a truly delightful residence. The city is much larger than I expected to find it ; seems of ample size for half a million inhabitants, though many of its buildings are in a ruinous state, and 1 think the usual estimate of population is from two to three hundred thousand. Two or three of the streets are wide enough for a narrow carriage to pass through, but the usual width will just allow me and a donkey (or two donkeys as the case may be,) to meet without interference. The houses project as in German cities, and the upper windows are within EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 143 " short kissing distance," as one of the younger mem- bers of our party, (who is familiarly addre;ised by his friends as " Dick,") remarked to me yesterday, and I consider him good authority in this instance, for I saw a pair of black eyes peeping through the lat- tice opposite his room the other day. Speaking of lattices, they are one of the most striking and pecul- iar features of an Egyptian house, most fancifully carved and of every variety of pattern. We prosecute our researches through the crooked bazaars and streets of the city in the asinine method, that is, mounted on donkeys, which is a pleasant enough kind of proceeding when the beast does n't stumble and pitch you over his head into a mud pud- dle. The mosks of Cairo are nearly all old, unre- paired, and falling to pieces, though the so called " New Mosk," built by Mohammed Ali in the cita- del, is very splendid, entirely lined with beautiful alabaster, with an admirable dome and painted win- dows and a fine court paved with marble. The Mosk Hassan, also, which was built from the out- side coating of the pyramids, is of vast size, and has four magnificent arches of fifty or sixty feet span; but in general the mosks are interesting rather as ruins of past glory than as existing living buildings. The view from the citadel (on a lofty eminence at 144 xMR. Duxx Browne's the back of the city,) is the most striking landscape I have seejp. The two mountainous, treeless deserts parted asunder by the green valley of the Nile; the groups of pyramids in the distance, the ruins of mosks, palaces, and tombs all around the city; the groves of palms and acacias to the west and north, through which here and there gleam the white walls of a country residence ; and the city itself, with its hundreds of graceful minarets, its palaces and gar- dens, narrow streets, flat roofs, and ornamented domes, its old battlemented wall with picturesque towers, its winding canal whose course is marked with verdure and occasional palm trees; its mud huts side by side with lofty edifices of stone : such another view I don't believe exists in the world, desolation and cultivation, barrenness and fertility, splendor and squalor, mud, marble, and wood, ancient and mod- ern, broken and whole, barbarous, civilized, and Turk- ish ; it is inimitable and indescribable and unimag- inable, and I only wish you were here to take don- keys and ride up with me to see it for yourselves, and save me the trouble of writing about it. , The Arabs are a very picturesque and decidedly dirty race. Their dress is graceful and elegant — sometimes^ but to dress in the common Arab cos- tume, one need only get into an old, torn night-shirt EXPERIENCES IN FOREION PARTS. 145 and tie a handkerchief about his head, and even two of these articles may be dispensed with without be- ing greatly out of fashion. The women (like the ostriches we read of who put their heads into a bush and think themselves entirely safe) take a little pains, most of them, to cover their faces, but no great care as to any other part of the person. The houses are miserable mud huts, and the peo- ple are so filthy that I have been astonisl]ed to find the dogs, sheep, goats, and donkeys willing to oc- cupy as joint-tenants with those who are so much more degraded in the scale of being than them- selves. 10 146 MR. DUNN BROAVNE'S CHAPTER XXXIV. JOHN BULL SEES MORE THAN HE BARGAINED FOR. Februavij 5th. — A queer little incident of travel happened hereabouts last week. The steamer which has just made a voyage up the Nile stopped at Sak- kara on her return, to permit the passengers to go out and see the pyramids, Serapaeum, Ibis pits, etc. An Englishman belonging to the party unfortunately became entangled in the passages of a pyramid and couldn't get out. His companions by and by miss- ing him, searched the whole region about an hour and a half and finally concluded he had preceded them in the return to their steamer, and went away without him. The poor fellow at last, half dead with the fright and the bad air combined, succeeded in getting out into daylight, what little there was left of it, for it was almost night, and by signs signi- fied to some Bedouins, whom he discovered, his wish to be taken to the river, which they complied with, first relieving him of most of his superfluous EXPERIENCES IN FOIIEIGN PARTS. 147 cash. But they igiiorantly or wilfully conducted him too far up the river, and found no steamer, so carried him back again three or four miles to the pyramids, and were for detaining him till further advices. Dur- ing the night, however, he effected his escape, found his way on foot, over canals and ditches, through palm groves, grain fields, and sugar cane patches to the Nile, cut loose a boat and floated down stream to Cairo. But his troubles were by no means over yet. Scarcely had he landed when the city guards seized him as a marauder and thief, and, not being able to understand his explanation, pricked him about with their bayonets from one guard-house to another, in search of some one who could talk with him, but not succeeding, thrust him at length with much abuse into a dark, filthy, flea-y prison, and it was only on the next afternoon that he found him- self free, having had nothing to eat for twenty-four hours, but being himself eaten all that time by ver- min, his clothes torn and covered with mud, his whole appearance more that of a dilapidated dust- man than a trim, spruce, neatly shaved, English traveller. I think that man will retain some vivid recollections of his Egyptian experiences, and as an Englishman always values a thing by what it costs him, doubtless that Cairo cell will ever remain very dear to his memory. 148 MR. DUNN Browne's A friend related the above to me as we were re- clining on a divan smoking chibouks and drinking coffee with the howling dervishes, and therefore, al- though you may not see the particular connection be- tween the two subjects, I shall proceed to give you a short account of the proceedings of that fraternity on the afternoon of last Friday, which, as everybody knows, I need not say, is the Mohammedan Sabbath. After partaking of the above-mentioned refreshments, we all adjourned to the mosk connected with the es- tablishment, leaving our slippers and boots at the entrance. The head dervish, after one or two pros- trations, seated himself in a little niche, which is al- ways found on the Mecca side of a mosk, cross-leg- ged, on a beautifully embroidered mat, and the brethren (about thirty in number) arranged them- selves in a semicircle, on sheep skins, in front of their leader, each having bowed reverently before him and kissed his hand, taking pains also to retire backwards to his own place. Then with a few pre- liminary ejaculations they began to repeat a formula which, as near as I could find out, was, " There is no other God but Allah," at first in a quiet and sol- emn voice, afterwards in a more rapid and excited manner, waving their bodies to and fro. After con- tinuing this a wearisome while, (my friend said a EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 149 thousand and -one times.) they were silent a few- minutes, the motions continuing however, then ])e- gan anew with the repetition of the single word " Allah," bowing their heads in concert, ever lower and lower, getting constantly more and more excited. At last they all rose simultaneously, kicked away the sheep skins, took oil" their outer garment and their high red cap, leaving their long hair to flow at random over their shoulders, and commenced a sin- gular and most doleful groaning which is still ring- ing in my ears, but is not enough like any other known sound for me to describe, at the same time bowing their bodies till the dishevelled hair swept the floor in front of them and nearly touched it behind, ever faster and more furious, one of the shrillest voices from time to time throwing in an unearthly yell, and the whole scene getting more maniacal, not to say diabolical, every instant. Now glide into the circle, one, two, three, four pale-faced boys and young men, clad in a long purple or gray or white mantle, with a hoop at the bottom, and commence whirling with ever increas- ing velocity and wonderful endurance, (I counted over a thousand evolutions of one little fellow not more than ten years old, and did n't begin till he had been going some time). Various musical 150 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S instruments also strike up, drums, fifes, flageolets, and cymbals, and introduce a new element into the mass of discordant sound, yet serving to give it a sort of harmony and cadence. And so the thing goes on an hour and a half, two hours, I don't know but three hours, one of the leaders going round inside the circle to encourage and direct their movements, the whirlers occasionally relieving one another, the voices of the howlers growing hoarser, and the perspiration streaming from their foreheads, things verging towards a crisis, and the thing ends rather unceremoniously, brings up with a sort of a jerk, all stopping at once, save one poor fellow who don't seem to have any brakes to put on, and continues bobbing up and down till he falls in a fit, which is considered as the highest attainable state of devotion, and peculiarly accept- able to God. The rest, embracing their leader and each other all round, resume their garments and ad- journ to another cup of coffee and chibouk, and we retire to our hotel. Such is the choicest worship of the most holy of the Mussulmen. EXPERIENCES IX FOREIGN PARTS. 151 CHAPTER XXXV. « ALEXANDRIA ^0 JERUSALEM. My DEAR Reader, — Did you ever wait a week in the stupid Egyptian town of Alexandria for a miserable French steamer, which was behind her time, and then when at last she did appear, find the machinery out of order and be obliged to stop a few days more in a hotel where you are bitten by alternate swarms of mosquitoes and fleas, besides being bled by the landlord to the tune of three dollars a day and no "roast beef?" If so you can perhaps appreciate the feelings of our party when we went on board and found ourselves " out of the frying-pan into the fire," alternating between a dirty, dark, ill-flavored, flea-y cabin and a sooty deck cum- bered with a crowd of ill-flavored and ill-favored Arabs and negroes covered with fleas, and not half covered wdth any thing else. Travelling, in the East should be most carefully eschewed by every thin- skinned individual who is endowed with the sense 152 MR. DUNN Browne's of smell. These were the only circumstances in which I ever really longed for a severe attack of sea-sickness as the least of two evils. But alas ! that happy relief was denied me, and I continued miserably well the whole two days of our trip to Jaffa. This little doll of a city sits up very erect on a bit of a promontory, and really presents quite a bold front to the boisterous old Mediterranean, who dashes his impudent waves over her walls, and will not allow the steamers to land their passengers more than two times out of three. Our star was in the ascendant, however, and we all reached the shore in safety, including one or two Jerusalem passengers who had been vibrating several passages between Beyrout and Alexandria. But we found several poor fellows on shore who had been waiting three weeks in Joppa in no very amiable frame of mind, and then again the steamer that came the week after ours, by way of a pleasant variety, just landed her passengers, but, the wind rising suddenly, carried all their baggage on to Beyrout. After paying our respects to the United States consul, who can't speak a word of English but is a capital consul notwithstanding, and to the American missionaries, who received us with great EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 153 kindness and hospitality, we made our preparations to depart at one, P. M., for Jerusalem, thirty-five miles distant. And now came our first experience of genuine Oriental travelling, for in Egypt we had found all the comforts of an excellent railway, had been borne on the wings of steam up within sight of the pyramids, for all the world as if we were travelling in Yankee land except that we felt our- selves much safer. But here we engaged a Drag- oman, who interpreted between us and our consul, who sent his Janizary, who brought us a venerable, gray-haired muleteer, who assembled before our door an assortment of rusty horses, spiteful mules, and ragired donkeys, from which we selected the best- looking, (except your humble servant who acted on a directly contrary principle and in the end proved to be the best* mounted of the crowd,) and started oft' at every pace from a limp to a gallop, through the beautiful groves of orange and lemon trees, bend- ing under their burden of luscious fruit, the peach, cherry, almond, and pomegranate in richest fragrance of blossom, and the earth all carpeted with the sweetest of flowers. A ride of three hours over the fertile vale of Sharon brought us to Ramleh, where we rested two hours at the house of the American consul, who can speak neither English, 154 MR. DUNN Browne's French, German, nor Italian, and therefore our con- versation with him was carried on principally by- means of pipes and coffee and a very tolerable sup- per of rice and chickens. We set out again for Jerusalem at eight, P. M., having exchanged with our host a profusion of polite speeches, of which neither party understood the other's, but which doubtless answered the pur- pose just as well. Our path at first led over the same lovely plain enamelled with flowers, (what a pity that my " roses of Sharon " all proved, upon a closer inspection, to be poppies!) but after a little, as we began to ascend the mountain, came a road over which you would rather ride one mile than two. Sometimes a smooth, slippery path cut and worn deep into the limestone rock ; sometimes a moun- tain gully, full of large, round stones, washed clean from all soil which could fill up the crevices and •relieve the steps of the poor horses ; sometimes rude stairs cut in the face of the mountain and some- times places where none of these things were prac- ticable, and our animals must scramble up by their own unaided genius without artificial helps, and with unerring step those little Syrian steeds bore us over places that would give an American horse the nightmare to dream about. A lively French EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PART,?. 155 lady in Jerusalem declared to me that she could ride her little gray charger up the side of any six story house in Paris or London. Now I would n't vouch for the strict literal truth of this statoment, but it wouldn't frighten me much to see her equestrianizing on the roof of any house that is n't inclined more than forty-five degrees. We arrived at the Jaffa gate of the Holy City at six o'clock in the morning, and never were poor pil- grims more glad to reach their destination, for we had scarcely snatched a moment's sleep in the two pre- vious nights on that delectable steamer, and would have broken our necks the moment we attempted such a thing on horseback, amidst the ravines and rocks which we passed over and through and around and under and up and down, during that long, long ten hours ride by moonlight from Ramleii to Jerusa- lem. But now our pilgrimage was accomplished. Fatigue and desire to sleep were forgotten in the joy of entering the gates of Zion. 156 MR. DUNN BROAYNE'S CHAPTER XXXVI. THE HOLY CITY. Our first approach to Jerusalem was in the dead silence that precedes the dawn; in the gray morning twilight which makes things look dim and mysteri- ous and supernaturally large ; and very stately and imposing was our view of the walls, battlements, tow- ers, and domes of the old city, as we reached the heights on the North-west, and drew near the Jaffa gate. But the most beautiful view was when we returned from the Jordan, (also in the night,) and approached from the East over the Mount of Olives at two o'clock in the morning, by a most glorious moonlight. I shall never forget that scene. In and about Jerusalem are many things that need the sil- vering of the moonbeams. Then the rough, craggy hills were softened and lighted up with a gentle glory. The frightful ravines were filled with fanci- ful shadows ; the old rusty domes of the city glis- tened in silver; the crumbling towers stood out EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 157 sharp and fresh as of newly cut stone ; all the rough places were made smooth ; all deficiencies were cov- ered up; the uiisiglitly transformed into loveliness, and what was before beautiful made absolutely glo- rious. But seen in tiie daytime, looked upon in a matter of fact kind of way, without regard to the glorious and sacred associations connected with it, (if indeed such a thing be possible,) Jerusalem appears much as I had expected. T was sure I had seen it often before ; that uneven, irregular, decaying old city, mourning over her desolations, sitting soli- tary amidst the ruins of her former glory. The hills about the city are even more rocky and barren than they are described ; the valleys are exceedingly pre- cipitous, deep, abysmal ; and the whole region is full of caverns, grottos, tombs, all sorts of natural fis- sures, and excavations by the hand of man. The valley of the brook Kedron, (which is no brook at all,) contains some green spots, about Gethsernane are some ancient olive trees, the Mount of Olives has a few fruit-trees and is cultivated in spots, the hills to the southward toward Bethlehem are green and toler- ably fertile, but generally the whole region around is one mass of rocks, rough, craggy, terrible rocks, with- out a tree or a shrub. The town itself, which is supposed to contain 158 MR. DUNN Browne's nearly twenty thousand inhabitants, is a filthy, muddy. Oriental town, full of dogs and vermin, and intolerable smells, habitable by decent people only on Mt. Zion and near the Jaffa gate. The so-called sacred places have been described a thousand times, and even if they had not been, are not worth the trouble, as no one now believes in their genuineness. In Gethsemane one feels sure that he is at least near the place where our Saviour agonized in the Garden, in going up the Mount of Olives we doubtless fol- lowed the path so often trodden by the feet of Jesus and his disciples, but you are thankful to know that Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre could not possibly have been where the Greeks and Catholics locate them, and quarrel so fiercely about their possession that the Turk is obliged to interfere as a peacemaker in these Christian brawls. Without speaking then of the " Holy Places" about Jerusalem, I will only give you a bit of an account of our visit to the mosk Omar, the sacred enclosure carefully guarded so many centuries against the intrusion of any Christian foot, but which of late years has been on several oc- casions opened for the admission of parties of Euro- peans, usually the train of some prince, and will soon, in all probability, become comparatively easy of ac- cess to the public. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 159 Having our consul for Egypt and the brother of the United States ambassador at Constantinople with us, it seemed a favorable opportunity to intro- duce an American party, and finally, after many vex- atious delays and excuses, the reciuired firman was obtained, allowing us, on the payment of a pound sterling each, to see all that is to be seen on the site of the old temple. The Dervishes and other fanatir cal Moslems, who guard the mosk and amuse them- selves by throwing stones at any infidel dogs who dare to approach, having been removed and shut up,, and a guard of thirty soldiers accompanying us, we entered and spent an hour and a half in examining the raosks Omar and El Aksa which, with a large enclosed space, occupy INIt. Moriah. The Mosk Omar, which is generally supposed to stand on the site of Solomon's temple, is an octagon with a huge dome, covered all over with glazed tiles, painted blue and green like China ware, which coating has broken and crumbled away in many places, giving a very ancient look to the building, which is natural enough, for it is twelve hundred years old. There are four entrances, and the interior has two concentric circles of columns, forming two circular aisles, and a space perhaps forty feet in diameter within the inner col- umns that support the dome, which is all occupied 160 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S with the sacred stone that was suspended in the air at Mohammed's command, as it was accompanying him on his ascension to heaven. On this rock, the Moslems say, was the Holy of Holies of the ancient temple, and under it is a. chamber excavated in the natural rock where are the places of prayer of Mo- hammed, Christ, Moses, Elijah, and Solomon. The hole in the top of the rock is shown, through which the prophet ascended. The stone remained hanging in the air, by his command, without any visible sup- port, for many centuries, but at last to relieve the fears of the faithful, especially the females, who dared not go under it, the present walls and pillars, (which really have nothing to do with supporting it,) were placed beneath. The floor of the mosk is of beautiful marble, and the sides are lined with marbles ; the pillars are of the Corinthian order, of Porphyry and Verd Antique. There are several beautiful painted windows in the. dome, and some rich mosaics and gilding. The .Mosk El Aksa has the form of a cross like a church, as indeed it was, is of vast size, but not especially beautiful. Below are vaults and galleries which probably formed one of the entrances to Solomon's temple, and contain many of the vast bevelled stones and two or three of the massive pillars of its original EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. IGl construction, about three thousand years old. There are fine remains, also, of the ancient " Beautiful Ciate," on the east side of the temple inclosure, and the immense reservoirs of water which undermine the whole hill are still full and of great interest, but we could only peep down through the openings and make their vaults resound with the thundering echoes of our voices. The curb-stones of these reser- voirs are worn all round their inner surface, to the depth of six or eight inches, by the friction of the well ropes. My boots having been stolen by some of the faith- ful, while I was within the mosque, I remain yours, in a pair of Turkish slippers. 11 162 MR. DUNN Browne's CHAPTER XXXVII. MARE ASPHALTICUM. On a fine February morning in the year 1856, might have been seen, issuing from the western gate of Jerusalem, and winding along over the rocky but verdant hills towards Bethlehem, two solitary horse- men, oh no, I beg Mr. James's pardon, a cavalcade of sixteen sunburned, weather-beaten travellers, clad in a combination of all the various costumes of the countries they had visited ; mounted upon fifteen ugly, rough-coated, awkwardly-saddled, shovel-stir- ruped, Syrian horses and one abstracted, intro- spective, metaphysical donkey ; accompanied by the usual Oriental suite of dragomen, muleteers, servants, and Bedouin guards. Had any curious observer seen the above-mentioned interesting company and inquired (in a polite and respectful manner) respect- ing their destination, he would have been told in Arabic, Armenian, French, Italian, or English, accord- ing to his selection of an informant, that they were EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 1G3 a party of Yankees, Canadians, Scotch, etc. etc., go- ing to Jericho, by way of Bethlehem, the Dead Sea; and the Jordan. Tlmnkful and glad for the bright morning sun, instead of the rain we had the previous evening anticipated, on we go, cheerfully prancing and galloping and laughing and chatting, amidst the singing of birds, through the fields of grain, over the stones, trampling underfoot the pretty flowers, throwing into the air clouds of dust with the hoofs of our mettlesome steeds, and devouring the distance at the rate of six miles an hour at the very least. We pass on the left the identical tree, (possibly two hundred years old,) on which Judas hanged himself, then on the right a lovely valley and sloping ascent covered with olives, and after a while just to the right of our path a ])lain white building, the tomb of Rachel ; then, the road getting very rough and rocky, at the end of two hours we reach the famous pools of Solomon, three in number, irregu- larly shaped, from thirty to sixty feet deep, of vast size, one above another in the narrow valley, in tol- erably good repair, but now empty. The old aque- duct still conveys a small stream of water from a cool fountain just above the pools, quite to Jerusa- lem, I think. Following the course of this aqueduct eastward, we soon look down upon the nairrow rib- 164 MR. DUNN Browne's bon of meadow, like a stream of living verdure flow- ing between the barren limestone hills, or like a huge green serpent winding down the valley, which was purchased a few years since by some Americans for the purpose of testing the agricultural capabilities of the country. The experiment has proved, I believe, rather a failure ; but a prettier little farm could n't be found in all Palestine and a long journey besides. Chancing to pour into the ear of my friend " Wil- liam, the Conqueror," some rather poetical remarks upon the loveliness of this verdant valley, that enthusiastic monarch turned his bland countenance upon the charming scene for a moment, and re- marked, in his inimitable way, " Yes, it is rather green." In about three quarters of an hour, we climbed a high hill, (so steep that one of our horses fell over backwards, rider, saddle, and all,) into Bethlehem, where we were hospitably entertained at the con- vent, and shown the manger (of stone) where the infant Saviour was laid, in a hewn grotto deep under the ground, and the precise spot where he was born marked by a silver star, directly over which stood " the Star in the East." Around the star is a Latin inscription, " Here was born Jesus Christ of the Virgin Mary," and many silver lamps are constantly EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 165 burning both in this place and over the manger, and two or three exquisite little pictures by Murillo are also to be seen. The church and adjoining build- ings are so divided up and partitioned off to keep asunder the belligerent Greeks and Catholics, as to spoil all the harmony of proportion and beauty of architecture. Three hours more eastward bring us to the strange old Greek convent of San Saba, built into and hewn out of the rocky side of a tremendous gorge five or six hundred feet in depth, which is a continuation of the valley of Jehosliaphat down to the Dead Sea. As we approached from the west down the hill, nothing but two solitary towers, perhaps thirty rods apart, were visible. After knocking a while at a gate near the foot of one of them, a basket was let down from an upper window, and our letters of rec- ommendation from Jerusalem drawn up and exam- ined, whereupon we were admitted and cordially greeted by a brown monk with a rope about his waist, and, dismounting, we followed him down flights of steps, through strong doors and curious passages cut in the rock, down more flights of stairs, ever down, down, down, till we thought the bottom of the old building had fallen out, and ourselves were destined to become an infinite descending 166 MR. DUNN Browne's series, bnt we obtained soundings at last, and an- chored in safety in a large apartment surrounded by a sort of divan, on which we slept such a sleep as only travellers on horseback over stony mountains can enjoy. In the morning we made an exploration of the convent, saw forty thousand skulls of hermits who have died, within the last one or two thousand years, in the rock-hewn cells of this vicinity, and resumed our journey over the conical, volcanic looking hills .which surround the Dead Sea. The country is, to be sure, rather desolate, but by no means the fright- ful wilderness I had anticipated. The scenery is very soft and beautiful, the hills all curves and no angles, smooth and covered with a thin verdure which thousands of goats are cropping. The sea seemed but a few steps distant, yet we have been four long hours in reaching it, and I hope never to have so much down hill travelling again. It makes one feel mean to have such depths to descend into. Having read much of the disagreeable effects of bathing in the Dead Sea, we now proceed at once to make trial of the same, and as this chapter is growing considerably long, perhaps you may as well leave us for the present, disporting ourselves in these clear, buoyant waters, like a school of porpoises let EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 167 out to play, in a short recess from their severe nauti- cal studies. You need not fear for our safety, as none of our party have sufficient specific gravity to be able to drown themselves in these anti-suicidal waters, which are called, so improperly, the Dead Sea. Yours, bituminously. 168 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER XXXVIII. DOES NOT " TARRY AT JERICHO." We all enjoyed our bath wonderfully, and experi- enced none of those disagreeable consequences of which so many travellers have spoken, except indeed an incrustation of salt over our faces, and a slight oily sensation of the skin, an impression as if we were saturated with grease and would burn if lighted. (My friend Isham, who is standing by my side, sug- gests that there is a little exaggeration about that last remark. Very well, my dear fellow, I will not insist that 7/ow would become " a burning and shining light" even after a dozen baths in the Dead Sea. But what would become of all the poetry of the world if a body couldn't color his descriptions a bit? So don't be interrupting me any more, please, it makes such long parentheses.) The wonderful buoy- ancy of the water made naanifest such a compara- tive lightness of our bodies and such an exhilarating lightness of spirits too, that we indulged in a thou- • EXPERIENCES IX EOREIGN PARTS. 169 sand amusing gambols such as you would scarcely expect, perhaps, from the dignified personages to whom you have recently been introduced. You can take any sort of position you choose, stand, sit, lie on your back, fold your arms and go to sleep, read, eat your lunch, or even write a letter, I verily believe, re- clining oil those luxurious cushions of waves. But woe be to you if any portion of your cuticle is bro- ken or removed, and those briny drops gaining ad- mittance to your eyes, are sure to return with other briny drops as usury following them. The taste of the water is a combination and concentration of whatever is unpleasant to the palate. Having gone through a variety of striking tableaux and satisfied our philosophical curiosity in reference to this wondrous lake, we remounted, and putting our steeds upon their mettle, (they haye a deal more spirit than their looks indicate and are capital on a gallop,) wc made in forty minutes the two hours' ride over the salt plain to the Ford of the Jor- dan. It is a salt plain indeed. In many places you can gather it in handfuls, almost pure. Of course nothing grows in this region. It is much more des- olate and apparently accursed than the country west of the sea. The Jordan itself is not visible till you come to its very shores, and doesn't present any very 170 MR. DUNN Browne's inviting appearance even then, being a dreadfully muddy, unpieturesque stream, rushing along at a tremendous rate between two banks, about twenty yards asunder, lined with dirty willows ; in short, though I had made up my mind to be disap- pointed in the Jordan, I was much more disap- pointed than I expected. Our party of course pro- ceeded at once to rinse off the slime of the Dead Sea by a bath in the sacred stream. Those who were swimmers, headed by the Professor, in spectacles, passed very readily over to "the other side Jordan," by going a little up stream where the water was deeper and not quite so swift, but your humble ser- vant, attempting to wade across at the Ford where the depth is not much over four feet, found the cur- rent so rapid that it lifted him up bodily, (the gravity of his body not being so great as that of his disposi- tion,) and would have borne him down to be pre- served in asphaltum in the Dead Sea but for the powerful arm of a tall Bedouin Arab Shekh, who was making the passage by his side, and who was satisfied with the very reasonable sum of four pias- tres for saving to the world the author of this verita- ble history. Having thoroughly tested the eflfect of the water externally, we proceeded to make an internal appli- EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 171 cation in connection with our lunch, and really for a mixture of clay, limestone and water, it wasn't very bad to take. Taking one last farewell look of the old Jewish river, and carrying u[) with ns for a me- morial, like the Israelites, a few stones from its bed, (though not quite so large pebbles as they took,) and also an assortment of ugly canes from the willow trees above referred to, we turned our faces again westward, and in two hours arrived at the site of an- cient Jericho, having sufl'ered considerably from the intense heat in our journey across the plain, although it was the 23d of February and in latitude some- where about that of the city of Washington. It must be perfectly intolerable in summer. In this valley we thought we could see the snow-crowned summit of Hermon away north of the Sea of Gali- lee, eighty or ninety miles distant. Being utterly disgusted with Jericho, and our beards having al- ready a tolerable growth, we resolved not to tarry, but ordered out our horses and started at seven and a half P. M. in a ij:lorious moonlight for Jerusa- lem, which is six or seven hours distant, and those same tough little horses who had carried us since seven in the morning, and engaged in several sharp little races in the bargain, bore us unflaggingly through that long night ride, over roads, too, where 172 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S an American horse would bring up dead lame in two hours. I think we were on horseback fifteen hours out of that twenty-four. The scenery in this region, (the hill country towards Jerusalem,) is extremely wild, savage, and stern, and we became as tired of riding up hill before we reached the Mount of Olives as we had been the day previous of descending. What difficult creatures we are to satisfy, indeed ! We passed, during the night, several picturesque Bedouin encampments. They would have proved something more than picturesque to us, doubtless, if we hadn't mustered so strong a force, for these tall, grim fellows are equally adepts at both their trades of shepherd and robber, and with their sheep- skins over their shoulders, suggested to our minds very readily the idea of " wolves in sheep's clothing." EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 173 CHAPTER XXXIX. SAMARIA AND GALILEE. After one has seen all that is of interest above ground, in and about Jerusalem, there still remains to him who is fond of burrowing, at least a year's subterranean explorations in the vicinity. All the rocky hills about the city are full of excavations, some- times connecting with one another, tomb after tomb, for fifteen hundred feet underground. Mount Moriah is all undermined with a series of stupendous reser- voirs, which have not yet been fully explored, and be- neath the whole city are vast quarries, where you may w^ander miles and miles ere you begin to retrace your steps, where are caves and grottos, fountains, streams of running water, etc. The only entrance to this last described series of quarries, is by a little hole in the wall just east of the Damascus gate, outside the city, into which a slender man can barely crawl, as the Professor and myself can testify from actual ex- perience. "We wriggled in through this muddy aper- 174 MR. DUNN BROWXE'S ture, (it was a rainy day,) a distance of eight feet, and then climbed down a wall six feet, head fore- most, at least I did, but the Professor profiting by my experience, entered in the reverse order, with eminent success, and we proceeded to explore, with no guide but our own sagacity, to the extent of our six inches of spermaceti. . . . We departed from the Holy City as we entered it, in the gray light of the early morning, and as we caught our last glimpse from the distant northern hills, the sun had just broken forth over the top of Olivet, and was gilding with a halo of glory, those venerable domes and battlements, covering them with beauty and brightness in our remembrance, as if we had caught a passing glimpse of the heavenly Jerusalem, rejoicing in the beams of the great Sun of Righteous- ness himself. And thus we bade adieu to the Holy City, and passed on by the lofty " Nebi Samwill " on the left, surrounded by beautiful slopes covered with olives, and then on our right the ruins of Bethel, rode a half hour in a heavy shower of rain, dried our- selves in the bright sun which succeeded it, stopped to lunch in a pretty green valley by the side of a spring, sitting on the first bit of real turf that I have seen in Syria, (we took the precaution to spread our blankets over it before sitting down however,) then EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 175 mounting again our untiring steeds, after a long day of eleven hours in the saddle, we found welcome rest at lust in the pleasant town of Nablous, the ancient Siicchem, a garden-surrounded little city of twelve thousand inhabitants, snugly ensconced in the nar- row valley which keeps asunder the grim, stony, bel- ligerent-looking mountains Ebal and Gerizim, At the entrance of this valley we turned a little off our road through a ploughed field to see Jacob's well, but did n't see it, as the proprietor of those grounds, in order to check the curiosity of travellers, has bro- ken in the roof of the room which covered the well's mouth, and you can't get the slightest glimpse of the water or any thing that looks like a well. Perhaps you can imagine with what revengeful delight we spread out our company of horse over that man's field, and took pains to trample down his young wheat. I should make it a point always to ride out to that well if I were going past every day. From Nablous three hours in the bright morning sun, over a thick carpet of variegated flowers, brought us up to the head of the valley to ancient Samaria, absolutely the finest situation for a city that I have seen yet, but occupied at present by a set of ill-mannered \\Tetches who threw stones at us as we were examin- ing the ruins of an ancient church, and then brought 176 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S a parcel of long striped guns to bear upon us, merely because we drew our revolvers and threatened to shoot them if they did n't take their departure. Hav- ing compromised this slight difficulty, and effected a truce with the barbarians through the agency of our excellent Michael, the prince of Dragomen, if I may be allowed to speak electrically, a prime conductor, we proceeded to lunch amidst a grove of marble col- umns, (granite though upon second thought,) whereof something less than a thousand remain standing in witness of the splendor of the ancient city, and then rode over several rough, uninteresting hills, and through several fertile valleys, catching glimpses on the heights, of the sea and of snowy Hermon, till at last we came to the entrance of the great plain of Esdraelon, to the Arab village of Janin, a place which has made a deep impression on my memory, as the scene of the most utterly miserable night of my experience. The " miserable night" of the wretched Clarence in Richard the Third could n't compare with it at all, because his was capable of description and mine isn't, and his was a dream, while mine was quite the contrary, and besides, a guilty conscience, (which seemed to be the principal source of his trouble,) as far as my experience goes, is nothing to a myriad of fleas. We were eleven, in a room eight I EXPERIEXCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 177 feet by ten, which was full, before we entered it, of vermin, of dirt, of stagnant tobacco smoke, and of un- pleasant Arab smells. The journal of the next day, (the third from Jeru- salem,) if there were time to write it, would make mention of the troop of gazelles we saw bounding over the rolling plain of Esdraelon, would spealc in fitting terms of the oft described IVFount Tabor, which rises in lonely beauty just to the left of our path after we have ascended from Esdraelon between Gilboa and Little Hermon, would enlarge upon the beauty and fertility of this country of Galilee, and at last go into perfect raptures as, at sunset, we stand on the brow of the high hill which overlooks the Sea of Tiberias, and look down upon that fair, sweet lake, on whose borders Jesus loved to dwell, and whose waters once bore up his steps. 'Twas Saturday night, and slowly and quietly we descended to the little town of Tiberias to spend a Sabbath, for once in our lives, by the Sea of Galilee. 12 178 MR. DUXX browxe's CHAPTER XL. OVER LAND TO BEYROUT. The Sea of Galilee is surrounded by smooth green hills, very high and steep on the north and south- west, sloping gently down to the water's edge on the north-east and north-west, with even a bit of plain on the west, but to the south-east, the ancient country of the Gadarenes, rises abruptly a wall of chalk cliffs six hundred feet high, like the shore of the Dead Sea itself. Tiberias, the only town now remaining on its shores, is a city-like village surrounded by an imposing wall, (which is, however, fast falling into ruins,) con- taining, I should think, five hundred, but according to our host, fourteen hundred, inhabitants, mostly Polish and Spanish Jews, very dirty but learned ; indeed, this is the principal seat of learning among the Jews, and every third man you meet is a rabbi with his head crammed with Talmudical lore, which he imparts, (for a consideration,) to the youthfiil Hebrews, who resort hither from various quarters of the w^orld to complete their theological education. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 179 A violent storm of wind and rain arose Sunday afternoon, so that \vc saw the lake not only in its peaceful calm, but also when the waves were lashed into fury. I looked out from my window, and could almost see the scene of walking on the water, and our Saviour stretching forth his hand to save the trembling Peter from the watery grave into which his unbelief was sinking him. Monday morning, after taking a bath in the pure waters of the lake, and visiting the hot springs a little below Tiberias, we wound our way up the hill again, cast one last lingering look at the lovely scene below us, and took up our route to Nazareth, six hours distant. But scarcely were we settled in our saddles when the clouds gathered thick and pitiless over our defenceless heads, and it began first to drizzle, then to rain, and then to pour down U])on us in torrents', and for three mortal hours did we plod along in that driving, drenching rain, find- ing no mercy from the clouds above and no shelter on the earth beneath. Your humble servant, who had caught cold the evening previous, in a shower which fell upon him as he was walking up towards Capernaum, began to be sick, and to have shooting pains and chills and gloomy forebodings of a Syrian fever, and fell gradually behind the rest of the party. ISO MR. DUNN BROAYNE'S then behind the muleteers and the baggage, till he was left alone, a couple of miles in the rear, just able to keep in the saddle, fast losing his interest in things generally, and ready to surrender without a struggle to the first Bedouin who should accost him with the Arabic for " your money or your life." In this forlorn state he was picked up by a detachment sent back from the main body, who had first dis- covered his absence on their halt at Cana of Galilee, and brought in so weak in body and mind as abso- lutely to believe for a few moments in the stone jars which are shown at that place as the identical jars that contained the water made wnne at the mar- riage feast. A draught from the company's spirit- flask restored a little his strength, (and of course his unbelief,) and without further accident we all arrived in safety at Nazareth, and were received with great hospitality by the Fathers of the Latin convent. Nazareth has a fine situation overhanging a pretty green valley of fruit-trees, about four thousand in- habitants, and a thriving well-to-do appearance, rare enough to find in oppressed, tax -ridden Palestine. One day more over the plain of Esdraelon again, with no incidents of travel save plenty of gazelles, foxes, jackals, and Bedouin robbers, all of whom seemed to avoid our company, brought us to the I EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN TARTS. 181 bold promontory of Carmel, where rest is found in the ever-hospitable convent, (certainly a most com- fortable instituiion in such a country as Syria)i The next clay a magnificent gallop of four hours over the hard beach of fine sand, where the horses' hoofs scarcely left a trace, gave us abundant time to visit the fortifications of Acre, which the Basliaw politely sent an officer to show us, after we had drank coflfee and smoked long amber-mouthed pipes with him. One other day's journey amidst broken pillars and ruins of huge aqueducts and bridges, to the small town which occupies the site of ancient Tyre, and still another day just lik<3 the last, to Si- don, and one final, long, hard day, with a rapid river to ford, and rocky promontories to climb, and deep sand to wade through, bring us to \hv end of the week, and to Beyrout, the end of our journey, and me to the end of this chapter, for all which blessings I am truly thankful and trust you are the same. 182 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER XLI THE ^GEAN A> in wait for us at every corner to sing the " Ranz des vaches." He has a habit of occasionally indulging in a "quiet laugh," which can be easily heard at a dis- tance of three miles, and fully intends to purchase an umbrella if the rain doesn't cease within a fortnight. Last of all, under a slouched hat which the Pro- fessor has at last, after repeated controversy, ac-" knowledged to be a worse looking tile than his own, appears your veritable historian, bringing up the rear with plodding steps, caring little for the pelting of the rain upon his own person, but watching as a 16 242 IMK. DUNN buowne's mother for an infant over the safety of a small packet of provisions which he refuses to intrust to any other care, stopping occasionally to pluck a dande- lion, (of which he has an extensive collection gathered in various quarters of the world,) delighting at times in getting before his companions by a short cut, so as to sit down quietly on a stone, and enjoy their astonishment on coming up, rejoicing especially to get to the end of the day's journey, and, if the truth must be told, not quite able to perceive the amusement of walking thirty miles a day in the rain. The Professor is classical, Richard is poetical, and Mr. Browne is decidedly practical. When we pass along the base of a perpendicular Alpine peak of granite, Richard calls it a cloud-capped giant, the Professor terms it one of nature's grand old Gothic cathedrals, — while to Mr. Browne's matter-of-fact eyes it is just a great stone mountain. EXPEIUEXCES IX FOREIGN PARTS. 243 CHAPTER LIV. INDEPENDENCE AMONG THE CLOUDS. Summit of Rigi, July 4, 1856. Now mind, I don't wish to be understood at all as attempting to disparage clouds, in a general way. They are exceedingly poetical, no doubt, floating in the blue ether over our heads, of a summer's day, or in a storm, forming the dark backgi-ound for the lightning's fiery pictures. They are also not only ornamental but useful occasionally, in shielding us from the burning rays of the sun, hot days, and on rainy days, in promoting the growth of vegetables, as well as the sale of umbrellas. But when you come up into the region of clouds, and can't see, feel, or taste any thing but cloud ; when you are soaked, drenched, completely satu- rated with cloud; are compelled to eat cloud, drink cloud, breathe cloud ; thick cloud shutting oli' all prospect from your eyes and all hope from your heart ; cold cloud chilling the very marrow of your 244 MR. DUXN Browne's bones, and standing in clammy drops on your brow; intrusive cloud that will not be shut out of your room by double windows, which forms a foggy halo round your candle, hangs a pall-like curtain about your bed, and piles itself in heavy folds upon you as you sleep, inspiring nightmare, unpleasant dreams of drowning, suffocation, boa-constrictors — ugh I I assure you, the enchantment of clouds diminishes in- versely as the square of the distance, and an inti- mate acquaintance with them destroys all poetry. Clouds, in short, like candies, gingerbread, kisses, courtship, and all other luxuries, must n't be made too common. On the whole, it must be confessed this is not a favorable morning for ascending an Alpine moun- tain to get a view. There is not that variety and extent of prospect sometimes spoken of by travel- lers. My whole visible horizon at present com- prises a plat of gi'ound three rods in diameter, one forlorn cow, three of the meekest of sheep, and several dripping, low-spirited hens. Indeed, " not to put too fine a point upon it," this climbing the Rigi to spend the Fourth of July, is a humbug, — a weary, moist, up-hill, tiresome, puffing, perspir- ing, chilly, foggy humbug ; to be surpassed only by that ^national independence we this day celebrate, EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 24o which is the most stapendons and doplorabh^ hiiin- bng on the face of the earth if we arc to judge by the goings on in Washington and in Kansas for the last twelvemonth. I cannot help thinking that the clouds and darkness which envelop us here on this Alpine summit, as we forlornly celebrate our nation's birthday, are a fitting emblem of the present condition and future prospects of our Ijeloved country. We discern one gleam of light, however, in the great republican movement now happily inaugurated, and send up a united shout for "Freedom and Fremont," which quite astonishes the inhabitants of these be- nighted regions, and calls forth a responsive crow from the undismayed chanticleer of the establish- ment. We have just been examining by (means of an excellent map) the magnificent panorama (in) visi- ble from the summit of Rigi, and surely the most vivid imagination can hardly picture to itself any thing at all approaching the glorious reality. Far in the distance the lofty j)eaks of the Bernese Alps, thrusting their iieads \\p through their covering of . snow, like naughty giants that won't stay buried, but must be continually poking their noses out of their windingsheet; near at hand the ])eacefnl lakes of Lucerne and Zug, slumbering below us, like gen- 246 MR. DUNN Browne's tie maidens taking their rest, with a drapery of green fore:?ts wrapped gracefully about them, and white villages glittering like gems upon their breast; north, east, and west, good old Mother Earth smiling upon us, clothed in her rich gingham of cultivated fields, with the rivers Reuss and Aar flowing like silver rib- bons over her ample bosom, and doubling themselves into more curious knots and bows than ever blessed the dreams of Parisian milliner; to the south-west the white veiled novice Jungfrau, lifting her head in virgin purity towards heaven as it were in w^ors'hip ; while over against her, to the north-west, grim Pila- tus, with a AATeath of thunderclouds round his brow*, frowns upon the edifying spectacle. Dear me! I am not at all certain I could have written you so poetical a description if it were not for the clouds and mists that have concealed the reality from my view. Yours, dimly. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 247 CHAPTER LV. DOWN THE RHINE. Everybody goes down the Rhine, and therefore, of course, I did. Everybody has written a descrip- tion of it, and therefore, of course, I shall not. An equally good reason in both cases, though the con- clusions arrived at are a little contradictory. Be- cause, for instance, everybody wears coats, therefore you and I must needs do the same, but if everybody were becoming tailors that would not be a good reason for our taking to the goose ; on the contrary, we should be geese if we did. Because everybody reads the Republican is a sufficient reason (even if there were not others still better) for my reading it, but if everybody should take to writing for it, I should stop. The Rhine is a very large river, (although it is not in America,) with its scenery generally flat and un- interesting, bnt about one hundred miles of it, from Rudesheim to Bonn is just as picturesque and beau- 248 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S tiful as it has been, or can be described to be ; an ever varying succession of the wildest ravines, the raggedest cliffs, the most verdant meadows, the neat- est vineyards",* the most delightful old brigand castles, mountains, villages, churches, ruins, echoes, palaces, forests, historical associations, fairy legends, ghosts, giants, grottos, and caverns ; nothing but poetry, chivalry, romance, and enchantment, all which our party entered into with the greatest zest, seated on the deck of our steamer, wrapped in all the overcoats, shawls, and blankets we could muster; for this month of July here in Europe has been so much like a New England March, that you couldn't tell the two apart if you saw them side by side, unless it were by an occasional patch of snow-bank on the back of the latter. The Professor rubbed his hands together, sometimes with the cold, and sometimes with enthu- siasm, as a sudden turn in the river unfolded a par- ticularly glorious scene before our eyes. " Our Richard" shivered, now with emotion at the recital of some dark legend connected with a ruined tower we were passing, and now from the effects of the blast which swept up against us from the north. As to the third individual in that trio of worthies, (ex- cuse my not being more definite ; " modesty," etc.,) it would have done your heart good to see with what EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 249 bravery and constancy he clung to his Murray through rain and cold, with an eye on either bank to catch every tower and ruin and castle as we glided by, and a finger to ciieck oR' the same on the page of the infallible red-covered handbook. Ah who so happy as he when his task was over, and we were relieved from our watch on deck i)y the announce- ment of the veracious Murray that the scenery below Bonn was tame and uninteresting. And here I think I may be allowed an apostrophe, a figure of speech, in which yon must acknowledge, dear reader, I don't often indulge. Oh, thou pre- cious companion of continental travellers, indispen- sable Murray I Who can estimate the blessings which thy score of ponderous volumes (at the small charge of ten and sixpence each) have inflicted on tourists of every age, sex, and condition ? How comfortable, on all occasions, amidst the works of nature and of art, before a cascade or a cartoon, to know exactly when to admire, and how much to ad- mire, what to praise and what to criticize, to have your emotions measured out to you in appropriate doses, your caiwns of criticism always ready charged under your arm, to be never in danger of making mis- takes in praising or sneering at the wrong thing, to have your whole tour properly punctuated for you, the 250 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S exclamation points and notes of admiration thrown in correctly. Ah me ! What a pity that the diminutive size of my. carpet-bag has prevented me from carrying this whole rAl-covered library around with me ! I am afraid I have admired many things at which I ought to have turned up my nose in disgust, and found fault with other things which were faultless, thus misleading and perverting the taste of others in these poor letters of mine, which were intended solely for their instruction and improvement. And then, looking at the matter merely in a pe- cuniary point of view, just see how well Murray re- pays the various ten shillings and sixpences invested in him. By his aid, even in this short ramble of four weeks through Switzerland and down the Rhine, I have seen no less than four " magnificent views," each of which " is worth the journey from England to see," that is, at a low estimate, one hundred dol- lars apiece, two that "repay one for crossing the At- lantic," and of course, at the present high rates of passage couldn't be called less than three hundred dollars each, three or four others (say three) that are unrivalled, and therefore must be worth as much as the preceding, but to be moderate we will call them two hundred dollars each and see how the bill foots up:— EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 251 Four landscape \\o.ws of Alps, etc., SlOO each, S400 Two " " " at 300 '^ COO Three " " " 200 " CuO Total, $l,t;00 This, too, not iiiclmling sundry snnaller affairs, cas- cades, waterfalls, glaciers, picturesque hamlets, etc. etc., which, at the most liberal discount for "taking the lot," would probably swell the amount to two thousand dollars at least, and all, be it remembered, in four weeks. As I had lirmly resolved never to return to Amer- ica till I had seen Holland, J left my companions at Cologne and went on down- the Rhine to Utrecht and Middleburgh and Amsterdam, in which, as well as the other Dutch cities, I climbed up all the high towers, resolutely disregarding the com])laints of my pedal extremities, and thus probably saw as much of this delectable country as most travellers do, at least I saw it all several times over, and very refresh- ing to the eye is the tame, regular, chequered sceiiery of Holland, the straight rows of trees and the placid canals, after tlie wild, ragged, irregular, rough-and- tumble landscapes of Switzerland. After all the ecstasies people go into over the picturesque, roman- tic, and sublime, give me a gooti, honest Dutch landscape, with some fat cows and a few rows of cabbages in it. 252 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER LVI. REPOSES IN HOLLAND. I HAVE just returned from Broek, " the cleanest village in the world," containing twelve hundred in- habitants, situate about five miles (or three hours ride in a Dutch canal boat) from Amsterdam. It is indeed a. very clean place, but a strict regard for truth compels me to say that I saw considerable dirt in one of the cabbage gardens, and the gate handle of one backyard was not scoured to that degree of brightness I had been led to expect. Moreover, in the only stable that I visited, the cows' tails were not tied up to the beams above with blue ribbons, as I had read in the accounts of travellers, and the in- quiries which I instituted on this point have resulted in convincing me that this is a mere pleasant exag- geration indulged in by those waggish narrators, and bv no means a literal fact. The streets are not streets at all, but neat, little, brick-paved walks wind- ing about in various directions among the houses, EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 253 sometimes in Tront and sometimes in the rear, con- fined by curiou:^ly-^vrougllt wooden or iron fences, or perhaps .here and there by a hedge closely clipped and carved into fantastic shapes. The iiouses have no resemblance to one another, and are so difficult to be described and to get a proper idea of when de- scribed, that I shall leave them to your imagination, assuring you that whatever pictures you may form to yourselves of them will be certain to be totally wrong. The trees are short, chubby, and symmetrical, having a decidedly artificial appearance, educated quite too much like many persons of my acquaintance. The men seemed to be all absent from the town. The women had their dresses pinned up behind, every one a scrubbing brush in her hand, and a ))ail of soap-suds by her side. -The children were just let out from school, and ranging themselves in rows each side o^ the way, cap in hand, slate under the arm and satchel on the back, saluted me with great gravity and })oliteness. Obtained the guidance of a pair of them, little blue-eyed, white-aproned girls, with caps on such as my grandmother used to wear, who conducted me to a large dairy, where I was in- itiated into all the curious mysteries of Dutch cheese-making by a damsel as fair and round, and solid, as any cheese of them all. Returned to my 254 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S canal boat in a state of great self-satisfaction at hav- ing seen so much of this paragon of Dutch towns, and rode dreamily back to Amsterdam, seated by the side of the huge skipjDer, who only opened his mouth to emit smoke, and directed all the move- ments of his crew, (i. e. the helmsman and the boy who rode the horse,) by waving his pipe. The canals hereabouts are ten or fifteen feet higher than the adjacent country, and it is curious enough to see the canal boats in the distance, and even sometimes a large ship with its masts all standing, gliding along on a level with the housetops, plunging into a group of windmills or haystacks, and bringing up at last on the roofs apparently of a remote vil- lage. Amsterdam is an amphibious city, half land and two-thirds water ; most of the streets being canals and drawbridges ; very nearly another yenice with- out the gondolas and faded palaces and historical associations ; in short, a neat, clean, Dutch Venice built of bgricks and colored tiles. It is the finest brick- built city in the world without a doubt. Nothing but seeing can give you any idea of the wonderful variety of beautiful and picturesque forms into which Dutch architects will contrive to pile up bricks. No two houses will be alike, each will be a EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 255 stiuly of itself, and yet there will be a general resem- blance enough to preserve the proper uniformity of a street. I wandered about Amsterdam nearly a week without ever getting tired of its streets and ca- nals, of its clean, healthy-looking people, (it is my deliberate opinion, which I am prepared to defend to the last extremity, that the Dutch arc the handsome- est and the politest race of people on the face of the globe,) of its plump jolly ships, its warehouses, wharves, bridges, and dykes, of its tall spires, huge organs, fat palaces, and resplendent picture galleries. Leaving Amsterdam, your correspondent attended a festival at Haarlem where seventy-five thousand Dutchmen were assembled to do honor to the mem- ory of Coster, an ingenious ancestor of theirs, whom they persist in calling the true, first, and sole inventor of the art of printing, to the utter exclusion of the claims of Guttemburg, who, not being a Dutchman, of course couldn't have hit upon the invention. Afterwards, we proceeded to the Hague, where is the finest park of beech trees that can be imagined, and Paul Potter's celebrated picture of the Bull, to say nothing about a few palaces and kings and princes that we had n't time to visit : buried our- selves one day in the dead old city of Leyden, of Pilgrim memory, and passed through Rotterdam on 256 MR. DUXN Browne's out of Holland into Belgium to the good city of Ant- werp, where is the only really admirable picture Rubens ever painted, the "Descent from the Cross," as well as many other notable things, and whence we shall soon embark for " Merrie England." EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 2o7 CHAPTER LVII. UTTERLY DISREGARDS THE CONSEQUENCES. [Mr. B: bids an affecting farewell to his Passport as the chalky cliffs of England come again in Bight.] Poor, torn, ragged, patched, and mended, Thou hast been to me a friend most dear, But now 's thy faithful service ended, For at length old England's shores are near.. Thine eagle oft hath been my guard Amidst officials fat and saucy : Full oft the soldier grim and hard Ilath quailed before the name of Marcy. Police no more shall seratinize Thy vises, stamps, " permis de s^jour," No more " gens d'armes " o'er thee look wise, Thou hast received thy last " bon pour." My purse for thee shall bleed no morej. Grim sentinel shall not harass, Besetting me at "ate and door With that provoking, " Please Sir, your Pass." 17 258 MR. DUNN EROWNE'S IIow many sovereiirns owe thee thanks ! Full oft the Pope on thee hath fed, Napoleon's had from thee some francs, For Bomba thou hast freely bled. Thou'st greased Emmanuel's moustache, As well as lined the Sultan's pockets, Thou'st helped Franz Joseph cut a dash, And paid for Leopold's festive rockets. From thee and from thy fellows, too, The Duke of Tuscany extracts his Most important revenue ; You are his best and surest taxes. Of every tongue and language, on thy back, Thou hast, I do believe, a scrawl : 'T would jjuzzle Elihu, the " Learned Black- Smith's" self, I ween, to read them all. O'er thee hath many a Dutchman sputtered, Italian raved and Saxon swore, " Sacre " full oft the Frenchman's uttered, Thou'st vexed the German's patience sore. Wise men and fools have o'er thee pondered. Drunken men and sober, men of sense and asses. Sane men, men whose wits had wandered. Men with glass eyes, men with eye-glasses. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 259 Some who woul