SCOTLAND
We pass castle after castle, tradition after tradition, vouching for
persecutions and the price of blood paid. Here are the historical
surroundings of Queen Mary and her imprisonment, her escape from the
dungeon; there the royal property acquired by the Earl of Rosebery;
then again a square tower resting on the northwest angle of this pile
is replete with history. A mouldering gateway here surmounted by a
crown and the initials and year “M.R., 1561,” tradition claiming this
as the birthplace of Cromwell’s mother; and so on, until one is dizzy
with dates and towers, almost every inch bearing some part in the
history of a country during troublesome times. But as Sir Walter Scott
is authority for a great part of this history, I will refer you to him
as a much more reliable source of information, and will only attempt an
outdoor description of this beautiful country, whose landscape lacks
none of the fervor, picturesqueness, and sincerity which are ascribed
to it—an appropriate background for its unequalled history in those
turbulent days.
We were well satiated by this time with royal institutions, including
palaces, schools of learning, museums of science and art, botanical
gardens, and the zoos, with the exception of one monument in
Edinburgh,—Scott’s grand memorial,—one of the most beautiful on the
handsomest street in the World,—Princess Street, Edinburgh,—which is
unlike any other I had ever seen.
We took what is known as the “Scotch Flyer” from London to Edinburgh.
Its schedule time in some places is seventy miles per hour. It was
about a five-hundred-miles’ run, devoid of interest. As we neared
Edinburgh the grade became very steep, requiring two engines to pull us
up—a very long train and crowded. The conductor told us this was its
chronic condition. The English, next to Americans, are the greatest
gad-abouts in the world. It is hard to decide which does its work the
quickest, the “Scotch Flyer” or Scotch whiskey; while the social evil
is offensive enough in London and Paris, here it assumes a downright
animal coarseness; the effects of Scotch whiskey in Edinburgh is
alarmingly apparent. We saw more men and real young boys beastly drunk
there than in any place on the continent, the police taking no heed of
their noise, apparently so accustomed to it that it went as a matter of
course. Saturday afternoon is a half-holiday in Edinburgh; the whole
city seems to scatter or seek the country highways and environs.
Everybody visits the great Forth Bridge, said to be the greatest and
grandest bridge in the world.
The strait, where this wonderful bridge crosses the Forth at
Queensferry, has from time immemorial been recognized as the chief
natural route of communication between its northern and southern
shores. It was known among the Romans as the “Passage Strait.” The
inconvenience of being dependent in all kinds of weather upon boats for
communication between the two sides of the coast had long been
commented upon, and when any bold spirit talked of a bridge from one
side to the other, he was looked upon as being highly visionary. The
engineering problem involved in the condition at Queensferry was the
most serious one. It was then proposed that a bridge formed upon the
principle of the Tay Bridge be built; the design was by Sir Thomas
Bouch, engineer of the ill-fated Tay Bridge. He proposed to hang his
erection on piers 600 feet high and across the stream by two latticed
girders of 16,000 feet each, held in position on the suspension
principle. This plan involved a double bridge, one for each set of
rails. When the Tay Bridge fell, there fell with it previously unshaken
confidence in the great engineer, and the feeling against the Forth
Suspension bridge became so pronounced that the Abandonment Act was the
result. Those of us who are old enough (and I regret to chronicle that
I have been on the planet long enough to entitle me to such knowledge)
will never forget the sensation produced as they read of this long
train with its human freight signalling the time of its departure when
leaving the station on one side, but which never signalled its arrival
on the other side; never a vestige recovered from that grasping,
merciless monster, the North Sea. In 1882 it was decided that plans
should be made on the cantilever principle; a steel cantilever bridge
should be made—a principle as old as the science of engineering. It
had been practically known to the Chinese, but never before had it been
applied on so magnificent a scale. A feature of the Paris Exposition
was a design for a bridge crossing the English Channel by seventy
cantilever spans, offered by an eminent firm as an alternative to the
Channel tunnel, at an estimated cost of £34,000,000 Sterling. This
project, however, does not meet with the hearty approval of the
Englishman, who wants neither done, having no desire to facilitate
communication with the French.
Foreign engineers all favor this principle of the Forth Bridge, it is
said, since the first publication of the design. Practically every big
bridge throughout the world has been built on that principle. To form
some opinion yourself, the total height of the structure from its base
is fully 450 feet. Visitors can hardly appreciate its actual magnitude
until they compare adjacent objects—ships, houses, human beings, etc.
Its relative size is seen when in figures you compare it to all other
chief erections in the world; higher than the domes of any of the great
cathedrals of the world, or monuments of the old world. Its rail level
would be as high above the sea as the castle esplanade was above
Princess Street, the castle built on the highest overlooking bluff in
Edinburgh, and the steel work of the bridge would soar two hundred feet
higher. The bridge was formally inaugurated on the 4th of March, 1890,
when the Prince of Wales, now the King of England, turned a tap
clinching the last bolt; this declared the bridge open. Her Majesty was
so much delighted with Sir John Fowler, chief engineer of this gigantic
undertaking, and Mr. Benjamin Baker, his colleague in the engineering,
that she created them Knights Commander of the Order of St. Michael and
St. George. It has taken some time to speak of such a huge affair. We
reached Queensferry by the daily coaches (or tally-hos) that run from
Princess Street, carrying forty people on top.
The scenery en route is delightfully attractive and varied, and the
interest is sustained throughout. In addition to the more commanding
natural beauty of the scenery, the woods abound in picturesque
vistas—Dalmeny Castle on one side, the seat of the Earl of Rosebery,
and on the other side the seat of the Earl of Hopetoun; both are
available to the public. But what interested us more than this tiresome
pomp and display were the hundreds of beggars or mendicants that line
or infest the public road, going through all sorts of antics, from
simply standing on their heads in the mud in roadways to some very
clever acrobatic feats; others singing and dancing for pennies that are
thrown to them from the passing coaches. The most comical sight was a
blind Highland fiddler and his bonnie lass (adorned in rags) fiddling,
at the same time cursing some youngsters filled with Scotch whiskey,
who were guying the poor souls beyond endurance. I have heard of all
kinds of swearing, but never by note.
One need not move a step from Princess Street, Edinburgh, to be
satisfied with his trip. It is the most beautiful street in the world.
We stopped at Hotel Clarendon on Princess Street, just opposite the
grand old castle, the scene of such bloody history. The scene from our
window was unsurpassed, overlooking the gardens and grand promenade
which form one side of this beautiful street, with the lofty and grand
Scott Monument just beyond, and the Royal School of Design close
by,—so pure in its Grecian architecture that one could imagine he was
under the shade of the Parthenon. Holyrood Palace and Abbey, where the
Queen’s Park Drive commences, is the finest drive in Europe. The other
side of the street teems with commercial interests, as busy a
thoroughfare as you see in any great metropolis.
Brilliant color, quick movement, and over-anxious faces are the general
rule. Too bracing an air in these Scottish Highlands to admit of
sluggish movement. I imagined we would step out of the whirl of modern
life when we left London and came up here, where one might breathe
easier; but it seems a headland so blessed of two elements—the cool
air and the sea—that one is energized, and I longed to stay under its
influence and enjoy the physical loveliness of this promontory. One of
our favorite walks was a ramble among Salisbury Crags and over Arthur’s
Seat. The view here of Edinburgh is grand. As you climb up to Arthur’s
Seat you pass over a beautiful plateau of rich meadow-land; this
Sabbath day literally alive with men and boys playing all sorts of
gambling games, from the shaking of dice or of craps to ace-high. We
wound up the hill by terraces, great lengths affording views over the
steep wall of rock of the beautiful city below. The air is pure and
exhilarating. The city, with its many historical domes, spires,
castles, and turrets, is seen to advantage here. As you stand beneath
the thick, strong walls, supporting for ages these grand old castles of
such great antiquity, you can but wonder if they are capable of
carrying these vaulted roofs for generations yet to come. As one
climbed these broad, flagged terraces and lounged on the emerald green
turf, so deep and inviting, one can scarcely realize that in the same
spots, over these steep bluffs, both monks and soldiers climbed
centuries ago, and they are still perfectly intact, while in the last
two thousand years, on the coasts, temples and palaces of two
generations have tumbled into the sea. Old and young have been sitting
on these rocks all the while, high above change, worry, and decay,
gossiping and loving. There are groups of rocks standing on the edge of
precipices like mediæval towers, reminding one a little of the “Garden
of the Gods” in Colorado, but not so phenomenal. We emerged upon a
wild, rocky slope, barren of vegetation except little tufts of grass,
the rocks rising up to the sky behind, as we stood upon the jutting
edge of a precipice.
[Illustration]
We are waiting in London for our vessel, where we are sitting before a
Michigan roll-top desk, with a home-made door-mat under our feet, on a
Nebraska swivel chair, dictating a letter on a Syracuse typewriter,
signed by a New York fountain pen, and drying same with a blotter-sheet
from New England, with a small amount of American brains in our head,
and a still smaller amount of American coin in our pockets, ready and
anxious to see New York, which in ten years hence will be the art
centre of the world.
DEUTSCHLAND LOSES A MAN.
The Swift Liner Buffeted by Storms All the Way Across.
The record-holder Deutschland of the Hamburg-American Line had nothing
but weather on the voyage she finished yesterday from Hamburg,
Southampton, and Cherbourg. The disturbance began just after she left
Cherbourg and kept up almost until she got within sight of the coast of
Yankeeland. Despite wind and sea she made an hourly average of 21.16
knots, covering a course of 3,058 knots in 6 days and 33 minutes, thus
establishing a reputation as a storm-defier.
While she was plunging through the crested seas at 7 o’clock on
Wednesday night a part of the crew were ordered forward to put things
shipshape. Eugen Sarazin, an able seaman of Russia, 19 years old, was
the first man to respond to the order. As he got out on the open deck
the Deutschland plunged into a giant comber. The forward deck of the
ship looked for a moment like the beach of Coney Island on a stormy
day. The young Russian was caught in the swirl and swept overboard.
Shipmates who saw him disappear raised an alarm and the great liner was
stopped. A lifeboat with four volunteer seamen, under Second Officer
Franck, was lowered. It cruised about in the blackness nearly half an
hour and found no trace of the luckless tar.
Passengers aboard the liner crowded to the rails and peered into the
night hopefully while the lifeboat was searching for Sarazin. When it
got back with no news of him a sympathetic passenger suggested that a
purse should be raised for Sarazin’s family. Three contribution boxes
were put up in the ship, and passengers filled them with gold, silver,
and paper money. By this system of subscription, new in nautical
annals, the left hand knew not what the right hand did. The contents of
the boxes will be counted to-day.
Capt. Albers of the Deutschland said the voyage was one of the roughest
on record for September. The women passengers didn’t have much
pleasure. The ship was at times reduced to fifteen knots. The mighty
combers through which she smashed scraped the paint off her bows.
Among the big liner’s passengers were: George C. Boldt, Leonard
Lewisohn, Rud and Henry Kunhardt, Dr. William Tod Helmuth, Charles
Dupont Coudert, and Mr. and Mrs. Carl Spilker.—_N. Y. Sun._
Transcriber’s Notes
Some presumed printer’s errors have been corrected, including
normalizing punctuation. Further corrections are listed below.
p. 21 bouvelard -> boulevard
p. 45 Deutsche Madchen -> Deutsche Mädchen
p. 48 directon -> direction
p. 70 Amercan -> American
p. 70 most of of the -> most of the
p. 71 Champ Élysées -> Champs Élysées
p. 81 Grindling Gibbons -> Grinling Gibbons
p. 93 ninty-eight -> ninety-eight