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FROM THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY
TO
THE GOLDEN HORN.
BY HENRY M. FIELD, D.D.
FOURTEENTH EDITION.
NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS,
1884.
COPYRIGHT, 1876, BY
SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO.
TROW'S
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY,
_201-213 East 12th Street_,
NEW YORK.
When a man's house is "left unto him desolate" by the loss of one who
filled it with sunshine--when there is no light in the window and no
fire on the hearth--it is a natural impulse to leave his darkened
home, and become a wanderer on the face of the earth. Such was the
beginning of the journey recorded here. Thus driven from his home, the
writer crossed the seas, and passed from land to land, going on and
on, till he had compassed the round globe. The story of all this is
much too long to be comprised in one volume. The present, therefore,
does not pass beyond Europe, but stops on the shores of the Bosphorus,
in sight of Asia. Another will take us to the Nile and the Ganges, to
Egypt and India, to Burmah and Java, to China and Japan.
* * * * *
It should be added, to explain an occasional personal allusion, that
the writer was accompanied by his niece (who had lived so long in his
family as to be like his own child), whose gentle presence cheered his
lonely hours, and cast a soft and quiet light amid the shadows.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
The Melancholy Sea 7
CHAPTER II.
Ireland--its Beauty and its Sadness 17
CHAPTER III.
Scotland and the Scotch 24
CHAPTER IV.
Moody and Sankey in London 32
CHAPTER V.
Two Sides of London.--Is Modern Civilization a Failure? 42
CHAPTER VI.
The Resurrection of France 60
CHAPTER VII.
The French National Assembly 66
CHAPTER VIII
The Lights and Shadows of Paris 77
CHAPTER IX.
Going on a Pilgrimage 86
CHAPTER X.
Under the Shadow of Mont Blanc 96
CHAPTER XI.
Switzerland 108
CHAPTER XII.
On the Rhine 119
CHAPTER XIII.
Belgium and Holland 130
CHAPTER XIV.
The New Germany and its Capital 140
CHAPTER XV.
Austria--Old and New 150
CHAPTER XVI.
A Midsummer Night's Dream.--Outdoor Life of the German
People 164
CHAPTER XVII.
The Passion Play and the School of the Cross 179
CHAPTER XVIII.
The Tyrol and Lake Como 194
CHAPTER XIX.
The City in the Sea 207
CHAPTER XX.
Milan and Genoa.--A Ride over the Corniche Road 222
CHAPTER XXI.
In the Vale of the Arno 234
CHAPTER XXII.
Old Rome and New Rome.--Ruins and Resurrection 243
CHAPTER XXIII.
The Prisoner of the Vatican 253
CHAPTER XXIV.
Pictures and Palaces 261
CHAPTER XXV.
Naples--Pompeii and Paestum 272
CHAPTER XXVI.
The Ascent of Vesuvius 282
CHAPTER XXVII.
Greece and its Young King 291
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Constantinople 305
CHAPTER XXIX.
The Sultan Abdul Aziz 321
CHAPTER XXX.
The Eastern Question.--The Exodus of the Turks 330
CHAPTER XXXI.
The Sultan is Deposed, and Commits Suicide.--The War in
Servia.--Massacres in Bulgaria.--How will it all End? 342
FROM THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY TO THE GOLDEN HORN.
CHAPTER I.
THE MELANCHOLY SEA.
QUEENSTOWN, IRELAND, Monday, May 24, 1875.
We landed this morning at two o'clock, by the light of the moon, which
was just past the full, and which showed distinctly the beautiful
harbor, surrounded by hills and forts, and filled with ships at
anchor, through which the tender that brought us off from the steamer
glided silently to the town, which lay in death-like stillness before
us. Eight days and six hours took us from shore to shore! Eight days
we were out of sight of land. Water, water everywhere! Ocean to the
right of us, ocean to the left of us, ocean in front of us, and ocean
behind us, with two or three miles of ocean under us. But our good
ship, the City of Berlin (which seemed proud of bearing the name of
the capital of the new German Empire), bore us over the sea like a
conqueror. She is said to be the largest ship in the world, next to
the Great Eastern, being 520 feet long, and carrying 5,500 tons. This
was her first voyage, and much interest was felt as to how she
"behaved." She carried herself proudly from the start. On Saturday,
the 15th, seven steamships, bound for Europe, left New York at about
the same time. Those of the National and the Anchor lines moved off
quietly; then the Celtic, of the White Star line, so famous for its
speed, shot down the Bay; and the French steamer, the Amerique, swept
by, firing her guns, as if boasting of what she would do. But the
Berlin answered not a word. Since a fatal accident, by which a poor
fellow was blown to pieces by a premature explosion, the Inman line
has dropped the foolish custom of firing a salute every time a ship
leaves or touches the dock. So her guns were silent; she made no reply
to her noisy French neighbor. But at length her huge bulk swung slowly
into the stream, and her engines began to move. She had not gone
half-way down the bay before she left all her rivals behind, the
Frenchman still firing his guns; even the Celtic, though pressing
steam, was soon "nowhere." We did not see the German ship, which
sailed at a different hour; nor the Cunarder, the Algeria (in which
were our friends, Prof. R. D. Hitchcock and his family), as she left
an hour before us; but as she has not yet been signalled at
Queenstown, she must be some distance behind;[1] so that the Berlin
may fairly claim the honors of this ocean race.
But in crossing the sea speed is secondary to safety and to comfort;
and in these things I can say truly that I never was on board a more
magnificent ship (excepting always the Great Eastern, in which I
crossed in 1867). She was never going at full speed, but took it
easily, as it was her first voyage, and the Captain was anxious to get
his new machinery into smooth working order. The great size of the
ship conduces much to comfort. She is more steady, she does not pitch
and roll, like the lighter boats that we saw tossing around us, while
she was moving majestically through the waves. The saloon, instead of
being at the stern, according to the old method of construction, is
placed more amidships (after the excellent model first introduced by
the White Star line), and covers the whole width of the steamer, which
gives light on both sides. There are four bath-rooms, with marble
baths, supplied with salt water, so that one may have the luxury of
sea-bathing without going to Rockaway or Coney Island. In crossing the
Gulf Stream the water is warm enough; but if elsewhere it is too
chill, the turn of a cock lets the steam into the bath, which quickly
raises it to any degree of temperature. The ventilation is excellent,
so that even when the port-holes are shut on account of the high sea,
the air never becomes impure. The state-rooms are furnished with
electric bells, one touch on which brings a steward in an instant.
Thus provided for, one may escape, as far as possible, the discomforts
of the sea, and enjoy in some degree the comforts and even the
luxuries of civilization.
Captain Kennedy, who is the Commodore of the fleet, and so always
commands the newest and best ship of the line, is an admirable seaman,
with a quick eye for everything, always on deck at critical moments,
watching with unsleeping vigilance over the safety of all on board.
The order and discipline of the ship is perfect. There is no noise or
confusion. All moves on quietly. Not a sound is heard, save the
occasional cry of the men stretching the sails, and the steady throb,
day and night, of the engine, which keeps this huge mass moving on her
ocean track.
But what a vast machine is such a ship, and how complicated the
construction which makes possible such a triumph over the sea. Come up
on the upper deck, and look down through this iron grating. You can
see to a depth of fifty or sixty feet. It is like looking down into a
miner's shaft. And what makes it the more fearful, is that the bottom
of the ship is a mass of fire. Thirty-six furnaces are in full blast
to heat the steam, and at night, as the red-hot coals that are raked
out of the furnaces like melted lava, flash in the faces of the brawny
and sweltering men, one might fancy himself looking into some Vulcan's
cave, or subterranean region, glowing with an infernal heat. Thus one
of these great ocean steamships is literally a sea monster, that
feeds on fire; and descending into its bowels is (to use the energetic
language of Scripture in speaking of Jonah in the whale) like going
down into the "belly of hell."
All this suggests danger from fire as well as from the sea, and yet,
so perfect are the precautions taken, that these glowing furnaces
really guard against danger, as they shorten the time of exposure by
insuring quadruple speed in crossing the deep.
And yet I can never banish the sense of a danger that is always near
from the two destroying elements of fire and water, flood and flame.
The very precautions against danger show that it is ever present to
the mind of the prudent navigator. Those ten life-boats hung above the
deck, with pulleys ready to swing them over the ship's side at a
moment's notice, and the axe ready to cut away the ropes, and even
casks of water filled to quench the burning thirst of a shipwrecked
crew that may be cast helpless on the waves, suggest unpleasant
possibilities, in view of recent disasters; and one night I went to my
berth feeling not quite so easy as in my bed at home, as we were near
the banks of Newfoundland, and a dense fog hung over the sea, through
which the ship went, making fourteen miles an hour, its fog-whistles
screaming all night long. This was very well as a warning to other
ships to keep out of the way, but would not receive much attention
from the icebergs that were floating about, which are very abundant in
the Atlantic this summer. We saw one the next day, a huge fellow that
might have proved an ugly acquaintance, as one crash on his frozen
head would have sent us all to the bottom.
But at such times unusual precautions are taken. There are signs in
the sudden chilliness of the air of the near approach of an iceberg,
which would lead the ship to back out at once from the hug of such a
polar bear.
In a few hours the fog was all gone; and the next night, as we sat on
deck, the full moon rose out of the waves. Instantly the hum of voices
ceased; conversation was hushed; and all grew silent before the awful
beauty of the scene. Such an hour suggests not merely poetical but
spiritual thoughts--thoughts of the dead as well as thoughts of God.
It recalled a passage in David Copperfield, where little David, after
the death of his mother, sits at a window and looks out upon the sea,
and sees a shining path over the waters, and thinks he sees his mother
coming to him upon it from heaven. May it not be that on such a
radiant pathway from the skies we sometimes see the angels of God
ascending and descending?
But with all these moonlight nights, and sun-risings and sun-settings,
the sea had little attraction for me, and its general impression was
one of profound melancholy. Perhaps my own mood of mind had something
to do with it; but as I sat upon deck and looked out upon the "gray
and melancholy waste," or lay in my berth and heard the waves rushing
past, I had a feeling more dreary than in the most desolate
wilderness. That sound haunted me; it was the last I heard at night,
and the first in the morning; it mingled with my dreams. I tried to
analyze the feeling. Was it my own mental depression that hung like a
cloud over the waters; or was it something in the aspect of nature
itself? Perhaps both. I was indeed floating amid shadows. But I found
no sympathy in the sea. On the land Nature soothed and comforted me;
she spoke in gentle tones, as if she had a heart of tenderness, a
motherly sympathy with the sorrow of her children. There was something
in the deep silence of the woods that seemed to say, Peace, be still!
The brooks murmured softly as they flowed between their mossy banks,
as if they would not disturb our musings, but "glide into them, and
steal away their sharpness ere we were aware." The robins sang in
notes not too gay, but that spoke of returning spring after a long
dark winter; and the soft airs that touched the feverish brow seemed
to lift gently the grief that rested there, and carry it away on the
evening wind. But in the ocean, there was no touch of human feeling,
no sympathy with human woe. All was cold and pitiless. Even on the sea
beach "the cruel, crawling foam" comes creeping up to the feet of the
child skipping along the sands, as if to snatch him away, while out on
the deep the rolling waves
"Mock the cry
Of some strong swimmer in his agony."
Bishop Butler finds in many of the forces of Nature proofs of God's
moral government over the world, and even suggestions of mercy. But
none of these does he find in the sea. That speaks only of wrath and
terror. Its power is to destroy. It is a treacherous element. Smooth
and smiling it may be, even when it lures us to destruction. We are
sailing over it in perfect security, but let there be a fire or a
collision, and it would swallow us up in an instant, as it has
swallowed a thousand wrecks before. Knowing no mercy, cruel as the
grave, it sacrifices without pity youth and age, gray hairs and
childish innocence and tender womanhood--all alike are engulfed in the
devouring sea. There is not a single tear in the thousand leagues of
ocean, nor a sigh in the winds that sweep over it, for all the hearts
it breaks or the lives it destroys. The sea, therefore, is not a
symbol of divine mercy. It is the very emblem of tremendous and
remorseless power. Indeed, if Nature had no other face but this, we
could hardly believe in God, or at least, with gentle attributes; we
could only stand on the shore of existence, and shake with terror at
the presence of a being of infinite power, but cold and pitiless as
the waves that roll from the Arctic pole. Our Saviour walked on the
waves, but left thereon no impress of his blessed feet; nor can we
find there a trace of the love of God as it shines in the face of
Jesus Christ.
But we must not yield to musings that grow darker with the gathering
night. Let us go down into the ship, where the lamps are lighted, and
there is a sound of voices, to make us forget our loneliness in the
midst of the sea.
The cabin always presented an animated scene. We had nearly two
hundred passengers, who were seated about on the sofas, reading, or
playing games, or engaged in conversation. The company was a very
pleasant one. At the Captain's table, where we sat, was Mr. Mathew,
the late English Minister to Brazil, a very intelligent and agreeable
gentleman, who had been for seven years at the Court of Dom Pedro,
whom he described as one of the most enlightened monarchs of his time,
"half a century in advance of his people," doing everything that was
possible to introduce a better industry and all improvements in the
arts from Europe and America. The great matter of political interest
now in Brazil is the controversy with the Bishops, where, as in
Germany, it is a stubborn fight between the State and the
ecclesiastical power. Two of the Bishops are now in prison for having
excommunicated by wholesale all the Freemasons of the country, without
asking the consent of the government to the issue of such a sweeping
decree. They are confined in two fortresses on the opposite side of
the harbor of Rio Janeiro, where they take their martyrdom very
comfortably, their sentence to "hard labor" amounting to having a
French cook, and all the luxuries of life, so that they can have a
good time, while they fulminate their censures, "nursing their wrath
to keep it warm."
At the same table were several young Englishmen, who were not at all
like the imaginary Briton abroad, cold and distant and reserved, but
very agreeable, and doing everything to make our voyage pleasant. We
remember them with a feeling of real friendship. Near us also sat a
young New York publisher, Mr. Mead, with his wife, to whom we were
drawn by a sort of elective affinity, and shall be glad to meet them
again on the other side of the ocean.
Among our passengers was Grace Greenwood, who added much to the
general enjoyment by entertaining us in the evening with her dramatic
recitations from Bret Harte's California Sketches, while her young
daughter, who has a very sweet voice, sang charmingly.
Like all ships' companies, ours were bent on amusing themselves,
although it was sometimes a pursuit of pleasure under difficulties; as
one evening, when a young gentleman and lady sang "What are the wild
waves saying?" each clinging to a post for support, while the
performer at the piano had to fall on his knees to keep from being
drifted away from his instrument!
But Grace Greenwood is not a mere entertainer of audiences with her
voice, or of the public with her pen. She is not only a very clever
writer, but has as much wisdom as wit in her woman's brain. In our
conversations she did not discover any extreme opinions, such as are
held by some brilliant female writers, but seemed to have a mind well
balanced, with a great deal of good common sense as well as womanly
feeling, and a brave heart to help her struggling sisters in America,
and all over the world.
One meets some familiar faces on these steamer decks, and here almost
the first man that I ran against was a clergyman whom I knew
twenty-five years ago in Connecticut, Rev. James T. Hyde. He is now a
Professor in the Congregational Theological Seminary at Chicago, and
is going abroad for the first time. What a world of good it does these
studious men, these preachers and scholars, to be thus "transported!"
But here is a scholar and a professor who is not a stranger in Europe,
but to the manner born, our own beloved Dr. Schaff, whose passage I
had taken with mine (knowing that he had to go abroad this summer),
and thus beguiled him into our company. We shared the same
state-room, and never do I desire a more delightful travelling
companion on land or sea. Those who know him do not need to be told
that he is not only one of our first scholars, but one of the most
genial of men. While full of learning, he never oppresses you with
oracular wisdom; but is just as ready for a pleasant story as for a
grave literary or theological discussion. I think we hardly realize
yet what a service he has rendered to our country in establishing a
sort of literary and intellectual free trade between the educated and
religious mind of America and of Great Britain and Germany. To him
more than to any other man is due the great success of the Evangelical
Alliance. He is now going abroad on a mission of not less
importance--the revision of our present version of the English Bible:
a work which has enlisted for some years the combined labors of a
great number of the most eminent scholars in England and America.
Finally, as a practical homily and piece of advice to all who are
going abroad, let me say, if you would have the fullest enjoyment,
_take a young person with you_--if possible, one who is untravelled,
so that you can see the world again with fresh eyes. I came away in
the deepest depression. Nothing has comforted me so much as a light
figure always at my side. Poor child! The watching, and care, and
sorrow that she has had for these many months, had driven the roses
from her cheeks; but now they are coming back again. She has never
been abroad before. To her literally "all things are new." The sun
rises daily on a new world. She enters into everything with the utmost
zest. She was a very good sailor, and enjoyed the voyage, and made
friends with everybody. Really it brought a thrill of pleasure for the
first time into my poor heart to see her delight. She will be the best
of companions in all my wanderings.
In such good company, we have passed over the great and wide sea, and
now set foot upon the land, thanking Him who has led us safely
through the mighty waters. Yesterday morning, after the English
service had been read in the saloon, Dr. Schaff gave out the hymn,
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
and my heart responded fervently to the prayer, that all the
experiences of this mortal state, on the sea and on the land--the
storms of the ocean and the storms of life--may serve this one supreme
object of existence, to bring us NEARER TO GOD.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] She came in fifteen hours after us, and the Celtic twenty. The
German ship reached Southampton two days later.