ON THE RHINE.
COLOGNE, July 26th.
He that goeth up into a high mountain, must needs come down. We have
been these many days among the Alps, passing from Chamouni to the
Bernese Oberland, and now we must descend into the plains. The change
is a pleasant one after so much excitement and fatigue. One cannot
bear too much exaltation. After having dwelt awhile among the
sublimities of Nature, it is a relief to come down to her more common
and familiar aspects; the sunshine is doubly grateful after the gloom
of Alpine passes; meadows and groves are more pleasant to the eye than
snow-clad peaks; and more sweet to the ear than the roar of mountain
torrents, is the murmur of softly-flowing streams. From Lucerne, our
way lies over that undulating country which we had surveyed the day
before from the summit of the Righi, winding around the Lake of Zug,
and ending at the Lake of Zurich.
The position of Zurich is very much like that of Lucerne, at the end
of a lake, and surrounded by hills. A ride around the town shows many
beautiful points of view, on one of which stands the University, which
has an European reputation. Zurich has long been a literary centre of
some importance, not only for Switzerland, but for Germany, as it is
on the border of both. The University gathers students from different
countries, even from Russia. We ended the day with a sail on the
water, which at evening is alive with boats, glancing here and there
in the twilight. Then rows of lamps are lighted all along the shore,
which are reflected in the water; the summer gardens are thronged, and
bands fill the air with music. The gayety of such a scene I enjoy most
from a little distance; but there are few more exquisite pleasures
than to lie motionless, floating, and listening to music that comes
stealing over the water. Then the boatman dipped his oar gently, as if
fearing to break the charm, and rowed us back to our hotel; but the
music continued to a late hour, and lulled us to sleep.
From Zurich, a morning ride brought us to Schaffhausen, where we
stopped a few hours to see the Falls of the Rhine, which are set down
in the guide-books as "the most considerable waterfall in Europe." Of
course it is a very small affair compared with Niagara. And yet I do
not like to hear Americans speak of it, as they are apt to do, with
contempt. A little good sense would teach us to enjoy whatever is set
before us in nature, without boastful comparisons with something in
our own country. It is certainly very beautiful.
From Schaffhausen a new railway has recently been opened through the
Black Forest--a region which may well attract the readers of romance,
since it has been the scene of many of the legends which abound in
German literature, and may be said to be haunted with the heroes of
fiction, as Scott has peopled the glens of Scotland. In the Forest
itself there is nothing imposing. It is spread over a large tract of
country, like the woods of Northern New York. The most remarkable
thing in it now is the railroad itself, which is indeed a wonderful
piece of engineering. It was constructed by the same engineer who
pierced the Alps by a tunnel under the Mont Cenis, nearly eight miles
long, through which now pours the great volume of travel from France
to Italy. Here he had a different, but perhaps not less difficult,
task. The formation of the country offers great obstacles to the
passage of a railroad. If it were only one high mountain, it could be
tunnelled, but instead of a single chain which has to be crossed, the
Forest is broken up into innumerable hills, detached from each other,
and offering few points of contact as a natural bridge for a road to
pass over. The object, of course, is to make the ascents and descents
without too abrupt a grade, but for this it is necessary to wind about
in the most extraordinary manner. The road turns and twists in endless
convolutions. Often we could see it at three different points at the
same time, above us and below us, winding hither and thither in a
perfect labyrinth; so that it was impossible to tell which way we were
going. We counted thirty-seven tunnels within a very short distance.
It required little imagination to consider our engine, that went
whirling about at such a rate, puffing and screaming with excitement,
as a wild beast caught in the mountains, and rushing in every
direction, and even thrusting his head into the earth, to escape his
pursuers. At length the haunted fugitive plunges through the side of a
mountain, and escapes down the valley.
And now we are in a land of streams, where mighty rivers begin their
courses. See you that little brook by the roadside, which any
barefooted boy would wade across, and an athletic leaper would almost
clear at a single bound? That is the beginning of the longest river in
Europe, which, rising here among the hills of the Black Forest, takes
its way south and east till it sweeps with majestic flow past the
Austrian capital, as "the dark-rolling Danube," and bears the commerce
of an empire to the Black Sea.
Our fellow-travellers now begin to diverge to the watering places
along the Rhine--to Baden and Homburg and Ems--where so much of the
fashion of the Continent gathers every summer. But we had another
place in view which had more interest to me, though a sad and mournful
one--Strasburg, the capital of ill-fated Alsace--which, since I saw it
before, had sustained one of the most terrible sieges in history. We
crossed the Rhine from Kehl, where the Germans planted their
batteries, and were soon passing through the walls and moats which
girdle the ancient town, and made it one of the most strongly
fortified places in Europe, and were supposed to render it a
Gibraltar, that could not be taken. But no walls can stand before
modern artillery. The Germans planted their guns at two and three
miles distance, and threw their shells into the heart of the city. One
cannot enter the gates without perceiving on every side the traces of
that terrible bombardment. For weeks, day and night, a rain of fire
poured on the devoted town. Shells were continually bursting in the
streets; the darkness of midnight was lighted up with the flames of
burning dwellings. The people fled to their cellars, and to every
underground place, for safety. But it was like fleeing at the last
judgment to dens and caves, and calling on rocks to cover them from
the inevitable destruction. At length, after a prolonged and heroic
resistance, when all means of defence were gone, and the city must
have been utterly destroyed, it surrendered.
And now what do we see? Of course, the traces of the siege have been
removed, so far as possible. But still, after five years, there are
large public buildings of which only blackened walls remain. Others
show huge gaps and rents made by the shot of the besiegers, and, worst
of all, everywhere are the hated German soldiers in the streets.
_Strasburg is a conquered city._ It has been torn from France and
transferred to Germany, without the consent of its own people; and
though the conquerors try to make things pleasant, and to soften as
much as may be the bitterness of subjugation, they cannot succeed in
doing the impossible. The people feel that they have been conquered,
and the iron has entered into their souls. One can see it in a silent,
sullen look, which is not natural to Frenchmen. This is the more
strange, because a large part of the population of Alsace are Germans
by race and language. In the markets, among the men and women who
bring their produce for sale, I heard little else than the guttural
sounds so familiar on the other side of the Rhine. But no matter for
this; for two hundred years the country has belonged to France, and
the people are French in their traditions--they are proud of the
French glory; and if it were left to them, they would vote to-morrow,
by an overwhelming majority, to be re-annexed to France.
Meanwhile the German Government is using every effort to "make over"
the people from Frenchmen into Germans. It has introduced the German
language into the schools. _It has even renamed the streets._ It
looked strange indeed to see on all the corners German names in place
of the old familiar French ones. This is oppression carried to
absurdity. If the new rulers had chosen to translate the French names
into German, for the convenience of the new military occupants, that
might have been well, and the two might have stood side by side. But
no; the old names are _taken down_, and _Rue_ is turned into _Strasse_
on every street corner in Strasburg. Was ever anything more
ridiculous? They might as well compel the people to change _their_
names. The consequence of all this petty and constant oppression is
that great numbers emigrate. And even those who remain do not take to
their new masters. The elements do not mix. The French do not become
Germans. A country is not so easily denationalized. The conquerors
occupy the town, but in their social relations they are alone. We were
told that if a German officer entered a public cafe or restaurant, the
French instantly arose and left. It is the same thing which I saw at
Venice and at Milan in the days of the old Austrian occupation. That
was a most unnatural possession by an alien race, which had to be
driven out with battle and slaughter before things could come into
their natural and rightful relations. And so I fear it will have to be
here. This annexation of Alsace to Germany may seem to some a
wonderful stroke of political sagacity, or a military necessity, the
gaining of a great strategic point, but to our poor American judgment
it seems both a blunder and a crime, that will yet have to be atoned
for with blood. It is a perpetual humiliation and irritation to
France; a constant defiance to another and far more terrible war.
The ancient cathedral suffered greatly during the bombardment. It is
said the Germans tried to spare it, and aimed their guns away from it;
but as it was the most prominent object in the town, towering up far
above everything else, it could not but be hit many times. Cannon
balls struck its majestic spire, the loftiest in the world; arches and
pinnacles were broken; numbers of shells crashed through the roof, and
burst on the marble floor. Many of the windows, with their old stained
glass, which no modern art can equal, were fatally shattered. It is a
wonder that the whole edifice was not destroyed. But its foundations
were very solid, and it stood the shock. Since the siege, of course,
everything has been done to cover up the rents and gaps, and to
restore it to its former beauty. And what a beauty it has, with
outlines so simple and majestic. How enormous are the columns along
the nave, which support the roof, and yet how they seem to _spring_
towards heaven, soaring upwards like overarching elms, till the eye
aches to look up to the vaulted roof, that seems only like a lower
sky. Except one other cathedral--that of Cologne (under the very
shadow of which I am now writing)--it is the grandest specimen of
Gothic architecture which the Middle Ages have left to us.
There is one other feature of Strasburg that has been unaffected by
political changes. One set of inhabitants have not emigrated, but
remain in spite of the German occupation--_the storks_. Was anything
ever so queer as to see these long-legged, long-necked birds, sitting
so tranquilly on the roofs of the houses, flapping their lazy wings
over the dwellings of a populous city, and actually building their
nests on the tops of the chimneys? Anything so different from the
ordinary habits of birds, I had never seen before, and would hardly
have believed it now if I had not seen it. It makes one feel as if
everything was turned upside down, and the very course of nature
reversed, in this strange country.
Another sign that we are getting out of our latitude, and coming
farther North, is the change of language. We found that even in
Switzerland. Around the Lake of Geneva, French is universally spoken;
but at Berne everybody addressed us in German. In the Swiss Parliament
speeches are made in three languages--German, French, and
Italian--since all are spoken in some of the Cantons. As we did not
understand German, though familiar with French, we had many ludicrous
adventures with coachmen and railway employes, which, though sometimes
vexatious, gave us a good deal of merriment. Of course there was
nothing to do but to take it good-naturedly. Generally when the
adventure was over, we had a hearty laugh at our own expense, though
inwardly thinking this was a heathen country, since they did not know
the language of Canaan, which, of course, is French or English. In
short, we have become fully satisfied that English was the language
spoken by Adam and Eve in Paradise, and which ought to be spoken by
all their descendants.
But no harsh and guttural sounds, and no gloomy political events, can
destroy the pleasure of a journey along the Rhine. The next day we
resumed our course through the grand duchy of Baden. At one of the
stations a gentleman looking out of a carriage window called me by
name, and introduced himself as Dr. Evans, of Paris--a countryman of
ours, well known to all who have visited the French capital, where he
has lived for a quarter of a century, and made for himself a most
honorable position in his profession, in both the American and foreign
community. I had known him when he first came to Paris, just after the
revolution of 1848. He was then a young man, in the beginning of his
successful career. He has been yet more honorably distinguished as
the gallant American who saved the Empress in 1870. The story is too
well known to be repeated at length. The substance may be given in a
few sentences. When the news of the surrender at Sedan of the Emperor
and his whole army reached Paris, it caused a sudden revolution--the
Empire was declared to have fallen, and the excited populace were
ready to burst into the palace, and the Empress might have been
sacrificed to their fury. She fled through the Louvre, and calling a
cab in the street, drove to the house of Dr. Evans, whom she had long
known. Here she was concealed for the night, and the next day he took
her in his own carriage, hiding her from observation, and travelling
rapidly, but in a way to attract no attention, to the sea-coast, and
did not leave her till he had seen her safe in England. Connected with
this escape were many thrilling details, which cannot be repeated
here. I am very proud that she owed her safety to one of my
countrymen. It was pleasant to be remembered by him after so many
years. We got into the same carriage, and talked of the past, till we
separated at Carlsruhe, from which he was going to Kissingen, while we
went to Stuttgart, to visit an American family who came to Europe
under my care in the Great Eastern in 1867, and have continued to
reside abroad ever since for the education of their children. For such
a purpose, Stuttgart is admirably fitted. Though the capital of the
Kingdom of Wuertemberg, it is a very quiet city. Young people in search
of gayety might think it dull, but that is its recommendation for
those who seek profit rather than amusement. The schools are said to
be excellent; and for persons who wish to spend a few years abroad,
pursuing their studies, it would be hard to find a better place.
To make this visit we were obliged to travel by night to get back to
the Rhine. We left Stuttgart at midnight. Night riding on European
railways, where there are no sleeping-cars, is not very agreeable.
However, in the first class carriages one can make a sort of half
couch by pulling out the cushioned seats, and thus bestowed we managed
to pass the night, which was not very long, as daybreak comes early in
this latitude, and at this season of the year.
But fatigues vanish when at Mayence we go on board the steamer, and
are at last afloat on the Rhine--"the exulting and abounding river."
We forget the discomforts of the way as we drop down this enchanted
stream, past all the ruined castles, "famed in story," which hang on
the crests of the hills. Every picturesque ruin has its legend, which
clings to it like vines to the mouldering wall. All day long we are
floating in the past, and in a romantic past. Tourists sit on deck,
with their guide-books in hand, marking every old wall covered with
ivy, and every crumbling tower, connected with some tradition of the
Middle Ages. Even prosaic individuals go about repeating poetry. The
best of guide-books is Childe Harold. Byron has seized the spirit of
the scene in a few picturesque and animated stanzas, which bring the
whole panorama before us. How musical are the lines beginning,
The castled crag of Drachenfels,
Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine,
Whose breast of waters broadly swells
Between the banks which bear the vine,
And hills all rich with blossomed trees,
And fields which promise corn and wine,
And scattered cities crowning these,
Whose far white walls along them shine.
Thus floating onward as in a dream, we reached Cologne at five o'clock
Saturday afternoon, and found at the Hotel du Nord a very spacious and
attractive hostelry, which made us well content to stay quietly for
two or three days.
Cologne has got an ill name from Coleridge's ill-favored compliment,
which implied that its streets had not always the fragrance of that
Cologne water which it exports to all countries. But I think he has
done it injustice for the sake of a witty epigram. If he has not, the
place has much improved since his day, and if not yet quite a flower
garden, is at least as clean and decent as most of the Continental
cities. It has received a great impulse from the extension of
railroads, of which it is a centre, being in the direct line of travel
from England to the Rhine and Switzerland, and to the German
watering-places, and indeed to every part of Central Europe. Hence it
has grown rapidly, and become a large and prosperous city.
But to the traveller in search of sights, every object in Cologne
"hides its diminished head" in presence of one, the cathedral, the
most magnificent Gothic structure ever reared by human hands. Begun
six hundred years ago, it is not finished yet. For four hundred years
the work was suspended, and the huge crane that stood on one of its
towers, as it hung in air, was a sad token of the great, but
unfinished design. But lately the German Government, with that vigor
which characterizes everything in the new empire, has undertaken its
completion. Already it has expended two millions of dollars upon it,
and holds out a hope that it may be finished during this generation.
To convey any idea of this marvellous structure by a description, is
impossible. It is a forest in stone. Looking through its long nave and
aisles, one is more reminded of the avenues of New Haven elms, than of
any work of man. We ascended by the stone steps to the roof, at least
to the first roof, and then began to get some idea of the vastness of
the whole. Passing into the interior at this height, we made the
circuit of the gallery, from which men looked very small who were
walking about on the pavement of the cathedral. The sacristan who had
conducted us thus far, told us we had now ascended one hundred steps,
and that, if we chose to mount a hundred more, we could get to the
main roof--the highest present accessible point--for the towers are
not yet finished, which are further to be surmounted by lofty spires.
When complete, the crosses which they lift into the air will be more
than five hundred feet above the earth!
The Cathedral boasts great treasures and holy relics--such as the
bones of the Magi, the three Kings of the East, who came to see the
Saviour at his birth, which, whoso can believe, is welcome to his
faith. But the one thing which all _must_ believe, since it stands
before their eyes, is the magnificence of this temple of the Almighty.
I am surprised to see the numbers of people who attend the services,
and with an appearance of devotion, joining in the singing with heart
and voice. The Cathedral is our constant resort, as it is close to our
hotel, and we can go in at all hours, morning, noon, and night. There
we love to sit especially at twilight, when the priests are chanting
vespers, and listen to their songs, and think of the absent and the
dead. We may wander far, and see many lofty structures reared to the
Most High, but nowhere do we expect to bow our heads in a nobler
temple, till we join with the worshippers before the Throne.