Tracks of a Tenderfoot - Forgotten Books

TRACKS OF ATENDERFOOT .

In Africa,Asia and E urope

GULIAN LANSING MORR ILL

ILLUST RAT E D

MINNEAPO LISl 9 O 2

T HE LIBR ARY O F

C O NG R E SS ,

T wo C omes R ECENE D

C O PYright , 1 902 ,

MO R R ILL

0 0 0 4 t ! G e e

MINNESO TA BLANK BO O K CO .

MINNEAPO LIS

"an? ENT RY

! Cr02

T o MY MOTH ER

F O R EWO R D .

I have been told -that the gulls which follow'

ships as they cross the Atlantic are the ghosts

of travelers doomed to exp-iate the innumerable'

l ies which they have told on their return home .‘

“Haec fabula docet .

” But I’ll not preach and

this moral has no story . I f this book is as prosyas a sermon the reader is at liberty to do as he

d id when I occupied the pulpit_

— nod W ith Homer

and wake up with the benediction— after the col

lection .

G. L . M.

Minneapol is , May 1902 .

LIST O F O R IGINAL ILLUSTR ATIO NS .

Portrait F rontispiece .

T he Wanderings of the Tenderfoot !Map). 4

F unchal Cathedral 16 V

0

Street Scene in Algiers 32

Listening to the Sphinx 48

Climbing Cheops . 64

Crossing the Jordan 80

The Author in O riental Garb 96

Shechem and Mount E bal 1 1 2

R uins at E phesus 1 2 8

T ower of Constantine 144

R eading Paul’s Sermon on Mars Hill 160 v

T heatre of Bacchus 176 v"

F eeding Pigeons at St . Marks 192

Landau Harbo r, Switzerland 2 24

Holland Windmills 2 56

F rench Peasant Girl 2 88

CO NT E NT S.

CHAPT E R PAGE

O n Shipboard

Madeira

A D ay at Gibraltar

Algiers—'

The Beautiful

Qu aint O ld Malta

In]

Hoary O ld E gypt

R ambling in E gypt

T he Holy City

Scenes in Samaria

Galilee and Its Sacred R eminiscence

T hree Cities of the O rientI

In the Sultan’s City

Greece and Mars Hill

Naples and Vesuvius .

T he E ternal City

In Wonderful F lorence

Pisa,Genoa and Milan

CO NT E NT S .

CHAP T E R PAGE

XVIII . Venice— The White Phantomed City . 2 1 1

Granite Masterpieces of Switzerland . 2 2 0

F amed Cities of Germany 2 34

Leipzig,F rankfort

,The R hine 248

XX II . The Lowlands— Hol land and Belgium 2 58

XXIII . F rom Nice to Monaco 2 7 1

XX IV. Paris and the Parisians 2 78

XXV . The Last of F rance 2 85

XXVI . London and Its Sights 304

XXVII . Historic Spots of E ngland 3 18

XXVIII . Good O ld Yankeeland 32 7

TRACKS OF ATENDERFOOT.

CHAPT E R I .

O N SHIPBO ARD

O ur ship was like a chained leviathan pantingto be free in the sea for which she was made .

Hundreds of friends of passengers came to say“

Bon voyage . O ne woman in particular of starboard length and portly width remarked , How

I hate a crowd , and proceeded to prove it byshipping herself between me and the foregangway. Later she was the Girl I left behind me .

”

It was a cold, raw morning . The decks werecrowded .

“All vis itors ashore at last rang out

on the frosty air,chilling the flowers which had

been brought,but not the prayers or tears of

those who knew a love which neither time nor

shock could weaken or destroy . The hawserswere cast off ; the tug boats pulled us around ;the pilot boat came along side ; the pilot climbedour ladder ; and steered us toward the open seaso wide , so deep

,so

‘ long and left us . Tennyson’s thought was ours .

1 2 T RACKS O F A T E NDE RF O O T .

F or though from out this bou rne of time and p lac e

T he flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilo t fac e to fac e ,W h en I have c rossed the bar .

F igures are deceiving,but try to imagine our

ship of twelve thousand tons burden ; five .hun~

dred and seventy—five“ feet in length ; masts on e

hundred and twenty-five feet from the“ upper

d eck ; and the who le ably manned from CaptainMcAuley on the bridge , to the stokers in theho ld

'

feeding one hundred an d thirty—six fires

with one hundred and eighty tons of coal perday. T heNew E ngland was the largest passen

g er boat fiéated in the Mediterranean sea ; to saynothing of the passengers’ size

,three hundred

and five woman and two hundred and twentymen, some of whom were the biggest and bestone could possibly meet with on land or sea .

What Irving says in his“

T o an American visiting E urope the long voyage he has to make isan excellent preparative .

” I question . If youare well you are prepared to eat and drinkand may be ‘merry all the day long in walking,talking

,reading, smoking, writing, studying,

p laying cards , dressing, fl irting, playing piano ,

singing,l istening to orchestra

“

, napping , boasting

how much your friends think of you and you of

them, or planning how to do the city _

without

bein g “ done up” by some infamous interpreter ,

O N SHIPBO ARD . 13

heartless hack driver or swindling shopkeeperwhose knowledge of Scripture is limited to “ Iwas a stranger and they took me in .

”

If you are sick you will feel like giving upall you hold dear except your hold on the sideof the bunk , which you tighten as the ship rollsand pitches

,thanking the builder that the state

room is no larger for you to be banged andbounced around in ; while at lucid and qu iet intervals you wonder what idiot wrote

“Life. on the

O cean Wave .

” “

O h my ,” I said and groaned

,

while my Christian Science friend said : “

Sea

sickness is a delusion !” But “ can such ! imaginary) things be and overcome us like a summer .cloud and not excite our special wonder ?”

Scene on D eck , 5 p . m.

— Husband to wifeWell

,I think we had better dress for dinner .”

Wi fe : I don’t feel like it, but I suppose wehad .

”

Same people in the saloon at lady in silkand laces

,gentlemen in tuxedo . At lady

is leaving saloon in a hurry ; at the gentleman does ditto .

Moral : Be sure of your dinner rather thanof your dress .Count Mal de Mer is no respector of pe rsons .He will take a young belle and wring her unti lshe looks old and worn and her vo ice is thin and

14 T RACKS O F A T E NDE RF O O T .

cracked, While the dear old body whom yourheart called “mother” and for whom you feared ,is always on deck for a walk and ready for threesittings in the dining-room per d iem . There areremedies for sea sickness but the best one I aminclined to believe is death . The preventivesare many and expensive ; powders , pills and humble diet . The cures more so ; bromides , lemons ,and phosphates , even to placing a newspaper on

your chest and lying dovVn right away . I had adownright lying paper with me and it did verywell for everything but the thing it was prescribed for . Let me not be misunderstood . I

was not very sea sick . I j ust felt bad enough to

want to be real sick for a change ; and the monotony was not relieved for three days . I wasn

’tlike the man who wanted to die but couldn’t , andthen was afraid to . I j ust hated mysel f and be

tween the acts of the comedy of dressing mysel fin sections and lying down , wished I had an au

ger long enough to bore through to the keel and

sink all on board .

T heanimals on shipboard enjoyed the passagevery much . In our menagerie I saw a Baer,Bull

,and Wol f . Later Imet a F ish in the swim

and a Swan on the water . We had F ro-st

and Snow on l eaving Bo ston , and bright Starsvisible day and night . Le t the great dramatist

O N SHIPBO ARD . 1 5

ask now, if he pleases , What’s in a name ?” and

take the above for an answer .O ne must be a “

good mixer to make friendlyprogress on shipboard . It i s not so much whoyour father was, or where you studied or how

big your bank account is, but what can you do

to please the crowd ?At the dinner table fruits and nuts were servedin great abundance . Among them these chestnuts were passed around ;

“Why are the passengers of the New E ngland like a party going toa comic opera ?” “ Because they are going to

F uh-call .” “Why should all bachelors on boardget a W if e before they return ?” “ Because theyare going to the Maid-era .

”

Time was ours in large quantities . No papersto read or letters to to ring upor calls to look after, sermons to prepare or

preach or l isten to . Clock hands give wayto bell tongues which ring out the hours ; fourhours making a watch ! and unmaking everytimepiece half an hour a day) unti l we are drivento desperation . Six watches in twenty-fourhours ; at one ; at 1 , two ; and so on untilwhen comes it rings eight . E asy isn’t it ?

My friendsknew the piano was my for te andmathematics my foible

,so I learned to keep up

with the times by dividing the number of bells


by two, which gave me the hour if I could re

member what it was by the “watch .

”

“The hell of waters , how they howl and hiss !

A stormy sea gives us a new scripture . D r . D uff ,the good mi ssionary

,had often read Psalm cvii . ,

2 3—

3 1 on land , but when the“Lady Holland”

struck the Cape of Good Hope bar and waswrecked

,he found the “Traveler’s Psalm

” a verydiff erent thing. We had no big storm and thefool ish passenger who wanted one was not gratified ; but we were at the look the captain gavehim . There had been one the day before andso we gOt the ground swel l of it . O ur big shipwas the sport of the whistling wind and the savage waves that rolled and rearing themselvesthirty feet in the air, washed the upper dack andbridge . This led the captain to send word thatthere Vyas danger for us who stood in the bow,

and we had better come aft’

or go below ,so we

accordingly acted upon the hint . Neptune

calmed himself somewhat, but we Were restless .

O ur sea legs struck strange attitudes ; our bodiesvarious angles ; we stood not upon the order of

our introduction or going out or going in , butembraced each other without leave or leaving and

just held on . O ne lurch of the ship sent twentysteamer chairs sliding down the deck and theiroccupants into the scuppers ; the fruit,

"

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O N SHIPBOARD . 17

and beef tea lunch into each other’s arms andfaces . Anelderly lady struck the rail which -re

sulted in a bruise-d forehead and blackened eyes .A man lost his balance , upset his wife , clasped

another woman and heard his partner shriek ,“ I

think you might hug me instead .

” Mrs. LucianSwift strewed shawl

,books , Journal, pen and a

two-pound box of fine‘

candy over the deck ; whileMr .W. B . Chandler , the genial

“

Soo” '

Line agent ,fell On his knees to a strange lady and laid hishead in her lap .

“

O T empora ! O Mo ses !” Let the light go

out on this dark picture . An hour after I wentto dinner and the dinner went after me in spiteof table racks ; the ship lurched , waiters lost theirbalance , and the who le table d

’hote took a tumble in my lap . I always was a lucky dog and thiswas an added proo f . “

E verything . comes . my

way .

”

Seriously, the sea’s w ide waste Of weltering

water” is a sublime sight in what it is or seemsor does . Byron’s matchless Apostrophe is but“moonlight to sunlight” compared w ith itself .Leaning over the rail looking at the phosphorescent gleam

,the curling foam, or the greenish. blue

wake,I recalled and repeated his “ dark , deep,

blue ocean ; boundless , endless sublime” w ith

n ew and never before dreamed of feeling. T o


think that the great God holds it as a drop inthe hol low of His hand and it is the symbol ofHis mercy in its “wideness .Through the black and bright, from time ofevening till “ jocund day stands tip toe on themisty mountain tops , let this wonderful workdeclare to the children of men ,

“weeping may en

dure for a night, but joy cometh in the mom

mg.

CHAP T E R I I .

MAD E IR A.

The Madeiras belong to Portugal , but I claimthem by right of discovery . The islands have an

undulating appearance like the crest o f a serpentand ris e in places from four to six thousand feet .H ills and valleys are covered with violet andpurple vines , l ittle vil lages nestle like flocks onthe hill side

,and stray huts like lost lambs are

found here and there . Madeira means “wood ,”

and once the island was heavy with timber , butsome George came here with his li ttl e hatchetand got in his deadly wo rk for

'

building material

or a match factory .

E arly history refers to a big match affair here

MADE IRA. 19

between R obert Machim and Anna d’Arfet ,whose thoughts l ightly turned to love . T hey

promised to leave the ir happy homes for eachother and eloped from E ngland to F rance in

1 346. They were pursued by the storm of papa’

s

boot and Neptune’s blow, wh ich took them out

of their cours e and landed them at a spot calledMochico in memory of their devot ion . You may

dilute’

this story with sea Water , for h isto ry, l ikecharacter

,is O ften doubtful and deceitful . F or

instance, what of Napo leon , who was brought toMadeira on his way to St . Helena , or of Christopher Columbus , who came to Po rto Santo,

studied navigation

,and married the daughter of

Governor P’

erestrello ? We have discovered thathe did not discover America , and did do someother things wh ich would not make good reading in Sunday school libraries .

F unchal is the capital of Made ira . It lies on a

curving shore ; white houses called quintas ,”

with terraced gardens , surrounded by vineyardsand patches of sugar-cane , be autify the slopes .A. smal l fort, Loo R ock , close to shore , guardsthe bay , and on the h ill beh ind the city there is aformidable for tress which thundered a salute tous after we had raised the Stars and Stripes and

E ngl ish Jack .

We dropped anchor in the open roadstead


and dropped it was, for the cable broke when

three hundred and sixty feet had been let outbefore bottom had been reached . The officersshowed a warmth o f feeling wh ich made it nec

essary for the health officer to board the ship

and askwhat the matter was .The natives are of Portuguese descent

,with a

mixture of negro and Moorish blood . They

stretched hands across the sea which threatened

to overturn thei r canoes , and tried to sell us

lace,parrots

,wickerwork and j ewelry . They

held out umbrellas to catch the coin which we

threw them or dived out into the deep water for

other pi eces , which never got away from them .

O n shore the men wore a sk in-tight fittingtrouser wh ich came to thei r knees , a coars eshirt covered by a short jacket , rough yellow

boots , and a little cap of blue cloth , called“ cara

puca,” shaped l ike a funnel with a pipe on top ,

through which we tri ed to convey a few ideas .

The women were pol ite , some pretty and youngand some pretty old . T hey dres sed in a gaylooking gown of some native material and a cape

of red or blue wool cloth .

But I wanted to see a man , and I had a letter

of int roductio n to him. from. my friends in

O wensboro who had been his early playmates inthe old town .

. T his gentleman was the Hon .

MADE IRA. 2 1

T om Jones, our American consul, and when I

say he was a true Kentuckian,the world under

stands he was the soul of chivalry , c ourage and

companion ship .

He asked me if I would take a ride . I saidYes

,

” and he o rdered a bull-cart , for F unchal i s

the place of the ho rseless carriage and was even

then negotiating for wireless telegraphy, motion

less messenger boys and speechless banquets . A

bull-cart is a kind of car , built on runners , cur

tained and made to ho l d four people , and drawn

by oxen which your driver prods and curses ashe tro ts by your side

,placing a greasy rag in

front of the runners so that they may slide eas

ily . When you want a different ride you climb

into a hammock , made of strong canvas fasten-cdto a long pol e carried by two. men . Instead of awheelbarrow or truck

,laborers carry heavy bur

dens ou their heads,wh ich develops a kind o f

bull-neck and makes them head strong, as wesoon learned .

I found the streets narrow and clean,paved

with small roun d stones. There are no s ide

walks ; you keep in the middle of the road .

”

Two public walks , with trees , invite a promenade , and in spring time streams run down the

hills and flow acros s the town in deep channels ;The stores are small . I bought a s ilver ring,


two bu l ls and a car t . No window display at

tracts and bargain counters are unknown . Mar~

kets off er poor meat, f resh fish , and vege tables .

These , with sal t herring and cod , are the leadingarticles of diet . The dwellings have their groundfloo r windows fitted with iron bars which givethem a j ail-like appearance . The houses are

painted white,with green latticed blinds . R ich

people have larger houses . My friend, Ladd , wasattracted to one , met the lady , and with gesture

and speech said,

“ Beautiful,I look around

here?” T o which she replied , Certainl y, sir ;

you are very welcome . She was the E ngl ishspeaking wife of a Portuguese merchant . Hewas invited in , shown the furnishings , and askedto remain and dine with the husband

,whose ap

pearance was soon expected .

T he town has a fine publ ic garden,with plants

and flowers and a band-stand where an excellentorchestra furnishes free music in the afternoon .

I saw a large ho spital built by the late E mpress

of Brazil for the care of consumptives of Braz i lian or Portuguese b irth . Many th ings wereforeign in name and arrangement, for instance ,the proprieto-r

’

s name ,“ Jesus ,

” in big letters

over the door and gate entrances into paved ves

f ibules fromwhich a doubleflight of stairs leadto the main room above.



are children,and they are very many . The law

says they shall go to schoo l ; some did , but I’m

sure «more were down to meet us . But school

without “ hookey” i s like ham without an omelet .

I always regret that ’mid all my youthful joy of

study I missed the pleasure of playing truant .R oman Catho lici sm is the establ ished form of

religion . The b-ishO p i s at the head of the clergy

and his'

cathedral i s at F unchal.’ Years ago Pro

testants were regarded as heretics,they had a

hard time in life,and at death were

'

taken out for

burial at sea,but other be l iefs are now to l erated .

’

The wine T rade brought the British merchants ,they erected a church and have a resident chaplin who conducts the E piscopal service . The

Presbyterians fol lowed their exampl e,built a

church and stand in. their faith for the F ree

Church of Scotland . O n my return from the oldcathedral

,with its cedar roof

,red and gold

,

Moorish style and silver ornaments ,'

I met afuneral procession . The body was carried on the

shoulders o f four'

bearers ; the priests marched

in fron t with: O pen book , chanting the service ,while relatives and mourners fol lowed behind .

Here,as elsewhere , there is no land one can visit

where the dark shadow of the grave does not

fall on the hearth and heart of man .

We had delightful‘

weather . The city is a

MADE IRA. 2 5

sanitary resort ; the mean annual temperature is66 degrees and sick and tired people come hereto find the climate mild in summer and winter ,day and night . In such an atmosphere there are

innumerable insects,many moths

,and nearly a

thousand varieties of beetles . O ne finds a fewlizards and turtles . Young Isaac Waltons goout and find cho ice of several hundred kinds of

fish . When it comes to botany,the vegetat ion

is like southern E urope .

T he i sland shows vo lcanic formation and‘

aC'

tion . Lagoa , to the east , has a crater five hundred feet in diameter and one hundred and fifty

feet deep .

Virgil’s Bucolics were not inspired by th iscountry . The people generally rent the land but

own the house , walls and trees , paying theirrental by a per cent o f the produce rai sed . Hiredmen are not needed , for man and wife are literal“ helpmeets . F arming. implements are old—fash

ioned affairs . In absence of meadows , the cattle

are fed in the stalls when they are not out inthe mountains . O xen furnish power and thehorse is as rare as the D '

odo bird . Water isscarce

,comes through courses built of

'

maso-ury,

o-r driven through rock tunnels and has a mar

ketable value .

The peopl e were very sweet to us , for sugar


i s one o f their staple artic lesf I A long time ago

some one brought the cane from S'

icily . It may

have been an E vil Spirit,for the people have

been “

R aising Cain ever since,making a kind

of fireb water from a distillation of the thick juice

after extracting the sugar . They further growwheat, barley, Indian corn , good common vege

tables , poo r apples , pears and peaches , lemons ,oranges

,guavas

,figs

,bananas

,pineapples , and

a custard apple that melts into the remembranceof pies “ like mother used to make .” They raise

a little tobacco from which they make atrociou s

cigars . A—

few date palms,more picturesque than

palatable , are found on the hill s ides,and the

upper hills are full of Spanish chestnuts which

form a big item of food fo r the poor.Some of the natives make c oars e l inen articles ,and boots and shoes for their own use . The girlsdo a lot of needlewo rk and embroidery, while

the old women make wicker-wo rk baskets and

chairs from the o siers which grow in the t a

vines ; O ne of our lady tourists bought a chair

which proved to be a kind o f white elephan t on

her hands and under our feet , for i t was always

on deck and as unmanageable as Victor Hugo’

s

cannon .

I went to a local bank where E nglish merchants. cash your bil ls and checks for a consid~

MADE IRA. 2 7

c ration of something more than friendly interest .The people have the F rench decimal system

,a

kind of visionary reis” coin , which makes your

calculations crazy . F our thousand five hundredequal a pound sterling

,and one thousandmake

a mil-re or dollar, equal to four shillings and fiveand one-third pence . I was

—

compelled to go to

the posto ffice . I wanted some postal cards andstamps for a col lection I intended to make . Ioffered my money and the clerk said ,

“

F ifty re isfor one-half dozen.

” I thought he“

had raisedthe price

,but I paid the money and staggered

to the cable Office to wire my family I had

reached Made ira in safety and was doing as wellas could be expected .

The word M‘adeira i s a synonym for wine . The

vine was brought here from Crete as early as

the 16th century . The peasants cultivate it on

their l ittle patches of land ; the merchant buys the“must” from the press , takes it to his stOre,

where he ferments and treats it until it i s fit for

market . T he famous Madeira wine is made from

a mixture of black and whi te grapes , which are

al so made separately into wines called “ Tinta”

and “Verdelho .

” My friend , Consul Jones , in

sisted that I should dine with him at R eid’s new

hotel . It i s built ou the margin of a cliff, one

hundred feet above the blue water , and Off ers


a fine view of shor e,

"

mountain and sea . I was

introduced to the propr i eto r and sat down to abig banquet . T o my left there was a sweet

,old

E nglish lady from London who divided her talk

between good Queen Victoria and the bad Indians in the R ocky Mountains . She was in fine

spirits and-

not les s so when a bottle of Madeiraof the vintage of 1860 was opened and a . toast

was drunk to the success of the “ Innocents

Abroad .

”

May not Madeira be Spelled Mad

era? Paul_to ld Timo thy

,

“

Use a little wine for

thine often infirmities,but history proves that

much wine makes b-ad medicine . If it i s true

that In the trembling hand of a d-runkard every

crimson drop tha t glowed'

in the cup i s crushed

from the roses that Once bloomed on the cheeks

of some helpless woman ,” then we must con

clude ,“

O ,thou invisible spirit of wine

,if thou

hast no name to be known by , l et u s call thee‘devil .’

It was midnight when we'

left F unchal . The

moon veiled herself like a nun and enter ed her

chapel,l it by stars

,and I drifted gently down

the tides o f sleep .

”

A DAY AT GIBRALTAR. 29

CHAP T E R I II .

A D AY AT GIBR ALT AR .

We entered Gibraltar strait,

— it’s about thirtysix miles long with much varying width— and

sighted Tari fa on the coast of Spain , with Africaonly nine miles away: Tarifa was too unimport

ant to visit with more than a glance through our

glass, _

but the word is associated w ith somethingall good citizens are interested in , and touristsespecially on their return home, and that is

“ tariff

” a rate of duty leveled on all things imported .

It was the custom of these Barbary pirates whobuilt a castle at Tari fa

, to force tol l nolens volensfrom every vessel that passed by,Gibraltar welcomed us with torpedo and warvessels , and a steam tender on

_

which an officious

foreigner informed us that “ kodak machineswere not allowed on land .

” But that was just the

place for a kodak ; so while an officer at the wharfconfiscated a reverend F ather

’s photographic outfit

,my simple-looking

'

machine was smuggled ina passenger’s shawl and later brought back to

the ship in a basket O f lemons and oranges whichI purchased on shore .O f . course , I took a few pictures on the sly, as

it was a good year for Americans abroad, and

30 T RACKS or A T E NDE RF O O T .

our relation was so cordial with E ngland in a

brotherly “ alliance,

” that I could not be deniedthe privi lege of freedom of an American cousinand ardent admirer of good old E ngland .

What were a few snap shot s , anyway, when theywere shooting all the time in Africa , and at thatvery minute were snapping the ir fingers at O om

Paul ?Gibraltar is mo re than a gob of mud on the

end of a stick .

” If you are mathematical youwill be interested in knowing that it is a pro

montory t hree by seven miles,whos e great

est height is one thousand four hundred

feet . If mythological , that , with Ceuta, on

the African coast , it formed the Pillars of

Hercules , west of which noth ing was supposedto ex1st but chaos and darkness . If histo rical

,

that it was called Gebel Tarik, from the Moorishconqueror who came there in 7 1 1 A . D .

,since

which time the game of war has been played withvarying fortune by the Christian , Moor, British ,D utch , Span ish and F rench , until the spirit of

Sir Gilbert E liott prevai led ; a spirit which staro

vation , s ickness and sho t could not down , so thatE ngland has re

'

tained'

Gibraltar as her possession ,though Spain is said to regard the rockas only“ temporarily” under a foreign flag. A flat ,sandy isthmus joins the rockwith the mainland .



home, when the word duty , which they had al

most forgotten suddenly confronts them . The

town was one of the worst ! I hope) in Spainand a short sight-seeing made us glad to leaveits dirt , rags , drunkenness and general deviltry .

A little ragmuffin scanned our company and ,making a thumb and nose gesture

, said ,“Ameri

cans no good .

”

R eturning, we climbed from the King’s bas

tion to the Alameda esplanade , where there IS abeautiful garden in which the military band plays ,and the re , as everywhere , people bent on pleasure

showed their Wealth and dress by promenadingup and down .

A W . C. T . U . s ign woke famil iar associations .We wished it well and passed on mid a throngof black—eyed women , pale and half-blind children

who cried “ adios” and “good-by”for the coppers

we tossed them .

A little later we met a diff erent kind of greeting. It was from a flushed faced little woman whohad missed her husband in the crowd and meth im with a private party . She looked much , but

only said,“Well I’m provoked at you ,

” and he

coolly replied ,“Well , my dear, go up on the for

tifications and you will feel better.” It was only

a war of words and there was no grave dangerfor the American consul , John Sprague , was

STRE E T SCE NE IN ALGIE RS

A D AY AT GIBRALTAR . 33

near by for the protection of defenseless Americans as he and his father had been for forty—five

years .We drove along the water’s edge to

E uropa Point , showing fortifications , barracks ,patches of green , splashes of blue , and afine lighthouse which has taken the place of

the votive lamp the Spanairds dedicated to

la ‘Virgen de E uropa . The governor’s

summer residence is around the point,beyond

which is theI

"

T hus-far-shalt—thou-go—an d—no

farther o f the rock rising perpendicularly fromthe sea .

’Mid all this rock there is something re

lenting— all is not stony any more than in a human soul . In nook and cranny were patches of

soi l cultivated by the growth of trees , shrubsand flowers . Wild ol ive

,acanthus— and another

“wild” plant from which our F rench friendsmake a drink called absinthe— grow in profusionand festoon the hard angles dressing the barestone with a beauty you observe at the harborand fall in l ove with as you walk or ride over therugged sides .In stormy weather the live thunder may leapfrom peak to peak

,but on the summer day’s visit

we saw B arbary apes j umping on the ledges -andrunning among the rocks . T hey are protectedby law from the arms of their murderous broth


ers ; and as the only apes—

in E urope , looked withwonderment upon the antics of their descend

ants we wondered what they thought.Bright British soldiers were much in evidence

and the Cameron Highlanders were a splendidset of fellows . Although finely equipped , they

seemed to me to be the targets for murderous bullets, or fo r more deadly assaults o f

“Wine,women

and song” which lay in wait for their money and

morals . I noticed an “ ad” for a masked ball for

the war in Africa and listened to a beaming Brit

on sing,

- ! The Absent-Minded Beggar .” That

night I heard two E nglish civi lians talking aboutBuller’s r etreat . O ne of them remarked : “ I

guess we’d better pack up and go home .”

In absence of newspapers , almost as necessaryto li f e as ai r to lungs , I learned one theory aboutthe late Cecil R hodes “The British empirewanted an unbroken dominion in which to run arailroad from Cairo to Cape, and had a right to

take what it pleased in this world ; the E nglishwill govern the Boers better than they w il l govern themselves ; trade and money ought to bemore to ‘progressive’ people than the old fogywords of l iberty and sel f-government . E ng

land’s creed can be summed up in the famous

o ld resolution : ‘

R esolved , That the earth is the

Lord’s and He has given it to His saints . R e

ALGIE R S— THE BEAUT IFUL. 3S

solved , That we are the saints therefore wewill drive out the non-progressive Boers and takepossession of thei r gold mines .’

I have an acquaintance,a church member who

took extra insurance on his life before sailing andwas resigned to the future . In case of death atsea

,he s imply requested to be buried at Gibral

tar ; in Africa , at'

the‘

base of one of the pyramids ; or in E urope , at Westminster abbey , andexpected his friends to come and visit him .

I heard a band . I saw a crowd . What did itmean“

?“

St . Peter , approached, holding the key

of the city gates in his hand ; in a few minutesthe sun would set

,the evening gun be fired and

the gates closed and locked till sunrise the n ext

day . What a commentary on the text ,“

T he D oorwas Shut .” T he right side means home and hea

ven !

CHAPT E R IV .

ALGIE R S— THE BE AUT IF UL

We reached Algiers by sunrise,and wh ile we

looked upon the “ dawn’s early light,

” a sailor

climbed the mast one hundred and fifty feet to

float our flag in the skies .


T he city looked like a collection of lime kilns ,moles

,quays

,barges and beggars in rags and

bags , as well as some in velvet gowns . We

landed,and it was worth our li fe to get a cab,

and when we finally persuaded the driver to

terms,my companion , a Kentuckian, obj ected to

getting in because the horses were not big andblooded stock , and so another ten minutes elapsedbefore we found another team only a little worsethan the former . T he first driver went awaymuttering an E nglishman’s American oath , andmy friend a found it in his heart to echo it many

times in a warmth and way hotter than the African Sun that was giving us a “

Hot time in the

old town long before night .Algiers is four hundred and ten miles from

Gibraltar . Its harbor i s artificial but well fort ified as a F rench garrison , dockyard , arsenal

,

l ight-house and many varieties of troops proved .

Curious little and big craft went silently in andout and told their l i fe story in grain , wool , hides ,rags

,tobacco, iron and copper ore and coral .

What a lot of things,but what a lot of people

eighty-three thousand ! “Men must work” as

well as women must weep !”

T he city was founded by the Arabs in A . D .

935 , and became headquarters for a tribe of pir

ates who terrorized Christendom for years ; con



able and multicolored as the sea water by sun ,moon or starlight . But we got our money

’

sworth

,I’m sure .

What do you think we saw ? Something more

than nothing at all— bloomer girls and men be

bloused ; bread‘ all round“ that looked like life

floats and preservers carried on peasants’ arms ;j ugs by doors , and j ars on heads and veils on

faces ! fortunately , i f the women were as homely

as some of the girls) family laundry in a publ ic washing square

,unmindful of the proverb of

“ dirty linen” men cooking food and drink on a

little brazier by the door , burning oil and wick ;a cemetery with a lot of veiled persons kneeling ;crying women who were making a paying business of it for three days ; Arabs asleep on the

Sidewalks with their shoes removed to the gutters and street for safe-keeping ; men working in

dark and dingy holes and boxes which they call

stores and shops ; boys and girls fighting ; blindboys scratching ; children and dogs in a row

which was not broken up until an officer snatcheda horse whip from a bystander and vigorouslyapplied it to various parts of the offenders’ anatomy ; boys and girls kissing each other and turning somersaults and kissing their hands towardsus , looking sweet and asking for

“

bucksheesh”

! hang the word and them) school children con

ALGIE RS— T HE BEAUT IF UL . 39

ning lesson cards in thei r hands while sitting on

the floor of a dark , musty room and yelling out

thei r lessons to a teacher cross-legged and hal fasleep in the corner ; modest Moorish ladies , l ikeveiled prophets , walking the narrow sidewalks ;immodest Moorish girls leering from latticedwindows at passers below ; dancing girls every

where , until one of our elderly ladies laughed

so that her upper teeth fell down,and a little

Arab who saw it came to a young woman ex

pecting hers to do the same ; all this and more

you may see , and we did .

I’m not surprised that A so ldier of the legion

lay dying in Algiers even now there i s enoughto kill a regiment ; li fe

’s common decencies aredisregarded by old and young. As we climbedthe hills the people seemed to go down in morals ,so that I was only moderately Shocked when Imet an elderly man ! whom I had taken for anex—clergyman on the boat) red of eyes and thickof tongue , laboring With and almost belaboringhis guide . Seeing me he shook his fist in theyellow fiend

’

s face and sa1d,

“

F or heaven ’s

sake , Morrill , take me to the boat ; this old foolhas walked my feet off for two hours and doesn’tunderstand a thing I say .

”

I had broken my spectacles and left them to bemended at a little shop around the corner, or the


Sight of such depravity must have quite over

powered me As it was,I On ly sighed and

smi led and made our fallen friend one of our

company .

“All that glisters is not go ld . Th ere’s thehouse the ex—king of Anam lived in ; there goeswhirling by the exiled queen of Madagascar ;here is the guide , called

“

T wo Time R oberts ,”

because of his many wives . Let us go to theL

’

O asis restaurant and get a drink of black cof

fee or mineral water served at a l ittle stand on

the sidewalk nearest the street , and while weview Algerian tragedy and comedy

,drink to its

better future prosperity with thanks for the fun

it has afforded us .While sip-ping my coffee I gave a little half ~

clad Arab a penny . He put my foot on his box

and b egan to sc'

rub my shoes with a thick paste .

It was quite unnecessary,but he was a winsome

fellow,and I allowed the work of affection .

When finished,I offered him a penny ! two cents)

for charity’s sweet sake , and he raised a row be

cause I did not give him twice as much . He wasinsistent , and my F rench guide , D umas , had all

he could do to talk and threaten him away . Imust learn the native language in sel f-defense ,or F rench, which goes everywhere . But how

treacherous a n ew tongue is ! T hink of the sweet

ALGIE RS— T HE BEAUT IF UL. 41

Miss Blank of our party asking for butter andreceiving a glass of beer . T he excuse she madefor the mistake was

,

“

T hat old waiter must bean Italian .

” But the American consul , Mr . Kid

der of F lorida , is here to protect us and deservesa better office than the one we found him in on aback street . T he

“

office” of an American consulshould be an obj ect lesson to the natives and vis

’

itors

,and unsol icited I speak for furnishings and

flags befitting the best nation in the world .

Good-bye, Algiers , with thy Muscat wine , j ugs ,j ars

,veils

,palms

,mud-plastered houses , gover

no r’s “ summer palace,

” cave of wild wom en ,sommersaultingboys , assaultingmen and insulting

women ; farewell , Bresson square , Cathedra l St .

Phi l ippe,Church of O ur Lady of Africa , Mosque

el T ebir and O ld Citadel of Kosbah, Place of

Government and Statue D u c de O rleans ; au re

voir , archbishop’s residence and cathedral and

royal burial place of St . Jerome ; mosque , withthy shoe—removing ,

hand-and- foot washing,head

and-body prostrations , and Boulevarde de laR epublique .

Beautiful roads lasso beauti ful hills,a look

gives grand views,til l from the highest point of

Algiers yourdriver turns a corner and says “Ah ,there

,

”or something that means the Same thing

And there lies the city with its architecture,the


bay with its Shipping, the blue sky above you ,

the iridescent sea,beneath you ,

and a. l ittl e hymn

in your heart : “All things are beauti ful ,” made

so by the good F ather who loves to please hischildren .

CHAP T E R V .

Q UAINT O LD MALT A .

A clear sky,a little land bird on deck so tired ,

Galatea islands towards the African coast r ismgl ike Aphrodite from her sea couch , an oriental

sunset with sky and cloud fading into flashing

star, -m.oon and phosphorescent wave , and wesight

,after coastwise and crosswise sailing ,

Valetta,Malta , with hills , fo liage , walls and

houses like pictures of Jerusalem . T hirty—fiveE nglish war vesse ls looked at us with their black

stee l eyes , swarthy natives eyed us curiously , and

m ack—veiled women with “ faces covered for penitence of former profligacy

” danced through

streets in maskball fashion .

But Malta l 1s not irreligious altogether . Its

language is a mixture corruption of Arabic and

Italian . It i s willing to declare ,“

T here is no

God but Allah,”but it hates and hes itates to say ,

QUAINT O LD MALTA. 43

and Mohammed is his prophet . Malta , one of

the three Maltese islands belonging to Great Britain , is abou t Sixty miles in circumference . It isthe rendezvous of the British Mediterrenean

squadron and troops to the number of five thousand . T he land loo-ked rocky and barren to us

from ship , but on near er v iew we saw where unremitting to il had ter raced banks

,carried soi l

and made gardens in which vegetabl es , orangesand grapes abounded .

Casal D ingli,seven hundred and fifty feet

above the sea level , looked down on ustell ing us we could enjoy a mild winter

or a scorching summer,fanned by a si

rocco in autumn which would serve as a change

i f we desired . Malta’s history is very misty .

It is said that Homer peO p-led it with giants andcalled it Hyperia . E gyptians came and left theirmark . In 1400 B . C . ,

Phoenicians called it O r

gygia and made some pottery . Greeks , R omans ,Carthaginians and Saracens have fought for thepossession of Malta , and the names of R egulus ,Hamilcar and Sempronius are found in its warannals . But all is peaceful now, and our American consul smiled when he said . I am happytoday ; witness this can of Boston beans and jugof Kentucky whisky here’s how” and they did .

O n the main guard entrance I read,“Treaty of


Paris, 1814, the love of the Maltese and thevoice of E urope confirms these islands to greatand invincible Great Brtiain . T his is memor

able,but I shall remember Malta for several other

reasovns ; its old l ibrary , which Thackeray visitedand referred to with i ts “

go-0d old useless books ,

and an Agaricus insect which reduced to p owderwhat the critics left of the book ; its big theater

capable of seating one thousand four hundred

people and the glittering chandeliers o f crystal ;its barracks

’ view of bay,port and harbor in

which wer e vessels containing Lor d Charles

Beresford and Prince Henry of Germany ;the old governor

’s palace two hundred years

old ; the armory in which I saw the

trumpet which sounded the retreat from

R hodes in 1 52 2 ; the bull or act of donation o f Malta to St . John of Jerusalem in

1 53 1 ; the batons of Gr and Master La Valette of

Wagincourt ; rope cannon ; council chamber with

tapestries by Le Bland portraying countries , animals and flowers ; the chair of Pirillos which

Napoleon and mysel f sat in ; the relic of a thorn

of Christ’s crown ; the right foot of Lazarus ; thestone cast at St . Stephen ; the Beheading of St .

John by Caravaggia, who makes the tricklingb-lood from the thigh spell M. A . C . ; all this and

more impressed me . So did a lman’

s remark to



thrity-one high . The old F ort St . E lmo,far

famed for its heroic defense against the Sara

cens , and eulo-gized by Miss E vans in her novel ;and the catacomb chapel

,a death’s-head aff air

with skull s and bones of two thousand bodies ofpriests and Crusaders from the catac ombs buriedhere in soil brought from Gethsemane . Thearches and decorations are all formed of bones .Alas ! poor Yorickl” O n all sides they stare

and say,

“Memento mori I was not afraid inthis chape l

,only in a hurry to join my friends

who had gone on before and l eft me alon e long

enough. to try to find a bony souvenir . How Ifell up the steps— my shins and kodak testify .

As Sir Knight I was interested in the gloryof the warrior knights

,St . John’s cathedral ,

whose corner stone was laid in 1 573- a conven

tual church,and like D urham cathedral ,

“ half

church of God and half castle .” It is a mass of

mosaic,marble and heap of heraldric emblazonry

which would fil l a library ; the floo r is pavedwith the graves of four hundred Chevaliers , whilein the crypt below I saw the tombs of twelve

grand masters with that of L’Isle Adam , who

took first possession of Malta ; a venerable dome

o f death filled with skurrying skeletons,when

the clock overhead with three dials and chime of

ten bells marked the hour,day and month .

QUAINT O LD MALTA.

The knight was despotic no doubt at timesand in ways

,made the natives stand off the pave

ment on his approach , and no woman was al

lowed ou the main street ; yet his benevolentcharacter is undoubted ; he planted forests for

the poor , fed the hungry and built hospitals for

the sick and was a good Samaritan .

“His swo rd is r'

ust,

“

his bones are du stHis sou l is with the saints , we trust

Josh Bill ings says, There i s two things furwhich we ar never. quite prepared

,and them two

things iz twins .” I am sure of that , for I have a

pair of twin brothers , known as“The R ev .

Mlorrill Twins,

” and there is another pair

in my sister’s home . So I was surprised to find ,in addition to the city of Valetta, the town of

Vecchio , seven miles away . We stumbled up astony hill to

‘

a gayly decorated cathedral said tooccupy the Site of Publius’ house , the place of

Paul’s entertamment . The church of St . Paolais built over the grotto which Paul occupied forthree mon ths . Three minutes of its shape , sizeand smell were enough for me , but for fear Imight forget it, I was offered one of St . Paul’steeth by an enterprising curio dealer outside thedoo r .T he catacombs were near by , and we enteredthe re , wending and winding our way through


former homes , cradles and graves . O ur guidewas -mo re familiar wtih St . Paul’s history than

we were, and with no regard for time or place ,told us : “ Paul come he re— Paul who break upde Mohammedan church .

”T hat was as near

right as to cal l me proprietor of the hotel bearingthe Sign reading Morrell

’

s Hotel , 1 50 StradiF orni .

A R oman villa recently excavated welcomedus for a small fee with its mosaics , vases , coins

and specimens of architecture,and we werebe~

guiled into"

the souvenir habit again . Blessedbe the Americans . T hey not only shall inhabit

the earth,but they have fil led the city with

vis itors and thereby gladdened the hearts o f thehotel keepers and th e many others who await thecoming of the tourist l ike the Jews that of the

Messiah .

So my guides say in these or words equallysignificant

,and it explains t he warm hand and

heartfelt reception which we have received .

The D un-era of Scotland , No . 1 transport ,is m the -harbor by our side

,with one thousand

three hundred men en route to E gypt . T heir

band plays the “

Star Spangled Banner , and

our band responds with“

God Save the Queen .

American and E nglish flags exchange a wave of

LISTE NING TO SPH INX

IN HOARY OLD E GYPT . 49

patrioti sm that dashes high and splashes the salt

tears in our eyes .“Adios

,

” say we,all of us , and the big search

lights are turned on our vessel , the white Mediterranean crests cling to her sides , and a fullmoon looks down upon some tired tourists who

have enjoyed a great and never-to-be—forgottenvisit .

CHAPT E R V I .

IN HO AR Y O LD E GYPT .

I’ve been to E gypt and feel that anything lessthan a mile high and a million years old is not

worth looking at . What are Independen ce hall,

an E nglish cathedral , the R oman forum or theAcropoli s of Athens to E gypt , whose calendar isa block of stone nu -numbered ages old ? I shall

be proof against enthusiastic guides and act asmy friend from Chicago did in London .

E nglishman— Look at that great hotel there .It has three hundred rooms .Chicagoan —D on’t make such a fuss over nothing. In Chicago we have a hotel five miles longand the waiters ride on horseback to take the

orders .

Alexandria ! The name sounded familiar . I had


heard Of it several times at schoo l and college.

How a great man , Alexander, founded it in 332

B . C . , and subdued'

lands as Cleopatra conqueredhearts . Here the graceful Greek language flourished

,here the Colo s sus o f

L

R hodes stood,here

the marble Pharo ’s l ighthouse shone,her e

the world-famed library and m useum werevisited

,here the obel isks pointed their glit

tering fingers Skyward,and here the har

em and grandee palaces were simply de

lightful . Alexandria, your boom"

must have

burst, you seem hardly wor thy of your ré

markable history . But having come so far I

thought I’d look you over, and this is what Ifound : Plumed palms leaning against a tender

blue sky,a tower lighthouse, veiled women , tur

baned men,donkeys and dates

,fl ies and fleas

,

Pompeys and pillars , mosques and minarets , cam

els and cheese,beggar girls and bucksheesh boys .

We took in the city with a Jehu, who made the

approach to Pompey’s p il lar at a rate that threatened to paint the town with amore sanguinaryhue than the color of the shaft itself . Whatstatue stood on its top , and whence came thispi llar originally ? There is no answer from thedead past any more than from the dead in thecemetery near by

,on which it looks si lently and

sadly . What an old Mohammedan cemetery it



ioso . In vain my courier shook his fist at himand said , “ S low !

” I quietly whispered,

“No”an d

gave him a tip which the horses felt in a crackfrom the whip which kept us in the lead

,through

old and new Alexandria,past palace and dock .

T he natives had a kind of John Gilpin race affairand appreciated it

,too . Higher than his whip I

held my umbrella with my silk American flag

floating from it .’ Arabs saluted it with “ Good,

a F renchman raised his hat and said,

“Vive

l’

Amerique ,” while an Irishman

,a kind of section

hand overseer on the canal road , yelled ,“

T hreecheers for the red

,white and blue

,

”and as soon

as we cou ld restore ou r surprised breath, we

gave them three cheers and a tiger . Alexandernever felt prouder in his chario t than we in our

carriage .

We left Alexandria in a twenty—car train,after

I had taken a snapshot at its officials,beggars ,

A rabs,camels

,and landing, with its

‘ boats , baggage

,cotton

,bananas

,oranges and licorice-water

vender . The last named came to me in his oriental garb of fez , shirt and bloomers , while I was

talking to some ladies , rattled his metallic cupand a Sco tch bagp ipe looking receptac le , off eringme a drink of what he called ,

“Good for bellie ,as he slapped his fat stomach . I was foolish .

enough to try it . O ne drink was enough . T he

IN HO ARY O LD E GYPT . 53

day was hot and it had the desired effect . I’ve not

been thirsty since ! for this beverage). Thoughj ammed and locked in a kind of baggage car

coach , our conductor let us out for a breath or

refreshments at way stations,served by dusty

men and dirty women .

Lake Mareotis, broad and shallow , mirroredthe copper Sky above and looked a huntsman

’sparadise with strange looking water fowl O n

we rushed to the profane town of D amanhoor ,

where Napoleon had a close call from being takenprisoner by the Memlooks in 1 798 ; over the ironbridge crossing the R osetta branch of the Nile ,where the brother of the khedive was drowned bythe train taking a plunge into the open draw ,

to Kafr ez Zyat in E gypt’s delta,where we

halted . O ranges and bananas were all‘we

wanted — we were not thirsty any more— and so

we had time to notice the fertility of the Niledepos ited soil which grows cotton , sugar andgrain in the canal—marked farms with an abun

dance only surpassed by the dirt and li fe on thenatives .We had been brought up on the farm and knewsomething of its cultivation , but for the next fewhours were to study it a la mode Arabic . Ialways hated to plow ; it was hard to hold thehandles so the rocks and stumps would not throw


them against my ribs,and to keep the horses in

a straight line and the plow in the ground . But

here it was different ; a literal“ soft snap , be

cause the ground was dry and easily powderedby a little crooked kind of a stick , which two

camels or buffaloes, or a camel and a buffalo ,

lazily dragged a long. Bible pictures of this oriental scene came to my mind , and ,

the Scripture ,“ Be not unequally yoked ,

” a disregard o f whichhas made hard plowing and cultivation for manyfamilies .T he chief occupation of these naked farmersis not plowing, but watering

’

the land . Thingswill not grow without water ; it does not rain ,water is scarce

,and that may be one reasonwhy

the natives use so l ittle of it for bathing purposes . I counted scores of shadoofs and sakiehs .You know what they are without going to Africa

to see them . The shadoof is a kind of Old—fash

ioned well-sweep with a stone on one end anda watertight bucket on the other , resting on apivot

,lowered and fil led with water

,and raised

and emptied into a little gutter and run acrossthe part of the farm that

’s dry and needs a drink .

T he sakieh is a cogged wheel turned by buf

taloes . It Works upon another wheel at right

angles , and on it are fastened pots and jugs

which empty themselves in pool s or troughs .

IN HOARY O LD E GYPT . 55

Still another way,more primitive and strik

ing is seen when two men stand in the waterwith a basket between them

,which they fil l with

the regularity of a machine,and pass up and on

to number three on the bank , who sends it'

inthe needed direction . How the poor fellowsworked . How hot and tired

“ they were , how l istless and hopeless their work seemed , how thei rbronzed black bodies glistened as the perspirationran down !

T he people are the Copts , descended from theancient E gyptians ; fellahs , or farmers ; and

Arabs , or conquerors . T hey raise wheat , corn ,rice

,beans

,flax

,cotton

,cucumbers , melon s and

dates . The principal animals are the ox , camel ,dog ,

ass,crocodile and hippopotamus .

We rush on past a number of mud villas andstations , ti ll , passing T ookh, I shout , The Pyramids !” I am the first on the train to discoverthem

,and am filled with the pride of a Columbus

or Balboa . Instantly many heads crowd the car

windows and echo ,Pyramids !” With the Mo

kattaim hills on the left and the minarets of thecity in the distance , we enter a paradise of beauti ful scenery and our train stops at Cairo . Weare met by a crowd of noisy Arab baggage workmen and donkey boys , whose well intentionedyells

,gestures and assistance make us glad we

56 T RACKS O F A T E NDE R F O O T .

carry extra li fe insurance , hO pe to enter heaven ,and are under the management of a fr iend , whowill make it as comfortable for us as i f we wereat home .

O ld and New C airo are distinct cities in loca

tion , buildings , manners , morals , and dress , butthe

"

Saxon is dominating . Modern stores andhotels are encroaching

,the red-coat is found on

British soldier and E gyptian,

guard,and we find

an influence for good government which nativesas well as tourists commend .

But I wan t a guide and not a guard , and Aliis my man . A ‘ tall , turbaned

‘

,bloused boy fel

low, who, though not very old, i s brown and Se

date -as themummies,but not quite “

so mum , andcordially promises

,

“ I do you much pleasure .”

T he amusements offered were varied ; I could

attend the opera-house and listen to Italian music

or see a F rench farce ; take a turn at the hippodrome and have a circus ; or stop at an openair play on the E sbekeeyah ; or i f religiously in

clined ,take in the convent with its dancing der

vishes and barbarous music ; watch a snakecharmer ; drink cafe noir ! sweetened mud)in a little shop where the waiters and

loungers were as thick as the drink ; or

See Arabs gamble with dice and cards , much as

they do in America ; go to a kind of vaudevi lle ,

IN HOARY O LD E GYPT . 57

where a stringed band Of lady performers triedto beguile us by American airs and Persiandances into buying drinks for them at the rateof one or two dol lars a bottle

,and poor stuff at

that ; or meander through the fish market at mid

night , where streets were filled with citizens and

sightseers , sidewalks with roystering soldiers ,shops with shrewd tr aders

,dens with drunken

natives and miles of houses with women outcastsfrom all quarters of the globe , leering , luring andlustful

,caged like beasts looking through iron

barred grat ings which were necessary to keepthem from murderous assault on the morals ,money and lives of the passersby .

“Variety is the spice of l i fe .” We had someo f it in the Midway at the Chicago F air

,but the

real thing, the red pepper an d mustard are found1n Cairo after twelve p . m .

All this and more I saw . Ali was a very goodguide and guard

,and did me “much pleasure .

We visited Cairo’s curious bazars,where the most

fastidious feminine Shopper may find cloth, porce

lain,glasswork

,Sl ippers

,embroidered leather ,

j ewelry,precious stones

,coffee , i f she wishes to

drink ; tobacco,i f she wants to smoke , and arms

i f Shemust fight .T he drives of Cairo are delightful , and none

more so than on Shoobra avenue , shaded by

58 T RACKS O F“

A T E NDE RF O O T .

acacias and sycamores,where for five miles we

see humanity in all kinds of vehicles out for airing and pleasure ; royalty and richness with a

Nubian , Sais , black and bedizened with gold and

j ewels,running before it like a John Baptist to

prep-are the way— or beggars and donkeys , merchants and leering camels

,till you reach the pal

ace with its pavements and porticos , frescoes ,lake and Alhambra- l ike columns .

“Who ’s at my window ?” or Mashrebeeyah , asthe Arabs say . What a dainty latticed windowof cedar and pearl to keep out l ight an d heat ,the cur1ons gaze of neighbors across the alley

street , and yoursel f, who would give much to seethe flashing eyes

,red lips and pearl teeth of

the girl who laughs at you ,makes love to you or

calls you a Byronic“ giaour” ! Infidel).

We drove out to the pyramids through a ninemile line of acacias and palms on a fine roadbuilt by the khedive for the Prince of Wales in1860, and mysel f . We climbed from Gizeh to

the pyramids,forty feet above the plain, where

a mob of men would have massacred us had it notbeen for the sheik , to whom we paid paistres for

a kind of permission to ascend the pyramid , and

for pol ice protection in the form of three guideswhom we feed to pull and push us up about Sixty

feet higher than the cross of St . Paul’s cathedral .



left no mu5 1cal memories . T ired of my guides ,I said one

“would hold me for a while . R e

lustantlyNo . 2 unclasped my hand , and the other

guide holding my left with his two ,I tried to

step down a three— foot stone,turned my right

ankle with a sprain that made me lose my balance , and would have resulted in a fall severerthan Minnesota weather and made this chronicleunnecessary

,had not my faithful Ali j erked me

back and the other ally come to the rescue , telling me what a fool I was and how,

i f I had beenkilled they would have lost their job. I saidyes

,gave them each an extra half dol lar and was

providentially placed on terra firma again .

O n and In was our E xcels ior motto . How

hot and tired I was, and the guides sti ll exasperating. But I entered a hole forty feet above thebase

,even if to do so were to realize D ante

’shell motto “Leave Hope Behind F or aught Iknow he wrote that line after making a journey

to the interior of Cheops . We crawled and slidthree hundred and for ty-seven feet. until we gotninety feet below the base o f the pyramid into aforty-six by twenty-seven by eleven foot room ;thanked God and took courage . Nearer the en

trance,sixty feet

,is an upward passage leading

to the center of the pyramid , and at a distance

of one hundred and twenty—five feet on e reaches

IN HO ARY O LD E GYPT . 61

the great gallery . We found a well o f com

munication one hundred and ninety-one feet deepand later visited the Queen

’s Chamber ! she

wasn’t in) ; climbed the!great gallery

’s smooth

surface till we reached the King’s Chamber ! hewas out also

,so was our magnesium light).

Above this place we learned that there were some

other rooms,built to ~ lessen the weight of the

upper part of the pyramid . We knew enough .

How dry our throats and wet our clothes were ;how we described incredible base slides and off

hand feats ; how I helped one woman ! afraid of

her guide in the dark), a forlorn female , pullingher out of the narrows as one would a cat froman ash barrel ; and how she resembled an um

brella turned inside out by a gust of wind— are

matters of tourist notebook record .

The pyramids are beyond the power of

kodak or critic to portray . O n the shore of

the Great D esert sand sea they look like a great ‘

triangle whose base is in the earth and apex inthe sky . So large that if Cheops were hollow

it has been estimated that St . Peter’s could beplaced within it

,dome and all , l ike an ornament

in a glass case . St . Paul’s could then in turn

be easi ly placed inside of St . Peter’s , for the topof its dome is o ne hundred feet lower

than the summit of the great pyramid .


T hirteen acres of stone ! T here i s mater1al enough to build a wall ten feet high

and one and one-half feet thick around the wholefrontier of F rance . Cui bono ? F or gymnasticfeats by your scribe , for astronomical calculation ,for an inspired standard of perfect measurement ,or for monuments of vanity ? N0

,but for

graves on the “ desert setting sun side of the

Nile,as at Thebes , a monar ch

’s mauso l eum .

How true it seemed ,“All things fear Time

,but

Time fears the pyram ids . 1

But the-

c amels are coming and I want to rideone . T he driver takes my money with one hand

and with the other strikes the beast’s forelegs

with a stick . Mr . Camel kneel s to the accompan i

ment of strange sounds from his internal machinery ; leers at me with his off eye ; drops his lips ,showing teeth which would leave but a greasespot of my anatomy , then I board him and the

sh1p of the desert pitches fore and aft,rights it

sel f,and I sai l through waves of yellow sand and

dust to the portals of the Sphinx temple and the

great statue itsel f .The Temple of the Sphinx , below the figur e ,

was exhumed by Mariette . W ithin it he foundnine statues of King Cephren , who built the sec

ond pyramid, almost rivaling Cheops . Its situa

tion in the Necropolis of Memphis has led to the

IN HOAR Y O LD E GYPT . 63

conclusion that this shrine was used for funeral

obsequies . Overturned and forsaken are the altars

,the shroud O i sand has swathed its po rtals

and “ dead ! dead” is the epitaph .

The Sphinx is different and still alive . 0.

sleepless,changeless

,voiceless

,maj estic

,eternal

sphinx,

” with human head of intelligence and

lion’s body of strength,carved from natural rock

at the edge of the desert,from crown to out

spread paws,sixty-four feet

,and within them an

altar to the rising sun . Stony , silent , staringinto futurity , the sole survivor of races and re

ligions, image of eternity, what sacred thought isthine ? “We have our day and cease to be ,

” butthou dost outlive all . And yet we like to be re

membered ; pictures as well as initials. are proofof the desire for immortality

,and so mounted

upon my camel -steed , with the pyramids for a

background and the Sphinx for a pedestal,I

'

h admy T enderfoot picture taken !

Poor old Sphinx ! The F rench used her nosefor

'

a target and she looks battered and wanting

in an expression , said to have once been of“ soft

est beauty and most winning grace .

” But she

antedates Cheops,and we left her eyeing us with

stony indifference , as she had E gyptian kings,R oman conquerors , and Napoleonic warriors .

T RACKS O F A T E ND E RF O O T .

CHAP T E R V II.

R AMBLING IN E GYPT .

I vi sited Helwan,a Cairo summer reso rt

,well

named for its. sulphur springs . I shall re

member it for s everal reasons . It was the resi

dence of my mother’s brother,D r . Gulian Lan

sing,whose name I bear . He was a m is sionary

in E gypt for forty years. His body lies buried

in the E uropean cemetery outside O ld Cairo ,but his influence lives in the books he wrote , thechurch he

i

built , the friends he made and his sons ,D r . McCarrol Lansing, a prominent oculist inCairo and John G . Lansing, D . D .

,America .

T he doctor and family lived at Hel

wan . I had played with Carrol in Yo rk state

when a boy, and so I hurriedly decided to visithim

,rushed to the station and Could just gasp

Helwan ;” the porter bought my ticket and

pushed me into a first-class car . T his was un

necessary, for a second-class would have donej ust as well

,or even a third— if you could get

first-class company . It is not so much the sitting

as the surroundings . Soon we pulled out— we ,

that is, mysel f and a first-class passenger by my

side . He was tall , bronzed, well dressed , and

earnestly reading a paper and smoking a cigar,



then he offered me still another . I don’t know

what would have happened if we hadn’t reached

Helwan , where my cou sin was waiting for me .

Seeing my companion he called him by a titledArabic name and introduced me as his relative

from America . All’s well that ends we l l, and the

cigarettes didn’t make me very sick . But I’veoften felt sorry

"

for my first—class friend whocould no t understand a word of the two lan

guages I spoke with equal proficiency and cor

rectness .

R eturning to Cairo I saw - the palace of Ge

-zeereh . It was built by Ismael Pasha , on an is

land formed by a. branch o f tne Nile . He was

a luxurious fellow and Spen t money like a Louis

X IV . Ther e is a fine ball and reception room,

hall and stair-case,pretty -gardens an d apart

ments where the E mpres s E ugenie,emperor of

Austria and myself and friends were entertained .

T he palace is used now for a first-class hotel .But it was a little too far away for bald-headedmen who wanted to be near the city

’s center atnight and so many of my friends were trans

ferred to the Grand Continental .

O ld Cairo was not forgotten . We visited its

Shops and lazy smoking people lying like in

Sects in the sun , its“ Crown of Mosques” and

Coptic churches with paintings . I was held up

RAMBLING IN E GYPT . 67

in an alley—way by a beautiful girl , who said , with

outstretched hand ,“Me bucksheesh to give

God .

”R hoda was near with her Nilometer to

mark the rise of the annual inundation

and spot where Mo ses was found . E be rsmakes R hoda a second Paradise

,but it was Par

adis e Lost on me with its d inky-bo at ferry and

dirty little hoodlums who threw stones at us ,and some sickly-looking water carriers who firstbathed in the water they afterwards dipped upinto goat and donkey skins to sell in the city fordrinking and culinary purposes . I felt as D oug

las Jerrold once said : If I were an undertaker

I know o f several persons whom I could work

for with considerable satisfaction .

”

Mosques are as numerous in Cairo as mos

qui‘toes in my native New Jersey . There may

be a thousan d ; I vis ited five hundred , more or

less . Sometimes I took off my Slippers at the

outer door,and at others I wore a —kind of moc

casin over my tourist shoes and shuffled and

slid over the Old floors,wondering how in the

name of everything sacred I could pr o fane any

thing with. a good sole like mine . In Cairo

you must do as the Cairenes do and I wantedto

“

do them” more than once .

I vis ited the famou s tombs of the Caliphs . T htracery was broken and the alabaster blackened .


Sic transit gloria mundi ; Caliphs’ tombs yes

terday are homes of E gyptian beggars and batstoday .

The citadel i s Cairo’s Showplace and specialobject of interest . It is made of stones from on e

of the pyramids . We crawled up the windingpath leading to it

'

and entered its ell iptical gate.O n a red letter day

,four hundred and

fifty Memlooks and their l eader were killed .

O n e man escaped by spurring his horsefrom the terrace . I know he did

,for

Ali showed me the prints of the horse’s hoofs

as they struck the'

walls in making the leap .

There i s a splendid vie-w o verlooking the city ,lower E gypt , with its domes and delta , pyramids ,palaces

,obeli sk

,desert and Nile , which rocked

Moses to sleep and played erotic music for

Antony and Cleopatra .

The Mo sque of Mohammed Ali,one of the

most co stly , is modeled after St . Sophia,with its

cupolas , domes and tapering minarets and lining

of alabaster . Here,as elsewhere , on e o f Mr .

R usk in’s “ Lamp-s of Architecture” has gon e ou t ,for we meet the “ li e of parts of columns painted

to look like alabaster . The body of MohammedAli l ies near by

,in state

,and the tombs of the

‘Memlooks j ust yonder .I had been separated from my party that


morning and took a special carriage and guide

to this mosque . Joseph’s well was near by and

so I ran up thehill to it , and down the windingstairs. in it

,wondering at its fifteen feet width

and depth. o f nearly three hundred to the Nil e

level . I found donkeys raising the '

water to the

top by an. endless chain with littl e pails attachedand was sorry one was not large enough to putme in and lift me to the top .

The Gizeh museum is the most fasc inating and

valuable thing in the city to the antiquarian . It i sthe monument of Mariette Bey’s labors in digging up and dec ipher ing E gypt’s old records

from temples,tombs

,statues

,sphinxes and se-ra

peum . His study cost him his life,but he will

live long after his statue crumbles .T he go lden age of E gyptian art culture , politics and religion was not in R ameses II.

’

s time,

but Cheops’ and Menes was no bar barian but

a king of some civilization,the finished product

of a long line of ancestors .Sphinxes stare

,granite growls , scarabs crawl ,

pottery pleases,mummies meekly loo k in your

face With pitiful mien,while as a commentary on

the “ abiding word” R ameses I I .

— I srael’s op

presser,M

'

oses’ oppo ser , lies with fo lded handsas if pr aying dumbly for forgiveness for the great

wrong done God’s chosen people. More impres


s ive than cathedral s ervice was the time spent in

this museum . It was a sudden shock to beasked to lunch outside in the garden beyond

Mariette’s statue,and be forced to investigate

antiquarian bread,butter

,chicken and fruit

,

which may have been exhumed from the royaltombs . The on ly redeeming feature was a kindof drink corked in bottle s which foamed wh en

popped , and had the odor and taste of hop-s . O f

course it wasn’t , but when we got through there

was none left .

O ne thingu in -

‘ the mus eum I remember as dis

tinctly as Poe did the raven . It was a woodenstatue known as The Village Chief ,

” and called

so by the Arabs , because of its resemblance to

their'

master . But my tourist fri ends said it

looked more i ike me than him,and if

you want to know what that is there areseveral of my photos to tell you . It i s only four

thousand-

years old . Was he my ancestor , fromwhom I had transmigrated ?

,His eyes were

white quartz and the iris of darker stone, with a

silver nail for a pupil , covered with lids of

bronze . Bartolini was an excellent sculp

tor , ranking next to Canova , but if my

friend,

“ Bart, of the Minneapol i s Journal ,

will go to Cairo and make a drawing o f that

wooden man , he will achieve fame and infamy

RAMBLING IN E GYPT . 7 1

at once . I wonder if the overseer was bright,

even if not handsome ? I Shall never forget howI felt when I looked into his face . E ven now

I often jump with fright at remembrance of that

statue,and say

,with the darkie

,Is dis me or

not me,or has the D ebbil got me ?

Heliop'ol is , the Greek city of the sun , i s a cityoften mentioned in

‘

the O ld Testament,under

the name of O n . Here Joseph. isf said to have

married the daughter of the priest,and Moses ,

,Pythogoras an d E uclid received instruction .

T here was a fine temple once to which“

rich gifts

were made by E gyptian kings . Yet all that i s

left o f former greatness and grandeur i s a ma

jestic obel isk , on who s e s ides are hieroglyphichymns to the gods

,in letters once fill ed with

gold , bright as the sun ray’s which it symbol ized .

R eturning to Cairo we halt before the famous

sycamore known as the V irgin’s tree, withinwhose sacred trunk Mary and the Christ child

are said to have found refuge during the flight

into E gypt .

The palm is a beautful tree,straight , branch

less,often ris ing one hundred feet . It furnishes

the Arabs with food , drink , medicine , shelter,clo thes and fuel . I heard there was a new usefor it every day in the year

,and that the natives

72 T RACKS : O F A T E NDE RF O O T .

celebrated its util ity in prose and verse . They

take the palm for tal l stor i es .

Mariette made Memphis , the oldest city in

E gypt , and capital o f Menes , and large enough

to requi re a half day’s journey to cross it from

North to South . His research here found fivethousand statues and tablet inscriptions and

two tho usand sphinxes , now found in the

wo rld’s famous galleries . What remains issand

, S ilence , stately palm trees,

occasion

al tour1sts, with natives, camels and donkeys ,and the big

'

statue o f R ameses II .

-dust to dust ,prone on its sculptured face , too large to -be up

l ifted or removed .

Luxo r,Thebes and Karnak are six hundred

miles from the Mediterranean sea , but they were

the Mecca of my pilgrimage . The railroad ao

commodation was n ot Pu l lman ic . We bought

water when we could not steal it . T he weather

grew c'

old enough at 2 a . m . fo r ulsters andblankets

,and the dust settled on us till we ro se

from our"beds in the

'

morning like bodies ex

humed from the sands .

I‘

was domiciled at Pagnon’

s hotel . This

was my first O riental experience . I found

no soap in my room , and only enough water in a

l ittle earthen jar to wash: my face . I shook my



besought us and belabo red each other in the madeffort .

to hire out their donkeys . T hey yelledand fought , cried and crowded , until , by some

unknown legerdemam,I found myself on Jum

bo’

s back , a ruin of my former self,en route for

the ruins,famed in song and story .

O ver there I made one valuable discovery,which entitles me to a place with Champ-illon

,of

R o setta. stone fame . T he hieroglyphs. look

just like my penmansh ip,which has puzzled to

profanity so many compositors and readers . I‘

may have been the “ heathen” that they called me,

and if so , an E gyptian in a pre a existent state before I arrived at Amer i ca . If my critics will visit

E gypt and dec ipher its old monuments my handwriting will be dead easy” and their occupa

tion will be gone .

O n this west s ide we visited the Tombs of theKings in

,

“ Bab-el—Mo luk,T omb Of Seti I.

,called

Belzonis after the discoverer’

with its fresh and

perfect looking paintings ; of R ameses III .

,called

B elzoni’s , with its h igh re lief figures at the en

trance ; of R ameses IV., with its high ce i l ing and

gran ite sarcophagus ; of R ame ses IX., with the

famous pictures representing re surre ction afterdeath ; and o f R amese sVI .

, with its gre at lengthand astronomical figure s on the cei l ing.


We promenaded through the R amesium or

Memnonium ,unrivaled for its architecture . It

was built by R ameses II .,whose fame isl ettered

on i ts wal l s . Its demo l i shed pylons and sculp

tures of battles , its court with figures o f R am

eses and attributes of O siris , and the most gi

gantic statue in E gypt , cut from asolid block of

granite , once seen are‘

n ot soon forgotten .

We interviewed the Co lossi , thos e statues of

King Amunoph II I . as faithful as the R omanguard o f Pompeii . F ifty-two feet in height ,they stand as they did before the ancient temple .

M'

ennon. was vocal that afternoo n . I stood be

s ide it,with no priest to climb , conceal himself or

'

Chant within,or sun. to warm the dew—chilled ,

earthquake-cracked stone .

I was entertained at the Temple Of R amesesIII .

,second only to Karnak in grandeur, with its

military monument ,'

palace , decoration of R am

eses presenting his captives to the gods,and

painted Specimens o f races inhabiting Asia,Ly

bia and Soudan .

What a marvelous court , with its seven Asaride columns

,suggestive of funeral services

,and

eight columns with papyrus “ capitals , beyondwho s e granite portals we entered a second pylon

into the inner court of pillars and bright-co lored

sculptures .


Thebes in l ts monumental reco rd was a

marvelous city . Sad words .

“what might havebeen " if time and vandal had spared

,when

even_

now its walls are found supported by stat

ues thirty feet high , whos e stolid stare and foldedarms look silently down on a fallen brother’s

Statue of King R ameses , whichmeasures twentysix feet acro ss his pol ished gran ite shoulders . If

quarried,how carried here and set up ? What

Lucifer thoughts caus ed him to be cast down ?

What a time ! Howmy Old a nd sick driver

cou ld run - = all ' day by Jumbo donkey’s heels ,gouge his Sides and steer his tail to the aecom

pan iment o f a guttural “ ah-yereglah cluck and

not kill the donkey , him or myself, I’ve never

learned . D ear little E gyptian donkeys,mouse

co lo-red and frowsy looking, l ong-haired or

clipped,white

,dirty or painted with zebra stripe s ,

long ears , l ittle feet and big, braying vo ice ; how

patient and serv1ceable you are . If Luther be

lieved there were to be horses in heaven ; if kind

preachers put the asses o f their con gregation in

Paradis e ; if ancient religion an d modern art have

apotheo sized the bull , cow, dog and cat , let me

take Off the big saddle and fool ish br ass and

glas s ornaments fro-m thy neck and garland thee

with HOWers o f respect and affection , and g1ve


thee plenty to eat and drink and an eternity of

rest to which thou are entitled .

A look at Luxor,which looks on us as the

pyramids did on Napol eon’s so ldiers,and I shall

end this E gyptian chapter . Luxor means “ pal

aces,and. was a luxurious place . The barbar

ians wondered at it ; Homer sang abou t it, andin its commanding

,

ruins it burns its memory into the traveler’s brain .

Next to the pyramids the Temple of Karnak ISthe world’s. greatest ruin . Its two-mile avenueapproach must have bee n lined with two thousand colossal sphinxes

,whose crouching

,crumb

ling fragmen ts stretch towards you as to thewor shipers of long ago . Beyond is the portal sev~

en ty feet high , and under it the multitudesmarched . You enter and gaz e on templed ruinsa m il e and a half in circumference ; walls eightyfeet up ; towers one hundred and forty feet high ,while Obeli sk fingers

,clean cut in this preserva

tive climate of the Nile , po int to an inscription onthe wall where R ameses asks help from the godsbecause he had built them “ eternal mountains .

”

T hink of obelisks forty centuries old ! Moul

dered the hands. that carved them from the vo lcanic grani te— prone or perpen dicular

,plain or

lettered , one reads a wonderful story . As theYosen

'ite trees grew larger as we approached


them ,until what was large was small in compar

ison , <‘

O here the co lumns grew as we

threaded the temple’s main avenue O ne

hall hai l one hundred'

and thirty-four col

umns,St me thirty-six feet in circumference and

sixty-six feet high,supporting sol id blocks

fo rty feet long,all crowned with giant lotus

leaves , which gave a grace to these granitemountains. Would you insult or strike o ld age ?

Yet vandals have,and one of the co lumns they

tried to overturn ,but it only leans . Beautiful in

thei r ruins , what must they have been with. blue

domed rotf and go ld-starred ceiling and inscriptions of p r aise to their deiti es when their stonylips spoke adoration !E gypt f as gods by the whol esale . Wilkinsonstops at seventy-three and says there are more .

I saw some representations of first and secondclass deities and they all looked like the devil . R a

,

the “

Sun God , was a royal deity ; he had a

hawk’s head with a disk on end for a hat ,trimmed with a few plumes or a snake charm.

T he beetl e ! scarabaeus)was one of his chi ef em

blems . I have one taken from the body of amummy by the khedive and given to D r . Gul ianLansing

, who gave it to me , his namesake . Iti s o f an emerald green co lor , be ars the royal car

touch,and i s good for another five thousand


years . T he-y used to worship the powers of nature , especially the sun ; the moon was set way

back; evil deities were no t forgotten and variouslive animal s were especially venerated in certain

towns . R awl inson suggests that the many god so f the popu lar mytho logy were mer e names ,‘personified attributes of one true deity

,or part

of the nature which he had created,considered

as informed and inspired by him .

”

When it comes to show their ceremonial s wereSplendid . Buildings painted and sculptured ex .

~

ceeded all o thers in grandeur . T he image o f

the god was. placed on a central shrine,sur

rounded by chambers O f the priests , cou rts , col

onades,sculptures

,sphinxes and obelisks and

towers at each side'

of the entrance . Costly cer

emonies. were conducted,incense rose

,hymns of

prayer and prais e were sung .

T he E gyptian may have had curious and co rifused notions in religion

,but he didn’t beli eve

that this world or the next would be the same tothe sinner as to the saint . Birch says his life

Was“

to be pious to the gods, obedient to thewishes of his sovereign , affectionate towards his

wife and children,giving bread to the hungry,

drink to the thirsty, clothes to the naked , oil to

the wounded,and burial to the dead .

” We need

a revival of an E gyptian “

old time religion .

”


Undertakers were busy in thos e days as now,

on ly they embalmed,and the office was regarded

as sacred . They emptied the body of its vital s ,fi lled it with drugs

,ano inted the skin

,soaked it

in nitre,wrapped it in linen bandages

,stuck it

with gum , put it in a coffin and there you are ,or were , or could be set up or carried aroundlike so much co rdwood by your relatives . Veryhandy .

At death the E gypt ian believed his soul went

to the “Hall of Truth ” and was j udged in the

presence oi O s iris . A pair of scales was broughtout

,in one end was placed the emblem of truth ,

in the other a vase of the man’s good deeds . Ifthey were enough to weigh down the scale , his

happy soul entered the “ Boat of the Sun ,

” andwas ferried to the Pools of Peace .” I f he had

been long on creed and short on conduct , hismis erable soul was sentenced to transmigration

in bodies of unclean animals . If that didn’tmake him better O siris j ust annihilated him . I f

he had been good the four ape-faced genn smged

off his l ittle faults and made him the compan ion

of O si ris for a little visit of three thousand years

after which the!

soul flew back to its mummy,

rose from the dead and tried it again on earth .

This program was repeated unti l the cycle was)



complete and he was rewarded by being absorbedinto the divine essence whence he came .

Philae,the beautiful i slan d

,i s sacred to Isis

,

the burial place of her husband,O siris

,who was

embalmed in E gypt’s most sacred oath,

“ By him

who sleeps in Philae ,

” I was anxious to rest in“ Pharaoh’s bed ,

” beautifully built by Tiberius .Then there i s the Temple Abou-Simbel

,carved

into the river’s rocky hillside for a length of

three hundred feet,with statues whose fore

fingers are four fee t long. Who was thi s mightyAngelo who gave time and distance for art factors ?

We know but little . Maspero has saidE gypt is far from being exhausted . Its so il

contains enough to o ccupy twenty centuries o f

workers , for what has come to l ight is compar

atively nothing .

”

Sunday afternoon I was tired,hot and dusty

,

and wanted a bath . The Nile was inviting . T he

boatmen wondered why I did not bathe by the

bank if I had to bathe . T heir immodest scrupl es

were overcome when I gave them good money

to row me to the west shore . Money talks alllanguages and a go ld skeleton key Opens allheart

‘

s . I left my clothes in the boat with my

watch'

and pocketbook . T he black rascals mo

82 A T RACKS O F A T E NDE RF O O T .

tioned me to take a long swim or dive far dow-n

or stay under long . But it was too dangerous.They are bo rn thieves and thugs and I feared

them more than I did the crocodil es . So I keptone eye on them and the other on the pets of theNi le and had a royal bath in the royal river . Ifloundered around and fished to see if I couldfind some buried souvenir . All I gathered was

mud . D r . Murch , the American missionary,said I was lucky to get O ff so l ightly .

The Nile i s the main artery of E gyptian life .

It symbo l ized life in con trast to the desert with

its death . O ne’

is not surprised that it has. been

deified and that the traveler looks with pleasure

on the statue of the F ather of the Nil e in the

vatican,reclining upon a smal l Sphinx

‘

with s ixteen spo rtive pigmies playing on his arms andlegs

,representing the river’s annual ri se of S1):

teen cubits .

H istorically,E gypt was back of Greece and

R ome , the mo ther of art and cradle of invention .

Biographically,She was the home of R ameses

and Pharaoh,Moses and Joseph , Alexander the

Great and the PtolO -mies,Caesar , Antony and

Cleopatra .

Sentimentally , she was. as mysterious as. thepyramids

,Sphinx

, palm and Ni le .

Mentally,she was the garden of astronomy,

THE HO LY CIT Y . 83

philosophy , architecture , sculpture and painting .

R eligiously,she was the sanctuary of a learned

priestho od , elaborate system of theology , and

inspiring ritual for the dead .

E gypt has intoxicated me,the sculptured leaf

o f the lotus flower which gives grace and airinessto the granite co lumns

,has entered my bloo d .

I,too

,am a lotus eater .

CHAP T E R V III .

T HE HO LY C IT Y .

Joppa has a hard name among sai lors becauseshe offers rocks and wind—swept surf to land ininstead of a good harbor . But she was kind tous , and sturdy natives in big boats on a smoothsea rowed us to shore . I had no

'

dread of beingground to kindling wood or capsizing or falling

into a big fish’s mouth as Jonah did here . Myonly fear was that the salt water splashed on anew box coat would put leopard’s spots on itwhich coul d not be changed . I was anxious toland and see Si ster D orcas

,for I was out at the

elbows and several other places and she had areputation for making and mending garmentsfor the poor . But She was gone and none of the

84 T RACKS O F A T E ND E R F O O T .

family in , so I left my card and her house a

sorry sight . Judging from the appearance of theragamuffins who fol lowed me , no sewing is donenowadays

,and i f cleanliness is Christian

,Joppa

ought not to be included in a journey in the Holy,Land . But it has to be— Jerusalem via Joppa .

“Was your wi fe reconciled to her last s ickness ?”

asked a sympathetic inquirer . “

She had to be .

She vas dead .

”

Joppa is not much more than a pile of stones

in an orange grove today, but yesterday she was

quite important. O n one of those horns of rocksyonder Andromeda was c hained ; here Hiram,

king of Tyre , floated his cedars of Lebanon for

Solomon’s Temple ; there stands the house on

whose top Peter prayed and saw a sheeted visionof charity ; later Constantine saw fit to make itthe seat of the bishop

’s see ; and last and worst ,Napo leon stormed the city and slaughtered his

Turkish pri soners .

Jo-ppa’

s streets !or alleys) are narrow andfil led with camels , donkeys , beggars andsmells. I went to the alleged house of Si

mon the tanner, dyed my hands in the vat,

climbed to the roof and had my picture taken

my Peter’s vis ion being the blue sea the rocks,

the stone—pi led city and big steamer in the dis

tance. Courier Beyeres almost had a fist fight

T HE HO LY CIT Y . 85

with a big boy who fell in love with. me andwanted to be my guide . T he discarded loverthrew a stone at the boy I did hire to take meto the depot— depot because camels are out of

date . O nce aboard the train and seated by’

Joseph F inan

,the Chief of Lydia , we had cigarettes ,

flowers and big delicious oranges galore Ithink I ate four dozen . But my big coat wasmissing— I knew I ’d need it and could prove it .

It was like Grimes— “ all buttoned down be

fo re .

” Just as the train was pulling out,

a native rushed to my compartment , threw the

coat to me , saying,“Givee goodee manee buck

sheesh,and I did

,a shilling and got off cheap at

that— and ate more oranges .

Joppa is less than forty miles from Jerusalem

but there are more than forty volumes of fragrant history in that distance .

E x-American consul,Herbert Clark

,pointed

out gardens of golden oranges beyond the fabledHesperides ; Sharon

’s plain,fragrant with Bible

roses and memories ; Wely with a well calledAbraham’s fountain ; R amleh the ancient camel

caravan turnpike road and later camping groundof Crusader and Napoleon ; Askelon , and Gathof giant Sampson fame and brook of D avid’sSl ing-stone story ; Lydda , where Peter healed the

palsi ed Aeneas ;Valley of Ajalon where the moon


stood stil l and Joshua subdued the Amorites ;Neby Samwil , Samuel

’s birthplace and the Siteof ancient Mizpeh ; A

‘in Karim,the birth place

of John the Baptist ; the Valley Kolonech, con

nected with the ark of triumpn ; the road associated with Christ’s walk with the disciples toE mmaus

,pilgrimages of devou t I sraelites , tramp

of R oman l egions and cry of crusaders . Thencame the city of song and story— Jerusalem .

We raced through the narrow streets of Jerusalem till we came to Lloyd’s German hotel

where theweather strips were heaps of sand to

keep the rain out and the stoves to warm and

dry us were pagoda-l ooking porcelain things , andthe piano had been thumped out of tune , and the

cooking was good when you got it, for the handswere slow and “ hasty pudding was not on the

bill o f fare ; and my stone-floored , i ron-grated ,feather-blanketed

,bolstered bedroom opened into

an inner court fil led with beautiful fragrant flowers

,kept fresh and mo ist by rain which fell in

cessantly from a roofless square above , to the

time of a male quartette of German voices whichlulled me to rest in Vaterland airs .

It’s springtime in Jerusalem and the rain , it

raineth every day .

” My rubbers were on ship

board thirty miles away , with n

’

o Sheridan to

bring them and no chance to buy any more . But



l ieving I could easily find them,I started to

Howard’s hotel . Not there . Through the NewGate to the F ranciscan convent . Not there . In

and out o f the shops and stores . Not there .

Until mortified to desperation I went back to theoffice and Mr . Clark furnished me with anotherguide who steered me through the slime and

stench of what he called the best way to O mar’smosque , whither the party were headed and

where I found them listening to a lecture . I gotone I didn’t relish . Mora1 ! D on’t procrastinate

and don’t think. you can go it alone” through

the O ld and New Jerusalem . You may get leftand lost .I walked the streets of this city

,fol lowed by

donkeys as large as dogs , with big Turks or

Jews astride and digging calloused heels into thelittle fellow’s sides ; entered stores fil led withfruits and vegetables, long loaves of dirty lookingbread , old shoes , amber beads , ornaments of ol ivewood

,incense and crucifixes . D avid is the lead

ing street,filled with bazaars and beggars

,don

keys and dirt , camels and cats , tourists and

T urks . In the‘

absence of a board of trade, .I

went to the corn market . My guide said theywould give

,

“ good measure” and shake it downto overflowing” according to the Scripture .

They failed to connect that day, for at the cor

T HE HO LY CIT Y. 89

ner of D avid and Christian street my friend wentin to change one pound and got fifteen counterfeits out of twenty pieces . It is a common proverb in the east that

,

“ a Greek will get the betterof ten E uropeans , a Jew will beat ten Greeks , anArmenian equals ten Jews and a Syrian is morethan a match for Greek , Jew and Armenian to

gether .” I believe it .

V ia D olo roso,sorrowful way , i s the name o f

a rough , narrow street fil led with ancient archesand houses said to be associated with our Lord’slast Journey . O f course , it isn

’t, for the streetis only s ix hundred years o ld , but in a true sense

most of the streets in Jerusalem are “ sorrowful”

ways,whether you tramp them in wet or dry

weather,by daylight or at night , in absence of

street-l ights carrying a lantern in O r iental darkness , grop ing between narrow walks , fi lthy curbs ,greasy boxes and

'

beasts. What a city ! No

cheerful libraries,clubs

,concert halls or any

thing of the kind before or after 7 o’clock . Think

of a T housand and O ne Nights in such a place .The money changers are here as in formerdays , but my money changes hands soon enoughwithout help from them . I met Mr . Shylock andhe still wants his pound of flesh .

” I wanted awidow’s mite

,handed him a franc

,expecting a

mite and a half fran c in return . Instead of that


he wanted another franc . I regard the mite asa valuable souvenir . I wish I could speak Volapuk and that Volapuk was E nglish , for its allvery fine to air your F rench and German

,but

when you want to make a bargain,E nglish is the

real thing . I am so earnest about this that I’vedipped my pen in T urkish coffee “Amen to

the litany “ have mercy upon all Turks,infidels

and heretics”

and take from them all hardness ofheart .”

Yet it is difficult for even an American alwaysto carry the j ewel of consistency across the sea .

Mr . Blank goes with me to Jaffa Gate and buys

some phylacteries . Mr , Blank is a Sunday schoolteacher and wants souvenirs for his class , butwants them cheap . T he dealer is in a kind of

syndicate and says he cannot cut the price on

tho se picture s and things . M r . S . S . man says ,“

No one will know it .” Mr . Heathen looks himin the eye

,po ints to hi s heart

,and s ays

,

“ I wil l

know it .”

I vis ited the German Church of the R edeemer .

T he beadle spoke of King William’s generosity,showed me his royal signature in the big Bible

and,noticing my covetous gaze at the big Berlin

organ , asked me i f I wanted to play .

'

Yes,I did ,

and I got there with“both hands and feet . It

was a diff erent make from any I had ever tried


92“

T RACKS O F A T E NDE RF O O T .

Cros s ; Chapel of the Crown of Thorns ; co lumnmarking the center of the earth ; Calvary ; Tombof Melchizedek Chapel of St . Helena where theBasilica of St . Constantine once stood ; tomb ,sword and spurs of God frey de Bouillon: These

last two places were of interest because of probable truth . Concerning the other sights enum

erated , I looked and listened but was utterlyskeptical .D o not misunderstand me ; I was reverent and

thoughtful ; I l istened to all that was said and

looked at all that was po inted out ; I gave almswhen asked and where it was not expected ; Iwas moved with sympathy towards the pilgrims

who were there at the cost of life earnings andhome associations ; I saw youth and age , beautyand deformity, standing, kneeling, crying, smiling

,praying and prostrate beyond anything I had

read,heard or seen in fact or fancy , but I did

not a nd I could not and I will not believe in thelocal A to Z of our Lord

’s suff ering which is col

lected and vclassified in this church .

The Mo sque of O mar is the other palace ; i tis a beautiful thing and you have seen pictures

of its inside and outside . T here are many Jewish

,Moslem and Christian legends connected

with the “

D ome of the R ock ,” in fact some of

the rockiest legends I have ever heard . I gazed

THE HOLY CITY. 93

in the Well of Spirits whence dead Moslems areto be dragged up to Paradise by the hair on

thei r heads and felt that i f hair was necessarymy bald scalp was a strong argument against myaccepting the Moslem faith . I wandered over to

the Sacred Slab , where the D evil knocked nineteen nails into the stone . But three and one—halfremain . When these go ,

the world ends . Thekneeling priest implored alms and said whattranslated meant “You’l l go to hell i f you don

’tput some money down . I replied with myBible

,

“

Go too thou ,” but relented and fear no

immediate danger of co llapse .

Solomon’s quarries are still the Mecca of devout Masons . I was secretary of a meeting on

the ship that took up a good col lection for the R .

S . mother lodge of '

Jerusalem. The kindne sswas appreciated and a meeting was arrangedfor the traveling Masons in the quarry . Askedto address the lodge in thi s historic spot , I complied ; my interpreter must have improved uponwhat I said

,for they gave me three beauti ful

gavels which I presented the K. T . ,the Chapter

and Blue Lodge of O wensboro,Ky. These

quarries resemble the Mammoth cave in somerespects with their boulders , ravines and im

mense slabs of stone . T he ancients quarried by

dri lling holes , inserting wedges of wood which


when wet swelled and pressed out the stone. Iremember a spring of water in this cave becauseit tasted salt and because I slipped and fell inthe mud .

With my brother Masons I had my picturetaken in a group at the entrance of the quarrywith the foundation stones of the old wall for abackground . T he sun was shining, I failed to

remove my,

glasses so that I look like a walleyed pike— not

"

the Grand Commander , AlbertPike .

,

I had repeated conversation with some citizens

of Jerusalemwho complained of lack of protection

from the American con sul and government , andwanted a representative appointed who wouldthink more of American citizens and less o f

black coff ee with Turkish officials . D uring theArmen ian massacre Americans in Jerusalem hadno protection from the American government

until they made a big kick through the American

newspapers . It’s a shame that Americans areat the worst possible advantage in Jerusal em .

E ight”years ago the American cemetery on

Z ion was“ desecrated and so ld to the

F rench, who dug up and threw out the

bones of some great men with their families .The Jews own O l ivet today and you may buy a

simple grave on its slope for $2 50. I d idn’t



sacred city of Abraham, D avid , So lomon and

Christ . There’s an O riental proverb that the

worst Moslems go to Mecca and the worst Christians are those who have been to Jerusalem. IhOpe not .

CHAP T E R IX .

SC E NE S IN SAMAR IA .

Saddle me the as s,and they saddled HIM

,

was the professor s misacc‘

ented Scrip-ture . T o

avo id such a mistake,I said : “My kingd

‘

om fora horse,

” and on the pr inciple that you get what

you pay for , I was assigned an animal with a tail

as short as a preacher’s bank account and a

neck as long as a weak sister’s tongue .

I had prided myself with knowing somethingabout horses . A plow ho-r‘se once ran away withme and scratched -me off under an apple tree

,

Where I Would have remained l ike Absolom if Ihad not thu s early given proof of baldness . T o

day my back bears the harrowing mark of thi s

J'ohn Gilpin ride . Later a pig ran under my

horse while I was ,talking with a neighbor’s

daughter . . He was off before I Was fairly on andas a hay wagon loomed up _

in the distance,I



my ears with his . T he second thing he did wasto take fright at a Jew

,who was carrying-a ton

of lumber )on his head , and run me into a bake

shop , where the p roprietor called me down witha “

Howajji, to which. I repl ied : “Very well ,how are you ?

” These men of Palestine havebeen known to carry a piano on their backs .

They are goo-d burden-bearers and might beserviceable in some Gentile churches where harmony does no t always pr evail .

I wish you c ould have seen our party . It was

composed o f men and women , short and tall , fat

and lean,blonde and brunette , with goggles ,

green umbrellas and wh ite flopp ing veils aroundtheir hats ! to keep the sun off), and flapping

down their backs like pigeon wings . Sittingas ide or astride , as many of the ladies did

,with

their feet,stuck in short stirrups , they looked as

if they were frogs ready to jump . It was avsightcalculated to knock the camera crazy with as

tonishmen’

t .

We had a big party , consisting of one hundred and twenty-two horses

,thirty—seven mules

,

nineteen donkeys,fourteen waiters

,forty-three

tent boys and baggagemen,six dragomen

,twen

ty-two tents , seventy-one tourists and a palanquin “which headed the party like the o ld ark of

the covenant . I had a big dragoman,whose

SCE NE S IN SAMARIA. 99

name was Salah , s ix feet four inches high ,weighed ‘ two hundred and fifty

-six poundsand twice

.

as much in kindnes s and in

telligence . He was tall,straight, brown

as a b erry , wore a yellowish tassel ed scarfwound around his head , a drab silk jacket ,a gorgeous girdle , baggy blue breeches , high topboo-ts , and was armed with a horse pisto l , aCheese-knife— shaped scimitar that made yourblood thicken . Mounted on a l ittle pony thatno one els e could ride becaus e he was so viciou s

,

he led us forth over hill,through valley , and the

cultivated fields of the natives whenever we couldmake a short cut .I was sorry to l eave Jerusalem

,but I prayed

for its peace”as I passed a guide whose chief

obj ect in li fe was to get ahead , and was fighting afat woman

,whom he had helped into the saddle ,

for money .

“Money makes the mare go .

”Th e

golden calf is still worship-pied,and when the

goo-d missionary comes here and offers a g'os

pel , without money and without price ,”the

people are surprised,think it must be worthless ,

and so‘

reject it .

O utside the walls we saw many places whichmade us feel

,with Carlyle

,

“ Let silence meditatethat sacred matter . It did

,for fickle human na

ture i s offset by abiding nature,whose geography

IO O T RACKS O F A T E NDE RF O O T .

remains while men come and g o . The country

lay before us ,'

a commentary on our O ld and

New Testament , and pleasure—s eeking for the

present was lost in the far sacred past.D i smounting at Gethsemane , I entered the

garden of agony ; walked through it silen t and

alone . As I left,an old F ranciscan monk gave

me a handful of flowers and leaves from the old

ol ive trees . Thinking this place and Gord'o-n’

s

cavalry yonder might be the tru e sites of suffer

ing and crucifixion , I was startled by a p iteous

plea for alms by ey'eless,no se-les s

,fingerless

,toe

l es s men and women, whose poor condition

would melt a heart of stone.

We climbed O livet’s summit and entered achapel in whos e stone floor was an alleged foot

print made by the Savior at His ascension . D is

gusted with its unseemly size and the supersti

tion , we went out- and climbed a minaret with a

tourist’s spirit as sacrilegious as a Mfohamme

dan’s sneer, and looked out upon the wide sweepof the Holy City and the hilly country .

Beyond O l ivet we were nearly run over by atrain of a hundred camels , loaded with sacks andswinging and stilting along with a get

~ out-'oi

the-way” air

,l ike a lo como tive . We moved , for

the camel can walk over your little horse and not

strain himself at all . I like the camel ; he is


102 T RACKS O F A T ENDE RF O O T .

Bethlehem’s historic and ho ly star was shiningfor us o n a Christian and industrious community ,which makes stars

,cros ses

,chains

,beads and

boxes of o live wood and mother of pearl,and a

very excellent wine .

I knew the Pools of So lomon were larger thanthe Helena plunge But

,l ike Mother Hub

bard’s cupboard , there was nothing in them. The

poo-ls could be put to use today and I learned a

philanthrop ic woman offered to rep-air them ,but

the sulky sultan said “

No”No modern im

provementsz

need apply . I explored the Lower,Middle and Upper po'o-ls . They are of magnif

icent shape,size and preservation . The lower

could float one o f our big ships and the o therswou ld make a fin e ‘swimmin’ho le”for smal l boys .

Hebron is the oldest town in the world andmeans “ alliance” or

“ friendsh ip .

” Abraham

lived here and entertained the heavenlyvisitors before we came . Absalom used to.

play on it s streets , and I’m not surprised he

turned out bad . We were not allowed to enter

the Cave of Macpelah, in which Abraham , Isaac

and Jacob are buried ; we only wanted to see it ,and on our way the natives threw stone

-s at us ,

made faces and insulting remarks to the ladies ,and if it had not been for our Sheik

,would have

beaten us with sticks .

SCE NE S IN SAMARIA. 103

I felt like giving them their medicine in thepool of Hebron

,where D avid hung the lifeles s

bodies of Saul’s murderers,or taking them out

to Abraham’s oaks at Mamre and holding theirstiff necked j udgment in suspense , or banishingthem from the land as Abraham did Hagar . Withnew meaning we sang Hebron , Thus far theLord hath led me on

,in the dining room

,up

stairs,over a stenchful stable . The sheik rushed

telling us to keep still for our singing

had attracted the hoodlum rabble outside , whothreatened vengeance . But what could you expeet in the town of Joab

,who murdered Abner

and where Jacob deceived ; and we rent our

clothes ?

Hostelries ! “Weariness can snore on fl int,

but some resting p laces were darker than

E gypt and drearier than a sepulchre . O ne o f

them that I rec all would make a good grave for

Lazarus or a cliff for a cave—dweller . But life’s

law is compensation and one must get real tired

to enjoya real rest .

The distance from Jerusalem to Jericho is

about eight hours . T hat is the way they reckon

distance here, so it is long or short according to

the conveyance . Jordan used to be a hard road

to travel,but a princess who met with an acci


dent on her journey gave a thousand poundsfor good roads . so we fared better .

I was always sorry"

for the young man who”

was held up ,and while it is easier and safer to

day, on e meets with surprising experiences . TheApostle

’s R est is remembered . At the foot of

the hill'

which I raced down for exercise , leaping

over rocks l ike a. Chamo is,I came up to the door

o f the inn and was met by an O r i ental who said ,“Whisk , whisk .

”D id I look like a Kentucky

colonel ? My dress was semi—clerical an d the

red on my nose was oriental sunshine and noth~

ing more mydriver came to investigate , tookthe proffered drink , performed a dance . andsmoked a narghili ; so I think they mistook mefor one of their brethren O ne of mycompanion s will a lso

‘ remember this Jerichodrive

,for he lost his note—book of months’ keep

ing ; worried about it all the way from Jerusa

lem ; s ent an Arab to look for i t along the road ,and later found -it where he had left it in hisroom at the hotel . My accommodating driver ,after he had watered the horses , picked up achicken

,running inhis way ; put it in his blouse ;

sat On its head until it was dead , and later se

lected a wooded camp , where he dressed androasted it .We came to the place of the Good Samaritan ,



We have been“

looking for the land flowingwith mi lk and honey,

” where the turtle’svoice announces soup for supper, but it i s amockery . With slight variations in the order onthe bill of fare , it is lamb , ram ,

sheep and mutton ,goat-milk

,camel’s hair and butter

,spring water

and oranges . At Jericho my friend , R .,covered

his shoes with holy mud which he would not al

low to be blacked or scraped off , but intended tocarry back with other sacred souvenirs to Kansas C ity . Naturally . the traveler develops into acurio a ston e-cutter and vandal in general . We had broken and brought spemimensenough to require an extra. stateroom , and

dreaded the customhouse officer in Bo ston whowoul d eye us to see whether Mr . Gotrox was on

board .

T he Brook'

Cherith was a gorgeous affair. Thedeep ravine

,colored rocks , huts of hermits ,

perching like a martin’s box , looked very odd .

Men come here and go away, but the brook mur

murs forever the story of the prophet E l i jah , and

sleeplesscare of Providence. Poe’s weird ravenstory took a new interest from E l ij ah’s rockysummer resort .Half dead with

;

fatigue we reached the D eadSea and found it alive with Jordan’s overflow .

We viewed it as Moses did the Promised Land.

SCENE S

'

IN SAMAR IA.

“

107

I had enjoyed a Salt Lake experience with Spur

geon ’s son and knew what salt water tasted andfelt like when it filled your mouth and eyes . It

is so salt it flavors the apples of Sodom‘

on' i ts

banks with a “ seal brown” taste a man is saidto wake up with after a champagne dinner .

D ead Sea water'

is eight times salter

than other water . It is a low body anyway ,three thou san d feet below sea l evel and is a s so

ciated with Sodom and Gomorrah. What valuable real estate we saw here has long ago beenretired from the market . T he whol e countryseems a monument of desolation .

We sang,

“ By Jordan’s Stormy Banks I

Stand . The river washigher than it had - been

for fifty years and was so dirty and dangerousthat we could neither fish n or swim in it . Itstaggers two hundred miles to make sixty milesbetween Galilee and . the D ead Sea

.

Its storyflows straight through O ld and New Testamenthistory with. a fascination to every creed andclime

'

. We bathed our dirty hands and faces init

,then drank o f it , too-k a row boat and went to

the traditomal point of Israel’s cros sing and

Christ’s baptism . After the crowd had gon e,I

remained with D r . Courtland Myers of the

Brooklyn T abernacle, who baptized his little

eight-year—old son .

108, T RACKS O F A T E NDE RF O O T .

We had cl imbed over rocks enough to pave all.E urope . In stumbling over them I had met somany social natives that I invented a greetingupon which I have a patent right . It was“

Salam bucksheesh,your royal nibs The

first words always -made them bow and gesture ; the second caused them to look up in aknow ing way, while the last sounded so well ,that they took it for a compl iment and passedcontentedly on .

At R am-Allah,Hill of God, I found the Amer

ican F riend’s miss ion . A big American flag floated from theroof . I walked through the beautiful

grounds,up the steps , into the parlo r and kitch

en ,where I startl ed the cook speechle s s . T he

building is spacious. and complete every way. We

went into the chapel , where twenty-six fai r

faced,black-eyed girls looked at us and we at

them . The teacher said they were,

“

Sweet , good

girls , respected and sought for as wives .” We

took her word for it . They sang a song and with

a rising note at the close of each stanza , so I

wondered where it would end . I didn’t quite

get the words any more than the tune and asked

the teacher what they said .

“

O h,

” repl ied she ,“ they greeted you in E nglish . D idn’t you un

derstand ?” O f course I did then and , said ,



wood,pink , yel low and white flowers , passing

native women with great bundles of brush. on

the ir heads for fuel , who were struggl ing along

worse than beasts of burden . Just beyond

we rested at a kind of oasis,in a green

enclosure , where the tablecloth was spread up

on a stone . At our feet there was a big pool in

which the women were do ing a family washing

by pounding the clo thes on a rock. We lunched

with good appetite and digestion,but it made

us feel bad to be surrounded by a crowd of sadeyed women and hungry children who watched

'

every mouthful and waited for a crust or crumblike a. starving dog or cat . More than once we

left -them as much. as we ate ; sometimes for

charity,sometimes because they were so dirty

and festooned and frescoe-d with fl ies,dirt and

sore eyes .These sons of Abraham still plow with a stick

and tickle the soil and raise a sickly smile of

grain,cut it with a knife or pull it up by hand ,

dry it,tread it

,l et the wind blow through its

chaff, leaving the grain behind . O ther lands

change,but Palestine lives the same in its peo

ple,practice

,employment and building . It i s

a bare,bouldery , blistering land . Shepherds

charm their flocks with a reed whos e mus ic com

pares well with the sound o f a nail scratched on

SCE NE S IN SAMARIA. I I I

a pane of glass . He re was a picture o f natives

walking with bare,sandaled feet

,drivin g and

riding camel s and donkeys . Yonder a field where

the father and his family were kneeling in thewheat pu lling out the tares

,the mother being

near her babe which was sleeping in a cradleshaped like a camel

’s saddle .

Jacob’s well continues to do business at theold stand . It must have been originally intendedas areservoi r

,for in spite of the debris of years

it i s more than ninety feet deep and nine feet indiameter, cut in the living rock . The water was

cool , swe et and refreshing, and we halted in thelittl e adjacent garden , talking over its historyof Jacob’s and the Savior’s time . I met here aT urk who acted very strangely . Cigaretteshad made him nervous and he kept playing with a string of beads . His conduct musthave frightened my partner’s horse

,for he threw

her off and kicked after she was down,and how

she escaped be ing killed,we never know .

Shechem “ i s beautifully situated with its

Moun tE bal and Gerizim . Yonder is the Samar

itan convent with its famous codex Pentateuchmanuscript and large mosque

,and a Baptist

church of twenty-two members . T he natives

hate the Christians . The camping party was

made to pay a Circus lot privil ege for tarrying


but a night . O ne of our convent party had for?

gotten his passport , but a few francs bribed the

Turkish officer to swear that it was O . K. O ur .

ex—American consul,Gen . Lew Wall-ace

,fared

worse some years ago ; he was minus his pass

port o r' money or Something and was detained

s ix hours unti l permission -was telegraphed fro-m

Constantinople allowing him to go . We enjoyed

the rest and the refreshment of the Cathol ic “

con

vent . The F ather s were kind, the fare was good ,and the ro oms were large.

I talkeds toh—the F athers through an interpreter .

My E nglish companion spoke in F rench to the

ho st , who turned to F ather F . and said,Tell

him to talk in F rench ,I don’t understa nd E ng~

l ish . T hat night_I heard strange sounds and

woke to hear,

my frien d talk F rench: with the

most approved Paris ian accent

Samaria stands for sickness and smells. A‘

pile of dirt , disease , cactus and ruined columns .

Infamous Ahab lived here and ran a D aphnegrove . Herod built some fine palaces later . O neof our party was a l ittle indisposed ; D r . S. pre

scribed for him ,and in ten minutes the who le

town had brought its halt , lame and bl ind for

treatment . Here is a fine opening for a young

doctor and a large practice warranted with op;

portun ity to increase the death rate,


SCE NE S IN SAMARIA. 1 13

Samaria is one of the three‘

old divisions ofthe Holy Land , with Galilee on the North , Judea

on the South , Jordan on the E ast and the Medit

erranean on the West . Its hills were less barethan thos e of Judea

,and its valleys and plains

were more generally cultivated and fruitful .

Near D othan , E l ij ah prayed for bl indness to

come on the people .

"

Some of their blind descendants were bathing in a well said to have

been the once dry one Jo seph was put in dur

ing the dry season before being so ld into E gypt .A rock descent brought us to a beautiful , but

miserable village , Jenin , F ountain of Gardens .

It’s a place that I associate with kicking horses ,convent arches , half-burn t candles , a poo r sup

per,flea-bitten dogs , sore~ eyed ch ildren , the call

of the Muezzin overhead,an d a kind of banjo

serenade next doo r .Jezreel was a barn yard

,a fatty, wretched

ho le , fil led with beggars , and store supplies .Surely there is something in a name and youmight as well hang a dog as give him a badname . T he town is assoc iated with Jezebel whowas thrown out of the tower for dog meat . Isaw the

”

tower,the children threw stones at us

and I was so rry that we had no gattling gun toreply with . T he fountain of Jezreel i s where

the three hundred men lapped water like a dog .

I I4 T RACKS O F A T E NDE RF O O T .

The valley of Jezereel is remembered for Ahab spalace , of which no trace remains ; Naboth

’s

vineyards ; Jehu’s fast driving and Gideon’s vie ;

t'ory over the Midian ites .

Burka-D othan , Jenin , Jezreel , are all of ak ind . We came and saw and were conquered

by swarms o f vermin and vagabonds . The mostfit ting thing I could say was from Byron :

“

F are

well,dear

,damned

,d istracted town .

”

CHAPTE R X .

GALILE E AND IT S SAC R E D R E MINISC E NC E .

Galilee in our Lord’s time occupied all the

northern part of Palestine West of . the Jordanand North of Samaria . Its people were brave

and industrious but held in poor repute . The

Savior spen t th irty years of his life among itsciti es . The term “ Galilean” was one of reproach

and the apostate emperor Julian in the agony of

his death cried,

“

O ' Galilean,thou hast con ~

quere d .

”

Gilboa intro duced us to Galilee and stoodsentinel over the plain of E sdraelon and the valle-y of the Jordan . The mountain was bleak but

bright in Bible history . I opened my Bible and



tle donkey was almost buried alive,burden and

all,and when his driver got him out

,he cursed

him,beat him and stuck a big knife in his s ides

and shoulders . I angrily complained to theguide

,who simply said : D onkey cheap . He

get more . No good fight him .

”

Next to Jerusalem , Nazareth is the most fas

cinating city in Pal estine ,— picturesque withcliffs

,oaks , cyp-rus , minarets , convents and

houses . The proverbial kindnes s of the people ,beauty of the women and cleanliness of the city

did not disappo int us . I saw a wedding procession

,sco res o f men and women clapping their

hands and two swor d-dancers amusing the

crowd . They had been at this k ind of perform

ance for a week or more and Were expected tojo lly the groom some days longer before he methis bride and made her his w ife . Poo r fellow ,

I thought,it will b e easy for your Wife to manage

you after all this . It was a kind of“ Taming of

the Shrew” reversed . F or a long time the authorities have tried , in vain , to suppress this kind

of pre-nuptial demonstrat ion . It’s lots of fun

but,like the frog fable

,for the boys and not the

unfortunate frogs .

I had read about and seen pictures of O ri

en tal kissing . I suppose if on e must kiss,

'

the

best thing to do is to kiss the best looking per

GALILE E 1 17

so n, who ,

outside o f our party,was generally a

man . In Nazareth it was a little different . T hegirls and women were very attractive and I wasnot surprised when a bachelor friend said , Look

at those lips,wouldn’t you l ike to kiss them ?”

T he girls were pretty,with a little loose-looking

flour bag that served for full dr ess,bare feet,

brass bracelets,wealth of old coins and a grace

and smile more valuable than all .

O f Nazareth we may forget many things ,but not the Latin convent with: its church of theAnnunciation , with its beauti ful F rench picture,ro l l of o rgan , of voices

,kneeling children and

teachers near by . O ur hearts rose, our eyes

fi lled with tears,and our

’

lips said , Amen .

”1

saw the alleged workshop of Joseph,table

'

of

Christ,school where He studied

,house where

He lived and synagogue where He taught . I

que stioned the locality, but not the historical

facts of the divine boy and man whos e sinless

years were spent beneath the Syrian blue . TheProtestant church wel comed us . The girls’ or

phanage appealed to our charity ; the. F ountain

flowed full and free for us and our horses ; andwe witnessed the immemorial custom of the vil

lage girls dressed white and looking bright,fill

ing jars and pitchers Of water and carrying them

on their heads .

1 18 T RACKS O F A TE NDE RF O O T .

I held prayer service‘

that Sabbath night .The German keeper’s family were there in forceto play the organ and lead the music . I spoke

on,

“

O ur Lord’s Life in Nazareth .

” The subj ect,

time and occasion are indelibly impressed .

Cana,the scene of Christ’s miracle

,i s a tum

ble-down village with. a few hundred inhabitants .We lunched on the curb and drank from the well .In this well at Cana

,from which the watering

pots were fi lled in the o lden time,I found a big ,

old ee-l . O ne of our party just touched him

with his‘ cane,

“

whereupon Mr . E el immediately

turned to one side an d was apparently dead .

Soon an angry crowd collec ted, _

and the children

cried,for the eel was ‘ an old-time friend and pet .

A boy pointed out the meddlesome touri st tothe o ld sheik who looked as if he would punish

him with his crook . Just then the eel took a

wiggle to himself,fell over on his right side

again and all was merry as a. marriage bell .

Were it not slang, one might say,D oe sn’t it

“ jar you to see the original firkin s or waterpots

that were fi lled with good wedding wine at that

early memorable marriage .

Near this historic spot , not being a roughrider

,I performed a feat only equalled by Alex

ander or Mazeppa . We had'

overtaken the first

party and I raced my Arab steed,with the flag



childish faces . I witnessed a beautiful sunrise on

Gali lee and took pictures from the housetops ,including early morning scenes of bathing, dressing and eating . Now,

as in Solomon’s days ,fools

’

eyes wander to the ends of the earth . Later in the day

,when two men rudely demanded

bucksheesh from me,for fear that ‘ they might

be relatives or lovers of the subjects of someviews I had taken

,I paid the price .

We sailed “ Blue Galilee , where Jesus loved so

much to be, but as usual the sanctity of the place

was marred by some profane incident . O ur sai lboat was good and well manned until we nearedl Capernaum,

when a squall struck us and the sailwas lowered, but not quite soon enough to keep »

us from being driven on to the rocks . We leaped

off,then a sailor pulled off his pants , j umped

into the water, leaned against the boat andpushed with his toes against the pier . After the

boat had been made fast , I saw the captain take

the poor fellow, who had been too slow with the

sail, beat him in the face with his fist until he

spit blood, then push his head over the gunwale

,pound him ,

and nearly shake his head off

his shoulders .“With charity for all and malice towardsnone

,

” sounds well ; but it is hard to love these

dirty Arabs and degraded Turks . Perhaps they

GALILE E

are as good as can be expected . These poor people are taxed to death by the Sultan ; extortion

is his motto . T hey would like to have him providentially deposed , and many of them would liketo personally be the sharp instrument of his fate .

Through an interperter one of my guides beggedme to take him to America

,promising to be

“ fera good .

”

T he Sea of Galilee ripples and roars in stil l

summer night and stormy day the words anddeeds of Him who sailed its waves and spoke onits shores . Nine cities once stood upon its banks ;fleets sailed its waves ; and nOw solitude and si

lence brood over all . Seven hundred feet belowthe Mediterranean level

,the water is clear and

good to drink , when drawn at sufficient distancefrom the filth of Tiberias . The green fringe inF ebruary gives place to br ight o leanders later ,and reflected in the limpid water are millions of

little white shells . It was too cold to swim,and

the fish did not bite . The lake is stil l subje ct tovio lent storms, but we risked a voyage .Capernaum

’

s brutality was on a par with theruins of the cities and other villages near by on

which the curse rested . We touched at Bethsaida and M'agdala, and then put back for Tiberiaswith the moon and stars mirrored in the bluewater . We sang Galilee

,

” the waters joining


in the chorus , then our sailors broke out in something like “

Ha-j ah-manah—lyah—man ,” and pulled

to the oars , for we promised them bucksheesh if

they reached the convent first . T hey did,af ter

landing us in such a way that it was necessary to

be carried ten feet on the backs of swarthythieves, who would have dropped us into the sea ,between the boat and the shore

,i f we had not

paid them . A big spread awaited us , and anhour later

,after we were done , R ev. Mr . A

came in with his party,tired

,hungry

,and

full of impetuous wrath . T heir boat hadbeen becalmed , and the sailors would not

row,because bedeviled with the spirit of the Gad

arene swine , which nothing but money could exor

cise . T his was denied them ,and they struck .

O f no avail were the yards of poetry reeled off

on deck . The tourists’ apparent indifferencefinally gave way when the clergyman threatened

to hit the sailor with an oar , and exclaimed , with.

a voic e which startled the sacred scene ,“

You are

the worst set of sailors I ever. saw ,and I’ll see

you— dead— before I will give you a cent .

T he Mt . of Beatitudes , or Horns of Hattin,welcomed us with its curiously shaped hill . Nearhere Saladin defeated the ,

crusaders in 1 187 , and

placed the crescent above the cross . Scholars

refer to it as the scene of the feeding of the five



half they make . That’s a very nice arrangement

you pay a big robber to keep the little r obbersoff .

Caifa is yonder with our ship in the Mediter

ranean,and we are glad . We ate and drank at

the brook Kishon . O ur carriage was almostoverturned in the valley

,and to save mysel f I

j umped into mud almost ankle deep and splashedmy face and clothes till even the dogs looked

doubtful . They reminded me of the storyof a boy who went to see his girl . As he enteredthe yard -

:the bull dog leaped out with an uglygrowl . Come in

, Sonny ,” called the fond father

from the por ch ;“ he won’t hurt you . See

,he is

wagging his tail. “Yes,but he’s showing his

teeth , and I can’t tell which end of him tel ls the

truth .

”

I climbed Mt . Carmel,viewed Lebanon

,Her

mon,the city Caifa

,German settlement and Med

iteranean ; visited the Carmellite Monastery ;played its Italian organ ; chimed its bells ; tastedit s sacred l iqueur ; smelled its orange blo ssoms ;and received a pilgrim

’s medal befitting a pilgrim through the Holy Land .

Palestine is not large in size,but is great in

significance . A diamond -is small compared witha load of charcoal

,but there is proportion in

value . In the scale of moral influence, the Holy

GALILE E 1 25

Landmakes other lands lighter than the dust ofthe balance .

I have gone from D an to Beersheba,and it

is not all “ barren .

” With proper care and cultivation Palestine could sustain myriads of people

and make millions of money . I have a new Bibleand a new geography .

Travelers have been" divided into three classesthose who are content to see natural localitiesconnected with Christ’s li fe

,and who derive in

spiration‘

from i ts cherished memories those whoswallow every fake and fable and mire themselvesin the slough of superstition ; those who becomethoroughly disgusted with all . the sham and

faults , and forget the value of the true , and ridi

cule it all as a joke . I belong to the first class .

Blue Sky and fleecy clouds , rushing river androunded hill , peaked mountain and crystal lake ,smiling plain and frowning valley , green grassand gray ol ives , red , white and blue li lies of thevalley and flowers of the field are found here today , as when Christ loved and used them as illustrations of His F ather’s providence .

Much of rhapsodical and nonsensical prose andpoetry have been written

“

of the Holy Land . Irevere it for what it was and not for what it is .

Its past history is its halo .


CHAP T E R XI .

T HR E E C IT IE S O F T HE O R IE NT .

Storms , l ike sorrow ,may endure for a night

,

but joy comes in the morning . A wind that blew

great guns and almost sho t me through

the guards at the bow, was followed bya bright

,co o l morning . We had begun to sail

west,and s -the ship

’s clock had been turned back

on e—half hour , so that I was too previous for

breakfast . But a walk On an empty stom

ach is good , and when I did get at the

table I remained until the provisions were

out of sight and we sighted the beautifulislands of the Archipelago,

the lands of story andsong, and Taurus

’ blue mountain in the distanceT wo Asiatics rowed us over to Beirut in a rud

derless, lopsided boat , with a lack of skill that

made us - thankful we carried insurance enough

to have a decent funeral , providing our bodiescould be found . There is a fascination about an

O riental’s manner and address that leads us to

address him in a manner not altogether in harmony with the dignity of an E piscopal prayer

book . O nce ashore , we drove to the German hos~



tants . The roadbed was very rough . The super

in tendent of the train had six coaches for us , butwe were short of passengers, as only a few of us

were religiously inclined enough to vis it the sa

cred city. He was disappointed . We urged him

to consider quality and not quantity, and this

only made matters worse . A wonderfully beau

tiful and picturesque ride brought us to old Ayas

salook .

“

How do you l ike the looks of that wordfor a town ? Well

,its name was appropriate to

the nature of the inhabitants , and before we leftthem we applied the classic scripture ,

“ I f afterthe manner of men I have fought with beastsat E phesus .”

E phesus is about forty miles southeast of

Smyrna: Its leading industry“

was the worship

of D iana in a temple regarded as one of the sevenwonders of the world , which became the eighth

when Heros

'

tratus burned it down to immortalizehis name . D iana il lustrated the “ Beauty and theBeast” in her magi-cal mysteries and rotten rites .E ven her image -was “ fallen” f rom Jupiter in

heaven,

— an image very old , much venerated andmade of a black wood tapering to the foot , witha female bust above covered with many breasts ,the head crowned with turrets , and each hand

resting on a staff .

”

! So the Bible dictionary

Says , and it must be true .) Her meeting-house



as well as the tourist and antiquarian . Paulo ften came here

,founded a church , in wh ich

such workers as Aquila and Timothy labored ,and wrote one of hi s best epistles . Here Johnspent his declining years composing his gospel ,and ep istles

,and returned from his banishment

in P'

atmo s to l ive and die among thos e heloved, while the Christ of the church compli

men ted the Church of E phesus in words whichany church of to day may well covet .E phesus was the native heath of Apol lo and

D iana, of Pan who Piped , Amazons who at

tacked,Bacchus who boozed, Hercules who hit ,

Homer who hymned,and of Anthony the Amor

ous, who had such a bad case of heart disease

with Cleopatra that one day when she happenedto pass the open door of the court he left his s eatand the advocates who

,

were speaking,and rushed

to her side , saying ,“

F ly with me and be my

love, and we will have a boat ride with silveredoars

, c ologned sails , and entertaining actors , mu

sicians and servants to amuse us .”

E phesus was the London and Paris of Asia .

The boys here had an active time,and

'

torpid

l ivers . Artificial lakes , aqueducts , gymnasiums ,odeons , hip-podromes

,forums

,atheanaeums

,tow

ers and temples,from Apol lo and Bacchus to the

other end of the alphabet . F or a joke it must

THRE E CIT IE S O F T HE O RIE NT . 13 1

almost seem they had a kind of faith cure , whichagreed to put in a good eye and leg for a glass

or wooden one i f the invalid could pronouncethese musical words ,

“Aski, Catski, Lix , T etrax ,

D arnnameneus Aision . Try it . Now let me

see your tongue . How does it feel ?

I think it was Professor Poofenheimer who

discovered here the fo l low ing inscription , sincemade famil iar to many people : “This way to

F oley’s grave . E njoy li fe while you l ive , for

you wil l be a long time dead .

”

“ Great is D iana of the E phesians Alexan

der,D arius

,Homer , Horace , and Virgil said So ,

and we add,yes

,sir

,and say

,was but not is . Its

‘

vice and luxury burned out its li fe , and its magnificent marble architecture has melted likesnow . Today its marshes are full of centipedesand scorpions . Among its ruins are hyenas andj ackals

,which prowl about, while its few native

inhabitants are meaner still . Since leaving America I have learned from the tombs of Memphis ,f rom the h ieroglyphics in T hebes and ruins herethat the nations that forget God write their own

epitaph . Ancient marbles,canvas

,poetry and

history are God’s messengers to us , teaching usas a nation to put far from us the sins which area “

repnoach to any pe ople .

”

We went back to see Smyrna . It is on record


that Smyrna has been devastated by earthquakes ,fires and cholera; to this we must add the plagueof the New E ngland tourists ; were it not for the

Protestant church and missionary zeal which th iscity now enjoys , the last affliction must have beenthe worst of all , and fatal . I liked Smyrna , figs ,oranges , homes , hospitality and history . T he

story of its rich and powerful reign— its church

referred to in R evelations — its ,“Angel of the

Church ,” Polycarp

,John’s pupil

, who was martyred and lies buried under a cypress

,mid the old

city ruins on the overhangmg heights— its polyglot peoples , Greeks , Armenians , Jews , F ranks ,and the Turks who call it

“ infidel Smyrna” because all its inhabitants are not slaughtering Mo

hammedans. It presented a busy appearance

with the foreign ships anchor ed in the big, deepharbor , and its caravan ships of the desert ladenw ith precious j ewels , spices , tapestries and mostobnoxious odors. This card was put in myhand

JO HN BAGD AD LI

MO D ERATE PRICES .

T H E D EAR STRANGERS AR E BEGGE D TOV ISIT O U R OR IENTAL B AZAAR .



bric—a-brac , pastry shops , photo galleries and side

shows are temptations on every side .

I did buy a leather tobacco pouch , not because

I smoked,but because it looked O riental and

would do to ornament my den at home . Ithought I had the best of the bargain after anhour’s higgling with the seller

,but I learned

diff erently . He had given me about thirty centscounterfeit money in change .

An American flag attracted my attention . I

made for it and found it led to a drug store, that

old-time in stitution . The black—hai red , eyed ,skinned proprietor greeted me with !

“Ameri

cano?” I “ said,

Yes,Kentucky . T'hereup

on he jumped towards me , graspe d my

hand and said : “Whisky wtihout a. head

ache !” Shades of prohibition martyrs ! Could

it be pos sible ? But it was . My townsmandistiller

,Mr . McC . , in O wensboro ,

who se book

keeper was a member of my congregation , hadshipped him some barrels Of firewater a fewweeks before , so that when I told him where I

hailed from he remembered the product and washail fellow,

well met .” He treated me as if Iwere a prince , showed me his sto re

,emp

tied me with questions , filled me with com

pliments and promised me some Turk

ish delights . I didn’t know just what he meant,

THRE E CIT IE S O F T HE O RIE NT

and said no, for I had seen some of themwalking the streets and casting covered-eyed ,

bare-breasted,friendly glances at me from side

doors and casement windows .“

But he saidsure

,and thrust into my hand a box of candy ,

which was a cross between a marshmallow andan old-fashioned tooth—pulling gumdrop . Turk

ish delight,indeed . There were others , but this

one wasn’t bad . A drug store anywhere is acurious thing ; you can take anything in sight andget some things besides perfumery sub rosa . F or

instance,in America

,whisky without a license

,

and in Syria without a headache .

T here were husky millers here years ago. It

seems that there were some Millerites. whothought that thi s wor ld was a failure

,and God’s

clock indicated the time when it would come toan end . In fact , they wanted it to end . Thisis the only thing which could make themor some of their modern fol lowers happy . So

they swarmed to Smyrna , robed themselves in

White garments , climbed the mountain , andwanted to go up , but there was a hitch some

where ; they didn’t rise ; they grew tired of wait

ing,and came down again to thei r homes

,their

aerial trip being no more of a success than D arius Green’s flying machine .

Some of us were ti red and sleepy . The guide


showed us the legendary cave of the Seven

Sleepers ; but we were afraid of seven-comeeleven” — and remembering their sad R ip Van

Winkle experience,replied : “

No Mount Pion

for us .” So far we have enjoyed health and hap

piness by sleeping in our own beds .

CHAPT E R XII .

IN T HE SULT AN’S C IT Y .

O n a golden sea beneath a Sunlit sky , by is

l ands and mountains glo rious with clas sic andsacred memory , we sailed toward Constantino

ple . O ur entrance to the D ardanelles was

guarded by old forts on bo th banks and an an

chored fleet of three hundred old washtubs ,which Admiral D ewey could knock into kindling wood before breakfast . Byron sings of this

city and its surroundings,with its “ cedar and

vines,wings of zephyr and song of nightingale .

Yet here,as everywhere ,weare prepared to learn

that“distan ce lends enchantment to the view,

”and

when we land we may expect to be disillusioned . What’s in .a name ? Much . Constantinecame here in 300 A . bringi ng the seat of



aglio Po int . Galata,the business section , i s

along the shore,and Pera

,the “ infidel E urope

an” residence quarter,i s on the hill . Before we

cros sed from Stamboul we visited the impe rial

treasury and found it full of souvenirs su ltans

had begged , borrowed or sto len . A bad fire had

destroyed many things , they said , but I saw

enough to stack a coal bin . Aladdin musthave lived here and rubbed his lamp against

any old thing until there were quartz”

of diamonds,gallons of pearls

,bushels of emer

alds and rubies , soap boxes full of crowns. and

scepters,a room full of pearl-incrusted thrones

and ro‘bes

,tapestries

,guns

,shields and sabres

sufficient to equip an army . The sultan isn’t“ broke” financially . It might break his heart to

sell off some of his stuff to get money with which

to pay his Armenian massacre indemnifies; but

I know he can do it , and I want to help make

him do it on general principles,and especial ly

because he made us wait two hours on his cere

mony in a damp , co ld rain before he let us into

his show place . Mad , did you say the tourists

were? Just a little . There was a big tree near

by on which his royal ancesto rs had hung some

of the victims of his tyranny. We had been

hung up for some time and I know of several

IN T HE SULTA'

N’S CITY. 139

foreigners who Would have returned the compliment with interest .The Golden Horn

,so called from its similar

ity at sunrise to a Christmas cornucopia , or fro-m

the amount of wealth in. its watery deep,i s a

sluggish arm of the sea fil led with boats as thickas a Miss issippi river log boom .

There are thirty" thousand of these ca iques

and they are to Constantinople what the gondolas are to Venice . All I did was to get one out

o f the forest of the others and then sit flat down

in the bo ttom as in a birch canoe,when I shot

the rap-ids at the “

Soo ,and let the boatman do

the rest . F rom the forest of craft we too-k asteamer and sailed for four miles past masts ,flo ating bridges , banks , cyprus groves , gaudvcolo red houses and minarets . Some of my friendssaw all this “ in a horn .

” They were co ld and went

down into the engine room to munch macaronicakes

,tell stories and

“

keep warm,while my

friend Millet was too cross for anything, having

received just before he left the ship a bucket

of slop over his new coat and pants . He was a

comment on the couplet “

E very prospectpleases and only man is vile .

E youb was at the end of the Horn , the burialplace of the Standard bearer of the Mohammed

after whom the sacred suburb i s named . Here

140 T RACKS or A T E NDE RF O O T .

the Sultan i s inaugurated,wears the hero’s

sword and rides a white horse to his palace . We

wanted to visit the shrine,but no Chri stian dog

has ever been permitted to walk its sacredstreets . If he tried it he would find a dog catcher near by who wou ld soon terminate his career .I saw the Horn and Sweet Waters of E urope ,

E nglish and Jewish quarters of the city , NavyYard

,Sultan’s summer palace

,Constantine’s pal

ace,R oman Acqueduct , -Greek schoo l and a sol

dier’s. burial . Believing the soul is in: agony un

til the body i s buried , they hasten interment ifpo s sible before night

,carrying the corpse in a

box on their shoulders to the grave , depos itingthe body and bringing back the box or coffin as

we do a hearse for the next funeral . Slow in

life , the Turk is swift in death .

Moslem cemeteries s igh with their cypres s

trees,planted at each grave

, as we do a bush or

flower ; pelkovanbirds called Lo st Souls cry in

di stress . The gu ide said tomb stones were

decorated with a marble fez for a man,or flower

for a woman. Some o f the stones stand. up

right,others lean l ike drunken skeletons . Shady

places here and there are much frequented by

picnic and promenading parties. T he Mo slem

is a fatali st and does not al low such a necessary



in and night to wo rk in eating the re fuse garbage thrown into the gutters . They are good

natured street—cleaners,l ive unmolested in select

places , man and beast showing the-m a kind cons ideration unlike the dog-catching methods inthe United States . I said “ nice doggy” and on eof them. poked

‘

out his long nos e and wagged

his short tail and fo l lowed me until I was abo utto drive him home when a kind of sentinel po l icedog stationed on another beat made a jump for

h im and sent him howling back . A dog must

shinny on _his own side” here or take the con

sequences . Hydrophobia is said to be unknownhere but I found flees in evidence .

T he Turk builds fountains instead of statuesand crosses . His rel igious motto is ,

“

D irt

i s D epravity,but he wastes no water in

scrubbing his streets and that is why he gets so

dirty and must wash so often . T he broombrigade on the roads is not s een .

“Throw physicto the dogs” and they will do the rest .

O ne sees water everywhere in the ruins of

gigantic aqueducts and under ground cisterns

six hundred feet long. The “Thousand and O ne

Pillars” looks like the colonnade of an O rientaltemple . There is no water in it now but it isfill ed with flying bats and bad. bogey-man leg

ends and inhabited by s ilk spinners who are

IN T HE SULTAN’

S CIT Y . 143

weaving their own‘shrouds . I found the city a

paradise for the T emperance Advocate . TheKoran proh ibits intoxicating drink and the

Turks obey and could elect a prohibition presi

dent if they wanted to . When you want a drinka fantastically dres sed fellow rushes to you with

bells in his hands and a barrel on his back , turnsthe faucet and puts out your fiery thirst with wa

ter or lemonade .

The Whirling D ervishes whirled and dero

vished for us to our heart’s content with a po

etry of motion a Sitka Indian could never attain . My head grows dizzy and mystomach faint when I think o f them and

their musical accompaniment of tambourinesand flutes which were a cross between anungreased saw and the breathing of an overdriven ho rse . I left before these human tops

stopped Spinning and I carried away the memo ryof thei r tomato can hats , bell shap ed robes , half

clo sed eyes , drooping heads and extended arms .I still s ee the uplifted right palm catching ablessing from Allah

,the left hand turned down

to bestow it .There is a proverb , T he best thing to be in

the world i s a Christian,the next best thing is to

be a Mohammedan.

” Mohammedanism seemsto be a kind of rational istic Christianity . The


doctrine of the Atonement is e xcluded but ithas some points more clo sely resembling Christianity than Judaism or Buddhism .

Galata bridge across the Horn is the worldin embryo . A p'o'lyglot people of all the classes ,collections

,and casts and co stumes you can

imagine . Here comes an o fficia l in a hack fo ll

lowed by an armed guard . F ezzes like a waveo f blood roll by suggesting the brutal murder o fthe

“

Armenian C hristians on this thoroughfare ;gaudily dressed officers and raggedly—clad venders of fruit “ and beggars h ideous in deformitybeyond anything we have seen in E gypt or theHo lya Land . The bazaars caught the eye of my

friend‘

who had said ,“ If there are no

“bazaars in

Constantinople I want to go to Athens .” There

were acres of them filled with gold and s ilver or

naments, rugs , tapestries , s ilks , fez hats , gunsand knives . They were located on narrow,

staggering streets fil led with crowds of mer

chants and sight-seers who had del irium tremens

of activity .

The mosqu e o f Santa Sophia is to Constanti

nople what Hamlet is to the play . Justinianbuilt i t to outrival So lomon’s temple , but the

T urk piled big buttresses against the dome and

planted minarets around i t until the original

architect would scarcely recogrnze it . Sophia


IN THE SULT AN’

S CIT Y .

is the finest mosque . of five hundred inthe city . Golden sun and silver moonmake a. dreamy scene o f marble and minarets till you are waked by the muezzin

who five times a day call s to prayers ,saying : “

Go d is great,there is but one Go d , Mo

hammed is the prophet of‘

God , prayer is better

than sleep,come to p rayer .

”O f more interest

to me than this airy dome and massive masonry ,or prayer

l

rug floor, or blood fingered wall , or

sword scarred sweating co lumn , was the mosaic

picture o f Christ,long ago covered over with

T urkish paint,which is now peel ing off and

showing the form and face o f Him who is the“ Light of

'

Asia” and of the whole world .

Looking up two hundred feet to the dome

of St . Sophia , I stumbled o ver two dev'o-ut Mos

lems who were kneeling towards M'

ecca . They

said “Allah,something,

” and I said ,“Allon-s,

and ah t here .

” If it had been F riday and the

priest had been in his pulpit with Koran in one

hand and drawn swo rd in the other , I m ight have

felt the'

force of his“

remarks . I thought of the

Scripture quotation ,“My house shall be called a

house of prayer but ye have mad e it a den of

thieves,

” as I looked upon its gold mosaics ,ornaments of beauty , swinging lamps, and co l


umns of,

j asper and alabaster which had been

sto l en from the four quarters of the world .

I like a Hippodrome now,because the circus

was a forbidden thing when I was a boy. The

tents were l ike the New Jerusalem to my youngeye

,but the animals were a guarded E den which

I might not enter . In this quaint town I saw

the remains of a show that beat Barnum’s .

T he horses of St . Mark’s had gone back to Ven

ice,battered statues and buildings were crum

bled , but the E gyptian O beli sk looked s ilentlydown as it = ~had on Moses

,Plato and Cleopatra .

The littl e bronze co lumn which had held the

golden tripod o f Apo llo ’s priestess at D elphi

shamed our youth into reverent s ilence , while

the big blackened Constantine column held together by iron rings excited our venerati'on . Phi

dias’ statue of Apo llo had crowned its summit

and Constantine had carved on its pedestal thesefamous words ,

“

0 ,Christ

,R uler and Master o f

the World , to Thee have I consecrated this cityand the power of R ome . Guard it and deliver it

from harm .

”

The Maiden’s Tower made me sigh as I t e

called the legend of the lover whose flower giftconcealed the serpent which sent her to Cleo

patra’s death . Then ther e was the museumwithits splendid collection of statues , antiques , and



the sailing of the F rench and E nglish fleets at

the time

'

of the Crimean war ; while above standsMarochetti

’

s monument to the eight thousandBritish so ldiers who lie buried along the blue

Bo-Sp-orus

,surrounded by sculptured angels who .

recall thei r bravery and record the ministry of

the tender,loving F lorence Nightingale .

With a. sunlit sail by and. beyond. the city ,past crumbling walls

,scowling forts and R ob

ert College with its American flag' flying andstudents waving their hands and shouting , we

sped on into-t he Black Sea. R eturning to Con

stantin0ple , some o f the city pass engers who had

come along for a l ittle ride expected the bigsteamer would stop on the way back

,but we

were headed for Greece and so the big whistle

so unded for a tender with hard hearted tone . At

last it came and then came the tug“

of war in ahigh sea and a stiff breeze

,to. make fast to our

.boat for the transfer o f the pas sengers . O ne

man lost hi s hat , another jumped into a row boat

and lashed himself with rudder rope , a lady sliddown the gangway almost into the s ea , andmy kodak records some other exposures which

would not look well in print .

D u ring our stay we had anchored oppo s iteD olma Baghtcheh, the sultan

’s most Splendid

palace . Sun andmoon burnished its marble

IN T HE SULT AN’

S CIT Y . 149

walls and tracery into an «outer glory which was

only the reflection of an inward splendor . Mar

bles , stairway, mosaics , frescoes , bronzes ,rugs

,tapestries

,cut glass

,co lumns , urns of

malachite an d porphyry lead to a resplendentthrone room

, one of the finest in the world . At

one time this palace held seven hundred people ,now not one except the guards for the house ishaunted with the memory of his murdered uncle ,Abd—ul—Aziz as isn ’t and his insane elder brother .

Uneasy lies the head, that wears the crescent .T he present government is called the

sublime po rte , which means the Lofty Gate , but

its elevation is only in name . Time was

when O thman and Suleyman were - names to

conjure with,men cruel but kingly . T he present

ruler has a low forehead , a hooked nose , redbeard

,crafty looking face and is a l azy

,cowardly

,

murderous despot who can’t even. visit hismosque on F riday to serve his God Without thepomp and pro tection of ten thousan d men

to guard his sacred person . He calls himself a

“

Shadow of God Alas , poo r ghost“

!

God i s truth , Mahammed is fal sehood andIslam’s three great forces were and arethe sword

,slavery and sensuality . How

long before the “ balance of powers willupset his throne ? I f there is no pol itical solu


tion then we must look for a religious one . The“

Sick man of E urope” is Asiati c in hisreligion and nature . Some writers are hope

ful o f Constan tin O p-le’s future

,but I am

not though I do not forget her situation

and past history . So long as the crescent

shines where the cros s stood I shall be l ieve that

the swift current known as the D evil’s Stream ,

wh ich flows between the Black Sea and Mar

mora , i s symbol ic of a satanic force‘

which rulesand ruins . It has been we ll said the “

United

States has citizens,E ngland has subj ects and

Turkey has abj ects”— yes— “

abj ects” which

have hounded me by day and haunted me indreams by night all through E gypt

,Palestine

and SyriaR i chard Cobden beli eved that America’s oc

cupation o-f Turkey would solve the “

E asternQuestion ” After what we did at Manila andCuba

,it , is po ssible we may hear the war cry,

“

O n to the D ardanelles ,”for the satisfaction o f

Miss Stone . Mr . W . T . Stead suggests that the

Stars and Stripes float over the waters of Marmora , and when the Sultan flees from Stamboul ,leaving his capito l to the mob, Americans may

step in and. save Constantinople from. the fate of

Alfaxandria . Indefinite occupation would do

what E urope could not , nor would E urope ob



thought it very nice,for my littl e flaxen—curled

,

blue-eyed boy Lowell was many miles from his

papa .

“ Pluck ye roses while“

ye may,”an d kiss

when you can,for while we sailed in the white

co urse of the big moon be fore us , a storm wasgathering in the back

, black distance whichthreatened a number o f experi ences .

The storm struck us in the night and , withform Stretched out like a pantograph to

keep from tumbling out of my be rth,I existed

until morning. After several desperate attempts

to get dressed and not caring whether I shaved

or wer e a tie,I reached the upper deck . T he

bugle blew for breakfast ; no ,I thank you ,

the

fish are well fed from the kitchen . Later I ven

tured into the smoking room“

, where I met aman

who divided his time between cards and claret ,

pr0posmg a toast to“ the best woman God ever

made .

”Strange , it was his wife, I think , and

the anniversary of their marriage . Then fol

lowed a heated debate about the ho ly Greek fireat Jeru sal em by some red—faced brethren who

frequently tanked up on large amount s of um

ho ly American fire-water . That night a benefitwas given by the ship’s victual l ing departmentfo r African. widows and orphan s . It met my approval

,fo-r if E ngland had decided to make them

She was under obligation to take care of them .

GRE E CE AND M'

ARS HILL.

How ancient and atrocious war is ! AS old as

Satan ; and will con tinue to write its history inblood as long as the devil of avarice , ambitionand revenge rules human hearts . At last , steadyand hungry eno ugh to break my fast I wel

comedr the call ,“

R oa st beef and dinner .

What a menu ! How I obeyed the Bible com

mand to eat what was set before me , asking

no.

questions” —except for more— till the band

played “America” and we sang at the tabl e likenaughty little boys . When it struck up the “

An

vil Chorus,

” I improvised a whol e blacksmithshop with my cut glass tumblers and accidentallyshivered them into a hundred pieces . Strangeco nduct— but circumstances o f salt air

,the

poe try of motion and musical commotion alter

cases .

T omorrow Greece , where song and statuary lit

th-ei r torch ! Was nature a. l ittle j ealous andcame in the night before with a strangely beau

tiful picture ? O h,for a Beethoven to compose

ano ther “Moonlight Sonata ,” ‘as

,standing in the

bow,we sped towards a cloud bank -with a big

mo-on behind it silvering its edges ; slowly thecloud grew light

,assume-d the form of Angelo’s

“

D avid,” and held up the silver globe as an o f

fering from the sea to the sky .

How much more of painting and statuary


there i s i n heaven,earth and sea than i s dreamed

of in our artist philo sophy .

“

T he Isles of Greece,where burning Sap-pho

loved and sung, are brown , with rugged out

l ine,green with figures of trees

,gray with vil

lages,o r white with. temple—crowned crests . J .

L . Stoddard has said,

“

T o sail on Grecian waters !

i s to float through history ; the very islands theycaress have been cradles of fables , po esy and

’

history . F rom each has sprung a temple,statue ,

poem , or , at least , a myth , which still exists tofurnish joy . a_nd inspiration, to the world.

”

We dropped anchor in the old harbor ,within a short dist ance of the town Pi

raeus, which is the po rt of Athens . It was

busy with traffic of the day,but above it rose

the murmur of the blue water which in Greekhisto ry and po etry told of the ships which swept

on to Salami s to destroy X erxes’ fleet .

We landed in a tender and were as

saulted with tender-lo in Sights before we reached

the main street,with its big monument ,

where fighting, smoking, shopping and drinkingseemed to be the chief pastimes . But what elsecan you expect men to do who are the hou sekeepers ? -Mr . Hubby goes out early in the

morning , orders the d ay’s bill o f fare and tell s

the delivery b oy how he wants it served . T he


T RACKS or‘

A T E NDE RF O O T .

with the shade-s of Plato and recall the days

when the scepter o f power had not departed . I had read and dreamed o f Greek beautvall my life ; there was no ne in the Piraeus ; theremay have been some in Athens , but not for us ,and I know some lovers of beauty who Spenttime and money by day and night to discoverthem

,but in vain . T he only woman we saw

who could realize our ideal o f Grecian beauty

was in our car from Piraeus to Athens . She

sat oppo site us , and seemed to pos sess what Byron sang of to his landlady’s daughter in his“Maid of Athens F ringed lids and bloomingtinge

,and roe-l ike eyes , tasteful lip ,

and zone

encircled waist.”

“

R ing out the o ld,ring in the new

,

‘ and wefound modern Athens full of interest . About

one hundred years ago the Turks painted the

marble white town red and wrought ruin . Today

there are several hundred thousand inhabitants .

O ne finds a city with clean streets,attractive

squares,fine residences , beautiful public build

ings of which any mayo r might be pr oud . There

are many good hotels ; Alexandria , Pal ace , Splen

did or Angleterre . Wherever you go to dine

things are well cooked in Greece .

The Greek is a study . There i s a mysteryabout him which eludes you l ike Banquo

’s

GRE E CE AND MARS HILL . 1 57

ghost or D on Quixote’s D ulciana . When Greekmeets tourist he tries to cheat him . O ne mo rning

I started out for some kodak fi lms . F or an hourI made and read Greek Signs

,talked with my

fingers and lips and at last found them for

a dozen . Athens is a bootb-lack’s paradise . You

may have your Shoes shined on a fan cy-shapedbrass-headed tacked .box by a clas sic faced native , Without your guide you may get a caband drive from the Acropo l is to Plato ’s schoo land spend mo st of the time in trying to payyour driver, a miserable , mendacious fellow , who

mocks the greatness of his fo rmer countrymen .

He,

“

no understand E nglish .

” I tried to talk

to mine,for I had studied Greek under D r . J . R .

Boi—se and had read the Classics and the New

Testam ent . No progress . At las-t I tried a paragraph from an old s ermon on the state of the

impenitent dead,and that fi xed him . He took

the fare that I offered him and left me to think

of Kai Gar hackme-n as neither generous nor

gentle-manly .

The king has a beautiful palace and garden .

So I heard and saw from the outside . I tried

the Come into the garden,Maude

,

” act,but a

po l iceman , dressed like a bal let girl with muchlarger means of support

,said

,

“ Lego,

” and sto od

as the guard at E den . I to ld him with an “ alla


to give my regards to the royal couple who

s eemed to have overslept,and tell them I would

cal l again later or be pleased to meet them inthe West .

I was more fortunate at D r . Schl iemann’s resi

dence ; a dream of pure Pen telic marble adornedwith beautiful groups o f statues ; a monumentto the great scholar and explorer o f Troy . I

have a photograph of it with two companionsnear the front s teps . T he contrast between themand the clas sic statues on the roof would make

you smile and them cry .

“

T he little church around the corner , o f Al

pha or O mega street,was a good specimen of

Byzantine architecture with its round arch , dome

pillar,circle and cro ss . We entered rever

ently,for a funeral service was

‘

being held . We

did not understand the s ermon or ritual,but we

could read the dark grief lines in the mourners’

faces,which required more than earthly candles

to illuminate

T he Greek parliament was in session one

night . We occupied the visitor s’ section and

found the Speeches quite as intelligible as somewe had heard in Washingt on .

I met the Greeks at home and found themGreeks in Spite of invasions and influx of Slavs ,Wallachains and Albanians . T hey speak a lan



lock for a patron saint,des erve to wait until the

middle of an indefinite month for their pay.

I heard and saw that honesty was not an . overworked virtue among the inhabitants

,but it i s

universally admitted the Greeks have a moralityabove their E uropean neighbo rs, and th eir women can teach modesty and purity to many con

tinental and American cities . The Greek is a

volatil e,excitable compound

,and gets angry eas

ily . Statistics prove that mo st o f the crime re

sults from violence .

The peopl e are as religious today as in Paul’

stime and have countless known and “ unknown

”

altars and sacred places where they worship , to

drive a plow through which wou ld be infamy .

But their religion seems to be a kind of national

affair,something to be fought for if neces sary ,

but not intellectually or spiritually apprehended

personally . A good authority declares :“ The

Greek priests are not as well educated as those

o f the R oman Catho l ic church,but their mo rals

are incalcu lably higher .” They generally receiveno

“

pay for publi c s ervices and,like Paul

,must

“work” for themselves . They may marry once,

but when they are made bishops must renounce

their wife and children . W-ho supports the family then ? I don’t know .

E vangelical and colpo-rteur efforts have been

RE AD ING PAUL’S SE RMON ON MARS H ILL



cans took the pr izes,and O ld Glory and' the

eagle -flew high . Paul must have attended the

races here,for he repeatedly uses figures of

speech,such as “

R unning a race ,” “

Corruptible

garland Why shouldn’t he have been a “good

mixer” if he hoped to do the people good?

A place of great interest i s Hadrian’s Arch ,

of the s econd century A . D .

, bearing the inscription on one portal

,

“This is Athens,the old city

of Theseus , and on the other side ,“Thi s i s the

new city of Hadrian , not that of Theseus .” Itwas the doorway between the conquered Grecians and the victorious R omans .Athens. i s called the most famous city in the

world . You would not th ink so from what Ihave to ld you thus far . Why then Not because

of its s ize,or weal th, or s ituation , or climate, o r

surroundings , but because she was the mother of

heroes and historians,sculptors and statesmen ,

poets and patriots . Byron sings ,“Where e’er

we tread ’ti s haunted , holy ground . Poor Byron ! The Greeks wanted him buried here because o f his sympathy

,friendly and financ ial help

against their Turkish enemies . D ying, he said :“

Now I shall go to sl eep .

”D id he ? T hey have

built a beautiful monument to his memory.

I spoke on the platfo rm o f D emo sthenes,that

rough , rock place where the great orator ad

GRE E CE AND MARS HILL . 163

dressed the Athenians gathered in the market

place which stood opposite .

I visited the prison of Socrates , that dark holecut in the rock , where the for emost Greek of allthe world dwelt and discussed and dauntlessly

took the death potion wh ich crowned him withimmortality .

O n the principle“

'

of taking everyth ing not

nailed down , Athens has been rob-bed from thetime of Nero to Lo rd E lgin

,until she has only

models and casts of some of her most notedworks in sto'ne , bronze , gold , marble and ivory .

But some things remain unmoved from the “ tooth

of time and razur e. of obl ivion .

” I worshipped atthe Temple of Theseus , dedicated to the demi

god and the god hero who appeared at the nickof time at Marathon to help the Greeks driveout the invading Persians . I visited the O deon ,with the climbing arches of the Co liseum , inwhich a full o rchestra meant eight thousand

people , but its voice of Singer and applaus e of"

l istener had died away on the passing breeze .

Next to it stands the ruins of the Theater of

Bacchus , two thousand four hundred years old ,

with amphitheater room. for thirty thousand

people , s eats of marbl e , sky for a ro of,where the plays

’

of Sophoc les were acted

and are now studies for models , unsurpased by


Shakespear e . I sat in the ancien t chair of an

Athenian mag istrate whose name was carvedupon it, and looked at the grotesque statues supporting - the stage of the theater and wished theycould tell me what things they had heard and

seen .

I entered the portico o f the Temple of Hercu

les,suppo rted by caryatides which are as Pentelic

pink and loaf sugar sweet as. their real s ister swere thousands of years ago . I stood in the

Templ e of“Wingles s Victory . It contained at

one time the statue of a goddess— without wings,

that she might never leave Athens . Like Noah’sdove, she has found rest for her feet .Greece was call ed the center of the wo rld . At

tica of Greece,Athens of Attica; the Acropolis

o f Athens,and the Parthenon the center of the

Acr0po-lis . It i s the monarch of all the beautifulruins of the world . H istory accords it the finestgallery o f art and statues ever

'

s een . Judgedmerely by the chips and specimens you stumbleover , Phidias and Praxiteles were masters , Col

umns,bas—reliefs , fringes , busts , figures

"

and

statues lead one to wonder whether he is in fairyland or in a cemetery with its resurrected in

mates . ‘

The Parthenon was to Athens what So lomon’s

Temple was to Jerusalem ,and was the perfec


166 TRACKS O F A T E NDE RF O O T .

often plain to our startled , blushing tourists asthey entered cemeteries and gal leries of s ld art .

The moral eff ect of marble i s well maintained

to depend more onthe with in than the without ,on what is done rather than desired, on the char

acter of the men who se forms ar e carved .

I climbed up Sixteen rocky Steps and stood

upon Mars H ill , looked at the regality of the new

city and the ruins of the old , and tried to imaginethe scene as Paul witnessed it with its altars ,temples and philosophical people . By request ofD r . Pentalagon , I took out my Bible

,turned to

Acts 34, and read Paul’

s speech to the

Grecians on Mars Hill . What a pulpit ! Perhaps Paul came up Minerva street , across Tri

pod avenue , and saw more gods than men or

women,and became indignant at the idolatry.

When some of the gossip ing Greeks asked him :

“What is the news ?” he to ld them “ Jesus and

the resurrection , two deiti es you know no thing

about .” They invited him to come up to the

Aeropagus, the place where the supreme court

held its nightly open-air sessions , and where

Socrates and D emosthenes had often stood

What a preacher ! R enan called him The

little ugly Jew,

” but with the fire of love’s logic ,his stature was forgotten , and he stood a rel ig

ious iconoc last,with a courage commended to

GRE E CE AND MARSHILL . 167

co tton—stringed preachers of today, who cater to

publi c taste and influential pew-holders .What a sermon ! Believing their restless ,

worldly condition was because their art had become religion and religion their

hart , in their

worship of the beautiful and the human,he rea

soned to them of creation,providence

,grace

,the

divine fatherhood of God and? brotherhood of

man,in a polite

, practical an d poetical manner .

What an audience o f people ! Stoics , E picu

reans and Academicians,together with hangers

on,all o f whom represented class es which had

not been made perfect by the beauty o f their art .

What a result ! Some moc ked,others pro

crastinated , a few believed , j ust as. people do

now. All the m inister can do is to be faithful— i

results are God’s .

I found: no statue erected to commemoratePaul’s greatn ess

,but I beli eve he did. more to

immortal ize Athens than Phidias with his statues

,D emos thenes with his orations , and Hadrian

with his conquests . His church at Cor inth,epis

tles o f the New Testament , churches and cathedrals bearing his name

,and his influence in

'

theChristian thought of today are eternal mo-nua

ments .Paul admitted he was debto r to the Greek ,

so do we in the language of Homer,the archi

168“


tecture of the Parthenon , the sculpture of Phidias , the philosophy of Plato

,the tragedy of So

phocles, the morals of Socrates , and the patriotism of Marathon and Thermopylae .

We l eave Greece , feeling“

F air Greece ! Sad

relic of departed worth ! Immortal , though no

more ; though fallen , great !”

CHAP T E R XIV .

NAPLE S AND V E SU V IUS .

“

See Naples and D ie, but I nearly died withsea-sickness the day before I saw it . Halfdressed

,I crawled on deck , threw myself in a

steamer chair and lay there from IO a . m . till 6p . m . It was Sunday and there was service inthe cab-ia

,but my thoughts were on my stomach

and not on my soul . Mr . Cargi l l passed

by me like the ancient pr i est and Levite ,l eaving me to think of

.

the story of the

sea'

captain who said , There’s no hope, the ship

is doomed . In an hou r we’ll all be dead ,

”to

which the s ick passenger replied “ thank b eav

en .

”

Leaving Greece , we steamed through the nar

row straits of Mes sina, passed Scylla and Cha



old road tunnels . As usual,we were disillu

sioned . T he houses were high,the streets nar

row,the animals were n umerous

,dirty linen was

washed in public and ornamented the clothes

l ines which zigzagged like telegraph wiresacros s the street

,while from balconies overhead

gaily dre ssed and undressed women nodded their

heads to the passers below l ike birds in a cage .

The quay of Santa Lucia is l ike a sewer into

which all the live refuse of the narrow streetsflows . The native milkman drives. his cows andgoats in the-f ront of a house and fi ll s the bottl e slowered by a string from the upper window ; nopump in theirs . O n all sides the hungry findportable restaurants with fish

,fruit

,soup

,cake

and macaroni . Like the Arabs , one meets storytellers

,who read and recite with voice and ges

ture of comedy and tragedy. If you are ignor

ant,but want to write on love , war , bus iness ,

s ickness or death , you may find a publ ic letterwriter or an amanuensi s . The people of the“ evil eye

” flourish here . You d efend yourselfagainst their influence by pointing outward thefore and little finger , keeping the rest of the

hand closed . I entered a macaroni shop , a dirty

place,with a dirty man , who made the dirty

stuff . Just the thought of it haunts me . Thepoverty of these Neapolitans i s appalling . Chil

NAPLE S AND VE SUVIUS. 17:

dren are born worse than orphans . They eat therefuse like Constantinople dogs

,live in sto l en

rags , sleep on the street or church steps , die of

starvation and“ then are dropped into the Campo

Santo as we throw a sho-velful of coal into abin .

The peo~ple a re taxed to death on all they eatand drink and wea

'

r: If Italy was content to beherself in art and history and did not have avaulting ambition for the prestige of other E urO pean powers , her condition would be far different . Squalor and vice meet us at every cor;

ner . T hedec encies of life are outraged in broad

daylight . Above the vine and ol ive rises theodo r of an alley in Ch inatown

,

’

F risco .

We l eave Naples for Vesuvius . Busy guides

buzz around us who would make us beli eve allthe cardinal virtues bloomed in their soul

, but

their “

Nobilissimo Signor , il Monte” suggests athree-card monte man .

“

E xcelsio r , we climband are met by whistlers , singer s and players

who Sing the money out of our han ds . “

E xcelsio r ,

”over vine-clad hills , drinking in the sun

and sticking their roots into warm lava s oil ,growing the grapes and the wine

,

“ Lachryma

Chri sti, of far-famed flavo r.

“Tears of Christ !”

What a blasphemy it seems to us . Yet an Italian

says it as -easily as a Greek does Jup iter . T he

172 T RACKS O F -A T E NDE R F O O T .

drink is more innocent than its name or the natives. In th is mountain vineyard you drink it inits purity . O nce mo re the Creator has worked

h is miracle of changing water into Wine . T he

water here is always bad,and never worse than

when these Gozzolinas reverse the Cana miracle

and change the wine to water , a thing you often

find when you reach you r hotel . S till upward

to the observato ry,shrouded by a Muir glacier

of black billowy lava , where wise men study theneedle’s vibrations which indicate the activity ofthe vo lcano . along a trail of turhu

lent twisted lava , black as death and worse than

Laocoon’s struggle , to a place from which weview a white blue Sky above , a broad blue bay

beneath and Naples to the right with its curveand crag, and gray white houses nestl ing in

o l ive and orange gardens .Vesuvius is above us with its smoke curl ing,

fire belching peak in strange contrast with the

sky above and fruit fields beneath . F rom this

point you may climb by mule a la Pike’s Peak

or go by railcar wire-rope affair which pulls youup an angle of forty-five to sixty degrees until

you are within three hundred feet of the crater .

F rom this spo t you may walk in ashes ankle

deep or s it on men’s shoulders and be carr ied in

a chair . We walked to the mus ic of Gehenna



Pliny had gone , solacing, studying and satisfyingthemselves with the problems of government ,l iterature and philosophy . The city has comefor th like Lazarus from the grave . Houses ,floors , bronze lamps , mosaics of beast

,

and b ird,frescoes of Venus and Adonis stare at us . Wewalk through narrow streets , see old chariotwheel ruts , foot-marked stepping ston es and awilderness o f walls , broken pillars , statues ,bronzes , cameos and Pompe iian color . T he

c ity was not large,its people were small , drove

small vehicle s , lived In small houses , slept insmall beds and attached small importance to theprinciples o f Mount Sinai or the sermonic mountain .

Yonder was an old Curiosity Shop filled withthings the proprietor was too hurried to take inhis fire escape . F ruits and nuts in glass jars ,drugs and medicines

,p il l boxes and surgical in

struments .

A bake shop with loaves of crisp , brown bakedbread

,with the maker’s name stamped upon

them . A wine room with jars bearing the name

and date of the v intage , and a kind of depart

ment store with glass bottle s , vases , spoons,Springs

,bells

,buckles

,rings , mo ney chest , po ts

and pans,culinary outfit, candelabra , locks , ink

stands and earth lamps . You paid your money

NAPLE S AND VE SU.VIUS. 175

and you. took your choi ce . I am sure you had

to pay, for not far away was the sign “ Cave

Canem”

! look out for the dog).Looking at the vast amphitheater

,forum ,

villaof D iomede , temple of Isis , we p-e -opled the placewith Bulwer’s Nydia

,Glaucus , Arb-aces and

Ione . They lived and labored and loved as men

and women do now scene appealed to» our

hearts . Many of the inhabitants of Pompeii,l ike

those o f Herculaneum,had warning and fled .

The faithful R oman soldiers remained at their

posts of duty until death relieved them .

T he explo rers of the buried city found these

human -forms encased In mo lds of ashes,so that

when liquid plaster of Pari s was poured in

them there appeared the life l ike figures of theancient dead . In the ashes of Pompei i one readsthe r ecord of the ancient city . Her destructionwas in truth her preservation .

If the"

history of art is the histo ry of civil ization , then these poo-r people were beautiful bar

barians“

. Their fres coes , bronze and sculptureareevidences of moral suicide . If we were curious in E gypt and startled in Greece , we were

Shocked by what we saw in the museum room at

Naples and private compartments in Pompeu .

Manly strength and woman ly beauty were made“

procures s to the lords of hell .”


‘ It was midnight and a ll was still ; I sat ondeck of the b ig ship which s eemed to rest on theblue water like a dove

’

of peace : The sun had

gone down , flooding the bay with golden splendor ; the stars looked down softly on the twinkling l ights alo ng the curved shore ; the moonrose

,fi ll ing the scene with frosted silver ; V esuvi

us. held up her red lamp for me to read the pages

o f Italy’s history until tired , I fell asleep to

dream of home and heaven .

CHAP T E R XV .

T HE E T E R NAL C IT Y .

I have been in the E ternal City,have inhaled

F orum dust,smelt Camp-agna decay , barked my

shins on Co l is eum ruins , choked my lungs withcatacomb gas

,strained my neck at Vatican pic

tures,crawled through Cloaca Maxima S ewers

until I wonder “ where I’m at . I was drivento the Hotel Minerva

,the place for a wise man ,

located near the Pantheon , where one who pants

for immortal ity may be suited after death . Myroom wa s 99 , assigned me by the porter , who in

troduced me to“

a femme de chambre, whose

looks,wo rds and actions po inted out everything


T HE E T E RNAL CIT Y . 177

I might need or want for the next twenty-four

hours or days . R ome is worse than “ Lost inNew York” without “a guide . O ne is confusedwith buildings

,fountain s

,parks

,churches

,

stores , soldiers , priests and pol ice . I wanted a

real guide , not a foo l , parrot or comedian , and Ifound him in Profes sor R eynaud , a gentleman

of fine appearance , a Scho lar , one of the “ noblestR omans o f them al l .

” The true American al

ways hustles,but I’ve learned that while others

lazily bury their noses in their guide books the

Yankee l istens to the guide , looks around andtakes in mo re in fifteen minutes than ‘a “ don’t

you know” does in thirty .

St . Peter’s is modern R ome . We vis ited - its

square,obelisk and cross , great fountains , porti

coes , columns and statues . The view of thedome without is diappo inting ,

because it is hidbe the facade , but within you find a Worldof bewildering beauty . Guide boo-ks and

lecturers,pictures and photographs have de

scribed it all so often that I fo rbear . It must be

Seen to be appreciated . As to the architecture ,I prefer the Gothic of the Middl e Ages , that con

necting l ink between nature and religion . The

ambition o f St . Peter’s”

builders was no t always

good . Pride,power and prod igality frequently

reversed the proverb and robbed Paul to pay


Peter . The bronze o f the Pantheon , the thronesof the Arabs and statues of Jupiter all find placein this wonderful building .

There is no doubt that the popes were often

the patrons and preservers of art . Madame deStael describes the museum of the Vatican as ,“

That palace of statues where we see the human form deified by. paganism as are now the

thoughts of the soul by Christianity .” In thispalace of art you find Laocoon , Apo llo Belvidere , R aphael

’s Transfiguration , Ange lo’s fres

co es , deities ; heroes , philo sophers , statesmen ,l ibraries and antiquities ad infinitum .

The Pincian Hill is the central part of R ome .

It is a passing show of all the chm-es and conditions of people in the world . The imperial bandplayed splendidly, we l istened and looked at the

polyglot crowd , drove among statues , busts ,trees and shrubs

,when suddently my driver

dropped his l ines,removed his hat and said : “Le

roi. I thought he was crazy and like a fellow

riding backwards in a car who never sees anything until it has passed , I saw the vanishingroyalty, and said :

“

E ncore,le roi . He whipped

his horse , drove to the o ther Side of the park ,where we met King Humbert face to face , andtook off our hats . T he king lo oked a l ittle puz

zled, but concluded we were not anarchists with



offered me -and ,’mid a flush and flutter all

around,I Was once more hand ia -glove with

the establ ishment and went out with a new ex

per ience and three pairs o f good gloves for about

a dollar and fifty cents .R ome , Pagan , Christian , and modern is

the Shrine for twenty centuries of military ,mental and moral gen ius ; the place for

artist, pilgrim , poet and scholar . Compare

R ome to the Niobe of nations and sayShe sits ’mid deserted ruins like . a lonely

campfire of a‘

past nation , the past wins your respect and the present calls forth your sympathy .

They builded better than they knew . They‘

had

some master masonS'who could build walls

,

arches , , and aqueducts wh ich are giants of stonemasonry surviving armies , storms and nature

’sdecay ; symbol s of a power that drew and

dragged a'

Zenobia and Jugurtha and hold us

captive today .

R ome has many churches . D omine QuoVadis

,

” with Peter’s big No . 10 foot

prints,a big inspiration to novelists and

dramatists ;“

St Peter’s in Vinculo ,

” with its

chains,but most of all , its Angelo

’s Mo s-es, that

s imple,serene

,sublime statue which withstands

all criticism and compels us to s ay with its maker

,

“ speak thou canst ;” “

StfiPaul’

s without the

THE E T E RNAL CIT Y. 181

walls , a dream in marble, a forest of columnsand wilderness of mosaics ; St . John Lateran ,with shrines, relics an d statues ; the SanctaScal a” of Pilate , where the faithful crawled on

hands and knees counting their beads,where Lu

ther was converted and partly up which an irreverent tourist of our party walked with hat andshoes on . Material-~ structures everywhere

,but

“

God is a spirit I heard music and saw vestments , in fact everything except the simpl icityof the Go spel .

” But the mo rning cometh .

E ven a good man can get lonesome in chu rch ,and I was glad to meet my Chicago frien d

,Mr ;

Goodspeed , who said he hadn’t . seen me for fif

teen years until I was racmg through Cairo with

my American flag. T hat r eminds -me of a mur

tual friend in R ome‘

and E gypt, the O beli sk ,eleven of which have adorned the Imperial City .

They are‘ messengers of the past from. Joseph

and Moses . R ome the E ternal i s a modern. vil

lage compared with these mileston es that mark

the path of E gypt to eternity in that early time

when the day of thought struggl ed through the

night of superstition as it do es here and now.

T he R oman arch is famous ; the Co l iseum has

eighty of them ,and since I took the R oyal Arch

degree in Masonry I’ve learned to appreciate

them.

“Arch of Constantine ,”who went to


make a new R ome but gave the old one a state

religion ;“Arch of Titus ,

” erected by his brotherD omitian to commemorate Titus’ conquest of

Jerusalem ; its sad relief of the sacred candle

sticks carried on the shoulders of exulting heathen

, a commentary on the “ nations that forgetGod .

”

R ome’s rule conquere d and civilized from the

Pillars of Hercules to the E uphrates and the.

chalk cliffs of Sco tland to the cataracts of the

Nil e .

T he Palatine was the p lace for the patricians ,the “

400” whose sign was “

no plebs need ap

ply . It is excavated and is used as a‘

museum

of famous antiquities . I was so interested in thethought of D omitian and Nero that I pressed a

lady’s hand, while helping her over the ruins un

ti l she asked me if I had not made a mistake

and taken her hand for a lemon . It was a tight

squeeze .R ome’s two conquerors were arms and art ;

R ome means churches,cathedrals , palaces , p ic

tures,statuary

,mosaic and tapestry . This is

the artist’s paradis e,and home fo lks may have

clear ideas from photos , for old_

Sol i s often

more accurate than a co arse bi'ush. T he two

sources of beauty , shape and co lor , are often met

and one finds the realization that mor al beauty


I T RACKS O F A T E NDE RF O OT .

tingu ish between the ashes of a dog and the t emains of Nero or a Christian .

No,R ome wasn’t “ built in a day

, for

much time was required to take even a

glimpse of the Temple of Vesta,whose chaste

light stil l burns . Bridging the Tiber is San Angelo two thousand years old whose arches echoed to the thun der of brave Ho ratius . The

baths of Caracalla are great in their ruins and

remind you of the time when nobil ity swam or

ate and drank while listening to lectures and

music. HOW the heart thrills with memories of

the F orum , that stage where kings played trage

dy, but which loo-ks today like a sunken square

with columns and arches l ike so many y ege

tables in a D u tch cellar. The Templ e of Saturn

was once the national treasury , but now i s bank

rupt with only eight figureless columns left .There stands the arch of Septimus Severu s withthe bronze car of victory gone off to ingloriousdefeat . I paused at Augustus’ golden milestone ,that hub from which all roads led like so many

spoke-s to the circle of the known world . I

climbed -ou the R ostra platform where Cicero

and Caesar had thundered eloquence , ,and I had

just commenced to make a few remarks whenI was called down . Hadrian’s T omb is a big

thing one thousand feet in circumference . It has

THE E T ERNAL CITY. 1

been robbed of its marble and statues,and I

sawMr . H .

’

s giant head in the Vatican , its placebeing usurped by a statue of the ArchangelMi chael sheathing his Swo rd .

All work and no play makes Jack a dul l boyand I took a cab one night and went to Con

stanzi Teatro to hear La Boheme . The o rchestration was These Italians are fine

musicians and the leader was a veritableD amrosch . He was a bundle o f nerves ; head ,arms and legs were on so many wires , while his

whole body swayed and jumped as if he stood on

tacks or had swallow! ed an electric machine .

F ernando de Lucia was the tenor , and the finest

I ever heard since Campan ini . There was a big

audience of boxes,two upper tiers and pit . The

people were peculiar in their applaus e of mou th ,hand and glove. Some men ros

’

e between the

acts with. their hats on and instead of going out

for a drink,stared around above and below .

My Italian libretto was of l ittle account,but

music is the universal language which every

body understands . I enjoyed my surroundings ,the refreshments and the crowd . The men were

indifferent loo-king, but the women were richly'

j eweled and poorly dressed ; that is , half dressed .

T here was plenty‘

of good form and complexion ,but apart from eyes , dark and lustrous , I saw no

186 T RACKS or A T ENDE RF O O T .

Ital ian beauties . Surely the play’s the thing”

in Italy and! many seem to attend it more ft cquently and contribute -more l iberally to its support than to the churches .

Near the pyramid of Cestius, that marblestructure one hundred and fourteen feet

h igh and older than the Christian era , Ifound the Protestant cemetery . Here is

the grave of Keats,

“whose name was writ inwater ,

”and yet like that element his fame sur

rounds the wo rld ; the grave of Shelley with its“

Co r cordium,

”who se song l ike his Skylark

sings high toward heaven . Sweet and suggest

ive resting place, and why should not Nature

be her sweetest to the poets who translated Nature to humble , prosaic hearts ? However, if

you are not a' poet , there is Capuchin convent,

a human bone-yard whose foundations and deco

rations furnish endless ,“Alas poor Yoricks” for

so l iloquizing Hamlets ; or the Catacombs whichhoneycomb the city with miles of graves , paths ,chapels , shelves , and symbol s of Christians who

lived here by day,visited by night and were

burned between times .

The Co l is eum is only another name for a

cemetery . It gives you the first , firmest idea of

R ome’s cruel power . It is a tragedy in stone ,


T RACKS O R A T E NDE R F O O T .

house . Merci,I

' said . Mercy , I felt . I

kept my glasses on and the professor his hair .

We listened to the music, looked very wise andmade a few musical notes . R esta’s playingwasful l of fire and feeling and showed good technique . I was glad to be introduced to him atthe clo se of the concert and say

,

“

bravo .

We took in the Saturday show o i the Corso ,

that Broadway,State street and Ni col let avenue

combined,with more of startl ing contrast in the

rank and fil e of the peopl e , cafes , stores andsights . It was a relief to find an E nglish E piscopal church near by in which we could rest .wemet some Neapolitan boys and girl s whothought we were artists and fol lowed and begged

us to paint their pi ctures . They were pr etty and

picturesque,brown faced , black hair and eyes

and gaudy dress . I to ld them we were not ar

tists, but Americano critiquos and they finally

left us expe cting we wou ld call for them Mon

day . Sure “ the paths of glory lead but to the

grave. We spent an hour in finding Augustus

Caesar’s tomb , inquired many times and at last

found our way into an old rubb ish heap of anamphitheater It was growing darkan d I want

ed a l ight and tho ught of a R oman candle , but

feared if I used it in this dangerous place , Im ight be l ike the poor Irishman

,who

“Lit one

THE E T E RNAL CIT Y . 189

oi them R oman candles to see what candles them

R omans used” and was later found by h is faithful Bridget hunting under the table for h is eye .

It’s easy to preach and practice , When you

are in R ome do as the R omans do ,

” and so afterdinner we took a cab and went to “Marco Visconti ,

” at the Theater Nazionale . I wanted moremus ic and got it . It was late , I was tired, andstarted to leave the house

,when my friend said :

“Wait till you see the ballet .” I wondered

what he meant . I said : “ I will wait for j ust a

few m inutes,it’s 1 1 o

’clock now,and I want to

be asleep by The ballet came . The longer

I waited the mor e I wondered . When the curtain was rung down I looked at my watch ; itwas 1 o

’clock Sunday mo rning .

We spent the morning loo king at R aphael’sfrescoes

,which though dimmed“ with years ,

preach a literal go spe l of the higher life to all

who will s ee and understand . Later saw Gu-ido’s“Aurora” above reflected in the R ospiglio so

mirro r beneath . This was a morning, movingpicture which led one to think it was time to

get up and take a drive , which we did .

The Capitol hill at R ome is a scene of shadow

and sun light . Its temple crowned top ; Tar

peian R ock for traitors and Square with historicbronze statue of Marcus Aurelius . In the Cap i


to-l Museum is the famous Hall of ' E mperors , a

bust gallery of notorious R oman profligates. I

am not surprised that Sight of them and memory of what they were led“ Gibbon to write ,

“

T he

D ecline and F all of the R oman E mpire .

”

Progress is slow but sure . Victor E mmanuel

said ,“

Let there be light .” He had to do with apeople who were lazy , lying and lascivious ; allthey seemed to want was a place to sleep , plentyof macaroni and “ damned be he that first cries ,‘Hold , enough .

’ The new government took for

its motto ,

“

God helps those who help themselves ,

” and He did . T he ideal has not been

reached , but railroads , good harbors , new buildings

,manufactures , foreign and domestic com

merce , schoo l s , churches . and freedom of the

press Show material , mental and moral advance

wh ich urge toward greater deeds and h igher

manhood .

I made arrangements to see the Pope, but had

an i llustration of the pathetic lines ,“

You

can’t most always always sometimes tellsmallpox p reventedf So far we had

_

had

a fine cruise through E gypt, Palestine ,As ia

,and Greece ; not a ripple had ruflied

the sea o f our happiness , except sea-Sickness.

But death is always a pos s ibility. T he diseasecon tracted at Alexandria broke out just before



fashioned carpet bag and from its depths came

out a snore ,“Vale , et Vale .

”

CHAP T E R XV I .

IN woND E R F UL F LO R E NCE .

I went to Hotel de Italy, the former palace of

Prince Murat and Queen Caroline . By m istakeI was assigned a kind O f j ail room , No . 75 , below

the street'

of Lung Arno . I existed in “ durance

vile” tillearlynext morning , when I rang the con:

cierge and was received by a maid and boy whotook me to lucky No . 1 3 , carrying my grip ,pants

,umbrella and vest in a kind O f proc eS

s ion befo re me . O ppos ite my window I saw the

house o f Amer igo Vespucci ; he was gon e , but

not the girl in the window who spent her time in

Sweet nothingnes s till the band came by , fol

lowed by Ital ian so ldiers ; she waved her handker

chief,I waved my flag ; the captain recogn ized

me and the boys her, smi led and marched on .

I had the Continental breakfast , not worth a

continental , of coffee , bread and honey . F ood

in Italy,as a rule

,is small in quantity and poor

“

ih'

quality, disguise-d .by h igh seasoning and

made as indigestible as palatable . The Italians

are too lazy to eat much . They have to take

F E E D ING PIGE ONS AT ST . MARK ’S



thei r wares,in all the variety O f o range , lemon

and laurel . You m ight as well be without yourcoat as without a flower ; the flower girl wi ll stop

you on the street or come to you in the cafe and

put a rose bud in your button-hol e , un less youres ist her .You may pay then or later in the season when

for al l your decoration she comes in an irresistible way and you settle for value receive

-d. Thereare some beautiful women here , but , as a rule ,they are hideous when not homely. I learned

that marriage was based On dowry and not on

divine standards . Their proverb says : “M'

ar

riage i s the tomb of love ; Byron said : They

marry for their parents and they love for them

selves . Society , too ,largely consists o f smoke ,

drink,gambling and fre e love ; a paradis e for

people who l ike that kind Of thing .

The markets of F lorence are as curious as

their mosaics ; long lanes l ined with boxes , baskets and barrels , fil led with flower s , fish, fowl ,flesh and fruit and as many k inds of curious peo

ple to sel l them . Near by are stands where the

hungry may buy a fried cake of coagulated blood

or a roasted fat cat with some favorite fritter s

soaked in grease . I was hungry, but insisted on

vegetarian diet . NO ,thank you ,

I said,give me

liberty,limburger or death . While ignorant and

INWO NDE RF UL F LO RENCE . 195

helpless and in need of a wise companion , I wasapproached by a man who had little owls for sale.

They may be had for a song, but I preferred my

own thoughts for a pet .

O n e morning I overslept and my party left

without me . I started to overtake them,walked

in a circle for half an hour and came out by thebridge two squares from my hotel .

.I was in just the frame O f mind to go to

church,and SO went where I could learn the

stony record of F lo rence’s birth,l ife, and death .

San Lorenzo, with the tombs of the de Medici ,and Angelo’s colos sal figures of D ay, Night ,D awn and Twilight ; San Marco

,with the pulpit

o f Savonarola, whe re he thundered of righteousnes s an d judgment : D 'uomo ,

that marble mosaic

with its daring dom'

e by Brunellesch i . Campani le

,that beautiful be ll tower which Giotto hung

three hundred feet in the air,and many others .

I went to a barber shop , where the butcher

held the razo r upside d0wn and carved me afterhe had pared my fingernails . These bar

bers bleed you professionally and ignorantly

killed C'

avour'

. D en ti sts draw your teeth and

phys icians prescribe for what may be left if you

are not already dead . O ne expects to see much

sicknes s where water is regarded as“ great med

icine” and only . use'

d externally or internally as


a last r esort . When I asked my bloody benefactor how much I owed

,he repl ied

“

Niente ,s ignore” !nothing, sir ,) I was embarrassed ,wanted to be generous

,hesitated

,fumbled my

money and ended by giving five times the valuerece ived , the rascal grinning and bowing thanksall the time .

But there are better . F lorentines are proudOf their citizenship as Americans , Greeks andR omans are of theirs , and why not? Their D

'ante

gave glimps es of heaven and hell ; Boccaccio of

love and lust ; Machiavell i Of plotting pol itics ;Petrarch of his 10ved Laura ; Gal ileo of starrysky ; Savonarola of piety and patriotism ; Ameri

go Vespucci gave a name to. our country ; Giotto planted the l ily of the Campanile ; Brunei;

leschi spanned the dome of the D uomo ; Ghiberti

sw’

ung h is bronze gates ; Angelo carved the moving marble , and Barto lommeo ,

D elsarto and D a

Vinci painted the canvas never to fade frommemory’s gallery .

I frequently wor shipped in the sanctuary of

F lorence sculpture , of which Thorwaldsen says ,“ Clay i s birth , plaster is death , marble is the

resurrection . Here is the Loggia of the Lan

cers,an ar cade of arches fill ed with the mast er

art O f“

R ape of the Sab ines ,” “ Perseus” and

“

Polyexina and Achilles .” Along thorough~


T RACKS O F A T E NDERF O O T .

D ancing F aw'

n,Appollino and Scythian whet

ting a knife . Titian’s Venus,with shameles s atti

tude and co loring, stares you out of countenance ,while the Venus de Medici welcomes you with aface and form at once the delight and despair ofmodern artists .There is an enclosed walk between galleries ofart over the Arno river , leading to the Pitti gallery . Th is palace was the former res idence O f

the k ing and queen when F lorence was the cap

ital of united Italy. It is a noble building, fi lledwith the luxury of art , statues and paintings ,mosaics

,precious stones in greatest profusion .

O ne can never forget the maternal Madonnalook of R aphael

’s masterpiece . I. am not sur

prised that when the O ld prince who l ived herewas to ld by his. priest O f a gloriou s heaven , he

replied, I would be satisfied if I could remain

in the Pitti .” Yet with all this art, there are

some Italians who have never seen it, don’t care

to vis it it , and if they did would probably appreciate it about as much as the sheep did the O penheavens over Bethlehem’s plain .

Much of the h istory of F lorence proves thatart is not necessarily rel igious and that citiesmay bewhite with classic marbles and dark w ithcursed meanness . I visited mediaeval palaces,rocky and red with tragedy ; P

'

O lozzia Vecch io ,

INWO NDE RF UL F LO RE NCE . 199

for s ix hundred years the senate of the republic

and official residence of the Medici,contained

the tower Where the sainted Savonarola was to r

tured for forty days . The volume of Guelph andGhibeline history of F loren ce is written in blood ,punctuated with tears and held together with the

strings of broken hearts .We walked by p-eddlers with hands and armsfull of different dogs which they were trying tos ell

,but I found they all had the same kind o f

fleas. We passed by windows fi lled with que s

tionable pictures which the Ital ian St . AnthonyC

'

omstock had evidently overlooked ; saw a mu

sical family who played , sung and danced on the

street for the coppers we threw them, but weredriven off by the police to make way for the rich

who rode by with two drivers and a poodle dogbetween. them ; and attended a grand concertowhere O lga von Turk R ohn gave a classic andartistic program. She was a musical gem in bl ackvelvetydress, beads, si1ver , diamonds and tres em

bonpoint . Coming out I bought a little look ingglass. wh ich drew a big crowd before I could

make the p.rope r change . Someth ing was lacking. I offered an umbrella check

, but the manwanted my umbrel la

,too , and so I compromised

on a pack of c igarettes wh ich a friend had givenme to give away .


.

We attended a theater party that night , a two

box affair,but bymistake entered the wrong box

and the soldiers escorted us up stairs . It was afrosty time and I hid behind the curtain,

Polonius like , with hat and coat -ou to keep warm .

Massenet’s music was fantastic “ and with little

melody . The play dr agged on through t he old

story of misplaced love . F inally the hero killed

himself three hours too late ; a thing he should

have thought of in the first act; It was worth

our l ife to get a cab to get back to the hotel , Anurchin hai led one for me and when it came a

young hoodlum said it was for another,and it

resulted in a whip fight . T he matter was final ly

adjusted and we got the carriage and rested in

peace until the driver opened the door in frontof the hotel and demanded three times the usual

price and would probably have knocked us downand robbed’ us if the hotel concierge

,having

heard -our altercation,had not come out and

made him do the right thing.

I cros sed Ponte Vecchio,the oldest and odd

est,

_of the s ix bridges over the Arno . A double

decker , with art galleries above , j ewelry shops

ben eath , fil led with mosaics of all that'

art and

nature can rep-resent, and where’mid all the pre

c10us stones the turquoise is the prevai ling one .

T his stone is beautiful and inexpensive here, and


202 TRACKS O F A T ENDE R F O O T .

loom the heights of F iesole with thei r whitewalled vi l las mantled with vine and ol ive on the

wh ite background of the snowy Apennines inthe far distance .

“

Vines,flowers

,air

,skies that fling such wild

enchantment o’er Boccaccio’s tales of F lorenceand the Arno ,

” make a never-to-be-forgottenframe of my pictured visit . In this spirit I readR obert Brown ing’s Andrea del Sarto” by theb ig, historic table in the bridal chamber of

Queen Caro l ine . Then I took a cab and vis itedthe house where E lizabeth Barrett Browningwrote her immortal “ Casa Guidi Windows .

Later I vi sited the Protestant cemetery where

she l ies buried . D ead she still speaks . Her

wor th shines like a star at night . M‘

o re endur

ing and beautiful than the flower strewn marble

sarcophagus which rises above her body is the

memory of a woman who was. called Shake

speare’s daughter ’

who“made her poetry the

go lden ring between Italy and E ngland .

”

CHAP T E R XV II .

PISA, GE NO A AND MILAN .

Parlate Ital iano?”— no, but there were three

occasions on wh ich I wish I did and they were

PISA,

‘

GENOA AND MILAN. 203

Pisa , Genoa and M ilan . A beautiful ride of three

hours through fertile valleys with their prettytowns , picturesque mountains and hil l s w ithnestling cities and castles and we came to Pisa,the once powerful

,now puny in respect to sh ips,

commerce and armie s .We were driven at once to the Lean ing T ow

er, one hundred and e ighty feet high and thirteen feet off the perpendicular ; it is sevenhundred years old and has always been on

this jag , no one knowing whether it settled or

was built that Way. Mrs . W . was too tired to

climb the eight stories , but her daughter , Miss

W. , was very anxious to . T he mother looked tome and said :

“

D octor , you take her and act towards her as

your own daughter .”

We climbed up the foot-worn stairs , admired

the granite and marble fluted columns,and saw

a

'

most magnificent view o f r iver , valley , mountain and plain . I. was venturesome and walked

on the outs ide of the iron railing , saw the bigchime of bells

,leaned over the lower side of the

tower , and wondered where I would go if I fell

off .

D escending, we were met by the party and

visited the old cathedral which stands like an

obel isk, a commentary o n the departed grand

204 T RACKS O F A T END E R F O O T .

eur of the city . T he thing which struck me mostwas the pendulum lamp which swung into Gal ileo’s mind a world o f science and mechanical

force as he c ompared its vibrations with the pul

sations of his own heart .The baptistery is a rich rotunda with a marblepulpit

,a mosaic baptistery and something more

marvelous than both , the wonderful echo . I

whistled and it sounded like a call iope , sang and

had a cathedral organ , slammed the seat and it

sounded l ike a cannon .

T he C'

ampo Santo invited us w ith its sar

cophagi, and frescoes of bibl ical scenes , vivid inconcept ion and rude in execution . Here i s a l iteral

'

“ God’s lap of earth ,” in the fifty-

“three ship

loads of sacred soil wh ich the crusaders broughtfrom Jerusal em for their burial . O n our way to

the depot we paused at church Stefan-o . I bribedthe sexton and

' climb-ed up a dirty garret-l ike

place,to the organ loft . The instrument was an

o ld , odd'

afl'

air ; the pedals“

and stops looked l ike

cross ties and bars of yellow soap, but the tone

was smooth “

and sweet . T o the “Ave Marias”

beneath I responded with :“

O Promise Me,” and

the effect of the “ l inked sweetness long drawn

out” through the aisles was most astonishing.

I took s ome photos , bought some marble fruit ,cherries, apples -and p ears , natural and life

-s ize ;



city I met deformed men , bearded women and

some pretty girls,blonde and brown types , eyes

blue and black . All of them were veiled in a

misty fabric through which they dreamily gazed,as they cheerfully chatted . T he park , with its

mus ic,ices and soc ial flirtatious, is the place

of meeting, the only drawback being the vile tobacco smoke , wh ich here , as elsewhere in Italy,resembles boiled cabbage or a burning barn .

The cemetery is one of the finest in the world,with its marble corridor around a square of

ground . T he floor co ns ists of marble slabs bearing inscriptions of the dead . O n e ither s ide are

tombs and figures in the fairest and most artisticform to perpe tuate the memory of the dead . It

is a hall of statuary or temple of fame well worth

a vis it .F rom be ing a world conqueror , Geno a hass ettled down into the manufacture of velvets andfancy fil igree silverware . The gallery of paintings had some fine works, but their impression

was marred by the gu ide , who had l ingual diffi

culties of his own . He referred to a great man ,

saying : “

He die of disease of littlepox ,

” and striking an att itude before a famous p icture he said“

D is picture paint tree hundred years ago by

hisself,Paul Very Uneasy ! Paul Veronese), and

nefer been touch—cd since.

PISA, GE NOA AND MILAN . 207

He press ed a spring and a secret door flewopen in the wall which revealed a glas s casewh ich c ontained the great Paginini

’

s viol ins .What a mad gen ius he was. He no more played

like other people than the viol in 18 like other in

struments.

The last thing I saw in Genoa from my car

window was an emigrant woman carrying anaked baby under her arm , and near by a fat

student,a lean consumptive , three swarthy men

and one other, who said :“

Addios ,”to his three

male friends , who each in turn kissed him on

both cheeks .Milan is well called the Paris of Italy . After

a dusty ride I was driven to the hotel and or

dered a bath . The maid gave me everyth ing butsoap , and after much effort I secured some about

as big and thick as a postage stamp . It was a

good sample,but she practiced homoeopathy in

this as some other things , and I could get nomore . I took it good naturedly and she

,too,

for you must laugh to grow fat 1n Italy. At anyrate , this was the ph ilosophy of M iss ina cold room whom I heard say : “ I’ll hug any

th ing warm ,and she got around the stove.

The cl imate of Italy is not a synonym for

heaven . Wind,rain and smoky chimneys make

you understand the or iginal of D ante’s Inferno .


Bare-headed beggars,shoeless , sh ivering , starv

ing children are a sad s ight . They furnished mewith a soapstone box of a stove to warm my feet

by , and for my hands I was given a“

Sc aldin i”

life preserver shaped like a little earthern pot .

It i s used in summer to hold milk or omelette

and in winter is fi lled with burning charcoal orhot ashes .It was Palm Sunday and we attended the ca

thedral . Curious cross decorations of yellow palm

or straw , p laced on ol ive branches were carriedin procession

,through the aisles of the church ;

the o rgan,c ensers

,candles , robed priests , and

crowd , the colored light falling through highwindows over all , were

“ a grand amen” to Car

dinal F erari’s blessing, and from our hearts there

came the response , “Hosanna to the Lo rd

Christ .

Milan has some fine drives on wh ich are thefourteenth century castle, and old R oman theaterin which races and regattas are now held ; La

Scala theater with its seven rows accommodatingfour thousand people ; Arch of Peace built to im

mortalize glory and victory ; St . Lawrence col

umns with their ruins of the R oman‘

temple

epo ch ; and the Arcade gallery of Victor Em

manuel with its blocks of beautiful buildings al l

glass roofed and marble walked , under which



more than enough to help all Italy’s poor.There

is collected here an unusual amount of thorns ;robes , nails , bits of the true cross and sacredhandkerch iefs , the bones of Judas and the fingersof St . Paul .

More famous than the cathedral i s Leonardo

da Vinci’s p icture of the Last Supper . I saw

what was left of it in the refectory . It had beenpainted in distemper on a kitchen wall and thesmoke , the years , the stabling of Napoleon’s

horses , which tried to n ibble the table and k ickoff the apostles

’ legs , leave only a part of itsoriginal greatness . Though dim and d isfiguredit is divine. Men and women were copying it ,and few homes are without its engraving.

O ur engine awoke the echoes of Lombardyplains and carried us to Como . O ur boat, Lecco,

swan-like , sailed through clear, cold water bygorgeous mountains of snow and ice with sum

mits lost in clouds , inviting villages and interesting peasants . With azure sky above us andemerald green soil beneath us , we landed at Bellagio, the beautiful . Tree, flower, lake, hill ,mountain , cloud and sky make a literal E den .

Subtract sin from th is world and it is beautifulenough for a new heaven .

O ne morning I went to the wharf and was su'

r‘

rounded by a crowd of people who bombarded

PISA, GENOA AND MILAN . 2 1 1

me w ith their wares . The narrow , high-climbing streets were fil led w ith shops full of people ,who were there more for business than for pleas

ure . I bought,a souvenir of thei r w

'

ooden shoes

for eighteen centimes . I took one , but the wome

an ran after me,li fted her dress to her ankle tops ,

showed her feet w ith two shoes , making me um

derstand I was entitled t o two wooden shoes , for

that was the number she wore . I took the other

one,getting the shoes and view for one price .

I hurriedly left for Menaggio by boat to take the

train to Polezza.

The Italian lakes seen to blend all the beautiesof s cenery that Mendelssohn

’s Midsummer

Night’s D ream” does of sound . Mountains , hills ,lawns

,gardens , islands , terraces , plains , orange

groves,white chalets

,towns , cattle and natives

are all mirrored in the clear , cold water . -Whodoes not feel with Mi lton ,

“ accuse not Nature ,she hath done her part . D o thou but thine .

”

CHAP T E R X V III .

V E NICE — T HE WHIT E'

PHANT O ME D C IT Y .

Water, water everywhere, and not a horsein sight

,for this is the “white phantomed city

whose untrodden streets are rivers and whose


pavements are the shifting shadows of palaces

and strips of sky .

” I stepped into a gondola , acanoe-shaped boat , black as a hear se, with prow

ornamented with battle ax and steel comb , whilebalanced on the stern , a gay gondol ier took a

long bladed oar,inserted it in the curve of a

wooden pegged oar-lock and w ith grace and skillrowed me over the crested waves .

F rom the depot we sailed through narrowstreets

,and along the grand canal mid scenes of

beauty,traffic and pleasure ; all lit with hue of

blue,green and gold ; by banks lined with pa l

aces,column s and balconies ; near houses full of

poetic , tragic and artistic h istory, by posts paintedwith the colors of the family ; opposite buildingsthat rise from the sea and seen by sunrise or

moonlight , play a game of glory and gloom .

Venice owes its orig in to people who fled herein 500 A . D . to escape Attila, that scourge of

God” and man . The city rests on hundreds of

islands spanned by five times as many bridges

and was once the golden gate of commerce between the occident and the orient . I reached my

hotel , wobbled off the boat , slipped on the seawet step and went to the lift to be taken to my

room . Here,as all through E urope

,i f you are

in a hurry you will walk up and when coming



The central building of the world . F or a

thousand years it was the residence of the doges

or rulers of Venice . Its arcades of marble col

umns are adorned with sculpture , while twistedshafts of Byzan tine architecture, p innacles andpainted arches on the roof make a glorious view ,

in sun,moon or electric l ight . I walked through

the colonnades which serve as a shelter from the

sun or rain and at night form an ideal trystingplace for lovers ; I went out from the corridor tothe

_

courtyard with its finely decorated marblewalls and found the two famous bronze wel l

curbs . Then I climbed the marble giant staircase

,viewed the lion above it and the statues of

Mars and Neptune on either side, between whichthe doges were inaugurated .

The state apartments are superb with theirmosiac floors

,roof and wall of masterpieces set

in gold frames describing Venice’s glory. Herei s the largest picture in the world , seventy feetlong painted by Tintoretti when he was nearlyseventy years of age , and near by the biggestglobe made . I visited the council chamber wherethe Ten exerted their fiendish despotism. Just

outside the door is the Lion’s head w ith the Openmouth through wh ich the secret denunciationswere dropped at night for deeds without a name.

F rom th is bui lding the D oge annually went out

VENICE . 2 15

followed by a processmn to the sound of musicand entered his gondola , sailed and said ,

“We

wed thee, 0 sea, w ith this ring, emblem of our

right ful and perpetual domin ion,”

and cast the

ring into the water. Venice is said to have possessed at one time the largest armory and dockyards in the world ; the first bank of depos it inE urope except R ome ; and she printed the firstbooks in Italy and sold them in St . Mark’ssquare . She issued the first newspaper known tothe world and sold it for a little coin known as

“

Gazetta , from which we g et our newspaperword gazette. But those are the days of longago .

Back of the palace is a prison with wh ich it isconnected by the Bridge of Sighs . I crossed thebridge went into the dungeons below the water’sedge

,groped in dark cellars , breathed the foul , fet

id air, looked through the -gloomy, grated , windows , examined the guillotine grooves and thrustmy hands in the narrow O penings, through whichthe murdered bodies were shoved out to a boat

to be rowed out and sunk in a nameless spot.The palace has been compared to the brain of

Venice ; the piazza to the heart ; and St . Mark’s

Cathedral to the soul . Mark Twain , however,compares the cathedral to “ a warty bug taking a

meditative walk , My guide directed me to St.

2 16 T RACKS O F A T END E RFO O T .

Mark’s church saying, Go left side to the right

and you find it .

” It looks like a Chri stian Mos

que with its domes and its bel fries . Wheneverthe Venetians came back from the E ast they

brought some new Moorish , Arabic or Gothic artideas and combined them into this structure . Ithas been beautified by booty for five hundredyears, and its facades are of historic marble stolen from Jerusalen , Constantinople, E phesus and

Smyrna . The interior is “ grand , gloomy and peculiar” with its wallss of marble and ro

’

ofs of

precious mosaics . The receptacle of St . Mark’s

bodyis guarded by the statues of the twelve apos

tles . As usual one notices the difference betweenall this splendor and the squalor of the poor whoconstantly make claim to your prayers and alms .I was about to give a g uide two francs to seesome special church relic when I saw a blindbeggar led by a little child : I let the guide goand gave the money to the man who needed itand where it would do more good .

The famous bronze horses are stabled over thedoorway of this cathedral . All the horses intown are here , and these four are good travelers .They have been to R ome and hitched to Nero’sgolden chariot ; Constantine sprinted them alongthe Golden Horn ; they were then driven back to

Venice and rested for five hundred years when



on the square and was photographed with themresting on my shoulders and encircl ing my headlike Venus’s doves . It was here too that I gota snap shot of D on Carlos , the pretender, h is w ifeand a big D ane dog . I hunted them for severaldays and was at last success ful .Venice boasts of a number of old magnificentchurches ; Santa Maria D ella Salute, closed for

repairs by the government whose fortunes neededrepairing ; Santa Maria D '

ei F rari,bu ilt on twelve

hundred piles . Th is church contains the body ofCanova, the heart of Titian , a monument to F os

cari , and another to Peson who sits above in stateon a sarcophagus upheld by two great dragons ;two bronze skeletons carry scrolls while four Nubians with their black skins shining throughtheir marble dress uphold the structure.O ne laughing morning when the zephyrs were

blowing I took a sail to Lido ,the summer resort

and looked around the island of San Giorgio.

Later I passed the former residences of Byronand Brown ing where the salt sea weed now

clings to the tide-washed marble ; called at the

art gal lery and saw the Assumption by Titian ,

mellowed by age which always makes even com

mon pictures great ; visited the private palace of

the mysterious Coun t PapadOpoli w ith its won

derful furniture, art and library. I found a hair

VE NICE .

pin in the hal l which I preserved as a suggestivesouvenir. Then on to the Scielo R acea to see

T intorett1 s best works,the Crucifixion , marvel

ous carvings of figures and books, and Joshuaand the Sun by An gelo . The R ialto invited uswith its l ittle shops in the center and i s as busyas in Shylock’s time . Here the laws of the re

public were proclaimed,merchan ts met and citi»

zens congregated .

O ne of the most interesting 1ndustries in Venice is g lass making. The factories are situatedalong the canal . We saw Aladdin make ornaments

,vases and chandeliers indescribably beau

ti ful . Venetian fine arts include lace making.

We visited the factories , saw the beauti ful lacesand faces of the girl workers who wove the webat the penalty of thei r eyesight and health . Iwonder i f Byron mean t one of these beaut ieswhen he said

,

“

She was to me as a fairy city of

the heart . O f joy the sojourn and of wealththe mart .”

A shadow fell on . this beauti ful Venetian picture in the form of a funeral procession . Thebody was brought from the church

,led by

priests , followed bymourners , and accompaniedby music to the dock . Then the casket wasplaced in a

'

large gilt barge and many wonderfulwreaths

.

of flowers . were laid upon it . It looked

TRACKS O F A T E NDERFO O T .

strange to see the hearse in gilt while the pleasure boats were al l in black .

The night before I left the city I climbed thebel l-tower, three hundred and fifty feet high .

Surely i f men built R ome , the Gods built Venice .

Above me was the blue sky, around me the soft

breeze,below me the floating city with spire

and sail shin ing in the sunset’s soft splendor,while in the distance the ri sing moon came with

her starry train to silver the rippling deep andmarble hal ls . I slowly came down— entered my

gondo la— and to the musical dip of the oar Ifloated and felt , I wish all I love were

“

here .

CHAP T E R XIX .

GRANIT E MAST E R PIE CE S O F SWIT Z E R LAND .

Luceme is a lovely little town more superblysituated than any city in Switzerland . At itsfeet a mirror lake o f cloud, mountain

-and village ; on one side the rugged form of MountPilatus where the

‘

wicked R oman after manyyears of wandering lived and then remorsefullycommitted suicide ; on the other side green slopedR ighi where the last gleam of day lingers andnight lights her starry lamps ; back of the town

old walls and towers of romantic history ; before



is amemO rial of the bravery of the Swiss guardswho gave their lives for Lou is XVI at the beginning of the F rench revolution . He is mortal lywounded by a spear whose broken han dle sticksout of his side . Though dying he still guardsthe bourbon lily and shield with his paw . Justabove him one reads the inscription ,

“

T o the fidelity and bravery of the Swis s ,

” whi le beneathare the names of the officers who-m the mob mur

dered .

A few feet to the left is the famous Glaciergarden where you pay your fee and see the spotwhere there are ancient glacier tracks with roundholes in; the rock filled with cannon bal l shaped

stones made by the waters as they swirled . and

moved .

The Hofkirche is to Lucerne what St . Peter’sis to R ome

,an old two-sp ired church not known

for its. s ize , columns. or art , but for its wonderful organ . We made up a party of twelve, gavea franc apiece and went there one evening. Thechurch was dark as a ,vault and damp as a cellar .

I covered my feet with a vis itor’s robe , some one

held my han d and I wore my clerical cap purchased at F lorence . But the music ! Now ahalleluj ah avalanche of sound and then an ah

gel’s serenade of melody . The young Swiss or

ganist showed h is mastery of the instrument

MAST E RPIE CE S O F SWIT ZE RLAND . 223

and then proceeded to make an organ of our

sOuls and spines , playing every note from pedalbass to ghostly treble. He concluded with a de

scription of an Alpine sto rm,a tone picture of

his country ; a summer day w ith its mountains ,valleys

, fields , herds , flutes and song , then cloud ,s ilence

,lightning

,thunder , w ind and torrents of ,

rain . It was the real t hing. I forgot everythingin the storm . Then I remembered I had left my

mackintosh and umbrella at the hotel and was

sure I would be drenched before I got back .

Suddenly the storm sobbed itself to sleep ; it grewlight and I heard the voice of the choir prais ingGod for his del iverance .Accord ing to art canons such music is not thehighest, but I am sure never this s ide of heaven

“

wil l I hear such a “ lost chord divine” and itsgrand “ amen .

”

There are bigger but not more beautiful lakesthan Lucerne , twenty-three miles in length witha framed setting of gold by day and si lver byn ight . We sai led along looking at villages

,val

leys and gardens mirrored in the blue depths beneath . F ar above and away were distant cragsand pines looking

,longingly and lovingly

towards the water they could not reach ,but the lake seemed to sympathize with

them and held them mirrored in her heart.


Switzerland boasts o f some of the su

blimest mountain and water scenery in theworld ; tra

'

ckless precipices,savage go rges, foam

fretted rocks , falls likeBridal Veil of Yosemite ,and rapid torrents

“

crossed by devi l’s bridgeswhich make your hair stand on end like porcupine

’

s qu ills . O ne needs his soul and body insured in such a country and so Tell’s Chapel is

welcome . It is said to be built on the spot wherehe leaped ashore from Gessler . I know the existence of this hero has been questioned as has

been that of Hector and Achilles , though Ar

nold says this chape l was built by Tell’s native

canton and dedicated to his memory in the pres

ence of more than a hundred of his relatives and

friends . D oubting Thomases have annihilated

Moses , Shakespere and Tell , and will soon de

prive us of George Washington and D r . Mary

Walker i f we permit them . It’s time they put

up their little boxes of matches and bottles of

acid and al low us to enjoy a few things , them

selves excluded . History tells us Tell was a real '

personage and poetry, painting and sculpture

have said the same thing . The Swiss look at

each mountain as an altar breathing“ his honor,”

from the time of the cradle , chasing of the cham

ois, rowing of rippling lakes , shooting of the ap


MAST E RPIE CE S O F SWIT ZE RLAND . 2 2 5

ple from his son’s head until he ended a noble

l ife by dying to save one who was“

drowning.

I had the mountain fever and wanted to climb .

I had my glasses fixed , my shoes soled w ith asection of hose pipe and ironed with a keg of

steel nails . Thus regally ' attired I lacked butone thing— an Alpine stock, the tourist

’s magicwand and sceptre. They are o f all styles , s izesand prices . They become more valuable as you

have the names of the places , which you havevis ited or wanted to, or couldn’t , or didn’t ,burned on them . This stick is the leading obj ectof interest when you return to your hotel . When

you get home , you may have a whole cord woodof selected canes , but -yOu value your Alpine stock

as your most cherished possession.

O n to R ighi ! was the cry, so we took the boatand sai led to Waggis, a little

'

village at the foo tof the ' mountain . R ighi looms overhead s ix

thousand feet above sea level . A big climb, but

a glorious view of three -hundred miles roundabout when you are on top . Hand and footmountain climbing have given away to car andcog , and where the c

'

hamois l ived you go by railas easily as to the top of a barn by a ladder . Iknow it i s a sham and a sacrilege to a mountainclimber, but f rom my climbs on Pike

’s Peak andelsewhere I know it

’

s a pleasure to a pleasure

226 T RACKS O F A T E NDE RFO O T .

seeker . All aboard and on and on we cl imb fourthousand five hundred feet above the lake beneath . By my side sat a man as bl ind as Bartimeus of Jericho , dead to al l the beauti fulscenery of mountain , valley, village and lake.

The air was frosty but a young bridal couplein front of me by tender endearment managedto keep the whol e p arty warm .

Above “ snowy summits old in story wereached the hotel and with an appetite l ike thefamine in Ireland . T he table was spread , an

American flag was hung Over our heads, I re

sponded to the toast America ,” which my

friends drank in Munich beer , then I playedStrauss for the party to warm their feet by , madefriends with the big St . Bernard dogs , looked forwild flowers , mosses, red roses , forget-me-notsand funny

,fuzzy edelweiss and went out and

snowballed with the whitest snowyou ever saw .

We were ti red enough to go to bed early .

The call of the horn as musical as that of a

D uluth fog horn woke the party early in themorning . Half dressed

,wrapped up in bad

clothes , t ied with towels to keep from taking cold ,grumbl ing and joking we cl imbed to see thesunrise

,something some of the Virginian friends

o f the “ party had never seen before . But the

scene was worth all the climb cost , when the


2 28 T RACKS O F A T E NDE RF O O T . E

C . F Beyers , whowas -our sesame all throughAfrica, As ia and the cont inent .

“

A courier makeshard work easy ; to have one is to have heaven ,to be :without one i s generally the other thing.

Give him the key and he will protect your baggage against the design of the

' custom ofl’

icer ;

without loss of patience , time or anything e l se ;your hotel : is selected and you find your bath ,board an d bed ; early next morning carriages andguides are at your door for drives ; at n ight thetheater is selected and the seats purchased ; when

you are about to leave you escape the foreignfrant ic crowd .

Switzerland has been described as a large

humpy, sol id rock , with a th in skin of grass covered over it .” I might add there are nine monthsof winter t 'when Medusa stiff ens nature into iceand shrouds iwith snow

,but there are “

others”

in which something may be found . Valleys smileup in the savage fac e of the mountains , greenhills , herds of goats and sheep , sounds of tinkling bells , jodel warblings , rush of water falls ,curious cottages nestling ou rocky heights and

w ith stones on top to keep them from beingblown over, rocky terraces w ith giant fir trees,flowers of many colors , tufts of grass and mossand ‘ delicate ferns

, and music of mountainstreams with-lace of foam tell another story .

MAST E RPIE CE S O F SWIT ZE RLAND . 2 29

Here the pine is monarch on a throne six thousand feet above the sea level ; above h im thebright Alpine sun tinging w ith red the edge of

snow and glacier and above this the mountaingrasses. These pine trees s ing the summer’srequiem and offer security for man and herd .

They ‘draw the dew and rain, whicht they slowlydistribute ; protect village s from storm and ava

lanche ; furnish f uel for fire ; off er material forthe toys o f animals , paper cutters . and clockswhich are sent over the world ; or as timber arefloated as rafts to Hol land for masts or spars .Add to this the product of green grass, yellowbutter, and the best cheese .The villages are small and so situated as tobe protected fromavalanche a nd storm . T hereare no big yards for the herds

,and the farms

use every inch that can be spared . The nativesseem like one big family for society and protection from the dreary space and mountain ' soli

tude . They eat meat very seldom,l ive on cheese

and goat’s milk and do a . good day’s labor .Some of the houses are: of red-brown wood ,gables ,to the roads , eaves far stretching, small

windows with little panes , white curtains , boxesof flowers on the s ill , while across the

’ front is

carved a flower, or fruit , or scripture text , O therhouses are small

,low,

black,damp

,unpainted

2 30 T RACKS O F A T E ND E RF O O T .

and with dirt floors . The first story is occupiedby cows and goats . No chimneys , no windowsexcept wooden shutters opened now and then tolet out the smoke . I met several owners clad inrough home—spun , surrounded by the rudest offurniture .The Swiss house was his castle and he was

content . Three t imes a day he ate porridge withan i ron spoon from. the cheapest earthen bowland was very happy . I think his conscience wasquiet and at peace with his little world and beyond this all was vacancy . The farm tools were

few, simple and self made ; long handled spadesof wood to dig the potatoes, clumsy sticks and

rakes to work in, the hay , and nets of rope in

which barefooted men and women carried the hayto an old log cabin .

I saw some Of the originals of Markham’

s

Man w ith the Hoe, and old wrinkled womenbent beneath the weight of years , loaves of blackbread, or flat tubs of goat

’s milk . Ignorance isbliss with them . Their struggle with nature f0rsecurity and Support has made them as loyal tothei r land as the Ho l landers and Venetians are

to theirs . They have little time or money fordissipation . Crime is infrequent , the stone steps

of the church are furrowed w ith footprints showing where for hundreds of years the Jacobs have



buildings are black with storm and age , but the

faces of the brothers are bright with the greatestof graces , which is charity. I am sure they w illhear the divine “ inasmuch , as ye did it unto

Me,

”for the manywhom they have befriended .

The St . Gotthard pass‘ i s like the McGregor

’

s

The grandest o f them all .” Napoleon’s lawbuilt the S-implon pass , but the love o f the Swissbuilt '

the Gotthard with-its bridges , tunnels ,”

gallaries and buttresses which are mementoes of:the

sacrifice of‘

the cantons through wh ich it passed .

Hurried for time, I could not drive over theAxenstr asse,

‘

cut out of the sol id rock with itsfine roads and gal leries of grand views , so I wentby rail . O ur engine crawled like a caterp illar

among the clouds , around h il ls , over bridges . and

viaducts,through a tunnel nine and one-half

miles long, which together with fifty-five

o thers , make twenty-five miles cut inch

by inch through solid granite. It was

a mathematical m iracle to me . I asked

myself how they did it and got as much

satis faction as from the Sphinx; yet it was done

and so accurately planned that the Italian -and

Swiss workmen met at a calculated point from

O pposite -ends,six thousand feet below the sum

mit . I f I had planned it one end would have

MAST E RPIE CE S O F SWIT ZE RLAND . 233

been in Norway and the other toward Spain , or

some other po int of the compass .N0,I didn’t climb Mt . Blanc or write a poem

on it. I left that for Balmat and Coleridge , who

have done it to the “ queen’s taste, It’s eas ier to

climb by proxy and make the ascent by telescope .

I had an Alaskan experience on the Mu ir glacier,and one was enough . This tying yourself to

gether with ropes,using your Alpin e stock as a

balancing pole , “cutting steps " with an axe, climbing up or being lowered with a rope in an atmos

phere of snow and cold , with flesh and haircreep ing all the time

,— no

,I beg to be excused .

Goethe said , T he book of nature is after al lthe only one which has on every page importantmeanings .” This page of Swiss nature 18 a lesson which grows in grand eur the more I re

count it . S witzerland is a'

gallery where Godhas carved some of his greatest granite masterpieces ; it is an auditorium where -he has playedsome of his most maj estic mus ic in eternal fountains fed by glaciers

,whispering now rwith low

voice like Cordelia, or raving or roaring likeLear . Walter Scott said ,

“ I f I could not seemy own heather covered hills at least once in ayear

,I believe I should die .

” This must explainthe homesick yearning which the Swiss have in

America as they settle on our rugged hillsides ,


and which fil ls the heart of the clerical touristwho wishes his salary was big enough to allowhim to go there every year .

CHAPT E R XX .

F AME D C IT IE S O F GE R MANY .

We left Switzerland and Austria,with their

solemn p ines,thrifty country

,po l ite ofli cials at

the stations,cros ses and' wayside

‘

shrines, poor

women working in the fields and men gatheringpeat rakings for charcoal burnings ; took the

train for R omanshorn,thence by boat over fair

Lake Constan ce, to Lindau , with it s fine harbor ,

on to Kempton,with its manufactures , and to

Kaiferling and Munich .

My hotel was the Bayerischerho-f, large and

finely furnished,with a lounging room in. wh ich

there was a bed that looked like an old sailingvessel . After a bill of fare , which caused one

to shed tears of gratitude,we drove to the statue

of Bavaria, one hundred and seventy fee t high ,

and to the Temple of F ame, in which a fewniches are left for geniuses to come after us ;then to the old Pinakothek , which , l ike the vatican , contains many pictures by the old masters ;later to the New Pinakothek , with works from


2 36 T RACKS O F A T E NDE RF O O T

nity, theaters and~

concert halls be ing closed , buton Saturday I met a German in the ~

rotunda of

the hotel, who invite d me to go with him ,

sayingI could have a good

f time , drinkmy ten glasses

of beer, listen to the “Stars and Stripe s , comehomey smoke and sleep well . I let him go hisown gait . Later I went to the bin ofbrauhaus,

where I found a ccommodation for five thousand

people who might care to_worship the God 'Gam

brinus . What a sight ! O ld and young, rich andpoor

,famil ies and friends

,sweethearts and lov

ers , and all d rinking beer, beer, p ure, cold, sweetand delicious , an d varying the program with oc

casional pretzel s , cheese , sandwiches , mus ic, c ardsand cigars . I came and saw and was not con

quered, but a stein near me bore this inscriptionThe man who never sat down with a stein of

Muncher in his hand doesn’t know how much

better God had been to the Bavarians than to therest of the world .

”

T oo much beer must have led a t ired Teutonto say “

D er ghost is r etty but der meat isBoard-ing a train where engineer , fireman and

official s were armed with steins of beer ,by Inglestadt

’s battle field , where Adolphus was

checked by Pappenheim, and reached Neuren

berg amediaeval city with its feudalzwal lsemoats,towers

,narrow and crooked streets . ' Ther,e is a

FAME D CIT IE S O F GE RMANY '

2 37

prove-rb, ~ Nurenberg’

s hand ‘goes through everyland

,

” and -L ongfellow ha‘ss sung‘ the history of

the" village -in a poem ch ildish hearts never for

get . We came h ere a t night. After an early

breakfast of s ausage, b lack b read and coffee , we

drove -t o the ~ church of St . Laurence , - formerlyR oman Cathol ic

,now P rotestanty the windows ,

pulp it and c rosses being x

s acredly preserved . Itcontains Krafft’s fifty-five foot gothic Spire of

saints ‘ in -stone ,-standing -by the altar, a nd has

been compared to a“ foamy sheaf o f fountain ris

ing t hrough’

the painted air . Another churchi s St . Seb o-ld’s with V isscher’s bronze shrine

,fit

to be compared with the work of Ghiberti,wh ile

the Churc h o f O ur L ady possesses some finestaine d“

glass windotvs and pictures -by Wohlge

muth .

Hef e and t here o ne finds parks in imitationof those in E ngland-yoldx-gates and walls of the

old town still stand-ing ; modern buildings

planned'

after' models two t housand y ears old '

;

columns erected in a square to comrnemO rate thedefeat of the Protestants near Prague in theThirty Years”War ; Town House with frescoesby D urer, called the

-E vangelist of Art ; houses~

of

Sachs , D urer i and Palm ,the -patriotic book—seller

whom Napoleon -

ordered shot ; statues of Mel

ancthon and other Ce lebrities ; fountains known

235 I'

KALK D U ]! A I b NU b KHUU T .

as the Goose, Man ikin , Pyramid with statues , andothers rich with sculpture standing in the old

mart ; cemetery ‘

of noted men , and Kraff t’s seven

pillars w ith Passion in stone rel ief .O f great interest is the castle , the royal pic

tures , the elm tree, seven hundred years old, andthe instruments of torture that taxed the in

genuity of Satan to invent ; thumb-screws , axes ,racks, pinchers , stretchers and the Virgin , whosespiked embrace crushed out many a li fe . I felt

the edge of the sword that had cut off eight hundred heads ,and was good for as many more .

This torture chamber in Conrad’s castle gives one

a horrible n ightmare that made T am O ’

Shanter’

s

a pleasure in comparison . The city pr ides itsel fin being the first to s ide with the R eformationand accept Pro testantism.

O ur party will pleasantly remember the old

market place in the early morning ; the peasantsin thei r odd costumes , selling eggs , flowers andfruit , and the women and boys who were hitchedup with dogs to the queer carts. A vis it to R ubens’ house

,with its pictures , and to Hans

Sach’s , where he and R ubens and the , boys

“

drank her down ,” were of interest . Here were

the old pewter cups , filled and emptied so manytimes . I handled them and while thinking of

the fingers now dust wh ich had held them, re



noted as an ar tistic, scientific and l iterary center ;s een in her collections = of pictures , specimens andmanuscripts in buildings dedicated to t heir exhibition. The inhabitant is very versatile and

will make beer for your stomach,flowers for

your hat and any k ind of wind instrument foryour mouth . I found it 10 . K . or as the German would say

,

“ Jah wohl ,wunderschon .

”T he

royal palace has a tower and a chapel , containing many fine pictures . The Bruhl palace and

terrace were imposing with their steps and Sehil

l ing’s statues of Morning,E vening, D ay and

Night .’

The Japanese palace has a fine collectionof classics

,coins and cerami cs . T he Gross er

Garten is a k ind o f pl ea sure resort . T he his

torical museum has i llustrations -of past peoples

and customs . T he Gree n Vault has eight rooms

full of treasures ; gold, s ilver , ivory and pearl ,and a large green brill iant representing the

dwarf of Charles of Spain . I noticed a h istorical plate of silver , four feet by four inchessquare

,with one hundred and th irty-two figur es,

but I was hungry enough to prefer a square mealwith a cup of black coff ee to wash it down . The

museum contains some of the world’s leadingmaster pieces of art . I stood entranced :by R a

phael’

s beauti ful Madonna di San Sisto ; Correg

gio’s “Holy Night” was a benediction ; R em

FAME D CIT IE S O F GE RMANY . 241

brandt’s portrait of h imself and his wife s ittingon his knee, bade us welcome, while engravings ,drawings and casts suggested wealth of skill andbeauty.

I vis ited the race track,for Paul himse lf went

to the stadium and uses athletic figures in hiswritings . The band played Sousa’s Cadetmarch and the horses were booked for a running and hurdle race . I perceived a d ividedduty between the track and the king and someAmerican girls , who were impudent enough totake aim at him with the ir kodak . My guidewanted to know if I would bet . I to ld h im no

and vainly tried to prove to him the differencebetween a man who has the face of a spo rt and

the instinct s of a minister and the one who hasthe face of a minister and the instincts of a sport .It was an orderly crowd . I saw no s igns of

gambling and the hurdle race was won by Virginia R ose , one of my Southern lady friends ,“ bred in old

’

Kentucky.

” There are some thingsin the land where “ the sun sh ines bright” whichare hard to beat and one of them is a thorough

bred horse .T hey say Clothes make the man . I sup

po se they mean the man makes clothes,j us t as

Wordsworth , when he said,

“The child

is father of the man ,meant the man was

T RACKS O F .A T E NDE RFO O T .

the father of the child . Some of my friendswanted some new clothes , tuxedoes , wh ich couldbe made to order for $ 1 5 , if they would only pretend they were government officials . They weremeasured and paid the price of lying by look inglike

,

orphans in a strange land . E urope has

the stock but hasn’t the style . I . would rather

pay more in America and have a better fit .O n to Berlin” was our cry. The scenery to

wards the city was quite tame , only enlivened bybig w indmills . O ur hotel had five hundred roomsand like the colored race , al l

“ look al ike to me.”

At my door I was garroted'

by an official for myname. He sl ipped on the word Gulian and felldown on my occupation as minister , of which hehad serious doubts . But there was a fine dinnerat wh ich the band , recognizing our

,

nationality ,

gave us the“ Belle of New York” and “

The Stars

and Stripes . Next door I found a pleasurehall with a variety Show , at which at least threethousand people were present . The bill of fare

was vocal and instrumental music , a wrestlingmatch and kineto scopic pictures of the Britishand Boe r War , at the sight of which the crowdhissed Kitchener and applauded Kruger. Myfriend and I got down from the table on whichwe had stood and made it a stand for refreshments .



They failed to recognize us . The hack systemis good . No crowd of drivers to tear y ou to

p ieces , but a gentlemanly invitation to ride atthe rate of fi fteen cents a quarter of an hour witha clock before you to indicate the time and number of m iles traveled. We went shop-p ing forshirts and handkerchiefs , and

‘

by a m istaken or

der got everything in the store but a s et of bedand table l inen .

We attended the R oyal Theater and were therejust in time to get our seats before the first notewas struck . This American idea of coming inat all hours of the n ight and disturb ing the leader and the audience is not pe rmitted . Th is royal opera house , bu ilt by F rederick the Great, isa kind

”

o f German home , for the Germans live onmus ic . They come here not so much to Show

off their good clothes as to hear good mus ic .The c oncert begins at or 7 o

’clock and isover by 10,

so that you are no t worn out for thenext day’s work . You pay anywhere from I 5 to

30 cents , keep qu iet until the end of the se lection ,and then have an intermis sion for applause , beerand pretzels

,if you wish .

'

!The Germans are noted for be er and mus ic .It has been estimated that two m illion glasses ofbeer are drunk daily in Berl in

,more than one for

every man,woman and child in the city -yet

FAME D CIT IE S O F GE RMANY. 245

here,as els ewhere , I saw no drunkenness . The

beer must be better, the climate healthier, or the

peopl e stronger than they are in America . Itook nothing but mineral water

,yet

,unles s my

eyes deceived me,the night morals of Berl in are

as bo ld and bad as those of Paris . Weary, I

tried to get in room 63 , instead of 47 . Startledsurpris e was indicated by some SO prano notes ,but I quickly returned the key on the peg, andso avoided Mr. Pickwick’s famous experience

,or

something worse .

O f course I saw the royal museum ,with its

fine park and statues , and admired the bas in of

polished granite sixty-six feet in circumference . Ivis ited the Thiergarten

,

‘

its walks andmenagerie ,l istened to its music and enjoyed the beautifulstatue of Louise upon the i sland which bear sher name. Then to Charlottenberg

,with its

tombs. of royalty,marble couches , and the col

ored l ight fal l ing from the upper windows with

a b eauty suggesting the resurrect ion morn . The

palace of Babelsberg is of interest because occu

pi ed by old King Will iam in summer time .

But mo st historic of all is Potsdam , the German Versailles . In the royal palace here F rederick received his ambassadors . I went

'

into the

secret cabinet and saw the table which descendedthrough the floor to the kitchen beneath , so

T RACKS O F A T E ND E R FO O T .

avo iding the servants’ ears and eyes , which are

so often. annoying. T he king’s social habit s werepeculiar . His suppers were general ly stag par

ties . He had’

few women friends , except his s ister , who came to his cour t . He was a great

dog fancier , and of his favorites he l iterally said ,“Love me

,love my dog .

” He allowed them thegreatest freedom

,even to destroying the cur

tains and tapestry , saying, even then , that they

were “ les s expensive than women . An historictree i s the Tree of Petitions

,on wh ich the peo

ple hung their complaints and concerning one

of which F rederick said : All religiOns must beto lerated, but none mus tmake unjust encroachments upon others . In th is country every manmust get to heaven in his own way.

” He wassurely sensible and scr1ptural , and it will be a

good day when the priest and laity of all com

munions come to this conclusion .

Sans Souci was the favo rite residence of this ,

F rederick the Great. I climbed the terracedstairs

,looked at and listened to the fountains

which sang a lullaby for F rederick when he laydown his sword for pen , music and book . I en

tered the concert room and reverently placed myhands upon the old piano which Bach had playedso many times . Here, too, Voltaire , the witty

and wicked’, flattered F rederick in to a kind of


T RACKS O F A T E NDE RF OOT .

CHAP T E R XXI .

LE IPZ IG ,F R ANKF O R T , T HE RHI

‘

NE .

Leipzig is the town that gives you the gladhand of wine

,women and song. A fine city

which might be called Three R ivers - from’

thestreams in and around it . Its buildings are

large and stately ; it has fine statues of Schiller

and Mendels sohn ; the Pauliner and Thomas

Kirches invite you to pray ; the museum offers

paintings , casts , sculptures , engravings anddrawings manifold ; the library with its ancientvo lumes and manuscripts i s a paradise for students to revel in ; while there are books in stores

for worms and book worms . Leipzig stands. for

mus ic ; its Gewand‘haus i s a fine building

, far

famed for its annual concerts . T he royal conservatory was founded in 1843 by Mendels sohn

and the c ity boasts man-y vocal and orchestralsocieties .There are three great annual fairs. which drawcros of buyers to the great fur and wool mar

ket. TheSe gatherings date from the fifteenthcentury . O ne of the most interesting places i sAuerbach’s Kellar

,dating from 1438 , the scene

of D r . F austus . Here Goethe received inspira

tion for his immortal tragedy . They Show you

LE IPZIG, F RANKF O R T ,

‘

T HE RHINE . 249

his room. with its curios and pictures. on the wall ,o f sixteenth century . i llustration

, portraying thelegend on which the play is founded‘

. T he thingto do i s to s it at one of the tables and drink akind of wine and '

dream of Mephistopheles . Imet a man. the re who had drunk too much andwas acting like his Satanic maj esty . The Schiller

Strasse is a fine street,but the town’s leading

impres s ion i s a musical one . No matter what

your nationality you may find here the universallanguage of music ; may be

“ lapped in softLydian airs” unless. you are spoiled and

“ fit for

treasons .” Was Shakespeare right when hesaid

,

“ Preposterous ass who does not knowmusicwas ordained to refresh the mind of man

,after

his studies or his usual pain ?”

F rankfort is Situated on the O der river , but Idetected several other sausage smells like linked

sweetness long drawn out, which the geography

of the town does not enumerate . The city has

outgrown its o ld walls,but bridges the river to

a D 'amm suburb . It is known in history for thesiege of Charles IV . ; papal excommu

'nication ,and capture by Gu stavus Ado lphus in 163 1 .

There i s a fine boulevard around the o ld wall s ;an equestrian statue of Wilhelm I . and of Guten

burg, the . alleged inventor o f printing . T he

town has a number of historic houses ; private

2 50 T RACKS. O F A T E NDE RF O O T . .

ones of Martin Lu ther , Goethe and R othschildthe public R athhaus, with a sign of the Hanseaticleague ou -the southern gable . It boasts a palmgarden from which Milwaukee’s Schlitz mayhave taken a cue ; a fine theater and a great railroad depot which would do credit to St . LouisThere are three annual fairs . St. Mary’s Prot

estant church and dome are worth a visit andstudy .

O ne of the most beautiful th ings here or anywhere is the statue of Ariadne , owned by a richcitizen and exhib ited in his private gal lery. Wewere loath to leave the town , but found a com

pensation on the train in the company of a ladyand gentlemen who knew how to talk E nglish .

It was a relief from some people in the hotel who

had embarrassed me so that I had stuck my penin the mucilage bottle and for a t ime could prooecd no further . They finally left me , when ahother native asked : “

Say, you l ive in Chicago ,

America ; you know Mr . Gates ?”

Wiesbad’en is a kind of Manitou ; very fash e

ionable and frequented by tho se who need water

,

“

hot or cold. Pl iny mentions the town andits baths were known to the R omans as a curefor many ills . The water contains a littl e salt ,carbonic acid and a hundred and fifty

-six de

grees of heat , which may be reduced to ninety



way he looked or the wo rds he uttered . It wasa beautiful day, and we were in fine spirits . Theriver is not so beautiful as our Hudson

,Mi ssis

sipp i or Columbia,in places

,but in h istory and

legend' it outrivals them all .

F rom the earl iest of times this river has been

one of the ch ief waterways of E urope . E ighthundred miles long, navigable for s ix hundredand dra1n 1ng a territory of more than seventyfive thousand square miles . It is a link betweenthe Alp ine tops of Switzerland and the mudbanks of Hol land ; it issues from

“ a mountainstream of snow and ice , leaves its muddy burdenat Lake Constance , leaps eighty feet over the fallsat Schaffhausen, runs by the Black F orest at

Lauterburg, narrows at Bingen and flattens outabove Cologne as the Hudson does above Poughkeepsie. My friend and I were

“ ein herz” andein sinn as we sang “

D ie Wacht am R hineand “

D er Vaterland.

” A German passenger

united with us in a richI voice but when weswitched off on “Le Marsellaise he scowled l ikethunder and muttered “Ach

, Gott . But we werefair

, for this river has been po litical ly s ignificantsince four centuries before Christ

, ,and has made

history,R omanic and F ranco—Germanic , from

Julius Caesar to Bismarck .

Today F ather R hine stirs a German’s patriotic

LE IPZIG, F RANKF O RT , THE RHINE . 2 53

blood and symbo lizes his land as America andthe eagle do ours . S ome of the many th ings ofinterest which I saw were the Johannisberg vine

yards , w ith their stone terraces and soil-filledhanging gardens of lusc ious gra

’

pes,whence

comes the famous wine ; castles in good

state of preservation or in ruins , filled with memot ics of murder which the mantling ivy could notwholly conceal ; R heinfels , a synonym of rob

bery ; R heinstein ,the beautiful summer residence

of the German empe ro r ; the Mouse Tower of

Bishop Hatto , whom Southey immortal ized inh is poem.

Bingen made fair in» respect to the Germansoldier who “ lay d‘ying at Algiers Niederwaldon the wooden hill opposite , w i th its nationalstatue in honor of victory over F rance with h istoric figures and -its inspiring “Wacht ; Bacharach with St. Werner

’s Chapel in memory of the

boy who was murdered by the Jews and whose

body, flung in the river , floated up the stream ;Tol l House , in the middle o f the stream on arocky foundation , to co llect boat fares , with adungeon beneath and other light refreshments if

you didn’t “ fork over St. Goar village , whose

patron boatman forcibly baptized a man a nd

then drowned him to send h im. straight to beaven before he cou ld fall from grace , and who ,

2 54 T RACKS O F A T ENDE RF O O T .

when remonstrated with for his unprofess ionalzeal

,proved his d'ivine authority by hanging his

hat on a_

sunbeam ; Lorelei cliff s , four hundred

and fifty feet high,and more than that in song

and story ,'

with dark and dangerous waters at

thei r base to wreck the craft of oar and sail ,whi le enthroned above sat the girl with the golden hair to lure the simple sailor to destruction .

Today she is wreathed w ith smoke and steam asthe steamboat speeds by her feet :

Castles of Brothers who loved the Same woman with a perplexing and unhappy circumstance that generally accompanies such a s ingular affair and naturally leads to a duel ; wallsof F alkenburg ,

whose bandit stole the s ilverchurch bell and. then hung it upo n the neck of

the complaining bishop and threw-h im in the

well , only to find it ringing h is thieving kne l l ;Coblentz at the

’

confluence of the R hine and Mo

sel,a strong military point for two thousand

years ; E hrenbreitstein , the German Gibraltar,j ust across from Coblentz , formidable in appearance and fil led with dark and deadly secrets of

arms , powder and shell ; Stolzenfels castle , highup and airy as the proverbial castle in Spain ;E ms, j ust opposite a famous watering place witha national monument surmounted by an eagle ,which doesn

’t look l ike sharing a nest w ith a dove


T RACKS O F A T E NDE R F O O T .

copies of its Krieg’s R uf !War Cry) -and, asit was Saturday n ight

-and late, turned in early at

Hotel ‘

du Nord .

Sunday morn ing was beautiful . Many peoplewere in carriages and there were hundreds of

wheelers out for a spin , but we p referred to go tochurch , especial ly as there was no w ilderness ofpictures and statuary to be vis ited. As Mount

Blanc towers above surroundingmountains , so theglorious cathedral rises above al l the other edifices. Begun in the thirteenth century and fine

ished in the nine teenth , it i s an il lustrat ion of

God’s slowly unfolding plan of‘

the “ house not

made with hands ,” in the human heart. The ar

chitecture i s Gothic and it is bu ilt in the formof

a cross . There are old and rich colored‘

win

dows the heart of‘

Mary de Med ici is buried here ,and the tourist sees the bones of three kings, andjewels and gold are in richest profusion . T he

architect is unknown,but he erected a

‘

stone stair

on wh ich the devout soul cl imbs to heaven . Its

two towers , five hundred and twelve feet“

h igheach , are fingers po inting to the sky declaringthat God has a house of prayer on earth .

Between Sw itzerland the superb and this Germany the great I might make points o f comparison and contrast . I wil l just say that to suckl e

foo l s and chronicle small beer” was never in


2 58 T RACKS O F A T E NDE RF O O T . is

the first chapter of John’s gospel . He was earn

est, but not always devout , for again and againhe interrupted me with a cut and the innocentcurse

,

“

D u verdamte . Since that happy time

years have passed and I have enjoyed the gran

deur ofGoethe and the sweetness of Schiller . O ne

word I can never forget . F rom the dense forestof the German dictionary

‘it comes like a s ilverribboned stream flowing and flashing through

my mind . I hear it with Hope’s music , at the

front door, at the depot , at'

the wharf , ,

and at the

g rave echoing on to the eternal F atherland , andit is this : “Auf Wiedersehen .

”

CHAP T E R XXII.

T HE LO WLANDS — HO LLAND AND BE LGIUM .

If an honest confession is good for the Soul ,I want to begin this letter on Hol land by sayingthat I am a D utchman . Paul gloried that he wasa R oman citizen , I , that I am an American , yetI take a warrantable pride in the thought that onmy mother’s s ide my ancestor s were Ho llandersthat I was rocked in a D utch cradle ; sat in a

D utch chair ; was fed from a silver spoon , oneof a hundred made out of an old D utch s ilvertankard ; dressed before a D utch mirror, and that

HO LLAND AND BE LGIUM. 2 59

in the old D utch B ible, with its great lids , heavyclasps and curious engravings of the s ixteenthcentury, my name appears in orthodox fashionspelled Gerlyn Lansing Not

“

Go-L ightly .

”

E ven that is not as bad as calling_a l ittle boy

“

V oosten Walbert Schimmelpennick. I wonderif Gorp was right when he wr ote a book in Latinto prove that Adam an d E ve spoke D utch ?

F rom Cologne we came by train through a

watery country,which recalled the story of the

deluge ; on land where dogs and women were

hitched to carts dragging produce to market ; byhundreds of mills which stood like great giantsswinging their arms in defiance at our entrance ;by houses with sharp pointed roofs , red ti les , and

open doors , above whose'

polished floors scouredtinware glistened like si lver ; by peasants whostood in their whitewashed wooden shoes , w ithhats like wash basins on the ir heads , and bowson the side like the wings of a bat , to Amsterdam .

This city is known as the “Venice of the North ,”

built on i slands , with liquid streets and spannedby bridges under which dart no graceful gondolas , -but big flat—boat barges manned byburghers with baggy breeches , which may beconverted into sails when the wind blows a gale .My hotel was a plain brick building, with stone

trimmings and sideway steps to the front —door,


for lack of space o n the s idewalk . The streets

are narrow,inviting a dizzy drunken man to

death by drowning in the canal . “

Looking O ut

of my window one morn ing I found a beam and

pulley gallows—l ike affair over my head . O n

making inquiry I l earned it was not for cap italpun ishment, but for c leanly purposes , to ho istmerchandise and to keep out the muddy feet ofthe butcher and baker.

The D utchman . is devout . Here is O udechurch with fine windows , b ig organ, and splendid monuments to celebrated D utchmen ; the

"Niewe ,” where kings are crowned

,and whe re

we f ound a fine carved pulpit and artistic bronzecastings in the choir.

‘Mynheer :goes —.to church

w ith h is vrow ,leaveS

'

her at t he door, she sittingin the “body of the church alone , he occupying a

side pew. Such a plan might weaken the attend

ance of the young people, but it might alsostrengthen their attention to the t ext and sermon .

We‘heard no great music , and the famous organ

of“

St . aBavon is at Haarlem, but we did hear thebeautiful chime s of church bells .I went to a diamond cutting establishment ,conducted by a Jew ish

‘firm, and saw them take a

rough stone,cut ' it

,polish it , until it was fit for a

monarch’s crown , and learned the lesson of how

«the value and brightness of human character is


T RACKS O F A T E NDERF O O T .

salter than the ocean knew ,watched the white

winged ships fly far out to sea .

All aboard for R otterdam ! W ithout beingprofane, one might say,

“Hol land has more damtowns than al l the world . But the word “

dam”

means dam or dyke, so when we say Amster ,R otter , Schie , we mean those towns built on

dykes , the on ly'

way to build anything here . By

locks which were built to inundate and so flood

out thé enemy; by mills which pump out the

marshes and furnish power for grinding, so that

a man is rich according to the number of millshe owns ; by hundreds of water arteries whichfrozen in winter are thoroughfares for pleasureand marketing, we reached R otterdam . Wecould scarcely see the town because of the

bridges,masts and canal boats .I met . men here w ith baggy trousers , longstockings , ,

high buttoned j ackets , and wooden

shoes which clattered everywhere ; women withlace caps and gold and silver ornaments on their

'

heads ; rainbow-colored vests , and underskirtswhich they are said to wear to the number of adozen . No wonder they seem to be weafy and

full of sadness . Men were smoking everywhereand all the time

,for the D utchman co lors not

only his nose but his pipe . It may not be truein Colorado that every child is born with a s ilver

HO LLAND AND BE LGIUM. 263

spoon in its mouth , but it would almost seem asi f every man here was born puffing a pipe . TheD utchman loves h is tobacco as the German hisbeer

,and seems to pursue h is second nature habit

without. any great inj ury to himself .

O ur journey to The Hague was through acresof red , white and blue hyacinths and jonquils .Holland is a paradise of flowers . Therei s a proverb that

,

“Men make their fortuneat R otterdam, increase it at Amsterdam,

and

spend it at The Hague .

” We cameunder the lasthead . The Hague is the capital , and gives moreevidence oi

'

land an d aristocracy than we hadyet seen . We visited a beauti ful park filled with

oaks and elms, bearing the names of famus citizens, and found a literal E den of birds

,flowers

,

trees and shrubs bobbed into fantastic shapes,

with nestling villas , including the summer one of

the Queen Wilhelmina . There i s a fine monument erected to Wi ll iam. the Silent

,the George

Washington of Holland . He was Philip II,

’

s

inveterate foe , and because the Spamard could

not get rid of him any other way, he bribed aman to assassinate him— a common Spanish

trick .

As usual,I met a number of curious customs .

Horses wearing a wide stool on their hoof tokeep out of the mud ; sleds with oiled runners


used in summer ; D utch pink , which. was a go ld

yellow ; pol icemen hobbling around in woodenshoes , making more noise than an ox cart ; undertakers fantastically dressed

,whose duty it was

to announce the sickness or death of a man to hisnear friends ; the birth of a girl or boy baby , toldby a white or red pin-cushion hanging on thedoor ; children wearing a padded cushion on theirhead surmounted by whalebone to keep themfrom a hard fa11. . As i f this were not enough ; I

further learned that the main entranc e to the p al

ace was by the back door ; that girls hired their

beaux to take them to the fai r, and that when

they wanted to marry, they sent their lover a

glove,which, with us , would be construed into

getting the mitten .

T wo miles. from The Hague is Scheveningen ,reached after a ride through a park made up of

aisles of trees . This seaside resort has the usual

hotels,crowds , chairs and bathing carts , w ith ar

tendant musm, eating, drinking, dan cing, and

fli rting. D udes, fli rts and tourists come and go,but the fishermen and women stay forever . T he

women are taller in proportion than the men , and

some of them graceful and with bright faces andhair to match the sunshine. O thers look sad and

worn , and it’s no wonder when you think of their

endless work of scrub, scrub , drench, drench,



driven to America to lay the foundation of our

national greatness . The D utch brought the ideasof art in the home , science for the multitude, t eligion for the masses , and government for thenation . D utch influence m our revolutionary

and constitutional making epochs was so markedthat F ranklin admitted the obligation and wrote :“ In love of l ibe rty and bravery in defense of it ,Holland has been our great example .

”

In respect to school s, teachers , churches , min

isters, best kind of laws , written ballot , community of freemen

,and mextinguishable love of l ib

erty it would be easy to prove that America isonly a homeopathic preparation of D utch stock .

I found that the educated D utchman and woman as a rule read D utch , F rench ,

"

E ngli sh and

German,and often spoke them . F oreigners as a

rule didn’t,

care to learn their language , so the

Hollander learned theirs . -At an industrial bookexhibit Germany was represented

,

by machinery,F rance by design and illustration , and Hol land

by what the exhibition was founded to il lustrate ,namely the book . The D utch are not in the front

rank of literary producers , yet this l ittle countrythe size of New Jersey leads the world in proport ion to the number of books printed within her

own borders .“A l ittle corner with a little book ,

”

one reads on the portrait of the D utch monk,

HO LLAND AND BE LGIUM.

Thomas a Kempis,who,

next to the Bible,has

written one of the most famous religious books ,“ Imitat ion of Christ .”

T o these characteristics add the inherited virtue of bravery . R ecal l the Burial R io-t , when wo

men and children formed a mock funeral procession to protest against new burial laws ; VanSpeyk, who blew up his ship and himsel f rather

than have the Belgians capture it ; Van der Werf ,who off ered h is body to his starving companionsfor food rather than surrender to the Spaniards .

This i s the type of man E ngland is trying tobeat. Apart from the theory of which side isr ight, or what government is best suited for thefuture development of the African continent , thefact remains that the whole world admires thegreat and glorious grit of the Boers . Kruger isnot a gorilla

,but a Bible

,liberty-loving man ; the

Boers are not beasts , but men o f commendable

intelligence,bravery and character, though they

drink Ho l lan d gin and smoke incessantly

In thei r . struggle for the last three years the

spirit has been the same as that of our fathers

in the War of the R evolution . T he circumstances

may be different but like the old F rench heroes,

‘

their motto is , The old guard dies , but never

surrenders .”O ut of the night in D arkest Africa


may the light of the truest liberty , equality andfraternity soon dawn .

O ur locomotive drank and smoked on leaving Holland and whirled us through fine farms

and by beauti ful little towns . The country isdensely populated ; Phillip II. spoke of its nume rous vi llages as one large town .

Antwerp, which mean s“

on the wharf, is aprosperous city whose shores are lined withships along quays build by Napoleon I . It was

at one time the most Sp lendid city in E urope,with its palaces and cathedrals, but the money

l'oving, murderous Spaniards sacked the city andin three days destroyed of propertyand murdered eight thousand men , women and

children .

“

F or this sin and the expulsion of the

Jews and Moors from her territory,

“ even handed

justice” hasmade Spain pay the utmost farthin'

g.

The visitor is shown the magnificent equestrianmonument of Leopold ; R eubens

’ house and stat

ue,the artist whomthe citizens adore, who sways

the sceptre of the brush and at the mention of

whose name the face of the dull‘

es‘

t' Belgian growsbright ; Matsy

’s‘

welle c’

urb'

and , pictures whose love

for the daughter of an artist made him changehis trade and learn painting. T he cathedral,seen a long time

“ before we reached the city,

points its,

s p ired finger to the sky. T he tower


270 T RACKS,O F A T E NDE RF O O T .

in Brussels which make one alone or in companyblush for shame.T he park here is beauti ful and unique , colon

h aded with statues , notably those of E gmont andHoorn , those Netherland heroes who ,

though

loyal to R ome , opposed Ph ill ip II’

S . persecutionand were accordingly executed . The palaceR oyale has a fine equestrian statue of Godfrey deBouillon , who ,

on th is very spot , . in 1097 , rais edthe ensign of the cross and urged his fellows to

join him in a crusade to Jerusal em to rescue the

Savior’s sepulchre from the Saracens and placethe cross where the crescent stood .

The Bourse is fine within and without, wh ile

the,

Palace of Justice costing over ten mil lions

of dol lars is as magnificent as it is mammoth andvies in its way with any s imilar publ ic buildingin our country . As in other E uropean cities , wefind an historic column two hundred and eightyfive feet high , w ith bronze figures at the cornersof the pedestal symbolizing what constitutes Bel

gium’

s greatness and ours , namely , l iberty of thepress

,education , meeting and rel igion .

War’s havoc and dogs have been let slip hereand in the surrounding country many times.

Who does not recall Byron’s lines : “There wasa sound of revelryby night and Belgium

’s cap ital

had gathered there her beauty and her ch ivalry”?

HO LLAND AND BE LGIUM. 271

What a tragedy was that fifth act , and to come

here and not s eeWaterloo would be to read Hamlet and leave the prince out . Next to Marathon ,this battle field most impressed me . Its Heroes

’

Mound, with the view of the plain , is l ike thetower at Gettysburg and Lookout Mountain .

The world knows the story of Napoleon andWellington by heart . It remembers the chateau ‘

Hougomon t against which the F rench forcesvainly hurled themselves all day . It calls

up the names of Grouchy , and Blucher . Todaynature spreads out her harvest of grass and flow

ers to hide forever the horrors of war ,“ rider and

horse— friend , foe— in one red burial blent .”

CHAP T E R XXIII.

F R O M NICE T O MO NAC O .

I wish I were an artist and could make a canvas large and glorious enough to include thewondrous beauty of F rance . We came to thismodern paradise from Genoa. At V entinglia,the station between Italy and F rance, the customofficers fiercely fell upon us . It seemed to methey exerted themselves in their attempt to usurpthe prerogatives of the Almighty.

2 72 T RACKS or A T E ND E RF O O T ..

We reached Nice in high Spirits . I climbedon the bus and tipped our driver to race to the

Hotel Westminster .The city is very picturesque with the high limestone for a background and the little Pagl ioneriver to t he Mediterranean side in front . Near

by were vines w ith f ol iage and clusters and ol ive ,o range and mulberry trees in great profusion .

The city is well supplied w ith churches for all

grades of faith ; with theaters , gardens , promenades and a crystal palace for pleasure seekers .

Industrial l i fe is represented in factor ies o f perfumery, l iquor, o il , soap , furniture and leather .The town was named in honor of a victory oncegained , but , l ike a ball of string in a k itten

’sfrol ic, it has had many sudden changes and ex

periences since . F ortune may come or go butits fairy land of plants always remain and theyhave a carnival of -flowers as at iR ome

'

in wh ichthe battle and bombardment consist of sweetmeats and flowers . There was a fine road for a

spin but no =wheel was available so I went to theshore where the mystic fingers of the waves we rewriting E lk hieroglyphs on the sand . The fbathhouses were empty for it was early and chilly

,-but

the fishermen were hard at work hauling in netsfilled with sardines .Nice is just what its letters spell . That n ight



D own it came , our driver struck h is horses andwe pulled out , j ust missing its hind wheel andgrazing the umbrella of one of our party . Theladies in the horseless carriage cried out with

alarm as the vehicle was headed toward a precipice over which . they would have made thebiggest dash of their l ives , but fortunately it wassteered successfully and went backward againstthe rocks .Another window into th is heaven of climate .

and scenery is Mentone, fifteen miles from Niceand s ituated on a rocky point shaped like an

amphitheater Here as everywhere we find li fe’scomedy and tragedy , men and women , theplayers

,with their exits and entrances . The na

tives were pe rched on rocky heights like their

Swiss neighbors little white roads lassoed theh il l sides ; streets were dark and narrow w ithsuitable places here and there for a bandit torelieve one of any detachable valuables he might

have . Men and women looked careworn and sad

but the little people , with their bright dressesand brighter f aces

,suggested innocence and joy.

I saw crowds of beggars blind , or with feet andarms gone , and an old man in a cart w ith dogsat his feet and sides . Public washing tubs arenumerous, but w ith no evidence of recent use , re

minding me of the boy’s statement that his “

fath

F ROM NICE T O MO NACO . 2 75

er was a Methodist but he wasn’t working muchat it now. Below, by the sea shore , the hotelswere filled w ith invalids and tired foreigners whohad come here for a cure or rest that they mightnot need the rest of the grave so soon . The climate is most agreeable in winter and summer .Verdi

,the great composer, rested here , or tried

to ; but the festive organ-grinders bothered himhalf to death day and night by snatches of “Ah ,I have Sighed to R est Me . The great mus icianfound rel ief by renting a house in which therewas a large storeroom . He went out and hiredall the organs in the town for the season

,paying

them what the owners would have made i f theyhad played , and took the offens1ve 1nstruments to

his place and put them under lock and key . If

there is no mus ic in a rest, it i s the making of

music , and Verdi received insp iration for futurework .

That afternoon we walked under ol ive treescenturies old ; visited shops where the wood is

made into souvenirs,wandered through lemon ,

ol ive and pine trees for the squeeze , press andsighing moods of commerce and the “As You

Like it”of human caprice .

Nine miles east of Nice, surrounded bybluemountain and opalescent Mediterranean , i s the

wel l-known resort of Monaco whose beauty of

I


climate and Situation has been sung from thepoet Lu

’

can to the last traveler . The town - is on «

the summit of“ a hill nearly two hundred feet

above the shore , and surrounded" with ramparts .

Nature furnished the site , the stone; the sea andsurroundings and giant

'

geraniums, lemon , palm

and eucalptus trees in' tropical abundance ; Add

to this what man has don e with parks and orna

ments,and

“

the place seems nice enough to be

good .

_ The most famous or infamous. thing is the

Casino . I saw a fine bu ilding ; I was met at thedoor

,carefully looked over by an official , given

a card of admission and entered the gambl inghall , where I found fourteen tables in ful l blast

and was informed that I could bet even or odd

anywhere from one to s ix thousand francs . Notbel ieving in the ethics of the game and knowingthat only about one in every two hundred “

brokethe bank at Monte Carlo ,

” I was content to lookon wh i le detectives near by watched me and theother vis itors . Men and women were stakingtheir all, or

“

somebody else’s , on the turn of a

wheel or card .

Half the players were women . They werebeautifully dressed , but they had ablase lookwhich the brilliant lights

“

overhead could not

make“

beauti ful . I learned they played every day


278 T RACKS O F,A T E NDE RF O O T .

wheat and corn ; embro idered fields and flowers ;stately trees

,streets and old castles mantled with

ivy ; clipped hedges , red tiled houses and snow

white roads ; curious_ vil lages , peasants working

in the fields and all in the light of sparkl ing sunshine

,blue sky and perfect cleanl iness .

'

CHAP T E R XXIV .

PAR IS AND T HE PARISIANS.

R abelai s'

said of the Parisians , They l ive alltheir lives in a barrel and only look out of the

bung hole .

” Well , I have been to the barreland looked into the bung and find Paris a citybounded on the north , south , east and west byli fe

,levity

,luxury and love .

I was met at the depot by a gentleman in un i

form, who w ith no Niagara manner, called a

cabby for me,and was driven furiously through

crowded streets , over which pe0p1e struggled tocross at intervals , w ith a little platform l ike a

city .of refuge between the curbs . When a mangets knocked down or run over he is arrested forbeing in the drivers’ way . I learned this later,when I tried to navigate the streets and had li ftedup my umbrella and voice in vain , the pol icemencrying

,

“

Celerite

PARIS AND T HE PAR ISIANS 279

Paris may have no homes , but she has hotels ,an d they are first—class things . Mine was Hotelde Terminus , central , large and splendid in allits appointments . The reading room off ered thecoveted E nglish magazines and best of all , theParis edition of the New York Herald ; the dining room was fi lled with nervous , moustachedwaiters who knew a ll your wants before youcould say Jack R obinson” or

“Garcon in theparlor there was a kind of a

’phone in which ,i f you were too tired to go out , you could drop afranc in the slot and hear ' Bernhardt rave

,

‘

or

Signor roar.F or weeks German had jolted me like a flatwheel over a rough mountain road and I Wasprepared to have the F rench language give mesprings and rubber tires over a macadam avenue .It is a beauti ful language

,scientific

,epigram

matic , pol ished , and when it comes to sentiment ,is as warm as the fire Prometheus stole fromheaven . F or practical aff airs, i f you can

’t Speakit, you will find numerous signs on different

stores ,“

Ici on parle Anglais ,” but I found them

a heartless deception . I went repeatedly forfilms , stationery and other articles , but the

F rench-American speaking E nglishman had al

ways j ust gone to dinner or was out somewhereelse. As a result I was put out again and again,


and the tragic interest o f the clerks and my

dialogue and gestures always fil led the house , butare too sad to relate .Impulsiveness - is a F rench c haracte ri stic.

Human nature may be divided into twop-a-rts , one

in general and F rench in p articular , c ombin ingthe caprices and contradictions of the other , and

making a d istinct species ; In the D reyfus affairthere was no doubt of government corruption

and that o fficers for a long time had sold out state

s ecrets , but the mere men tion of the -name“

D reyfus

”set the F renchmen wild . President -Loubet

entered the ball room with his officials and t e

c eived -n'o honor, but when Marchon and F ashoda

came in they were cheered , -the band played -and

the p eople went = crazy. I had only to ask the

chambermaid a s imple q uestion and she becamenervously attentive, sweet a s your mother a ndas helpful a s your neighbor

’s best gi rl .The E xposition was a ' great show . I waswhirled around the r imovable side-walk circum

navigated the Great Globe ; made the ascent ofthe ! E iff el tower where Babel is outdone by a

lgraceful lace work of iron nine hundred . a nd

eighty-five feet high w ith theatrical sitt ings androom for one

‘

thousand pe0p1e ; ,visited the T ro

cadero, the . «memorial of the exposition i n 1 878,

fil led with ' trophies of art and Science and with


T RACKS O F A T END E R F O O T .

Greek arch itecture and reminded me of the

Temple of Theseus at Athens .Later we went to St . D enis cathedral, for

centuries the burial place of kings . In 1793 theconvention decreed that the royal tombs must

go and a mad crowd acting on the advice battereddown Charlemagne

’s bronze gates , smashedstained glass w indows , desecrated the altars,overturned statues and threw royal remains inthe ditch near by and covered them over w ith-l ime . F or twelve days this sacrilege was carriedon . Later the former beauty was restored as

’

far

as possible by N apo leon I .T he Pantheon , or St . Genevieve

,was intended

by“

the convention for illustrious men . In front

there is a gigantic bas-rel ief of Cuvier and

F enelon , whi le in the crypt beneath lie the re

mains of Voltaire and of R ousseau . The churchis in the form of a Greek cross with dome in thecenter

,and the walls are covered with Joan of

Arc decorations . At Mont Marte we attendedthe church called the V ow of the Sacred Heart.We made a pi lgrimage up the stairs and wererewarded by a magnificent V iew of Paris and en

virons . The vast proportions of the tower and

dome , the size of the crypt and all the appoints .

ments make it a most marvelous structure .

Notre D ame is the most historic, most famous

PARIS AND T HE PARISIANS. 283

and most visited . It is situated on a little i slandin the Seine river. Today the cross replaces thepagan symbol of worship of a thousand years

ago . What a name to conj ure with . R omans ,R evo lutionists , R ationalists , and now the R e

public . It is a glorious monument of Gothicarchitecture

,but renowned most of all for its as

sociation with the life’

and death , the honor anddisgrace of royal and plebeian characters .A Church of peculiar interest is St . Germain

l’

Auxerrio s,from w hich tower

,Aug . 24,

1 572 ,

by order of Charles'

IX .,the bell rang for the

massacre of the Pro testants . St . Bartholomewis not forgotten .

-I found Versailles a stupid town,but a splen~

did trophy of Louis X IV. and X V . , that smart setof high rollers who with Maintenon and Pompadour lived lives not advocated in the Ten Commandments. The courtyard and statue of LouisXIV. are imposing ; the bu ilding is a museum of

statues and paintings illustrating F rench historyand glory .

Here one sees the famous Gal lery of Battleswith its busts of great generals and thos e gigantic historical painti

'

ngs celebrating F rench vic

tories which the Parisian ido lizes and the Germans .in. their conquest kindly spared . PetitTrianon , near by, r ecalls the happy life of the


young q ueen , Man e Anto inette , who'

rompedand rollicked like a child in the home , mi ll , boudo ir and dairy .

I’ visited St . Germain-eh -Laye , the summe r re

sort oi Paris,thirteen mi le s from the city,

“

on thebank two hundred feet above the Seine river,with a noble forest o f fifteen thousand acres adjacent . Its terrace is about eight thousand feetby one hundre d ‘ wide

,dates from 1672 ,

and isb eaut‘

ified by many lime t rees e ver a. hundred ~

years old . O ne cannot fo rget the fine viewand promenade .

! I went into the old castle whichi s now a museum o f n ational an tiquity , and

dined in the Henry IV . pavilli-on

,now u sed :as a

hotel,in which p lace Thiers died .

“

The city i sknown as the birthplace of Lou i s X IV , Charles

IX . and Marg aret“

o f Navarre .I left all this hurriedly to make a train and

as badly perplexed as the F renchp n est who wasapproached aby his parishoner who said ,

“

F ather ,

you don’t know me replied the priest .

Well,this i s singular, said the man,

“ seeing

you r endered 'me the greatest service one mancould render ranother . You buried my wi fe .”

; F rench ! mo rality often seems to be -a V ery

e lastic t hing, a name a‘

nd sometimes not -even

t hat . Popular balls are ..held . Saturday night . un

til 6 o’

clock Sunday morning , when the gay vo



far to go to find entertainment ; cafes bright andrich on the ins ide and on the forty-foot s idewalkin front many little tables where hundreds of

men and women drink M=edoc, St . Julien,Bor

deaux and absinthe while they talk and vis it w itheach other and watch the pass ing Show . Cafes

Chantants , or F o l ies Bergere , and’

M’

oul inR ouge , and Maxims , where charms strike theeye and not the heart ; where

'

P‘

lato’s earthly

Venus is in evidence and between. whom: and our

American women we must erect a. cordon san i~

taire if D e T ocqueville’s estimate of the cause

of our prosperity i s to remain true , T he noble

character of the American women .

”

Max O’

R ell,who spent three years in Amer

ica , says :“The most interesting woman in the

wo rld i s the American woman .

” He might have

added with equal truth , the most intel ligent ,modest and beautiful .Lack of

,one of these American characteristics

l ed to an episode in one o f our company’s experi

ence . With his wife he attended the theater ; hewent out between acts for a drink . T wo womencame and sat by his side at the table , said . Bon

soir,

” talked F rench and sentiment 1n all the

dumb languages at their command He said ,D u vinP” They said “

O ui,” and he o rdered two

bottles.«After a l ittle delay the waiter came

THE LAST O F F RANCE . 287

bringing two bottles and a l iberal lunch . T he

gentleman objected , but the waiter said that thewomen had ordered it . This friendly vis-a-viscost him about twenty francs .T he automob ile was the “ fast th ing in Parisand what I saw during several days I will give

you a b ird’s eye view of in a few minutes . With

a guide , who knew his bus iness and a. Jehu chaffeur

,we sped l ike the Seine or the insane

through Paris ; over well paved and wide streetsthrough which rol led life and wealth ; by s idewalks with no uns ightly tel egraph pole s ; buildings uniform in height so that one does his ownsky

-scraping ; names on street corners in whiteand blue enamel ! respectfully subm itted to our

city fathers); news stands called kiosques ,” ar

tistic outside and info rming ins ide ; lamp posts.

of beautiful decoration which a man could bepardoned for leaning up against about 2 o

’clockin the morning ; pedestrian s , wheels , and omni

busses with no crowd,for in Paris you pay your

money and get a seat, and when the bus is.

full

you meet the word“

Complet .” Now we spedthrough street

,Capacines known as the place of

art ists and wealthy bankers,then along the his

to ric R ivol i with its shops , arcades and hotelsthrough wh ich flows a stream of tourists and

shoppers ” We stopped long enough at Bon

288 T RACKS O F ' A T E NDE RF O O T .

Marche to -invest in a dozen pairs of kid glove sand made ’it our “ duty -to try them on

~~once ina

or:

der to'

avoid 'mee ting the cu stom-house » duty for

importat ion . A_

fresh start and'

we whirl by the

garden “

of M'

onceau fornierfl'

y ; asso ciated wi th

Louis Philippc ; nowthe aristocratic quarter of

modern Paris wilth= its park , lake c olonnades and

soldier lovers , and‘ striking statue oi

'

Guy de

Maupassant and the mistress whom he f loved 'and'

fo r: whomhe dared God’

and'

nn an . Now comesthe rendezvous

"

oi high ' l ife,the Boi s de Bou

logne , a k ind oi'

Central?park with trees ; foun

tains,lakes

,ari stocratic drives in the morning,

lovers in the evening and nurses looking afterbare legged and beautiful , wel l dre ss ed l ittle boysand girl s in the afternoon . Near by was AnnaGould’s palace and yet some peopleare not happy , count or no account

Wé ‘ mixed'

the sunshine oi this with a drivethrough differen t quarters ; to the F rench mar

ket which,l ike the one in New O rl ean s , 18 a real

l ife pre server , the Paris ians’ daily food bill being

estimated at over then to the morgue , a

death preserver with its horror o f unfortunates,“mad “ from li fe 5 history , glad to death

’s ms

the sewer , which: Jean V aljearr immortal?

ized , conducts not only the drainage but-is used

as a passage for tubes and pipes . The Paris


T HE LAST O F F RANCE . 289

sewer system is eight hundred miles long and so

clean that without offense to nose or foot, you

may make a partial trip over the netting.

f ‘

Allons ,” said the driver , and we went to the

Conciergerie with its dungeon once occupied byMarie Antoinette ; then to the gu il lotine , keen ,cruel and corrective . But there was something

of greater interest than all this and that was thesite of the bloody Basti le , a prison of despotismfor five hundred years , which the outraged peoplecaptured and destroyed . Its storming is celebrated now by a great annual festival . A huge

shaft has been erected , surmounted with the

jgilded figure of Liberty , which hol ds a torch inone hand and a broken chain in the other . Surely the world does move.A mo st suggestive place is the cemetery of

P'

ere la Chais e— a city of'

the dead where sleepin marble couches the brain and heart o f F rance .The grounds are fil led with masterpieces ofsculpture . The mo st frequented grave is that ofHelois e and Abelard— a shrine toward which all

goo-d lovers make a rel igious pilgrimage . T he

estimate o f these two people varies all the waybetween the blessing of Lamartine and the cursing o f Mark Twain . O f this , at least , we aresure

,they are dead— that in li fe they learned the

sad, sweet lesson of loving “

not wise

290 T RACKS O F A T E ND E R F O O T .

ly but too well , that whether they l ived togetheror were separated in nunnery o-r mon astery, they

were one in spirit , one in death , in one gravenow and eternity has given them one home .

We co uld not omit old Paris and so went tothe Palais R oyal

,the former home of Cardinal

R ichelieu . Like birds of pas sage we flew to

Place da C'

arrousel square with its arch of triumph erected by Napoleon . The old horses of

St . Mark’s of Venice once adorned it, but achange of fortune took them back to the Adriaticand those you see here now are new . The Ven

dome Column commemorates the battle of Aus

terlitz . It is made of bronze from captured R oman and Austrian cannon and is covered from

base to summ it with. figures , i llustrative of theF rench army on the march . Napol eon

’s statuelooks down from the top . The mad Communeoverturned this monument but it was set upagain and is now the meeting place of the old

soldiers who,with citizens , deck it with flowers

on the anniversary of certain great victories . Butthe most magnificent arch in Paris or R ome is

the Arche de Trio-mphe from. which twelve avenues radiate as the po ints o f a star from ' thecenter . It was erected in memory of Napo l eon

’s

victo ries . There are medallions with the name

of the battles,and statuary il lustrative of the



so we traveled to Place de la Con cord , the for

mer scene o f execution of many kings and no

bles , but now a place of peace . Two colo ssalfountains try in vain to wash out the “ damned”

blood spo ts ; the obeli sk fro-m Luxor loo-ks down

in the s ilence which it has maintained for un

known centuries . Bronze shafts rai s e their torches of il lumination and one counts around thissquare eight great statues illustrative of prominent F rench cities . Instead of flowers I noticedblack drape ry on one and learned ' it was for

Strasburg which the Germans had captured inthe late war . F rance will never forgive or for

get this loss . I was the repeated guest of Mme .

Wile who referred to i t with feeling , telling me

that before the war she vis ited Germany everyyear

,but since their miserable theft she would

not set foot in their territory or let them have

one cent of her money ; and like her are many

other loyal F rench women .

If you tire of this enumeration you must t e

member I was tired, too , but my guide and driv

er urged me on ,and even then there are many

things which I saw between I and 3 a . m'

. dayafter day which I shall have to omit . I went to

St . Cloud,a suburb of Paris laid out as a park ,

with shade and cascades . The fountains play

twice every month and the spectacle is attended

THE LAST O F F RANCE . 293

by thousands o f e nthusiastic visitors . T he

g rand chateau was destroyed by the Prussians in 1870,

and here again the F renchman is

inclined to omit the petition “ as we forgive ourdebtors .F aubourg St . Anto ine is the bowery of Paris .

Here the tough element get together . Theyare ready for anything between a row and

a revo lut ion . The children were dirty , the wo

men looked greasy and the men were everything

you would not l ike to meet alone in the dark .

What a contrast between this place and Se vreswit-h its mo st beautiful chinaware and museumof models or po rcelain , from all clim'es and

times ; or Gobelin with its tapestry and carpetand famous art work dating from the fifteenthcentury which enabled Mr . G . and his family to

make mi ll ions and climb to po l itical p-re'

ferment .

I saw the parks , cafes , students , artists , fakirs ,grisettes and model T rilb-ys of the Latin Quar

ter . St . Michael’s F ountain is near by, whichrepresents St . Michael as con quering the devi land trampling him under foot . I

“

found some

things which seemed to have gotten away fromhim or he had not had time to subdue .

It is only fair to say that human nature is prac

tically the same “everywhere . If, however , Paris

seems worse in some re spects than other places


it i s an illustration of the law o f demand andsupply . Much of the unspeakable is planned for

the touri st who demands it and is wil l ing to paythe price .

Moreover the social atmosphere is altogether

diff erent . If,

“

F l irtation is love in water-colors”

then Parisians are natural—born artists . Theyall do it

,but so innocently and naturally and

beautifully. F ace,form and finery are attractive

features . Since people dress so much to pleaseother eyes it i s but natural that they should makean expos e of shoes

,silks

,and laces which would

only be permi s sible in. Chicago on a very rainyday,

-Boston never .Lawrence Sterne in his Sentimental Jour

ney ,” said

,

“There are three epochs in the empireof a F rench woman— she i s a coquette , thenD eist , then devotee . The classification stillho lds .

Who can ever forge-t Vela’s statue of Napoleon , discrowned , disowned and with dying fin

gers on the outrolle d map of E urope ? I camefrom Versailles by Hfugo

’s house

,the dear old

immo rtal man ,loved next to Napo l eon b-y .both

Les Miserables and grandissimes. At the gate

way oi Hotel des Invalides I met an old old

so ldier who bowed,gave me a picture , took my

franc tip and ushered me beneath a dome three


296 T RACKS “

O F A . T E ND E R F O O T .

among the F rench pe0p1e whom I loved so well .That they loved him is shown by the fact thatthis tomb was spared by the vandal communistsfor whom nothing else was sacred.

Paris is the paradise of art : “Art,the counter

fe it and counterpar t of nature . O f mo re priceles s value than all I have enumerated , were thetreasures of the art galleries . The Luxembourg

is filled with the works of modern painters andsculptors which remain here for ten years after

the death of the artist , then the finest are selectedfor the D ouvre . I found a few pictures

'

warm

enough to make fuel unnecessary in D ecember,and the garden is fill ed with the statues of famous women ; But the Louvre ! I w ish my pencould describe what I saw ; any attempt would

be foo lish as to “

paint a lily or add a hue to the

rainbow. Its superb Apo llo gall ery with p ictured ceil ing and tapestried portraits ; its an t iquities fro-m all times and places; crown and sword

of Napoleon , spur"

o f Char lemagne,gems and

regent diamonds . But beyond any moneyed val

ue is Murillo ’s subl ime painting entitled the Im

maculate Concept ion ,”and the world renowned

Greek statue of Venus Of Melos . Standing byher side

,I thought of the poet Heine who

,tired

and sick at heart,came and sat at the feet of the

statue . He says she appeared to sympath ize with

T HE LAST O F F RANCE . 2 97

him,but also seemed to say: You see I have no

arms,I cannot help you ,

Poo r He ine ! Poor

human heart . E verywhere found with its uhhelped hurt .L

’Amour de la Paris ? A thou sand times yes ,

and thoroughly enough to say as O thello did ofD esdemona : Perdition catch my soul

,but I do

love thee,and when I love thee not chao s is come

again .

”

Leaving Paris I was put in a compartment car

with four F renchmen . It was 8 p . m. , and I wasweary of sight-seeing in gay P’aree by

_

sun and

gaslight . No train boy came in with cracker

jack or gum to disturb us . I had a peaceful napand was suddenly startled by three of my com

panions , who were talking very rapidly and mak

ing indescribable gestures with their hands and

arms. “Mon D ieu,

” frequently entered into theirremarks

,and I supposed they were pious until

they added some profane words not permissiblein clerical composition . They finally made theguard understand they wanted to get out, which

they did,and I was left with one companion .

I do-zed again and waked , and looking at mywatch

,found it was about time for the train to

reach D ieppe,where I was to -take the steamer

across the channel . I said D ieppe and the man

stared . E ncore,D ieppe

,and he said

,Non est

298 T R ACKS O F A T E NDE RF O OT .

ver,

or someth ing like it,whi ch put me in

doubt . I added,London

,and with warmth and

repetition , to which with strange force and ac

cent he said : “ Impos sibl e , impo ss ible !” Here

was a pretty state of aff airs . He looked sobe‘

r

and sensible . I must have appeared like a fool ,and I soon found out that I was

,for I was on the

wrong train and should have changed cars,where my three excitable friends did

,instead of

which I peacefully slept and had been carried inan O ppos ite direction many miles away . What

could I do ? He spoke a little E nglish and'

I a

little F rench,and he said I was bound to Havre .

He told me he woul d make it all right and explain matters at the depot , and that I could takea train next day and reach my party in Londontwenty-four hours later . I didn’t sleep any more .

He con tinued to assure me of his protection,and

I gratefully accepted it , w ith the mental reser

vation that I would keep my eye on my val iseand pocket-book . After midnight we pulled into

the Havre station .

I was taken to the depot master, who promised me that without extra expense I could takethe early train next morning and go on my wayrejo icing. I tried hard to understand him , and

believe him ; I had to . Then my chaperone tookme to the ho tel O ppos ite the depot . He pound



thing was all right , and told me I had some timefor sight-seeing . I. called for a hack , had thedriver show me the town

,and was brought back

safety . I paid him,but I can never repay the

station generalis s imo for his kindness . If I hadbeen his brother, or sister, or some one else’s ,or had owed him one thousand francs and he

wanted me to pay it, he could not have beenmore considerate or kind . In any other countryI would have been considered as crazy or a can

didate for j ai l or havebeen consigned with Judasto some

“

O ther place where blankets were unnec

essary . The F renchman is nothing i f not pol ite .

I was a p ilgrim,and had only tar

ried but a n ight, yet I rushed around enough to

see the arsenal,bath-houses , custom office, ship

building yards,industrial po ints of fishing, make

ing silk and lace,and to learn that this town was

in the fore rank as an export point and place for

emigration . In the near distance I saw a statue

and found that it was Bernardin St . Pierre’s and

Havre was his birthplace . His story ,“ Paul

and Virginia ,” is a hou sehold classic . Youth and

old age love to read thei

story of the outcast boyand girl who grew up together on the island

,

loved and were true to each other in spite of so

cial rank till death in the ocean storm claimed

T HE LAST O F F R ANCE . 301

Virginia , and Paul , insane with grief at her loss ,soon fo l lowed her to the other shore .

F rom Havre to R ouen,in F rance

,i s about

fifty miles , but some peopl e in America havefound it only a step

,if not synonymous . This

town is the old capital Of Normandy , a greatF rench city of export and import . There arebridges and bo ulevards between the old and newtown ; educational and philanthropic institutions ;fin e promenades and shade trees ; Notre D amecathedral

,gate of the great clock bigger than

grandfather’s on the stair ; the pulpit , where cvery year a crim inal who has been condemned to

death comes before the people , l ifts up the shrine

o f St . R omain and receives pardon . The statue

of Bo ieldieu,the composer of “

Caliph o f Bagdad

,

” “ Jean du Paris ,” i s found on a street bear

ing his name . O f great and ever increasing in

terest is'

the public square where Joan of Arc

was burned in 143 1 , and the tower which bearsher name .After much trial and tribulation I reached

D ieppe .

“

Still swings the sea , mist shrouds themountain and thunder bursts on cliff s and

cloud .

”D ieppe is a seaport town one hundred

and twenty—five miles northwest from Paris,sit

uated at the mouth of the Arques river,which

separates the main part of the town on the West


from Pol lett on the E ast . The town suff ered

from the E dict of Nantes and later by bombard

ment from the D utch and E nglish . Today itboasts ship yards , a good harbor, where I saw ahuge cross and statue of the Virgin for the protection of those who embark to cross the E nglishchannel for New Haven on the E nglish s ide .There are rope and barrel factories

,shops where

good watches are made , and I saw skilled workers in ivory and bone

, who sustained the reputa

tion of their ancestors in this art work from thefifteenth century . I visited St . Jacques churchand then walked the long street along the shorefor more than a mile . It ends at the Chalk C liff ,on which there is a fifteenth century castle nowused as a barracks . In season it is the fashionable promenade

,and for years this point and

near place have been stylish watering and bathing places . It was early in the season , but I

promenaded so much without my guide that Iwore out my patience and my soles ; stumbled

into a shoe shop , where the keepe r fixed me upw ith leather half an inch thick, spiked togetherwith hob nails which would have insured me thefirst prize for anything or anybody I had j umped

on . At the beach I met a peasant girl with abasket strapped to her shoulders , carrying stonesand pebbles the s ize of your hand for the new



tion which the poor man urges when he says ,“ I can’t aff ord to get married and keep housetoo .

” P'

at was wiser ; when asked if he could support himself , he replied :

“

NO ,

‘but I’l l get mar:

ried and Biddy will help me .

”

F rance is indeed a most beautiful country andin journeying over the points o f its compass I

’velearned what Macaulay meant when he said ,“ The real use o f traveling and of studying his~

tory i s to keep men from being what Sam D aw

son was in fiction and Samuel Johnson in reality .

”

CHAP T E R XXV I .

LO ND O N AND IT S SIGHT S .

Beg pawdon , but don’t Cher know the blawsted

E nglish channel was as smooth as a confidence

man when I crossed it . New Haven , E ngland ,loomed up w ith its two hundred feet high cliff sand fortified Castle Hill al l sun—kissed withglory . After the customh ouse officers had held

me up and found nothing, I climbed the

s ide door o f a queer looking train with a dummylooking engine that ro l led as

‘

if it had wheels in

its head,and eve rywhere els e , to make the fifty

LO NDO N AND IT S SIGHT S. 30-5

s ix miles to the metropol i s . B righton was onlyeight miles distant , the fashionable watering

place , where F . W. R obertson used to preach .

Though dead,he st ill speaks through the many

ministers who work o ff h is superb sermons inwhole or part every Sun day .

I was driven from the depot in a hanso'

m to

the splendid St . E rmine’s hotel . I said,with

F alstaff ,“

Shall" I. not take mine ease in mineinn ?” So I rang for hot water

,and when the

buxom maid had left it at the door,I said ,

Thanks ,” and after a hasty toilet , with vis ions

of ro ast beef,plum pudding and old port , I hur

ried down to br eakfast to l earn the wide difference between F rench and E nglish cooking .

The weather was rainy,raw

,foggy and sooty ;

not vernal like Palestine,or vo luptuous like Italy

but like Lon don weather itself, beastly and nasty .

However, this was just the kind of an in-door day

for sightseeing . I called a cabby , a big, fat , rednosed man

,full of ale and facts , gave him a tip

and off wen-t his mouth and horse ; he discoursed

on the city’s roads,good walks , efficient pol ice

and noted obj ects of passing interest , all the timedriving through crowds, grazing curbs , brushing

wheels and popping flies from o ff his h'orse’s ear

in a wonderful way .

I visited a number of museums,notably the

306 TRACKS O F A T E NDE RF O O T .

South Kens ington , with its fine bu ilding filledwith articles useful and ornamental

,ancient and

modern,and col l ection of paintings , statuary and

things which make a connossieur l iable to forgetthe commandment against co-vetousness .

Then Came the wo rld-famed Br itish Museum ,

E ng land’s mo st priceless poss ess ion , with its

manuscripts and books , print s and drawings,co ins

,and medals

,Babylonish , E gyptian ,

R omanand Greek antiquities. The E lgin marbles which

his lordship had“ conveyed” from the Parthe a

non I saw in all their beauty“ At Athens I feltoutraged at E lgin’s theft and that the poor

Greeks had only plaster casts of the original s ,but here the marbles are safe and sound and anyAthenian may come and “ frieze” himself to hisheart’s content .

“ Lost in London I. had seen in America , butit was no play joke here ;

‘

I don’t mean the ex

perience I had one night at Seven D ials,but the

feeling of iso lation and desolation in a great ,strange crowd . When D '

eQuincey entered London he felt l ike a wave in the Atlantic or a plantin a forest ; really, this

“mask of maniacs andpageant of phantoms” affected me quite thesame . D ear old London , older than ten thousand years

,how thy eight m illions pour down

streets and all eys , by Charing Cross hotel , and



the haunts of M ilton ; Goldsmith , D ickens , and

some of the other “literary fellers I went withIrving in h is Sketch Book to

“ Little Britain”

where the pe0p1e religiously ate pancakes O -n

Shrove Tuesday , hot-cros s buns on Good F riday , roast goose at Michaelmas , Sent love letters

on St . Valentine’s day , burned the Pope on No~

vember sth and kissed all the girls under themistletoe on Christmas .I could g ive you a

“ tedious brief account of

the bridges acros s the Thames,no tably London

Bridge .“

This bridge is in no danger. of fallingdown” with the invested in its con

struction and sentinel lamp posts along its s ides ,cast from cannon captured from the F rench in

Spain . The tide of humanity pours over it as theThames does under it . Cock Lane Ghosts ,D ames Quickly

,Bo ars’ Head bums , Mother

Shiptons , Punch and Judies , Jarley figures , B illing’s. Gates s lang—whangers , Bill Sykes bulli es ,frail feminines

,doctors , lawyers , merchants and

th ieves,walking

,dr iving or jammed in or . on

busses all plastered over with ads of food , clothing

,or drink so that the stranger can hardly

read the name of his destination .

E ast E nd is London’s “

hub of hell , a Bridge

of Sighs” over wh ich helpless mi‘

sery travel swh ither God only knows . I went with police es

LO ND O NAND IT S SIGHT S. 309

cort and needed it more than in any other slumming tour I had ever made . Gin shops , girls ando ld women drunk

,men’s gambling hells and

prostitutes’ pandemonium ! O h the wretchedness ,poverty, disease , squalor, little men and women

wi th souls already filled with graves from whichsad skeletons ros e ; all thos e and more , not s imply to wonder at and weep over but to work for

as London doe s , giving more in charity in proportion to its population than any other city on

the continent .In his gospel for the poor

,Charles H . Spur

g eon , the great benefactor and philanthropist,E ngland’s real “ Prime Minister

,found that ,

“ the way“

to God i s by the road of man .

”

London takes great pride in her palaces and

parks ; St . James’ park with fo liage and lake for

saints and sinner ; Kensington gardens Withplants

,walks and trees , where without any pro

bibitory clause you may go to grass like Nebu-r

chadnezzar ; Hyde Park , best of all , with its finegateways and marble

'

arch intended as a monument to Nelson , and grass , flowers , tree s , Serpentine Lake

,and R otten R ow, al ive with riders

and walks fi lled with. pe0p1e of all climes and

conditions who in fashion and beauty come incrowds .

In London , as in. Paris, you may find any kind

T RACKS O F A T END E R FO O T .

of pleasure you please ; concert hall s , dance

houses , circuses , chambers of horrors,theaters

of drama and farce and all kinds of varietyshows far removed in spirit from the time whenholy play and

: representations of miracles were

performed . E ngl ish bar maids are greatly and

gro ssly in. evidence . London seems to have theunique distinction of having thousands of these

girls who “make destruction please girl s who

will ogle , flirt,tell off-co lor stories

,drink

ale familiarly and profu sely with you and provehow much worse a bad woman is than a bad

“

man because she falls from a greater height .T he National Gal lery of painting on Trafalgar

Square possesses a fine exhibit . I recognized

specimens by the old masters whom I had“ been

introduced to in Italy and I further met the

best the E nglish schoo l . The Turner collec

t ion is superb . What an artist,subject and

treatment ! I saw his Venetian. scenes with theirrose

,white

,emerald

,and sapphire , and admired

h is l ove of brilliant color and light which madehim matchless . T o think any one should say,Turner’s p ictures loo-k l ike a torto i se-shell cathaving a fit on a platter of tomatoes.”

O ne of the most striking things is a LondonSunday ; Babe l is then qu iet

,shops are shut ,

streets deserted,train s and busses run at longer


3 12 T RACKS O F A T E ND E RF O O T .

can’t j ust see why Heine gave the sexton a shilling and said he would f have given him mo rei f the “ collection” had been more complete . R e

call its age back into 1000,its splendid Gothic

architecture, aisles and R ose windows , its powerful memories , and would you refuse a bust thereif they paid for it and insisted on your having it ?It i s a pi le of

“mournful magnificence,

”but it

attracted me many times with its service,music ,

coronation-chai r,shrines

,

i

sepulchres, effigies,

inscriptions of kings,heroes

,statesmen

,ph ilan

throp ists and poets,including our own Longfel

low. T he'

late D ean Stanley had reason to value

the abbey and regard it as a rel igious nationaland liberal institution .

”Such it i s , and I

’d l ike

to t ry my hand at a worthy description of thishistoric pile had not Washington Irving already

done it .Because Mr . Wren’s plans were not adopted

in laying out the streets of London after the

big fire , they outrival Boston ; but thi s makesthem more

“

interesting in a way, for l ike Mi

cawber you are always expecting something to“ turn up” an d you find yourself turned at the

"

wrong place.I strolled through swell R egent and O xfordstreets

,peeked in Piccadilly

, promenaded in

Pall Mall,bought a shirt in Thread-needle, too-k

LO NDO N AND IT S SIGHT S. 3 13

in Ludgate’s circus and lounged on Thames

E mbankment and Victoria street . Since Lon

don has one thousand miles of streets,there

were some I didn’t have t ime to visit .I did drive to Lambeth Palace

,along the Vic

toria E mbankment with its walk,trees

,and ob

elisk, and by the side of the Thames more significant today than -Nile and Tiber in its wideinfluence . I visited the houses of parliament ,a pile of fine Gothic extending one thousandfeet along the river’s bank . Bright

,D israeli ,

Gladstone ! What names to i conjure with ! O f

more interest to me than the Victoria tower ,through. which the queen e ntered parliament ,or Clock tower with its bar steel minute-handtwelve feet long ,

or Big Ben with its thirteen

ton bell bang, is the idea of parliament , the declaration of the truth , not only of the divine rightof kings but the right divine of the pe0p1e .O i the many places Of interest

,I can only sug

gest a'

few,though I didn’t think I ever felt like

the traveler who said ,“ I. am sorry I didn’t go

with you ,for then I might have said

,I’d been

there Trafalgar Square is to London whatPlace de la Concord is to Paris . The Nelson

Column,granite fluted

,flanked by Landseer’s

'

big

bronze lions,rises proudly above the London

“

the

great admiral made secure in 1805 , when he'

T RACKS. O F A TEND ERFO O T .

blocked the l ittle game of F rance and Spain whowere attempting to invade E ngland . His words,“E ngland expects every man to do his duty,

” stillthril l every Britisher’s heart .Leaving this statue and that of the soldierlyGordon , I drove to the Albert Memorial , whichcabby in formed me was

“

a statue as is a statue .” Albert is remembered as the good PrinceConsort of Victoria . Theirs was a love matchand marriage .

“

He was.

a man who loved E ngland

,and whom E ngland cheri shes as goo d and

great . He was devoted to art and science and

with John Bright was a firm upholder of the

Un ion cause in the Civil war . Granite stepslead to a pedestal whose corners have statuaryo f E urope

,Asia , and Africa ; to a base with one

hundred and sixty—nine life-Size marble statues

of the great geniuses from the world’s earl iesth istory ; one hundred and seventy-five feet aboverises the glittering Gothic Sp ire, surmounted by

a golden cross , while under this canopy stands

a gilded bronze statue of Prince Albert , fifteenfeet high .

O ne day after an underground ride in a cham

ber of horrors with smoke , soo t and smell thatmade D ante’s hell a desirable station to changecars at

,I visited the famous London Tower ; it

’s

the E nglish Bast ile , covers twenty-s ix acres and


3 16 T RACKS O F A T ENDE R F O O T .

sounds well,and yet nations sometimes go down

the financial toboggan Slide of supremacy .

American money and credit are pretty good

here . We have something to say about iron ,steel , tin , tool s , ships and electric traction .

“

Think

of it ! John Bull looking at an E lgin watch earlyin the morning, shaving with Yankee soap , eat~

ing bread made of Minneapol i s flour,reading a

pap-er printed on an American , machine , workingbefore a Michigan-made desk

,smoking Virginia

ch'

eroot-s,drinking an American cocktail

,read

ing’

an American book or attending a musicalconcert where Nordica is the star .It i s only natural that an E nglishman Should

believe there is nothing above him and thatother nations need heaven as the only thing

which can conso l e them for not,being born E ng

lishmen . This satisfied and stolid manner hasl ed to cutt ing cartoon and critici sm . Brunetiere ,the F rench critic

,says : “ The dazzling fact of

America’s hi story in the nineteenth century isthe continuous progress of the D emocratic ideal,and this ideal i s the contradiction of the Anglo

Saxon ideal . Lawrence Sterne said that an

E nglishman did not know whether to take or

rej ect the “ sweet or sour” of a compliment , while

our inimitable Mr . D ooley affirms that in an

American joke'

you laugh just after the po int if

LO NDO N AND IT S SIGHT S. 3 17

at all,but in the E nglish you laugh e ither before

the po int or after the decease of the joker.Be this and more , as it may , the E nglish have

fine traits in the fibre of the ir individual andnational life ; home is the E ngl ishman

’s castleon the husband’s part , and the good wife makesit the conservatory of the beautiful . Their boysand girls are loving and obedient

,and with Sim

ple food , pleasures , and exercise , make noble

men and women ; their hospital ity is proverbialand when you are invited to it it means much .

I think it was Mr . Sme lfungus who called thePantheon a “Huge cockpit in no such spirithave I recorded my impressoin of London whichI greatly admire for its government , streets ,spacious parks

,wonderful museums , historic and

literary memory. We Americans have manypo ints in common with our British relat ives inrespect to business , education and religion ; welook much alike

,talk the same language and

sing the same national air. I have seen the London John Bull . In appearance he is mor e than

a sturdy, fat fellow with: round hat , leatherbreeches and red waistcoat ; in character he ismore than pipe and tankard , guineas. and growls ,protecting or patronizing airs ; he is well compared to his old oak staff “ rough outs ide andsound w ithin .

”


CHAPT E R XXV-II .

HIST O R IC SPO T S O F E NGLAND .

we started out with a swinging tall'

yho that

shook us up l ike dice in a box . We had fourgood E nglish horses , a ho rn -blowing foo tman

to toot asthmati c echoes and a driver who knewhow to s ize up his passengers. As usual Ifound it paid to be on good terms and make

friends with. the coachman . It was a jol ly partyof six . Months of travel had jo lted them into a

Social disposition .

Gull iver’s account of his Travels shows a

tendency to exaggerated statement , but if Mr .G . had been with us he couldn

’t have said too

much for it was -a Mark’

T apley crowd .

Paris i s not F rance and London is not E ngland ; from the rush of the city we Came to the

repose of the country ; if London had been an

open book of history and literature, the _countrywas a scenic panaroma . F or a week we saw

vine-clad cottages and litt l e inns with prettymilk and bar-maids; here cattl e

.

in the greenest

of pastures and there ivy clad churches and towers ; on all Sides. hawthorn hedges , flower gardens

,corn fields , oaks and elms fresh and green .

Now at last I learned - the meaning of E ngland’s

raw fog and m ist and what they were good fo'

r .



subj ects . Lamb has to ld us of this. school in hisquaint essay . Lamb

,to usea m ixed figure ,

'

was

a rare bird ; his delicate feel ing, humor andquaintnes s stamp him as one of E ngland’s mostdelightful essayists .NO -w

'I

we canter to Canterbu ry. O ur coachwas l ike a Shuttl e Weaving green grass and blue

sky with strands of sunshine into a ribbon and

laying it along the fine roads over which wetraveled . The city‘ is on an old R oman site ; historic for its mona stery of St . Augustine , schools ,cathedral where Thomas a’Becket was martyred ,and his miracle—working grave . This was thetown

,I think

,where Watt Tyler ros e up and

made a center rush ; best of all known as the

place where Chaucer tells his Tales” of the

fash ionable and pious people who came here ona pilgrimage ; his. stories are daguerreotypes ofthe society of h is day .

A ride through hills , watered valleys and

g roves brings us to O xford , the center of education . I had visited other temples of learning ,notably the Little R ed School House of America ,He l iopo l is i n E gypt, and Plato

’s academy in ‘Ath

ens,but here I. was all surrounded like

“

0” in

O xford itself . I think I counted. two dozencolleges

'

and several ladies" s eminaries . F or anumber of centuries it has been a garden of wis

HIST O RIC. SPO T S O F E NGLAND . 32 1

dom where human bees have hived its sweets .The surroundings and atmosphere are o f men

who put genius above gold and felt there wassomething bigger in this world that a large

bank account . O f interest i s the famed Bodlein

l ibrary,dating from 1602 with a donated Copy of

ever y book printed in the kingdom . I th ink thisis a good way to co llect a library . The Claren

don press is an imprimatur to many of our

books . A building of great interest containssketches of Angelo and R aphael

,a manuscript

of Virgil , the first Mainz Bible and an E gyptianedition of Plato . AS a reli ef to all thi s class icl'

ore I recalled F o lly Bridge ,” saw the s ite

where King Alfred“

lived a thousand years ago ,

and laughed at the thought of Crown Inn , where

Shakespeare used to stop on his way to London ,having left his dear Ann Hathaway at home withthe chi ldren .

We arrived at Stratford the literary Mecca of

the world’s p ilgrimage on a rainy day,but. it was

suggestive O f the tears of joy which mil lionsshed on Shakespeare

’s grave to keep his memory green . We put up at the R ed Horse hotel ,where Irving wrote his suggestive sketch . Ai

ter a big dinner we viewed Child’s AmericanmemOrial fountain with its. Gothic tower and

clock,then stro l led across the fields to Ann


Hathaway’s cottage to s ee where Shakespeare

had played R omeo to the original Juliet . TheMemo rial library is filled with thousands of volumes of the dramatist and his comm entators ,and there is a fine theater audito rium where h isplays are yearly acted . O f course , we went tohis humble home with its low-ce iling room all

scribbled over with autographs of Byron,D ick

ens , Scott and some other les s illustrious people .

At his school the guide pointed out the placewhere Shakespeare used to s it , where he . studied

and where he was flogged . O ne of the most interesting po ints was Trinity church , by clear

flowing Avon . It made a pretty picture , withits O ld elms , gray tombstones and half-faded ihscripti

'on s

‘

. I slowly entered. the building ,walked down its

'

cross-formed aisles , which the

sexton told me inclined at an angle to“ represent

the bended head of the Saviour . I admired thememorial windows , and l ike steel to a magnet ,was drawn to Shakespeare

’s bust and the slabbeneath

,with its quaint inscription and request

for rest , which every “ good friend” continues torespect for his and “ Jesus’ sake.”

Who was Shakespeare , anyhow ? He has

been dead so long he cannot speak for h imself,and various answers have been given . Some

th ink he was a comb ination of boyish poetry-

and


324 T RACKS O F A T E ND E RF O O T .

the road which had led through pretty scenery atlast came to bed rock

,covered with ivy and trees .

In imagination the old Knights and their Ladiesonce more came out to meet us and stood and

sat beside us . Here are towers of Caesar , andthe gateways of Guy and Sundial . The cedars

of Lebanon,which you s ee , are grown from

seed wh ich the brave earl brought from

Palestine . The castle looks bold and frowning

as William the Conquerer who stopped here onh is first campaign . Windsor castle is a fine feudal mansion ; its reception room is decoratedwith antlers , axes and armor ; its drawing roomis fill ed with bronzes , mosaics and historic paintings . These were all of interest to me but

'

I had

a woman’s curiosity to see Beauchamp chapel ofstone , oak, stained glass , and its armor-cladsculptured dead . Here continue to l ie the re

mains O f R obert D udley, earl of Leicester , thatadmirer of wom en who was Queen E l izabeth’sfavor ite . She thought so much o f him that Shegave him Keni lworth castle for a Christmas gift .

T he earl spen t barrels of money on it , had itguarded by thousands of so ldiers , and ran alusher banquet hall which was the scene of many

a revel . It was presto change when Cromwellcame and knocked it into a cocked hat . Today

it is a beautiful ivy-covered red sandstone ruin .

HIST O RIC SPO T S O F E NGLAND . 32 5

Sir Walter Scott visited it,took notes and gave

us hi s Kenilworth . How the vision of the pastrises at the pen of this Wizard of the North .

The ruins are as empty as a church contributionbox

, but he has made them full of interest .Chester !

“

Charge,Chester

,charge !” and you

may believe they did,for it was D erby D ay and

an American hor se had won the race . An E ngl ishman wanted to bet with. me . I to ld him it

was against the ethics of my profession . Hebegged my “

pawdon ,

” and said that he. would

give half of what he won to the collection the

fol lowing Sunday . I’m sure he lost .Chester is an Old R oman town on the river

D ee . There are two miles of circular stonewall s

,forty feet high in places

,and wide enough

for a promenade . Briton , Saxo n and D ane havein turn occupied this place . You find good

old timber houses which have come down fromthe seventeenth century, while some modernbuildings are made to imitate them in thei r crazylooking style . There is a curious covered side

walk fo llowing the old R oman thoroughfare andfour streets at right angles

,making roads of con

tinuous galleries over and under which the lean

ing houses line the streets . Antiquarians havefound many coins , altars and R oman inscriptions . O n a Spot called the “Wishing Steps

” I


lo itered and lounged wishing that I could strikeit rich .

At last we reached Birkenhead on the Merseyriver

,O pposite Liverpool . It has mammoth

floating docks and big ferries . There wassomething that struck me mo re forc ibly than all

this and that was the first good E nglish argu

ment I had heard fo r the Boer war . There werea lot of lazy men standing around to whom anold lady said

,

“The war in Africa would be agood th ing if you could just be sent over thereand do something .

”

Liverpoo l at last,or Whirlpool , it seemed to

me that night, and Hotel Adelphi was a friend in

need and deed . Next morning we met some ofthe party whom we had been separated fro-m for

weeks . After a breakfast washed down by acup of E nglish tea we drove through shadedboulevards to Princes’ park . The mo st won

derful docks in the world line the shore for a distance of seven miles . We had time to look inthe O ld Town Hall , St . George

’s hall,built in

the form of a Greek temple,and to attend the

Walker gallery fi lled with art treasures and

where,at this time , Munckacksy

’

s“

E cce Homowas on exhibition . T he

“ Grand O ld Man” was

born in this town , and our distingu ished novelist

, Nathaniel Hawthorne , was United States



words o f his Tiny Tim,I

'

said,God bless us all

every one .

”

After dinner that night I watched the steerage

pas sengers fiddle and dance and knew that _joywas no respecter o f persons: Later in the grand

salon,after promenade

,music and talk

,a lady

passenger drank the toast ,“

Bon Voyage ,” in a

glass o f hot lemonade,which shivered in her

hands and spattered over all . She laughed andsaid it was a good Sign

,but I was a little skep

tical, so I went to my room ,

read D ‘

ouble

prepared for rough weather bysewing button s on my storm

.

coat and pants .

This done I stuck the needle into my churn,Pro

fessor P . , who was an organist at home , and laysnoring in a way equal to three reed stops plus

his mouth for a trombone .

Next morning we anchored at Queenstownand

,begorry , the auld E merald isle was j ust be

fore us . We didn’t land but some of the nativesboarded our ship and sold us beads

,lace and

black thorn canes . These salesmen were jolly

Irish beggars and the women recalled Moore’sl ines : “

O n she went and her maiden smile in

safety lighted her round the green isle .

Life on the ocean wave is calm and restful .E very one wears easy clothes and manners . You

eat, drink , doze , read , chat, promenade , play p0

GO O D O LD YANKE E LAND . 329

ker, ring-toss or shuffle board

,recount expe

~

riences or swap stories . O ne evening I played

the Wedding March for’

a couple who had celebrated their anniversary on board . Later I wentto an orphans

"

concert in the aft cab in wheremen and women played and sang in all keys and

none . It seems I was somewhat of a prophet,

for one morning I began to feel a littl e “ home

sick” and came on deck w ithout a Shave or a

necktie . I would have gone by land if I could ,but “Mr . Captain would not stop the boat and letme off and walk .

”Sunday I was convalescent

and preached from the Traveler’s Psalm,

“Hemaketh the storm-

a calm so that the waves there‘

of are still ; then are they glad because they bequiet .”

I t was good F riday indeed when the pilotwhom we

'

had picked up brought us into theharbor . Chri stopher C . guessed his way acrossthe ocean but we came straight as a Kentuckycolonel to a Louisvil le bar . There i s no doubtthat the greatest geni i in the Arabian Nightswas the steam that came out of the little bottleand took shape . We slowed up in the bay because of the -

fog . Later thewharf appeared andin my attempts to attract the attention of a

friend,I slipped and fell on the wet boards but

the old flag that I Carried didn’t mop the deck .

T RACKS O F A T ENDE R F O O T .

No matter what your rel igion or po l itics maybe you are always a free-trader when you come

to Shore . A government official was on to his

job and mine . I Offered him good advice andassistance which he ignored pol itely , as he pro

ceeded to play Vesuvius with my picked up plun

der . I had several narrow escapes , but he letme Ofi

'

free . He was a gentleman . Homeaga in ! I was so intoxicated with its atmosphere

and patriotism that I didn’t know whether Iwalked or flew ove r Boston Common‘

and Bunker Hill

'

monument . My relative ,“

Little Nell ,”

tried to Sober me but I only s'

ubs ided when I

saw a burly pol iceman who eyed me suspiciously

and acted as if he would like to run me in .

I came back to Ameri ca with a conviction"

which I wou ld write in capital letters : That

there i s no land in all the world like ours in re

spect to its domain , history and citizenship ; that

for unity,wages

,education and religi'on , we

are “ foremost in the files of time .”I had rather

be born poor . here than a prince anywhere else .

T ravel had always been a fruit

po ison” to my blood‘

,whether I was in the gla

ciers of Alaska , palms of Mexico , granite of

Massachusetts or gold of Cal ifo rnia . I believe

man was made to live a great while in a l ittle


332 T RACKS O F A T END E RF O O T .

with its history . O f these places and peoplesvisited I feel

O h , the years I lost be fore I knew you ,Love !

O h,the hil ls I c l imbed and came no t to you,Love !

Ah, who shal l rende r unto us to make u s glad ,

T he things which for and of each other’s sakeWe might have had

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Tracks of a Tenderfoot - Forgotten Books