A Prussian Capital and a Fashionable Resort.
We Start for Berlin—Mountain and Valley—Harvesters—Villages—A Great City—Unter den Linden—Kroll Theatre and Garden—The City Streets—Ostend—A Fashionable Watering Place—The Promenade—The Kursaal—On the Beach—Bathing Machines—Studies for an Artist—The Race Course—Sunday—The Winning Horse—Fickle Dame Fortune—The English Channel—A Bureau of Information—Queenstown—An Irish Lass—The Last Stop—The End of the Journey.
HE journey from Frankfort to Berlin is through a pleasant and interesting country. For many miles we look from the car windows upon an undulating landscape: hills and valleys follow each other in rapid succession as our train dashes along at the rate of a mile a minute. Now and then we pass men and women in the fields; and now young girls with bare feet and short skirts busily raking the hay,—true pictures of “Maud Muller on a summer day.” And here is a whole group of “nut brown maids” laughing merrily at their work, while over in a corner of the field is the belle of the countryside listening shyly to the stalwart young harvester who stands on the border of the adjoining meadow.
| “Her tresses loose behind Play on her neck and wanton with the wind; The rising blushes which her cheeks o’erspread Are opening roses in the lily’s bed.” |
Now we pass the harvesters at rest, sitting under the green trees and hedges with their dinner pails beside them. It is a pleasant, peaceful picture. Here is a picturesque village with quaint looking houses, and a little gurgling brook in the foreground. An echo from the distant mountain answers the shrill whistle of our engine and we can see the silvery cloud of smoke that follows us wander off to the right, then fade away in misty fragments. In many of these settlements, there are shaded nooks where tables and chairs are placed, and here the villagers are sipping their beer, in happy social converse.
The young people wave their hands and caps to us as we pass, and with their bright costumes animate the lovely scenes which, although so close to each other, are of such different character. At last we reach Berlin, and our great iron horse stands puffing in the station, defying man to detect upon him any sign of exhaustion.