At four o’clock in the afternoon we stood on the deck of the “Orion,” watching the many tall and slender spires of the churches of Lübeck receding from view, as we steamed onward down the narrow winding river, nine miles to Travemünde, a little sea-bathing resort for the Lübeckers at the river’s mouth, where we entered upon the Baltic. We sat on deck watching the sunset and the outlines of the German coast, the country where we had spent nearly a year and which had grown to seem like home, growing more and more indistinct; the sea was as calm as a mill pond, there being scarcely any perceptible motion; the moon appeared and we remained for a long time upon deck, in perfect enjoyment of the scene, then retired to our state-rooms to sleep soundly until our arrival at Copenhagen, soon after six o’clock in the morning.
Copenhagen impressed us at first like a Dutch city. The long quays covered with merchandise and lined with shipping, and, as we drove to our hotel, the vistas down side streets of canals filled with vessels, reminded us strongly of Amsterdam and the other Dutch dams we had visited.
In many European hotels the servant who conducts you to your room upon your arrival hands you a printed form to be filled out, giving information as to your place of birth, your age, where you came from, where you are going to, and your quality or profession. We had generally written tourist, traveller, or student in answer to the last, but as students are often classed with socialists and other suspicious characters, we registered this time that coveted European title—Rentier (a gentleman living on his income). Later, as we came out of the hotel, on a great black-board at the foot of the staircase we saw, in large letters, so that “he who ran could read,” Herr Rentier E., Herr Rentier K., against the number of our room, and the line of servants greeting us with obsequious bows gave us an exalted opinion of our own importance, but filled us with alarm when we thought of the fees that would be expected from gentlemen with titles associated with big money bags.
The great centre of the life and activity of the city is the Kongens Nytorv (King’s Market), a large square from which radiate thirteen streets. Trees surround a king’s statue in the centre, on the south side rises the National Theatre, the principal hotels and shops are in, or near, this square, and the greater part of the horse-car lines centre here. Walking down an adjacent street whose shop windows were filled with tempting displays of terracotta vases, statues, and reliefs, many of them being copies from Thorvaldsen’s works, we came to a large market place, where old women, wearing big white sunbonnets, with white handkerchiefs folded over their shoulders, sat in the open air behind piles of fruit and vegetables. Many of the market girls wore kid gloves, minus the finger ends; one girl, adorned with what were once delicate evening gloves, was selling cabbages, and from the coquettish manner in which she handled them with her soiled gloves, we judged that she considered herself the belle of the market.
Near by is the Christiansborg Palace, which was partially destroyed by fire in 1884. Most of the walls are still standing, but the interior was completely destroyed. In addition to the royal residence, the long range of buildings surrounding the spacious courts contained the Chambers of Parliament, the Royal Library and Picture Gallery; part of the collection in the last was saved from the flames.
Looking across the great Palace Square we see the tall tower of the Exchange one hundred and fifty feet high, the upper part of which is formed by four dragons, their tails twisted together high in air, until they gradually taper to a point. Tradition says that this curious spire was removed bodily from Kalmar in the south of Sweden.
At one side of the great ruined palace is the Thorvaldsen Museum, the chief attraction of Copenhagen, and the northern Mecca of all art-loving tourists.
Bertel Thorvaldsen was born in Copenhagen in 1770. His father was a ship carpenter and carver of figure heads, and as a child little Bertel went with him to the ship yards and assisted him in his work, showing so much intelligence, that at the age of eleven he entered the Free School of Art.