Perhaps you are weary of these descriptions of what we are seeing in the world—gorgeous churches, museums, picture galleries, mosques, zoological gardens, relics, ruins, antiquities, crumbling temples, statuary, obelisks, sumptuous palaces, odd customs, singular manners of people, religious fanaticisms, trickery and impostures, etc., but in sight-seeing we are confined within the limits of what the pride and vanity of the world have labored to exhibit, rather than what, in many instances, we should have preferred seeing. It would have been more gratifying to record our inspection of systems, on magnificent and universal scales, designed to remove poverty and distress, which, to a greater or less extent, everywhere prevail; and to give all an opportunity, irrespective of creeds, geographical lines or nationalities, of providing for their own wants and comforts, and of elevating themselves to the highest spiritual, physical, moral and intellectual plane.
Berlin, Prussia, May 12th, 1873.
On the ninth, we started from Vienna by train, and arrived here the following afternoon.
The country between Vienna and this, the capital of the German empire, some five hundred or more miles, is delightful. Its immense undulating plains, here and there forming into low hills and rising mounds, all under a high state of cultivation, present a lovely and picturesque scene. The whole country appeared to be filled with industrious and enterprising inhabitants. Elegant mansions peeping out amid the green foliage of romantic groves, villas, with their respective chapels surmounted with broad domes, or glittering steeples, and cities occasionally appearing in the distance, crowning the rising hills, altogether form a panoramic view that is almost captivating.
On our arrival here we engaged quarters in the most fashionable and aristocratic hotel in the city, in a very pleasant and stirring locality.
Berlin is situated on a sandy plain on the river Spree, and is considered, in several respects, one of the finest and most interesting cities of Northern Europe—the metropolis of knowledge for Northern Germany, and the cultivated nursery of German arts and sciences. It contains about eight hundred and thirty thousand inhabitants.
Many of the streets are broad and straight—the buildings frequently four and five stories high. The finest street passes our hotel—it is called "Unter den Linden," and is decorated with four rows of lime trees. In the centre of this street is a broad avenue for pedestrians, and, on each side, arrangements for footmen and carriages. This magnificent thoroughfare extends from the Royal Palace to "Brandenburg Gate." This gate is constructed in the style of the Propylacan at Athens. It is sixty feet in height and one hundred and ninety in width, embracing five passages for carriages and footmen. It is surrounded by a figure emblematical of Victory seated in a chariot, drawn by four horses. The height of the group is nearly twenty feet. The expense of erecting this gate was in the neighborhood of a half million of dollars.
The Royal Palace is an extensive building—six hundred and forty feet in length by three hundred and seventy-six wide, containing six hundred apartments. It contains a chapel, which is remarkable as being the place where the baptismal ceremony of Frederic the Great was performed.
The Picture Gallery, which is now used for a banqueting hall, is over two hundred in length and one hundred and twenty-five feet wide. The largest room in this palace is one hundred and five feet in length by fifty-one in width—decorated with a great variety of costly statues and portraits of celebrated individuals. These palaces contain a new chapel, built in 1849, with a cupola measuring eighty-six feet in diameter. The altar is surmounted by a cross of silver seven feet in height, studded with gems, the cost of which is estimated at four hundred thousand dollars. There are several other palaces in the city, and some at Potsdam, a few miles distant, which is called the "Versailles of Prussia."
We have seen several splendid monuments, some of which we think as fine as any we have seen in Europe; also many equestrian statues of skilful and elegant workmanship.