CHAPTER III.
The celebrated Three Crowns Battery—Hamlet’s grave—The Sound and its dues—To Fredericksborg—Iceland ponies—Denmark an equine paradise—From Copenhagen to Kiel—Tidemann, the Norwegian painter—Pictures at Düsseldorf—The boiling of the porridge—Düsseldorf theatricals—Memorial of Dutch courage—Young heroes—An attempt to describe the Dutch language—The Amsterdam canals—Half-and-half in Holland—Want of elbow-room—A New Jerusalem—A sketch for Juvenal—The museum of Dutch paintings—Magna Charta of Dutch independence—Jan Steen’s picture of the fête of Saint Nicholas—Dutch art in the 17th century—To Zaandam—Traces of Peter the Great—Easy travelling—What the reeds seemed to whisper.
The name of the steamer which took me past the celebrated Three Crowns Battery, and along to the pretty low shores of Zealand to Elsineur (Helsingör), was the Ophelia, fare three marks. In the Marielyst Gardens, which overhang the famed Castle of Kronborg, is a Mordan’s-pencil-case-shaped pillar of dirty granite, miscalled “Hamlet’s grave.” Yankees often resort here, and pluck leaves from the lime-trees overhanging the mausoleum, for the purpose of conveyance to their own country.
But this is not the only point of interest for Brother Jonathan. Look at the Sound yonder, refulgent in the light of the evening sun, with the numberless vessels brought up for the night, having been warned by the bristling cannon to stop, and pay toll. I don’t wonder that those scheming, go-ahead people, object to the institution altogether—albeit the proceeds are a vital question for Denmark. On the steamer, I fell into conversation with a Danish pilot about this matter. I found that he, like others of his countrymen, was very slow to acknowledge that ships are forced to stop opposite the castle. He said that only ships bound to Russia do so, because the Czar insists on their having their papers viséd by the Danish authorities before they are permitted to enter his ports.[3]
Finding there was no public conveyance to Fredericksborg, which I purposed visiting, I must fain hire a one-horse vehicle at the Post. It was a sort of mail phaeton, of the most cumbrous and unwieldy description—I don’t know how much dearer than in Norway—so slow, too. On the road we pass the romantic lake of Gurre, the scene of King Valdemar’s nightly hunt. Some storks remind the traveller of Holland. Right glad I was when we at length jogged over divers drawbridges spanning very green moats, and through sundry gates, and emerged upon a large square, facing the main entrance to the castle.
The private apartments, I found, were, by a recent regulation, invisible, as his Majesty has taken to living a good deal here. But I was shown the chapel, in which all the monarchs of Denmark are crowned, gorgeous with silver, ebony, and ivory; and the Riddersaal over it, one hundred and sixty feet long, with its elaborate ceiling, and many portraits: and, marvellous to relate, the custodian would have nothing for his trouble but thanks. In the stable were several little Iceland ponies, which looked like a cross between the Norsk and Shetland races. They were fat and sleek, and, no doubt, have an easy time of it; indeed, Denmark is a sort of equine paradise. What well-to-do fellows those four strapping brown horses were that somnambulized with the diligence that conveyed us to Copenhagen. That their slumbrous equanimity might not be disturbed, the very traces were padded, and, instead of collars, they wore broad soft chest-straps. The driver told me they cost three hundred and fifty dollars each. That flat road, passing through numerous beech-woods was four and a-half Danish miles long, equal to twenty English, and took us more than four hours to accomplish.
Bidding adieu to Copenhagen, I returned by rail to Korsör, and embarked in the night-boat Skirner, from thence to Kiel. As the name of the vessel, like almost every one in Scandinavia, is drawn from the old Northern mythology, I shall borrow from the same source for an emblem of the stifling state of the atmosphere in the cabin. “A regular Muspelheim!” said I to a Dane, as I pantingly look round before turning in, and saw every vent closed. A fog retarded our progress, and it was not till late the next afternoon that I found myself in Hamburg. Some few hours later I was under the roof of mine host of the “Three Crowns,” at Düsseldorf, where I purposed paying a visit to Tidemann, the Norwegian painter. Unfortunately, he was not returned from his summer travels, so that I could not deliver to him the greeting I had brought him from his friends in the Far North. His most recent work, which I had heard much of, the “Wounded Bear-hunter returning Home, having bagged his prey,” was also away, having been purchased by the King of Sweden. At the Institute, however, I saw several sketches and paintings by this master.
Anna Gulsvig is evidently the original of the “Grandmother telling Stories.”
Bagge’s “Landscape in Valders,” and Nordenberg’s “Dalecarlian Scenes,” brought back for a moment the land I had quitted to my mind and vision. “The Mother teaching her Children,” and “The Boiling of the Porridge,” also by Tidemann, proclaim him to be the Teniers of Norway. Though while he catches the national traits, he manages to represent them without vulgarity. But perhaps this lies in the nature of the thing. The heavy-built Dutchman anchored on his square flat island of mud can’t possibly have any of that rugged elevation of mind, or romance of sentiment, that would belong to the child of the mountain and lake.