HAMBURG.
From the muddy wharves and quays, we scramble up through steep streets, every second house having an inscription, or rather an advertisement in English on its walls or over the door Of the Babel tongues that salute the ear in every part of this city, the English seems to hold the next rank to German and Dutch. Whether it was from the lowness of the Elbe, and the long drought, I know not, but the canals that penetrate far up several of the streets, appeared abominably filthy and malodorous. Three-fourths indeed of their bottoms were bare of water, and only exhibited reeking mud, well impregnated with all kinds of animal and vegetable debris, and admirably calculated to spread pestilential disorders through the city.
At length we got to what might be termed “the West End,” though it is here the North or North-East quarter, and the scene is entirely changed. We find ourselves, all at once, on the borders of a spacious lake, which is narrowed in the middle, and spanned there by a bridge, exhibiting on its surface numerous pleasure-boats, and on its banks a succession of handsome buildings. Shaded walks and terraces are constructed along the shores, so that these lakes (for they may be considered as two formed by a bridge) really present a most refreshing picture to the eye in Summer, and furnish a magnificent skating-plain in Winter. The levelled fortifications are now converted into superb and extensive promenades, gardens, and shrubberies, exhibiting a pleasing contrast to the endless batteries, fosses, and bastions of Magdeburg and other fortified towns. No city or town on the Continent, that I have seen, presents anything like the bustle of business that is going forward in every street of Hamburg. Leipzig is nothing to it, since it wants all the elements and materiel of maritime commerce. The great hotels face the lake (which, by the bye, is a monstrous dam formed by a dribbling stream, the Alster) and the Salles-a-Manger there, shew us that we are almost clean out of Germany, and nearly in the heart of old England. The table-d’hôte is at four o’clock, where good substantial joints and dishes dance merrily round the table, and are eagerly demolished by stomachs sharply whetted on the exchange, the bureaus, warehouses, and shops of this most singular entrepôt of European merchandize; The Hamburghers and Leipzigers appear to belong to the class of ruminating animals, who flock to the table-d’hôte for the purpose of swallowing, or rather bolting their dinners, dispensing entirely with the process of mastication, and leaving the triple functions of rumination, digestion, and calculation to go on simultaneously, not successively, by which many hours of valuable time are daily gained for the dispatch of business. I will not maintain that this bolting system, followed by the hard labour of two important organs, the head and the stomach, at one and the same time, is equally as well calculated for the preservation of health as for the accumulation of wealth; but probably it is not more insalubrious than the ennui, the inertion, the eternal pipe, and the poisonous dishes of the noncommercial Germans in general.
It is upon the same principle of economy of time, and division of labour, that the Hamburghers hire professed mourners to weep and wail over their deceased relatives. By this ingenious procedure the business of the living is not interrupted by the departure of the dead—perhaps not even on—
The first dull day of nothingness—
The last of suffering and distress!
When the Hamburghers levelled their fortifications to the ground, they took care to leave certain portals or barriers standing, by which they might be enabled to levy contributions on—“the stranger within their gates,” as well as on those who are outside. The nocturnal tax on ingress and egress increases with every hour after sunset, and the bustle and confusion occasioned by the embarkations and debarkations of steam-travellers with their luggage, baffle all description. The drowskies and their cads, the porters and their wads, the janitors, the police, and the watermen—all jumbled in the darkness of the night about the water-gate of the city—all vociferating in the most discordant jargon; but all united in the strictest harmony of action, as to one operation—the patriotic endeavour to empty the passengers’ purses of every stray mark that might be encumbering their pockets—such a scene is not easily delineated, nor will it be forgotten!
A good steamer, fair weather, and a pleasant company, rendered a forty-eight hours’ run to modern Babylon an agreeable variety in the chequered scenes of a long tour.