Twenty years around the world

by John Guy Vassar

The Germans are a quiet, patient, forbearing, good-natured people, but the revolution in France awoke them to a sense of their rights, and the despotism of kings and petty princes, which they are trying to shake off. At Ehrenbreitstein castle I saw them making preparations for the Schleswig Holstein war with the Danes, having just received orders from the Prussian king to send on a body of troops.

These waters are of great service in most pulmonary cases, but I find the free use of them and strict regimen in eating is calculated to weaken the stomach and appetite, and the associating with invalids and hearing their repeated complaints and sufferings, is anything but agreeable, and calculated to operate upon the spirits, as mind has a great effect over matter.

XLIII.

Copenhagen, Denmark, 1848.

I floated down the Rhine from Coblentz to Cologne, reviewing my recollections of the localities of that beautiful river, rendered doubly interesting from its historical associations and old legends, with all its varieties of wild and picturesque scenery; towns and villages and fertile plains upon its banks; thick forests and vine-clad hills, and old chateaus, and rivers in the distance.

I remained but a single day in Cologne. The great Cathedral, which was begun in 1248, and which would have been, if completed, one of the finest Gothic monuments in Europe, with towers five hundred feet high, has been left in an unfinished state for centuries, but of late years the king of Prussia has made large appropriations towards its repairs and gradual completion. I find the work has progressed moderately, and the king of Bavaria has made a splendid present of stained glass windows, which will be exhibited publicly in a few days, when the centennial anniversary of the Cathedral takes place, and there will be a great re-union of kings, princes, and plebeians. A few years since when I was in Prussia, and travelled by private post, or the conveyances of the country, it occupied much more time in making distance, but one saw the country to better advantage; now the railroads are constructed in many parts, and the traveller is transported from one city to another with locomotive speed.

I came from Cologne to Hanover and Brunswick, and then retraced my steps in order to visit Bremen, and from thence returned, via Hanover, to take my departure for Hamburg, accomplishing the entire distance by railway with less fatigue and in less time than if I had crossed the country, which is a much shorter way; but one is exposed to night travel and the want of pure air, as the Germans have a horror of an open window, and are constantly enveloped in a cloud of smoke. On some of the German railways they have third and fourth class cars. In France and Belgium, and in fact all over Europe, the genteel traveller takes the first class car; not so in Germany, for there the second class is almost as well mounted as the first, and is part of the same car with partitions; the third class receives those who like more air, free smoking, economy, and hard seats. The Germans say that none but princes and fools take first class cars; but if one must pass a part of the night on the railroad, and wishes to be quiet with a car to himself, without society, then they are preferable. On some of the German roads no luggage is carried free; on others from thirty to fifty pounds are allowed the passenger; in some instances for five pounds overweight of the scale, which varies on the different roads, I have paid as much as an American dollar—a caution to those who make long voyages with much luggage.

Hanover, the residence of the old king Ernest, is on the river Leine, with a population of some thirty thousand inhabitants. It is a curious old town, with peculiar Gothic houses, and is remarkable for a superfluity of windows, which, if they were subject to the light tax of England, would soon ruin their owners. The Esplanade, in which stands the Waterloo Monument, a column one hundred and fifty-six feet high, with a statue of Victory, dedicated to the Hungarians who fell in that conflict, presented a gay scene, on the occasion of a Sunday parade of all the troops, prior to the reception of the king of Prussia, who was expected to halt there while on his way to the Cologne celebration.

I had a view from the top of the column of a rich, fertile, and beautiful country lying in the distance, with the turn-out of the citizens and peasantry in holiday attire, after the church service of the morning, and the evolutions of the horse, artillery, and infantry, near the base of the column, and an imposing sight it was. I had seen most of the monarchs of Europe in my journeyings, except King William, who was absent when I was at Potsdam, his residence; but here I had the opportunity of seeing his reception and all his courtiers, with all that famous troop of cream-colored and black horses, of the English breed, from the royal stables.

Brunswick, the capital of another of these German princes, who have so long tried to outvie each other in the splendor of their palaces, parks, &c., to the detriment of their subjects, is a very old city of thirty-five thousand inhabitants. The palace is a tasteful and splendid building. It is said that the old one was burnt by some of the citizens, who were obliged to replace it by a much more costly and beautiful edifice, and the Duke is now sumptuously quartered. The antiquity of the city strikes the eye of a stranger, particularly the gable-ends of the houses to the streets, steep roofs with rows of windows in them, and the immense number of windows in the fronts. The famous corps of Black Brunswickers was parading in the palace grounds—the first of this uniform I had ever seen—and looked frightful. They wore black cloth uniform, slightly relieved, and black horsehair plumes with death’s-head and cross-bones; they are said to be valorous, and particularly attached to the Duke.