But at a time like this, politics are likely to be talked of in the military capital of Prussia quite as much as either religion or science. As to the Russian question, three main things, difficult to reconcile, embarrass the Prussian policy. The people hate Russia—barely tolerate the supposed sympathy of the court of Berlin with that of St Petersburg—and would not suffer the King to take part with the Czar. Then both court and people equally hate and distrust the French. They fear to be robbed of their Rhenish Provinces by a sudden incursion from France; and that, were Prussia once engaged in a struggle with Russia, the occasion would be too favourable for the French to resist. The life of Louis Napoleon is uncertain, his death would be followed by a revolution, and this very probably by war upon their neighbours. With England they would unite, but they cannot cordially do so with a country they talk of as fickle and faithless France. And as a third main element in the question comes the jealousy of Austria. Berlin and Vienna watch each the motions of the other. If the one were to commit itself, the course of the other would be clear; but so long as neither feels that it can heartily trust in France or safely defy Russia, a union between the two on a German basis, equally anti-Russian and anti-French, such as has recently been announced, seems the only safe solution possible. But cool reasoning on probabilities and situations is not to be expected from a Prussian more than from an Englishman—less, perhaps, from the former than the latter, since, in Prussia, patriotism is always associated with more or less of that military feeling and ardour with which a three years’ service in the army more or less inoculates all; and still less can it be expected from an unstable and wavering Prussian King, whom sympathy, more than duty, bends and binds.
Among the items in Berlin newspapers which daily amused us more than their politics, were the marriage advertisements which have their constant corner in the Berliner Intelligenz Blatt. Here is a bit of conceit. “A man in his thirtieth year wishes to marry. To ladies who possess a fortune of four to five thousand dollars or upwards, and who have no objections to become acquainted with persons of good character, I hereby give the opportunity to send in their addresses to,” &c. &c. Side by side with this we have—“An active and respectable widow, about thirty years of age, who has a secure pension, wishes to connect herself in marriage with a man of business, and requests in all negotiations the most inviolable secresy. Addresses to be sent,” &c. &c. Some of the ardent male candidates for connubial bliss put forth the melting plea that they want to marry, but have no female acquaintances; while the females, on the other hand, urge that they have no protectors, and in these piteous circumstances both sexes find an excuse for making their wishes known through the public prints.
But we linger, not unnaturally perhaps, but somewhat long for our narrative, in the city of Berlin. The passports are again viséd, however, and stowed away in our safest pocket, the trumpet sounds anew, and we are off to Stettin. Through flats and sands and moors as before, and occasional patches of pine forest, we pass for the most part of the way. Here and there a stretch of poor corn-land breaks upon the monotony, and occasional undulations of the surface confine the view. But no home-like fences divide the land, nor signs of comfort make up for the natural nakedness and repulsive aspect of the bleak-looking country. This character of the land and landscape prevails both east and west along the southern shores of the Baltic Sea, not only in Prussia, but in the Danish appendages of Holstein and Sleswick, and across to the mouth of the Elbe. Yet there are some so little experienced in the features of a fair landscape, or so patriotically blind, or so poetically disposed by nature, as to see beauties even in these unpromising countries, and to derive a pleasure from passing through them which the majority of travellers can scarcely appreciate. Madame Pfeiffer crossed this tract of country on her way from Hamburg through Holstein to Kiel, in which route we also remember sands and heaths somewhat less forbidding than those which intervene between Ungernsunde and Stettin. This matter-of-fact old lady, who was already beyond the age of poetry, thus speaks of what she saw and heard as she glided along—
“The whole distance of seventy miles was passed in three hours; a rapid journey, but agreeable only by its rapidity. The whole neighbourhood presents only widely-extended plains, turf bogs, and moorlands, sandy places and heaths, interspersed with a little meadow and arable land. From the nature of the soil, the water in the ditches and fields looked black as ink.”
And then, in the way of reflection, she adds—
“The little river Eider would have passed unnoticed by me, had not some of my fellow-passengers made a great feature of it. In the finest countries, I have found the natives far less enthusiastic about what was really grand and beautiful, than they were here in praise of what was neither the one nor the other. My neighbour, a very agreeable lady, was untiring in her laudation of her beautiful native land. In her eyes, the crippled wood was a splendid park, the waste moorland an inexhaustible field for contemplation, and every trifle a matter of real importance. In my heart I wished her joy of her fervid imagination; but, unfortunately, my colder nature would not catch the infection.”[[33]]
This region, so tiresome to the eye, is yet interesting to the student of the pre-historic condition of this vast flat region. Covered everywhere with a deep layer of drifted materials, which consist, for the most part, of sand, sometimes of gravel, and more rarely of clay, no rocks are seen in situ for thousands of square miles. But strewed, now on the surface, now at depths of two or three feet, and now beneath fifty or sixty feet of sand or gravel, lie countless blocks of foreign stone, of every size, from that of the fort to that of a small house. These the waters of the once larger Baltic brought down ages ago from the rocky cliffs of the Finnish and Bothnian gulfs. During that very recent geological epoch which immediately preceded the occupation of the country by living races, these flats of North Germany, as far south and east as the mountains of Silesia, were covered by the waters of the Baltic Sea. Yearly over this sea the northern ice drifted, bearing with it blocks of granite and other old rocks as it floated southward, dropping masses here and there by the way as the ice-ships melted before the summer sun. But in greater numbers they bore them to the shores on which the ice floes stranded and strewed them in heaps along the flanks of the Silesian hills. Hence now, when the land has risen above the sea, the huge stones so transported, age after age, are found at every step, if not on the very surface, yet always at some small depth beneath the sand, or gravel, or clay, or in the deep peat which covers so much of the wide area. And, piled up in heaps on the slopes of the Silesian mountains, at heights of nine hundred to twelve hundred feet, the traveller wonders to see the same distant-borne strangers, unlike any of the living rocks on which they rest, and which talk intelligibly to the geologist of their ancient homes in the frozen wilds of Scandinavia.
Admired by the students of pre-historic physical geography, these boulder-stones are prized and sought for by the inhabitants of this wide tract of rockless plains. Though hard and intractable beneath the chisel and hammer, these hard granitic and metamorphic masses are the only durable building materials which are within their reach. Hence all solid constructions are formed of them, and the houses of wood generally stand on a substratum of these more lasting stones. In this way the traveller sees them employed in town, village, and farm. Palace, fortress, and cottage are equally indebted to the antediluvian icebergs of the old-world Baltic. And thus near the ancient towns, and wherever frequent people live, few of the unmoved boulders catch the traveller’s eye as he rides over the unenclosed plains around them. But they occur singly, in groups, and in rapid succession, when he penetrates to the less-peopled interior, or explores the primeval forests, or where railway cuttings dip deeply into the drift, or clay-beds are worked for economical purposes, as we see them in the vicinity of Berlin.
Stettin, well known to our Baltic merchants and shipowners, and famed among the fortresses of Germany, stands near the mouth of the Oder—where the river, escaping from the long flats through which it has wound its slow way, is about to expand into a broad lake. This lake, called the Haaf, would in reality be a wide firth or arm of the sea, were it not that its mouth is blocked up by the islands of Usedom and Wollin, which leaves three channels for the escape of the waters of the Oder. The central channel, called the Swine, is the deepest and most used; but all are difficult and narrow, and easy of defence against attacks by sea. The Silesian commerce has its principal outlet by the Oder, which connects Stettin with Frankfort-on-the-Oder and with Breslau. Above the town of Stettin, for the two or three last miles, the river winds, and again and again returns upon itself, through the almost perfect flat—and even throws off several small arms, which flow to the Haaf through channels of their own, before the main stream passes the city. To look down upon these windings from the tower of the old palace, when the bright morning sun rests upon the valley, reminded us of the winding Forth, as it is seen by thousands yearly from the beautiful summits of our well-beloved Ochil Hills. Beyond this distance the whole valley on either side is hemmed in by a lofty natural embankment of sand and gravel, the ancient limits of the Haaf when the land was lower and its waters covered the whole flat. The embankment which thus girdles the valley, and skirts at a distance the river flanks, consists for the most part of a ridge of ancient downs, such as we see on our own sandy shores where sea-born winds blow often inland; which hide Flemish towns and steeples from the eyes of the passing sailor; and which in Holland occur far from the modern shores, telling how widely in former times the sea asserted her dominion. Through this amphitheatre of sandy ridges the river forces its way into the flat valley; and it is the natural strength which the ridge possesses on the right bank, where the town now stands, of which art has taken advantage in erecting the strong fortifications which make Stettin the key of Pomerania. In the city itself there is not much to see even in summer. At the time of our visit the river was frozen up, some inches of snow covered the ground, the people had already commenced the winter amusements to which snowy climates offer so many inducements, and a single day was enough to satisfy our taste for sight-seeing. The rumours of war here, as elsewhere, were agitating the Prussian population. The course that our Government might take naturally touched very nearly the interests of a city which, by its commerce, was concerned for the openness of the sea to its ships; which, as a fortress of the first class, was liable to bombardment and siege in the event of hostilities by land; and which, by its nearness to the Russian territory, was so likely to be assailed should war commence. House property in the city was said to have already fallen much in value, and commercial speculation for the time was in a great measure paralysed.
But we were bound for West Prussia. We had a desire to see the manners and manège upon an old Prussian barony, where an ancient schloss still overlooks lake, field, and forest, and a numerous peasantry, though not bound like serfs to the soil, still pay so many days of bodily toil for the house and land which they hold of the lord. By the Posen railway, therefore, we left Stettin, and in four hours reached Woldenburg, whence four hours more by extra post brought us to the village of Tütz. Here a welcome awaited us from our friends in the old palace, while a natural interest, not unmixed with a little wonder, recommended us to the kind consideration of the villagers. Many of these simple people had never before seen a real live John Bull, and could not help suspecting a connection of some sort between the visit of “die zwei Englander” and the rumours of war which even in this secluded spot were already agitating their minds.