A LILIPUT PROVINCE.
Towards the close of summer, all well-feathered Londoners migrate, and may at that season be observed flying from their native streets or squares in large flocks, like wild geese, with outstretched necks, and round, protruding eyes. Some settle on the Scotch moors, where they industriously waddle themselves thin. Others take short flights to neighboring bathing-places, where they splash in the water with their goslings, strut proudly on the sands, display a tendency to pair, and are often preyed upon by the foxes which also resort to those localities. Many more cross the Channel, and may be heard during two months cackling more or less loudly in every large hotel upon the Continent. And in addition to all these there are the stragglers,—a small and select race, which defy the great gregarious laws, and delight in taking solitary, and, if possible, unprecedented flight.
I must own that it is my weakness to pry into the untrodden nooks and corners of life. I have wasted many precious hours in toiling through black-letter folios and tracts which had no other merit than their rarity. And I have put myself to the greatest pains and inconvenience to arrive at a desert island out at sea, or some obscure village hid away among mountains, simply for the pleasure of feeling that I had been where few other civilized travellers had been. I have seldom received any better reward than that, but once or twice I have fallen upon a store of facts, which, however insignificant, had at least the charm of being new, and which have answered the purpose of stimulating me to fresh absurdities.
A few months ago I was standing on the deck of a steamer bound from London to Hamburg. It was midnight, and we were approaching the mouth of the Elbe. Right ahead was a light of great brilliancy and power; this, the captain informed me, shone from Heligoland, and was seen so clearly because the island was about a hundred and fifty feet above the level of the sea,—a great boon to navigators, the neighboring coasts being very low. But my informant had been in the habit of regarding Heligoland as a lighthouse and nothing more; he could tell me nothing about its constitution, its manners, or its customs, and I determined to visit it forthwith.
By the late wars upon the Continent, the political geography of the Elbe has been completely changed. Between the mouth of the river and Hamburg, the right bank formerly belonged to Holstein, and the left to Hanover. Now both are Prussian. Hamburg itself is under the wing of the Prussian eagle, and may soon be under its claw. The feeling in that city is anti-Prussian; but the citizens were wise enough to side with their powerful neighbor, and to contribute troops. This has certainly saved them from the fete of Frankfort, but it is not probable that Hamburg will be allowed to remain a thoroughly independent state. Prussia will probably abolish her diplomatic, and perhaps her consular service, and permit her to retain certain important rights and privileges. It is, at the present moment, an anxious crisis for the great merchants. In Hamburg, fortunes are made with a rapidity, and to an extent, unequalled in any Continental town; this is owing to the freedom of the port; but, were the Prussian custom-house system to be introduced, Stettin and Königsberg would spring into dangerous rivalry, and her commercial interests would decline.
Hamburg is the only city in Europe which bears much resemblance to New York. It has no antiquities, for the old town was entirely burnt down about twenty years ago. It has no treasure-house of art, it has not many "historical associations." It is a city of business, and four thousand persons meet together every day in its Exchange. Its river is crowded with shipping; American cars rattle along its streets; and ferry-boats built on the American principle steam to and fro across the Alster-Dam. Its hospitals, sailors' home, libraries, and ornamental gardens are not inferior to those of New York itself: in these two cities, if the dollar does jingle too often in conversation, it is sometimes made to shine in a worthy cause. After dusk, Hamburg becomes dissolute and gay. It is difficult to pass through a single street without hearing a violin. Lager-bier saloons, oyster-cellars, cafés, dancing-rooms, and restaurants of every kind are lighted up, and quickly filled. Debauchery runs riot, and yet, strange to say, there is very little crime. The respectable classes are less well provided for as regards amusement. I went to the opera, and heard William Tell. The performance was mediocre, though far superior to anything that could be done upon the English operatic stage. But I was chiefly amused in watching the habits of the gentlemen who patronized the stalls.
The custom of visiting and receiving at the opera was invented by the Italians, to avoid the trouble and expense of receiving in their own homes; from Italy it spread through Europe; and although the opera-houses of London and Paris do not so closely resemble a public drawing-room as those of Florence and Milan, yet the Italian opera could scarcely exist in those cities unless it were supported as much by people of fashion as by people of taste. But I was hardly prepared to find in Hamburg a parody of polite life in this respect. During the whole performance there was a continual interchange of social greetings between corpulent ship-chandlers, their heads violently greased for the occasion, and certain frowsy women sprinkled scantily through the house. There was an old gentleman sitting next to me who turned the performance to a nobler use; he had apparently brought his son there for the purpose of tuition; holding the libretto between them, he translated with great rapidity and in a clear voice the Italian words, at the moment that they were sung, into one of the most guttural of German dialects, thus playing the part of Dutch chorus to the entertainment, and producing a conflict of sounds which it would be difficult to describe.
I discovered, to my astonishment, that Heligoland, in summer at all events, was by no means an isolated rock; that since 1840 it has been blessed with a Season; that, celebrated for its waves, it has become the Scarborough of Northern Germany, and is visited by thousands of sea-bathers every year.