Mecca.—Pictorial Signs.—The Kremlin.—The Royal Palace.—King of Bells.—Cathedral of St. Basil.—The Royal Treasury.—Church of Our Saviour.—Chinese City.—Rag Fair.—Manufactures 280–305

DUE NORTH;
OR,
GLIMPSES OF SCANDINAVIA AND RUSSIA.

CHAPTER I.

Having resolved upon a journey due north, twenty days of travel over familiar routes carried the author across the Atlantic and, by the way of Liverpool, London, Paris, and Hamburg, landed him in Copenhagen, the pleasant and thrifty capital of Denmark. As the following pages will be devoted to Scandinavia, Russia, and Russian Poland, this metropolis seems to be a proper locality at which to begin the northern journey with the reader.

It was already nearly midnight when the Hôtel D'Angleterre, fronting upon the Kongens Nytorv, was reached. So long a period of uninterrupted travel, night and day, rendered a few hours of quiet sleep something to be gratefully appreciated. Early the next morning the consciousness of being in a strange city, always so stimulating to the observant traveller, sent us forth with curious eyes upon the thoroughfares of the Danish capital before the average citizen was awake. The importunities of couriers and local guides, who are always on the watch for visitors, were at first sedulously ignored; for it would be foolish to rob one's self of the great pleasure of a preliminary stroll alone amid scenes and localities of which one is blissfully ignorant. A cicerone will come into the programme later on, and is a prime necessity at the proper time; but at the outset there is a keen gratification and novelty in verifying or contradicting preconceived ideas, by threading unattended a labyrinth of mysterious streets and blind alleys, leading one knows not where, and suddenly coming out upon some broad square or boulevard full of unexpected palaces and grand public monuments.

It was thus that we wandered into the old Market Square where Dietrick Slagheck, Archbishop of Lund and minister of Christian II., was burned alive. A slight stretch of the imagination made the place still to smell of roasted bishop. "Is this also the land of wooden shoes?" we asked ourself, as the rapid clatter of human feet upon the pavements recalled the familiar street-echoes of Antwerp. How eagerly the eye receives and retains each new impression under such circumstances! How sharp it is to search out peculiarities of dress, manners, architecture, modes of conveyance, the attractive display of merchandise in shop-windows, and even the expression upon the faces of men, women, and children! Children! if any one says the Danish children are not pretty, you may with safety contradict him. Their delicately rounded, fresh young faces are lit up by such bright, turquoise-colored, forget-me-not blue eyes as appeal to the heart at once. What a wholesome appetite followed upon this pioneer excursion, when we entered at breakfast on a new series of observations while satisfying the vigorous calls of hunger, each course proving a novelty, and every dish a fresh voyage of gastronomic discovery!

Copenhagen was a large commercial port many centuries ago, and has several times been partially destroyed by war and conflagration. It has some two hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, and is about six miles in circumference. The site of the city is so low as to render it necessary to protect it from the waters of the Baltic by artificial embankments. Like Amsterdam and Venice, it may be said to possess "remarkable water-privileges." We were told that the citizens were making earnest remonstrance as to the inefficient drainage of the city, which is believed to be the prime cause of a somewhat extraordinary percentage of mortality. In past times it has more than once been visited by the plague, which so late as 1711 caused the death of over twenty-eight thousand of its inhabitants. It is only some thirty years since, that over five thousand persons died here of cholera in one season. Fevers of a typhoid character prevail annually, which are no doubt with good reason attributed to want of proper drainage. Notwithstanding Copenhagen is situated so nearly at tide level, modern engineering could easily perfect a system of drainage which would render it independent of this circumstance. The safe and spacious harbor is formed by the channel between the islands of Zeeland and Amager, where there is ample depth and room to answer the demands of a far more extended commerce than the city is ever likely to maintain. The houses are mostly of brick, some of the better class being built of Norwegian granite, while the newer portion of the town presents many examples of fine modern architecture. The streets are of good width and laid out with an eye to regularity, besides which there are sixteen spacious public squares. Taken as a whole, the first impression of the place and its surroundings is