tion>Maturin M. Ballou
Due North; or, Glimpses of Scandinavia and Russia
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066238254
Table of Contents
DUE NORTH; OR, GLIMPSES OF SCANDINAVIA AND RUSSIA.
Genius in Sunshine and Shadow.
PREFACE.
About five years ago, the Author, having then just returned from circumnavigating the globe, was induced to record his experiences of the long journey, which were published in a volume entitled "Due West; or, Round the World in Ten Months." The public favor accorded to this work led, a couple of years later, to the issuing of a second volume of travels, upon the Author's return from the West Indies, entitled "Due South; or, Cuba, Past and Present." The popular success of both books and the flattering comments of the critics have caused the undersigned to believe that a certain portion of the public is pleased to see foreign lands and people through his eyes; and hence the publication of the volume now in hand. These pages describing the far North, from which the Author has just returned—including Norway, Sweden, Russia, and Russian Poland—seem naturally to suggest the title of "Due North." Without permitting prejudice to circumscribe judgment in treating of Russia, the effort has been to represent the condition of that country and its Polish province truthfully, and to draw only reasonable deductions. This special reference is made to the pages relating to the Tzar's government, as it will be found that the Author does not accord with the popularly expressed opinion upon this subject.
M. M. B.
Boston, March, 1887.
DUE NORTH;
OR,
GLIMPSES OF SCANDINAVIA AND RUSSIA.
CHAPTER I.
Copenhagen.—First Stroll in a Strange City.—Danish Children.—Antiquity of Copenhagen.—English Arrogance.—The Baltic Sea.—Danish Possessions.—Descendants of the Vikings.—Covetous Germany.—The Denmark of To-day.—Thorwaldsen's Remarkable Museum.—The Ethnological Museum.—Educational Matters.—Eminent Natives.—Charitable Institutions.—Antique Churches.—Royal Palaces.—Historical Memories.—City Architecture.—Zoölogical Gardens.
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
