E-text prepared by Susan Skinner, Janet Blenkinship,
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FROM

POLE TO POLE

A BOOK FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

BY

SVEN HEDIN

CONTENTS

PART I

I

ACROSS EUROPE

Stockholm to Berlin

Our journey begins at Stockholm, the capital of my native country. Leaving Stockholm by train in the evening, we travel all night in comfortable sleeping-cars and arrive next morning at the southernmost point of Sweden, the port of Trelleborg, where the sunlit waves sweep in from the Baltic Sea.

Here we might expect to have done with railway travelling, and we rather look for the guard to come and open the carriage doors and ask the passengers to alight. Surely it is not intended that the train shall go on right across the sea? Yet that is actually what happens. The same train and the same carriages, which bore us out of Stockholm yesterday evening, go calmly across the Baltic Sea, and we need not get out before we arrive at Berlin. The section of the train which is to go on to Germany is run by an engine on to a great ferry-boat moored to the quay by heavy clamps and hooks of iron. The rails on Swedish ground are closely connected with those on the ferry-boat, and when the carriages are pushed on board by the engine, they are fastened with chains and hooks so that they may remain quite steady even if the vessel begins to roll. As the traveller lies dozing in his compartment, he will certainly hear whistles and the rattle of iron gear and will notice that the compartment suddenly becomes quite dark. But only when the monotonous groaning and the constant vibration of the wheels has given place to a gentle and silent heaving will he know that he is out on the Baltic Sea.

We are by no means content, however, to lie down and doze. Scarcely have the carriages been anchored on the ferry-boat before we are on the upper deck with its fine promenade. The ferry-boat is a handsome vessel, 370 feet long, brand-new and painted white everywhere. It is almost like a first-class hotel. In the saloon the tables are laid, and Swedish and German passengers sit in groups at breakfast. There are separate rooms for coffee and smoking, for reading and writing; and we find a small bookstall where a boy sells guidebooks, novels, and the Swedish and German newspapers of the day.

MAP SHOWING JOURNEY FROM STOCKHOLM TO BERLIN.

The ferry-boat is now gliding out of the harbour, and every minute that passes carries us farther from our native land. Now the whole town of Trelleborg is displayed before our eyes, its warehouses and new buildings, its chimneys and the vessels in the harbour. The houses become smaller, the land narrows down to a strip on the horizon, and at last there is nothing to be seen but a dark cloud of smoke rising from the steamers and workshops. We steam along a fairway rich in memories, and over a sea which has witnessed many wonderful exploits and marvellous adventures. Among the wreckage and fragments at its bottom sleep vikings and other heroes who fought for their country; but to-day peace reigns over the Baltic, and Swedes, Danes, Russians, and Germans share in the harvest of the sea. Yet still, as of yore, the autumn storms roll the slate-grey breakers against the shores; and still on bright summer days the blue waves glisten, silvered by the sun.

Four hours fly past all too quickly, and before we have become accustomed to the level expanses of the sea a strip of land appears to starboard. This is Rügen, the largest island of Germany, lifting its white chalk cliffs steeply from the sea, like surf congealed into stone. The ferry-boat swings round in a beautiful curve towards the land, and in the harbour of Sassnitz its rails are fitted in exactly to the railway track on German soil. We hasten to take our seats in the carriages, for in a few minutes the German engine comes up and draws the train on to the land of Rügen.

The monotonous grind of iron on iron begins again, and the coast and the ferry-boat vanish behind us. Rügen lies as flat as a pancake on the Baltic Sea, and the train takes us through a landscape which reminds us of Sweden. Here grow pines and spruces, here peaceful roe-deer jump and roam about without showing the slightest fear of the noise of the engine and the drone of the carriages.

Another ferry takes us over the narrow sound which separates Rügen from the mainland, and we see through the window the towers and spires and closely-packed houses of Stralsund. Every inch of ground around us has once been Swedish. In this neighbourhood Gustavus Adolphus landed with his army, and in Stralsund Charles XII. passed a year of his adventurous life.

In the twilight the train carries us southwards through Pomerania, and before we reach Brandenburg the autumn evening has shrouded the North German lowland in darkness. The country is flat and monotonous; not a hill, hardly even an insignificant mound, rises above the level expanse. Yet the land has a peculiar attraction for the stranger from Sweden. He thinks of the time when Swedish gun-carriages splashed and dashed through the mud before the winter frost made their progress still more difficult and noisy. He thinks of heroic deeds and brave men, of early starts, and horses neighing with impatience at the reveille; of victories and honourable peaces, and of the captured flags at home.

If he is observant he will find many other remembrances in the North German low country. Boulders of Swedish granite lie scattered over the plain. They stand out like milestones and mark the limits of the extension of the Scandinavian inland ice. During a colder period of the world's history all northern Europe was covered with a coat of ice, and this period is called the Ice Age. No one knows why the ice embraced Scandinavia and the adjacent countries and swept in a broad stream over the Baltic Sea. And no one knows why the climate afterwards became warmer and drier, and forced the ice to melt away and gradually to leave the ground bare. But we know for a fact that the boulders in northern Germany were carried there on the back of an immense ice stream, for they are composed of rocks which occur only in Scandinavia. The ice tore them away from the solid mountains; during its slow movement southwards it carried them with it, and when it melted the blocks were left on the spot.

At last points of light begin to flash by like meteors in the night. They become more and more numerous, and finally come whole rows and clusters of electric lamps and lighted windows. We are passing through the suburbs of a huge city, one of the largest in the world and the third largest in Europe—Berlin.

Berlin

If we spread out on the table a map of Europe on which all the railways are indicated by black lines, the map will look like a net with irregular meshes. At all the knots are towns, large centres of population which are in constant communication with one another by means of the railways. If we fix our eyes on North Germany, we see what looks like an enormous spider's web, and in the middle of it sits a huge spider. That spider is called Berlin. For as a spider catches its prey in an ingeniously spun net, so Berlin by its railways draws to itself life and movement not only from Germany but from all Europe—nay, from the whole world.

If we could fly some hundreds of miles straight up into the air and had such sharp eyes that we could perceive all the coasts and boundaries of Europe, and plainly distinguish the fine lines of the railways, we should also see small, dark, short forms running backwards and forwards along them. We should see, as it were, a teeming ant-hill, and after every ant we should see a small puff of smoke. In Scandinavia and Russia the bustle would seem less lively, but in the centre of Europe the ants would scurry about with terrible activity.

Whether it was winter or summer, day or night, the bustle would never grow less. From our elevated point of view we should see innumerable trains flying in the night like glow-worms in every direction. Ceaselessly they rush between cities and states, between the sea-coast and the inland districts, and to and from the heart of Europe. For during the last twenty years Berlin has become the heart of Europe. London is situated on an island, and Paris is too near the margin of the Continent. But in Berlin several of the greatest railway routes meet, and whether the traveller goes from Paris to St. Petersburg, from Stockholm to Rome, or from Hamburg to Vienna, he has always to pass through Berlin.

In the city which is "the heart of Europe" we must expect to find the main thoroughfares crowded with foot-passengers of all nationalities, and vehicles of every conceivable kind—motor cars, electric trams, horse omnibuses, vans, cabs, carts, and so on. Yet in spite of their endless streams of traffic, the streets of Berlin are not noisy—not nearly so noisy as those of Stockholm—for they are paved with asphalt and wood, and most of the conveyances have rubber tyres on their wheels. As in other large cities, the streets are relieved of a great deal of traffic by trains which run right through the town and round its suburbs, either up in the air on viaducts, or underground in tunnels lighted by electricity. At the Frederick Street Station of the City Railway, which lies in the centre of the town, a train arrives or departs every other minute of the day and of a good part of the night as well.

Not far off is a square—the "King's Place"—where a monument to commemorate the victory of the Germans over the French, in 1871, lifts its spire above the city, with three rows of cannon captured in France in its recesses. Close at hand, too, are the shady walks in the "Tiergarten" (Park), where all Berlin is wont to enjoy itself on Sundays. When we turn eastwards, we have to pass through a great colonnade, the Brandenburg Gate, with Doric pillars supporting the four-horsed chariot of the goddess of victory in beaten copper. Here the German army entered Berlin after the conquest of France and the founding of the German Empire.

On the farther side of this gate stretches one of the most noted streets in Europe. For if Berlin is the heart of Germany, so is the street called "Unter den Linden" (Under the Lime-Trees) the centre and heart of Berlin. There are, indeed, streets which are longer, for this extends only two-thirds of a mile, but hardly any which are broader, for it is 66 yards across. Between its alternate carriage-roads and foot-walks four double rows of limes and chestnuts introduce a refreshing breath of open country right into the bosom of the great town of stone, with its straight streets and heavy, grey square houses. As we wander along "Unter den Linden" we pass the foreign embassies and the German government offices, and, farther on, the palace of the old Kaiser Wilhelm, which is unoccupied and has been left exactly as it was in his lifetime. He used to stand at a corner window on the ground floor, and look out at his faithful people.