PARIS TO SCOTLAND.
When I bade you good-by at Paris June 12, the Oriental party had their faces turned toward New England, and the Vermonters had dreams of the Green Mountain State. Our itinerary was taking us through to New York without any stay of proceedings anywhere. Though our tickets would hold good through the season, the party decided to break up in the beautiful city of Paris, and each one take the reins in his own hands.
Our managers went to their homes, and we were left as free as the breezes of the mountains. For one, I was anxious to see old Scotland, and look over the places where our grandfathers and grandmothers are sleeping, and shake hands with our cousins, see the country where the pure Scotch blood flows freely in the veins of the people,—an article that is current not only in New England, but the world over.
I shall be only too happy to take you to Edinburgh, Glasgow, and through the Trossachs, getting the most we can out of Scotland in the time allowed us. If I do this, I might as well pick up the thread where I dropped it June 12. I shall not detain you very long either in Paris or London.
In Paris the first proper thing to do is to take a small boat up the Seine, stopping at the Eiffel Tower, where you can ascend up into the heavens either in a balloon or go up in the elevator of the tower. The balloon has been started recently as an opposition scheme. It has one advantage in this way, you can go as high as you please. It is held by a rope; and, when you get all of the ethereal regions you care for, they pull it down. However, when you are up in these institutions, Paris is spread out before you like a map; and, if you have taken a guide with you, which is the best thing to do, he will point out all the wonderful things of the city, and, when you return to your hotel, you start out more intelligently than you could without this panoramic view.
As you come up from the boat near the obelisk I referred to in my Egyptian letter, on the Rue Champs Elysées, the finest street or avenue probably in Paris, looking in one direction you see the Tuileries, the other way the Royal Arch of Napoleon.
This arch is a wonderful structure, standing on a slight elevation. The great warrior had the streets laid out so that they radiated from this point like the spokes of a wheel, in order that he might plant his cannon at this arch, and sweep the city in all directions. But the requiem has been chanted over this great general; and he is now sleeping in Hôtel des Invalides, a place you will want to visit before leaving the city. The sun, as it shines through the pale blue and yellow glass, gives a peculiar icy appearance, and will prove to be a picture unlike anything you ever saw before. Here you will see some of the cannon he captured, as well as the flags of other nations that he gathered in his hard-fought battles. On the pavements around his tomb are inscribed the names of the battles he won.
Leading from the altar above to the crypt beneath are flights of steps, at the foot of which is a bronze door with two caryatides in bronze, by Durot, one bearing a sceptre and crown, and the other a globe. Over this door are words taken from Napoleon’s will, which your guide will interpret in English, as follows: “I desire that my ashes shall repose on the banks of the Seine, among the French people I have loved so much.”
When we consider the thousands that lost their lives to gratify his pleasure and ambition, it sounds rather ironical. Hôtel de Ville is another place that will fill your eyes with admiration. The old building that stood there was commenced in 1533, and was nearly a century in building. It was destroyed in 1871. The Communists had taken possession of it, using it for several months as their headquarters, and had stored in the building large quantities of explosive material. When they were attacked by the soldiers, who shot every one that came out, some foolhardy fellow inside touched off the explosives, which destroyed the building and all there was in it.
In this condition it remained many years, but was finally rebuilt in greater splendor than the original.
The Champs Elysées is very broad, and up the avenue, past the Royal Arch, the people drive to the two-thousand-acre park; and afternoons it is full of people going and coming to that resort. Much of the way of this great avenue it is virtually a park. On either side and in the groves are built theatres and anything and everything for amusement, lighted in the evening with thousands of globe lights. A stroll up and back the Champs Elysées from 8 till 11 P.M. will feed the curiosity of any Yankee that may happen to be in Paris. One evening will be enjoyed at the opera, where you will see the finest opera building in the world.
Place de la Concorde is one of the finest squares in Europe, and carries with it much of historical interest. It was once called Place de la Révolution. Here the guillotine was erected. Louis XVI. lost his head here, also his queen, Marie Antoinette, Madame Roland, Charlotte Corday, as well as hundreds of the nobility.
Some morning early, say eight o’clock,—for that is early in Paris,—you had better visit Les Halles, the great market, situated at the rear of the Rue St. Honoré. This is a wonderful sight, and gives you some idea of the gastronomical powers of the French people, or, in other words, the amount it takes to feed a large city. Le Panthéon, or Sainte Geneviève, is situated on the hill Sainte Geneviève. This church was founded in 1764 by Louis XIV., in accordance with a vow made by him when ill at Metz.
It is built in the form of a Greek cross, and somewhat resembles the Pantheon at Rome. In the vaults of this church have been placed the bones of such men as Voltaire, Victor Hugo, and others of renown. Visiting these old churches in Paris can be carried to any extent one may wish; but most people get full of these things about the second day, and prefer some other diet.
You can step into a meat market where they handle nothing but horseflesh, and see the nice, fat quarters hanging there; also the place where they make sausages out of mule meat.
We can visit the place where they erect the scaffold where they behead the criminals. This is done on one of the main streets of Paris, free to all. Paris has fine streets, which are kept beautifully clean. No city, in my opinion, is ahead of them in that respect.
The people of France are groaning under taxation. Their debt is some four thousand million dollars. They have half a million standing army, another half million that drill a part of the time, also a million men enrolled that they can call out on short notice. The priests draw their money out of the state treasury. Sugar retails at twelve cents per pound, and every pound that is made has to pay a duty to the government. The idea of making beet sugar was first conceived in France. It is said that necessity is the mother of invention.
At the time of the great naval battle of Trafalgar, although Nelson lost his life, the English were victorious on the seas, crushing out the navy of France. They had been having their sugar from the islands. This supply was then cut off; and the people of France became desperate, and were even on the verge of riots. Napoleon called together his greatest chemists, and told them they must devise some way to manufacture sugar; and it resulted in extracting the sweet from the beet.
While in Paris, we visited the Sèvres china works. Their wares are noted the world over. In their ware-rooms you will see large, elegant pictures painted on porcelain and then fired or burned, which is a very difficult thing to accomplish.
We have feasted our eyes as we have traveled through the Old World on the works of the old masters, and seemingly nothing has outdone the wonderful work of art accomplished by this company. The process of manufacturing their wares was shown to us, and was exceedingly interesting.
Before we leave for London, we will take a day and visit Versailles. This can be done by railroad train or tramway; but the most enjoyable way, if there is a company of you, is to charter a tallyho. It is a ten-mile drive through charming scenery; and, with the jokes, puns, and conundrums that accompany such a drive, it is a thing of anticipation and delight.
Versailles is a place of some fifty thousand inhabitants. The main thing to visit is the palace and grounds, with immense fountains that play only the first Sunday in each month, except on special occasions. Louis XIII. built the first part of the palace, and Louis XIV. added to the original, and employed Le Brun to decorate the entire structure inside and Lenôtre to design and lay out the grounds, expending some forty million pounds.
This palace was used as the seat of the monarchy until 1789, when the Assembly Nationale overthrew the government, giving a free hand to the Revolutionists, who sacked the palace and ended its days as a royal abode. Later Louis Philippe spent six hundred thousand pounds in putting it in repair. He redecorated and converted it into a picture gallery and museum; and, as a whole, it is to-day one of the finest attractions of Paris. While there, you will want to visit the building where the royal carriages are kept, those that have become passé. There you will see the most expensive carriage ever built by any king or monarch, which it takes some eight horses to draw. It never was used but three times. Versailles is the first place to visit outside of Paris.
Fontainebleau, thirty-four miles south-west from the city, comes next. There you will find another palace and a wonderful forest of over forty thousand acres. The cheapest and best way to get an idea of the city of Paris or London is to hire a guide, and then take to the tops of the tramways and buses, fare two pennies. By making a few changes, you can go in all directions, and your guide, if a good one, will be continually calling your attention to things of interest; and it also gives you an idea of the broad acres these cities have flung their arms around and appropriated to their use.
Having spent several days here in Paris, we might as well pack our grips, and go through to London. This is about ten hours’ ride. You can go by the way of Dover, where it takes but little over an hour to cross the English Channel, which is a terror to all seasick people, or you can go by the way of Newhaven, and be on the channel some three hours. But, in looking over our tickets, I find we are to go by the way of Newhaven. You can leave at 9 A.M. or 9 P.M., the latter taking you through in the night, getting breakfast the next morning in London. The former way you take in the whole thing by daylight, excepting on the channel. There, if you are a good sailor, you are all right. Otherwise you are more likely to let out than take in. However, it makes but little difference. After the ten hours you will find yourself in the largest city in the world; and you will find no place more convenient and central than Hôtel Metropole, near Trafalgar Square, where stands the statue of Nelson on a very high pedestal.
Around this square are clustered some of the best hotels in London. The Metropole accommodates seven hundred people, and is always full. Here every man must have a silk hat; and the ladies in the evening are walking fashion plates, with a sprinkling of diamonds thrown in.
It will interest you to watch the head porter, a large, fine-looking fellow, dressed in uniform, from 8.30 to 9.30, as he sends the gentlemen and ladies away from the hotel, mostly to the theatres. The hansoms and four-wheelers, as they call them, fill the square. The porter has a whistle,—one whistle for hansom, two for a four-wheeler. The drivers respond instantly to the call. You tell the porter what you want, and you will be packed into your carriage and sent on your way to your destination before you have time to think about it. He told me he had frequently shipped three hundred in an hour.
I think the best thing to do is to take our trip into Scotland, and on our return finish up London the last thing before sailing for New York. The train we want leaves Euston Station at 10 A.M., due in Edinburgh at 6.30, a run of four hundred and forty miles in eight and one-half hours. It makes four stops, besides stopping twenty minutes for lunch at Preston. So any school-boy can figure out about how fast we have got to run. When the steam is on, the word “hustle” does not express it. We just went flying, and had to average about one mile a minute; and some of the way they claim to run seventy miles an hour.
We soon left London at our backs, passing through Bletchley, Rugby, Stafford, Crewe, Preston, etc., going through the north of England. This is an old country and under thorough cultivation, with its old English oaks, beeches, etc., and much fine scenery.
After two hours’ run, we find we are passing over and among the great coal fields; and we begin to see at our right and left the tall chimneys rolling out their dense volumes of smoke, and we soon learn that the great marts of manufacturing have located in this region. Off at our right is Manchester with her great cotton mills. Beyond are Huddersfield and Leeds, turning out the fine woollens. In another direction is Birmingham, with her great iron-works. Farther on we see at our left a beautiful valley; and we learn on inquiry that it is Windermere, or what is called the English Lakes, and is a fine resort of much gayety and a great place for coaching.
At 4.30 we found ourselves at Carlisle. When we leave there, we enter Scotland, and the picture changes. We find ourselves in a farming country, and everything looks charming: the small white cottages, neat and tidy, and from appearance love reigns within; even the dogs in the front yard smile when we go by, the chickens flap their wings for joy; the cattle in the field are sleek and lazy, either clipping the green grass or chewing their cuds with composure; the horses are willing and strong, as they put their shoulders into the collars, and draw in the large loads of grain and new-mown hay.
You will be delighted with the laddies and lassies of Scotland. The latter can grace the parlor or perform the duties of the kitchen, and, if necessity demands, can help their brothers in the field. It will do you good to look at them. The rose and peach have left their impress on their cheeks. The lass is one of those artless, light-hearted girls that think it is no harm to be kissed when coming through the rye; and, if I were one of the laddies, I should miss no opportunity in walking through the rye with her.
The laddie soldiers are very attractive, with their caps with drooping plumage, white waists and leggings and the Highland plaid skirt, and a sash of the same material coming around under the left arm and up on to the right shoulder, where it is fastened, then hanging down about to the knee. This, with ruddy, fresh, healthy countenance, makes a fine picture; and, if I were an artist, and wished to copy manhood in its fulness, I would certainly go to Scotland.
But you see I have been loitering by the way, and have said many things that might have been deferred until we reached Edinburgh, where we arrived about on time, and took carriages for the Royal Hotel on Princes Street, which is one of the main streets of the city and the hotel one of the best.
Here we found Carnegie, who is the great iron king of America, and wife. He has done much for Edinburgh. We saw one public building into which he had put two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Some think Edinburgh the finest city in Europe. While I do not care to risk my judgment or reputation in the matter, yet I am willing to say that we were delighted with the place and its suburbs.
Lord Lytton has said that it is a divine pleasure to admire, and that there are but few cities in Europe where the faculties of admiration can be so cultivated as in the grand old capital of Scotland. Whether it be antiquarian, romantic, picturesque, or scholarly, whatever is sought for, the tourist will find plenty of food in Edinburgh.
The city of itself has a population of two hundred and thirty-six thousand. While it is a seaport town, it seems to be dropped down upon the Highlands of Scotland, and has its ups and downs, and is very picturesque.
The first thing to attract your attention as you enter the city is the castle. This is a summit of rock some four hundred feet above the level of the sea. The top has a space of seven acres, and is a military fortress. It reminds one of the Acropolis of Athens. This place was used as a stronghold long before the authentic records of Scottish history; but none of the present buildings, with the exception of the little Norman chapel of Queen Margaret, date farther back than the fifteenth century. At one time it had a tower on it sixty feet high, called the tower of David II., erected about the year 1370.
In 1573 the gallant Kirkcaldy held the fortress for Queen Mary when it was attacked by Sir William Drury, who had five batteries playing on one point nine days, and David’s tower was battered completely down, so that egress or ingress was impossible; and after thirty-three days the gallant Kirkcaldy surrendered, and had to be let down, he and his men, with ropes.
To-day the Highland laddies have their quarters there.
Calton Hill, farther north on a line with Prince Street, with an elevation of three hundred and forty feet above the sea, is another place of interest. On this is Dugald Stewart’s monument and the royal observatory.
Here your curiosity will be excited when you see twelve stone columns forming the end of a building, looking like the Parthenon at Athens. You will ask some of the Scotch boys or girls that are playing about there the name of the structure, and they will say it is Edinburgh Folly. On further investigation we found that George IV. in 1822 commenced a monument to the Scotchmen that had fallen in the land and sea battles of Napoleon’s time, and erected these twelve pillars at a cost of one thousand pounds each, when the funds gave out; and there it stands as a curiosity of the nineteenth century.
The finest thing on this elevation is Nelson’s monument, in circular form, one hundred and two feet high, with winding staircase inside, and battlemented summit, erected in 1815. On the flag-staff a huge ball is rigged, and is moved by mechanism adjusted to the observatory, that drops daily at one o’clock, Greenwich time, and communicates with and discharges instantaneously a gun at the castle. You can pay threepence, and go to the top of this monument, if you wish.
Scotland owes much to Sir Walter Scott. His Highland chief and other works have thrown a beautiful picture of Scotland broadcast to the world, and have attracted many tourists to the land so much admired by the great author.
In front of the Royal Hotel stands a beautiful monument, about two hundred feet high, costing some seventy-five thousand dollars, its cruciform, Gothic spire supported on four early English arches, which serve as a canopy for the marble statue of Sir Walter as he sits there upon a granite pedestal, with a book in his hand, and beside him lies his favorite dog, Maida. In the niches above the several arches are a great number of statuettes of leading characters of Scott’s works, and there are many medallion likenesses of national poets.
I think the symmetry and beauty of this monument are wonderful. Every time I saw it I stopped and admired its beauty. The architect was a self-taught genius by the name of George Meikle Kemp, who was accidentally drowned in the Union Canal before this work was fully completed.
A little west of this monument is a bronze statue of Adam Black, Lord Provost and M.P. for the city, who was publisher of the Encyclopædia Britannica.
East, there are many other statues, those of Livingstone, Christopher North, Allan Ramsay, and Professor Simpson. These are all located in Princes Street Gardens, a beautiful place for a ramble at twilight, which at this season of the year in Edinburgh comes at a late hour. The chickens here retire about ten in the evening; and the mother can begin to scratch for them as early as three in the morning, if she wishes to do so. There are virtually only some four hours of darkness. In the winter this is reversed. Daylight is dealt out in small doses, darkness in quantity. The only objection to Edinburgh is that it is too near Norway, but I suppose our Scotch cousins think that what they lose in winter they make up in the summer.
Burns, the poet, spent much of his time here. It was also the home of John Knox, the great reformer. In the old part of the city you will see the house where he wrote the History of the Reformation. This is where he escaped the bullet of an assassin when it struck the candlestick before him, while he was sitting in meditation. It is said to be one of the oldest houses in the city. Knox died in this house in 1572, age sixty-seven. You will be shown a balcony where he used to stand and address the people. Near by the balcony are inscribed in Roman letters the first and second great commandments.
In Parliament Square you will see a small surface bronze stone in the ground, with the initials J. K. Here, Nov. 26, 1572, was placed all that was mortal of John Knox. The nobles and citizens were gathered there at that time, and Regent Morton pronounced over him a memorable eulogium, in which he used these words: “Here will rest the ashes of him who never feared the face of any man.” Courage is one of the characteristics of the Scotch people. John Knox no doubt had his share.
The Mercat Cross, in one of the squares of Edinburgh, with its history, is worthy of your attention. It is as old as Edinburgh itself. It was destroyed in 1577; but in 1885, through the efforts of Mr. Gladstone, it was restored, and around it to-day are clustered the memories of perilous days. Here the citizens celebrated the accessions of all the Jameses, the blue blanket was unfurled, at the sound of the bells of St. Giles the burghers gathered to fight the English or to defend the town from hostile inroads. It was the place where the crier stood to proclaim the laws or sale of goods. James VI. and Charles I. endeavored here to impose laws which Scotland refused to obey. Charles II. followed in the same foolish way, and many victims of the persecuting times came to a martyr’s crown at the cross.
The Holyrood Palace and chapel and Parliament Building are places of interest; but one of the largest buildings in Scotland is the Museum of Art and Science, four hundred feet long, two hundred feet wide, ninety feet high, lighted in the evening by horizontal rods in the roof, studded with gas-burners. The number of jets is five thousand.
You, no doubt, would enjoy staying longer in Edinburgh; but the wheels of time are moving rapidly, and we will take the train to-morrow morning for Melrose. About one and a half hours’ ride will give us a delightful day.