Glimpses of Three Coasts

h promise which I made to myself back of that,-that is, to see the Copenhagen museums. I had looked forward to them

would seem, all that lay in his power to make it quite out of the power of travellers to do anything like justice to them. To really see the three great museums of Copenhagen-the Ethnographic, t

o twelve. There are in this museum over thirty large rooms, and nearly six hundred cases of labelled and numbered objects. All the rooms are of great interest; one co

ive to seven. On Sundays, you see, it is at the same hour as the Ethnographic! In this museum are eighteen large rooms f

or division a graphic picture of the royal life and luxury of that period. The whole of the great Rosenborg Castle, three floors, is devoted to this collection. How many rooms there are, I do not know,-certainly twenty; and there is not one of them in which I would not like to spend a half-day. Now, how do you think the Danish Government (for this is a national property) arranges for the exhibition of this collection? You may see it, on any day, by applying for a ticket the day beforehand;

have done all in his power to shut up from the general publ

and how it happens that I know anything; and my history be

naire came to know if I would not like to have them go at the same time, which would reduce the price of the tickets by two thirds. This I declined to do, preferring to have the enti

entered, cheerful, confident, and full of enthusiasm, especially about any and all relics of t

keen blue eye; hair about white, whiter than it should have been by age, for he could not have been more than fifty or fifty-five; a finely cut face, with great mobility, almost a passionateness of vivacity in its expression; a tall

ve so short a time in which to see these beautiful

roceeded to throw open the doors of mysterious wall-closets in

d with more rare and exquisite things than I could describe in a hundred pages; all these in one side of the first room! The first thing which my noble Dane pointed out was the famous old Oldenborg horn, of which I ha

notes of points which I wished to recollect. I think I might have been looking for this perhaps half of a minute, possibly one whole m

the catalogue to read then and there, only to associate what I saw with its place and with the illustrations in the catalogue, and to make notes for future use. He hardly

ened my catalogue again, and began to note some of the more interesting things. The very sight of the catalogue open in my hands seemed to act upon him like a scarlet flag on a bull. Instantly he burst out upon me again; and when I attempted to explain, he interrupted me,-did not give me time

museum," he said. "Perhaps my name is as

you will only hear me, I think I can make you u

you every time,-too many time. I

ing into my eyes. I was in despair. I turned to H

been almost unpardonably rude; yet I sympathized fully in his hot and hasty temper. I saw clearly wherein his mistake lay, and that on his theory of the situation he was right and I was wrong; and I thought perhaps if he watched me for a few minutes quietly he would see that I was very much in earnest in studying the collection, and that nothing had been further from my mind than any distrust of his knowledge. So I gulped down my wounded feelings, and went on looking silently at the cases and making my notes. Presently he began to cool down, to see his mistake, and before we had gone thro

nly one more day in Copenhagen, and tha

u will come again to Rosenborg. Promise! Take any hour you please, and I will come. You shall have four-five hours. Promise! Promise

understood, you would be friendly

in one little half-hour; and there are yet seventeen rooms you have not

ding in the halls of the Rosenborg. When I finally sai

be all good friends. I will show to

ue eyes flashing with determination and fire, and a smile on his face which I shall not forget

d I went back to my hotel with a sense of loathing of museums, only to be compared to the feeling one would have about dinners if he had eaten ten hearty ones in one day. One does not sleep off such an indigestion in one night. The next morning, nothing save actual terror could have driven me into a museum; and as my noble

e, 1730. Many of the most beautiful things in the museum I did not see, and of many that I did see I recollect nothing,

nother bridal ornament of a dead queen,-it had belonged to Dorothea, wife of Christian III.,-a gold plate, four or five inches square, with an eagle in the centre, bearing an escutcheon with the date 1557: on the eagle's breast a large uncut sapphire; over the eagle, an emerald and a sapphire; and under it, a sapphire and an amethyst, all very large. There are also pearls set here and there in the plate. This was given to the city of Copenhagen by the queen, to

ration by people who esteem ornaments of that sort. It is much less beautiful than some other orders of less distinc

elds held together by twists of gold cord; diamonds and pearls make it splendid, and that bit of gospel

panions fell to drinking one day on wagers to see who could drink the most, and scratched their names on the glass as they drank, each man his mark and record

in the middle, with gold escutcheons enamelled on them; the borders are of plain clear amber, rimmed with silver,-one big circle of amber! The piece from which it was cut was big en

nd for art and science, fought like a tiger, and loved-well, he loved like a king, I suppose; for he had concubines from every country in Europe, and no end of illegitimate princes and princesses whom he brought up, maintained, and educated in the most royal fashion. He lived many year

s on it; the lower half is covered with paintings, many portraits among them; and i

gold and silver; lamps of crystal; cabinets of ebony; orders and rings and bracelets and seals and note-books and clocks and weapons, all of the costliest and most beautiful workmanship; rubies and diamonds and pearls, set and sewed wherever they could be; a medicine spoon, with gold for its handle and a hollowed sapphire for its bowl, for instance,-the sapphire nearly one inch across. One might swallow even allopathic medicine out of such a spoon as that: and I dare say that it was when she was very ill, and had a lot of nasty doses to take, that Madame Kirstin-one of the left-handed wives-got from the sympathizing king this dainty little gift.

ll of black velvet, sewn thick, even solid, with pearls and gold, rubies, sapphires, and rose diamonds. The sight of them

od-stained linen hanging in one of the locked cabinets which does him more credit than these. It is the suit he wore at the great naval battle where he lost his eye. A shell exploding on the deck, a fragment of it flew into his face and instantly destroyed his right eye. His men thought all was lost; but he, seizing his handkerchief, clapped it into the bleedi

t Frederick had of providing for himself, and most lavishly too, all sorts of superfluities, which the Lord never would think of providing for any human being!-such, for instance, as a jewel box of silver, with fifteen splendidly cut crystals let into the sides, so that one can look through into the box and see on the bottom a fine bit of embossed work, the picture of the Judgment of Paris. Around these crystals sixty-two large garnets are set, and these again are surrounded by wreaths of flowers and leaves in embossed work, set thick with more diamonds than could be counted. A very pretty thing in its way, to stand on a dressing-table and hold the kind of rings worn at this time by the kind of persons who reigned in Denmark! Another pretty little thing he had,-not so useful as the jewel-box, but in far more perfect taste,-was a crystal goblet, in shape of a shell, resting on the back of a bending Cupid. Eight beautiful heads are cut on the sides of this cup, and there is standing on its curling base a winged boy. Its translucent shades and shadows are beautiful beyond words. It is said to be the most beautiful specimen in the world of work in pure crystal. The topaz

much like it as possible. So we find, in the rooms devoted to Christian V.'s reign, tapestries and cabinets which might all have come from France. One of the saloons is hung with superb tapestry, all with a red ground; and the tables and mirro

ed in gold,-orders of all sorts known to Denmark; elephants and St. Georges in silver and crystal and cameo; gold jugs, gold beakers, bowls of green jade, with twisted snakes for handles and dragons' heads at bottom; goblets of solid crystal, of countless shapes and sizes,-one in shape of a flying-fish borne by two dolphins; onyx and jasper

Danish Regalia, kept in a room hung with Oriental carpets, and with a floor of black and white marble. "In the middle of the floor a pyramid arises behind clear thick plate glass, from the flat sides of which, covered with red velvet, the rays of gold and precious stones flash upon us, whilst the summit is adorned by a magnificent and costly crown." This sentence is from the catalogue written by my friend the noble Dane, and is a very favorable specimen of his English. Bless him, how I do wish I had gone back to that museum! At this distance of time it seems incomprehensible to me that I did not. But that day I felt as if one more look at the simple door of a museum would make a maniac of me. So this is all I can tell you about the famous Rosenborg. And with the others I will not bore you much, for I have made this so long; only I must tell you that in the Ethnographic, which is in some respects, I suppose, the most valuable of them all, having five rooms full of Prehistoric antiquities from the stone, bronze, and early iron ages in every part of the world, and twenty or thirty rooms more full of characteristic things,-dresses, implements, ornaments, weapons, of the uncultivated savage or semi-savage races, also of the Chinese, Persians, Arabians, Turks, East Indians, etc.;-in this museum I found a most important place assigned to the North American Indian; and Dr. Steinhauer, the director of the museum, a man whose ethnographical studies and researches have made him known to all antiquarians in the world was full

the father had rudely tattooed on his breast. Here were specimens of the handiwork of every tribe,-of their dresses, of their weapons; those of each tribe carefully assorted by themselves. Dr. Steinhauer knew more, I venture to say, about the different tribes, their race affinities and connections, than any man in America knows to-day. When I told h

of shame of my country, that it should have been left for Denmark alone to keep a place in historic

with the mummied or half-petrified bodies lying in them, just as they were buried sixteen hundred years ago. The coffins were made of whole trunks of trees, hollowed out so as to make a sort of trough with a lid; and in this the body was laid, with all its usual garments on. There is an indescribable and uncanny fascination in the sight of one of these old mummies,-the eyeless sockets, the painful cheekbone, the tight-drawn forehead; they look so human and unhuman at once, so awfully dead and yet somehow so suggestive of having been alive, that it stimulates a far greater curiosity to know what they did and thought and felt, than it is possible to feel about neighbors to-day. I never see half a dozen of these mummies together without wishing they would sit up and take up the thread of their gossip where they left it off,-so different from the feeling one has about live gossips, and so utterly unreasonable too; for gossip is gossip all the same, and nothing but an abomination in any age, whether that of Pharaoh or Ulysses Grant. If I did not feel a dreadful misgiving that you had had enough museum already, and would be bored by more, I really wo

ss touches her to the quick, and she cannot refrain from perpetually breaking out into expressions of fondness for me, and gratitude, which are sometimes tiresome. The explanation of her good English is that her parents were English, though she was born in Copenhagen, has lived there all

he daughter with whom she lives, and for whom she works night and day, is the wife of that worthless fellow, our commissionnaire. He is a drunkard, and not much more than four fifths "witted." Harriet is pew-opener at the English church, and gets a little money from that; the clergyman is very kind to her, and she has the promise of a place at last in a sort of "Old Lady's Home" in Copenhagen. This is her outlook! I must send you the verses she presented to me yesterday. I had left her alone for the greater part of the forenoon, and she took to her pen for company. That was

Septe

utiful place. Eighteen miles of pathway he had made in the labyrinths of the island; had brought soil from the shore, and set gardens in hollows here and there. The house is a picturesque and delightful one; and in the great music-room, nearly a hundred feet long, there he lay dead, two days, in state like a king, with steamers full of sorrowing friends and mourning strangers coming to take their last look at his face. The king sent a letter of condolence to Mrs. Bull, and the peasants came weeping to the side of his bed; from highest to lowest, Norway mourned. On the day of the funeral, after some short services at the house, the body was carried on board a steamer, to be taken to Bergen. The steamer was draped with black and strewn with green. I believe I have told you of the beautiful custom the Norwegians have of strewing green juniper twigs in the street in front of their houses whenever they have lost a friend. No matter how far away the friend may have lived, when they hear of his death they strew the juniper around their house to show that a death has given them sorrow. It was a commentary on human life (and death!) that I never went out in Bergen without seeing in some street, and often in many, the juniper-strewn sidewalks. As the steamer with Ole Bull's body approached the entrance of Bergen harbor, sixteen steamers, all draped in black, with flags at half-mast, sailed out to meet it, turned, and fell into line on either side to convoy it to shore. Bands were playing his music all the way. At the wharf they we

the wonderful cathedral and its clock. The clock I didn't care so much about, though the trick of it is a marvel; but the twilight of the cathedral, lit up by its great roses of topaz an

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h a big paper of grapes and a deprecating face. "Excuse me, ma'am, but they were only one mark and a half a pound, and they 're much better than you'd get them in the hotel. Oh, I'll not lose my train, ma'am; I've plenty of time." And with another kiss on my hand she ran out of the room. Faithful creature! I shall never see her again

et; and I should say that at least three different Indian tribes in distress and one in drunken hilarity were wailing and shouting under my windows all the time! As for the fiacre-men,-how like fiasco, fiacr