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[Illustration: Signed:--Geo. H. Heffner]



The Youthful Wanderer;

or An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
and the Rhine, Switzerland, Italy, and Egypt

Adapted to the Wants of Young Americans Taking Their First Glimpses at the
Old World

by

Geo. H. Heffner.


1876.




Preface.



It had been fashionable among the ancients, for men of learning to visit
distant countries and improve their education by traveling, after they had
completed their various courses of study in literary institutions, and the
same custom still prevails in Europe at the present time; but in our
country, comparatively few avail themselves of this finishing course. It
is not strange that this should have been so with a people who are
separated from the rest of the world by such wide oceans as we are, which
could, up to a comparatively recent period, only have been crossed at a
sacrifice of much time and money, and at the risk of loosing either life
or health. These difficulties have been greatly reduced by the application
of steam-power to navigation, and the time has come when an American can
make the tour of Europe with but little more expenditure of time and money
than it costs even a native of Europe to do it.

One of my principal objects in writing this book is to encourage others to
make similar tours. We would have plenty of books no traveling, if some of
them did represent the readers in the humbler spheres of life, but the
general impression in America is that no one can see Europe to any
satisfaction in less than a year or two and with an outlay of from a
thousand to two thousand dollars. This is a great mistake. If one travels
for pleasure mainly, it will certainly require a great deal of time and
money, but a hard-working student can do much in a few months. Permit me
to say, that one will see and experience more in two weeks abroad, than
many a learned man in America expects could be seen in a year. I sometimes
give the particulars of sights and adventures in detail, that the reader
may take an example of my experience, for any tour he may propose to make.
The times devoted to different places are given that he may form an
estimate of the comparative importance of different places.

Statistics form a leading feature of this work, and these have been
gathered and compiled with special reference to the wants of the student.
Many an American scholar studies the geography and history of foreign
countries at a great disadvantage, because he can not obtain a general
idea of the institutions of Europe, unless he reads half a dozen works on
the subject. To do this he has not the time. This work gives, in the
compass of a single volume, a general idea of all the most striking
features of the manners, customs and institutions of the people of some
eight different nations speaking as many different languages and dialects.

As the sights that one sees abroad are so radically different from what we
are accustomed to see at home, I feel pained whenever I think of
describing them to any one. If you would know the nature of my
perplexity, then go to Washington and see the stately magnificence of our
National Capitol there, and then go and describe what you have seen to one
who has never seen a larger building than his village church; or go and
see the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, and then tell your neighbor
who has never seen anything greater than a county fair, how, what he has
seen compares with the World's Fair! I too am proud of our country, (not
so much for what she now is, but because she promises to become the
greatest nation that ever existed), but it must be confessed, that America
presents little in the sphere of architecture that bears comparison with
the castles, palaces and churches of the Old World. The Capitol at
Washington, erected at the cost of twelve and a half millions, the City
Hall of Baltimore, perhaps more beautiful but less magnificent, and other
edifices that have been erected of late, are structures of which we may
justly be proud; but let us take the buildings of the "Centennial
Exposition" for a standard and compare them with some of those in Europe.
The total expenses incurred in erecting all the exposition buildings, and
preparing the grounds, &c., with all the contingent expenses, is less than
ten million. But St. Peter's in Rome cost nine times, and the palace and
pleasure-garden of Versailles twenty times as much as this! It is safe to
assert, that if a young man had but two hundred dollars with six weeks of
time at his command, and would spend it in seeing London and Paris, he
could never feel sorry for it. _Young student go east._




Contents.



Chapter I.

  Leaving Home
  New York
  Brooklyn--Plymouth Church
  Extracts from Henry Ward Beecher's Sermon
  Greenwood Cemetery
  Barnum's Hippodrome
  On Board the "Manhattan"
  Setting Sail--The Parting Hour
  Sea-Sickness
  A Shoal of Whales
  Approaching Queenstown--The First Sight of Land
  Coasting Ireland and Wales
  Personal Incidents--Life-boat, No. 5


Chapter II.

  Liverpool
  The Mystical Letters "IHS" mean Jesus
  The Wonderful Clock of Jacob Lovelace


Chapter III.

  Chester--Origin of the Name
  The Rows or Second-Story Pavements
  The Cathedral and St. John's
  The Walls
  Birmingham
  _Railroads in Europe_


Chapter IV.

  Stratford-on-Avon--- Shakespeare's Birthplace
  Shottery--Anne Hathaway's Home
  Shakespeare's Grave


Chapter V.

  Warwick--St. Mary's
  Kenilworth Castle
  Approaching Coventry--"The Lover's Promenade"
  Coventry--Its Fine Churches
  Warwick Castle
  Oxford--The Great University


Chapter VI.

  London.

  Its Underground Railroads
  Territory, Population and Other Statistics
  St. Paul's Cathedral
  Crystal Palace
  The Houses of Parliament
  Westminster Abbey
  _Ensigns Armorial, &c._
  Sunday in London
  Hyde Park--Radical Meeting
  The Tower of London


Chapter VII.

  London to Paris.

  Strait of Dover
  Calais


Chapter VIII.

  Paris.

  Its Railway Stations,
  _Lack of Delicacy in Many of the Social Habits and Institutions
    Among the People of Warm Countries_
  The Boulevards, Rues, &c.
  Arcades and Passages
  Palais Royal
  Its Diamond Windows
  The Cafe--A Characteristic Feature of Modern
  Civilization
  Champs Elysees
  Palais de l'Industrie or the Exhibition Buildings
  Place de la Concorde and the Obelisk of Luxor
  Garden of the Tuileries
  The Arch of Triumph
  Other Triumphal Arches
  The Tomb of Napoleon I
  Artesian Wells
  Notre Dame Cathedral
  The Pantheon
  The Madeleine
  The Louvre
  Theaters and Operas
  At a Ball
  Incidents


Chapter IX.

  St. Cloud
  The Palace at Versailles
  The Pleasure-Garden


Chapter X.

  Leaving Paris
  Brussels
  The Cathedral
  Hotel de Ville
  Antwerp
  _The Spirit of Revolution_
  Notre Dame Cathedral
  The Museum


Chapter XI.

  Holland.

  The Hague
  _Cloak-Rooms_
  Utrecht


Chapter XII.

  Cologne
  The Cathedral
  The Museum
  Depths of Man's Degradation
  Bonn
  The Kreuzberg
  The Drachenfels


Chapter XIII.

  Coblentz
  Geological Laws
  On the Rhine
  Frankfort
  Darmstadt
  Worms


Chapter XIV.

  The Palatinate, (_Die Pfalz_).

  Mannheim
  Neustadt
  Heidelberg
  The Castle
  The Great Tun
  Stuttgart
  Strassburg
  The Black Forest


Chapter XV.

  Switzerland.

  The Rigi
  The Giessbach Falls
  The Rhone Glacier
  The Grimsel
  The Cathedral of Freiburg
  Berne


Chapter XVI.

  Geneva to Turin
  Mont Cenis Tunnel

  Italy.

  Its Fair Sky and Beautiful People,
  Milan
  Venice
  San Marco


Chapter XVII.

  Venice to Bologne
  Florence
  Pisa
  Going Southward


Chapter XVIII.

  Rome.

  The Colosseum
  The Roman Forum
  The Site of the Ancient Capitol
  "Twelve"
  The Temple of Caesar
  The Baths of Caracalla
  The Pyramid of Cestius
  St. Peter's
  The Lateran
  Santa Maria Maggiore
  Museums


Chapter XIX.

  Rome to Brindisi.

  Ascent