ENCHANTMENT.

BY ALICE CARY.

SHORT TRIPS TO EUROPE.

MA

ANY Americans are deterred from visiting Europe by the disturbed condition of affairs in France, and many others by the mistaken notion that one must have a long vacation if he would make a pleasant trip across the water.

value. History has fresh interest. Story becomes reality. He lives his travels over again with all the pleasure of one who has passed years in wandering.

It is so very easy for an American to see Jerusalem, and yet few think of it as a possibility. The vacation time of summer is not fitted for Oriental travel, but many a man would go to the Holy Land if he but once took in the idea that he could accomplish it safely and comfortably, and return to New York within eight or ten weeks from the day of starting. The first objection which he raises to this suggestion is caused by his desire to linger along the way; and he thinks it impossible to push through so much travel and miss so much on the route. But go where he will, and linger where he will, he must miss a thousand other places that he would like to see, and he stays at home and misses all. Let him start from home, whatever he does, with a fixed object-to see a certain place, and take all else by the way. Then it matters little whether it be London or Jerusalem, he will accomplish an object, and inci

To the first difficulty we have no answer to offer, if Paris be included in any one's plan of travel. It is as well to wait a while. We are not of those who think the prestige of Paris forever gone, nor is there any reason to imagine that the French capital has suffered any diminution of splendor or gayety. On the contrary, a month of calm and perfect peace will undoubtedly remove every trace of the effects of war, and Paris will be Paris for a century. The trees in the Bois de Boulogne will be missed; but no more than in the Central Park of New York, where they are yet to grow; and the drives will be as thronged and as brilliant hereafter as heretofore. The fashions will rule supreme for some time to come, and certainly until some other people learn that inde-dentally do a great deal more. scribable something of taste and grace which distinguishes the French dress-makers.

But the general notion that a short visit to Europe is not worth making is a great error, and in these days of rapid transit should be dismissed from the mind of every one who has the means and the desire to travel. For travel is worth doing. It is education, and a very great part of education. It helps immensely in enabling men to measure themselves. It reduces egotism, while it cultivates just pride in one's own country and its institutions. It fits the young for reading and for appreciation. It is worth much while one is traveling, and worth vastly more for years after one has come home.

The purpose of this article is to help those who may desire to know what they can do in a brief time on the other side of the water.

And firstly and chiefly, all travelers for long or short time are apt to err in the desire to do too much. It is safe to say that many years may be passed in European travel without accomplishing all that could be done, and done with interest and profit. The traveler who expects to "do" Europe in two years finds himself as thoroughly mistaken as the one who thought to do it in one, or in six months. It would be vastly better for all who travel to direct their ideas toward one country, where they design to pass most of their time, and leave others to be visited as excursions of pleasure. Who that knows Switzerland at all will imagine that he could see all its glories and fill himself to satisfaction with the beauty and magnificence of its scenery in one, two, or five summers?

Happy is he who can find two or three months of leisure for a run to Europe, since in that time he can see so much that he has a treasure within himself forever after out of which he can draw endless delight. His books become new to him, and new books have new VOL. XLIII.-No. 253.-9

Suppose that he says, "I will see Jerusalem." He should leave New York with Jerusalem in view. Twelve days will take him comfortably, with his family, to London; the thirteenth day he will reach Cologne, on the Rhine; and on the fourteenth he will go up the river-bank by rail, and sleep that night, if he choose, at Mayence or Heidelberg, or push on into the heart of Germany. Then, in five days of easy day traveling, he will go through Munich and Innsprück, the heart of the Tyrol, and over the Brenner Pass by rail, through Lombardy, to Verona; thence down through Italy, by places famed in history, till he finds himself comfortably settled in the new hotel at Brindisi, on the shore of the Adriatic and Mediterranean. All of his route has thus far been in luxurious railway carriages, and the scenery of every variety known to the world, from the beautiful Rhine Valley to snow-capped Alps, and the green plains of Lombardy. The ride down through Italy, especially among the Apennines, is worth the whole journey once to take. It is only three days across the Mediterranean from Brindisi to Alexandria. Let him add four days or a week to his time, and he may run up to Cairo and see the pyramids of Egypt, go down to Suez and see the Red Sea, and look across at the wilderness of Sinai, and return to Alexandria in time for a steamer, two days, to Jaffa.

There is a hotel at the port of Jonah's departure, and if he be in good health, and the ladies with him have strength for a long day's ride on a walking horse, he can go up to Jerusalem in twelve hours, and thus his pilgrimage is accomplished. There are good hotels all along his route, and the time, as we have indicated it, is long for the route, because we suppose the party sleeping comfortably always at night, making only easy railway journeys by day. The route can be shortened several days

by night travel, and gentlemen traveling alone will often gain much by riding in the night, or part of the night, and visiting cities and places of interest in the day. The return route may be varied, with only a short addition of time, by taking the Austrian Lloyds steamer from Alexandria to Trieste, or the French Messagerie Impériale steamer to Marseilles. When the Mont Cenis Tunnel route is opened the whole time from London to Brindisi will be shortened to four or five days, and Jerusalem may be reached in twenty days from New York, if the steamers happen to connect exactly.

But we have mentioned this Eastern trip only as an illustration of the rapidity with which travel can be accomplished. Our present object is rather to furnish information for the present summer, when many of our readers have the time, and may have the inclination, to make a short run across the sea.

to Ostend, and continue by rail on the same day to Brussels, and here we start on our continental time-table. It is three days since we left Liverpool, having rested only a day in London.

A day in Brussels to see the cathedral, and another to visit the field of Waterloo, will be time well spent, and then it will pay well to pass the next day in Antwerp. But our route is to Cologne, and we go there in a few hours by rail. Brussels to Cologne, one day; Cologne to Coblentz, by Rhine boat, one day; Coblentz to Mayence, by boat, one day; Mayence to Baden-Baden, by rail, one day; Baden-Baden to Basle, by rail, one day. These five days of delicious and easy travel may be compressed into two if you are in haste, and choose to do it all by rail, or even into one day and night.

Switzerland is divided into two general parts by the mountains commonly known as the Bernese Alps. North of these lies Lake Lucerne, and south of them is the Rhone Valley. We will not undertake to make a guide-book of Switzerland in a brief article; but we will show what can be accomplished in a few days, making Lucerne our head-quarters in the northern part of the country.

Basle is the northern frontier town of Switzerland. Three hours hence you reach Schaffhausen, the Rhine falls. The next day you will go in a few hours to Lucerne, and make this your head-quarters for at least two weeks.

Count, as deducted from the time allotted to the journey, twenty-two days, to cover the voyage out and back from New York to Liverpool, and let us meet the traveler in Liverpool as he lands from the steamer. There is nothing here to detain him for an hour, unless he wishes to inspect the great docks, for Liverpool is only a commercial city, and in many respects is like New York. He wishes to go to the Continent, and we will set our faces thitherward at once. France is in such an unsettled condition now that we can lose nothing, and may gain much, by postponing our visit to Paris a few weeks, and we will, therefore, take it in our return There is scarcely a spot of interest in Northroute, while we devote the first few weeks of ern Switzerland which can not be reached in a our time to the Rhine and Switzerland. We few hours, by rail or carriage or boat, from go to London in a few hours. London is full Lucerne. The Rhigi is close by. You may go of hotels, yet strangers know little about them, by boat to Altorf in the morning, take a carand hesitate much in going there as to their riage to Andermatt, the top of the St. Gothard place of rest. The large hotels, like the Lang- Pass, beyond the Devil's Bridge, spend a night ham, the Charing Cross, and others, are well there, and return to Lucerne the next day. enough for those who have but a day or two to from Andermatt you may drive on to Coire, and stay; but if the traveler proposes to rest any pass a day or two in exploring the Via Mala time, he should go out and find good rooms at and other routes in that vicinity, and return to one of the numerous quiet family hotels cen- Lucerne by rail from Coire. On the return you trally situated. Fenton's in St. James Street, should pass a night at Ragatz, visiting the Baths or Mrs. Edwards's in George Street, or Flem- of Pfeffers, one of the most remarkable places ing's in Half-Moon Street, or any one of fifty in the world. From Lucerne you may go up others, will give him the accommodation he the lake to Brunnen, and drive on the same needs, and make him quite at home. But we day to Einsiedeln, the wonderful monastery. have determined to pass four or six weeks in Thence go on to Lake Zurich, cross the long Switzerland; and that being our object, we lin- bridge at Rapperschwyl, and take the rail to ger on the route only as it may suit our pleas- Zurich and Lucerne, reaching the latter place ure, not with the design of accomplishing any after only one night's absence. Or Einsiedeln travel work. For no one should make travel a may be taken on the return from Ragatz. Let labor. us add up some days of time:

We will go down to Dover in the afternoon, and pass a night at the Lord Warden Hotel, so that we may judge in the morning if the weather is pleasant to cross the Channel. If the steamers were large, the Channel crossing would be of small account. But the harbors are so shallow that they can not use large vessels. The regular boats are superb specimens of naval architecture; small, but strong and safe. The route is through Belgium, and we cross

Lucerne to the Rhigi and back.
Lucerne to Andermatt..
Andermatt to Coire.

Up and down the Via Mala.
To Ragatz...

To Rapperschwyl and Einsiedeln..
To Brunnen and Lucerne

Lucerne to St. Gall.

St. Gall to Appenzell.

Appenzell to Alstetten and down to Con

stance...

Constance to Lucerne..

Days. 2

1

1

1

1

Or

The simple fact is that one may pass a week

or a month or a summer at Lucerne, and make | against it. But some travelers are able to tesexcursions constantly which are pleasant. But as we are sketching a route for a short space of time, we will go on to Interlachen, crossing the Brunig by carriage, pass a week at Interlachen, and then go through Thun to Berne, pass a night, and proceed to Lake Geneva, at Lausanne; then to the head of the lake, giving a fortnight to the valleys of the Rhone and Chamouni, reaching Geneva fourteen or sixteen days after leaving Interlachen. The route thus sketched gives the traveler a view of the most celebrated scenery of Switzerland, and he may extend it by excursions as he pleases. We arrive at Geneva within fifty days from our start at Liverpool, and Paris is only one day distant, and London only two days. Within this time we have accomplished more in Switzerland than is often done even by those who linger all summer among the Alps, and, after passing a week or two in Paris, we shall be in America within ninety days from our start.

Now, in place of making Switzerland our object in the journey, let us start with intent to see something of Germany in the summer months.

tify, and ourselves among the number, that Italy is both healthy and pleasant in the warm months if the voyager take proper care of himself. How easily it can be reached, either in summer or winter, the routes already given will show. From London the choice of routes is varied. The most direct will be by Mont Cenis. The most pleasant will always be by the Cornice road along the coast, until the rail, now in progress, leads to the abandonment and destruction of that superb road. The most frequented route has been that through France to Marseilles, and by steamer to Civita Vecchia. But the routes through Germany have been more traveled since the war, and one can go from London to Venice very comfortably in five days. Then, Southern and Central Italy are now furnished with enough lines of rail to facilitate travel, so that Italy is no longer to be seen only from the window of a slow-going carriage, as in former days. From Venice we go in two hours to Padua, and in half a day to Bologna. From Bologna to Florence, over the Apennines, a glorious ride, in half a day. From Florence to Rome in a day, and from Rome to Naples in another. Returning, we go from Rome to Leghorn and Pisa in a day, from Pisa to Genoa in two days; and before long we shall do it by rail in one. From Genoa to Turin in a day, and to Milan in another. Thence it is possible to cross into Switzerland by any one of the famous passes, or, going to Verona, one may cross the Brenner by rail to the Tyrol and Germany, or Austria. Now condense the Italian trip thus:

Leaving Liverpool for the Continent by the same route as far as Coblentz, we ascend the Rhine, and pass the night at Frankfort-on-theMain instead of Mayence. Thence, by rail, we go to Eisenach and visit the old castle of Wartburg, proceeding next day to Berlin. From Berlin to Dresden is only four hours' ride. From Dresden to Prague is a pleasant day. From Prague to Vienna is another. Then we go through Salzburg to Munich, and so on to Augsburg and Nuremberg, and from one German city to another until we reach the Rhine Valley, and here we linger at Baden-Baden and Heidelberg, and perhaps run for a few days up to Lucerne to breathe the cool air of Switzerland. Perhaps no more pleasant route for sixty days' travel on the Continent could be devised To Naples than the following:

London to Venice..
Rest...

To Padua.....
To Florence
To Bologna..
Rest..

To Rome..
Rest..

Rest..
To Rome
Days. To Pisa.....

1

The traveler must learn to resist temptations on his route, if, indeed, he have a route. But, after all, it is safe to say that that man will pass the pleasantest two or three months in 2 Europe who goes without a route, determined only to enjoy his vacation, even if he does not get 1 out of London. We once crossed the sea with

Days.[

To Ragatz..

1

1

To Lindau.

To Augsburg

1

To Munich

1

Rest..

To Salzburg

1

To Ischl.

1

Rest..

To Vienna.

1

Rest.

3

Rest..

To Basle

To Zurich

Thence to England via Holland and Belgium, as slowly or as rapidly as you please, in from one to three weeks. Of course the traveler will add one day to every six of these routes for Sunday rest. All Christian travelers and all sensible travelers rest one day in seven.

We have thus far said nothing of travel in England, Scotland, and Ireland. It is not necessary to do so. England and Scotland are so thoroughly cut up by rails that a traveler may do what he pleases now, and as rapidly or as It is not likely that many will desire to visit slowly as he sees fit. If he desire to make a Italy in summer, for there is a strong prejudice | run through Scotland, before or after going to

the Continent, he can accomplish a great deal their largest profits, and understand not alone in two weeks, as for example:

Then down through England as rapidly or slowly as you please.

It would be a waste of time to give routes in Ireland, England, or Wales, where the traveler must, of necessity, choose for himself what he most desires to see.

No one need be deterred from visiting the Continent because of any apprehension about language. English is spoken in all hotels on the ordinary lines of travel, and in the most out-of-the-way places also. Continental hotels depend on American and English travelers for

THE

our language, but our ways and wishes. We never found but one hotel in Europe, Asia, or Africa where this was not true, and that one was at Wittenberg, where the hotel was poor, and the landlord insolent. Wittenberg needs a reformation in its hotels, especially in the Weintraube.

To sum up, then: One may go from New York to Berlin, and see the triumphant capital of the German Empire and the grand frescoes of Kaulbach, and be at his work in New York again in thirty days. One may leave this city on the first of the month, lie dreaming in his gondola for three or four golden evenings and moonlight nights in Venice, and reach New York again before the month is ended. Take these two skeleton facts, and on their dry bones build up as many days of rosy travel as you can give yourself and family this summer.

Editor's Easy Chair.

HE easiest chair must be shaken by the | And you will go back over the sea to America! throes of unhappy France. The apparent Just Heavens, how inscrutable is man!" The daily disintegration of a nation is the saddest of travels and explorations of the worthy Parisian spectacles; and as yet there is no sign of any had extended to Rouen; and Rouen was well man nor of any power to control the anarchy. enough, because it was in France; but the travTo many thoughtful Germans, of course, the eler was evidently uncomfortable until he was events of to-day seem only a sure revenge; and again in Paris. "In Paris, indeed," he said, seldom has the whirligig of time twirled so swift- with exquisitely French simplicity" in Paris a ly. Our fellow-citizen, Dr. Lieber, for instance, man of the world is at home!" And is any who, as a little child, was dismissed from school in thing more touching than a Parisian in London? Berlin in the year 1806, after the great defeat of How perfect are the familiar international gibe Jena, "because the French were coming," has and counter-gibe! The French play represents read, with the rest of us, in these latter days, the London. It is a scene of gloom and frigidity amazing story of the surrender of the nephew and despair. The "man of the world" accosts of the conqueror of Jena to the Prussian king his neighbors, but their language is foreign, and upon French soil, of the coronation of the King their aspect is forbidding; and at length the of Prussia as Emperor of Germany in Louis the lankiest-visaged caricature of a Briton holds Fourteenth's palace of Versailles, and of the vic-up his lean finger and shakes a solemn warntorious entry of the Germans into Paris. Is this, then, the grande nation, whose troops at Fontenoy gallantly begged the enemy to fire first? Is this the people of whom Thackeray said that well-educated Frenchmen do not believe that the English have ever beaten them, and that a gentleman in Paris was once ready to call him to the field of honor because he said that the English had whipped the French in Spain? And if you have a friend who was educated in France among the French, not among the English-French and French-English in Paris, ask him what the native histories say about French fighting. Thackeray said, again, that he had read a French history which calls the battle of Salamanca a French victory.

So glorious was France in its own fancy! Who does not recall it? Who has not seen upon his travels that smiling air of superiority in the gay city? Who has not been asked of his own country by his French master as if it were a land of ice and barbarians? There was a certain Frenchman, whom the Easy Chair remembers, who could not believe that the Chair would ever return to its own, its savage land. you are in France! But you have seen Paris!

"But

ing: "C'est Soonday!"-"Tis Sunday! and the French spectator is left to imagine that suicide immediately follows. But Punch gave the counter-gibe during the Great Exhibition, when it represented a party of Frenchmen, with shaved round heads and long mustaches and hands buried in peg-top trowsers, standing confounded before a wash-stand, one speculatively saying to the other, "What is that machine ?"

And this is the nation which a year ago believed itself to be the strongest in the world! "Why, e'en so: and now my lady Worm's; chapless, and knocked about the mazzard with a sexton's spade. Here's fine revolution, an we had the trick to see't." Yes, and a year ago we all thought it to be the greatest of military nations. Are our estimates of other nations as foolishly wrong? The story is as fruitful for the moralist as for the military critic; and the dullest student may begin to wonder whether the strength of the strong battalions which compel victory is in the numbers or in the spirit. Where lies the difference between Thermopyla and Sedan?

It is not a year since an American traveler came to a little village in Eastern France, not