FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   >>  
Indians are now murdering our frontiersmen at their impudent leisure, and that we are only able to send 1,200 soldiers against them, is utilized here to discourage emigration to America. The common people think the Indians are in New Jersey." This is a new and peculiar argument against keeping our army down to a ridiculous figure in the matter of numbers. It is rather a striking one, too. I have not distorted the truth in saying that the facts in the above item, about the army and the Indians, are made use of to discourage emigration to America. That the common people should be rather foggy in their geography, and foggy as to the location of the Indians, is a matter for amusement, maybe, but not of surprise. There is an interesting old cemetery in Baden-Baden, and we spent several pleasant hours in wandering through it and spelling out the inscriptions on the aged tombstones. Apparently after a man has laid there a century or two, and has had a good many people buried on top of him, it is considered that his tombstone is not needed by him any longer. I judge so from the fact that hundreds of old gravestones have been removed from the graves and placed against the inner walls of the cemetery. What artists they had in the old times! They chiseled angels and cherubs and devils and skeletons on the tombstones in the most lavish and generous way--as to supply--but curiously grotesque and outlandish as to form. It is not always easy to tell which of the figures belong among the blest and which of them among the opposite party. But there was an inscription, in French, on one of those old stones, which was quaint and pretty, and was plainly not the work of any other than a poet. It was to this effect: Here Reposes in God, Caroline de Clery, a Religieuse of St. Denis aged 83 years--and blind. The light was restored to her in Baden the 5th of January, 1839 We made several excursions on foot to the neighboring villages, over winding and beautiful roads and through enchanting woodland scenery. The woods and roads were similar to those at Heidelberg, but not so bewitching. I suppose that roads and woods which are up to the Heidelberg mark are rare in the world. Once we wandered clear away to La Favorita Palace, which is several miles from Baden-Baden. The grounds about the palace were fine; the palace was a curiosity. It was built by a Margravine in 1725, and remains as she left it at her death. We wandered through a
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   >>  



Top keywords:

Indians

 

people

 
Heidelberg
 

cemetery

 
tombstones
 

wandered

 

America

 

common

 

emigration

 

discourage


matter

 

palace

 

outlandish

 

grotesque

 

curiously

 

Caroline

 

supply

 

Reposes

 

figures

 

quaint


inscription

 

French

 

stones

 

opposite

 
effect
 
pretty
 

plainly

 

belong

 

neighboring

 

Favorita


Palace

 

grounds

 

remains

 

Margravine

 
curiosity
 
suppose
 

bewitching

 

restored

 

January

 
excursions

enchanting
 

woodland

 
scenery
 
similar
 
beautiful
 
winding
 

generous

 

villages

 

Religieuse

 
needed