originally for their own people only, have been read with
delight, even by those who had to spell them out with the help of a
dictionary and a grammar. This kind of homespun poetry is a sign of
healthy national life. Like the songs of Burns in Scotland, the poems of
Klaus Groth and others reveal to us, more than anything else, the real
thoughts and feelings, the every-day cares and occupations, of the people
whom they represent, and to whose approval alone they appeal. But as
Scotland, proud though she well may be of her Burns, has produced some of
the best writers of English, Schleswig-Holstein, too, small as it is in
comparison with Scotland, counts among its sons some illustrious names in
German literature. Niebuhr, the great traveller, and Niebuhr, the great
historian, were both Schleswig-Holsteiners, though during their lifetime
that name had not yet assumed the political meaning in which it is now
used. Karsten Niebuhr, the traveller, was a Hanoverian by birth; but,
having early entered the Danish service, he was attached to a scientific
mission sent by King Frederick V. to Egypt, Arabia, and Palestine, in
1760. All the other members of that mission having died, it was left to
Niebuhr, after his return in 1767, to publish the results of his own
observations and of those of his companions. His "Description of Arabia,"
and his "Travels in Arabia and the Adjoining Countries," though published
nearly a hundred years ago, are still quoted with respect, and their
accuracy has hardly ever been challenged. Niebuhr spent the rest of his
life as a kind of collector and magistrate at Meldorf, a small town of
between two and three thousand inhabitants, in Dithmarschen. He is
described as a square and powerful man, who lived to a good old age, and
who, even when he had lost his eyesight, used to delight his family and a
large circle of friends by telling them of the adventures in his Oriental
travels, of the starry nights of the desert, and of the bright moonlight
of Egypt, where, riding on his camel, he could, from his saddle, recognize
every plant that was growing on the ground. Nor were the listeners that
gathered round him unworthy of the old traveller. Like many a small German
town, Meldorf, the home of Niebuhr, had a society consisting of a few
government officials, clergymen, and masters at the public school; most of
them men of cultivated mind, and quite capable of appreciating a man of
Niebuhr's powers. Even the peasants