In the morning I went for my breakfast to an English restaurant, a sort of pavilion of glass, whence I had a magnificent panoramic view.  The river spread out majestically through a forest of vessels with tall masts, of every build and tonnage.  Steam-tugs were beating the water, towing sailing-vessels out to sea; others, moving about freely, made their way hither and thither, with that precision which makes a steam-boat seem like a conscious being, endowed by a will of its own, and served by sentient organs.  From the elevation the Elbe is seen, spreading broadly like all great rivers as they near the sea.  Its waters, sure of arriving at last, are in no haste; placid as a lake, they flow with an almost invisible motion.  The low opposite shore was covered with verdure, and dotted with red houses half-effaced by the smoke from the chimneys.  A golden bar of sunshine shot across the plain; it was grand, luminous, superb.

[Footnote A:  From “A Winter in Russia.”  By arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Henry Holt & Co.  Copyright, 1874.  Hamburg is now the largest seaport on the continent of Europe.  London and New York are the only ports in the world that are larger.  Exclusive of its rural territory, it had in 1905 a population of 803,000.]

SCHLESWIG[A]

BY THEOPHILE GAUTIER

When you are in a foreign country, reduced to the condition of a deaf-mute, you can not but curse the memory of him who conceived the idea of building the tower of Babel, and by his pride brought about the confusion of tongues!  An omnibus took possession of myself and my trunks, and, with the feeling that it must of necessity take me somewhere, I confidingly allowed myself to be stowed in and carried away.  The intelligent omnibus set me down before the best hotel in the town, and there, as circumnavigators say in their journals, “I held a parley with the natives.”  Among them was a waiter who spoke French in a way that was transparent enough to give me an occasional glimpse of his meaning; and who—­a much rarer thing!—­even sometimes understood what I said to him.

My name upon the hotel register was a ray of light.  The hostess had been notified of my expected arrival, and I was to be sent for as soon as my appearance should be announced; but it was now late in the evening, and I thought it better to wait till the next day.  There was served for supper a “chaud-froid” of partridge—­without confiture—­and I lay down upon the sofa, hopeless of being able to sleep between the two down-cushions which compose the German and the Danish bed....