emitting light yellowish clouds.  Everywhere prevails a cheerful stir of busy life.  Carpenters are planing and hammering, porters are rolling casks, sailors are scrubbing the decks of vessels, or getting the sails half way up to dry them in the sun.  A barque just arriving comes alongside the quay, the other vessels making room for her to pass.  The little steamboats are getting up steam or letting it off; and when you turn toward the city, through the rigging of the vessels, you see the church-towers, which incline gracefully, like the masts of clippers.

[Footnote A:  From “A Winter in Russia.”  By arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Henry Holt & Co.  Copyright, 1874.]

[Footnote B:  The decline of Luebeck dates from the first quarter of the sixteenth century and was chiefly due to the discovery of America and the consequent diversion of commerce to new directions.  Other misfortunes came with the Thirty Years’ War.  As early as 1425, one of the constant sources of Luebeck’s wealth had begun to fail her—­the herring, which was found to be deserting Baltic waters.  The discovery by the Portuguese of a route to India by the Cape of Good Hope was another cause of Luebeck’s decline.]

HELIGOLAND[A]

BY WILLIAM GEORGE BLACK

In Heligoland itself there are few trees, no running water, no romantic ruins, but an extraordinary width of sea-view, seen as from the deck of a gigantic ship; and yet the island is so small that one can look around it all, and take the sea-line in one great circle.

Seen from a distance, as one must first see it, Heligoland is little more than a cloud on the horizon; but as the steamer approaches nearer, the island stands up, a red rock in the ocean, without companion or neighbor.  A small ledge of white strand to the south is the only spot where boats can land, and on this ledge nestle many white-walled, red-roofed houses; while on the rim of the rock, nearly two hundred feet above, is a sister hamlet, with the church-tower and lighthouse for central ornaments.

On the Unterland are the principal streets and shops, on the Oberland are many of the best hotels and government-house.  As there is no harbor, passengers reach the shore in large boats, and get their first glimpse of the hardy, sun-browned natives in the boatmen who, with bright jackets and hats of every picturesque curve that straw is capable of, pull the boat quickly to the steps of the little pier.  Crowds of visitors line the way, but one gets quickly through, and in a few minutes returns either to familiar quarters in the Oberland, or finds an equally clean and moderate home among the lodging-house keepers or seamen.  The season is a very short one, only ten weeks out of fifty-two, but the prices are moderate and the comfort unchallengeable....

Heligoland is only one mile long from pier to Nordkap, and a quarter of a mile wide at its widest—­in all it is three-quarters of a square mile in size.  There are no horses or carts in Heligoland—­only six cows, kept always in darkness, and a few sheep and goats tethered on the Oberland.  The streets are very narrow, but very clean, and the constant repetition in houses and scarves and flags of the national colors gives Heligoland a gay aspect; for the national colors are anything but dull.