292 PAGE SECTION V. PRUSSIA, CONTINUED-MECKLENBURG-HANOVER*-_ BRUNSWICK-HESSE CASSEL-THE HANSE TOWNS, &c. ROUTES. LVI. London to Hamburg 292 LVII. Hamburg to Lubec and Travemunde - 296 wick, and Magde In Brunswick and Hanover accounts are kept in Good Groschen (§ 55.) and Pfennings marked 360 Einen Thaler. ants. Passengers arriving by water at Hamburg are compelled to disembark in boats but the Senate has at last voted a large sum of money for the construction of a Quai along the Elbe, and for deepening the harbour, so as to allow steam-boats to lie alongside, and embark and disembark their passengers at once. fortifications are raised on it. Its Copenhagen, having 27,000 inhabitpopulation amounts to 3000. At the time when Napoleon had excluded England from the continent, it was important as a war-station; and from its situation near the mouths of the rivers Elbe and Weser, it then became a considerable smuggling depôt. Its male inhabitants are chiefly fishermen, sailors, and pilots. The sea is fast consuming its shores; and, in the course of time, will in all probability leave nothing behind but a sandbank it is now about two miles in circumference, but is diminishing daily. (1.) At the mouth of the Elbe staud the lighthouse and town of Cuxhaven, on a small angle of territory belonging to Hamburg. Vessels lie at anchor off this place waiting for favourable winds. It is a watering-place frequented by the inhabitants of Hamburg for sea-bathing. Beyond Cuxhaven, the left bank of the Elbe belongs to Hanover; it is for the most part flat and uninteresting. The only towns on this side are Stade, an unimportant place, and Haarburg, opposite Hamburg. The land on the (rt.) bank is the territory of the Duchy of Holstein, belonging to Denmark; it rises in gentle slopes, covered, for some distance below Hamburg, with wood, interspersed with handsome villas and gardens belonging to opulent merchants. On this side lies the small town of Glückstadt, capital of Holstein, with 6000 inhabitants. Higher up the little fishing village of Blankenese, with its houses scattered along the slope and among the trees one above another, is passed; and above it, the town of (rt.) ALTONA, which joins Hamburg, and from the river seems to form a part of it, though within the Danish territory. It has risen to great mercantile prosperity, perhaps to the prejudice of its neighbour, so that the Hamburgers say that its name agrees with its situation, as it is All-zu-nah (All too near). It is the most commercial and populous town in Denmark next to (rt.) HAMBURG. ·Inns: Hôtel de Russie, best; Alte Stadt London, on the Jungferstieg, is comfortable, and has a table d'hôte; Belvedere; Hôtel de Petersbourg. Hamburg is situated at a distance of about 80 miles from the mouth of the Elbe, at the junction of a small stream called the Alster with the Elbe. Being a Free Town, the duties levied are so small, that travellers are not bothered with any Custom-house examination on landing; but passports are usually demanded, and the traveller's name and profession are entered at the Baumhaus, near the port. Its population is reckoned at 121,000. There are about 6000 Jews, who, to the disgrace of this free town, are treated with the utmost illiberality, almost as a Pariah caste, being interdicted by law not only from enjoying the rights of citizens, but even from practising any handicraft trade. Money accounts are kept in marks and schillings; there are 16 schillings in a mark. The marc banco and rix dollar banco are imaginary coins. The mark banco is to the current mark as 16 to 13. rent coins are, The cur till 12, is demanded from all who pass. Down to the year 1836 neither ingress or egress was allowed to any one after midnight; but this inconvenient regulation is now removed, and persons may pass and repass all through the night, upon payment of one mark each. All eatables brought into the town are taxed at the gates, and even private carriages are sometimes searched, and game found in them has been seized. The executive government of the town is vested in a council or senate, composed of burgomasters, lawyers, and merchants, elected for life. The person chosen must accept the office, or quit the city, at the same time forfeiting one-tenth of his property. The members wear a quaint garb, a black velvet cloak, and high crowned hat The legislative power is placed in the hands of three Colleges selected from the general body of citizens. Hamburg is one of the three remaining Hanse towns, and is chiefly remarkable as the first trading seaport of Germany. It is intersected by canals, called Fleeten, and in this respect, in the antiquated appearance of its houses, and in the number of trees growing in its streets, bears a resemblance to the towns of Holland. Nearly 2000 vessels clear out of the port annually: the Elbe is navigable thus far for ships of considerable burthen, which can enter the harbour and transmit their cargoes in barges to the merchants' doors. Their warehouses and dwellings are generally under one roof. Much banking and funded business is done here, and the town possesses considerable sugar refineries besides which it is the depôt for a large part of the exports and imports of the N. of Europe. The traveller must not expect fine buildings, or valuable collections here; use, and not ornament, has been the guiding principle in the construction of public as well as private buildings. The objects chiefly calculated to attract a stranger's attention are, first, the costumes seen in the streets of Hamburg; they are not a little singular. Servant girls, housemaids, and cooks, according to the custom of the place, rarely appear in public except in the gayest attire; with lace caps, long kid gloves, and a splendid shawl. The last article is elegantly arranged under the arm, so as to conceal a basket shaped like a child's coffin, containing dirty clothes, butter or cheese, or other articles purchased at market, as the case may be. The peasants who frequent the market wear a very picturesque attire; they are chiefly natives of a part of the Hamburg territory bordering on the Elbe, called Vierland, which is principally laid out in gardens, and supplies the market with vegetables. Funeral processions in Hamburg are not composed of friends of the deceased, but of hired mourners, called Reiten Diener, dressed in black, with plaited ruffs round their necks, curled and powdered wigs, short Spanish cloaks, and swords. The same persons, whose number is limited to sixteen, attend at marriage festivals, and form also a sort of body-guard to the magistrates. Their situations were formerly purchased at a high price, in consideration of the perquisites and fees attached to them. Upon the death of a burgomaster or other personage of importance in the town, the town trumpeter, a civic officer, is set to blow a dirge from one of the steeples. A large portion of the poorer inhabitants live in cellars under the houses. In winter, and after a prevalence of west winds, which drive the waters of the German Ocean into the mouth of the Elbe, the tides rise to a great height (sometimes even exceeding 20 feet), inundating all the streets near the river. The tenants of these cellars are then driven from their habitations by the water, which keeps possession of them for days, leaving them filled with ooze, and in a most unhealthy condition from the moisA humane law compels those ture. who lodge above to receive and succour their poorer brethren below, at such seasons of calamity. The churches have little architectural beauty. St. Michael's has one of the highest steeples in Europe, 456 feet high, about 100 feet higher than St. Paul's in London, from which the town and the Elbe, nearly as far as the sea, Holstein on the north, and Hanover on the south, present themselves advantageously to view. It is also the station of the fire-watch (§39). The Senate House is not worth entering; it contains only public offices. At three o'clock the merchants, &c., meet in the Exchange. Near it are the news and reading-rooms, called Börsenhalle, a sort of Lloyd's coffee-house, supported by subscriptions. A stranger can be introduced for two or three days to read the papers, after which he is expected to subscribe. The Harmonia is another club (§ 40.), partaking of a literary as well as mercantile character. A new and handsome Exchange is about to be built. The charitable institutions of Hamburg are on a most munificent scale. The Orphan Asylum provides for 600 children, who are received as infants, reared, educated, and bound apprentices to some useful trade. The Great Hospital (Krankenhaus), in the suburb of St. George, is capable of containing from 4000 to 5000 sick. The yearly cost of supporting this admirable institution is nearly 17,000l. Its utility is not confined to the poor alone, as even persons of the higher classes resort to the hospital to avail themselves of the advantages of the excellent medical treatment which they may here obtain. Such patients are admitted as lodgers, on payment of a sum varying from 8d. to 8s. a day. The Chapel contains a good painting by Overbeck (a living artist), Christ on the Mount of Olives. The House in which Klopstock the poet lived thirty years and died, is No. 232 in the Konigstrasse. Ræding's Museum is a collection of odds and ends, with some real curiosities, where half an hour may be spent. when there is nothing better to do. The Jungfernstieg (Maiden's Walk) is a broad walk, by the side of a basin of water formed by damming up the river Alster. It is the fashionable promenade, especially resorted to in the summer evenings, when the surface of the water is covered with gaily painted boats filled with water parties. It is flanked by handsome rows of new houses. At the waterside are the two most frequented cafés in the town, called Pavilions. There are floating baths on the Alster. The New Theatre is one of the largest in Germany, and the performances and music generally very good. The play begins at six and usually ends before ten. The public ballrooms in and about the town, though not frequented by the most respectable classes, being often the resort of low company, deserve to be looked at as one of the peculiarities of the place. The best are the Elbe Pavilion, and the Schweitzer Pavilion. Hamburg had once the misfortune to be a fortified town, and in consequence was subjected to the horrors of a siege from the French, and was twice occupied by their armies, who, under Davoust in 1813, exercised the most cruel severities and atrocities upon the inhabitants. The Ramparts no longer exist, being levelled and converted into delightful boulevards or gardens, neatly laid out, which extend nearly round the town, and between the two Alster basins. A most pleasing view of the town and river, the shipping and opposite shore of the Elbe, presents itself from the eminence at the extremity of these walks nearest to Altona, called the Stintfang. Outside the Damm Gate is the public cemetery, which deserves a visit, as exhibiting the customs and usages of Germany with regard to the restingplace of the dead. (§41.) The merchants of Hamburg are |