Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/62

54 rises handsomely from amid a noble grove of chesnut-trees; but, like all the other palaces, it is empty and deserted. We met no dark-haired Danes, and my companion fell desperately in love with more than one blue-eyed Chrysocome. In the evening we went to Renz’s Circus, of almost continental celebrity—and facile princeps of all Ducrows, Battys, and Cookes. The great feature of the evening was a swinging-boy; but our readers have seen Leotard, so I shall not describe him. There was, of course, Mr. Merryman, who, of course, had some English ribaldry to utter, and there was the usual India-rubber-man void of joints, quite unpleasant to look at, and, to conclude, a grand medley combining the various excellencies of an English cup-race, steeple-chace, and fox-hunt, with blue and red-fire besides.

After a plunge in the fiord from the baths which are built in the centre of the stream, we started for Elsinore—a trip of a few hours down the Sound. The Danish coast near the city is low and wooded, dotted here and there with the country houses of the wealthy Copenhagenites, and tiny villages with pearly-thatched cottages: then low, sandy cliffs, and as you go down towards Elsinore the coast is bolder; we were too far off to see the character of the Swedish coast. The Sound, the scene, by the way, of the dispute some few years back about the shipping dues, when England paid 500,000l. as her share of compensation money for the withdrawal of those hideous exactions, the Sound dues were called before that time, from these lucrative taxes, the “Gold Mine of the King of Denmark.” Though it has not the blue beauties of the Bosphorus, or even of the Menai Straits, still the Sound is not without beauty, but we admired it more at home than on board the steamer, for the sea has a way of twisting itself about when it blows hard, in a way peculiar to narrow channels, and by no means agreeable. It was full of Danish men of war and the entrance is strongly fortified by two castles, one on each coast.

The Sound at Elsinore is about four miles in width, and is commanded on each side by the castles of Elsinore and Helsingborg: thus it is not so wide as the Hellespont, which is five miles across. King Harold Hardrada’s fleet is said to have reached across it. The steamer calls first at Elsinore, and afterwards at Helsingborg, and at the latter place remains a few hours, after which it returns to Elsinore, and thence to Copenhagen. Being unable to see both places, we chose Elsinore. The town is small and mean, and has little to interest one. The castle, which is very strongly fortified, was garrisoned at the time we saw it by 400 Holsteiners, under a Danish Commandant, whom of course they cordially hated.

One soldier, on our asking him the name of his officer, said:—“he didn’t know the ‘Kerl’s’ name, who he was;” but we will not enter into the merits of the Holstein dispute here. The Princess Matilda Caroline, daughter of George II. of England, who was married to Christian VII. of Denmark, was imprisoned here for some years, being