Chapter IV: Part 4

The Vernons lived at Haddon Hall from 1195 to 1567, and, among the many beautiful women of their line, the most beautiful is said to have been the self-willed Dorothy. Her youthful love-dream was thwarted by her equally obstinate father, some say because of family feuds, others say on account of difference in religion.

Whatever the cause, parental opposition was so strong that one night, when a grand ball was in progress in the famous ball-room of Haddon Hall, the heiress stole away through the door of the anteroom and fled, in all her festive array, along "Dorothy's Walk" (a long terrace lined with stately yews), down the long flight of steps to the lower terrace, and over the little bridge to her waiting lover. He carried her away on his fleet steed to a hasty morning wedding, carefully placing many miles between the irate father and the lovely bride.

Dorothy's father, Sir George Vernon, "The King of the Peak," allowed his wrath to cool in time, and the happy couple returned and made their home at the Hall.

John Manners was a younger son of the Earl of Rutland, and father of the first Duke of Rutland, whose cradle is now exhibited in the state bedroom of Haddon Hall.

The great ball-room from which Miss Dorothy fled is over one hundred feet long, eighteen feet wide, and fifteen feet high. On the south side, toward the garden, are three very large, recessed windows, and on the north side is a huge fireplace with ancient fire-dogs. At the east end of the room is a glass case containing a bust of Grace, Lady Manners, wife of Sir George Manners. This is said to have been made from a cast taken after death. Certainly the lady was far from beautiful if one judges from this representation of her charms!

The interior of the family chapel is in a semi-ruined state. On the right there is a stoup for holy water, about four hundred years old, and just beyond it are the servants' seats. In the chancel are two large, high, family pews, one on either side, the master and his sons occupying one, and the lady and her daughters the other.

The stained-glass window in the chapel was of great beauty, but, early in the nineteenth century, the greater part of it was mysteriously stolen in the night, and its place has been filled with fragments of colored glass taken from other windows.

In the kitchen may still be seen the immense fireplace, the large, hollowed-out block, evidently used for a chopping-tray, a salting-trough, and a few other pieces of culinary apparatus.

In the banqueting-hall is the minstrels' gallery, the front of which is carved and paneled, and decorated with stags' antlers, and there is also a gallery along one side, probably of later construction. The lord and his guests sat at one end of the hall on a raised platform, while the retainers sat at tables in the body of the hall. The high table is a remarkable specimen of its kind, and one of the most interesting relics of feudal times.

At the north end of the hall, just inside the entrance, is a kind of handcuff, fastened to the wall and so arranged as to hold a man's wrist up at arm's-length while liquor was poured down his sleeve--the punishment meted out to every guest who did not drink all that the laws of hospitality forced upon him!

Over the banqueting-hall is the drawing-room, the walls still hung with ancient tapestries. There is a great deal of beautiful old tapestry in Haddon Hall, and it all seems to be woven or worked in small pieces, even the shades of coloring being done separately and then sewed together.

Another room shown to visitors is the state bedroom, with old oil-paintings, and Goblin tapestry designed in panels on the borders of which are medallions with subjects from Æsop's fables. Queen Elizabeth is said to have once slept in this room, and in a large window-recess is a dressing-table with a mirror called "Queen Elizabeth's looking-glass." The poor queen's vanity must have received a shock when she saw herself reflected there, or else the glass has become defective with age! In this room there is also the primitive cradle said to be that of the first Duke of Rutland.

The state bed is large and imposing, draped with faded green silk velvet lined with white satin, dating from the reign of Henry VI. The last person to occupy this bed was George IV, when he was Prince Regent.

There are some smaller and less interesting rooms to which the visitor may have access, all, by the small windows and the rude workmanship of doors and fastenings, showing great antiquity.

A winding staircase of uneven stone steps leads to the Peveril Tower, the highest part of the Hall, and from this tower there is a beautiful view of the valley of the Wye and the hills and valleys around.

Haddon Hall is not used as a residence by its owner, the Duke of Rutland, but it is kept in reasonable repair, and is visited yearly by hundreds of "trippers" from all parts of the British Isles and by tourists from all countries.

To be appreciated fully it should be inspected leisurely, and not "done" in the few minutes allowed some of the "personally conducted" visitors. One lovely summer day we saw two large wagonettes filled with tourists drive up to the Hall, and the procession, headed by a guide, walked through the rooms and back to the waiting vehicles in less than half an hour! We learned that these people were Americans, who had landed at Liverpool that morning, and after hastily viewing this fine old mansion, they were to be taken to Chatsworth House, the Duke of Devonshire's country-seat a few miles away, while later in the day they were due in London for additional sight-seeing!

It is small wonder if they had little appreciation of the beauties of venerable pile or modern mansion, and but the vaguest memories of them after their return home!

Haddon Hall will repay one for frequent and extended visits, as new points of interest will repeatedly reward the unhurried visitor, and many a pleasant hour may be spent on the terraces, looking out over the charming landscape and dreaming of bygone days when the Hall was a stage for the drama of life, with all its elements of love and hate, of comedy and tragedy, of peace and war.

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FOREIGN FIRE-BRIGADES

BY CHARLES T. HILL

One summer, while in Switzerland, I asked a prominent merchant of Lausanne, when his town had had its last serious fire. "Not in three years," he replied. I was moved to ask this question because I had found the fire apparatus in padlocked barns, or stations, with the keys in the hands of the police, who attended to the fire-fighting; and this seemed, as compared to the remarkably quick methods employed in America, a somewhat dangerous form of fire protection. Lausanne is a town of about fifty thousand population, and I wondered how many American cities of a like size could boast of only one serious fire in three years. Not many, I imagine.

In Lucerne, a smaller city of Switzerland, of about forty thousand population, the conditions were practically the same, with the exception that each stable containing the fire apparatus had a notice posted on the door stating that the keys could be found in the neighboring hotels and drug-shops, and the citizens were expected to take out the engines in the event of a fire, while the firemen (volunteers) came on "call," the alarm being sounded on all the church bells. Lucerne is a well-known tourist center, heavily populated during the summer months, and has many large shops filled with very inflammable material, and a great many very old buildings; and yet this place had had only two fires of any size within two years!

While I was attending the morning drill of the Central Fire Station at Dresden, in Saxony, the captain in command told me that the city had, on an average, about six alarms of fire a week. I casually remarked that we had twenty-five _a day_ in New York. He looked at me with wonderment and doubt, and when I repeated that we actually had between twenty and thirty alarms of fire a day in the Borough of Manhattan alone, he threw up his hands and exclaimed, "Thank heaven, it is not as bad as that here, or our beautiful city would be destroyed!"

And so we find, thanks to superior building construction, less hurry and rush in business methods, and a wholesome regard on the part of the citizens for certain rigid laws covering the use of explosives and materials of all kinds which usually cause fire, the lot of the foreign firefighter is not as strenuous as that of his brother fireman on this side of the water. Because of the excellent character of the buildings abroad fires burn slowly, and rarely extend beyond the room or floor in which they start. Here, on the other hand, the conditions are entirely different. Our fires are larger, more destructive, and more frequent, compelling us to support not only the most effective, but most expensive, fire-departments in the world; and yet, in spite of all this, our annual fire losses are from ten to twenty times more than those of any country in Europe.

Better building laws and the universal adoption of fire-prevention ordinances, are going to change all this for us, in time, but as yet our annual fire loss stuns the average European by its enormous total.

In London, the fire-department comes under the supervision of the city authorities, the London County Council looking after the administration of the "Metropolitan Fire-Brigade," as it is called; and this brigade, in management and routine work, is not unlike many large American fire-departments, though the apparatus used is radically different. A naval officer has always been chief of the London fire-brigade, and the firemen are usually recruited from the marine service, a time-honored custom giving preference to men who have been at least five years at sea. It is argued that the work of a fireman is of a nature more readily performed by a sailor, who is not only accustomed to danger and exposure of all kinds, but is trained to climbing and working in perilous positions. These new men, after passing a severe physical examination before a medical board, are put through three months' careful schooling at fire headquarters, where they are not only taught how to handle every tool and implement used in the brigade, but become skilled in life-saving work.

The fire stations in London are much larger than the engine-houses found in American cities, and some of the newer buildings in appearance are not unlike some of our better-class apartment-houses. Indeed, this is practically what they are--a kind of apartment-house or barracks for the men and their families, as well as a station for the apparatus and the horses; and here the firemen live, occupying little apartments of from three to five rooms, according to their rank and position. They are, therefore, in the houses and on duty at all times, with the exception of one day's leave of absence in every fifteen. Enough firemen are found in each London fire station to make up three of our fire-companies, but only one third of these men are in service or on "call-duty" at a time, the rest being held in reserve to answer any other alarms which might come in, or to reinforce the first detachment leaving the house should their "call" prove to be a bad fire. And the men of each squad or detachment on "call-duty" are supposed to be fully dressed when an alarm comes in, and have only to adjust their helmets, which hang in long rows on the walls of the apparatus floor, before jumping on the engines; and no exception is made to this rule, even with the men on the last or "night tour"--from 9 P.M. until 7 A.M. This accounts for the pictures we sometimes see, showing the English firemen seated along the sides of their engines, in military fashion, fully uniformed.

In some of the stations, the London fire-brigade still clings to the rather old-fashioned custom of keeping the horses standing in harness, in stables at the rear, to be led out to the apparatus by hand in event of a "call"; and this makes their "turnout" in answer to an alarm appear to us to be a peculiarly slow one, accustomed as we are to the remarkably quick methods employed in our fire-departments. But several of the newer houses, built within the last few years, are supplied with many ingenious American time-saving devices--sliding-poles, swinging-harness, etc.,--while the horses are kept in box-stalls on the apparatus floor, in convenient running distance of the engines, all of which has considerably reduced the time consumed in turning out to an alarm.

The English fire-engine is a small affair, much smaller than our steam fire-engines, having about one half the pumping capacity of the American engines; and nearly every one in London is a combined engine and hose-wagon,--the hose being carried in a box-like compartment on each side of the machine, just back of the driver's seat. This "hose-box" serves as a convenient place for the firemen to sit while riding to the fire. Quite a number of automobile fire-engines are in service in the London brigade, big, businesslike-looking machines, about as large as some of our motor-engines, and capable of great speed while answering an alarm. As a contrast to this up-to-date equipment, a number of "manuals," or hand-engines, are in use, which ought to have been sent to the scrap-heap years ago.

In the way of ladder-trucks they are very well supplied in London, for, in addition to several "horse ladder-escapes," as they are called (a fairly long extension ladder carried on a horse-drawn truck, and which can be detached from this truck and pushed close to a building), they have a great many hand-pushed "ladder-escapes" (a shorter extension ladder of the same type and pushed by hand) scattered throughout the city, housed in substations in the principal squares and more important thoroughfares, and intended for emergency use only until the regular apparatus arrives. They have also a few "aërial" ladder-trucks carrying a very long extension ladder which can be raised, by means of an ingenious little engine using carbonic-acid gas for its motive power, to a height of eighty feet or more. But aside from use as a kind of water-tower at large fires, these aërial ladders are rarely extended to their full length, for the houses are nearly all of a uniform height, not over five or six floors, and the ordinary extension ladder is sufficiently long to reach the upper parts of these buildings.

The fire-alarm boxes, or "alarm-points," as they are known, are found at convenient corners throughout London, and consist of an iron post about as high as an ordinary hitching-post, with a little round metal box at the top containing a glass door. You break the glass in this door, pull the little handle or knob inside, and thus send in a "fire-call" to four or five of the nearest fire stations. In all American cities when a fire-alarm box is "pulled" the alarm is transmitted direct to a central-bureau, usually at fire headquarters, and is then retransmitted, either automatically or by hand, to the engine-houses; but in London--and in every other European city--each fire station has its own alarm-bureau, in charge of an officer and several operators, these stations receiving only the alarms from the boxes in the immediate neighborhood. All the stations, however, are connected with each other, and with a central-bureau or headquarters, by both telegraph and telephone.

London has something like 4000 fires annually, and spends about $1,250,000 every year to support her fire-brigade. It is estimated that the city of New York (comprising the Boroughs of Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Richmond, and with about the same population as London proper) has 12,500 fires annually, and spends something over $7,500,000 to support her fire-department.

In Paris, the fire-brigade comes under the jurisdiction of the Department of War, and it is part of the French army that attends to the fire-fighting in this famous city. Two battalions of infantry, known as the "Regiment des Sapeurs Pompiers," look after this important work, and although this brigade is recruited, drilled, and commanded by various regimental officers, from a colonel down to a lieutenant, and belongs to the war department, it comes under the direct control of the Prefect of Police (Chief of Police), who is the actual head of the Paris fire-brigade.

These stations, or, as they are well named, _casernes_ (barracks), are big structures filled with many firemen, on an average about 140 men in every building; and each station is equipped with numerous pieces of fire apparatus, and all are provided with a large inner court, or drill-yard, in which the men go through military evolutions twice daily, and where the new men, who are coming into the brigade continually, are taught how to handle all the various appliances used in fire-fighting. Here also the men are put through a series of calisthenic exercises two or three times a week, which, if introduced into the American fire-departments, would drive every man out of the service, so vigorous are these "stunts." In acrobatic fashion the Paris firemen are compelled to climb ropes, jump hurdles, balance themselves in mid-air on frail wooden supports, perform on horizontal bars, execute a kind of "setting-up" drill en masse, and last, but not least, climb up one of the walls of the courtyard, holding on by their finger-tips and the edges of their boots to little crevices in the wall, and falling, if they should slip, into a pile of sand at the bottom. In addition to all this they have the regulation hose, ladder, and life-saving drills of all other fire-departments.

The Paris fire stations are thoroughly up to date in equipment, for we find them fitted with sliding-poles, swinging-harness, horses kept in box-stalls within a pole's-length of the harness, automatic door-openers, and virtually every quick-hitching device for which American fire-departments are noted. And in addition to steam fire-engines, aërial ladder-trucks, and hose-wagons--the latter very much of the same type as those used in this country--there are a great many automobile fire-engines in service, and quite a few of the _casernes_, or stations, are equipped entirely with motor-driven apparatus. There are also several electric fire-engines in use, practical-looking affairs, carrying a large square tank containing four hundred gallons of water, which is given the necessary pressure to reach the top of any of the buildings by means of an ingenious set of electric pumps placed at the back of the tank. As it only requires a few men to handle this engine, and the mere throwing over of a lever to get it under way, it is used at many small fires, and is sometimes the first and only piece of apparatus to leave a station in answer to an alarm, for there is no regular "assignment" of engines and ladder-trucks sent to the alarm-boxes in Paris, as is the case in our cities, and the operation of their fire-alarm system differs from that of any other city in the world.

The fire-alarm boxes are large, ornate-looking affairs, placed on the corners of the principal boulevards and streets and in the public squares, and directions on the outside of these boxes inform you that, in addition to breaking the glass door (which automatically transmits the number of the box to the nearest fire station), you must also use the telephone inside and give a description of the fire, its character, size, and location (street number if possible); and it is necessary to go through all this proceeding before the sending of an alarm is considered complete. This alarm is received in the alarm- or "watch-room," of the nearest fire station. There an operator picks up a telephone receiver and listens for your description of the fire, and he decides, according to the message received, the number of pieces and character of the apparatus which is to answer the alarm. For example, if it is only a small fire--a window-curtain or a chimney--he simply orders out one piece of apparatus, an electric engine, such as was described above, or, perhaps, a _fourgon_--a sort of hose-wagon carrying a squad of men, short ladders, hose, and tools and appliances of all kinds. If, on the other hand, the call comes from a factory or a tenement district, where rescue work may be expected, he then sends two wagon-loads of men and the _grande-echelle_ (aërial ladder-truck), and if the fire appears dangerous, from the telephoned description, another ladder-truck and a steam fire-engine, or a motor-engine; but the engines are rarely used in Paris, as the water-pressure throughout the city is very fine, sufficient to reach the top of the average building; and the steamers are only sent out as a precaution, and are seldom put to work.

The fire-hydrants in Paris, as in every other city in Europe, are of the "flush" or sunken character, instead of the post-hydrants used in our cities, and are found in depressed basins in the sidewalk, near the curb, protected with iron covers; and the location of these hydrants is carefully indicated by metal signs on the walls of the buildings near by, which not only point out the exact position of each hydrant, but tell the amount of water pressure to be found at that outlet--a feature that our firemen would welcome.

All gas or electricity entering any building in Paris comes partially under the control of the fire-brigade, and the firemen carry keys on every piece of apparatus which enables them to open a small metal plate, always found at a certain spot in the sidewalks, and thus cut off either the gas or electric service from the building immediately on their arrival at a fire.

But in addition to this very sensible supervision of the gas and electric service by the fire-brigade, the Paris firemen have the added protection in their work of a very effective type of "smoke-helmet," a device which is also used largely by the fire-brigades of Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, Milan, and several other cities in Europe. This is a metal helmet fastening securely around the neck of the fireman wearing it, and connected by means of an endless hose-pipe, with a portable air-pump kept out in the street and in charge of a fellow-fireman, who controls the amount of fresh air reaching the head-piece. It is claimed that, protected with this device, a fireman can enter a heavily smoke-charged building and work for quite a while in comparative comfort. We carry a smoke-helmet on nearly all the fire apparatus in this country, somewhat similar to the European appliance, but without the independent air-pump attachment. It is rarely used, however, as our firemen claim that it is unreliable, and hampers rather than aids them in their work. But among the foreign firemen the smoke-helmet is considered a valuable protection, and is used frequently.

Among other interesting appliances which the Paris firemen have found of great assistance to them in their work there may be mentioned a portable electric search-light, carried like an ordinary hand-lantern, fitted with a powerful storage battery, and producing a very intense, and, of course, a thoroughly safe light. It is used largely for night work or in dark, smoky cellars. Also a large hand-carried electric fan, which can be operated by hydraulic power as well as electricity, using the pressure from the street hydrants for this purpose; and this fan has been found useful for clearing rooms or hallways of heavy smoke or poisonous vapors.

Paris, with a population of 2,750,000 souls, has about 1800 fires every year, and spends, annually, $575,000 to support her fire-brigade, an organization of some eighteen hundred men which can be turned into the field as two battalions of infantry at short notice. Therefore this expenditure might be said to provide two kinds of protection--military as well as civic. But splendid building laws and equally excellent laws covering the use and storage of explosives and inflammable materials of all kinds, have made the work of her firemen a comparatively easy one, and the large fire is of such rare occurrence in this famous city that the "French Pompier," using methods which appear very amusing to American visitors, is enabled to make a most satisfactory yearly showing to his Minister of War.

In Berlin, and in virtually every other German city, the fire-brigade is managed upon almost the same general plan as the brigades found in London and Paris, and the apparatus, in nearly every instance of German manufacture, is very similar to that used by the English and French firemen. The men are all husky fellows, well drilled and military in appearance, and the majority are ex-soldiers, as preference is given to men who have seen army service in recruiting new members for the brigade. The fire stations are usually very large, sometimes occupying as much space as would be covered by an entire block in an American city, and nearly all of the stations are built in rectangular form, with a spacious inner court, or drill-yard, in the middle. On one side of this yard will be found the engines, ladder-trucks, etc., housed in individual compartments, or barns, and on the other the stables for the horses; while the upper part of the building on both sides is occupied as dormitories or lounging-rooms for the men, and quarters for the officers. Every station has its own fire alarm-bureau, or "watch-room," looked after by an officer and two or three operators. The "turnout" in answer to an alarm in a German fire station is very similar to an artillery drill, and is performed in the same stiff, almost automatic, manner, for the brigades are conducted on strict military lines.

The men in these stations are divided into little squads, each commanded by a petty officer, or _Oberfeuerwehrmann_, as he is called, and each squad placed in charge of a separate piece of apparatus. When an alarm strikes in the "watch-room," a bell is started ringing in the quarters of the men, which sends them clattering down the long flight of stairs in their heavy leather boots, while they hastily adjust coats, belts, and helmets. Reaching the yard, each squad breaks up into two detachments, two men, the driver and his aide, running to the stable for the horses, the rest for their respective pieces of apparatus. The doors of the apparatus barns are thrown open, and the engines, ladder-trucks, and wagons are found standing there with poles detached, the latter lying on the floor directly under each machine. At a command given by the petty officer the pole is lifted up, shoved back in its socket, and the king-pin dropped into place. The men then jump back to the wheels at each side, and at another command the apparatus is pushed out into the yard. By this time, the horses, fully harnessed, have been brought over from the stables by the other two men, and are backed into position beside the pole, the traces and pole-straps are locked, and at another command from the petty officer the driver and the rest of the men jump into their places on top of the apparatus, and salute the _Brandmeister_, or commanding officer, of the station. This official, leisurely getting into a six-seated wagon with his associate officers, then gives the order to "go," and, headed by the wagon containing the chief and his aides, the procession dashes out through the arched driveway into the main thoroughfare, thus completing an exhibition which, when witnessed by Americans, usually provokes a laugh. And when I add that upon the receipt of an alarm in the "watch-room" the location of the box is written down on a large yellow paper blank, bearing the word "Feuer!" at its top; that this blank is folded carefully and sent down to the apparatus floor by means of a small hand-lift, or elevator; that it is taken therefrom by the commanding officer and read deliberately before he steps into his _feuer-wagon_, it will be seen that the Germans believe in attending to everything, even a call as urgent as an alarm of fire, in a thoroughly official and dignified manner. But in Berlin much of this military detail and pomp has been done away with, and, aided by swinging-harness and many other quick-hitching devices, the firemen make a more rapid exit in answer to a call. And once in the streets, they cover the ground at great speed, for the engines are light and the horses splendid, and every one, even the Kaiser himself, gives a clear field to the _Feuerwehr_.

It costs the Berliners, with not quite the population of Paris, $485,000 a year to maintain their excellent fire-brigade, excellent because the fire loss in this royal city is hardly more than a fifth of that in New York. But much of this remarkably low loss in the German capital is due to the careful work of the brigade in preventing any damage to property other than that caused by the actual extinguishment of the fire. As an example of the conscientious way in which the Berlin firemen attend to their labors, it may be explained that, at fires in the residential districts, where it is found possible to confine the fire to some one room, tarpaulins, or waterproof covers, are spread over the stairs and through the halls before the hose is brought into the house, and no windows are broken unless absolutely necessary. When our buildings are all as excellent as theirs, and our citizens are all working as harmoniously together to prevent fire, we may find it safe to adopt some of the deliberate and careful methods of the German firemen.

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DUTCH CHEESES

BY H. M. SMITH

Among the daintiest and best of the numerous kinds of foreign and domestic cheeses that may be bought in nearly every American city and town, are the small round cheeses with red or yellow coats which come to our markets from Holland. The ancient town of Edam, on the shore of the Zuyder Zee, has given its name to this product, and almost everywhere in America we ask for Edam cheese when we want this particular kind; but while Edam produces Edam cheese, this sleepy little town long ago ceased to hold a high place in the cheese world, and neighboring towns now monopolize the trade in this article, which holds a leading place in the farm products of Holland.

The most extensive and celebrated of the cheese-markets is that of Alkmaar, which has the commercial advantage of being located on a railroad as well as on the North Holland Canal. Every visitor to the Netherlands should arrange to spend at least one day at Alkmaar, easily reached from Amsterdam or Haarlem.

In Dutch history, Alkmaar is celebrated for its successful defense when besieged by the Spaniards in 1573, but in modern times it has been noted for its cheese trade, which is now its principal attraction.

The market is held every Friday; but in order to observe all of its features, a visitor should go to Alkmaar the day before, and see the preliminary preparations. The market-place is a large stone-paved space in the open air, with business houses on three sides, a canal on the fourth side, and a weigh-house at one end. During Thursday the dairymen from the surrounding country arrive with their families and their cheeses, coming in carts, wagons, and canal-boats; and by the afternoon of that day, there is a great bustle, which continues far into the evening.

Throughout the night bands of young peasants, both men and women, parade the streets of Alkmaar, singing and skylarking; and cheese-carts continue to arrive and clatter along the stony streets, so that little sleep is possible for the residents and visitors.

An essential part of the cheese-market is the official weigh-house, which was built more than three centuries ago, out of an already existing church. Its shapely clock-tower has moving figures of horsemen in a tourney, and a beautiful set of chimes, one of whose airs is the well-known wedding march from Wagner's "Lohengrin." In the main room on the ground floor are four huge balances which, before the opening of the market, are carefully adjusted with much ceremony by an official in silk hat and frock-coat.

When the cheeses are on their way to market from the farms, they are handled with great care, so as to prevent bruising or crushing; and whether in wagons or boats, they are arranged in layers separated by light boards. As the wagons and boats arrive at the market-place, spaces are assigned to them, and the unloading begins, the cheeses being arranged in regular square or oblong piles on pieces of canvas, with narrow walks between. The size of the piles depends on the number of cheeses the individual farmers have to dispose of, but usually the piles are eight to ten cheeses wide, thirty to fifty long, and always two layers deep. At the market attended by the writer, the largest pile contained nine hundred cheeses.

The unloading of the wagons and boats is one of the most interesting sights of the market. Standing in a wagon or boat, one man takes a cheese in each hand and throws them to another man, sitting or kneeling on the ground, who arranges the cheeses in regular piles. Long practice has made the farmers very skilful in tossing and catching; the cheeses go through the air in pairs as though tied together, and may be thrown as far as thirty feet. During very active times, the yellow balls are flying thickly in all directions.

As soon as a farmer has arranged his stock of cheeses, he covers the piles with canvas, and often also with rush mats, grass, or straw, in order to protect them from sun or rain, and to prevent the drying of the surface. Before the sale, the venders liberally anoint the cheeses with oil to make them look fresh and inviting.

Shortly before ten o'clock a large number of aged porters meet in a room of the weigh-house, and soon emerge dressed in scrupulously clean white trousers and shirts, with black slippers and straw hats. The hats are of blue, green, yellow, red, or other bright colors, with ribbons of the same shade hanging down behind; and the men wearing the same colors work together in pairs.

Promptly as the clock in the weigh-house tower strikes the hour of ten, the cheese-market formally opens. The covers are removed from the piles of cheeses, and the whole market-place literally bursts into bloom. Sales are preceded by much bargaining, and the cheeses are felt, smelled, and tasted. When a price is agreed upon for a particular lot, the buyer and the seller clasp hands; and then, the half-hour having struck, the porters begin their labors, which consist in carrying to the weigh-house loads of cheeses on sled-like trays suspended from their shoulders by long straps, receiving a check from the master of the scales, and returning their certified fares to the owners, who thus have a basis for determining the aggregate weight and value of each lot sold.

So rapidly do the selling and weighing proceed that by eleven o'clock the market is virtually over. Then the cheeses are removed to the warehouses of the purchasing merchants, the farmers depart in their boats and wagons, and when the grand noonday burst of the chimes comes the Alkmaar cheese-market exists only as a memory.

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A GEOGRAPHY CITY "COME ALIVE"

BY LINDAMIRA HARBESON

During the Great War, when the armies of Europe were trying to beat their way into Constantinople, this city, which once had been to us merely a black dot in our geographies, suddenly became very real. We used to know it as a point somewhere in the lower right-hand corner of the map, where Europe is separated from Asia by several annoying little bodies of water that were so hard for us to remember. But when I tell you that I ate a bag of peanuts while going in a ferry-boat to Constantinople from Scutari, the little Asiatic village just opposite, you will understand the width of the Bosporus better, perhaps, than your geography can tell you.

The photograph presents a good general view of the city as seen from the Galata side; and shows clearly Santa Sophia and the Golden Horn which divides in two parts this ancient and famous metropolis of the Ottoman Empire. From the roof of the American College buildings, which are on a hill in Scutari, we can look directly across toward the mouth of the Golden Horn.

Stamboul is the old part of the city, where many different peoples have dwelt--first Greeks, then Romans, now Turks, and you can still see by a bit of a house or an old wall how these people lived. Galata is where English, French, Italians, and Germans carry on their business in Turkey, and where the big boats unload their cargoes. Between Galata and Stamboul is one of the most famous and most crowded bridges in the world. Pera is where most of the Europeans live.

Constantinople is indeed like the fairy city in the Arabian Nights to which the poor brothers are whisked away on a carpet--a dream city on the edge of the water--a city of lavender-blue domes, and minarets that seem to reach to the sky. We are just aware of the little houses straggling up the hill or dipping their feet in the water. The maze of houses and the mosques are veiled in a light blue haze, just as if the city, like the women, had to wear the _yachmak_, or head-covering. Off beyond is the glistening Sea of Marmora, and near by, the dazzling blue waters of the Bosporus dotted with little black boats. The city stretches on farther up the shore, and just beyond are the wooded hills. At the foot of one of them, on the very edge of the water, is the long low white marble palace of the sultan--Dolmah Bagtché it is called, which means "walled-in garden."

Everybody who is young must love Constantinople. It is so full of color and soft musical sounds that one is sure something unexpected and wonderful will happen any moment. Nowhere in the world, perhaps, can be seen so many different types of people as on Galata Bridge. Let us pay ten paras--a little over one cent--and go on the bridge; we shall see and hear more than a dollar's worth. There go modern Turkish gentlemen dressed like our fathers, but wearing fezzes instead of hats. A fez is made of soft red felt and has no brim; from the top hangs a black silk tassel. Here come old-fashioned Turkish gentlemen with bent shoulders and flowing beards. They wear soft padded overcoats of many colors, and each is sure to have on a ring set with a beautiful stone that he keeps turned toward the inside of his hand. There are some priests with white scarfs round their fezzes; here are others with green ones, because they have been to Mecca, where every pious Turk wants to go before he dies. There are whirling dervishes in brown overcoats, and tall brown hats shaped like chicken croquettes. Have you ever heard of dervishes? They are priests who perform a peculiar ceremony in their religious houses. They take off their brown overcoats and dance in green or white costumes that have full pleated skirts. They spin round and round on their tiptoes, accompanied by strange music, while the chiefs of the order sit cross-legged on the floor and watch them.

Then there may pass a Tartar pilgrim all in white from the interior of Asiatic Turkey, or a Persian in gray with a Persian-lamb fez, or a fierce Kurd. The last is a soldier, and wears a brown hood with a long end knotted round his head. Since the Balkan War, when many Kurds were in Constantinople on their way to the army, the little Turkish girls have worn the same sort of hood of soft colors and fabrics. On the bridge, too, may be seen the shrouded Turkish ladies, who move silently along like black ghosts. They wear the _tcharchaf_--the modern Turkish dress which includes a veil over the face; old-fashioned women of the poorer class still wear the soft white yachmak that covers the head but not the face. And then, too, there are the _hamals_--wild peasants from the interior--who do the fetching and carrying. They wear little caps and bright sashes, and have on their backs a kind of saddle on which they put anything from a bag of flour to a piano. They walk faster than the rest and sing "_Dustur_, _dustur_," which means "Get out of the road." If we are very lucky, we shall see a string of camels with their noses in the air, and on their humps lovely faded blue and red saddle-bags. They are usually led by a donkey, and with them is a camel-driver of most fetching appearance. The camels are so big and shaggy and out of place that we pinch ourselves to see if we are really awake.

Now let us go wandering about the old city. The narrow, silent streets are paved with cobblestones, and lined with houses that have never been painted, but have been colored by the sun, the rain, and the wind. Some of them are overgrown with wistaria vines that cross from one side of the street to the other and frame the big shut front door.

One fine day I lifted the knocker on one of these doors when calling on a Turkish family I knew. The door was opened silently, and I found myself in a tiny garden full of flowers. No matter how small his house, the Turk always has a bit of a garden. If he is rich, he has it on a hill from which he can see the Bosporus. The garden I visited opened from a bricked hall. We went up the stairs and were greeted by the ladies of the family more courteously and gracefully than I ever have been greeted anywhere else. I wish I could describe for you the Turkish salutation. It is as hard to acquire as a foreign accent. As she bows, a lady makes a downward sweep with her arm, then raises her hand, palm upward, to her heart and lips. This means, "I am at your service; my heart is yours; the words that I speak are in your favor."

I was taken into a room all windows. The Turk loves windows as he loves gardens--windows that look over the water. All around the room were bright-colored _sedias_,--low hard couches,--which are, however, very comfortable to sit or lie upon. In the middle of the room on a brass tray was a big brazier containing live coals, on which the daughter of the house soon made Turkish coffee. Besides gardens and windows, the Turk loves coffee--his own peculiar kind that you must taste some day along with the other goodies. This is the way it was made for me: Into a brass coffee-maker, which looks like a pitcher with a long handle, were put one sugar lump and one coffee-cupful of water. When this had boiled, one teaspoonful of finely powdered Turkish coffee, taken from a china egg on the tray, was put into the water. This mixture was allowed to come to a boil three times and then poured, the pitcher being held a foot from the cup so that there would be foam on the coffee. I tried to drink it in the really Turkish way, holding the saucer with the cup to my lips. If you try it, you will see how _hard_ it is to do this _easily_!

A little sister showed us her drawing-book, in which she had begun at the back and worked toward the front. The Turkish children recite their lessons all together in the old-fashioned schools, and if you could hear them, you would think that you had gone into _Wonderland_ with _Alice_ where "things wouldn't come straight." The little girls go to school in groups, and with them is always an old servant who carries all their books on what looks for all the world like a small clothes-tree. The boys go and come in two long lines, attended by their teacher. They carry their own books and wear long trousers and fezzes exactly like those of their fathers. Some of the tiny girls carry their own little tables and drawing-boards. In the gipsy village in Scutari the children learn their lessons by songs in the street. They stand in a circle with a big girl in the middle, and they grow noisier and noisier the more interested they become. These little girls wear _shelvars_, which look like little trousers gathered in at the ankle. I tried to take a picture of a little girl in an orange-colored pair and of a boy in a wrapper and fez, but they were frightened and ran away crying.

Now I must tell you about the Turkish shops--the really Turkish ones. Most of them are about the size of a spider's parlor and have no front wall, so you see the wares can be temptingly displayed to the passer-by. You see in one of our pictures a shop where all kinds of blankets and scarfs are sold. The scarfs are especially useful: if you are a man, you can wind one around your fez or your waist; if you are a lady, you can wear it indoors as a shawl, sash, or scarf; or, if it is the right kind, a little girl can wear it to school on her head. You don't know which one to choose when they are tossed down in front of you--a riotous mingling of reds, browns, oranges, golds, and yellows. Another fascinating shop is a bead-shop. Most of them are together on the bead street. There you may see displayed all kinds of strings of beads--long and short, large and small beads, red, yellow, and blue, of amber, meerschaum, and olive-wood. The Turkish gentlemen carry the short strings, and, when they chat, they play with the beads, unconsciously, but always in the same way. They move them forward with the thumb and first finger, two at a time, one from each side of the string. When all have been moved, they turn the string about and move the beads in the opposite direction.

Then there is the rug-shop. The Turkish rug-merchant offers you tea or coffee and cigarettes, as he hopes you will spend much money. And while you drink, he throws down before you rugs, rugs, rugs, soft, rich, alluring, from Baluchistan, Kurdistan, Persia.

But you, I am sure, would prefer a candy-shop. Even if you have tasted our Turkish paste, you have only a remote idea of how succulent a goody the real _loukoumi_ is. Then there is _halva_, full of nuts and all sorts of other good things which you can never guess. It is sticky, and, when you bite it, it nearly pulls your teeth out. Then there are _courabiés_ and _smits_, both of which are cakes which you must buy on a ferry-boat to get the real flavor. A man comes in, carrying a basket in one hand and waving a sheet of paper in the other. The _courabiés_ are stuck to this paper and you pull them off yourself. The _smits_ are on a stick which protrudes from the top of the basket. For you must know that a _smit_ is shaped like a doughnut. (Only the hole has grown larger without affecting the size of the eatable part. This part is not sweet and is covered with aniseed.)

It would make your mouth water if I should tell you of all the delectable dishes you might have in the cafés all over the city. The Turk loves to eat, he loves to sit, and he loves to stare at his garden, at his beloved Bosporus, or at space. They never say in Turkey, "Where do you live?" but always, "Where do you sit?" In spring and autumn the hills about Constantinople are dotted with spots of color. They are the Turkish men and women sitting on the grass. And what a wonderful view they look at! There they sit for hours and hours, usually silent, occasionally chatting, sometimes grunting "_Uh, uh, uh, uh_," in descending tones.

The chief other thing a Turk does in times of peace is to pray. From the gallery of a minaret the muezzin calls him to prayer five times a day. Do you know what a minaret is? It is the tower of the Turkish church, or mosque. Mosques built by royalty may have two minarets, others only one. These minarets are slender, very tall, with a gracefully pointed top that draws the eye right up to the sky. There is a Turkish proverb that says, "Never steal a minaret unless you have a place to hide it in." Two thirds of the way up, there is a carved gallery, very light and beautiful, where the priest stands and chants down through the air the call to prayer, which in English prose is this: "There is no God but Allah; Mohammed is His Prophet; let us go and pray; let us go save our souls; God is great; there is no god but God." A pious Turk either goes to the mosque, or prays wherever he may happen to be. I once saw a soldier praying on a ferry-boat. Inside the mosques the cooing of many pigeons adds to the rhythmic murmur of the prayers. There are pigeons inside and outside of all the mosques; one, of which a picture is here shown, is called the Pigeon Mosque.

The most famous mosque of all is Santa Sophia, once a Christian church as you can tell by its name, built by the Byzantine Greeks about 300 A. D. It is yellow, weathered by time, is very big and on top of a hill. Inside, it is a dark golden-brown, and the pigeons flying around under the roof seem to be far, far above you. The rugs on the floor are all on a slant because the church was built originally with the altar toward the east; later the Moslems made it face toward Mecca, southeast of Constantinople. No Turk ever walks on those rugs with his shoes on,--he leaves them at the door or carries them in his hand,--and before he comes in to pray, he washes his feet and hands at the fountain outside, no matter how cold the water or the weather. Fountains are everywhere in Constantinople, made of white marble and exquisitely carved.

Constantinople has been famous in history ever since the legend that Leander died in swimming the Hellespont, the old name of the Dardanelles. Nations have quarreled over it, because it is one of the most wonderfully situated cities in the world, and Constantine the Great made it the capital of his huge empire. You will study all that in Roman history if you have not studied it already, and will read also of its capture by the Turks, under Mohammed the Conqueror, nearly five hundred years ago.

The history of the Ottoman Empire makes the most exciting fairy tale seem colorless. Perhaps you do not know that, when Henry the Eighth of England and Francis the First of France were forming a mutual-admiration society of their two kingdoms on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, there was another king, as great as either of them, in the southeast of Europe, carving great pieces out of other countries for his empire. This sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, was a great lawgiver. His reign was the height of Turkey's power. Soon after its close the rest of Europe became interested in Turkey, especially Russia and England. Recently, German influence has been stronger than any other at the Turkish court. That is why Turkey fought on the side of Germany, and why England and France determined to storm the forts and brave the mines in the water entrances to Constantinople and so open up a way to the Mediterranean for their great ally, Russia.

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THE GIANT AND THE GENIE

BY GEORGE FREDERIC STRATTON

Far up on the slopes of Mt. Rainier, in Washington, is a waterfall which, according to the legend, was inhabited by a giant of enormous strength--Menuhkesen by name. From out of the East there came a genie possessed of such courage and audacity that when he was warned against the terrible powers of Menuhkesen he laughed lustily and said that he would call forth the surly giant and make him do his bidding. Summoning his afrits, he gave them orders, and they immediately surrounded the falls, some of them peering through strange instruments and making mysterious signs with their hands, while others measured distances and drove stakes, bearing weird symbols, into the river banks.