however, they received three hundred thousand
pounds in compensation— by their selfish treason
in 1848. Had the duke then remained true to
his country, he would now have been King of
Denmark, and undisputed heir to the duchies.

The Danish force in the island of Alsen, at
the time of our visit, numbered about nine
thousand men, under the command of that
General Steinmann who behaved so nobly in the
battle of Oversee, where he was wounded.

Never did troops behave better than the
defenders of Dybbol. True patriots and gallant
soldiers, they cheerfully marched into that
deadly fire without flinching, day after day; a
position where they could make no return to
the enemy's storm of shells, but merely stand
up to die for their country. It is impossible to
conceive a more trying service, and their glorious
defence of Dybbol entitles them to take
rank among the first soldiers in the world. Nor
are their other qualities, which complete the
character of a patriot soldier, less admirable
than their gallantry in the field. The Prussian
prisoners and wounded have been treated with
extreme kindness and courtesy, while each dead
enemy has received a separate wooden coffin,
and not an article has ever been taken from
them. This exceptional conduct on the part of
the Danes, which could hardly be expected from
English, and certainly not from French soldiers,
makes the brutality and wanton cruelty of the
Prussians— officers being even worse than
privates— all the more revolting. During the
whole time that the Danish forces have been in
Alsen, not a single case of theft: not an excess
of any kind, has occurred. Always on the best
and kindliest terms with the country people
upon whom they are billeted, they present a
contrast to almost any other troops in the
world. With them cheerfulness and generous
feeling towards the enemy is combined with
indomitable courage and unequalled fortitude.
Unsupplied with bands, the regiments sing
national songs as they march, and no village on
the road has any other feeling for the brave
fellows but sympathy and kindness.

The achievements of the iron-clad Rolf
Krake, which has three times been engaged
against land forts, are interesting as the
first example of a turret ship (constructed
on the principle invented by Captain Cowper
Coles, R.N.) having been in action. We passed
her at sea on her way from Alsen to refit, and
afterwards visited her in dry dock at Copenhagen,
when her decks were crowded with
admiring visitors. The Rolf Krake has two
revolving turrets containing her guns, iron-plated
on the sides, but with open iron gratings on the
top, so as to admit of ample ventilation. The
deck consists of three-quarters of an inch iron,
with wood overall. The bulwarks were shot to
pieces, the deck torn up in several places, the
mizen topmast and bowsprit shot away, and the
funnel riddled through and through. One shell
had gone right through the deck, close to the
gun-room door, and it was this shell, from one
of the forts on the Broager heights, which killed
the first lieutenant and wounded several men.
But the turrets had stood well; they had been
struck three or four times, and the missiles had
only made very slight indentations in the iron;
the men, however, were exposed to a galling fire
of rifles down the open gratings on their tops.
We understood that this evident defect was to
be remedied, and that during the refit the turrets
were to receive a covering similar to those on
the turrets of the Royal Sovereign. The gallant
crew of the Rolf Krake had done their work
right well, and the worthy people of Copenhagen
have good reason to be proud of them.
The ships which had just gained a victory over
the Austrians, the Neils Juel, Jylland, and
Heindal, were also lying off Copenhagen at the
time of our second visit, together with the rest
of the Danish fleet. On the sea, at least, this
little kingdom is still a match for the overgrown
despotisms that would crush her. The blood of
the Vikings still stirs in the veins of her sons,
and enables them to retain a superiority on an
element where their blundering enemies never
feel at home.

We left Denmark more strongly impressed
than ever with admiration for that brave little
nation. The qualities of the Danes, we firmly
believe, bring them as near perfection as any
community has yet attained to in this world.
Speaking of them collectively, they are truthful,
honest, and kind-hearted. The latter quality is
more particularly observable in their invariable
tenderness to animals: birds are tamer in
Denmark than in any other part of the world.
Of their bravery, let Dybbol speak; while
intellectually, whether in arts, in scholarship, or
in science, few people with so small a population
have been more distinguished. Tycho Brahe,
Oehlenschlager, Erasmus Rask, Thorwaldsen,
Westergaard, Worsaac, Thomsen, Andersen, are
names which crowd to the memory as those of
Danish worthies who have given their country a
proud name in the annals of civilisation. And, besides
and above this excellence in literature and
art, it should never be forgotten that the Danes
are a free people politically, as free as the English,
and that it is on this account that they have
excited the hostility of the stupid tyrants of
Germany.

ELEVEN HUNDRED POUNDS.

"MY dears," I said to the three children I
had nursed and reared for upwards of fifteen
years, till the eldest was a grown-up young lady
of eighteen— " my dears, mother is getting a poor
weakly old body, and there's no one to mind her
and the shop at home, and I am afraid I shall
have to leave you. It would break my heart to
go, if our house wasn't in the same street, and
I can see you every day. But I can never say
good-by to you and the master, so I'll run away
early some morning."

Of course I waited till they could hire a new
servant, a long lanky girl that moved slowly
about the house, and took no interest in anything