Visit to Scandinavia
91
the powers of the air.” The dwelling occupied by the reformer is still
known as “Luther’s house.”
From Frankfort we pursued our journey toward Hamburg, passing
through a country diversified with hamlets and cities, mountains, rivers,
forests, and cultivated lands. Many features of the landscape are quite
unlike America. The farming lands are not divided by fences, and
instead of our wide spreading fields much of the land is cultivated in
narrow strips, each appropriated to a different crop. In summer the
plains appear as if covered with ribbon work of almost every shade
of green and brown, giving a very pleasing effect. There are few
scattered farm-houses. From the open country we pass suddenly into
the midst of high, square blocks, in which the people are crowded
together almost as closely as in the most populous cities. The houses
are usually large, each containing many families. They are expected to
last for hundreds of years, and are built in the most substantial manner,
of brick or stone plastered over on the outside. The partition walls and
the floors are often of stone or brick, and tile or slate is used instead
of shingles for covering the roof. There is little danger of fire passing
from one story to another.
Many of the houses present a very ancient appearance, with their
steep roofs and small-paned windows. Often a considerable part of
the house appears to be above the eaves. There may be only three or
four stories below the eaves, while there are sometimes four or five
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above, with as many rows of odd little dormer-windows on the roof.
Many of the houses in the small villages and in the outskirts of the
towns serve the purpose both of barns and dwellings, the people living
in one end of the building and the cattle in the other. Sometimes each
end is occupied by a family, while the beasts have the center; these are
usually kept in the stable by day as well as by night, for most of the
land is too valuable to be used for pasturage.
In this densely populated country, every foot of available land has
been cultivated for centuries. Wherever the country is too barren and
mountainous for other uses, and there are rivers to furnish means of
transportation, it is devoted to the raising of forests. In many places
where in former times the forests had been destroyed, they have been
replanted at the public expense. In many States they are the property of
the government, and are as carefully kept as gardens. There are laws