Through Spain and Portugal, every object of interest was photographed,
from the wild and thrilling scenery of the Pyrenees in the north
to that bold headland rock of Gibraltar in the south, and from
the calm Mediterranean in the east to the turbulent waters of the
Atlantic on the west.
Of Switzerland, we exhibit its snow-capped peaks of perpetual ice
and snow; Mont Blanc, Matterhorn and Jungfrau; its placid lakes;
mountain passes, like shelves cut in rock; its bridges of ice and
variety of wild scenery that is seen nowhere but in Switzerland.
Through sunny Italy we gathered photographs from lakes Lugano,
Maggiore and Como with perpetual spring, in the north, to the fiery
crater of Mount Vesuvius in the south; Venice, the "Queen of the
Adriatic;" Genoa, the home of Columbus; Pisa, its leaning tower;
Florence, the "flower of cities," with its galleries of statues
and paintings that the wealth of nations could not purchase; and
Rome, that mighty city by the Tiber, that once ruled the world,
and is still the abode of the Pope; St. Peters and its ruins; yet
now calm, peaceful and powerless.
Austria, where the Catholic bows his head to every shrine, favored
us with its sublime mountain scenery; the picturesque Tyrol; the
blue Danube, famous in history and song; and Vienna, the home of the
Emperor and the former abode of Maria Theresa, strangely fascinating
and unlike any other city in the whole world. Turkey, the land of
the Sultan and the followers of Mahomet, with its strange people
and curious habits, is represented by Constantinople, with its
mosques and minarets, from the top of which the Mussulman sings
out his daily calls for prayer, Ali! Ali!--there is but one God,
and Mahomet is his prophet; its streets, gates and squares; the
Bosphorus and Golden Horn.
Classic Greece, once the centre of art and learning, adorns our
collection with Athens, the Acropolis and Parthenon, the latter
almost completely and shamefully bereft of those famous marbles,
chiseled by Phidias nearly five hundred years before Christ.
In ancient Egypt we photographed the Suez Canal; Alexandria, the
former city of Cleopatra; Cairo, the home of the Khedive and his
harems; the Sphynx and Pyramids, the latter the tombs of the selected
Ptolemies; the river Nile, fed by the melting snows from the mountains
of the Moon, and pouring its waters over this ancient valley with
a regularity as though the ruined temples on its banks give it
command.
Palestine, the Holy Land, made famous in the history of the Christian
Church, added Jeruselem, the City of David; Bethlehem, the cradle
of Christ; Jordan, where He was baptized; the Sea of Galilee, on
whose shores He preached to the multitude; Nazareth, from which
He was called a Nazarene; Gethsemane, where He suffered; Calvary,
where He was crucified.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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