Twenty Years in Europe: A Consul-General's Memories of Noted People, with Letters From General W. T. ShermanByers, S. H. M. (Samuel Hawkins Marshall)
History
Twenty Years in Europe: A Consul-General's Memories of Noted People, with Letters From General W. T. Sherman
Byers, S. H. M. (Samuel Hawkins Marshall)
Europe -- Description and travel
The other morning the staid old city of Zurich was suddenly awakened by
the whoop of a band of American Indians. Had a cloud fallen, some of
the people could not have been more stirred up. The wild men were the
genuine article, in war paint and feathers. Not one Swiss in a thousand
had ever seen a real Indian before. It was part of a band of Chippewas,
being carried around Europe for exhibition. The show was a great
success. Everybody went to see it, and even followed the strangers
about the streets in crowds. The Indians had their difficulties,
however. An occasional one with too much “fire water” lay prone on the
sidewalk or rested in the lockup. They also had quarrels with their
manager, and daily for a time this painted band of my fellow countrymen
came to the consulate and held pow wows on the floor of the office.
They were a helpless lot of human beings there alone, knowing nothing
of the language, with a manager supposed to be robbing them. I got them
out of the lockup, and out of their other many difficulties as best I
could, and won their esteem and gratitude.
_November 16, 1882._--Three days ago the great Gottfried Kinkel was
carried to the graveyard out by the foot of the mountains. He had been
a warm friend since the day we came to Zurich. He was passionately fond
of the Swiss mountains, and we have had delightful little excursions
together. His death was sudden. One day he was stricken with apoplexy
and could not speak. He motioned his wife to help him to the window,
where he could once more look out at the beautiful mountains. He looked
long and wistfully at them and then waving them a farewell with his
hand went to his bed and died. Poetry and art and all things beautiful
wept when Kinkel died. His funeral was the greatest ever seen in
Zurich. He was buried by torchlight by the students of the University.
When the grave was closed and the great procession of uniformed corps
students with badges, flags and torches came back into the city, they
marched to a public square, formed an immense circle and, casting their
torches into a great funeral pile in the center, watched them burn to
ashes.
_December 14._--Our American statesman, Carl Schurz, had been a friend
of the poet, patriot Kinkel in the revolutionary times, and had also
rescued him from prison and death.
I wrote him a description of the funeral and received his reply to-day.
“Dec. 4, 1882.
“MY DEAR SIR:--I have just received your very kind letter of
November 21st in which you describe Kinkel’s funeral, and I thank
you most sincerely for it. His sudden death had been reported by
cable, but your letter gave me the first information about the
last days of his life, the circumstances of his death and the
touching demonstration of popular feeling at his funeral. The
letter will appear as a special correspondence in the Evening
_Post_ to-morrow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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