The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-31 00:00:00

THE

(From the times Special Correspondent with the. Danish
Army.)
DANISH HEADQUARTERS, SONDERBORG,
March 25.
The Prussians fired about 1,000 shots and shells
against the Dybbol position on Wednesday, when
the Danes had actually not one single casualty to
deplore. Yesterday the fire began at a later hour
than usual, after 11 o'clock, and was over by 1; but
it displayed while it lasted a somewhat more than
ordinary briskness. The efforts of the enemy had
hitherto mainly, if not exclusively, been directed
against Bastion No. 2, which seems to be the point
most exposed to their cannon on their only line of
attack from the shore of Broagerland. Yesterday,
however, their fire ranged freely over the whole ex-
tent of the Danish batteries, from No. 1 to No. 10,
and evinced a particular inclination to flirt with No.
6, where a few men were wounded. Last night they
kept us awake by the occasional roar of their thun-
der, with what result I have not as yet taken the
trouble to ascertain. At this present moment, 8 a.m.,
all is quiet. Altogether, after eight days' attack,
the Dybbol position remains absolutely as safe and
intact as it was.

As soon as a cannonade and bombardment cease
to strike terror, they afford an inexhaustible fund of
amusement. Not only has Sonderborg recovered the
panic into which the first shower of shells had thrown
it, but it has learned to slumber sweetly to the music
of the Prussian guns. A few of the smaller fishing
craft have come back to their moorings, and I saw
on 'Wednesday a steamer making straight for the
harbour, with her Danuebrog waiving defian
the batteries, which could have sunk her in a
seconds from the shore of the liremmind bund.
A number of English amateurs arc daily flocking
upon us, all of them bent upon evincing their sove-
reign contempt of what are called the perils of war.
Sentries are posted at the end of the bridges on the
Sonderborg side to prevent civilians crossing over
to Dybbol unless provided with a pass from head.
quarters. The officers of the Staff are, however,
liberal to a fault, and they hardly ever dream of
refusing a card to any person, especially to an Eng-
lishman, applying for it. Armed with that talis-
man, our fun-loving tourists walk up to the wind-
mill, rummage about from fort to fort, jump upon
parapets, crouch under block-houses, stand on the
glacis, seeking the most advantageous position to
view the exchange of iron projectiles—as eager for
the sport as if it were a game of cricket or football.
The recklessness of their daring and the oddity of
their travelling costume puzzle the officers, and afford
unspeakable amusement to the men. One of these
strangers, a youth of noble blood and mein, fresh
from Oxford, clad in a sort of buff leather cap-i-
-pie, has been nicknamed Robinson Crusoe, and
his indivisible companion, a stalwart fellow, " up
to anything," goes, of course, by the name of his
man Friday. The officers at headquarters, men of
sterling bravery, though too ready to oblige Eng-
land and the English to deny these gentlemen the
gratification of getting themselves knocked on the
head, if they are so minded, are at a loss to under-
stand the foolhardiness which makes the sons of
Albion court danger merely for danger's sake. They
never themselves (the Danes) shrink from any trial
of their mettle when it comes to them in the way of
business; but when not on duty they find no pecu-
liar delight in watching and dodging 241 b.-balls.
Life has sufficient charm for them without en-
hancing its zest by unnecessarily staking it on the
mere cast of a die. Indeed, did they hold it at its
full value, they would deem it a less worthy sacrifice
to be laid down whenever duty to their flag and
love of their country demanded it. The pleasure
derivable from the chances of breaking one's neck
in a steeplechase or in the ascent of a snow peak is
peculiarly English. Foreign nations may envy, and
can easily understand it; for the display of strength
and skill in horsemanship, and nerve and endurance
in mountain climbing, has something in it to flatter
the conscious pride of the possessor of similar gifts ;
but the mere ducking under a shell for the satis-
faction of being able to say that one has been under
fire, or perhaps of exhibiting the skirt of one's
coat or the knee of one's nether garment which a
fragment of one of such missiles has bespattered
with mud baffles these noble Danes' comprehension,
and gives them no very exalted idea of English
sense, whatever estimate they may form of English
heroism. There was a mere boy of 17 the other day
who had perched himself on the very top of the
Dybbol windmill to "see the fan," and no entreaty
or expostulation could induce him to alight from his
elevated station, the sight was so exciting.
Next to the joy of encountering danger must be
man's innate desire to have a hand in, or at least a
peep at, the work of destruction. I was awakened
yesterday at daybreak by the noise of the house next
to the one I live in being pulled down to the ground.
The Engineer Corps have decreed the downfall of
about a score of tenements lying in the way of the
new transversal street which is to open to a broad
avenue from the main street of the town, near the
Raadhuus or Town-hall, down to the sea in the im-
mediate neighbourhood of the bridges.. The neces-
sity of providing every means for the movements
of the troops in the event of a rapid advance or
retreat no doubt justified this measure, and Sender-
borg, like Paris, will at some future day have reason
to thank the absolute will which comes to throw
daylight through the maze of its narrow, crooked,
poky thoroughfares. The breaking up of homes,
however homely, is always a melancholy sight,'
nevertheless, especially if the fiat of demolition
comes suddenly upon those whose dwellings are
doomed. The hustling together of dear, however
mean, furniture ; the tottering steps of old people
spirited away from those walls which had probably
witnessed their birth, and in which they had reck-
oned to draw their last breath undisturbed ; the
wandering forth of women and infants, uncertain
where to lay their heads for the night ; the tearing
open of the sanctum sanctorum of domestic privacy,
the laying bare of the " skeleton closet" of the
household, those crumbling walls, those tattered
hangings, those riven chimneys and desecrated
hearthsall that miserable wreck of gutted human
habitations has something unnaturally painful and
heartrending in it, to which even the magnificent
prospects of a Rue Rivoli or of a Boulevard Sebas-
topol cannot easily reconcile a feeling being. Yet
for those not immediately concerned this work of
demolition seems to have a savage pleasure of some
sort. The Danish soldiers, the best-natured men in
the world, when plying their crowbars and pickaxes
under the direction of the Engineer Corps, go to
work with a will, a glee, and an earnestness which
they hardly ever exhibit in the making of those
trenches which aro to screen their breasts from the
enemy's bullets, or even in the construction of those
wooden huts which aro to temper the rigour of their
winter nights when camping out ; and the popular
tion of the neighbourhood, happy to see the havoc
which strikes down their neighbours and spares
themselves, gather round in crowds, the men smok-
ing their pipes in grim delight, the women gaping
and giggling, the urchins clapping their hands and
harrahing, as roof follows rcof, and floor falls upon
floor, occasionally commenting on the tawdry
fiuery or the abject
misery that theysinlsfpaawrianyg handfrom
of the spoiler brings to light.
r
meAlVanheehnoelvyerscle:leisooosfe
tthoistena: myself I
have
only
y to
take a short walk or ride to find myself among
people whose whsle tenour of life is best calculated
to afford the most thorough and immediate relief.
Certainly the scourge of war never struck a popula-
tion more clearly and justly entitled to exemption
from its horrors than when it came to afflict these
good rural districts of Alsea and of the adjoin-
ing mainland. There is hardly a house from the
loftiest mansion to the lowliest cabin, the door of
which is not hospitably open to the passerby, and
there is hardly an open door into which I have any
hesitation to enter without the least feces Of intra-

i...:7 40 r _ ,
, ~
i. aY4
sion, I am especially fond of coming do
.1 , , -x 7,...
tt 4
parsons. It has become as natural for t. ' _
„ '4' 2z-;`'9
rend gentlemen to see me step upon the'ereA -.--:
:.-I'-'7...3/1
hold and sit down at their tables as if I had been a s
inmate of their house for years. Nor is their hos-
pitable welcome limited to my person alone, but my
English friends, whom I often bring wire no, are
received with the satin., . _. - - .._ .4if they
really came on any plausible errand, or had any
other business there besides the gratification of an
idle curiosity. Not a shade of surprise is ever ex-
hibited at any number of visitors, at any unseason-
ableness of the hour; no inquisitiveness as to the
possible object of the call. To come all the way
from Pall-mall cr Cornhill to lunch with a Denish
" Prediger" seems to the spreader of the feast the
most natural thing in the world. Tnere is a splendid
fellow of that cloth, the clergyman of a thriving vil-
lage about an English mile to the north-east of this
place, upon whom I popped about a month ago,wire,
the free and easy manner of a knight-errant mistr.k-
ing an inn for a castle, or a castle for an inn, and 'with
whom I have been on terms of the most hearty friend-
ship ever since.. Gracious ! what a load of earthly
blessings has Providence heaped upon that worthy
Minister of the Gospel! What a suit of snug, warm,
comfortably-furnished, and elegantly decorated
apartments hide behind that long row of small and
low, but cheerfully sunny windows under that high
and heavy thatched roof ! What a nice choice of well
bound books, what a complete litter of newspapers,
what a luxury of crackling fire, what a genial,
pure, fragrant atmosphere in that delaghta
ful library ! What a maze cf shady walks
in that park, what a wilderness of flowers in
those beds, what a glorious look-out from that
summer-louse upon the mirror-like surface of the
Augusteoburg Fiord ! What a larder and kitchen,
what melodious lowing from that steaming caw•
house, vhat neatness and freshness in that dairy,
what superb colts trotted out for my edification out
of that rvell filled stable ! What earthly paradise is
there fo be compared to a Danish Prestegaard ?
What wealth of soil can compete with the glebe'
of the worthy labourer in the Lord's vineyard ? At
the sane time what man, be he either clerk or lay-
man, better deserves Heaven's favours than .his same
excellent Pastor Mayer? Wealthy as he is now,
men recall the time when he was far richer, and
brought himself to the brink of ruin by his deeds of
charity and hospitality performed in the service of
men and officers at the time when the Danish army
was quartered in this SEIMe district of Dybbol and
Alse confronting the forces of the Germans during
the Schleswig-Holstein war of 1849. The parsons
throughout North and Middle Schleswig have at
all times shown themselves loyal and patriotic even
to heroism, and have been roughly handled by the
anti-Danish party accordingly. However heavily
Herr Mayer may have suffered at that juncture, he
seems not a bit the worse for it at the present mo-
ment. He may be 50 or any number of years old,
but there is no trace of decline in that massive
square face, in that sturdy frame, in that loud
joyous humour, in that deep stentorian voice.
He may have to dine alone with his wife and
sister—the whole of his household ; but he always
sits at a table large enough and always laid out for
a score of guests. Come 10 or 20 strangers at the
very pinch of a minute, and they are as readily
cared for as if they been expected for a week.
The parson brings forth no choice wlues,
no costly viands—all is plain with him—
frugal, yet plentiful. If you do not disdain
his home-cured " speck," his peasoup, and rye
pudding, you can nowhere fare better than here ;
luxury or ostentation you must seek elsewhere ; and
if what you look for in a fellow-being is sterling
worth, you will depart after a few hours spent at the
Ulkebol Parsonage in better humour with yourself
and with the whole of your species. Nor will you
be less delighted if you try your luck with any of
his parishioners, whether your chance brings you
fo the comforts and refinement of Farmer Rosen's
grange at Ronhave, or to the mere hut of Bauer
Hansen at Kizer Westermark. Fear of any lack
of communication by the means of a common
language need hardly deter you. By hook or by
crook, every Dane seems always to have picked up
some scrap of foreign tongue to be used for your
benefit. After Hansen has put en a blank lock at
all the German you endeavour to flourish in his
face, he surprises you by stammering out a few
words of very uncouth but unmistakable French.
His wife and children may not be equally ready
with their tongue, bat they are pleased to see you,
and smile their welcome. The only bane of their
otherwise too happy life is loneliness. Break
through it, and you stand before them in the light
of a benefactor. Your appearance is an event, and
your look, your dress, and address, the words they un-
derstand and those they do not, will be food for their
mind and a topic for their talk for weeks. Drop them
your card, or write your name in their books, and
your pasteboard or handwriting will be a relic for
the house so long as it stands. Benevolence to the
whole human race seems to be the instinct of these
unsophisticated people. No one seems capable of
doing or receiving harm, I have not seen a weapon
in any of the hundred houses I have entered, not
a rusty old firelock hanging as a trophy on the
chimneypiece, not a sporting gun even in any of
the kitchen corners. The dog tied on the straw in
the stable-yard is no less a friend than his master.
Tramps and beggars he never sees, and knows not
how to bark. lie rolls and writhes, whining in his
litter, wagging his tail, and inviting your caress by
every unmistakeable expression of his dumb lan..
guage. It is upon such a people that about 18,000
of their country's soldiers are now billeted; it is
upon them that, unless God help Denmark, as many
or more foreign invaders may at no distant time be
quartered. Heaven save them !

March 25, Evening.
We have been assured here that the Austrians
have raised the siege of Fredericia, and left Jutland
altogether.

_.~-^~