The Sun.
London, England, 1851-04-14 00:00:00

I find I have stated that the road passed through this
heath.. There certainly was a light brown coloured
track of mud, sand, and gravel, over which we jour-
neyed, trenched in at each side by a juvenile canal, and
in the transition state from liquid to solid; but if any
vehicle born in Long-acre or indued with springs had
essayed that terrible route, a very few paces would have
terminated its existence. It was really wonderful how
we held on in our sudden dives into abysses of mud
lined with small rocks at bottom, and in our equally
precipitous accents therefrom. In fact, this road had
monopolised all the inequalities in the country and left
it a dead level. We had been too wretched in our early
stage from Hjerthing to mind this much, but the jolting
now became a prominent misery. To add to the rich
fund of matter possessed by our grumblers, the foremost
horses were generally inclined to enter into personal
conflicts with the wheelers, and at last flat=ly mutinied.
In the hope of getting on, we had ordered feur horses to
each carriage from Warde to Hoisted, and bad started
accordingly, but a consequence we had not Ontemplated
soon became manifest. By the postal regulations a
driver is attached to each pair of horses, and the postilion
is not yet introduced on the roads of Jutland. The
same mysterious law which determines the selection
of the biggest men in France as riders and drivers of
horses prevails with undiminished rigour in Denmark,
and we were accordingly horrified by seeing a very large
Dane, in a huge red cloak and oilskin hat, emblazoned
with various regal devices, leisurely ascend the box and
take his place by the side of one just as big, who was
already installed in care of the wheelers. We soon as-
certained there was a division of labour in this arrange-
ment. The latter a short, the former a very long whip,
and each regulated his own peculiar pair as to him
seemed fit, so that when the wheelers were driven nearly
to frenzy the leaders were resenting such indecent haste,
and in a few minntes more, by a change of ministry,
were obliged to take all the work on themselves.
It must be remarked here, however, that we traversed
these roads in their worst state. Winter had not long
passed away; the country was still flooded with water,
the usual repairs bad not yet been commenced, and the
necessities of the late war had caused the highway to be
cut up even more than usual by the passage of ammuni-
tion and forage carts and waggons. As yon will learn
hereafter, the above little incidents were in all probabi-
lity peculiar to ourselves, for the Danish Government
have promised to direct theit attention towards the ame-
lioration of the public ways in Jutland; and as there
is no Board of Works in Denmark we may expect some-
thing to be done in the lifetime of this generation.
At last we got into Hoisted, having passed first
through a remarkable farm called Endrupholm, which
put me greatly in mind of one of our large agricultural
establishments in Northumberland, with its extensive
thatched outhouses, and great court yards, and there
changed horses, but were obliged to mount once more
into oar comfortless waggons, which felt as though they
had all the capabilities of patent refrigerators. To con-
tribute to the amenities of our journey, the rain, which
had for some time been trifling with our feelings in
playful showers, came down in right earnest, and we
speedily got into a cross road which might as well have
been a mountain stream so far as facilities for travelling
went. As if fate had not done its worst, after some weary
miles at the rate of five in the hour, which our guide
assured us was rapid in the extreme, we launched on a
piece of " paved road," that is, large blocks were laid
down as if east from the crate of a volcano, over which
we crashed after such sort as to render the con-
tinuity of the spinal column almost miraculous. This
was the approach to Estrupmills, a favourite outpost of
the Prusso-Schleswig-Holstein army, who certainly never
made their attack upon it in Holsteinsvogne (as these
open basket coaches aro called), or they would quickly
have been discomfited, and routed with the loss of their
backbones. With much agony of mind and body we
passed this strategic position, and were soon in the re-
cesses of a wood, through which we passed at the speed,
or slowness rather, of three miles an hour. It would
have been a comfort to have got down and walked, but
an awful whizzing of the wheels told us of the depths
through which we were being carried, and we submitted
in silence and darkness to the exigencies of the moment
till wo emerged from the forest once more. It would be
very rude if I did not apologise to the foxes, owla, and
other respectable inhabitants of that forest for the inter-
ruption occasioned by our passage, of which, indeed,
they abundantly evinced their sense at the time by the
most unmistakable ejaculations. Bumping, splashing,
crashing, and jolting hour after hour, we at last got into
Kolding—(the name is suggestive of an execrable
pun). If anyone has ever had a nightmare in which
he fancied that he was driven for miles through the
ghosts of whitewashed houses pulled out to an inde-
finite extent and long destitute of living inhabitants, he
can realize our feelings in traversing this ancient town.
I solemnly aver that the street of which Kolding is com-
posed must be three miles long at the very least, and that
no fertility of imagination can give any idea of the tor-
tuosity of the said street. So absurd did the thing ap-
pear that some of us at last imagined that the coachmen,
for some inscrutable purpose (all the coachmen are paid
by the stage), were driving us up and down the town,
and were expressing their feelings to that effect when
we pulled up at a snug sort of inn, and in a few moments
a door opened on a welcome banquet of roast veal and
gooseberries, beef and cranberries, and long-necked claret
bottles, and for the nonce all the grumblers rejoiced and
heard with delighted ears of the deeds of arena in this
phantom town, when the Danes were at last, after a
protracted conflict, induced to retire, not more by their
insurgent fellow-subjects and their allies than by the
fear that the ancient metropolis of Jutland would be
bombarded from the heights which the enemy had occu-
pied. We could see the marks of the battle on many of
the houses as we drove by—great patches of plaster
knocked off the walls, leaving the brick and stone-work
visible; doors splintered, tiles smashed, and chimney-
pots and window-frames demolished.
To our great delight Kolding afforded us covered car-
riages, and we travelled iu comparative comfort to
Snoghai, the ferry below Fredericia, on the Little Belt,
where we arrived about half-past three o'clock in the
morning. The day was just breaking as we huddled
ourselves, still cold and shivering from a hearty snooze,
into two open boats, which certainly had not suffered
from the dry rot. As the faint light tinged the coast
we ()aught sight of the fine undulating shores of the
eastern side of Jutland, covered with rich verdure
and clad with trees, and just across a mile or so of placid
water, smooth as a mirror and dark as jet, rose the
luxuriant coast of Funen trending further and further
away to the north and south till it was lost in a green
distance of forest and underwood. The tide was setting
strongly down towards the south, and it was more than
half an hour before we landed on the quay of Middel-
fast on the opposite side. It was soon evident we
were in a more favoured island than the land which
we had just left. The little town smiled brightly
in the morning sun; and as we drove out of its well
country of Funen the
ythetriZnerled hedges, of comfortable
kl
aenpdts o
as
pt ree e
oft inn teoa t
homesteads, of fields well tilled, orchard and forest trees
throwing out the first buds of spring, we were forcibly
reminded of similar scenery in England. The roads; too,
were capital, and were all the more agreeable fort the
contrast; and as the horses trotted on merrily at the
rate of six and a half or seven miles an hour, through a
gently undulating and luxuriant country lighted up by
the warm hues of morning, the party experieeced feel,
ings of pleasure to which they bad been for some time
strangers. At seven in the morning we halted at a little
out-of-the-way inn, Gribsvad kro, to refresh ourselves
and the horses; but the latter were the more fortunate of.
the two in fulfilling, that intention, and we reserved out•
energies perforce for a great meal at Odense (the city
of Odin), about 13 miles further on. A drive of twd
hours and a little more brought US to this ancient town,
the capital of Funen, and as we entered it we could:
just catch a glimpse of the venerable towers of the
cathedral, founded in 1080 by Canute the Fourth;
and named after our own Sr. Alban; and rebuilt
a second time so far back as the beginning
of the 12th century. I would gladly have
visited this noble old building, but as we were travelling
express a pilgrimage thereto could only be made at
the expense of my breakfast, and I was weak enough to
yield to the superior attractions of the posthouso. A
stupendous meal, worthy of the heroes of the Valhalla,
the hour,
great Belt, and
was at last completed, and after a drive of 18 or 19
miles, through a country of equal richness, w
overe neeatpeirteadl
roads,Nybogra,t
athsetrroantegloyf
fsoormtiefieltmowilneseann
rattling over some drawbridges thrown across deep
dykes, in which some convicts who possessed a physique
strangely conformable to that of the
ennatiavgeeßd British
honingitishcoai-
modity in this country, were busily g
wood and drawing water, we soon entered the main
street, which was crowded with slouching soldiers, in
loose frocks of green and blue, and in enormous shoes
like the Gallic sabots. After a short stay we embarked
in the steamer to cross the Great Belt to Lora or, in
Zealand. The day was beautifully fine, and the ,fairest
scene which we had yet seen opened before us. Far,
across the Great Belt loomed the green outlines of the.
Zealand shore, and the gentle undulations of the FOnen
coast swept softly away to the north and south.
till lost in the distance. Our steamer Was,
crowded. On the quarter-deck were lugubrious
Holstein Counts, going to Court for pardon and forgive-
ness, muffled in furs and mulaucholy. On the forecastle
and deck were groups of hussars, japers, and infantiry,
returning home to their families resplendent with riband,.
crosses, and decorations, and radiant with good humour.
They were fine stout fellows, round shouldered witkal,
and heavy limbed, but broad shouldered too and mus-
cular, and the horsemen fraternised with their steedi in;,
a kindly chivalresquo spirit that did one good to look.
upon. They smoked and sang incessantly, and whether,''
the gallant fellows had prize money or not each looked as.
jolly though he,had come exproes from litour in California.