TRAVEL: 1871 TRIP ABROAD. page I of 22 [First Trip Abroad] My first trip abroad was made in the summer of 1871, during the vacation period between my Freshman and Sophomore years at Harvard. My older brother, William Ward Dorr, at Harvard also in an earlier class, and I sailed together from Boston as soon as the college term was over to join our parents, who had crossed in the early spring and would be awaiting us on the Rhine. The only steamships to England then making regular, mail-carrying trips were those of the Cunard Line, found- ed by Samuel Cunard of Halifax, Novia Scotia, in 1839, who had testified his faith in the triumph of steam over sails by offering the British government a well-considered, favorable contract for the carrying of mails; and the company he formed was given the contract for it. Samuel Cunard, it is interesting to note, was the son of a Philadelphia Loyalist who fled to Nova Scotia, like many others of his time, during the Revolution. The Cunard vessels made only two trips a week at that time, one from New York on Wednesdays, the other, on which the older boats were used, from Boston on Saturdays. The ship we sailed on was the Scotia, built in 1862, the last of the side-wheelers. (1871) 2. An outstanding recollection of the voyage was when I woke the first morning out and lay in my berth, immed- iately beneath the deck, none too happily conscious of the motion of the ship, and heard the tramping of the sailors overhead as they hoisted the sails to speed us on our way, for the wind was following. They sang some of the old sea chanties as they pulled on the ropes, one sailor singing the burden of the song, the others all coming in on the chorus. It took us thirteen days to reach Liverpool, days of monotony till we came in sight of Ireland, with its pale-green fields and high, uplifted coast, when all be- came at once full of interest. We landed the next day at Liverpool, where I got the impression, soon lost, of the English as a race, distinct from the individual, and my first introduction to an English breakfast. From Liverpool we went straight on to Chester, one of the most interesting of mediaeval towns, with its old city walls and raised walks covered by the projecting upper stories of the houses with their quaint gabled roofs and heavy-beamed construction. The best shops of the town opened on these walks, with steps leading up at intervals, (1871) 3. while stores of commoner sort fronted beneath them upon the street below -- a curious arrangement which I have never seen elsewhere. The city's two main streets, extending straight across from gate to gate and meeting at the market-center, are a direct inheritance from the old Roman camp, Castra whence the city's name established in the first century of our era as a check upon the turbulent Celtic tribes in Wales beyond the River Dee and to serve as military headquarters for the Island, its importance being indicat- ed by the fact that it had no qualifying epithet of river or other natural feature to distinguish it as did the other camps in Britain Manchester, Gloucester, Lancaster and the rest. And the chief camp it remained throughout the whole long period of Roman occupation. During the greater portion of that time, order so good was maintained by means of subordinate camps and military roads that men could travel in safety and villas be built and occupied outside the cities in scarce less security than at the present time. An atmosphere of old Arthurian legend hangs about the place and over the River Dee which borders it, whose waters were held sacred by the ancient Britons. Of these legends (1871) 4. I had often read as a boy in Sir Thomas Malory, whose famous book, Morte d'Arthur, was in our library and had made great appeal to my imagination as did, too, the later, half-legendary tales of Alfred, King of the West Saxons, and his struggle against the Danes. From Chester we went on to London, then at the season's height. It was, as I look back on it, a great historic scene, the culmination of a long period of in- creasing wealth and power. Social life all centered round the Court, Parliament, and the Aristocracy, who came up from their country seats for the season, opening their town houses. There was as yet no tourist crowd; London expressed the life of its own English people and presented itself magnificently. Splendid equipages rolled by, the coach- men in full livery, two footmen up behind, while the crowd looked on and approved. It seemed then a very solid world, destined to endure. In the morning, if the day was pleasant, society went out in number and rode on horseback in Rotten Row corrupted in the common parlance from the original 'Route du Roi' -- or drove in stately carriages alongside the Row, (1871) 5. stopping ever and anon to talk with the riders. It was a great social spectacle and had a fitting setting in Hyde Park, in the simplicity of its old elms and broad greensward. Nothing consciously landscaped could have had the same effect of unobtrusive dignity. Nor had one any sense of incongruity between the people and the Aristocracy, who seemed but the fit and natural culmina- tion of the nation's life. It was the end of one epoch, the beginning of another not yet come into its own. One of the sights of the city at that time was the departure in the morning from the White Horse Tavern in Piccadilly of four-horse coaches, owned and driven by gentlemen, men of rank and station, and headed for some point of interest a day's run out and back, with relays of horses at suitable distances for quick travel, as in old coaching days. The horses, well matched and handled, were of the finest and great pride was taken in their good appearance by their drivers, who wore white top-hats and smart coaching rigs, a costly flower in their button- hole and a gaily dressed lady by their side. The passen- gers, in gala autire, rode on top, two grooms up behind, one of whom had a horn which he blew at intervals as they (1871) 6. rolled down the crowded street, carriages and wagons drawing to the roadside and giving, by courtesy and custom, clear passage to the coach, while all upon the sidewalk turned and looked. A characteristic and delightful feature of London at that time was the hansom-cab, two-wheeled, with cover- ed top and open front, the driver sitting up behind, the view lying fully open ahead as one drove along. These were in constant movement in the streets where fares were to be found and one could always hail one without long waiting, while the fares were low -- a shilling and up- ward, according to the distance. As the wealth was the greatest, so the shops on the fashionable shopping streets of London, Bond Street and the rest, were the finest in the world, making, without ostentation, rich display, while along Piccadilly, oppo- site Green Park, and the streets that opened out from it houses were owned or suites of rooms were rented for the season by gentlemen, their windows shaded by bright color- ed awnings and decorated with flowers in boxes, making the whole quarter gay. (1871) 7. We stayed, my brother and I, at a quiet but fashion- able family hotel on the corner of Regent Street and Water- loo Place, admirably kept by a Frenchman named Maurigy, where my father and mother had stayed when they came out that spring, of which my best remembrance is that of the wonderful 'Southdown' mutton, done to a turn, served us at dinner, and the green gooseberry tart with cream which followed -- a dish unknown to us before, gooseberries not thriving in the drier climate of eastern North America. We visited no 'sights,' the Tower or other; the real sight in London then was London itself, the living city, London at its greatest when it reached a point of pre-eminence and display it never reached before nor will again. And, if one did not look too closely at what lay behind, it was indeed a splendid show, which no ruins from out the past could equal or approach in interest. So we took in the great spectacle of its crowds and pageantry; got ourselves clothes for the summer at half the cost of what we would have paid at home, with wider choice of material and better fit, furnished outselves with top-hats of the famous Lincoln and Bennett make, which I as a Freshman at Harvard had never worn before, and indulged in the luxury, new to us, of shoes made to order. Then we went our way to join our parents, now awaiting us at Baden-Baden on the Rhine. (1871) 8. We left London on a stormy day to cross the channel from Dover to Ostend, which was, as it turned out -- the vessels being small -- one of the roughest trips that I have ever made. At Ostend on the Belgian coast -- the language presented no difficulty for we both spoke French, but not a word of German; and it was with much relief that we found, arriving late that evening at Cologne, our parents' very competent courier, an Englishman named Wyatt, awaiting us as the train pulled in. Taking us to a hotel, he provided us with a much-needed supper, for, thanks to the crossing we had made, we had eaten nothing since we breakfasted in London. The next morning we visited the magnificent old Gothic Cathedral, took a sight of the ancient city built as a Roman colony -- whence the name, Colonia originally in the first century of our era, and then left by steamer to go up the Rhine to Baden-Baden. I remember well the interest of that trip when all was new to me -- the famous river of which I had read so much, city after city which we stopped at, the old ruined castles, hillsides clothed with vineyards, all rich in history and legend. (1871) 9. Our parents, whom we joined that afternoon, had come out in April, sailing from New York to Liverpool, whence they had gone, as we also when we came, to Chester, and thence to Leamington, a mineral spring resort some thirty miles away. There, arriving in the evening, my father registered in the hotel guest book. When he came down to breakfast the next morning an elderly waiter approached him and said: "Mr. Dorr, I read your name in the registry book last night. May I ask if you are a relative of an American gentleman, Mr. George B. Dorr, who came here in 1842 with his young wife who was taken ill here and died?" It was my father's older half-brother, George Bucknam Dorr, whose name I bear, and his beautiful young wife, Joanna Hone Dorr, the daughter of Samuel S. How- land of New York. She was taken ill there, as they were on their way back to New York for her confinement, giving birth prematurely to a child who also died. The waiter remembered them well and that he should have done SO and should have been there still and in the same position is a striking instance of the conservatism of English life at that time. (1871) 10. From Leamington, my father and mother drove out to Kenilworth and Warwick Castle, two of the most picturesque and historic ruins in England, and to Stratford-on-Avon, the picturesque little country town which was Shakespeare's birthplace and early home. They then went on to London where to my mother all was new, this being her first trip abroaa. There they stayed two weeks, visiting the picture galleries, the Houses of Parliament and St. Paul's Cathedral, and seeing, as we, the living city's great historic show. Entertained at dinner by English friends to whom they had shown hos- pitality at home, I recall my mother's telling me of a dinner where to her great interest she found herself seated between Robert Browning, the poet, and Ivan Tourge- neiff, the famous Russian novelist, with whom especially she had much interesting talk. From London, crossing the channel from Dover to Os- tend, they went on to Bonn, the famous university town and the birthplace of Beethoven, where they attended service in the Old Cathedral and heard much good music, it being the time of Whitsuntide or Pentecost, when the marvel of the tongues of fire appeared: (1871) 11. "Now when Pentecost was fully come they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." Thence they took steamer up the Rhine to Mayence, built at a great strategic point which has given it im- portance always and led to its being made in recent years one of the strongest border fortresses in Germany, in case the Christian spirit embodied in its old cathedral should fail to keep the peace. From Mayence, journeying through various old towns, they went over the Brenner Pass to Italy, where, for all was new to them, four weeks of such interest were spent that memory of them never faded nor merged in that of later years when all had grown familiar. Thence, return- ing northward, they went to Baden-Baden to await our coming. Baden-Baden tells in its very name of the value set by the Romans, in the days of the Empire, on warm, outflow- ing mineral springs, wherever found. The town is set on a (1871) 12. hill in a beautiful valley bordering the Black Forest, where the springs that led to its fountains gush forth from a number of sources at the foot of Castle Rock and are thence piped direct to luxurious bath establishments scattered through the town, which has made it a famous resort, not only for the ill but idle. From Baden-Baden, a united party now, we went on to Heidelberg, on the Neckar, where we visited its ruined castle, the most magnificent in Germany, overlooking the town and valley, and saw the students of its famous univer- sity -- a picturesque feature in the streets in their corps uniforms. My mother's younger brother, George Cabot Ward, giving up a business life to become, as he then planned, a writer, had been a student here and my mother, who had read at the time his letters home, was interested to see the town and countryside where he had lived and walked. From Heidelberg we went on to Dresden, the capital of Saxony, to see the famous Royal Gallery, amongst which Raphael's Sistine Madonna, one of the greatest of all pictures, stands out in my memory, pre-eminent and unfor- gettable. (1871) 13. From Dresden we went on to Nuremberg in Bavaria, most picturesque of mediaeval cities, famous as the home of Albrecht Durer and scarce less so by the delight- ful tradition associated with it of Hans Sachs, the cob- bler poet, and his guild of Meistersingers. Then, from Nuremberg we went directly up into the Bavarian Alps to see the famous Passion Play at Ober- ammergau, enacted by the villagers every tenth year since 1633 in gratitude for the cessation of a plague which had desolated the surrounding country. The whole village takes part in its performance as a devout relig- ious ceremony. Its regular decennial performance had come the year before, in 1870, but after the first one or two performances the villager who took, and marvellous- ly well, the part of Christ had been drafted into service in the Franco-Prussian War, and for the remainder of the year the play was given up. But, the war over, he had returned unharmed, with the long curls his Christus part necessitated unshorn, and the Passion Play was taken up again at the point where the war had interrupted it, and that is how it chanced that we had the opportunity to see it in 1871. (1871) 14. It was a great performance, distinguisned by utter simplicity and true artistic feeling. Given in the open air, only the stage covered, with the green background of the hills, there was a wonderful sense of spaciousness and freedom about it. The play, given weekly, continued the whole day through, with an interval at noon for rest and dinner. The talk was in the local dialect, which none but those of the country-side could follow. Scenes from the New Testament were enacted at full length, but before each a living picture, , according to the design, it was said, of some noted artist in the olden time, was shown in ap- propriate anticipation of the scene from the life of Christ which was to follow, and were most impressive. In one were shown the Children of Israel gathered in the Desert, in which a large portion of the people in the village, hundreds of them, appeared upon the stage, making a composition of great beauty, rich in the varied color of their costumes. Another picture represented Abraham offering up Isaac, bound as a sacrifice upon the altar in obedience to the Divine command, and during this one heard, coming from behind the curtained background of the scene, a dull thumping sound repeated at short intervals, (1871) 15. which, following the action of the play, one knew to be the nailing of Christ and the two thieves upon their crosses. The scene from the New Testament which follow- ed was marvellously realistic, moving the whole audience profoundly. There was no inn or tavern in the village, but the peasants felt it an honor to entertain their visitors and quartered them, now here, now there, as room could be found, in their houses, furnished in true Tyrolean fashion. A young artist friend of ours and distant relative of my father's, Augustus Hoppin, of the old Hoppin family of Rhode Island, had come up from Innsbruck with us and drew some most amusing and delightful sketches of the village scenes and people. In one of these, which I recall par- ticularly, he showed himself lying in bed, his body cover- ed with a high, four-foot square feather comforter, his bare feet standing out below, toes turned up, while he looked down at them, his head raised, with a quizzical, amused expression. Returning from Oberammergau, we went on to the old city of Augsburg -- Augustusburg -- founded by the Emperor Augustus, grand-nephew and heir to Caesar, at the head- waters of the Danube, to control the pass between them and those of the Rhine. (1871) 16. From Augsburg, crossing the Lake of Constance, head- water of the Rhine, we made our way to Coire, the capital of the Swiss canton of the Grisons. Here, the Rhineland with its ancient legends and historic memories left behind, we entered Switzerland with its high mountain passes, its snow-capped peaks, its fresh, tumbling waters and magnifi- cent encirclement of glacier-created lakes, where we spent the next four weeks in great enjoyment. From Coire we crossed by coach the Splügen Pass, boundary between Switzerland and Italy, and went on to Chiavenna, whose name -- Italianized from the Latin Clavenna, The Key -- carries one back at a single stroke to Roman times, when traders from Italy, with such goods as they could carry in packs or on mule-back across the great barrier of the Alps, came and went through 9 series of passes to which Chiavenna served as key. Below lies the Lake of Como, most beautiful of the Italian Lakes. The low-lying, fertile plain of Lombardy below was once, in recent geologic times, an arm of the Adriatic, extend- ing along the foothills of the Alps, and filled to its present level by the vast erosion of the glacial period, adding to Italy its most fertile soil and beautiful scenery. From Como we explored the rest of the Italian Lakes and the passes leading to them, till the whole country grew clear to us, leaving a memory which has never faded. My brother and I made no attempt at mountain climbing, the mountain passes, with their old Roman milestones, stirring our imaginations with the story they told of ancient travel over them, and, with the valleys, giving us all we could absorb in a period so brief and a land so interesting. They have always held great fascination for me, these high, wind-swept mountain passes with their bare summits and the constant sound of falling waters from the melting snow upon the mountain tops above, which accompany the traveller at every step, ascending or descending. We rode over them, sometimes in four-horse, hooded coaches, or, sending our luggage around some easier but longer route, on muleback or horseback as in ancient days, the most delightful mode of travelling where there is interest and picturesque detail upon the way. Our enjoyment was greatly added to during our stay in Switzerland by joining at Cadenabbia, on Lake Como, whither we drove from Chiavenna and spent some days, (1871) 18. friends my father and mother had made upon their way out in April, Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Davids of Philadelphia and their two attractive daughters, the one of my brother's age; the other of my own. The elder, a girl of unusual beauty and high spirits, and my brother became great friends upon the trip, though, as it chanced, they never were to meet again. Mr. Davids was one of the most in- teresting men whom I have ever known, an artist who made the most delightful sketches, a musician and composer who improvised upon the organ, an excellent linguist, widely read in European literature. As I look back upon that trip, one scene stands out in my memory beyond all others for its extraordinary beauty. We had come by coach to Chamonix, arriving in the evening when all was dark. At dawn the following morning my father, rising early, called us all to see the snow-clad summit of Mont Blanc, directly opposite us, gloriously lighted by the first rays of the morning sun, against the blue, cloudless sky of early dawn, while the valley we were in and the lower, wooded moun- tain slopes lay in deep shadow still. No wind was stir- ring; there was neither mist nor haze. It was a scene of such transcendent beauty that it scarce seemed earthly. (1871) 19. Another outstanding impression that I brought away with me from Switzerland was that of standing on the bridge at Geneva and watching the clear, transparent waters of the lake flow out beneath me in a strong current to form, as a single source, the River Rhone, while the lake itself spread out before me, blue and beautiful, with its splendid background of encircling mountains. One other scene that memory brings strongly back to me is that of the Lake of Lucerne, picturesque beyond all others, famous for its association with the half-mythical William Tell, the subject of one of Schiller's most strik- ing dramas. Our last stopping place in Switzerland was at Basle, whose origin again goes back to Roman times when it was built as an outpost against the barbarian tribes beyond the Rhine. Thence we took our way direct to Paris, arriving after dark. Our train halted at the 'Barrier, the line of earth- works thrown up for the defense of the city in the recent war; and there, in flickering torchlight, we saw, looking out of the car window, an unforgettable sight, the helmets of Prussian soldiers -- soldiers who had been left stationed (1871) 20. at strategic points around the city, there to remain un- til a certain major portion of the indemnity demanded by the German Government in compensation for the expenses of the war should be paid. This had now been done and the day of our arrival was that on which the withdrawal of these troops was directed to begin. This indemnity, regarded at the time as so colossal that it was doubted if ever payment of it could be made, being put in the form of bonds issued by the French Government, was, as soon as placed upon the market, taken up by its people, the frugal, hard-working peasantry in greater part, to the surprise not only of the world at large but of the German Government who had calculated on crippling by means of it for a long time to come the recovery of France. Arriving in Paris, we went to the Hotel Meurice on the Rue de Rivoli opposite the Tuilleries Gardens, one of the pleasantest hotels in Paris, from whose windows in the morning we could see the ruins of the Tuilleries Palace, which had been so recently the scene of splendid entertainments and a world-famous center of the gayest Court life in Europe. The long siege had come to an end six months before, the uprising of the Commune which fol- lowed it was over, and Paris, shorn of its splendor, was now functioning as usual, its hotels and restaurants in full swing, its sidewalks thronged with people. (1871) 21. But all over the city one saw evidence of the fanati- cal and destructive work of the Commune. The Column Ven- dome, which records in bronze scenes from the victories of the First Napoleon, lay prostrate and broken in the Place Vendome. The Tuilleries Palace was in ruins at the head of the famous garden, between the Seine and the Rue de Rivoli, upon which it had looked down; and it has never been rebuilt. Everywhere throughout the city the chief public buildings had been set fire to and destroyed so far as possible by the fury of the Communistic uprising which France's own soldiers, under General MacMahon, had been called to suppress, while the victorious German troops lay outside the city, indifferent to what befell within. At night the city, whose brilliant illumination under the Third Empire had given it the name of 'La Ville Lumiere', lay in darkness and gloom and men's minds were full of the humiliation which had befallen their country; but, none- the-less, France, the Republic, was carrying on. That the great Cathedral of Notre Dame, so beautiful in itself and so rich in history, should have escaped destruction is a marvel; so, too, it W&S with the great collection of masterpieces in the Louvre, which has few equals in the world. (1871) 22. It is indeed a wonder that the destruction wrought by the Commune was no greater. The barricades of paving stones behind which they fought still blocked some of the principal streets when we were there, and the picture I got of the fury with which they resisted the advancing troops is one that has never left me. After an all too short stay in Paris, with the sights it had to show and the lessons to teach, my father and mother and I returned to London, sailing for home in time for the opening of the college year; my brother, with- drawing from Harvard, remained abroad to spend the fall and early winter at Mentone, on the Riviera, for the milder climate, with our aunt and cousin on our mother's side. [G.B.DORR] R. Stanton Avery Special Collections Dept. New England Historic Genealogical Society 101 Newbury Street Boston, MA 02116 1871 - GBD & WWD go to London- then join parents at Baden-Baden (Good copy - to be read for typographical errors) Trace noute on map. Italy. 1872-1874 - C.H.D. to Paris for winter, going to Riviera and &WWW to Rome; ChD. returned home in spring; GBD & WWD going again, the same spring to England, Scotland and Wales, with Mr. Dana as a companion on the trip; in the fall of 1873 WWD returned home, & CHD joined GBD for a winter in Paris and on Riviera, returning home in the spring of 1874. (Good copy, but change has to be made, as it is written incorrectly.) 1874 - 1878 -- Abroad - Rome, etc. (unfinished) 1878 - trip to Brittany ; trip to Spain, winter of 1877 to be added to the story. 1882 - Trip to Central Italy & Sicily - Rough Copy 1891-1892 - Trip to Palestine & Up Nile - Good Canoeing Trip to Moosehead Lake with Sam Warren - 1895 1902 - Trip with Geologists - Good 1903 - GBD & Vanderbilts - Good 1904 - To Sierras - Good 1907 - Last Trip Abroad Rough A trip through Virginia Staying at Biltmore Estes Park - (Col. . Fordyce