most delightful journeys one can take

in Italy by rail. Every mile of the trip is beautiful, and the view one gets in passing of the farm life and peasantry is refreshing after our recent contact with the crumbling

tiful as they are. Dream-like and fantastic and permeated with the past were those sights, while the fresh fields, the cattle, the peasants at their work bring us back to the realities of a country that is enchanting in

many ways besides its antiquities and works of art.

Long before the traveler reaches Milan he becomes aware that he is approaching an unusual Italian city, for instead of mainly and often only the domes and spires of churches, here there is also a multitude of tall chimneys and the smokestacks of factories, denoting a great manufacturing city. This he soon learns is the Pittsburg of Italy, the seat of vast industries in engine building, street car and automobile, electrical and iron works. A closer acquaintance discovers that it is a hive of busy industry, and energetic with northern spirit and enterprise.

It is hard to say whether the stock phrase of the stock tourist-"there is so little to see in Milan"-redounds most to the derision of the speaker or to the glory of Italy. That such judgment should be possible, even to the least instructed traveler, implies a surfeit of impressions procurable in no other land; since to the hastiest observation, Milan could hardly seem lacking in interest when compared to any but Italian cities. From comparison with the latter, even, it suffers only on a superficial estimate, for it is rich in all that makes the indigenous beauty of Italy.

It is not by its external aspect that Milan counts among the most important cities of Italy. Its sobriquet of the "moral capital of the country" is more than a mere phrase. What deeds had to be done, what sufferings to be endured, before the nation was united! And although enthusiasm for this aim was diffused throughout the whole country, yet the lion's share of the labor fell to Northern Italy. Here principally, in Piedmont and Lombardy, reigned that strong and sober spirit which adds action to will, and which shrinks intimidated from no endurance; and in power of endurance at all events no other Italian city can be compared with Milan. It has been besieged forty-eight times, and stormed twenty-eight times. As often as the stormy flood of war poured over the Lombard plains, it beat its angry waves against the walls of this city. Milan rises out of the tempestuous history of the Middle Ages like a rock out of the ocean. But together with all the war-like surroundings, and the manly bold

ness which was the distinguishing characteristic of the city, arts and sciences, wealth and love continued to flourish.

Two thousand years have passed over the capital of Lombardy, and we can hardly realize that this same city, in which we have seen Radetzky's white-coated soldiery, and heard in 1859 the enthusiastic shout of Viva Vittorio Emanuele! was besieged by the Romans two hundred years B. C., that Theodosius held his court here, and Attila wasted it with fire and sword. But most terrible of all was the chastisement inflicted by Barbarosa, who, angered by the repeated revolts of Milan against his authority, swore to level the city to the earth, and in fact caused all but the public buildings, and one or two churches to be pulled down with great iron hooks, and the woodwork set on fire. Two hundred years later we find the Visconti in full possession of the town; the means by which they established and maintained their power being the same that were then used by all the rulers of Italy, the same that are set forth by Macchiavelli in the Principe, with the sole difference that some were able to apply them more boldly than others. Cruel times of blood-shed and tyranny had to pass by before the Sforzas won the Dukedom of Milan. This family was of low, nay peasant, origin, but the founder of its dignities possessed least personal valor, and showed what could be accomplished by belief in high destiny; but its descendants finally sank into degradation beneath the press of worn-out traditions. But Milan first felt the real yoke of despotism, when Charles the Fifth gave her into the hands of the Spaniards, in whose clutches she remained until the beginning of the eighteenth century. How she felt under the rule of Austria is known to all contemporaries; in vain were German savants and German artists summoned to give new glory to the city, Milan would not be German, she would be nothing but a portion of United Italy! And terrible years had to be lived through before there finally came the Peace of Villafranca, and the King entered Milan amid universal and joyful enthusiasm.

It is singular enough that a town which has ever been so constant to the national