The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1887, page 229 by Various Authors
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ad been. I have seldom received any better reward than that, but once or twice I have fallen upon a store of facts, which, however insignificant, had at least the charm of being new, and which have answered the purpose of stimulating me to fresh absurdities.
A few months ago I was standing on the deck of a steamer bound from London to Hamburg. It was midnight, and we were approaching the mouth of the Elbe. Right ahead was a light of great brilliancy and power; this, the captain informed me, shone from Heligoland, and was seen so clearly because the island was about a hundred and fifty feet above the level of the sea,--a great boon to navigators, the neighboring coasts being very low. But my informant had been in the habit of regarding Heligoland as a lighthouse and nothing more; he could tell me nothing about its constitution, its manners, or its customs, and I determined to visit it forthwith.
By the late wars upon the Continent, the political geography of the Elbe has been completely changed. Between the mouth of the river and Hamburg, the right bank formerly belonged to Holstein, and the left to Hanover. Now both are Prussian. Hamburg itself is under the wing of the Prussian eagle, and may soon be under its claw. The feeling in that city is anti-Prussian; but the citizens were wise enough to side with their powerful neighbor, and to contribute troops. This has certainly saved them from the fete of Frankfort, but it is not probable that Hamburg will be allowed to remain a thoroughly independent state. Prussia will probably abolish her diplomatic, and perhaps her consular service, and permit her to retain certain important rights and privileges. It is, at the present moment, an anxious crisis for the great merchants. In Hamburg, fortunes are made with a rapidity, and to an extent, unequalled in any Continental town; this is owing to the freedom of the port; but, were the Prussian custom-house system to be introduced, Stettin and Königsberg would spring into dangerous rivalry, and her commerc