the capital of the island
kingdom of Denmark, rises out of the coast of Zealand, and breaks the
loneliness and monotony of a long coast line. It was a beautiful
vision as we approached it in the summer evening hours of the high
latitude,--evening only to us, for the sun was still high above the
horizon. The spire of the Church of Our Saviour--three hundred feet
high--appeared to stand against the sky. Palaces seemed to lift
themselves above the sea as we steamed slowly towards the great
historic city of the North.

"The entrance to the harbor is narrow but deep. The harbor itself is
full of ships; Copenhagen is the station of the Danish navy.

"We passed very slowly through the water streets among the ships of
the harbor,--for water streets they seemed,--and after a tedious
landing, were driven through the crooked streets of a strange old town
to a quiet hotel where some English friends we had met on the
Continent were stopping.

"The city is little larger than Providence, Rhode Island. Its public
buildings are superb. It is an intellectual city, and its libraries
are the finest of Europe.

[Illustration: THE PALACE OF ROSENBORG.]

"It is divided into two parts, the old town and the new. In the new
part are broad streets and fine squares.

"We visited the Rosenborg Palace, the old residence of the Danish
kings;--it is only a show palace now. In the church we saw
Thorwaldsen's statues of the Twelve Apostles, regarded as the finest
of his works.

[Illustration: VIEW OF COPENHAGEN.]

THE STORY OF ANCIENT DENMARK.

It is a strange, wild romance, the early history of the nations of
the North.

The Greeks and Romans knew but little about the Scandinavians. They
knew that there was a people in the regions from which came the
north winds. The north wind was very cold. Was there a region beyond
the north wind? If so, how lovely it must be, where the cold winds
never blow. They fancied that there was such a region. They called
the inhabitants Hyperboreans, or the people beyond the north wind.
They imagined also that in this region of eternal summer men did not
die. If one of the Hyperboreans became tired of earth, he had to
kill himself by leaping from a cliff.

The Northmen, or the inhabitants of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden,
were of the same origin as the tribes that peopled Germany, and that
came from the East, probably from the borders of the Black Sea. They
were fire-w