 
January, 1882.?--?The lake and the mountains and the white city do not seem so beautiful to us to-day, for the little girl who loved them most of all, lies in the next room covered with flowers. Juliet’s Tomb, Verona. ***** All was changed to us this past summer. In October we made a fourth trip to Italy; this time to the lake regions at the foot of the Alps. There is something about life in The soft Italian language, and the singers with their guitars in the moonlight by the lakes, add to the real romance of the scene. The people of the lake regions are rather poor, spite of the rich productiveness of the soil. There are too many of them, and too many rocky heights, and mountains and lakes. The little stone-built villages cling to some of these heights like crow nests on tree tops, but somewhere, near to every height, on some spot of land beautiful as Eden, we see the gardens and villas of the rich. These are the summer homes of the aristocrats of Milan and cities farther south. Villa Carlotta on Lake Como, sitting among the lemon trees, its gardens washed by the blue waters, its halls and salons filled with the works of genius, could tempt one to want to live there always. And Villa Giulia, on that fair promontory running out into Lake Lecco at Bellagio, seen of a summer evening ***** The other morning the staid old city of Zurich was suddenly awakened by the whoop of a band of American Indians. Had a cloud fallen, some of the people could not have been more stirred up. The wild men were the genuine article, in war paint and feathers. Not one Swiss in a thousand had ever seen a real Indian before. It was part of a band of Chippewas, being carried around Europe for exhibition. The show was a great success. Everybody went to see it, and even followed the strangers about the streets in crowds. The Indians had their difficulties, however. An occasional one with too much “fire water” lay prone on the sidewalk or rested in the lockup. They also had quarrels with their manager, and daily for a time this painted band of my fellow countrymen came to the consulate and held pow wows on the floor of the office. They were a helpless lot of human beings there alone, knowing nothing of the language, with a manager supposed to be robbing them. I got them out of the lockup, and out of their other many difficulties as best I could, and won their esteem and gratitude. November 16, 1882.?--?Three days ago the great Gottfried Kinkel was carried to the graveyard out by the foot of the mountains. He had been a warm friend since the day we came to Zurich. He was passionately fond of the Swiss mountains, and we have had delightful little excursions together. His death was sudden. One day he was stricken with apoplexy and could not speak. He motioned his wife to help him to the window, where he could once more look out at the beautiful mountains. He looked long and wistfully at them and then waving them a farewell with his hand went to his bed and died. Poetry and art and all December 14.?--?Our American statesman, Carl Schurz, had been a friend of the poet, patriot Kinkel in the revolutionary times, and had also rescued him from prison and death. I wrote him a description of the funeral and received his reply to-day.
The sweet singer had now gone to be absorbed into the beautiful nature of which he had talked to me when his daughter died. They were to be one with the flowers and the sunshine, but without identity.
***** November, 1882.?--?Have an interesting letter from General Sherman on politics and farming.
One of our interesting visitors and friends these evenings is young Dr. Kinkel, son of the great poet. He is renowned in the city for his marvelous learning and memory. All that he has ever read, and he is a high classical scholar, he seems to know by heart. He is writing a history of the Byzantine Empire, and his studies for this are enormous. I tested his memory a little last night by questions on the Life of Washington. He answered as if the book had been open before him. Every detail and date that he has accidentally learned as to the lives of his friends, he can instantly recall. What was said of Macaulay could be said of him, “He is a book in breeches.” December 23.?--?To-day I have a letter from General Sherman. He speaks of the Presidency. Mrs. Sherman, I know, is just as much opposed to his entering politics as is he himself.
Was with Professor Scherr and others last night at the Orsini again. Scherr is not only a literary man, he is an educated German thinker. I was interested in some things he said about human existence. “Nine men,” said he, “were born to serve a tenth. It never was otherwise; it never would be otherwise; it never could be otherwise.” “Education of the masses is all a mistake,” he continued. “Education only makes them discontented, and humanity is not bettered.” I wondered to myself if this were true. In America, I reflected, the masses are educated. They are, too, the most discontented people on earth. Nobody ever saw an American quite satisfied with his condition. I observed to Prof. Scherr that in certain Italian districts where the people were wholly illiterate and poor, I had noticed many signs of happiness. “Exactly,” replied the Professor. “They don’t hear constantly of what somebody else has got, and so believe they have got it all. This belief satisfies them, they want nothing more; their ignorance is their greatest blessing.” “The Swiss, though,” I said, “are all educated and are happy.” “Not a bit of it,” he answered, “they are growing more discontented every day. They were happy till they got free schools and education, and till they saw your rich January, 1883.?--?Spent the holidays at Berlin visiting in the home of Mr. Sargent, our American Minister. Mr. Sargent had for weeks been in a stew with the German Government on account of their prohibiting our American meats. The same kind of trouble was had in Switzerland; but when it happened that I was able to prove that the American hams in which trichina were officially found, were Antwerp hams “fixed up” and stamped “American,” the ban on American meats to Switzerland was raised. Germany, however, for her own reasons, intended fight, and press and Government opposed Mr. Sargent and the American exporters’ rights. In the train on our way to Berlin, a German newspaper happened to fall into my hands that told, not intending it, the whole story of Bismarck’s opposition to Mr. Sargent and the American pig. On his great estates he had pigs himself to sell, so said the newspaper. I translated this article and put it in Mr. Sargent’s hands at once. In a secret official dispatch to Washington, he quoted this German newspaper as to Bismarck’s pigs, and put it in quotation marks. By some means the dispatch was given to the public by the Department, and the quotation marks of Mr. Sargent left out. The newspapers printed it as an official declaration by the American Minister at Berlin. Bismarck and his followers naturally were soon furious, and a course of action was adopted that should be as offensive as possible to Americans. We reached the capital one morning before daylight. Mr. Sargent met us, sent us to his house in his carriage, and hurried off to report our names to the Chief of Police. Kaiser Wilhelm.?--?Page 226. Our Minister’s home was close to the Thiergarten, and there we saw the old Emperor William, the Crown Prince Frederick and others of the royal family, walking or driving daily. They were simple enough and were not run after in their walks. I was told that every time the Emperor leaves the palace for a drive, the fact is telephoned to every police station in the city, and that extra officials and detectives in civilian dress are abroad everywhere in parks and public places. It seemed to me that on all occasions in Berlin half the people we met were soldiers or policemen. The history of the German capital is of more interest than the city itself. One wonders that the Germans had courage to build a city on this great ugly sand plain, nor can one think of comparing Berlin for beauty with Paris or Florence, Vienna, Dresden or Washington. But Berlin is a great city and its collections and museums are among the greatest in the world. At one of these museums we saw the golden necklaces, and rich headgear of Helen of Troy. Dr. Schliemann, the explorer, had presented them to the German Government. They are of immense interest and enormous value. Every night the case containing them is let down into a great vault under the museum. The elaborate gold work of Helen’s arm bands is as fresh and bright as if made yesterday. At Potsdam nothing interested us so much as “Sans Souci,” and especially the chair that Frederick the Great was sitting in when he died. We also stood by Frederick’s coffin under the pulpit of the old Garrison Church. Our conductor let me have a candle that burned above Mr. Sargent gave one or two large dinners while we were at his house. There was little talk of interest, but plenty of good music, and plenty of good wine, which in a German company, might have stimulated to notable sayings. Perhaps there were too many American teetotalers present for a good time. I notice a few turn their glasses upside down, in a sort of “I am better than you” fashion. Had they quietly allowed their glasses to be filled, nobody would have asked why they did not empty them. I have noticed always at German and Swiss dinners how the talk sparkled with the wine, and how the witty things said were in some way a test of the quality of the stuff in the decanter. We went with the Sargents to the circus and saw the Crown Prince Frederick and his boys and girls in a box. The Prince had a singular and delicate way of applauding softly, with the palm of one gloved hand on the back of the other. His children were all glee at the antics of the performers, and expressed their joy in a much more boisterous way. An enormous closed cage of wild lions was hauled into the arena, and when the boards were let down and they saw the blinding lights and the crowds of people their roaring was terrific. A big African armed with a shotgun was let into the cage from an iron hood suspended against the doors. There was the greatest excitement. Many people instantly rose and left, fearing to see the man killed before their eyes. We kept our seats. There was no performing with the lions; it was simply a dare-devil venture to go among them, for they were absolutely untamed. The African had serious difficulty in getting back into his hood. In one of the public halls of Berlin, we recognized to our surprise a party of American Indians performing war dances. They were the same Indians who had been at Zurich and whom I had helped out of serious difficulties, as their manager, it was claimed, had broken his contract and left the poor barbarians stranded. They said then they would never forget me. On seeing my wife and myself in the Berlin hall, they suddenly stopped their dancing and to the astonishment of the assembled spectators leaped from the platform, grasped me by the hand and called to each other: “It is Mr. Byers! It is Mr. Byers!” They were overjoyed at seeing some one in all Europe who had been kind to them. A little later, in March, these Indians took passage home on the steamer from Bremen. The vessel was wrecked, still in sight of land, and every soul of them drowned. I, too, had engaged passage on the steamer, but business detained me in Zurich till the next boat. On Sunday morning we went to the ZoÖlogical Gardens, where one of the keepers pleased my wife by raking a baby tiger and a baby lion out of their cages and giving them to her to hold in her arms. The lion was a chubby, woolly little fellow, the size of a cat and very cunning. While we had it in our hands, the mother stood perfectly quiet and glared at us as much as to say: “Hurt it, and these iron bars won’t hold me a moment.” She manifested great joy when the little fellow was passed back into the cage. The action of the tiger mother was not different, except that she gave a revengeful growl when she got her baby back. Several times in going to the city, I passed the home of Bismarck. It was an unpretentious place, but armed sentinels walked up and down the pavement in front of it. At noon one day, I noticed hundreds of people standing in front of the Emperor’s palace. I stopped to see what Once a day all Berlin can look on their Kaiser, and once a day the Kaiser interrupts his Cabinet council, steps to the front window and looks upon his people. It is much better than the crazy hand-shaking of the mob at the White House. On our way back to Switzerland, we stopped at beautiful Dresden. One night at the opera we saw a white-haired old gentleman in a box, closely following the libretto and the singers, whose face seemed familiar to my wife. It was the King of Saxony?--?kind old Albert who, incognito, had played with our children that day in the mountains, and to whom our little girl had cried as he left, “Good-bye Mr. Albert.” ***** Our Minister’s difficulties at Berlin increased. The matter of American pig, or no pig, became a battle between German and American newspapers. Correcting the false statement and the misrepresentations as to Mr. Sargent’s Washington letter, helped none at all. The German newspapers simply did not want American meat. To American farmers and shippers, it meant hundreds of millions of dollars. Mr. Sargent stuck to his post and did his duty, and in a way, our Government supported him. One night Bismarck gave a grand diplomatic dinner. How could he receive Sargent socially when turning the cold shoulder to him officially? The press wondered what would happen. Of course our Minister had to be invited, and of course he had to go, or else show the white feather. Mr. Sargent was not the white feather kind, and he went. “Things went smoothly enough,” he wrote me, “and the newspapers Our Government approved his course at Berlin by appointing him Minister to St. Petersburg, but he declined. Sargent, on coming home, was talked of for the Presidency. An abler man, a purer patriot, a clearer headed statesman, is not often thought of for that exalted post. June 30, 1883.?--?On the 29th of March I went to America on the “Wieland.” Had thirteen days at sea and twelve of them storm and hurricane. The ship was an old rat trap, on her last voyage before repairs. I did not know this until we were in the middle of the ocean. A young German, a gilded youth, the son of Prince ----, was on board with me, proposing to try gay life a few years in America. One day he asked me if the American shop girls were all “fast,” as in certain continental cities, and if young men were interfered with for ruining them. I observed that there was a difficulty; these girls mostly had brothers who would shoot such a scoundrel on sight. The princelet became pensive all at once, and seemed to be reflecting that his visions of fun in the United States were turning all to fog. ***** Just before my return to Switzerland, I happened to be in Washington again. It was the day set for the public funeral of the author of “Home, Sweet Home.” Corcoran, the Washington banker, was paying all the expenses, and a warship had brought the poet’s remains home from Africa. The President and the Cabinet and all the dignitaries in Washington, as well as many invited guests, took part. Howard Payne had been a consul at the time of I visited my home out West, and returned on the “Hammonia.” My old school-fellow, J.D. Edmundson, went along. We had then, and more than once afterward, good times together, excursioning among the Swiss Alps. His was a case of American pluck. When we left school neither of us had a penny. I soon went to the war, and he to a Western town to earn a fortune. Not twenty years went by when the penniless youth, a banker now, traveled the world over, with his check good for half a million, and his mind stored from books and travel. September, 1883.?--?The Swiss National Exhibition is open all this summer. Though small, the finest in detail I ever saw anywhere. Never saw so much of real beauty arranged together. The location, too, in a great park between two rapid running rivers, is romantic. It is in view of the Alps and the beautiful lake. I also wrote reports of the successful exhibition to our Government. The Hon. Emil Frey, Swiss Cabinet Minister, now visited us out on the lake. Col. Frey had been a soldier in our army, was captured and suffered, with me, many horrid months in Libby prison. Our reunion under such different scenes will never be forgotten. He is a great big, generous man in body, mind, and heart. Because of his deserts, there is no post in Switzerland he can not have for the asking. In fact, he don’t have to ask. He is one of Shakespeare’s men who achieve honor and also have honor thrust upon them. He was later elected President of Switzerland. January, 1884.?--?These were the days when certain unscrupulous silk shippers were robbing the United States Treasury of almost millions yearly by undervaluation of invoiced goods. Honest importers were nearly driven out of the market. There was a constant warfare between the consul and the undervaluer. At last I succeeded in my own district, by employing (at my own expense) trained silk experts. The plan worked well, and Uncle Sam soon employed experts at many of the leading consulates. There was tremendous profit in it for the Government. For my zeal in stopping the frauds, and because of my long service, President Arthur promoted me. A little later, an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury reported officially that Consul Byers had saved the Government in his own district not less than a million dollars, or enough to support the whole consular service for years. He urged a recognition of these services. General Sherman, too, had joined in asking my advancement. One day, later, I saw this little note among the Department files:
November 10.?--?Yesterday I received the following letter from General Sherman:
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