In and Around Berlin

It was seven o'clock of a gray November morning when we arrived in Berlin for our first residence abroad. The approach to the city reminded us of the newer parts of New York and we found that the population was about the same. But here the resemblance ceases. New York is the metropolis of a great nation the heart whence arterial supplies go forth and to which all returning channels converge the cosmopolitan centre of a New World. Berlin is the increasingly important capital of the German Empire growing rapidly but still the royal impersonation of Prussia and the Hohenzollerns seated in something of mediaeval costume and quiet beside the river Spree as content to cast a satisfied glance backward to Frederick the Great and the Electors of Brandenburg as to look forward to imperial supremacy among the Great Powers and the championship of continental Protestant Europe.