40 G-UYOT on Carl Bitter. 



hospitable inhabitants of Scandinavia. He returned with an 

 invigorated body, and with a mind refreshed and ready for 

 new labors. He thus visited successively the most interesting 

 countries of Europe. Central and Southern Germany, and the 

 system of the Alps were the objects of a repeated and thorough 

 examination, each time with a special object in view. Thus 

 also Switzerland, that he loved above all, and Northern Italy, 

 the Pyrenees, the South and the West of France, with the 

 central plateau of Auvergne and its extinct volcanoes, Bel- 

 gium, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, were, one 

 after the other, drawn into the yearly extending circle of his 

 excursions. A long journey in the south-east of Europe made 

 him acquainted with Hungary, the table-land of Transylvania, 

 as remarkable for the variety of its races and nations as for 

 the interest presented by its geographical structure ; with the 

 extensive plains of Wallachia and Bulgaria, Constantinople, 

 and at last with the classical soil of Greece, that he knew so 

 well how to describe. He never saw, however, Palestine, which 

 had been on his part the object of so minute a study ; and still 

 every spot of it had become so familiar to him, that when he 

 was lecturing on the Holy Land, his hearers could scarcely help 

 believing that he was giving them a narrative of his own travels. 

 It is said that when asked why he did not visit a country 

 which was for him one of so deep interest — " What new in- 

 formation," said he, smiling, " could I derive from a visit to 

 Palestine ? I know every corner of it." None, assuredly, had 

 more right to speak so than he who had seen so much of the 

 land of promise by the eyes of a host of skilful observers. But 

 I believe I am not mistaken when I regard that answer, if he 

 really gave it, as a word not of boast, but of self-consolation. 

 To know more than he did on Palestine, would have required 

 an amount of time and means which were not at his disposal. 

 But if the opportunities which we now have to see, in the course 

 of a short season, the land of the patriarchs, and the theatre of 

 the life and of the death of the Saviour of the world, had existed 

 in the days of his strength, I venture to say that Bitter would 

 have seen the Holy Land. He knew too well the paramount 

 value of personal observations, even of a rapid glance at such 

 a country, to esteem as of little account the privilege of storing 

 his mind with truthful, life-like pictures from nature, instead 

 of the unavoidably imperfect images traced by the slow pencil 

 of a laborious study of absent objects. 



The importance of these travels for Bitter, was great in 

 every respect. Not to speak of the much needed relaxation 



