A NEW ZEALANDER ABROAD.

Otago Witness, Issue 2686, 6 September 1905, Page 88

A NEW ZEALANDER ABROAD.

By Gamma,

ffIILDESHEIM AND ITS PATRON, ~\ ' SAINT. , ' The electric tramway flashes its path jwrcss the wide, outlying fields of Hanpov'er on. towards Hildesbeim. It- talres £itt|e .enough note as it passes of the jWoi-kers in" the fields on either side; yet they merit something more than: a glance, ithese poor, 'dull, toiling creatures, that \idpc the semblance of women. Such they ?\yere once , psrhaps — maybe 'even gay and ligfffc of heart- ;— now the very cLods on jthear 'boots are not nearer the earth than ;the; dull" depression of their lives as they rpass*. along thw rows,- of- turnip or sugarseet, laboriously digging up the roots, piliinglthein into heaps,- oi" tossing .'them, into fhe_ waiting carts. i.lt is such" a, sight,- f.s might have \inspired Millet's "Angelus" — "only the wid© plains for -background, and ■am.'o ccasional row of sentinel poplars, bare fcjust.now- of leayes; , iri'/tlie foreground .ihese'^grey,' -figuires ; /bending /to their toil. I'TSa .colour anywhere '; eym ,the,^iandk!erclii€.f tied cyeif- a~;d'oman's head 'intones " with "ike' uniform " illness. ' In ]3Sjorth Germany -there is not that call of a Nature r ,thaf finds its answer from Vhe women of Southern Europe- ia,gay head- ■ ftlress or gaudy &arf . Here - the *dun of p cow- is the- naosb daring note in the |colour scheme;-'* quiet, 1 brooding -greyness' -as over everything , eke. And Jhere is something" that adds to. th^; monotony of 'the landscape in. the absence. of boundary 'lineS; here there are^neither fences nor Jhedges, a-nd you may- step '^direct from, the i/lrain into a fie'd of -zucter-rahen, or sugar-rturnips,-,and'everywhiare, as far 'as the eye jfcan. see, the" deep grey depression of a late 'nautumn landscape." t' The tramway .skirts the edge of the i largest' cemetery - near Hannover. It is '^surrounded by a high-bricli: wail that gives - At an air of /cloistered "repose ; -svithiri its ■ encircled cahriMie^ all those good Konrmerzienrats,'Bildhauer^V,and Oberhofbaudirek- | .' tors of past gerier^tionß, and • I wonder [ whether tns superincumbent ' weight of these, high-sounding titles on their grave- ■ etonel; gives them more peaceful sleep. I \am quite ,-sure it was consolation to their / (bereaved families to see these claims to thusr lasjt-ingly engraved in Stone. For an hour and a-half the tram passes through, such .quiet- .s.cenjss^ great;, fields upf ;. asparagus some'; acres in " extent, solidly" i>ui"t stone" ..windmills with \the great) -arms creeping slowly rouridj' and /little -, " lazy,' ■gleening rhainleis where an occasional, pas- v " Sengei* . '/'"'-- -'„ •_ j^l^ihisl quiet life, is a' prelude -to the fiigbt.sof the 6ld <^Vbiid'',to,wn"at- the .end of the. journey. Hildesißeim has been called the V'Nurnberg of the North." In, jgivihg that name, the Germans show that, •they regard ife as a. typical mediaeval town, for.Nurnberg is admittedly almost of the •same^ aspect to-day as it was two or three centuries sgo. . So is Hild/esheim. It has the same narrow, streets, ■with unexpected narrowing and widening, the same old overhanging bpuses with the upper storeys almost in contact across the streets, and the' same rough cobbles -in tihe roadway. iNb'. trams here;, the railway station, which j Ss this terminus \©f the electric tramway j \oo, is kept/well to ,o"ne end of the town, es if this ancient place* were half ashamed -of * anything so : modern as traction ', by i eteam or electricity. J A very": characteristic feature of Hildes!beim is the woo.d-carving on the exterior of the houses. In any street of the old town you may see panels or. bands of it — j itometimes only aa inscription, but more often ornamental figures. Grotesque animals there are in .plenty; some kink in ' the imagination of the Middle Ages seems to have run. to the extravagant, and mythical monsters that^we have forgotten to believe in. Very often painting is added to the carving, so that the facade of 'a house presents a gay surface of blue and: red and ( gold devices among the carved iigures. The style of architecture, too, is unusual. One house in the market square, which is about nine or ten storeys in - ilieigh't, ■ has the last five or sis of t-hes9 istoreys to form the gable; this is in consse4uence yei T klgk an(^ pointed, and has Sthe effect of an elongated pyramid placed on top of an ordinary dwelling house. This .particular house has bands of painted decoration between each row of windows. One house that all tourists are sent to i

visit is th© "Emperor's House."' It boasts, besides panels and rows and medallions of carving, four large upright figures of Judas Maccabseus, Hector, Alexander the Great, and 1 Julius Caesar. So far as I could learn there was -no. particular reason why this house should bo imperially ti*ea.ted, but a.t anyrate some carver's fancy ran riot over it, and produced this wealth of decoration.

Hildesheim possesses, however, far other glories than these of mere external decoration. It is said to owe its origin to a miracle-. Ludwig the Pious, hunting in this neighbourhood, desired to celebrato mass during the chase, but had no hosy vessels with him. But as hei prayed most ardently he looked up and saw, hanging on a rosebush near by, the vessels for the holy service. That very spot is said I to be the site of the present cathedral, and the sams rosebush still exists as tha famous "thousand'-year-cld rose tree." It is carefully' tended \rithin the cloister of the cathedral, and trained' on oue of the ■walls. Each branch is marked now with a label- giving the date of its shooting. Another legend 1 attaching to ths spot is that on .the, same occasion snow fell here in midsummer. Tbat, these legends had credence among the people, -is seen in the great hall of the Council House, where the upper portion of tta walls is a frieze of -pictures embodying the 'history of Hildesheini.- The story of Ludwig's miracle has a prominent place at one end of the hall.

The character of greatest interest in the history of the old town is Bishop Bernword, whose statue stands in the cathediral square. He lived in the beginning of the eleventh century, but was even in these early times an artist _of no mean merit in various kinds of metal work. The most famous piece of his work is the gold cross, studded" with jewels, which forms part, of th© treasure of the St. Mary Magdalen Church. It is a -wonderful piece of work as evidence of the piety of the artist; it is abmit 18in or 2ft long, in solid silver, plated with gold, and adorned with valuable stones. On© of the pictures in the Council House shows the surprise of the king to whom it -was first exhibited: the holy Bermvard is holding it in one hand as he goes to meet his liege, and the king, in his astonishment at the beauty of the work, has fallen a step backward, and is raising his Hands in surprise.^ In the cathedral itself are other works of Bernward's bronze. The two great folding doors bear chapters from the history of the Old Testament, and the Christua— Saule, or Christ's Column, has the whole history, of Christ pictorially represented on it, exactly after the fashion of the great Trajan's Column. This, then, was the man -who did so much not only in the spiritual care of his people, but by his profound interest in art and learningraised Hildesheim to the status of a famous art centre in his tame. His bones were for over a century a treasured relic of the Michaelis Kirche, but were removed! from there, fortunately ' for the peace of the saintly man, before this church became, in the time of the Reformation, a Protestant place of worship.