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42
FLENSBORG.
Chap. Ill-
FLENSBORG.
Our line runs across a barren country, passing, near
the first station, the remains of the celebrated Danevirke,
the ancient wall constructed in early days to defend
the kingdom of Jutland against all invaders. It
consists of a mound of earth, stones, and brick rubbish,
curious, but not beautiful, to look at, and was once
crowned with towers. This wall of defence, similar to
that raised against the Picts in North Britain, was
partly constructed by Thyre Queen of Gorm the Old—
an English princess of whom we shall hear more later;
—and when some years since the tomb of the Great
Valdemar was opened in the Abbey Church of Ringsted,
a plate bearing an inscription was found at the head of
the coffin, in which it stated how he was the first who
constructed the wall for the protection of the whole
kingdom, which is called Danevirke, of “ burnt bricks.”
At present it is all overgrown, weeds, grass, and rubble.
Then, having passed the Danevirke, we steamed across
a barren moor and waste, peopled with small tumuli,
from which the museum of Kiel derives her collections
of stone antiquities, till we arrived at Flensborg.
Tids city, now capital of the duchy of Slesvig, is not
a town of sights—so much the better—but a port of some
consequence in a commercial point of view; a bright,
clean-looking town, with a future before it; new houses,
new streets, rising in neighbourhood to the station.
Like many other worn-out places, the railroad has given
her a fillip, and, after slumbering for a season, she has
suddenly awakened “ prosperous.”
The site of the town at the fiorde end is beautiful, and
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