Dinadan

“ The truth seems to be, that when any sovereign of Jutland, or Scania, or Sigtun, or any other place in Denmark, Sweden, or Norway, obtained much celebrity as a warrior, the local chiefs—who always assumed the regal title—were always ready to 72seek his protection, and to serve under his banner. Though this obedience was temporary, a preference was usually given to such of the more powerful kings as were of the divine race,—the race of Odin; but amidst the vicissitudes inseparable from such a state of society, a fortunate adventurer often dispossessed the legitimate claimant ”

“ When sent off by his father, the independent Rajah of Bali, at the time when the hostilities between Dutch and Malays threatened to spread from Sumatra over the whole archipelago, Dain had found all the big traders deaf to his guarded proposals, and above the temptation of the great prices he was ready to give for gunpowder. He went to Sambir as a last and almost hopeless resort, having heard in Macassar of the white man there, and of the regular steamer trading from Singapore—allured also by the fact that there was no Dutch resident on the river, which would make things easier, no doubt. ”

“ WE see in those parts of Indostan which are frequented by the European nations, the customs or laws which regard lands subject to contradictions, not easily reconcileable. The husbandman who possesses a few fields has the power of selling and bequeathing them, at, the same time that the district in which these fields are included is annually let out by the government to a renter, who pays a certain sum of money to the lord of the country, and receives from the cultivator a certain part of his harvests. ”

“ And this is, indeed, the nature of all the natives of Indostan—to give way instantly that they meet an enemy who is more bent on fighting than they are themselves.
The only person to stand his ground was the leader of the party, who waited for us to come up, and then, singling me out, aimed a blow at me with his scymetar. Up to this moment I had been too busy to observe his face, and my rage knew no bounds when I discovered that I had to do with my renegade kinsman himself, who, it appears, had been searching for me from the very beginning of the battle. ”

“ That the kings of Sweden and Denmark should make no effort to recover their Norwegian possessions, was not to be expected. In about a year after Olaf’s accession, two ambassadors, with a suitable retinue, arrived at Drontheim from the former kingdom. On their way, however, and immediately after passing the mountain barrier, between the two states, they had endeavoured to prevail on the rustic landholders to pay tribute, not to Olaf, but to the Swedish king. Little do the majority of any country care for the reigning sovereign; the rustics of Norway no more than any other people. ”

“ BUT the name of India can only with propriety be applied to the country which is distinguished in Asia as well as in Europe by the name of Indostan.
THAT part of the western side of Indostan, which is not bounded by the sea, is separated from Persia and the Usbeg Tartary by desarts, and by those mountains which were known to the ancients under the name of Paropamisus: Mount Caucasus forms its barrier to the north, separating it from various nations of Tartars, from the great and little Thibet. ”

“ In Denmark, God be praised, thoughts, and their rudest expression, are still free, when the law of the land is not transgressed; and I regard no Dane as the enemy of his country because, perhaps, he does not join in our common wish for its welfare, and in personal attachment to the royal house, with the same warmth as myself. In such unsettled and unhappy times as the present, we must, alas! experience that the opinions of the best Danish men differ on many important matters. ”

“ At this time Margaret, who had succeeded to her son Olaf, was sovereign of Denmark and Norway. To her the malcontents applied for aid, which she would not afford them, unless they acknowledged her for their queen. The condition was accepted: an army of Danes marched into Sweden, and was immediately joined by many of the nobles and clergy. The lower classes of the population—those who contributed little to the support of the state—were indifferent to the result, or if they had any bias, it was in favour of Albert—not from any attachment to him, but from dislike of the nobles. ”

“ Freed from the cares which had so long distracted him, the king again turned his eyes towards Livonia. His former successes in that region had not corresponded with his preparations: the bishop of Riga was persecuted alike by the pagan inhabitants and the Greek Christians: the glory of vindicating the true faith was no slight one in his estimation; but the ambition of reigning over the whole maritime coast of the Baltic, from Holstein to Livonia, was a still greater inducement for undertaking a new expedition. Never had Denmark equipped so great an armament as that which now left her ports. ”

“ While France still clings to her bright little settlement in Bengal, the Danes at Serampore, like the Dutch at Chinsurah, realized that their Indian possessions had become useless to them, and, in 1845, the King of Denmark transferred his Indian settlements to the British Government, receiving in return a sum of twelve lacs of rupees; and now, beyond the Danish royal monogram on the church and on the gateway of the magistrate's house, and a few names on the old tombstones in the cemetery, nothing remains in Serampore to tell of the Danish occupation. ”

“ Several of the states were bound in alliance with Niord. Odinsey, in Fionia, was held by a chief of this nature; Skiold, the son of Odin, reigned at Ledra, in Zealand; Freyr was the pontiff chief of Upsal; Heimdal was over the temple at Hemenbiorg; Thor was at Thrudvang, and Balder at Breidablik. [121] And though Scania was a possession of the Goths, and not yet subject to the Danish chiefs, it appears to have been held by some one of the Asser. The reign of Niord was a happy one; the gifts of nature were extraordinarily abundant, and the benefit was referred to his influence with the gods. ”

“ The Northmen, or the inhabitants of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, were of the same origin as the tribes that peopled Germany, and that came from the East, probably from the borders of the Black Sea. They were fire-worshippers, and their chief god was Odin.
Denmark means a land of dark woods. In ancient times it was probably covered with sombre firs. One of its early kings was Dan the Famous. His descendants were called Danes.
Many ages after the reign of this king, the land was filled with peace and plenty. It was the Golden Age of the North. Frode the Peaceful was king in the Golden Age. ”

“ Together with Norway, Sweden, and Finland, Denmark has moved to establish a permanent standby force of about 5,000 men, which can be placed at the disposal of the United Nations at short notice if needed to meet an emergency.
Denmark, through its membership on the UN Committee on Decolonization, has assisted at the birth of several new nations and has sought to mediate in areas of friction between Afro-Asian members and the European powers. A Danish tendency to sympathize with emergent nations has led to friction between Copenhagen and other European capitals, particularly Lisbon. ”

“ Let all persons, whether noble or ignoble, obtain their rights according to law, from which no deviation shall be allowed, either from fear of me, or through favour to the powerful, or for the purpose of supplying my treasury. I have no need of money raised by injustice. I am now on my road to Denmark, for the purpose of concluding peace with those nations, who, had it been in their power, would have deprived us both of our crown and our life. ”

“ The blood-thirsty character of the Northmen, which could not enjoy peace without cutting one another to pieces, has been justly exposed by historians. Still, however valour might be esteemed, we would not assert that it was the only virtue in the mind of the Scandinavians, or that heaven was closed to every other. There is, indeed, room to infer that this tenet was confined merely to a sect,—a caste,—the dominant one,—the immediate followers of Odin. ”

“ Dinshá has done much good service, at the same time making himself very unpopular with the ultra-patriotic class, whose dictum is "Let a hundred people die under native misrule, rather than ten of them be saved by British interference." Mr. Dinsha's persistent and manly exposure of the management of the native states of Sucheen, Dharampore, Káttywár, and even Baroda, has resulted in great public good; and his waging war single-handed upon such fearful odds is, initself, indicative of the moral stamina he possesses. ”

“ But what engagement could bind spirits so restless, which were emboldened to attempt any thing by the success of preceding rebels? The princes still continued to plot; and to escape imprisonment, they fled into Denmark. The Danish king, however, being persuaded to abandon them, they took refuge in Norway, were friendly received by Hako, and enabled, from their new fiefs of Nydborg and Konghella, to lay waste the neighbouring provinces with fire and sword. A body of troops sent by Birger to repulse them, was defeated. A second army was raised ”

“ Down it came between the Vrouw Prinsloo and the slayers, smashing the lifted assegai of one of them and hurling him to the earth. Down it came, and lay there a mere mass of pulp and feathers.
“O Dingaan,” I said in the midst of the intense silence that followed, “it seems that it is I who have won the bet, not you. I killed this king of birds, but being a king it chose to die high up and alone, that is all.”
Dingaan hesitated, for he did not wish to spare the Boers, and I, noting his hesitation, lifted my rifle a little. ”

“ From a consciousness of this superiority, together with a reliance on the national connection which exists amongst them howsoever dispersed into the services of different princes, they have acquired an insolence and audacity of manners, which distinguishes them, as much as the hardness of their physiognomy, from every other race of men in the Empire: they treat even the lords they Serve with very little of that respect which characterises all the other dependents of a sovereign in Indostan. ”

“ Probably Gram undervalued a conquest so easy as the wife he thus presented to his friend; and his ambition was roused by the hope of obtaining a lady whom nothing short of the highest courage could win. Gro, the daughter of Sigtrug, king of the Swedes, had been affianced to a giant, viz., a Jute or a Finn. Indignant at this prostitution of royal blood and virgin modesty, the Danish monarch, attended by his never-failing companion, Bessus, passed into Sweden, killed the relatives of Gro, subdued the country, and brought away 21the princess in triumph. ”

“ Thus, while the Norwegians were delighted in making predatory irruptions into Quenaland, which was inhabited by Finns, the Vends were harassing the Danes, and the Jutes the Saxons. In the fifth century—how long before we have not individual instances to select—the Vends were powerful enough to infuse terror into the whole of Denmark. Ismar, their king, ravaged Fionia, defeated king Sivar, and took prince Jarmeric captive. In the sixth century, a Slavonian fleet was defeated by Halfdan, king of Scania. Saxo is full of maritime contests between the two people ”

“ The canon speaks of Denmark as consisting almost wholly of islands. “Of them Zealand is the largest and richest, and its inhabitants are the most warlike. Ledra had been, but Roskild was then, the capital. Next to Zealand in importance was Fionia, which was very fertile, but its coasts were exposed to the ravages of the pirates. The capital, Odinsey, was a large city. To cross from one island was perilous, not only from the stormy sea that rolled between them, but from the pirates. ”

“ Shortly beyond Silistria the Danube leaves Bulgarian territory, after which Rumania is on both sides of the stream, for the land on the right, the Dobrudja, extending from the Danube to the Black Sea, was awarded to Rumania by the Treaty of Berlin. Both sides, too, become flat alike. The river is still greatly diversified by islands covered with bushes and reeds—“more resembling a sea studded with innumerable islets than a river”—while the avi-fauna is particularly rich, immense flocks of wild swans, wild geese, pelicans, herons, and other waterfowl being often seen. ”

“ To wrest the crown from him, the whole family or tribe, the chiefs of which must have been connected with the royal line of either the Goths or the Swedes, broke out into rebellion—one noble only, the jarl Birger, remaining faithful to him. In the first battle Eric was defeated and compelled to flee; but he raised an army in Denmark, returned to Sweden, vanquished the usurper Sweyn, and was again acknowledged by the whole realm. In the last year of his reign, he sent an expedition against the Finns, who had reverted to idolatry. ”

“ He then summoned a diet, charged the unsuspicious Folkungar with high treason, sent them to Stockholm, and beheaded all of them except one, who was allowed to be ransomed. From this time that ambitious family ceased to have much influence over the realm. To establish his throne still more solidly, he entered into a double matrimonial alliance with Denmark. His son Birger, still a child, was affianced to a daughter of the Danish king, and as she too was a child, she was taken, in conformity with the custom of the times, to the Swedish court to be educated. ”