Still, any pecuniary indemnification they could
possibly hope to obtain cannot make up for the
loss of their business and the destruction of their
trade connection. As much as I can understand
the matter, I believe the causes of this extreme
apparent indifference to be partly a strange stolid-
ity of temperament habitual to the Schleswig
character, and still more a strong sense of per-
sonal dignity, which creates a more than English
dislike to any exhibition of sentiment. The
animals themselves in Alsen bear the noise of the



THE SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN WAR. 167

artillery with a wonderful composure. The storks,
knowing that summer is at hand, have come back
in flocks to the island, and are taking up their old
quarters in the houses where they have been
sheltered so long. The dogs about the farm-yard
never bark, even at night, however loud may be
the crash of the shells bursting in the town ; our
horses, which shy at any stone along the road,
never exhibit the slightest alarm at the thunder of
the cannon ; and the sheep browse in the fields,
near which shells are falling, without paying the
slightest attention to the sound. I have seen but
one animal which betrayed any consciousness of
danger, and that was a stoat, which was carrying
off to its hole in a ploughed field a dead rat nearly
as large as itself. The cannonade was brisk at
the time, and every time a shot was heard the
stoat dropped its prey in guilty terror ; then the
moment the sound had died away it clutched up
the rat again, and crossed another furrow in fear
and trembling. The Mohammedan who was fur-
tively drinking a glass of spirits when the thunder--
storm came on threw the contents of the glass
upon the ground, saying — so the story goes —
" Allah, Allah ! what a deal of noise about a little



168 THE SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN WAB.
