Due North

Copenhagen was a large commercial port many centuries ago, and has several times been partially destroyed by war and conflagration. It has some two hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, and is about six miles in circumference. The site of the city is so low as to render it necessary to protect it from the waters of the Baltic by artificial embankments. Like Amsterdam and Venice, it may be said to possess "remarkable water-privileges." We were told that the citizens were making earnest remonstrance as to the inefficient drainage of the city, which is believed to be the prime cause of a somewhat extraordinary percentage of mortality. In past times it has more than once been visited by the plague, which so late as 1711 caused the death