A July Holiday in Saxony, Bohemia, and Silesia

by Walter White · English · Gutenberg #42539 · 511,410 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: A July Holiday in Saxony, Bohemia, and Silesia

Author: Walter White

Release date: April 15, 2013 [eBook #42539]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A JULY HOLIDAY IN SAXONY, BOHEMIA, AND SILESIA ***

Transcriber's Note:

Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

Listed Errata were corrected.

Mis-spellings of non-English words were retained as printed.
Readers noted the following:
Grenzbäuden should be Grenbauden
Kellnerinn should be Kellnerin.

On page 144, the phrase starting "and perhaps for such a"
seems to be missing words.

A JULY HOLIDAY
IN
SAXONY, BOHEMIA, AND SILESIA.

[Illustration: Castle]

A JULY HOLIDAY
IN
SAXONY, BOHEMIA, AND SILESIA.

BY WALTER WHITE,

AUTHOR OF "A LONDONER'S WALK TO THE LAND'S END;"
"ON FOOT THROUGH TYROL."

"Ne wolde he call upon the Nine;
'I wote,' he sayde, 'they be but jyltes:'
Ne covet when he wander'd forth
Icarus' wings--ne traytor stiltes."

_Old Author._

LONDON:
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
MDCCCLVII.

[_The right of Translation is reserved._]

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

PAGE

What the Bookseller said -- A Walk in Frankfort -- What the
Portress said -- Glimpses of Landscapes -- Forest and River
-- Würzburg -- Stein Wine -- View from the Citadel-hill -- A
Change of Bedrooms -- Coming to an Understanding with the
Reader -- Good Night! 1

CHAPTER II.

Würzburg -- The University -- Red, Green, and Orange Caps
-- The Marienkapelle -- The Market -- The Cathedral -- The
Palace -- Spacious Cellars -- A Professor's Hospitality --
To Bamberg -- Frost -- Hof -- A Shabby Peace -- The
Arch-Poisoner -- Dear Bread -- A Prime Minister Hanged --
Altenburg -- The Park -- The Castle -- Reminiscences and
Antiquities -- The Chapel -- The Princes' Vault -- Wends --
Costumes in the Market-place -- Female Cuirassiers -- More
about the Wends -- Grossen Teich -- The Plateau -- The
Cemetery -- Werdau 11

CHAPTER III.

Origin of Altenburg -- Prosperous Burghers -- A Princely
Crime -- Hussite Plunderers -- Luther's Visits -- French
Bonfire -- Electress Margaret's Dream -- Kunz von
Kauffungen -- "Don't burn the Fish" -- A Conspiracy --
Midnight Robbers -- Two Young Princes Stolen -- The Flight
-- The Alarm -- The Köhler -- The Rescue -- Kunz Beheaded
-- The _Triller's_ Reward, and what a famous Author said
concerning it 25

CHAPTER IV.

Zwickau -- Beer Bridge -- Beer Mount -- The Triller Estate
-- Triller Bierbrauerei -- The Braumeister -- The Beer --
Four Hundredth Anniversary of the Prinzenraub -- A Friendly
Clerk -- "You will have a Tsigger?" -- Historical Portraits
-- A Good Name for a Brewery -- A Case of Disinterestedness
-- Up the Church Tower -- The Prospect -- Princess
Schwanhildis -- The Fire-god Zwicz -- Luther's Table -- The
Church -- Geysers -- Petrified Beds -- Historical Houses --
Walk to Oberhaselau -- The Card-players -- The Wagoners 33

CHAPTER V.

Across the Mulde -- Scenery -- Feet _versus_ Wheels --
Villages -- English Characteristics -- Timbered Houses --
Schneeberg -- Stones for Lamps -- The Way Sunday was Kept
-- The Church -- A Wagon-load of Music -- A Surly Host --
Where the Pepper Grows -- Eybenstock -- Neustädl -- Fir
Forests -- Wildenthal -- Four Sorts of Beer -- Potato
Dumplings -- Up the Auersberg -- Advertisements -- The
School -- The Instrument of Order -- "Look at the
Englishman" -- The Erzgebirge -- The Guard-house -- Into
Bohemia -- Romish Symbols -- Hirschenstand -- Another
Guard-house -- Differences of Race -- Czechs and Germans
-- Shabby Carpentry -- Change of Scenery -- Neudeck --
Arrive at Carlsbad -- A Glass Boot -- Gossip 43

CHAPTER VI.

Dr. Fowler's Prescription -- Carlsbad -- "A Matlocky sort
of a Place" -- Springs and Swallows -- Tasting the Water --
The Cliffs and Terraces -- Comical Signs -- The Wiese and
its Frequenters -- Disease and Health -- The Sprudel: its
Discharge; its Deposit -- The Stoppage -- Volcanic
Phenomena -- Dr. Granville's Observations -- Care's Rest --
Dreikreuzberg -- View from the Summit -- König Otto's Höhe
-- "Are you here for the Cure?" -- Lenten Diet --
Hirschsprung -- The Trumpeters -- Two Florins for a Bed 61

CHAPTER VII.

Departure from Carlsbad -- Dreifaltigkeits-Kirche --
Engelhaus -- The Castle -- A Melancholy Village -- Up to
the Ruins -- An Imperial Visit -- Bohemian Scenery -- On to
Buchau -- The Inn -- A Crowd of Guests -- Roast Goose --
Inspiriting Music -- Prompt Waiters -- The Mysterious
Passport -- The Military Adviser -- How he Solved the
Mystery -- A Baron in Spite of Himself -- The Baron's
Footbath -- Lighting the Baron to Bed 77

CHAPTER VIII.

Dawn -- The Noisy Gooseherd -- Geese, for Home Consumption
and Export -- Still the Baron -- The Ruins of Hartenstein
-- Glimpses of Scenery and Rural Life -- Liebkowitz --
Lubenz -- Schloss Petersburg -- Big Rooms -- Tipplers and
Drunkards -- Wagoners and Peasants -- A Thrifty Landlord --
Inquisitorial Book -- Awful Gendarme -- Paternal Government
-- Fidgets -- How it is in Hungary -- Wet Blankets for
Philosophers -- An Unhappy Peasant 86

CHAPTER IX.

The Village -- The Peasant again -- The Road-mender --
Among the Czechs -- Czechish Speech and Characteristics --
Crosses -- Horosedl -- The Old Cook -- More Praise of
England -- The Dinner -- A Journey-Companion -- Famous
Files -- A Mechaniker's Earnings -- Kruschowitz -- Rentsch
-- More Czechish Characteristics -- Neu Straschitz -- A
Word in Season from Old Fuller -- The Mechaniker departs 96

CHAPTER X.

A Talk with the Landlord -- A Jew's Offer -- A Ride in a
Wagen -- Talk with the Jew -- The Stars -- A Mysterious
Gun-barrel -- An Alarm -- Stony Ammunition -- The Man with
the Gun -- The Jew's opinion of him -- Sunrise -- A Walk --
The White Hill -- A Fatal Field -- Waking up in the Suburbs
-- Early Breakfasts -- Imperial and Royal Tobacco
-- Milk-folk -- The Gate of Prague -- A Snappish Sentry --
The Soldiers -- Into the City -- Picturesque Features and
crowding Associations -- The Kleinseite -- The Bridge --
Palaces -- The Altstadt -- Remarkable Streets -- The
Teinkirche -- The Neustadt -- The Three Hotels 105

CHAPTER XI.

The Hausknecht -- A Place to Lose Yourself --
Street-Phenomena -- Book-shops -- Glass-wares -- Cavernous
Beer-houses -- Signs -- Czechish Names -- Ugly Women --
Swarms of Soldiers -- A Scene on the Bridge -- A Drateñik
-- The Ugly Passport Clerk -- The Suspension-bridge -- The
Islands -- The Slopes of the Laurenzberg -- View over Prague
-- Schools, Palaces, and Poverty -- The Rookery -- The
Hradschin -- The Courts -- The Cathedral -- The Great Tomb
-- The Silver Shrine -- Relics -- A Kissed Portrait -- St.
Wenzel's Chapel -- Big Sigmund -- The Loretto Platz -- The
Old Towers -- The Hill-top and Hill-foot 118

CHAPTER XII.

The Tandelmarkt -- Old Men and Boys at Rag Fair -- Jews in
Prague -- The Judenstadt -- Schools and Synagogues -- Remote
Antiquity -- Ducal Victims -- Jewish Bravery -- Removal of
Boundary Wires 131

CHAPTER XIII.

The Jewish Sabbath -- The Old Synagogue -- Traditions
concerning it -- The Gloomy Interior -- The Priests -- The
Worshippers and the Worship -- The Talkers -- The Book of
the Law -- The Rabbi -- The Startling Gun -- A Birth at
Vienna -- Departed Glory 136

CHAPTER XIV.

The Alte Friedhof -- A Stride into the Past -- The Old
Tombs -- Vegetation and Death -- Haunted Graves -- Ancient
Epitaph -- Rabbi Löw -- His Scholars -- Symbols of the
Tribes -- The Infant's Coffin -- The Playground -- From
Death to Life 141

CHAPTER XV.

The Kolowratstrasse -- Picolomini's Palace -- The Museum --
Geological Affluence -- Early Czechish Bibles -- Rare Old
Manuscripts -- Letters of Huss and Ziska -- Tabor Hill --
Portraits -- Hussite Weapons -- Antiques -- Doubtful
Hussites in the Market-place -- The Glückliche Entbindung
-- A Te Deum -- Two Evening Visits -- Bohemian Hospitality
-- The Gaslit Beer-house 146

CHAPTER XVI.

Sunday Morning in Prague -- Gay Dresses -- Pleasure-seeking
Citizens -- Service in the Hradschin Cathedral -- Prayers
and Pranks -- Fun in the Organ-loft -- Glorious Music -- A
Spell broken -- Priests and their Robes -- Osculations -- A
Flaunting Procession -- An Old Topographer's Raptures --
The Schwarzes Ross -- Flight from Prague -- Lobositz -- Lost
in a Swamp -- A Storm -- Up the Milleschauer -- After Dark
-- The Summit -- Mossy Quarters -- The Host's Story 153

CHAPTER XVII.

Morning on the Milleschauer -- The Brightening Landscape --
The Mossy Quarters by Daylight -- Delightful Down-hill Walk
-- Lobositz again -- The Steam-boat -- Queer Passengers --
Sprightly Music -- Romantic Scenery -- Hills and Cliffs --
Schreckenstein -- How the Musicians paid their Fare --
Aussig -- The Spürlingstein -- Fairer Landscapes -- Elbe
_versus_ Rhine -- Tetschen -- German Faces -- Women-Waders
-- The Schoolmaster -- Passport again -- Pretty Country --
Signs of Industry -- Peasants' Diet -- Markersdorf --
Rustic Cottages -- Gersdorf -- Meistersdorf -- School --
Trying the Scholars -- Good Results -- A Byeway --
Ulrichsthal 162

CHAPTER XVIII.

A Hospitable Reception -- A Rustic Household -- The
Mother's Talk -- Pressing Invitations -- A Docile Visitor --
The Family Room -- Trophies of Industry -- Overheating -- A
Walk in Ulrichsthal -- A Glass Polisher and his Family --
His Notions -- A Glass Engraver -- His Skill and Ingenuity
-- His Earnings -- A Bohemian's Opinion on English Singing
-- Military Service -- Beetle Pictures -- Glass-making in
Bohemia -- An Englishman's Forget-me-Not -- The Dinner --
Dessert on the Hill -- An Hour with the Haymakers --
Magical Kreutzers -- An Evening at the Wirthshaus --
Singing and Poetry -- A Moonlight Walk -- The Lovers' Test 174

CHAPTER XIX.

More Hospitality -- Farewells -- Cross Country Walk --
Steinschönau -- The Playbill -- Hayda -- All Glass-workers
-- Away for the Mountains -- Zwickau -- Gabel --
Weisskirchen -- A Peasant's Prayer -- Reichenberg --
Passport again -- Jeschkenpeak -- Reinowitz -- Schlag --
Neudorf -- A Talk at Grünheid -- Bad Sample of Lancashire
-- Tannwald -- Curious Rocks -- Spinneries -- Populousness
-- Przichowitz -- An Altercation -- Heavy Odds -- The
Englishman Wins -- A Word to the Company 190

CHAPTER XX.

Stephanshöh -- A Presumptuous Landlord -- Czechs again --
Stewed Weavers -- Prompt Civilities -- The Iser -- A Quiet
Vale -- Barrande's Opinion of the Czechs -- Rochlitz -- An
offshoot from Tyre -- A Happy Landlord -- A Rustic Guide
-- Hill Paths -- The Grünstein -- Rübezahl's Rose Garden --
Dreary Fells -- Source of the Elbe -- Solitude and Visitors
-- The Elbfall -- Stony Slopes -- Strange Rocks --
Rübezahl's Glove -- Knieholz -- Schneegruben -- View into
Silesia -- Tremendous Cliffs -- Basalt in Granite -- The
Landlord's Bazaar -- The Wandering Stone -- A Tragsessel --
A Desolate Scene -- Rougher Walking -- Musical Surprises --
Spindlerbaude -- The Mädelstein -- Great Pond and Little
Pond -- The Mittagstein -- The Riesengrund -- The Last
Zigzags -- An Inn in the Clouds 201

CHAPTER XXI.

Comforts on the Koppe -- Samples of Germany -- Provincial
Peculiarities -- Hilarity -- A Couplet worth remembering
-- Four-bedded Rooms -- View from the Summit -- Contrast of
Scenery -- The Summit itself -- Guides in Costume --
Moderate Charges -- Unlucky Farmer -- The Descent --
Schwarzkoppe -- Grenzbäuden -- Hungarian Wine -- The Way to
Adersbach -- Forty Years' Experience 218

CHAPTER XXII.

The Frontier Guard-house -- A Volunteer Guide -- A Knave --
Schatzlar -- Bernsdorf -- A Barefoot Philosopher -- A
Weaver's Happiness -- Altendorf -- Queer Beer -- A Short Cut
-- Blunt Manners -- Adersbach -- Singular Rocks -- Gasthaus
zur Felsenstadt -- The Rock City -- The Grand Entrance --
The Sugarloaf -- The Pulpit -- The Giant's Glove -- The
Gallows -- The Burgomaster -- Lord Brougham's Profile --
The Breslau Wool-market -- The Shameless Maiden -- The
Silver Spring -- The Waterfall -- A Waterspout -- The
Lightning Stroke 225

CHAPTER XXIII.

The Echo -- Wonderful Orchestra -- Magical Music -- A _Feu
de joie_ -- The Oration -- The Voices -- Echo and the
Humourist -- Satisfying the Guide -- Exploring the
Labyrinth -- Curious Discoveries -- Speculations of
Geologists -- Bohemia an Inland Sea -- Marble Labyrinth in
Spain -- A Twilight View -- After a' 235

CHAPTER XXIV.

Baked Chickens -- A Discussion -- Weckelsdorf -- More Rocks
-- The Stone of Tears -- Death's Alley -- Diana's Bath --
The Minster -- Gang of Coiners -- The Bohdanetskis -- Going
to Church -- Another Silesian View -- Good-bye to Bohemia
-- Schömberg -- Silesian Faces and Costume -- Picturesque
Market-place -- Ueberschar Hills -- Ullersdorf -- An amazed
Weaver -- Liebau -- Cheap Cherries -- The Prussian Simplon
-- Ornamented Houses -- Buchwald -- The Bober -- Dittersbach
-- Schmiedeberg -- Rübezahl's Trick upon Travellers --
Tourists' Rendezvous -- The Duellists' Successors --
Erdmannsdorf -- Tyrolese Colony 240

CHAPTER XXV.

Schnaps and Sausage -- Dresdener upon Berliners -- The
Prince's Castle at Fischbach -- A Home for the Princess
Royal -- Is the Marriage Popular? -- View from the Tower --
Tradition of the Golden Donkey -- Royal Palace at
Erdmannsdorf -- A Miniature Chatsworth -- The Zillerthal --
Käse and Brod -- Stohnsdorf -- Famous Beer -- Rischmann's
Cave -- Prophecies -- Warmbrunn 250

CHAPTER XXVI.

The Three Berliners -- Strong Beer -- Origin of Warmbrunn
-- St. John the Baptist's Day -- Count Schaffgotsch -- A
Benefactor -- A Library -- Something about Warmbrunn -- The
Baths -- Healing Waters -- The Allée -- Visitors -- Russian
Popes -- The Museum -- Trophies -- View of the Mountains --
The Kynast -- Cunigunda and her Lovers -- Served her right
-- The Two Breslauers -- Oblatt -- The Baths in the
Mountains 256

CHAPTER XXVII.

Hirschberg -- The Officers' Tomb -- A Night Journey --
Spiller -- Greifenberg -- Changing Horses -- A Royal Reply
-- A Griffin's Nest -- Lauban -- The Potato Jubilee --
Görlitz -- Peter and Paul Church -- View from the Tower --
The Landskrone -- Jacob Böhme -- The Hidden Gold -- A
Theosophist's Writings -- The Tombs -- The Underground
Chapel -- A Church copied from Jerusalem -- The Public
Library -- Loebau -- Herrnhut 262

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Head-Quarters of the Moravians -- Good Buildings -- Quiet,
Cleanliness, and Order -- A Gottesdienst -- The Church --
Simplicity -- The Ribbons -- A Requiem -- The Service --
God's-Field -- The Tombs -- Suggestive Inscriptions --
Tombs of the Zinzendorfs -- The Pavilion -- The Panorama --
The Herrnhuters' Work -- An Informing Guide -- No Merry
Voices -- The Heinrichsberg -- Pretty Grounds -- The First
Tree -- An Old Wife's Gossip -- Evening Service -- A
Contrast -- The Sisters' House -- A Stroll at Sunset -- The
Night Watch 269

CHAPTER XXIX.

About Herrnhut -- Persecutions in Moravia -- A Wandering
Carpenter -- Good Tidings -- Fugitives -- Squatters on the
Hutberg -- Count Zinzendorf's Steward -- The First Tree --
The First House -- Scoffers -- Origin of the Name -- More
Fugitives -- Foundation of the Union -- Struggles and
Encouragements -- Buildings -- Social Regulations -- Growth
of Trade -- War and Visitors -- Dürninger's Enterprise
-- Population -- Schools -- Settlements -- Missions -- Life
at Herrnhut -- Recreations -- Festivals -- Incidents of War
-- March of Troops -- Praise and Thank-Feasts 279

CHAPTER XXX.

A Word with the Reader -- From Herrnhut to Dresden -- A
Gloomy City -- The Summer Theatre -- Trip to the Saxon
Switzerland -- Wehlen -- Uttewalde Grund -- The Bastei --
Hochstein -- The Devil's Kettle -- The Wolfschlucht -- The
Polenzthal -- Schandau -- The Kuhstall -- Great Winterberg
-- The Prebischthor -- Herniskretschen -- Return to Dresden
-- To Berlin -- English and German Railways -- The Royal
Marriage Question -- Speaking English -- A Dreary City --
Sunday in Berlin -- Kroll's Garden -- Magdeburg --
Wittenberg -- Hamburg -- A-top of St. Michael's -- A Walk to
Altona -- A Ride to Horn -- A North Sea Voyage -- Narrow
Escape -- Harness and Holidays 291

INDEX 303

ERRATA.

Page 87, last line, for visitors, read villagers.
" 153, 11 lines from bottom, for H_raba's_, read _Hraba's_.
" 153, 11 lines from bottom, for P_strossischer_, read
_Pstrossischer_.
" 172, last line of text, for Heilen, read Heiles.

A JULY HOLIDAY

SAXONY, BOHEMIA, AND SILESIA.

CHAPTER I.

What the Bookseller said -- A Walk in Frankfort -- What the
Portress said -- Glimpses of Landscapes -- Forest and River
-- Würzburg -- Stein Wine -- View from the Citadel-hill --
A Change of Bedrooms -- Coming to an Understanding with the
Reader -- Good Night!

"How happens it," I said to a bookseller in the _Zeil_, "that a map of
Bohemia is not to be had in all Frankfort?"

"How it happens?" he answered, with a knowing smile: "because no one
ever goes to Bohemia."

He searched and searched, as did a dozen of his fraternity whom I had
previously visited, and found maps in number of Switzerland, Tyrol,
Thuringia, Franconia, Turkey even, and Montenegro; but not the one I
wanted.

"Such a thing is never asked for," he said, deprecatingly. "Suppose
you go to Franconia instead."

All at once he bethought himself of an inner closet, and there he
discovered a map of Bohemia; but not a travelling map: an overcrowded
sheet that confused the eye, and promised but little assistance for
the byeways. However, under the circumstances, I took it as better
than none.

"You will not get the map you want till you arrive at Prague," was the
sort of encouragement I got some twenty-four hours afterwards from a
Bohemian Professor in the Medical School at Würzburg.

I saw Frankfort under all the charm of a first visit. I perambulated
the narrow streets, and the _Judengasse_, where dwell not a few of the
nine thousand Jewish residents; and stood long enough on the bridge
that bestrides the muddy Main to note the ancient towers, and the bits
of antiquity peeping up here and there in the city and the
Sachsenshausen suburb--contrasted by the modern look of the spacious
quays. And of course I saw the house in which Goethe was born, and
Dannecker's Ariadne, and the Römer, that relic of the olden time,
crowded with reminiscences of the Empire. You may see the whole line
of Emperors in panels round the wainscot of the stately hall on the
first floor; some grim warriors in plate and mail; some in scholar's
gown; some in slashed sleeves and tight hosen, and some in velvet
robes. Here, after the crown had been placed on their heads in the
adjacent cathedral, they went through certain formal ceremonies with
cumbrous pomp and held their festival, as may be read in the vivid
descriptions of Goethe's _Autobiography_.

Having glanced at the imperial effigies from Conrad down to Francis,
and at the scene from the balcony outside, I dropped half a franc into
the hand of the lady portress, and had crossed the landing, when she
came tripping after me, and, with an air of lofty pity, returned the
coin, requesting me to "give it to a beggar."

The gentleman in charge of the Ariadne had made me a polite bow for a
similar fee; so I complied with the lady's request, and gave the piece
of silver among five beggars, each of whom favoured me with a blessing
in return.

At noon, on the 3rd of July, I left Frankfort for Würzburg. The
landscape at first is tame, and you will have to watch closely, in
more senses than one, as the train speeds across, for the scenes and
objects that relieve it. There are glimpses of the Taunus mountains;
of Wilhelmsbad, embowered in a pleasant wood; of Hanau, a dark-red
town, where the dark-red sandstone station is enlivened by Virginian
creeper running gracefully up the columns; and of memorable
battlefields. And of a dark-red mill, in a green grassy hollow, with
its dripping wheel; and in the middle of the garden a globe of fire
that dazzles your eye, and is nothing other than a carboy inverted on
a stake, after the Dutch manner, to serve as a mirror, in which may be
seen a panorama of the neighbourhood. And everywhere women cutting
down the rye, wearing bright red kerchiefs on their heads that rival
the poppies in splendour.

Beyond Aschaffenburg the country improves. Wooded hills alternate with
lengthy slopes of vines, deep shady coombs, and leafy valleys, where
brooks frolic along in frequent windings, and villages nestle, and
gray church spires shoot above the tree-tops. Then parties of
woodcutters, well armed with axes and wedges, enter the train, and
each man lights his pipe, and they talk of their craft among
themselves in a rustic dialect. And the train dashes into the forest
of Spessart, and under the hills, winding hither and thither between
miles of trees, the remains, as is said, of that great Hercynian
forest which schoolboys read about in their Latin studies. The nursery
of them that overthrew Rome; and one of the haunts of Freedom before
she took refuge in the mountains, and in a certain island of the sea.

At Lohr, a town prettily situate on the Main, the railway road and
river come near together, and the frequent windings of the stream
brighten the landscape. We saw the steamer labouring upwards on her
two days' trip from Frankfort to Würzburg. Then a village where the
Saal falls in, and more and more vines, and old walls gay with yellow
stonecrop, and on the right the ruin of Karlstadt, and by-and-by
Würzburg comes in sight, and our five hours' journey is over.

Bavarian art attracts and gratifies your eye as you alight. The
station is an elegant structure in the Pompeiian style, ingeniously
contrived for the purposes of the railway and post-office, and yet to
preserve the architectural character. An impatient traveller might
well beguile the time by admiring the proportions, the colouring, and
the tasteful decorations along the colonnades. The building forms one
side of a square in the newest quarter of the town.

A curious sign, the _Kleebaum_, caught my eye in the first street, and
I trusted myself beneath it. The _Kellner_ took my knapsack; asked if
"that was all," and led me high up to a small homely-furnished room on
the third floor, in which, however, the quality of cleanliness was not
wanting, and that is what an Englishman cares most about. At dinner I
treated myself to a pint of the Stein wine, for which the
neighbourhood is famous, and am prepared to add my testimony as to its
merits. The bottles have a jolly bacchanalian look about them, being
globes somewhat flattened at the sides, and contain, when honest, a
quart. The cost is from two to three florins a bottle; but a temperate
guest is allowed to drink and pay for the half only, at his pleasure.
With vineyards producing such wine around them, it is little wonder
that the Prince-Bishops were always ready to fight for their good city
of Würzburg. The _Strangers' Book_ followed the dinner as a matter of
course, and when the landlord saw that I signed my name as "from
London," and heard me inquire for the residence of one of the
Professors, he put off his natural manner and became obsequious: a
change that gave me no pleasure.

There is more of life, more to interest the attention in Würzburg,
than in some places which are much more frequented and talked of. The
streets generally are narrow, and built in picturesque disregard of
straight lines; now widening suddenly for a brief space, now
diminishing and bending away in a new direction. And you saunter
onwards, wondering at the panelled house-fronts with their profuse
ornament: grotesque carvings of animals' heads, of clustering fruits
in bold relief at the intersections; windows with quaint canopies and
curiously-wrought gratings; fanciful door-heads and gables; in short,
a variety of architectural conceits on which your eye will fondly
linger. Now, at a corner, you come upon an ancient turret with conical
roof, now a sculptured fountain, now images of the Virgin or some of
the saints over the doors; and anon huge statues of the Bishops remind
you of the men who built and prayed for Würzburg. So numerous are the
churches erected to perpetuate their memory or adorn their
inheritance, that you need not go many yards whenever you feel
inclined to meditate in a "dim religious light."

You meet numbers of soldiers, for there is a citadel beyond the river,
and water-bearers with their tall tubs slung on their backs going to
or from the fountains, and now and then a peasant woman with conical
hat and skirts the very opposite of the fashion; and except that
nearly all the women you see are bareheaded, there is nothing else
remarkable in costume.

Stroll to the river-side; what prodigious piles of firewood at one
side of the quay, and what a busy fleet of barges moored on the other.
The Main here is about as wide as the Thames at Richmond, and is
spanned by a bridge quite in keeping with the city. At either end
stands an arched gateway, with statues niched in the massive masonry,
and saints above the rounded piers.

Cross the bridge, and mount the citadel-hill on the left bank, and you
will have a surprise. The hill terminates in a craggy precipice,
crowned by the stronghold and its defences, and you look down on
shelfy gardens planted here and there among the rocks; and over the
whole city. The river flows by in a bold curve, cutting off a small
suburb from the main portion of the city, which spreads,
crescent-formed, on the opposite shore. An imposing scene. Thirty-one
towers, spires, domes, and steeples spring from the great masses and
ridges of dark-red lofty roofs, and these are everywhere dotted with
rows of little windows which resemble a half-opened eye. Indeed, the
curved line of the tiles makes the resemblance so complete, that you
can easily fancy the eyes are taking a sly peep at what is going on
below, or winking at the sunbeams, as a prelude to falling asleep for
the night.

The sun was dropping behind me in the west, and before me lay the
city, looking glorious in the golden light. Row after row of the
sleepy eyes caught the ray with a momentary twinkle; the gilded
weathercocks flashed and glistened, and the reflection falling on the
river made pathways of quivering light across the ripples.

Presently eight struck from the cathedral, and the clocks of all the
churches followed, each with its own peculiar note. One or two solemn
and sonorous, in imitation of the big bell; others shrill and saucy,
as if they alone had the right to record the march of the silent
footsteps; a few sedate, and one irresolute. Now here, now there, now
yonder, as if the striking never would cease, and suggesting strange
analogies between clocks and the race who wind them up.

Trees rise here and there among the houses, and form a green belt
round the city, thickest in the gardens of the royal palace, a stately
edifice comprising among its two hundred and eighty-four rooms the
suite in which the Emperors used to lodge when on their way to be
crowned at Frankfort. And beyond the trees begin the vines, acre after
acre to the tops of the whole encircling rim of hills. Broad slopes
teeming with wine and gladness of heart, but looking bald in the
distance from want of trees. One of these hills--the _Köppele_, so
named from a chapel on the summit--is a favourite resort of the
inhabitants, who perhaps find in the view therefrom a sufficient
reward for a long ascent, unrefreshed by shade or rustling leaves.

Seen from the hill, Würzburg is said to resemble Prague; not without
reason, as I afterwards found. It would be, in my opinion, the more
pleasing picture of the two, were its frame set off and beautified by
patches of forest.

I kept my seat on the outward angle of a thick wall till the golden
light, sliding slowly up the hills, at last vanished from their brow,
and left the whole valley in shadow. Then I went down and sauntered
about the streets, while the gloom within the porticos and gateways,
behind buttresses and up the narrow alleys, deepened and deepened; and
ended by discovering a stranger willing to talk in a well-lighted
coffee-house.

On my return to the _Kleebaum_ the _Kellner_ lit two candles, and
conducted me, not to the little room "up three pair," but to the best
bedroom on the first floor.

What magic in that little item--"from London!"

Now, gracious reader, suppose we come to an understanding before I
get into bed. You are already aware that I am going to Bohemia, not to
scale snow-crowned mountains, or plunge into awful gorges, for there
are none. The highest summit we shall have to climb together is under
five thousand feet; and there is none of that tremendous and
magnificent scenery which is to be seen in Switzerland and Tyrol. If,
however, you are willing to accompany me to a peculiar country--one
which, like Ireland, is most picturesque around its borders--rich in
memorials of the past and in historical associations, fertile and
industrious, we will journey lovingly together. Now on foot, though
perhaps not so much as usual; now a flight by rail, or a steam-boat
trip, or by diligence or wagon, according as the circumstances befall.
We shall find on the way occasion for discourse, somewhat to observe,
for the people are remarkable, and subjects to read about; improving
the hours as best we may.

Our next halt shall be at the old Saxon town of Altenburg, where there
is something to be seen and heard of worth remembering; then over the
_Erzgebirge_ to Carlsbad, the bathing-place of kings, and through the
rustic villages to Prague. Then to the _Mittelgebirge_; down the Elbe,
to a scene of rural life and industry; away to the _Riesengebirge_--the
mountains haunted by Rübezahl--and the wonderful rocks of Adersbach.
Then over the frontier into Silesia, to Herrnhut, the head-quarters of
the Moravians, to Dresden and the Saxon Switzerland, Berlin,
Magdeburg, and Hamburg, from whence a voyage across the North Sea will
bring us home again.

It may be that this scheme is not to your liking. If so, we can part
company here, and you will perhaps never read the completion of that
"Story of the King of Bohemia and his Seven Castles," which Corporal
Trim began for Uncle Toby and never finished.

And so, good night!

CHAPTER II.

Würzburg is now the chief town of the Circle of the Lower Main; it was
once the capital of a principality governed by a line of eighty
bishops, and figures prominently in German history. The University,
founded in 1403, is deservedly famous, having numbered among its
professors many of first-rate abilities: a distinction it still
retains. What with schools, with resources in art and science,
cultivated society, and ample means of recreation, the old city is an
agreeable residence.

Under the guidance of Professor Kölliker, I visited the botanic
garden, the anatomical museum, and the medical school, which is one of
the best in Europe. The Julius Hospital, a noble institution, founded
by one of the Prince-Bishops, whose statue is erected not far from the
building, affords opportunities for study seldom found in provincial
towns. The students, after the manner of their kind, form themselves
into societies distinguished by the colour of their caps, as you will
soon discover by meeting continually in the streets little groups of
red, green, or orange caps, marking the three divisions.

Then, while the Professor lectured to his class, I strolled away to
the market-place, and saw how the women, leaving their shoulder-baskets
at the door of the _Marienkapelle_--Mary Chapel--went in and recited a
few prayers, kneeling on the floor. A commendable preparation, I
thought, for the work of buying and selling. The mounds of vegetables
in frequent rows, and numerous baskets of cherries and strawberries,
with heaps of fresh dewy flowers between, the many red kerchiefs and
moving throng, and the wares displayed at the wooden booths, made up
an animated spectacle. Live geese roosting contentedly in shallow
baskets awaiting their sale without an effort to escape, were
remarkable among the enticements of the poultry-market. A few yards
farther were little stalls with rolls of butter, resembling in shape a
ship's topsail-yard, alternating with piles of lumps or rather dabs of
butter, each wrapped in a piece of old newspaper. These were bought by
poor folk.

The _Marienkapelle_ is a fine specimen of pointed Gothic, with a
graceful spire, which having become dilapidated and unsafe, was
undergoing repair at the time of my visit. The inside is spoiled by
overmuch whitewash, and the outside by an irregular row of petty
shops--an uncouth plinthe--around the base; and this is not the only
church in the city which has its character and fair proportions marred
by such clustering barnacles.

On the spot where the cathedral now stands rearing its four towers
aloft, St. Killian, an Irish missionary, was martyred more than a
thousand years ago. The lofty arched nave is supported by square
columns, of which the lower portions are hidden by pictures. Marble
statues of the Bishops, with sword and crosier in hand, betokening
their twofold character of priest and warrior, are ranged along the
walls; and the whole interior has a bright and cheerful aspect.

Of the other churches, I need not say more than that the New Minster
enjoys the honour of possessing St. Killian's bones; that St. Peter's
at Rome is reproduced in the church of St. John; and that St.
Burkhardt's, at the foot of the citadel-hill, is built in the round
style.

The spacious grounds and gardens of the palace are well laid out.
There are umbrageous avenues, terraces, fountains, paths winding among
flower-beds and away under the trees and through the shrubberies to
nooks of complete solitude. In some parts the plantations are left
untrimmed, and give an air of wildness to the scene. In the rear,
steps lead to the top of the wall, from whence you may look over
greater part of the grounds, and fancy yourself in a region of forest.
The townsfolk have free access; and you meet now and then a solitary
student poring over his book, or groups of strollers, or nursemaids
with troops of children. The palace, which dates from the year 1720,
shows the consequences of neglect. Hohenschwangau has greater
attractions for the royal family than Würzburg; and now, after a view
of the staircase and chapel, there is nothing in the rusty and faded
apartments that once exhibited the magnificence of the Bishops to
detain you. The cellars are large enough to contain 2200 tuns of wine.
What rollicking nights the retainers must have had!

The Professor proved himself not less hospitable than learned. We
dined together, and he introduced me to one of his colleagues, the
Bohemian mentioned in the second page, who gave me a letter to his
father at Prague. And then, after a sojourn of twenty-four hours, I
departed.

To see Nuremberg, and journey from thence into Bohemia, across the
_Böhmerwaldgebirge_, had been in my thoughts; but finding on inquiry
that more time would be required for that route than I could spare, I
decided for Saxony. So, away to Bamberg, sixty miles distant, the
starting-place of the Leipzig and Nuremberg trains. There was an hour
to wait, and then in deep twilight on we went for Altenburg.

Although the night was in July, I shivered with cold. The temperature,
indeed, was remarkable. Three days previously I had seen white frost
between Aix-la-Chapelle and Cologne, and for the first ten nights of
the month frosts occurred all over Germany. At two o'clock we came to
Hof, where there was a change of train, and time to drink a cup of
coffee, doubly acceptable under the circumstances. The country around
is bleak, a region of bare low hills, of unfavourable repute owing to
its cold. A farmer who came into the train told us there was thin ice
on the ponds. Here and there the hollows were filled with a dense
mist, and resembled vast lakes, and the outlook was so cheerless that
I was glad to sleep, till sunrise, with its splendours, woke up our
drowsy party to welcome light and warmth.

What a change since the former year! Then the war was all the topic
among those who were thrown together while travelling. Now, Sebastopol
and the Crimea seemed clean forgotten, and no one had a word to say
even about the Sick Man at Constantinople. No, all was changed, and
talkers busied their tongues concerning the "shabby peace," as they
called it, the dearness of food, and--William Palmer. The
simple-minded Bavarians could not understand why England should have
been so magnanimous towards her Muscovitish antagonist, until it was
suggested to them that France, having come to the bottom of her purse
notwithstanding all the flourishes to the contrary, the war had to be
ended.

"And could England have kept on?"

"Yes, for forty years, if necessary."

"What a country!" they exclaimed--"what gigantic wealth!" And then
they wondered that peace had not brought lower prices, and talked with
grave faces and timorous forebodings about the dearness of bread.
Scarcely a place did I visit where bread was not dearer than in
London.

But the arch-poisoner was the prevailing theme; and eager discussions
on the incidents of his trial and execution showed how widespread was
the excitement he had occasioned. Even in little towns I saw _Prozess
gegen William Palmer_ for sale in the booksellers' windows. The
Germans, however, thought theirs the best law, as it inflicts
perpetual imprisonment only, and not death, in cases where the poison
is not discovered in the body of the victim; and they would by no
means agree that to hang a villain out of the way whether or no, was
the preferable alternative. While the talk was going on, some one was
sure to tell of what took place when the news of the execution was
flashed from England. _Palmer is hanged_, was the brief yet fearful
despatch. The clerk who received it, by some strange fatality, read
_Palmer_ as an abbreviation of _Palmerston_; and within an hour all
Germany was startled by the news, and bewildered with speculations as
to the causes which had induced the exemplary English nation to get
rid of their Prime Minister by so summary a process. "_Palmerston
gehänget!_" ejaculated one after another, with a chuckle.

At seven o'clock we arrived at Altenburg. A night in a railway train
is not the best preparation for a day of sight-seeing. However, after
the restorative of a wash and breakfast at the _Bayerische Hof_, the
first hotel that presented itself, I crossed the road to the grounds
belonging to the castle. By a bold undulating slope, laid out as an
English park, you mount to a plateau, where a well-kept garden
contrasts agreeably with the tall avenues and grouped masses of
foliage. Small pleasure-houses stand here and there among the trees,
and you see a pavilion built in the style of a Greek temple. A little
farther, and there are the ducal opera-house, the orangery, and the
stables--a handsome range of buildings. And beyond is the Little
Forest--_Wäldchen_--enclosed by a wall, where, among the stately
trees, you may see two, the Princes' Oaks--_Prinzeneichen_--so named
from an interesting event in Saxon history, of which we shall perhaps
have some particulars by-and-by. The plateau, moreover, commands views
of a fertile and well-wooded country all broken up by low hills, the
lowest slopes of the Ore mountains--_Erzgebirge_--which show their
dark swelling outlines far away in the south.

You descend suddenly into a gap, which isolates an eminence--the hill
of Stirling in miniature--terminating in a porphyry cliff, crowned by
the castle. A convenient ascent brings you into an irregular
court-yard, shut in on opposite sides by the oldest and newest parts
of the building. Architecture of the thirteenth century mated
curiously with that of the eighteenth; and both occupying the site of
what was already a fortress in the tenth. The castle owes its present
form to the Dukes Friedrich the Second and Third, who, in 1744,
completed their thirty-eight years of alterations.

The place is a strange medley. Gray, weatherbeaten walls, with square
towers and jutting turrets, intruded on by modern masonry--Neptune in
his cockle-shell car in the midst of a fountain, and sentries pacing
up and down, and soldiers lounging about their shabby-looking
quarters--grim passages, and uncomfortable chambers. The Austrian
arms, which you may yet see cut in the stone over a doorway, mark the
granary built by the Electress Margaret for stores of corn, in order
that, when grain became dear, she might save the townsfolk from
hunger. A little farther and you come to the _Mantelthurm_, a round
tower, with walls seven yards thick, commonly called the _Bottle_,
from the form of its slated roof. It has two ugly chambers, which
were used as dungeons up to 1641, after which it did duty as a
magazine; and now the lower part is a cinder-hole. Adjoining is the
_Jünkerei_--once the pages' quarters--in which are certain official
apartments and the armoury. The Imperialists plundered the castle,
during the Thirty Years' War, of most of its treasures and
curiosities; and later, many specimens of mediæval armour were carried
off to Coburg, leaving little besides objects which have an intimate
relation with Saxon history. Weapons old and new, banners, garments,
paraphernalia used in ducal funerals, and many things which belonged
to persons connected with the Robbery of the Princes (_Prinzenraub_).
In recent times a museum of antiquities has been added: articles of
furniture, books, and other rarities which perpetuate the memory of
eminent individuals--urns and other funereal remains dug up in the
neighbourhood--ethnographical specimens chiefly from Australia and the
Sunda Islands--and a collection of china, presented by the Minister
Baron von Lindenau.

The palace, or modern portion of the castle, dates from 1706. The
castellan will conduct you through the throne-room, the great hall,
where hang life-size pictures of the dukes on horseback by whom the
place was built, and paintings of historical scenes, and other
apartments bright with gilding and hung with elegant draperies.

The church, built in the old German style, on the spot once occupied
by the castle chapel, contains banners, and paintings, and numerous
monuments and tablets to the memory of the princely personages buried
beneath, and some admirable specimens of oak carving. To read their
names as you pass along is a lesson in Saxon genealogy. Among them is
that of the Electress Margaret, whose remains, after a rest of more
than three centuries, were removed to the Princes' Vault, the door to
which, studded with iron stars, you may see in the nave. But, in 1846,
Duke Joseph caused the old tomb to be cleared out and repaired, and
honouring the memory of her whose name is yet revered in Saxony, had
her coffin restored to its former place with solemn ceremony.

From the balconies or the tower you have a good view of the town lying
beneath on a steep hill-slope, with its large ponds, and many ups and
downs. And all around lie fields, and gardens, and rich pastures,
bearing fruitful testimony to the good husbandry of the Wends.

The main approach to the castle is by a road winding with an easy
slope up the steep side of the hill. Its upper extremity is crowned by
a gateway in the Romanesque style, and where its lower end sinks to
the level of the road stand two obelisks--pyramids as they are
called--bearing on their pedestals a statue of Hercules and Minerva.

The streets were full of life and bustle, for it was market day, and
the Wends coming into the town from all quarters increased the novelty
of the sight by their singular costume. The men wear a flat cloth cap,
a short tight jacket drawn into plaits behind, and decorated in front
with as many buttons as may be seen on the breast of a Paddingtonian
page, loose baggy breeches, and tight boots up to the knee. You will,
perhaps, think it a misfortune that the breeches are not longer, for
all below is spindle-shanky, in somewhat ludicrous contrast with the
amplitude above, and the broad, big foot. How such a foot finds its
way through so narrow a boot-leg is not easy to guess. The men are
generally tall, with oval faces of a quiet, honest expression.

But the women!--they are something to wonder at. Most of them are
bareheaded: some wear a close plain cap, which throws out their round
chubby faces in full relief; some display a curiously padded blue
horseshoe, kept in place by a belt that hides the ears, from which two
red streamers hang down their back; and others content themselves with
a ribbon, tying their hair behind in a flat wide bow. Their gown is
long in the sleeves and short in the skirt--short as a Highlander's
kilt, which it very much resembles, and is in most instances of a
carpet-like texture. Plum-colour, blue, pink, and green, dotted with
bright flowers or crossed by stripes, are the prevailing patterns;
their gay tints relieving the sombre blue and black of the men. The
skirt is made to fit pretty closely, much more so, indeed, than the
men's breeches, and as it descends no lower than the knee, you can see
that if Nature is niggard to the men she is generous to the women.
Such an exhibition of well-developed legs in blue worsted stockings I
never before witnessed.

Some of the younger ones had put on their summer stockings of white
cotton, and, with bodice and skirt of different patterns, went
strutting about apparently well pleased with themselves. But they
have another peculiarity besides the kilt: they all, young and old,
wear a species of cuirass, secured at the waist and rising to their
chin. I judged it to be made of light wood, covered with black stuff.
It gives them a grotesque appearance when looked at from the front or
sideways; suggesting an idea of human turtles, or descendants of a
race of Amazons. Some sat at their stalls with their chin resting on
it, or face half hidden behind; and many times did I notice the
breastplate pushed down to make room for the mouth to open when the
wearer wished to speak--the pushings down being not less frequent than
the shrugs of ladies in other places to keep their silly bonnets on.
Even little girls wear the cuirass, and very remarkable objects they
are.

The spacious area of the market-place, enclosed by antique houses, was
thronged. Wendish women sitting in long rows behind their baskets of
cherries and heaps of vegetables; others arriving with fresh supplies
on low wheelbarrows, their white legs twinkling everywhere in the
sunshine. And many more who had come to buy roving busily from one
wooden booth to another among all sorts of wares--books, ironmongery,
jewelry, cakes and confectionery, coarse gray crockery, tubs and
buckets, deep trays and kneading troughs chopped from one block; but
the drapers and haberdashers, with their stores of gaudy kerchiefs and
gay tartans and piles of stockings, attracted the most numerous
customers. There was a brisk sale of sausages and bread--large, flat,
round loaves (weighing 12lb. English) of black rye bread, at one
groschen the pound, which was considered dear.

The men wandered about among the scythes, rakes, and wooden shovels,
or the stalls of pipes and cutlery, or gathered round the ricketty
wagons laden with small sacks of grain and meal which were continually
arriving, led by one of the tribe in dusty boots. And all the while
the townsfolk came crowding in to make their weekly purchases till
there was scarcely room to move.

Such a scene is to me far more interesting than a picture-gallery. I
went to and fro in the throng hearkening with pleasure to the various
voices, watching the buying and selling, and noting the honest,
cheerful faces of many of the women. Then escaping, I could survey the
whole market-place from the rising ground at its upper end, and
contemplate at leisure the living picture, framed by houses and shops
in the olden style, among which, on one side, rises the ancient
_Rathhaus_. It was built in 1562 with the stones of a church given to
the corporation by Duke Johann, whose portrait you may see hanging in
the hall inside among electors and dukes, and their wives; and, ever
since, it has been used for weddings, dances, and religious meetings,
as well as for the grave business of the council and police. Opposite
the entrance, the date 1770, inserted with black pebbles into the
paving, marks the spot where the last beheading took place under
authority of the council.

The Wends are the descendants of a Sclavonic tribe, which, according
to ethnologists, migrated from the shores of the Adriatic more than a
thousand years ago, carrying in their name (_Wend_ or _Wand_) a proof
of having once lived by the sea. They are remarkable for the tenacity
of their adherence to ancient habits and customs, which may, perhaps,
account for their still being a distinct people among the Germans by
whom they are surrounded. And they are not less remarkable for
honesty, health, and an amount of agricultural skill, which
distinguishes them from their neighbours. They are clever and
successful in rearing cattle; they get on, and save money; and the
women have the reputation of being most excellent nurses. The Bohemian
peasant on the farther side of the mountains used, if he does not now,
when his children were born, to stretch them out, sometimes at the end
of a pole, towards the country of the Wends, that the infant might
grow up as able and lucky as they. One of their immemorial practices,
still kept up, is to talk to their bees, and tell them of all
household incidents, and especially of a death in the family. Their
number is two hundred thousand, all within the limits of Lusatia.

A much-frequented promenade is the dam of the Great Pond--_Grossen
Teich_--on the southern side of the town, which, planted with
chestnuts and limes, forms a series of green and shady alleys, with a
pleasant prospect across gardens and meadows to the village of
Altendorf. Swans glide about on the surface of the water, which covers
sixteen acres, and a gondola plies to a small wooded island in the
centre, resorted to by lovers and picnic parties. A short distance
northwards lies the Little Pond, bordered by rows of poplars, and
three other ponds in different parts of the town are also made to
contribute to its attractions.

Another pleasure-ground is the "Plateau," on an eminence between the
railway station and the road to Leipzig, from which you may wander
through shady alleys to the old ruin of Alexisburg. The cemetery, on a
hill to the west of the town, is worth a visit for a sight of some of
the tombs, among which appears the entrance to the new Princes' Vault,
constructed in 1837, in the form of a small chapel, lighted by
richly-stained glass windows, through the floor of which the coffins
are lowered to the vault beneath. On St. John's Day the cemetery is
thronged by the townsfolk, decorating the graves of their departed
friends with flowers.

After a visit to all these places, and a peep into the two churches in
which Luther once preached--the Bartholomäikirche and the
Brüderkirche--I travelled on to Zwickau, and as there is little to be
seen on the way besides fields, low hills, and the tall-chimneyed,
smoking, stocking-weaving town of Werdau, we will glance at an
interesting event in Saxon history incidentally alluded to in the
foregoing pages.

CHAPTER III.

Wends had long peopled the Pleissengau when King Henry I.--the Fowler,
as his contemporaries named him--conquered it during one of his many
inroads among his neighbours, and made it part of the _Osterland_
early in the tenth century. The newly-won territory was soon settled
by German colonists, who, finding an ancient fortification on the
summit of a bluff, rocky hill, called it _alte Burg_, whence the
present name of the town and principality of Altenburg. Henry, or his
successor, Otho, built a castle on the hill, no portion of which, or
of the one which replaced it, now remains. The town is first mentioned
in a document of the year 986. Its story is the old one: family feud,
rapine and revenge, chivalry and heroism, intermingled with quaint and
quiet glimpses of social life, characteristic of the "dark ages."
Earliest among its possessors were the Hohenstaufens; latest are the
Hildburghausens. At one time it was imperial; at another independent;
now pledged or given away by an emperor; now held by a duke. In 1286
its prosperity was such that the burghers went carried in sedan-chairs
to the council-house, and their wives walked to church festivals on
carpets spread before them in the street.

Six years later Friedrich the Bitted quarrelled with Adolf von Nassau
for having pledged Altenburg to King Wenzel of Bohemia; whereupon
Adolf invited Friedrich to a Christmas feast, and while he sat at
table employed a ruffian to murder him, as the speediest way of
settling the dispute. The blow, however, fell on the wrist of a
burgher of Freiberg who rushed between, and lost his hand in
preventing the crime. Friedrich escaped, changed his dress, and, under
cover of night, fled the city; but, having gained a battle in the
interval, he returned as ruler in 1307. The scene of this malignant
assault is supposed to have been a house in the market-place.

Then came a succession of Friedrichs: the Earnest, the Strong, the
Warlike, the Quarrelsome, the Mild, and such like. It was in 1430,
during the lifetime of the last mentioned, that those fierce
Reformers, the Hussites, came across the mountains and made an inroad
into the principality. They chose Three-Kings' Day for their attack on
the town, which was abandoned to them by the inhabitants, who fled to
neighbouring villages, or took refuge in the castle; and, having burnt
and plundered to the satisfaction of their cupidity or their
conscience during four days, they left the place to recover as best it
might.

The same Elector, Friedrich the Mild, married the Austrian Princess
Margaret--fit wife for such a prince, if we may judge from her
endeavours to prevent bread becoming too dear for the townsfolk.

Luther was in Altenburg from the 3rd to the 9th of January, 1519, to
hold a conference with Karl von Miltitz, the papal legate. The two met
in the house of George Spalatin, who became a firm friend of the great
Reformer. Luther visited the town also when on his famous journey to
Worms, and on several occasions afterwards.

The council-house was the scene of a religious conference from
October, 1568, to March of the following year. The parties in presence
were--the theologians of Electoral Saxony on the one hand, of Ducal
Saxony on the other; and among the subjects mooted they discussed the
questions, "Whether good works were needful for salvation?" and,
"Whether man can co-operate in the attainment of his own salvation?"
and with the usual result; for the disputants separated without coming
to a decision.

The old town suffered from the disasters and commotions of the
Peasants' War. The Imperialists quartered themselves upon it after the
fatal battle of Lützen. The troubles of the Seven Years' War fell upon
it, and of the campaigns that ended in the downfall of Napoleon. In
1810, the French commissioners seized a quantity of English
manufactures in possession of resident merchants, and made a great
bonfire therewith in the market-place. In 1813, the Emperors of
Austria and Russia and the King of Prussia visited the town, and in
the same year it afforded quarters to 671 generals, 46,617 officers,
and 472,399 ordinary troops.

Now we must go back for awhile to the year 1455, the times of
Friedrich the Mild. On the night of the 6th of July in that year the
Electress Margaret, his wife, dreamt that two young oaks, growing in a
forest near the castle, were torn up by a wild boar. Herein her
maternal heart foreboded danger to the two princes Ernest and Albert,
both still in their boyhood. The times were indeed disquieting, what
with Hussite wars, territorial quarrels, and the ominous foretokens of
the coming Reformation. Mild as Friedrich was, he, too, had had some
fighting with his brother, Duke Wilhelm, about their lands. Among his
officers was a certain Conrad, or, as he was commonly called, Kunz von
Kauffungen, formerly captain of the castle, who, through
disappointment, had come to entertain two causes of quarrel against
his master. One was that, having been sent to surprise and capture
Gera, he was taken himself, and only recovered his liberty by payment
of four thousand florins ransom. Of this sum Kunz claimed
reimbursement from the Elector, and met with denial. The second was, a
demand for the restoration of estates of which he had been granted
temporary possession, but which, defying legal authorities, he refused
to give up until the coveted four thousand florins should be once more
in his pocket. Chafing under his twofold grievance, he broke out into
threats of reprisal, to which Friedrich answered jocularly, "Don't
burn the fish in the ponds."

Baffled and exasperated, Kunz devised a scheme for bringing the
question to a speedy issue: persuaded Hans Schwalbe, one of the
scullions at the castle, into his interest; concerted measures with
his brother Dietrich von Kauffungen, Wilhelm von Mosen, and others,
thirty-seven altogether, and watched his opportunity.

Treacherous Schwalbe failed not in the service required of him, and
gave information of the Elector's absence: called away by affairs to
Leipzig. Whereupon Kunz and his confederates, mounting to horse, rode
to Altenburg, and halted under cover of a wood--where now the
pleasure-ground is laid out at the foot of the castle--between eleven
and twelve in the night of the 7th of July. Finding all quiet, he sent
his body-servant, Hans Schweinitz, forward to fix a rope ladder, with
Schwalbe's help, at a window above the steepest side of the rock, and,
following with Mosen, the two climbed up and got into the castle. Once
in, they hastened to the chamber of the young princes, and each
seizing one, made their way to the gate. But, instead of Albert, the
little Count Barby had been picked up. Kunz was no sooner aware of the
mistake, than, giving Ernest, whom he carried, into Mosen's arms, he
hurried back with the terrified count, and brought out Albert.
Quicker, however, than the robbery was the spread of an alarm. The
Electress, apprehensive, perhaps, because of her dream on the previous
night, appeared at a window, imploring Kunz to restore her children,
and promising to intercede with the Elector in favour of his demands.
Her entreaties and lamentations fell on deaf ears; Mosen had already
made good his retreat, and Kunz speedily followed him through the
gate, which was easily opened, there being but a single invalid on
guard. The time was singularly favourable for the success of the plot,
as nearly all the residents and functionaries were enjoying
themselves at a feast given by the Chancellor in the town.

The alarm-bell began to ring. Mosen and the others galloped off with
their prize, and Kunz, mounting his horse with young Albert before
him, and attended by Schweinitz, lost no time in making for the
frontier. If Isenburg could be reached before the pursuers came up,
the game would be in his own hands. On they went in the dim night
through the Rabensteiner Forest, along rugged and darksome ways, where
they wandered from the track, their horses stumbled or floundered in
miry holes, forced to choose the wildest and least-frequented routes,
for dogs were barking and alarm-bells ringing in all the villages,
warning honest folk that knaves were abroad. The dewy morning dawned,
birds twittered among the branches, the sun arose, daylight streamed
into the forests, and still the fugitives urged their panting horses
onwards. A few hours later the young prince, worn out by want of rest
and the increasing heat, complained of thirst; whereupon Kunz, though
still a half-score miles from the Bohemian frontier, halted not far
from the village of Elterlein, and crept about in the wood to pluck
berries for the boy's refreshment. While the captain was thus
occupied, a certain charcoal-burner--George Schmidt by name--at work
near the spot, attracted by the glint of armour between the trees,
approached the halting-place, made suspicious, perhaps, by the
alarm-bells. To his surprise, he saw horses showing marks of hasty
travel, and a fair-haired boy well attired, who said at once, "I am
the young prince. They have stolen me." No sooner spoken than the
_Köhler_, running up to Kunz, who was still stooping over the
berries, felled him with a blow of the stout pole which he used in
tending his fires. A shout brought up a gang of his comrades, sturdy
fellows with long hair and grimy faces, who promptly laid hold of Kunz
and Schweinitz, bound their hands, and carried them off for safe
keeping to the neighbouring monastery of Grünhain. Thither also was
the young Albert borne in friendly arms, and from thence, on the
following day, an escort, among whom went the _Köhler_, conducted him
back to his weeping mother--a real triumphal procession by the time
they arrived at Altenburg.

Mosen and his troop, meanwhile, had betaken themselves to a
hiding-place not far from the castle of Stein, on the right bank of
the Mulde, about half way towards the frontier. While some made good
their retreat to secret quarters, the principals concealed themselves
with Prince Ernest in a rocky cave screened by trees, waiting for a
favourable opportunity to renew their flight. But hearing, while on
their look-out, sundry passers-by talk of the capture of unlucky Kunz,
they sent a messenger to Friedrich von Schonburg at Hartenstein,
offering to deliver up the prince on condition that they should be
left free to depart unmolested. The condition was granted: they gave
up their captive, and were seen no more in all the province; and
Schonburg conveyed Ernest to Chemnitz, where he was received by his
father the Elector.

Unlucky Kunz having been carefully escorted to Freiberg, was there
beheaded on the 14th of July--an example to knightly kidnappers. On
the next day the _Köhler's_ homely gaberdine and the garments of the
princes were hung up in the church at Ebersdorf, not far from the
scene of the rescue. As for the _Köhler_ himself, he had but to speak
his wishes, for the Electress, in the joy of her heart at the
restoration of her sons, could not sufficiently reward the man who had
saved the younger. "I worried them right well"--(_wohl getrillt_)--he
said, when recounting how he had laid about him with his pole at the
time of the rescue; and ever afterwards was he known as the _Triller_.
His wishes were modest enough;--a little bit of land, and liberty to
hunt and cut wood in the forest--and amply were they gratified.

Such is in brief the story of the _Prinzenraub_, as it happened four
hundred years ago--a memorable event in Saxon history. A walled-up
window in the castle at Altenburg, on the side towards the Pauritzer
Pond, is said to indicate the place where in the former building the
robbers entered. The Princes' Oaks still flourish; and the cave in
which Ernest was hidden is still known as the _Prinzenhöhle_. And our
own history is involved in the event, for from that same Ernest
descends the Consort of our Queen.

To most English readers the _Prinzenraub_ was an unknown story until a
few years ago, when Thomas Carlyle published it from his vigorous pen
in the _Westminster Review_, where all the circumstances are brought
before us in the very vividness of life. "Were I touring in those
parts, I would go and see," says the author, referring to the rumour
that the estate bestowed on the _Triller_ remained still in possession
of his posterity. By inquiry at Altenburg, I learned that this estate
lay in the neighbourhood of Zwickau, so, as I also was bound for the
Bohemian frontier, I did go and see on the way.

CHAPTER IV.

The dark roofs of a few dull streets, a lofty old church tower, the
tall chimneys, and clouds of steam and smoke of a busy suburb, rising
amid orchards, gardens, and hop-grounds in the pleasant and
thickly-wooded valley of the Mulde, are the features presented by
Zwickau as you approach it from the terminus. There needs no long
research to discover that the _Prinzenraub_ is a household word among
the people: hanging on the wall in the hotel you may see engravings of
the _Prinzenhöhle_, the castle of Stein, the monastery at Grünhain,
and other places incidental to the robbery; and the waiters are ready
to tell you that the Triller estate lies near Eckersbach, about half
an hour's walk to the east of the town.

On my way thither I crossed the Mulde, a lively stream, flowing
between steep slopes of trees, broken here and there by a red
fern-fringed cliff. A Saxon liking--one which the Anglo-Saxon has not
forgotten--is betrayed in the name of the bridge--Beer Bridge; it
leads to Beer Mount, which conceals within its cool and dark interior
countless barrels of the national beverage. While walking up the
hollow road that winds round the hill, you see on one side the
entrances to the deeply excavated cellars, on the other a tavern,
overshadowed by linden-trees, offering refreshing temptations to the
thirsty visitor.

The road presently rising across open fields brings you in sight of a
pile of huge bright-red brick buildings, erected on the farther side
of a deep, narrow dell, contrasting well with the green of a cherry
orchard and woods in the rear. There lies the _Triller_ estate. Times
are changed; and where the sinewy _Köhler_ tilled his field and reared
his family, now stands a brewery--_Triller Bierbrauerei_. The wakeful
genius of trade has taken possession, and finds in the patriotic
sentiment inspired by the history of the place a handsome source of
profit.

I addressed myself to the _Braumeister_--_Brewmaster_--who on hearing
that one of England's foremost authors had published the story of the
_Prinzenraub_, manifested a praiseworthy readiness to satisfy my
curiosity. The estate had long been out of the hands of the _Triller_
family, so long that he could not remember the time--perhaps fifty
years. But the _Trillers_ were not extinct: one was living at
Freiberg, and two others elsewhere in Saxony. The place now belongs to
a company, under whose management _Triller_ beer has become famous in
all the country round; and not undeservedly, as I from experience am
prepared to affirm. There is a large garden, with paths winding among
the trees, and open places bestrewn with tables and chairs enough for
the innumerable guests who quench their thirst at the brewery.

As we strolled about the premises, the _Braumeister_ called my
attention to a writing over the main entrance--

_Dulcius ex ipso fonte bibuntur aquæ_,

remarking that he had never known a visitor disposed to quarrel with
it. Then, abandoning his laconic phrases, he told me how the four
hundredth anniversary of the _Prinzenraub_ had been celebrated on the
8th of July, 1855. It was a day to be remembered in all the places
made historic by the event. From Schedewitz, on the farther side of
Zwickau, a long procession had walked to the Brewery, under triumphal
arches erected on the way. First came a troop of Coalers, in forest
garb, then friends of the company on foot and in wagons, and bands of
music; altogether eight hundred persons, and among them the three
_Trillers_. Airs were played and songs sung that made all the fire of
patriotism glow again; and so earnestly did the multitude enter into
the spirit of the celebration, that--a merry twinkle gleamed in the
_Braumeister's_ eye as he told it--"They drank a hundred eimers of
beer. There they are: look at them," he added, pointing to an
engraving of the whole procession--the _Trillerzug_, as he called it.

A similar festival was held at Altenburg, Hartenstein, and Grünhain on
the same day, to the entire satisfaction of all concerned, and the
reinvigoration of Saxon loyalty.

I was seated at one of the tables with a tankard of beer before me,
when a young man came up, looked at me inquisitively, and said, "E
shmall Eng-lish speak"--meaning, "I speak a little English."

I felicitated him on his acquirements, when he proceeded to tell me
that he was one of the clerks employed in the counting-house, and
having heard of my arrival from the _Braumeister_, could not resist
the desire of speaking with an Englishman. Moreover, he would like to
show me certain things which I had not yet seen, and he said, "If you
pleasure in _Prinzenraub_ find, so is glad to me."

We were friends in a moment. He led me first to the counting-house,
and showed me the bust of Herr Ebert, who, as chief proprietor, had
headed the procession in the former year, but was since deceased,
saying, "We very, very sorry; every man love him. Ah! he was so good."
Then running up-stairs to a large whitewashed apartment--one of the
drinking-rooms used when guests are driven in-doors by bad
weather--where a few portraits hung on the walls, he cried, "Here is
something to see. But wait--you will have a tsigger?"

"With pleasure," I answered, "if it's good to drink."

"No, not drink," he replied. "What you call him?--to shmoke."

The room echoed with my laugh, and he prolonged it, as I rejoined,
"Oh! you mean a cigar! No, thank you. Tobacco is one of the things I
abhor."

"What you call him?" he exclaimed, in amazement--"cigar! Then what for
a teacher is mine. But he is a German."

Our friendly relations were in no way deranged by my dislike of a
"tsigger;" and we turned to the portraits, which comprised some of the
personages involved in the _Prinzenraub_. The brave old _Triller_ is
represented in the costume of the period--a stalwart fellow, with
ample black beard, bare legs, broad-brimmed hat, and loose frock tied
by a belt round the waist. In one hand he grasps his pole, with the
other supports the prince, who wearing red hosen and peaked red boots,
looks up to him with tearful eye. Kunz appears lying down in the
background, looking half-stunned and miserable. There are two
miniatures--of the _Triller_ and his wife--apparently very old,
believed to be likenesses. In the excitement occasioned by the four
hundredth anniversary, a poor shoemaker, hearing it talked of, came to
the brewery with the paintings in his hand, and sold the two for a
shilling. Besides these there are seven or eight other portraits,
among which the features of Kunz impress you favourably. He has dark
curly hair, a high forehead, a clear bright eye, moustache and pointed
beard; the whole appearance and expression reminding you of Sir Philip
Sidney.

What with fluent German and broken English the young clerk worked
himself into enthusiasm, and showed me everything that had the
remotest connexion with the subject, ending with a book containing the
latest history of the _Prinzenraub_, and engravings of its incidents.
Nor could he think of letting me depart till I had seen the whole
premises, and the enormous cellars.

"The _Triller_ is a good name for the brewery," he said, as we paced
between the furlongs of barrels.

On my return to the town I found out the ancient dame who keeps the
key of the church tower, and as she unlocked the door offered her a
small silver coin. "No! no! no!" she exclaimed, "that is too much. A
_Dreier_ (halfpenny) is enough for me." A rare instance of
disinterestedness. Once admitted, you find your way alone up to the
topmost chamber, where dwells a woman with two or three children. She
was winding up from the street below her daily supply of water when I
entered out of breath with the ascent of so many steps, and paused in
her task to conduct me to the platform, a height of about two hundred
feet, from which the steeple springs one hundred and fifty feet
higher. Wide and remarkable is the prospect: the rows of poplars which
border the roads leading on all sides from the town divide the
landscape into segments with stiff lines that produce a singular
effect as they diminish gradually in thickness and vanish in the
distance. Plenty of wood all around, merging towards the south into
the vast fir forest which there darkens the long swells and rounded
summits of the _Erzgebirge_: a region of contrasts, with its abounding
fertility and unpicturesque foundries and mining-works. The town
appears to better advantage from above than below, for the many green
spots in the rear of the houses come into the view, and you see
gleaming curves of the Mulde, and a great pond as at Altenburg, and
the remains of the old walls, and the ditches, now in part changed
into a garden promenade.

The mind becomes interested as well as the eye. You may grow dreamy
over the fabulous adventures of the fair Princess Schwanhildis, in
whose adventures, as implied in hoary tradition, the place originated;
and if you desire proof, is it not found in the three swans, still
borne in the town arms? Or you may revert to the sixth century only,
when the Wends had a colony here, and worshipped Zwicz, one of their
Sclavish fire-gods in the _Aue_, or meadow--whence the present name,
Zwickau. Or you may remember that Luther often mounted the tower to
gaze on the widespread view; and imagine him contemplating the scenes
on which your eye now rests--a brief pause in his mighty work of
rescuing Europe from the toils of priestcraft. A clumsy table yet
remaining on the platform, though tottering and fallen on one side
with age and weakness, is called "Luther's table;" the great Reformer
having, as is said, once sat by it to eat. But the sentiment which
such a relic should inspire is weakened by the inference that as the
Zwickauers take no pains to preserve it from the weather, they at
least are sceptical concerning its merits.

And the church itself. It is the largest, the finest specimen of
Gothic, and has the biggest bell, in all Saxony, and excepting two
towers in Dresden, is the highest. It dates from the eleventh century,
and has been more than once restored. The interior well repays a
visit. The slender, eight-sided pillars of the nave, the rare carvings
of the bench-ends, and others about the choir and confessional, and in
the sacristy, the high altar, by Wohlgemuth, of Nuremberg, the only
one remaining of twenty-five which formerly stood around the walls,
raise your admiration of art. If curious in such matters, you may see
a splinter of the true cross--a relic from Popish times--still
preserved. There are some good paintings, of which one by Lucas
Cranach the Younger represents Jesus as "Children's Friend." It was
painted at the cost of a burgomaster in honour of his wife's memory.

For one with time at discretion, Zwickau and the neighbourhood would
yield a few days of enjoyable exploration. A remarkable instance of
volcanic action is to be seen between Planitz and Niederkainsdorf,
which has existed from time immemorial. Steam is continually bursting
up from the coal strata beneath, of so high a temperature that the
ground is always green even in the hardest winters. An attempt was
made, a few years ago, to utilize the heat by establishing a
forcing-garden on the spot; and in the adjacent forests there are
land-slips, produced by disturbances of the strata, which are
described as romantic in their effects. The valley of the Mulde offers
much pleasing scenery; the castle of Stein and the _Prinzenhöhle_ are
within half a day's walk; and somewhat farther are the singular rocks
at Greifenstein, a pile as of huge beds petrified. The legend runs
that a princess, having married while her betrothed, whom she had
promised never to forget, was absent, the fairies, exercising their
right of punishment, turned her and all her household gear into stone,
and the beds remain to commemorate the perfidy. There are, besides,
baths and mineral springs at the village of Oberkainsdorf, and at
Hohensteiner Bad; and curious old carvings in the castle of
Schönfels; and, if you incline to geology, the coal measures abound in
fossil plants and shells, while of minerals there is no stint.

The town has attractions of another sort: early-printed books, rare
manuscripts, original letters by Luther and other Reformers, in the
Library; the _Rathhaus_, on the front of which, over the door, you may
see the three swans; and, among the archives, more letters by Luther
and Melancthon. There are portraits of the two, by Cranach, in the
neighbouring castle of Planitz. The house, No. 22, in the
market-place, is that in which Luther lodged in 1522; Melancthon
sojourned in No. 444, in the _Burggasse_; and No. 576, in the
_Schergasse_, is where Napoleon had his quarters in 1812.

It was evening when I slung on my knapsack and began my walk in
earnest. A short stage at the outset is no bad preparation for the
work to follow. The road runs between the noisy factories, past
vitriol works, smelting furnaces, and, thick with dust, is, for the
first three or four miles, far from pleasant. At length the busy
district is left behind, the trees bordering the highway look greener,
and the river, separated but by a narrow strip of meadow, is near
enough for its rippling to be heard. Excepting a miner now and then,
wearing his short leathern hinder-apron, and a general shabbiness of
dress, the people I met might have been mistaken for English, so
marked is the similarity of form and feature. Transported suddenly to
any of the roads leading out of Birmingham, no one would have imagined
them to be foreigners.

About three hours, at an easy pace, brought me to a wayside
public-house near Oberhaselau, where I halted for the night. There
were sundry rustic folk among the guests, one of whom told me, while I
ate my supper, that he had taken part in the _Prinzenraub_
celebration, along with hundreds of foresters and villagers, at a
_Wirthshaus_ built on the spot where the _Triller's_ cabin stood--a
day to be remembered as long as he lived. He had, moreover, seen the
_Triller's_ gaberdine hanging in the monastery at Ebersdorf.

Later in the evening came in three men of dignified appearance, who
sat down at a card-table in one corner, to a game of what might be
described as three-handed whist. Gustel, the maid, showed them much
deference, and placed before each a quart-glass of beer. They were,
she whispered to me, the _Actuarius_ of the village, and the Inspector
and Doctor. From time to time, during the game, they broke out into a
rattling peal of laughter, as one of them threw a set of dice on the
table and handed round a few extra cards. I requested permission to
look at the cause of merriment, and, to my amazement, discovered that
both cards and dice were disgustingly obscene, out of all character
with the respectable appearance of their possessors.

Before the game was over, some six or eight wagoners, who had arrived
with their teams, spread bundles of straw on the floor, pulled off
their boots with a ponderous boot-jack chained to the door-post, and,
stretching themselves on their lair, soon united in a discord of
snores.

CHAPTER V.

Across the Mulde -- Scenery -- Feet _versus_ Wheels --
Villages -- English Characteristics -- Timbered Houses --
Schneeberg -- Stones for Lamps -- The Way Sunday was Kept
-- The Church -- A Wagon-load of Music -- A Surly Host --
Where the Pepper Grows -- Eybenstock -- Neustädl -- Fir
Forests -- Wildenthal -- Four Sorts of Beer -- Potato
Dumplings -- Up the Auersberg -- Advertisements -- The
School -- The Instrument of Order -- "Look at the
Englishman" -- The Erzgebirge -- The Guard-house -- Into
Bohemia -- Romish Symbols -- Hirschenstand -- Another
Guard-house -- Differences of Race -- Czechs and Germans --
Shabby Carpentry -- Change of Scenery -- Neudeck -- Arrive
at Carlsbad -- A Glass Boot -- Gossip.

The road crosses the Mulde near Oberhaselau, and, winding onwards
between broad, undulating fields, and through patches of forest, rises
gradually, though with frequent ups and downs, into a region more and
more hilly. A bareness of aspect increases on the landscape as you
advance, in contrast with which the stripes and squares of cultivation
on the slopes appear of shining greenness. The views grow wider. They
are peculiar and striking, though deficient in beauty, for the range
of the _Erzgebirge_, as the name indicates, hides its wealth
underground, and makes up by store of mineral treasure for poverty of
surface. Yet, is there not a charm in the tamest of mountain scenery?
It animated me as I walked along on that bright sunshiny morning.
Though the river was far out of sight, were there not a few ponds
gleaming in the hollows? while little brooks ran tinkling down their
unseen channels, and fountains began to appear at the wayside with a
ceaseless sound of bubbling and splashing that fell gratefully on the
ear; and the breeze made a gladsome rustling among the birches that
flung their graceful shadows across the dusty road. Nature is kind to
him who goes on foot, and makes him aware of beauties and delights
never discovered to the traveller on wheels.

There are signs of a numerous population: church spires and villages
in the distance--among them Reichenbach and its ruined castle--and in
little valleys which branch off here and there, teeming with foliage,
snug cottages thickly nestled; and as your eye wanders along the
broken line of tree-tops, it sees many wavy columns of smoke betraying
the site of rural homes scattered beneath. And you begin to notice
something unfamiliar in the dress of the people who inhabit them: blue
and red petticoats are frequent, and scarcely a man but wears the
straight tight-legged boots up to the knee, all black and brightly
polished; for the groups I met were on their way to church. The honest
English style of countenance still prevails; and another English
characteristic may be seen, if you look for it, in the decayed and
illegible condition of the finger-posts.

If the landscape be not picturesque, many of the houses are, with
their timbers, forming zigzags, angles, squares, diamonds, and other
fanciful conceits. Some old and gray, assimilating in colour to the
weather-stained masonry; some painted black in strong relief upon a
pale-red wall. While pausing to examine the details, you will not fail
to admire the taste and skill of the builders of three centuries ago,
who knew how to impart beauty even to the humblest habitations. Now
and then you come upon a house of which the upper storey, faced with
slates, appears as if supported by arches and pilasters fashioned in
the wall beneath; and specimens of these several kinds of architecture
gratify the eye in all the hill-country of Saxony.

Schneeberg, lying in a valley backed by a dark slope of firs, has a
singularly gloomy aspect, which disappears as you descend the hill. It
was eleven on Sunday morning when I entered the town. Because summer
had come, the street lamps were all taken down; but that the chains
and ropes might not hang idle, the lamplighter had tied a big stone or
large brick, by no means ornamental, to the end of every one. A
military band was playing in the market-place; a few shops were open;
and a man hurrying from corner to corner was posting up bills of plays
to be acted in the evening--a little comedy, followed by a piece in
five acts. The prices were, for the first places, 6d., the second,
3d., the third, 2d., which would hardly exclude even the poorest. So,
in Saxony, as elsewhere on the Continent, not only Papists but
Protestants are willing to recreate themselves with music and the
theatre on a Sunday. A half-dozen postilions, who were strutting about
in the full blaze of bright-yellow coats, yellow-banded hats,
jack-boots, and with a bugle slung from the shoulder, seemed as proud
of their dress as the peacocky drum-major did of his.

I ordered a steak at the _Fürstenhaus_. "Will you have it
through-broiled or English-broiled?" asked the waiter, and looked a
little surprised at my preference of the former. When the band stopped
playing, numbers of the listeners came into the dining-room for a
_Halbe_ of beer, and sat down to play at cards.

The church, a spacious edifice, crowns the height above the
market-place. After walking twice round it, I discovered a small door
in an angle, which being unfastened gave me admittance. The interior,
with its worn and uneven brick floor, has somewhat of a neglected
look, not unusual in Protestant churches; but there are a few good
paintings, and the altar-piece, representing the Crucifixion, shows
the hand of a master. I was quite alone, and could explore as I
pleased. The altar rises to a great height, adorned with statues, and
crowned by figures of angels. Near it two or three tall crucifixes
lean against the wall; the font, and a lectern upborne by an angel
stand in the centre of the nave, and everywhere are signs of the
Lutheran form of worship. Here and there, constructed with an apparent
disregard of order, are glazed galleries, pews, and closets, and
others that resemble large cages--ugly excrescences, which mar the
fair proportions of the lofty nave. The gallery is fronted by a thick
breastwork of masonry, bearing a heavy coping, and the brick floor is
in many places worn completely through, and the loose lumps are strewn
about. The view from the tower, commanding miles of the mountain
range, more than repays the trouble of the ascent.

There are three services on the Sunday. From six to seven, and from
eight to half-past nine in the morning, and from one to two in the
afternoon. The rest of the day is free; but not for work, as in other
countries. Haymaking, as I was informed, is the only Sunday work
permitted by the law of Saxony. The Sunday school is well attended,
and is not confined to religious subjects, for writing, arithmetic,
and drawing are taught.

While trudging up the hill beyond the town, I passed one of the
springless country wagons, crammed with a military band, the fiddles
and big bass viol hanging behind, on the way to amuse the folk at
Stein with music. They undertake a similar expedition every Sunday in
fine weather to one or other of the surrounding villages.

I met with two novel experiences during the afternoon. One was, that
to sit down in the church at Neustädl is a penance, for the pews are
so narrow that you have to lift up the hinged seat before you can
enter. The other, a few miles farther on the way, was of a surly
_Wirth_, dwelling under the sign of the _Weisses Lamm_ (White Lamb),
whom I begged to draw me a glass of beer cool from the cellar. Instead
of complying, he filled the measure from a can which had been standing
two or three hours on the dresser in all the suffocating heat of the
stove, and placed it before me with a grunt. I ventured to remind him,
with good-humoured words, that lukewarm beer was not acceptable to a
thirsty wayfarer on a hot day; whereupon he retorted, snarling more
like a wolf than a lamb, "Either drink that, or go and get other
where the pepper grows"--_wo der Pfeffer wächst_.

The old sinner availed himself of a form of speech much used among the
Germans to denote a place of intensely high temperature, and
sulphureous withal, in which pepper, being so very pungent a product,
may be supposed to grow.

"Suppose you go first," I answered, "and see if there be any left."
And turning away, I shut the door upon the snarl which he snarled
after me, and went on to Eybenstock, where cool beer in plenty was
forthcoming as soon as asked for.

I told the hostess of my adventure with old Surly. "Just like him,"
she replied, laughing merrily; "nobody ever goes to the _White Lamb_
that can help it. You didn't see any one besides him in the room, I'll
engage." True enough, I did not.

A long, steep acclivity rises between Schneeberg and Eybenstock, from
which you look down into deep, dark gulfs of fir forest, and away to
hills swelling higher and higher in the distance--all alike sombre. So
that when you come to a green vale, with its little hay-fields watered
by a noisy brook, streaked in places with foam, it appears lovely by
contrast. The road makes long curves and zigzags to avoid the heights,
but the old track through the trees still remains, and shortens the
distance at the expense of a little exertion in climbing.

The wildness increases beyond Eybenstock. The forest descends upon the
road, and you walk for an hour at a stretch under the shade of firs,
with beech and birch sparsely intermingled, and here and there a
stately pine springing from a mighty base to a height far above the
rest, the topmost branches edged with gold by the declining sunbeams.

Emerging from the grateful shade, we come to Wildenthal, a little
green hollow at the foot of the Auersberg, enclosing a saw-mill, a
school, a few cottages, fields and gardens, and an inn, _Gasthaus zum
Ross_. Great slopes of firs rising on every side shut it out, as it
were, from the rest of the world. The aged hostess at the _Gasthaus_
bustled about with surprising alacrity to answer the calls of her
rustic guests for beer. "_Einfach_," cried one; another, "_Weisses_;"
"_Lager_," broke in a voice from among the party of card-players,
accompanied by a rapping of the pewter tankard-lid; "_Bayerisches_,"
shouted others from the ninepin-alley outside; and she, with her ready
"_Gleich_"--directly--appeasing their impatience.

Of these four kinds of beer, the first--literally Simple--is
equivalent to our small-beer, and is much in request by a certain
class of topers from its low price, and because they can drink it the
whole day without fear of becoming stupid before the evening. The
second--White--is very foamy, and has somewhat the lively flavour of
ginger-beer: after standing some time in the glass a shake round
revives its briskness. The third--Store-beer--is of sufficient
strength to bear a year's keeping; and the fourth--Bavarian--is of a
similar quality. The last two were the most to my liking.

There was greater choice of beer than of viands; and the half-bent old
dame thought fit to apologise because she could give me nothing for
supper but omelettes and _Klese_; the latter a sort of dumpling made
of potatoes and a sprinkling of wheaten flour. "If she had only
known," and so forth. However, I found them palatable, and ate
heartily, and therein she took comfort. Many times did I eat of such
dumplings afterwards, for the relish for them is not confined to
Saxony. Under the name of _Knädeln_, or _Kipfeln_, they are a standing
dish among the Bohemians. To hundreds of families in the _Erzgebirge_
they are the only variety--but without the wheaten flour--in a
perpetual potato diet: rarely can they get even the sour black bread
of the country, and in the years of the potato disease famine and
misery desolated many a hearth.

The guests went away early, and then, as twilight fell, nothing
disturbed the stillness of the vale save the murmur of running water
and the whisper of the breeze among the slopes of firs, inviting to a
contemplative stroll.

I rose on the morrow soon after the sun, and scrambled up the
Auersberg. It was really a scramble, for I pushed at a venture into
the forest, aiming direct for the summit. How the grass and the
diminutive black-eared rye glistened with dewdrops! Early as it was,
the saw-mill had begun its busy clatter, and here and there on the
hills the woodcutters' strokes sounded in the calm morning air. Once
under the trees all signs of a track disappeared; and there were
slopes slippery with decayed vegetation; little swamps richly carpeted
with exquisite mosses; dense patches of bilberry, teeming with berries
as purple ripe as when Kunz plucked in another part of the forest but
a few miles distant. And after all, owing to the tower on the top
having fallen down, and the trees having grown up, the view is
limited to a narrow opening on either side, where an avenue, now
rarely used, affords an easy though tedious ascent. A square block of
stone stands near the remains of the tower, dedicated to an upper
forest-master, who had fulfilled fifty years of service, by his
friends and subordinates. However, there is such a charm in the wild,
lonely forest, that one need not regret half an hour's exertion in
scrambling up a steep hill under its shadow.

I amused myself during breakfast with the _Erzgebirgischer Anzeiger_,
a small quarto newspaper, published at Schneeberg thrice a week; the
price twelve _neugroschen_ (about fifteen pence) per quarter. Beer and
amusements occupied a large space among the advertisements; for every
village and every _Wirthshaus_ in the forest, of any notoriety,
promised music or dancing on Sundays, sometimes both; and fortunate
was the one that could announce the military band. Double _Lager_
beer, a penny the pot, was offered in abundance sufficient to satisfy
the thirstiest. "Stewed meat and fresh sausages next Friday," is the
inducement held out by one ambitious little alehouse: and an
enterprising refectioner declares, "In my garden it gives fine
weather." And, as the _Dresdner Anzeiger_ shows, they do similar
things in the metropolis. A coffee-house keeper, "up four steps,"
says: "My most honoured sir, I permit myself the freedom to invite you
to a cup of coffee next Sunday afternoon at three o'clock." Certain
young men publish their sentiments concerning their hostess, beginning
with

"Angels until now have led thee,"

and so on. A fortunate husband and father thanks Madame Krändel for
the "happy _Entbindung_" of his wife, and publishes his wife's maiden
name. Parents announce the death of a child, and invite their friends
to "quiet sympathy." A stray Berlin paper makes it clear that a like
practice prevails in the capital of Prussia. But most amusing of all
was the advertisement, in French and English, of the landlord of the
_Golden Star_, at Bonn. Here it is:

"De cet hôtel la renommée
Promet sans exagération
Que vous y trouverez
Le comble de la perfection.
Le luxe de la salle à manger
Surpassera même votre idée."

"By all visitors of the Rhine
Known as one of the most fine
And best conducted models
Of all Continental hotels.
The dining-room allowed to be
A grand pattern of luxury."

Which does not say much for the bard of Bonn. Besides these there was
the _Illustrated Village Barber_, a paper published at Leipzig, full
of humorous cuts, over which the rustics chuckled not a little.[A]

Wildenthal has no church; the people, therefore, are dependent on
Eybenstock, three miles distant, for sermons, baptisms, marriages, and
burials; but, in common with other villages, it has a good
schoolhouse. Hearing the sound of voices as I passed, I went in, and
had a talk with the master, who was a model of politeness. He had
about a hundred scholars, of both sexes, in a room well-lighted and
ventilated, with a spelling-frame, and black music board, ruled for
four parts, and other appliances of education placed along the walls.
Threepence a week--two and a half _neugroschen_--is the highest rate
paid at country schools; but there are two lower rates to suit folk of
scanty means, and the very poorest pay nothing. The children attend
school from the age of six up to fourteen, with no vacations except a
fortnight at each of the three rural ingatherings--haymaking, harvest,
and potato-digging. The hours of attendance are from seven to ten in
the forenoon, one to four in the afternoon.

"Yes, they are pretty good children," said the master, in reply to my
inquiry; "I have not much trouble to keep them in order; but, in case
of need, here is a little instrument (_kleines Instrument_) which
comes to my aid;" and he produced a small birch from a secret place
behind his desk.

A general nudging went through the school, and quick, sly looks from
one to the other, at sight of the interwoven twigs. "Ha! ha!" cried
the master, "you see they recognise it. However, 'tis very seldom
called for."

Then, mounting his rostrum, he said: "Now, children, tell me--which is
the most famous country in the world?"

"_Eng-land!_" from all the hundred voices.

"Is it a most highly renowned country?"

"_Ja--ja--ja!_"

"And how is the chief city named?"

"_Lundun_"--the _u_ sounded as in full.

"And when Saxony wants factories, and steam-engines, and
spinning-machinery, and railways, who is it sends them hither, or
comes over and makes them?"

"_Eng-land!_" again, and with enthusiasm.

"Good. Now, children, look at the _Herr_ standing here by my
side--look at him, I say, for he comes from that famous
country--_Eng-land!_"

It was a trial to my courage to become thus unexpectedly the object
for all eyes, and feeling bound to say something in return for the
master's compliment, I replied that, "If England did do so much for
Saxony, it was only paying back in another form the prowess and vigour
which the Saxons long time ago had carried into England. Moreover, in
Saxony all children could read; but in England there were many boys
and girls who could not read."

"Is it possible!" exclaimed the master, holding up his hands. "How can
that be?"

"It is part of our liberty. Any one in England is perfectly free to be
ignorant if he likes it best."

"Remarkable!" answered the dominie; and he inquired concerning the
amount of salary paid to schoolmasters in England. His own appeared
very small in comparison; but were it not that bread was unusually
dear, and firewood five dollars the _Klafter_--notwithstanding the
vast forests--he was quite content, and could live in comfort.

Beyond Wildenthal, the ascent is almost continuous: now the road
traverses a clearing where the new undergrowth hides the many
scattered stumps; now a grassy slope thickly bestrewn with wild
flowers; now a great breadth of forest, where boulders peer out
between the stems, and brooks flow noisily, and long bunches of hairy
moss hang from the branches, and the new shoots of the firs, tipped
with amber and gold, glisten and glow in the light of the morning sun.

Ever deeper into the hills; the solitude interrupted now and then by a
gang of charcoal-burners with their wagons, or an aristocratic
carriage, or an humble chaise, speeding on its way from Carlsbad. Or
the sound of the axe echoes through the wood, followed by the crash of
a falling tree. And always the wind murmurs among the trees, swelling
at times to a fitful roar.

I saw a stone-breaker at work, afflicted with a huge goitre. He earns
a dollar and a half per week, and complains sadly of the dearness of
bread, and the hardness of the blue granite.

Gradually the tall forest gives place to scrubby-looking firs, stony
patches, rough with hardy heath, offering a wild and dreary prospect.
Presently a square stone, standing by the road, exhibits on one side
_K. Sachsen_ (Kingdom of Saxony), on the other _K. Boehmen_, and
passing this you are in Bohemia. Near it is the guard-house, where two
soldiers are always on the watch. One of them asked me if my knapsack
contained anything for duty, accepted my negative without demur, and
invited me to sit down and have a chat on the turfy seat by the side
of the door. It was a pleasure to see a new face, for their life was
very monotonous, looking out, from noon of one day to noon of the
next, for honest folk and smugglers, suffering none to pass
unquestioned. They were not much troubled with contrabandists, for
these free-traders shun the highway, and cross the frontier by secret
paths in lonely parts of the mountains.

The summit here forms a table-land some three thousand feet above the
sea-level, with a prospect by no means cheering; limited by the
stunted firs, except towards the south-west, where a few black,
dreary-looking undulations terminate the view. The road, however, soon
begins to descend to a less inhospitable region, and presently makes a
sudden dip, for the slope of the _Erzgebirge_, long and gradual
towards Saxony, is abrupt on the Bohemian side. The other mountain
ranges present a similar formation. Then we come to tall trees, and
grassy glades, stony clearings, and acres of bilberries. A little
farther, and the sight of a crucifix, bearing a gilt Christ, by the
wayside, and of miserable wooden cottages, roofed with shingles,
convinces you that the frontier is really crossed. A valley opens
where haymakers are busy; the men wearing the straight tight boots,
the women barefoot, and with a kerchief pinned hood-fashion under the
chin. "_Gelobt sei Jesus Christus_"--Praised be Jesus Christ--salute
the children as you pass, and some of them stand still with an
expectant look. Then posts, and a toll-bar, painted in the diagonal
stripes of black and yellow, which symbolise imperial Austria. The bar
is kept down, but sufficiently high above the ground for a man to walk
under it without ducking. Having passed this you are in
Hirschenstand--the first Bohemian village.

"Perhaps you come out of Saxony?" said a man, stepping from a house
that had a double eagle above the door, and holding out his hand for
my passport.

He was very civil, and also very positive in his assurance that he
could not grant me a _visa_ for Prague; only for Carlsbad, and he
wished me a pleasant journey. A few yards farther I turned into the
inn to dine, and at once met with characteristic specimens of the two
races who inhabit Bohemia. There was the German, with a round, flat,
hairy face, stolid in expression, and somewhat sluggish in movement,
and by his side the Czech, or Stock-Bohemian, whose oval countenance,
high intellectual forehead, arched eyebrows, clear olive complexion,
unrelieved by moustache or whisker, presented a marked contrast; the
Sclavonian, bright-eyed and animated; the Teuton, dull and heavy. Yet
the latter is gaining upon his lively neighbour. The German population
is every year increasing, and the Czechish language is spoken within a
narrower circle. The contrast between the two races will be something
for observation during our walk, and with another noticeable
difference when we approach the frontier of Silesia.

There was something peculiar in the room as well as in the guests; at
one side a tall clock, and very tall candlesticks; in the middle a
chopping-block, bearing a heap of sausage-meat; a washing-tub and
copper-pans in one corner, and on the opposite side a species of
bagatelle-board, on which the ball is expected to find its way into
the holes between long palisades of little wires: an exciting game;
for even the slow German was quickened as he watched the constant
repulsions of the little globe hovering round the highest number only
to fail of entering.

Here, too, were the tall wooden chairs which are seldom seen beyond
the Austrian frontier. It made me smile to renew acquaintance with the
lanky, spider-legged things. Not the most comfortable contrivance for
dispelling weariness, as you would perhaps think, reader, were you to
see one. They are, however, very cheap; not more than thirty-five
kreutzers apiece, made of pine, and a florin when of hard wood. Both
curiosities in their way.

Hirschenstand will hardly prepossess you in favour of Bohemian
villages, for its houses are shabby boarded structures, put up with a
wonderful disregard of order and neatness--windows all awry, the
chimney anyhow, and the fit of the door a scandal to carpentry. And
the cottages scattered about the valley, and for some distance along
the road, preserve the family likeness strongly marked. They would
have a touch of the picturesque with far projecting eaves, but the
roofs are not made to overhang. You might easily fancy that the land
had not yet recovered from the effects of the exterminating Hussite
wars, out of which arose the proverb, "Scarce as Bohemian villages."

But Carlsbad is nearly seven hours distant, and we must hasten
onwards. The road still descends: the prospect opens over forests far
broader than on the Saxon side: valleys branch off, and the scenery
improves. Rocks choke the brooks, and burst out from the slopes; rows
of ash, lime, and cherry-trees, bordering the road, succeed to the
firs, and large whitewashed houses with tall roofs to the shabby
cottages. Then iron works; and little needle factories driven by a
mere spoutful of water rattling and buzzing merrily as grasshoppers.

Then Neudeck, where a high rock overtops the houses, and projects into
the street, having the appearance, when first seen, of an ancient
tower. We shall see similar strange-looking rocks, from time to time,
on the hill-side, as if to prepare us for rocky scenes of wonderful
character in a subsequent part of our travel. A high steep hill close
to the town is cut up with zigzags, by which the devout may ascend
from station to station to the Calvary on the top, from whence the
view, at all events, will repay the trouble. The road was made, and
the stations and chapel were built, at the cost of an ancient maiden
lady, who a few years ago expended 27,000 dollars in the purchase of
the hill for the good of her soul.

Now the road descends through a vale between broad fields of wheat and
potatoes, to the smoky porcelain manufacturing town of Alt, where your
eye will, perhaps, be attracted by a few pretty faces among the women,
set off by a pink, blue, or green jacket, and petticoat of a different
colour. But for the most part the women have a dowdy appearance, of
which the Czechs, as we shall by-and-by see, exhibit the dowdiest
examples.

Still the road descends towards the black group of hills which
encircle Carlsbad. It was nearly dark when I crossed the bridge and
entered the celebrated watering-place. At first I thought every house
an inn, for every front carries a sign--somewhat puzzling to a belated
stranger. At length the _Gasthof zum Morgenstern_ opened its door to
receive me; much to my comfort, for I was very tired, having walked
altogether thirty miles. Great was my enjoyment of rest. At supper the
landlord brought the beer in a large boot-shaped glass, and placed it
before me with the chuckling remark that he liked his guests to be
able to say they had one time in their lives drunk out of a boot.

His wife, who appeared to be as good-humoured as she was
good-looking, amused me with her gossip. Her especial delight was to
laugh at the peculiarities of her guests, and their mistakes in
speaking German. One, a bilious Greek, had come down one morning with
his hand to his head complaining of _Fuss-schmerz_--foot-ache. The
Saxons, she said, could not cook, or make good butter, and were ready
to drink a quart of any kind of brown fluid, and believe it to be
coffee.

FOOTNOTE:

[A] In Saxony there are published 220 newspapers; in Austria, 271; in
Bavaria, 178.

CHAPTER VI.

"To lie abed till you are done enough," says Dr. Fowler, of Salisbury,
"is the way to promote health and long life;" and he justifies his
assertion by living to the age of ninety, with promise of adding yet
somewhat to the number. Remembering this, I let duty and inclination
have their way the next morning, and the market-women in front of the
inn had nearly sold off their baskets of flowers and vegetables before
I set out to explore the wonders of Carlsbad.

"It's a Matlocky sort of a place!" cried a young lady, as I passed an
elegant party, who were sauntering about the pleasant grounds behind
the _Theresienbrunn_--"it's a Matlocky sort of a place!" And a merry
laugh followed the iteration of her ingenious adjective. That it is
not altogether inappropriate is apparent as soon as you arrive on the
upper terrace and overlook a small town, lying deep between hills on
either side of the Teple, a shallow and sharply-curved stream.

All the springs but two are on the left bank, a few yards from the
water's edge. There is a little architectural display in the buildings
by which they are covered: a domed roof, supported on columns, or a
square, temple-like structure, flanked by colonnades. The water flows
into a cavity, more or less deeply sunk below the surface, surrounded
by stone steps, on which sit the nimble lasses, priestesses of health,
who every morning from six to ten are busily employed in dispensing
the exhaustless medicine. A few vase-like cups stand ready for use;
but numbers of the visitors bring their own glass, carried as a
bouquet in the hand, of tasteful Bohemian manufacture, striped with
purple or ruby, and some of the purest white. All are made of the same
size--to contain six ounces--and a few have a species of dial
attached, by which to keep count of the number of doses swallowed. The
visitors, having their glasses filled at the fountain, walk up or down
the colonnade, or along the paths of the pleasure-ground, listening to
music, or form little groups for a morning gossip, and sip and chat
alternately till the glasses are emptied. The rule is to wait a
quarter-hour between each refilling, so that a patient condemned to a
dozen glasses dissipates three hours in the watery task. The number
imbibed depends on the complaint and constitution: in some instances
four glasses are taken; in others, from twenty to forty.

I tasted each spring as I came to it, and felt no inclination to
repeat the experiment. The temperature of the _Theresienbrunn_ is 134
deg., of the _Mühlbrunn_ 138 deg., of the _Neubrunn_ 144 deg., in
itself a cause of dislike, especially in hot weather, and much more so
when combined with a disagreeable bitter, and a flavour which I can
only compare to a faint impression of the odour of a dissecting-room.
No wonder some of the drinkers shudder as they swallow their volcanic
physic! But more about the waters after we have seen the _Sprudel_.

In some places the cliff comes so near to the stream that there is no
more than room for a colonnade, or narrow road, and here and there the
path, stopped by a projecting rock, is carried round the rear of the
obstacle by little intricate zigzags. And every minute you come to
some ramifications of the narrow lanes, which here, so limited and
valuable is the space, serve the purpose of streets, and afford ready
access to the heights above. The houses rise tier over tier, in short
rows, or perched singly on curious platforms excavated from the rock,
in situations where back windows would be useless. The topmost
dwellers have thus an opportunity to amuse their idleness by a
bird's-eye view of what their neighbours are doing below. From May to
September the influx of visitors is so great that every house is full
of inmates.

As every house has its sign or designation, ingenuity has been not a
little taxed to avoid repetitions. One ambitious proprietor writes up
_At the King of England_; another, contenting himself with his native
tongue, has _König von England_; a third, _English House_. A little
farther, and you see _Captain Cook_; _The Comet_; _The Aurora_; and
many varieties of Rings, Spoons, and Musical Instruments.
_Israelitisch Restauration_ notifies the tribes of a dining-room; here
_The Admiral_, there _The Corporal_, yonder _The Pasha_ claims
attention; and in a steep street leading towards Prague I saw _The A B
C_. And here and there a doll in a glass-case fixed to the wall,
representing St. Anne--a favourite saint of the Bohemians--looks down
on the sauntering visitors.

Continuing up the left bank you enter the market-place, where the
indications of life and business multiply, and a throng are sipping
around the _Marktbrunn_. This spring burst up from under the
paving-stones in 1838; a temple was built over it, and ever since it
has served as a temple of ease to some of the more crowded springs. A
little farther, and you come to the _Wiese_, or meadow, which retains
no more of grass than Hatton-garden does of gravelled paths and
flower-beds: a row of houses and shops on one side, on the other a
line of wooden booths concealing the river, and all between planted
with trees which shelter an irregular regiment of chairs and tables.
Here is the place where visitors most do congregate, pacing leisurely
to and fro, or lounging on the chairs in front of the cafés, gossiping
over the newspapers, or trifling around the stalls and shop windows.

A remarkable throng, truly! Some with an air highly dignified and
aristocratic; but the greater part somewhat grotesque in appearance.
Graceful ladies with those ungraceful sprawling bonnets not uncommon
in Germany; men, lanky and angular, and short and round, and square
and awkward, wearing astonishing wide-awakes. Such a variety of loose,
baggy trousers, magnificent waistcoats, and gauzy gowns, that look
impalpable almost as a cloud! Here comes a Polish Jew with manifest
signs of having remained unclean beyond more than one evening; here a
Czechish count, who has not forgotten his military paces; here a
spectacled professor, with boots turned up peak-wise, and toes turned
broadly out; here a group of Hebrews glittering with jewelry; and here
a miscellaneous crowd from all the countries of Europe, but Germans
the most numerous. Of English very few. There is nothing stiff or
formal about them; to make things pleasant seems to be a tacit
understanding, for disease has brought them all to one common level.
All are animated by the hope of cure, and find therein an inspiration
towards gaiety.

But who shall be gay in an hospital, among sallow, haggard faces,
sunken eyes, and ghastly features? Some you see who, preyed upon by
disease for years, have well-nigh lost all faith in the smiler who
lingers so long at the bottom of the box; some afflicted by
hypochondriasis appear to wonder that the sun should shine, that
others can be happy while they themselves are so miserable. The lively
fiddles, and twanging harps, and jingling tambourines--the Tyrolese
minstrels--the glib conjuror, all fail to bring a flash of joy back to
their deadened eye; to win for mirth one responsive thrill. I have
never been more thankfully sensible of the blessing of robust health,
than while strolling on the _Wiese_ at Carlsbad.

What with its many stalls and shops, the _Wiese_ resembles a bazaar.
All sorts of trifles and knick-knacks tempt the visitor, and entice
money from the purse. Among queer-looking toys you see WINDSOR SOAP
labelled in good, honest English; pipes, ribands, and pocket-books,
fans, satchels, and jewelry, among specimens of _Sprudelstein_, and
crystals and minerals, from the surrounding hills. Money-changers
abound; and polyglot placards--English, French, German, Czechish,
Hungarian--everywhere meet the eye. And not only here, but all over
the town, brisk signs of business and prosperity are apparent. But to
quote the gossip of my hostess, "many in Carlsbad have to endure
hunger during the winter." The place is then deserted, for the season
lasts only from May to September.

Turn into a short _Gasse_ from the market-place, cross the
foot-bridge, and you will see a Geyser without the fatigue of a voyage
to Iceland. It is the far-famed _Sprudel_, or Bubbler. At one end of a
colonnade open to the river on the right bank, a living column of
water springs perpetually from the ground. Through an orifice in the
centre of a basin about three feet deep, the water leaps and plays
with a noise of gurgling, splashing, and bubbling, to a height of six
or eight feet, and throwing off clouds of steam. Now it forms a column
with palm-leafed capital--now a number of jets tumbling over in
graceful curves--now broken, fan-like masses, all throbbing and
dancing in obedience to the vigorous pulsations under ground. There is
something fascinating in the sight. Allowing for the artificial
elevation of the floor, the whole height of the jet is about twelve
feet; and so has it leaped for ages, and with but one interruption
since its fabulous discovery in the fourteenth century.

The _Sprudel_ is the hottest of the springs, scalding hot, in fact,
marking a temperature of 167 deg. Fahrenheit: hence the attendant
Naiads--here a couple of strong-armed women--make use of a cup fixed
to one end of a staff for filling the glasses. When a visitor
approaches, the staff is held out to receive the glass; and after a
plunge into the steaming jet, is handed back to the expectant drinker,
who, taking his glass from the cup, swallows the contents at
pleasure--if he can. The drinkers were but few when I came up, for ten
o'clock was nigh; stragglers, who having arrived late, were sipping
their last glasses--some not without a shudder. While the dose cooled,
they examined the heads of walking-sticks, snuff-boxes, seals, and
other specimens of _Sprudelstein_, on sale at a stall; or the
time-tables and advertisement photographs hanging about the colonnade.
The Naiads, in the interval, emptied ladles full of the water into
stone-bottles, which a man rapidly corked in a noisy machine.

The waste water flows away along a wooden shoot to the river, where it
sends small light wreaths of steam floating about on the surface. But
I saw nothing at all like what has been often described as a cloud of
steam perpetually hovering above the _Sprudel_, visible from afar.
Regarded near at hand, or from a distance, there is no cloud visible
in July, whatever may be the case in the cool months.

The quantity of water poured out every day by the _Sprudel_ alone is
estimated at two million gallons. Multiplied by 365, it becomes truly
amazing. In this quantity, as shown by Gilbert, a German chemist, ten
thousand tons of Glauber salt, and fifteen thousand tons of carbonate
of soda are thrown up in a year. And this has been going on from
immemorial ages, the waters depositing calcareous matter in their
outflow, which has slowly formed a crust over the vast boiling
reservoir beneath. And on this crust Carlsbad is built.

The constituents of all the springs, as proved by analyses, are
identical with those of the _Sprudel_--soda in the form of carbonate,
Glauber salt, and common salt; carbonic acid gas, and traces of iron
and iodine. Bitumen is also found in a notable quantity, and a
peculiar soapy substance, a species of animal matter, the cause,
perhaps, of the cadaverous flavour already mentioned. The water, which
when first caught is bright and clear, becomes turbid if left to cool,
and throws down a pale-brown sediment. Ehrenberg, the celebrated
microscopist of Berlin, who has examined specimens of this sediment
under his microscope, declares it to be composed of fossil animalcules
inconceivably minute; these animalcules being a portion of the
material out of which Nature builds up the solid strata of the globe.
Some patients have feared to drink the water because of the concreting
property; but the medical authorities assure that in this respect it
produces no injurious effect on the animal economy. Shopkeepers turn
it to profit, and offer you fruits, flowers, plants, and other
objects, petrified by the _Sprudel_ water.

The roof of the colonnade above the spring is discoloured by the
ascending steam; and standing on the bridge you can see how the wall
is incrusted with calcareous matter, as, also, the big hump swelling
up from the bed of the stream--a smooth ochreous coat, brightened in
places by amber, in others darkened into a rich brown, or dyed with
shades of green. This concretion is the _Sprudelstein_, or
Sprudel-stone, noticed above; firm and hard in texture, and
susceptible of a beautiful polish. A portion of the waste water is
led into an adjoining building, where it undergoes evaporation to
obtain the constituent salts in a dry state for exportation. From the
other shoot, as it falls into the river, supplies are constantly
dipped by the townsfolk, who use it to cook their eggs, to scald pork
and poultry, and other purposes. All day long you may see women
filling and carrying away on their shoulders big bucketfuls of the
steaming water. Notwithstanding this constant inflow of hot water, the
Teple appears to agree with fish, for I saw numbers swimming about in
good condition but a short distance lower down. As a stream, it adds
little to the salubrity of Carlsbad, for it is shallow, sluggish in
places, and tainted by noisome drainage. Another cause of offence to
the nostrils exists in what is so often complained of on the
Continent, the obtrusive situation of the _latrinæ_ at the principal
springs. Only in England are such matters properly cared for.

In 1809, and for ten years thereafter, the _Sprudel_ ceased to flow,
and the water broke through at a spot some fifty feet distant, to
which the name _Hygieas Quelle_ was given. Here it continued to play
till 1819, when it reappeared at the former source, and from that date
there has been no interruption in the copious discharge of the
_Sprudel_. The underground action is at times so powerful as to rend
the crust and form new openings, and these, if large, have to be
stopped, to prevent the loss of the springs. The yellow hump mentioned
as swelling up from the river's bed, is nothing but a thick mass of
masonry, braced together by iron bars, covering a great rent through
which the waters once boiled up from below. Similar outbreaks
occurred in 1713, and again fourteen years later, when attempts were
made to ascertain the depth of the great subterranean reservoir by
splicing poles together to a length of one hundred and eighty feet,
but neither bottom nor wall could be touched in any direction. The
hills around are of granite, containing mica and pyrites, and one of
them, the _Hirschsprung_, is said to be the source of all the Carlsbad
springs. Their bases come near together, and it is easy to imagine a
huge cavern formed between them descending deep down into the bowels
of the earth.

As regards the efficacy of the Carlsbad waters, let us hear Dr.
Granville, an authority on the subject: "They exert their principal
sanative action," he says, "1st, on all chronic affections which
depend on debility of the digestive organs, accompanied by the
accumulation of improper secretions; 2ndly, on all obstructions,
particularly of the abdomen, which, as Becher, the oracle of Carlsbad,
observes, they resolve and disperse; 3rdly, on the acrimony of the
blood, which they correct, alter, evacuate, or drive towards the
extremities and the surface of the body; 4thly, on calculous and
gravelly deposits; 5thly, on many occult and serious disorders, the
nature of which is not readily ascertained until after the partial use
of the waters, such as tic doloreux, spasms, rheumatisms, and gout."

As if here were not virtues sufficient, the Doctor proceeds: "My own
experience warrants me in commending the Carlsbad waters in all
obstinate cases of induration, tumefaction, tenderness, and sluggish
action of the liver; in imperfect or suppressed gout; in paralysis,
dependent on the stomach, and not fulness of blood in the head; in
cases of tic and nervous disorders; finally, in obstructions of the
glands of the mesentery, and distended state of the splenetic
vessels." The effect on stones in the bladder is almost magical, so
promptly are they polished, reduced, rendered friable, and expelled,
leaving the patient a happy example of perfect cure.

"It is the despondent," to quote once more from the Doctor, "the
dejected, misanthropic, fidgetty, pusillanimous, irritable,
outrageous, morose, sulky, weak-minded, whimsical, and often
despairing hypochondriac--for he is all these, and each in turn--made
so by continued indigestion, by obstinate and unremitting gout, by
affections of the nerves of sympathy and of the gastric region, and by
other equally active causes, that Carlsbad seems pre-eminently to
favour." After reading this, the wonder is, not that the visitors
number from five to six thousand in the course of the season, but that
they are not ten times as many.

The Doctor finds nothing nauseous in the taste of the water. "Once
arrived in the stomach," he says, "it produces an exhilarating
sensation, which spreads itself to the intestinal canal generally." To
him I leave the responsibility of this statement; for, preferring to
let well alone, I sipped by spoonfuls only, and can therefore bring no
testimony from my own experience. The practice of drinking the waters
has almost set aside the once exclusive practice of bathing; but baths
are always to be had, as well of mud and vapour as of the water of the
springs.

Now, after this stroll through the town, let us take a wider survey.
As we follow the street down the right bank, we see parties setting
off in carriages for excursions to the neighbourhood, and rows of
vehicles in the open places ticketed, _Return to Marienbad_, _to
Eger_, _to Töplitz_, _to Zwickau_, and the like, and drivers on the
alert for what your London cab-driver calls "a job." A short distance
beyond the _Morgenstern_ a path zigzags gradually up the hill and
brings you soon under the shade of trees, and to many little nooks and
sheltered seats contrived for delightful repose. One remote bower,
apparently but little frequented, is inscribed, _Care's Rest: make
thyself happy_. A little farther, and crossing a carriage-road, we
come to a temple where you may have another rest, and enjoy at the
same time the opening panorama. From hence the paths zigzag onwards to
the top of the _Dreikreuzberg_--Three-Cross Hill--by easy shady
slopes, which even a short-winded patient may ascend, while those with
strong legs may shorten the distance by the steep cut-offs. An
agreeable surprise awaits you at the top: a large, well-kept garden,
gay and fragrant with flowers, surrounded by arbours of clipped fir,
and a graceful screen of trees, while at one side stands a spacious
_Restauration_--all clean and cheerful of aspect. From an elevated
platform, or from the arched recesses on the terrace in front of the
garden, you see all Carlsbad and the hilly region around.

Now you see how singularly crooked is the narrow valley in which the
town is built; how the white houses gleam from the steep green sides
of the farther hills, and straggle away to the wooded hollow at the
head of the valley, from whence the river issues in a shining curve.
In and out flows the stream past the church, past the springs and
public buildings, cutting the town in two, on its way to fall into the
Eger. Your eye takes in the life of the streets, the goings to and
fro, but on a reduced scale--such tiny men and women, and little
carriages! 'Tis as if one were looking into Lilliput. Opposite rises
the precipitous rocky hill, the Hirschsprung, to the craggy summit of
which we shall climb by-and-by; and beyond it, ridgy summits, away to
the gloomy expanse of the _Schlaggenwald_. Many are the paths that
penetrate the rearward valleys, and white roads curving along the
hill-sides high above Carlsbad, and far up the distant slopes.
Altogether the view is striking, and somewhat romantic; yet in the
eyes of the Germans fresh from their flat, uninteresting country, it
is "_wunderschön_"--an epithet which they never tire of heaping on the
landscape.

From the garden a path leads along the ridge to a higher elevation,
where the three tall crosses, seen for miles around, spring from a
rocky knoll at the rear of a small semicircular opening, enclosed by
firs, prettily intermingled with beech and birch. Heath and yellow
broom grow from crevices in the rocks, and the wild thyme, crushed by
your foot, fills the air with aromatic sweetness, for the spot is left
to the nurture of the winds and the rain. It commands the same view as
from the garden; but with a wider scope, and the town lying at a
greater depth.

The path still curving along the ridge brings you presently to _König
Otto's Höhe_--King Otto's Height--the highest point of the hill. This
is also an untrimmed spot, with two or three seats, and a fluted
granite column, surmounted by a globe and star, rising in the midst.
You now look over some of the nearer hills, and get fresh peeps into
the valleys, discovering topographical secrets. Raised high into the
region of cooling breezes, yet easily accessible, it is a pleasant
place for quiet recreation.

I took the shortest way down from Otto's Height, crossing the rough
declivity and the fields that stretch far up the lower slope of the
hill, and made a circuit to Findlater's monument at the upper
extremity of Carlsbad. From the eminence on which it is erected you
get a new prospect of the town, and up the valley of umbrageous
retreats much resorted to by visitors on sultry afternoons.

On my way back to the _Morgenstern_ I had another look at the
_Sprudel_. The place was now deserted; the Naiads had departed; the
stall-keeper had locked her glazed doors and withdrawn; and there was
nothing near to subdue the vivid rushing sound of the water. So to
remain till evening, when a few anxious patients would appear to quaff
new draughts of health.

The inn was in all the bustle of dinner, after the manner of a _table
d'hôte_, but without its formality--twenty little tables instead of a
single large one. By this arrangement the guests formed small parties,
and ate and chatted at pleasure. Many came in who were not lodgers in
the house--among them a countess, from Moravia, to whom no more
attention was paid, nor did she appear to expect it, than to the
others. The absence of stiffness was, indeed, an agreeable
characteristic of the company, who were mostly Germans.

"Are you here for the cure?" said an old gentleman who sat opposite
me, and looked at my tankard of beer and salad with an air of
surprise. "Are you not afraid?"

My answer reassured him. Visitors who come to drink the waters are
required by medical authority to conform to a simple regimen. To eat
no salad, fruit, or vegetables--to drink no beer or wine--to eat no
bread. The exceptional cases are rare; hence the provision consists
but of sundry preparations of meat, decanters of water, pudding
resembling boiled pound-cake, and baskets of small rolls. The latter,
made of wheaten flour, are not recognised as bread, but come under the
common term, _Semmel_--the simmel of which we read in descriptions of
lordly banquets in our Plantagenet days. The term bread is confined to
the large brown and black loaves made of rye meal, the staple of
household diet in Bohemia; and to Carlsbad patients this is forbidden.
So Nature always goes on vindicating her simple laws, convincing
mankind, in spite of themselves, of the wholesome effects of fresh
air, daily exercise, plain food, and spring water; and mankind,
returned to crowded cities and artificial pleasures, go on forgetting
a lesson which is as old as the hills.

In the afternoon I mounted to the top of the _Hirschsprung_, and
passed two or three hours on the jutting crags which overlook the town
and a wide expanse of rolling fields and meadows towards Saxony.
Stairs and fenced platforms on the outermost points enable you to
survey in full security. The conformation of the crags is not unlike
that which prevails in the Saxon Switzerland. Here and there tablets
in the rock record the visits of royal personages, and on the topmost,
surmounted by a cross, is an inscription in Russian, and the name of
Czar Peter, who included among his exploits that of riding up the
_Hirschsprung_ on horseback in 1711.

You cannot be long in Carlsbad without hearing a flourish of trumpets
from the top of the Watch-tower, announcing the arrival of visitors.
No sooner do the trumpeters spy a carriage approaching from their
lofty station, than they begin to sound, and, in proportion to the
appearance of the vehicle, so do they measure out their blast--most
wind for the proudest. While I was looking down, a sudden note,
unusually prolonged, woke up the drowsy echoes, for rattling down the
zigzagged highway from Prague came his unenviable majesty, Otho of
Greece, to undergo a course of the _Sprudel_--at least, so said the
newspapers. Not till he had alighted at the hotel did the trumpeters
cease their salute, for kings can pay well; but let a dusty-footed
wayfarer, with knapsack on shoulder, come into the town, and not a
breath will they spare to give him welcome.

At six in the evening--having surveyed Carlsbad from within and
without, and from the highest points on either side--I started to walk
to Buchau, a village about ten miles off--an easy distance before
nightfall. The _Morgenstern_ charged me two florins for my bed, and
less than two florins for all my diet--supper, breakfast, and dinner;
which, in one of the dearest watering-places in Europe, was letting me
off on reasonable terms.

CHAPTER VII.

Some years ago Carlsbad was scarcely accessible by vehicles coming
from the interior, so abrupt was the declivity of its western hill.
Now the difficulty is overcome by the zigzags of an excellent road,
such as Austrian engineers know well how to construct. The shortest
way out of the town for one on foot is up a street painfully steep,
which brings you at once to an elevation, whence there is a view of
the hills and hollows at the head of the valley. The zigzags are long,
and there are no cut-offs, whereby you lose sight but slowly of the
Valley of Springs.

Once past the brow and a view opens over a hilly landscape in the
opposite direction, repeating the characteristics of Bohemian
scenery--large unfenced fields, with clumps of firs and patches of
forest on the highest swells, and the road, in long undulations,
running between rows of birch and mountain-ash. There is a monotony
about it, varied only by the difference of crops, the rise and fall of
the ground, or rags of mist which, after a shower, hang about the dark
sides of distant hills. By-and-by the ruined castle of Engelhaus,
crowning a conical hill, peers up on the left, higher and higher as
you advance, till at length it stands out a huge mass, looking grimly
down on a village beneath.

But now a low building on the right attracts your attention. It is a
small, low, triangular church--_Dreifaltigkeits-Kirche_--in a narrow
graveyard, where the few mounds and the low wooden crosses that mark
them are scarcely to be seen for tall grass and weeds. The interior,
so far as I could see through a chink in the rusty, unpainted door,
contains nothing remarkable except a rude altar, and a small gallery
in each angle. A chapel and arcades are built against two sides of the
enclosing wall, and four life-size figures of apostolic aspect sit,
recline, and kneel in front of a half-length figure, bearing a
crucifix, placed in a recess. They seemed fit guardians of a place
which wears an appearance of neglect.

A little farther and there is a byeway, leading across the fields to
Engelhaus, about a quarter-mile distant, and a very Irish-looking
village it is; squalid and filthy, built in what, to a stranger,
appears a total disregard of the fitness of things. Here and there the
noise of a loom--a noise which denotes a poverty-stricken
existence--sounded from some of the cottages, and the aspect of the
villagers is quite in keeping with their environment. And yet a
wandering musician, who carried a trestle to rest his organ on, was
trying to coax a few _Kreutzers_ out of their pockets by airs most
unmelodious; as if the worst kind of music were good enough for folk
so deficient in a sense of propriety. The inside of the houses is no
better than the outside. Seeing a pale, damp-browed weaver at a
window, I stopped to put a question. He opened the casement, and out
rushed a stream of air so hot, stifling, and malodorous as fully
accounted for his abject looks, and made me content with the briefest
answer.

A steep path, completed in one place by a wooden stair, leads you up
and along the precipitous side of the hill to the principal entrance
of the castle, an old weatherbeaten arch bestriding the whole of the
narrow way. Here a few tall trees form the commencement of an avenue,
which the young trees planted farther on will one day complete, and
increase the charm of the ancient remains. The path skirting the bold
crags passes an old tower, and enters a court which, since the visit
of the Emperor and Empress in 1854, is called the _Kaiserplatz_. Three
young trees, supported by stakes painted black and yellow, and blue
and white, are growing up into memorials of the incident, and
dwarf-firs, set in the turfy slope, form the initials F i E--_Francis
Joseph, Elizabeth_. A small pool in one corner reflects the
dilapidated walls; the mountain-ash, trailing grasses, and harebells
grow from the crevices, trembling in the breeze; and the place, cool,
green, and sequestered, is one where you would like to sit musing on a
summer afternoon.

The steep and uneven ground adds much to the picturesque effect of the
ruin. You make your way from court to court by sudden abrupt ascents
and descents, protected in places by a fence--now under a broken
arch, now creeping into a vault, now traversing a roofless hall,
climbing the fragment of a stair, or pacing round the base of the
mighty keep. Loose stones lie about, bits of walls peer through the
soil, or, concealed beneath, form grassy hummocks, showing how great
have been the ravages of time and other foes. Here and there stands a
portion of wall on the very brink of the precipice, and a railing
stretched from one to the other enables you to contemplate the
prospect in safety. The appearance of the country is such that the
hill appears to be in the centre of a great, slightly-hollowed basin,
which has a dark and distant rim. The basin is everywhere heaving with
undulations, patched and striped with firs and the lines of trees
along the highways, while a few ponds gleam in some of the deepest
hollows. A few widely scattered cottages, or the white walls of a
farmstead, dot the green surface of the fields; and such is the
general character of the scenery all the way from the _Erzgebirge_ to
Prague--indeed, all the central region of Bohemia. One league, with
small differences, is but a repetition of the other.

I prowled so long about the ruins, enjoying the lusty breeze that
shook the branches merrily and roared through the crevices, that long
shadows crept over the landscape, raising the highest points into bold
relief, and veiling the remoter scenes before I descended. The sun,
fallen below the Saxon mountains, lit up an immense crescent of angry
clouds with a lurid glare, from which the twilight caught a touch of
awfulness. The ponds shone with unearthly lustre for a few moments,
and then lay cold and gray, and there seemed something spectral in the
thin lines of firs as they rose against the glare.

I returned to the road, and found the last two or three miles solitary
enough, for not a soul did I meet, and the way lay through a forest
where the only light was a faint streak overhead. It was near ten
o'clock when I came to Buchau--a village of low houses built round a
great square--in which stood some twenty or thirty laden wagons. The
appearance of things at _The Sun_ was not encouraging: a dozen
wagoners in blue gaberdines lay stretched on straw in the
sitting-room, leaving but a small corner of the floor vacant, where
sat the host, who made many apologies for having to turn me away. I
walked across the square, and tried _Der Herrnhaus_, and on opening
the door met with a rare surprise. The large room was crowded with
some threescore guests, including a few soldiers, seated at narrow
tables along the sides and across the middle, every man with his
tankard of beer before him. In one corner a party of gipsies played
wild and lively music, making the room echo again with the sounds of
flageolet, violin, and bass, and electrifying the company with their
wizard harmonies. Some, unable to contain themselves, chanted a few
bars of the inspiriting measure; others beat time with hands or feet,
and joined in a whoop at the emphatic passages; and all the while a
gruff outpouring of talk struggled with the bass for the mastery.
There was a clatter of knives and forks, a rattling of pewter-lids by
impatient tipplers, and hasty cries for pieces of bread. And over all
hung a cloud of smoke, rolling broader and deeper as the puffs and
swirls went up from fifty pipes.

This scene bursting upon me all at once made me stand for a minute in
doubtful astonishment, half dazzled by the sudden light, and half
choked by the reeking atmosphere, while I looked round to discover
the trencher-capped _Wirth_. If _The Sun_ had no room, what was to be
hoped for here? However, the landlord, after a consultation with his
wife, assured me of a chamber to myself; and placing a chair at the
only vacant end of one of the tables, professed himself ready to
supply "anything" for supper. He rung the changes on beef, veal, and
sausage, with interpolation of roast goose. The meats were good, but
the goose was prime; he could recommend that "_vom Herzen_," and he
laid his hand on his heart as he said it. So I accepted roast goose;
and presently a smoking dish of the savoury bird was set before me,
with cucumber salad and rye bread. The landlord had not overpraised
his Bohemian cookery, for he gave me a most relishing supper.

As my eyes became accustomed to the smoky atmosphere, the forms and
features of the company came out more distinct than at first. Among
the wagoners and rustics who made up the greater number, I saw two or
three heads of a superior cast--unmistakable Czechish heads--in marked
contrast to the rest. A gentleman with his wife and brother,
travelling to their estates, preferred quarters in the _Herrnhaus_ to
a midnight stage, and sat eating their supper, apparently not less
pleased with their entertainment than I was. By their side sat half a
dozen tramping shoemakers, each busy with a plate of roast goose; and
next to them, in the narrow space between the stove and the wall, lay
a woman and her two children, sleeping on straw. The musicians came
round for a largesse, and, reanimated by success, played a few tunes
by way of finish, which made sitting still almost impossible. Every
one seemed inclined to spring up and dance; and the host and his
servants ran to and fro quicker than ever, under the new excitement.
No sooner was a tankard emptied, than, following the custom of the
country, it was caught up by one of the nimble attendants and
refilled, without any asking leave or any demur, except on the part of
one of the guests. Trencher-cap would by no means believe that I could
be satisfied with a single measure, and I had to compromise for a
glass of wine, which, when brought, he assured me proudly was genuine
'34 _Adelsberger_. Whether or no, it was very good.

Presently he asked for a sight of my passport, that his son might
enter my name with those of the other travellers. I spread the
document before him on the table; he bent down and examined it
curiously, as an antiquary over a wormeaten manuscript, but with a
look of utter bewilderment, for he had never before seen an English
passport. He turned it upside down, sideways, aslant, back to front,
every way, in short, in his endeavour to discover a meaning in it; but
in vain. He caught eagerly at the British Minister's eagle, and the
German _visas_, yet found nothing to enlighten him therein. His son
then took a turn in the examination; still with no better result; and
the two looked at one another in blank hopelessness.

Presently the father, recollecting himself, beckoned secretly to one
of the soldiers, who came to help solve the mystery. Taking the
passport, he held it at arm's length, turned it every way as the
_Wirth_ had done before, brought it close to his eyes; but could make
nothing of it. Then, as if to assist his wit, he hooked one finger on
the end of his nose, spread the mysterious document on the table, and
pointing to the first paragraph, which, as tourists know, stands
printed in good round hand, he began to read at all hazards:

"_Vill--Vill--Vill--yam. Ja, ja. Villyam._ Ah! that's English!" Then
he attacked the second word--"_Fre--Fre--Fre--Fredrich. Ja, ja._ That
is English!"

The next word, _Earl_, looked awkward, so, skipping that, he went on
with many flourishes of his forefinger, "_Cla--ren--don. Ja, ja.
Clarendon._ That's English!"

Encouraged by success, he made a dash at the following word,
"_Baron_," and stopped suddenly short, hooked his finger once more on
his nose, stood for a minute as if in deep study, then repeating
slowly, "_Villyam Fredrich Clarendon, Baron_," he gave the passport
back into the landlord's hands, and said in a whisper, pointing slily
to me, "He's a Baron."

Hereupon the son, with nimble pen, entered me in the book as "_Villyam
Fredrich Clarendon, Baron_."

"You have made a pretty mistake," I interposed. "See, that's my name,
written lower down, quite away from the titles of our Foreign
Minister." But it was in vain that I spoke, and argued, and protested,
the opposite party would not be convinced, and Trencher-cap, folding
up the passport, looked at me with that expression which very knowing
folk are apt to assume, and said, as he replaced it in my hand, "_Ja,
ja._ We are used to that sort of thing. You wish not to travel in your
real name. Yes, yes, we know. _Herr Baron_, I give you back your
passport."

I reiterated my protest, and vehemently; but all in vain. "_Herr
Baron_" I had to remain for all the rest of the evening. Trencher-cap
made a bow every time he addressed me, and went among his guests,
telling them he had caged an English Baron. One and another came and
sat near me for awhile, and talked with so much of deference, that at
last I felt quite ashamed of myself--as if I were an accomplice in a
hoax. The talk, however, was very barren; the only items of real
information it brought forth were, that a good many needles were made
in the neighbourhood, and that Buchau could muster ninety-nine master
shoemakers.

So it went on till eleven o'clock, when mine host, approaching with
another bow, said, "_Herr Baron_, are you quite sure that it is a cold
foot-bath you want?"

"Quite."

"I told the maid so," he replied; "but she says she cannot believe
that a _Herr Baron_ will have cold water, and thinks it should be
lukewarm."

Satisfied on this point, he summoned the incredulous maid to light me
to bed. She stooped low with what was meant for a curtsey, and would
on no account turn her face from me, but went backwards up the stairs,
holding the candle low, and begging me at every step not to stumble.

"Verily," thought I, "the whole household joins in the conspiracy."

She carried the candlestick delicately, as if it were of silver and
not mere iron, placed it on a little deal table in the bedroom with a
ceremonious air, made another low curtsey, and retreated to the door.

Then, with one hand on the latch, she said, after a momentary pause,
"_Herr Baron_, I wish you a good night;" and withdrew, leaving me
alone to sleep as best I might under the burden of an unexpected
title.

CHAPTER VIII.

Neither nightmare nor anything else disturbed me till the wagoners,
hooking on their teams amid noisy shouts, filed off in two directions
from the square, at the earliest peep of dawn. The quiet that returned
on their departure was ere long broken by a succession of wild and
discordant cries, which, being puzzled to account for by ear, I got
out of bed and used my eyes. The gooseherd stood in the middle of the
square, calling his flock together from all quarters, with a voice, as
it seemed to me, more expressive of alarm and anger than of
invitation. However, the geese understood it, and they came waddling
and quacking forth from every gateway and lane, and the narrow
openings between the houses, till some hundreds were gathered round
the herd, who, waving his long rod, kept up his cries till the last
straggler had come up, and then drove them out to the dewy pasture
beyond the village. A singular effect was produced by the multitude
of long necks, and the awkward movements of the snow-white mass,
accompanied as they were by a ceaseless rise and fall of the quacking
chorus. Such a sight is common in Bohemia; for your Bohemian has a
lively relish for roast goose, regarding it as a national dish; and
mindful of his neighbours, he breeds numbers of the savoury fowl for
their enjoyment. Walk over the _Erzgebirge_ in September, and you will
meet thousands of geese in a flock, waddling slowly on their way to
Leipzig, and the fulfilment of their destiny in German stomachs, at
the rate of about three leagues a day.

I doubted not that when the landlord had a fair look at me by
daylight, he would recall the title conferred amid the smoke and
excitement of the evening before. But, no! he met me at the foot of
the stair with the same profound bow; hoped _Herr Baron_ had slept
well; and would _Herr Baron_ take breakfast; all my remonstrances to
the contrary notwithstanding. I drank my coffee with a suspicion that
the sounding honour would have to be paid for; but I did the worthy
man injustice, for when summoned to receive payment, he brought his
slate and piece of chalk, and writing down the several items, made the
sum total not quite a florin. Not often is a Baron created on such
very reasonable terms.

Even after I left his door, the host continued his attentions: he
would go with me to the edge of the village, and point out the way to
the castle, and the shortest way back to the main road. He must tell
me, too, that the church was dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel;
and of a spring not far off, known among the villagers as the "iron
spring." Then, as we shook hands and parted, he made another low bow,
and hoped I would recommend all my friends to seek for entertainment
under his sign. It would be ungracious not to comply with his wish; so
should any of my friends have the patience or courage to read these
pages, and an inclination to visit Buchau, I hereby counsel them to
tarry at the _Herrnhaus_.

The castle, or rather the ruin, rises on the summit of a rounded hill
about a mile from the village. There is but little in them to charm
either the eye or the fancy, for their name and place recall nothing
that lingers in the memory. A few words suffice to tell that here once
stood the castle of Hartenstein, otherwise Hungerberg, sheltering
knights as lawless as any reiving Johnstone, till King George
Podiebrad, intolerant of their wild ways, rooted them out in 1468, and
knocked their stronghold to pieces. He showed them the less mercy,
from having had, the year before, to lay siege for twelve weeks to a
castle near Raudnitz, held by conspirators who set him at defiance.
Engelhaus, as is believed, felt the first touch of ruin some fifty
years later.

Nevertheless, the half-hour spent in the excursion is not time lost,
for the spiral path that winds round the hill is well-nigh hidden by
wild flowers--a right royal carpet, and perfumed withal, swept by all
the breezes. And then there is always the view while you scramble
about among the broken walls and bits of towers, getting peeps at
parts of the landscape framed by a shattered window. It is something
to note how unvarying is the scenery: hills shaped like barn roofs;
the same undulations; vast fields; a few ponds; dark masses of firs,
lacking somewhat of cheerfulness notwithstanding the sunshine; and
the village in the midst of all, an irregular patch of gray and white.
Far as eye can reach it is the same, and so shall we find it all the
way to Prague.

The wind increased mightily while I was on the hill, and as it swept
coldly over the broad slopes of grain and clover, the whole landscape
seemed to become a great, green, rippling sea.

My recollections of this day include--a flock of geese grazing on a
bit of common about every league; men leading oxen by a strip of hide
to pasture on the roadside grass; women cutting fodder in nooks and
corners; shepherds, whose booted legs gave them anything but a
pastoral appearance; rows of cherry-trees, and the guards in straw
huts keeping watch over the fruit; and miles of road irksomely
straight between plum-trees.

Here and there you come to a homestead or _Gasthaus_, surrounded by a
high and thick whitewashed wall, with one or more arched gateways, as
if the inmates could not give up the mediæval habit of living within a
fortress. On approaching Liebkowitz, the pale colour of the land
changes to a warm red, and fields of peas which seem endless, and
small plantations of hops, diversify the surface, and contrast with
the village, where the clean white pillars of the gateways, the red
roofs, topped here and there with a purple ball, engage your eye.

At Lubenz, where the main road, with its bordering of tall poles and
telegraphic wire turns aside to the Saatzer Circle, I struck into the
direct route for Prague, and keeping on at an easy pace, getting a
passing view of Schloss Petersburg on the right--a factory-like
building--I came at eventide to the _Gasthof zum Rose_ at Willenz.

There is many a chapel in England smaller than the common room at the
_Rose_, and the same may be said of nearly every roadside inn at which
I stayed. Large as the rooms are, it is sometimes difficult to find a
seat among the numerous guests; and on Sundays especially they are
overcrowded. Here in one corner stood the stove enclosed by a dresser,
on which all the preparations for cooking were carried on; and, in the
opposite corner, the bar behind a wooden fence, running up to the
ceiling. Bread, smoked sausage, _schnaps_, and liqueurs, are served
from the bar; beer is fetched directly from the cellar.

The host was thrifty, and kept his four daughters busy in waiting on
customers. The eldest presided at the stove, and the other three went
continually to and fro, refilling the tankards of beer-drinkers, or
dealing out delicacies from the bar. Comely damsels they were, dressed
in purple bodices, and pink skirts that trailed on the floor in all
the amplitude prescribed by the milliners at Paris. I could not fail
to be struck by the frequency of their visits to the cellar to supply
the demands of about twenty men, who, seated at one of the tables,
appeared to have been making a day of it. Tankard after tankard was
swallowed with marvellous rapidity, and still the cry was "more." For
the first time, in my few trips to the Continent, I saw drunkards, and
these were not the only sots that came before me during the present
journey: all, however, within Bohemia.

Casual customers would now and then drop in, call for beer, drink a
small quantity, and leave the tankard standing on the table and go
away for half an hour, then return, take another gulp, and so on. One
of the tables was covered by these drink-and-come-again tankards, and
though all alike in appearance, I noticed that every man knew his own
again. Among these bibbers by instalments the landlord was
conspicuous, for he took a gulp from his tankard every five minutes,
and never left it a moment empty.

Now and then slouched in a troop of dusty-booted wagoners, who drank a
cup of coffee, and went slouching forth to their wearisome journey. At
times a half-dozen peasants strode noisily in, and refreshed
themselves with a draught of beer for their walk home; and sausage and
little broils were in constant request. The host rubbed his hands, and
well he might, for trade was brisk; and when he brought me a baked
chicken--which, by the way, is another favourite dish in Bohemia--for
my supper, and heard my praise of his beer, he told me that he brewed
his own beer and grew his own hops. "You will see two big pockets of
hops on the landing when you go to bed," he added, with the look of an
innkeeper thoroughly self-satisfied. And then he sat down and gave his
two sons a writing-lesson.

After supper, one of the pink-robed damsels placed a wooden
candlestick, nearly a yard in height, on the table, and brought the
inevitable book--that miscellaneous collection of travellers'
autographs, kept for the edification of the Imperial police. More
inquisitorial than any I had yet seen, this book contained three
columns, in one of which I had to note whether I was married or
single; "Catholic or other beliefed;" acquainted with any one in any
of the places I intended to visit, or not!

Having entered the required particulars, the damsel leaning over the
page the while, I asked her what use would be made of them?

"The gendarme comes to look at the book," she answered, "and if he
found the columns empty, so would he blame my father sorely, and wake
you up with loud noise to ask the reason. Ah! sometimes he comes
before bedtime; sometimes not till midnight, when all folk are asleep.
Then must doors be opened and questions answered; and if he discovers
some one in bed whose name is not yet in the book, then he makes great
outcry, and my father must pay a fine, and the stranger must to the
guard-house if he have not good passport. Truly, the law is strong
over the book."

Happy land! Paternal government is so careful of the governed, so
anxious to encourage sedentary virtues, that no one is allowed to go
more than four hours, about twelve miles, from home without a passport
or ticket of residence (_Heimathschein_); and should any one not quite
so tame as his fellows wish to overpass the prescribed limit, paternal
government not unfrequently keeps him waiting three days for the
precious permit, or refuses it altogether. In a town which we shall
come to by-and-by, I saw a poor woman, who begged leave to visit one
of her children some fifteen miles distant, turned away with an
uncompromising denial. Think of this, my countrymen!--Islanders free
to jaunt or journey whithersoever ye will: be ye mighty or mean--even
ticket-of-leave holders.

Whatever the cause, the regulations concerning passports are in
Bohemia very rigorous. It may be that the people have not forgotten
they once had a king of their own, or that a remarkable intellectual
movement is taking place among the Czechs, or that a simmering up of
Protestantism has become chronic within the ring of mountains;
whatever the cause, the pressure of authority's heaviest hand is
manifest. For my own part--to mention a little thing among great
things--I was more fidgetted about my passport in Bohemia than ever
anywhere else.

It is worse in Hungary. In that province the burden of oppression is
felt to a degree inconceivable by an Englishman. Passports for France
or England were peremptorily refused to Hungarians of whatever degree
during the year 1855; and in 1856, when the rigour was somewhat
relaxed, leave was granted for three months only. And should any one
be known to have paid a visit to Kossuth while in London, even though
he might believe the exile to be a better orator than ruler, he would
find the discipline of imprisonment awaiting him on his return _home_.
Think of Albert Smith, or any other enterprising tourist, having to
ask Lord Clarendon's permission to steam up the Rhine, ascend Mont
Blanc, or travel anywhither! 'Tis well the Magyars are not a hopeless
race.

The members of the Hungarian Academy at Pesth are not allowed to hold
their weekly meetings unless an Imperial Commissioner be present to
watch the proceedings, and stop the discussion of forbidden subjects.
Not a word must be spoken concerning politics, or liberty in any form.
History is tolerated only when she discourses of antiquities--urns,
buildings, dress and manners, philology, or art. Science even must
wear fetters, and preserve herself demure and orthodox. A speculative
philosopher might as well attempt to utter high treason, as to read a
paper demonstrating by geological proofs the countless ages of the
earth's existence, or to quote a chapter from the _Vestiges of
Creation_. This work is included among the prohibited books, of which
a list is sent to the Academy once a week. One copy of the _Times_--a
solitary feather from Liberty's wing--finds its way into Pesth: a rare
indulgence for the Englishman who reads it. Imagine Sir Richard Mayne
sitting at meetings of the Royal Society, with power to stop Sir
Roderick Murchison in his Silurian evidences; or the Rev. Baden Powell
in his speculations and inferences concerning the _Unity of Worlds_;
or the utterance of Professor Faraday's opinions concerning
gravitation; and telling them they shall not read Hugh Miller's
_Testimony of the Rocks_!

But to return. Among those who dropped in was a tall, grizzly peasant,
who presently began a talk with me about what he called his sad
condition. His lot was a hard one, because the country was kept down;
and hoping for better times would be vain while France and England
maintained their alliance. All who felt themselves aggrieved--and
their number was great--saw no prospect of redress but in a new
outbreak of strife between those two nations; let that only come, and
from the Rhine to the Vistula all would be in revolution, wrong would
be punished, and the right prevail. He knew many a peasant who was of
the same way of thinking.

Not being able to flatter him with hopes of a rupture between the Lion
and the Cock, I suggested his taking the matter into his own hands,
and making the best of present circumstances. Thrift and diligence
would do him more good than a revolution. Whereupon he told me how he
lived; how hard he worked to cultivate his plot of ground; how rarely
he ate anything besides bread and potatoes; and as for beer, it was
never seen under his roof.

"Do you think it fair, then," I rejoined, "to sit here drinking? Why
not carry home a measure of beer, and let your wife share it?"

He made no answer; but rose from his seat, shook me by the hand, and
walked heavily away.

CHAPTER IX.

A hilly site, gardens, orchards, and green slopes, houses scattered at
random among chestnuts and elders, and a general suspicion of Czechish
carelessness, give to Willenz a touch of the picturesque: at least,
when seen as I saw it, with the morning dew yet glistening on thatch,
and flowers, and branches. Cherry-trees form a continuous avenue up
the hill beyond, and here and there huts of fir branches were built
against a stem, to shelter the guard set to watch the ripened fruit,
and gatherers were busy aloft. You may pluck a cherry now and then
with impunity; but not from the trees marked by a wisp of straw
twisted round a conspicuous branch, for of those the fruit is sold,
and the watchman eyes them jealously.

Coming to the brow of the hill, I saw what seemed a giant standing on
a high bank above the road. It was the grizzly peasant magnified
through a thin haze. As soon as he saw me he came plunging down the
bank, gave me a cheerful "_Gut' Morgen_," seized my hand, and said, "I
have been waiting long to see you. I talk gladly with such as you, and
could not let you go without asking whether you will come back this
way. If so, then pray come to my house for a night. It is not far from
Schloss Petersburg. We will make you comfortable."

To return by the same road was no part of my plan, and when I told him
so, the old man's countenance fell; he pressed my hand tighter, and
cried, with a tone of disappointment, "Is it true? Ah! my wife will be
so sorry. I told her what you said, and she wanted to see you as much
as I."

As there was no help for it, we had another talk, he all the while
holding my hand as if fearful I should escape. The burden of his
discourse was "a good time coming," mingled, however, with a dread
that when it came it would not be half so desirable as the good old
times, and between the past and future his life was a torment.

"Whether you shall be miserable or not," I answered, "depends more on
yourself than on the rulers of Bohemia. Why should a man grumble who
has a house, and food, and land to cultivate? Only carry your
enjoyments home instead of consuming them by the way, and cheerfulness
will be there to gladden your wife as well as you."

"Yes; but in the old times----"

I bade him good-bye, and pursued my walk. Turning round just over the
brow of the hill, I saw him still in the same spot, gazing after me.
"Farewell, good friend!" he shouted, and strode away.

Half an hour later I came to a road-mender, who told me he earned
twenty kreutzers a day, and was quite content therewith. He had a wife
and child; never ate meat or drank beer; lived mostly on potatoes, and
was, nevertheless, strong and healthy, and by no means inclined to
quarrel with his lot. The road was a constant source of employment;
and if at times bad weather kept him at home for a day or two, his pay
went on all the same.

I mentioned my interview with the old peasant. "Ah!" he answered,
laughing, "it is always so. No grumbler like a _Bauer_. All the world
knows that peasants think everybody better off than themselves"--and
down came his hammer with crashing force on a lump of granite. Wayside
philosophy clearly had the best of it, and heartily approved the fable
of the _Mountain of Miseries_ which I narrated.

Every mile brings us more and more among the Czechs. Oval faces and
arched eyebrows become more numerous, and women's talk sounds shrill
and shrewish, as if angry or quarrelsome, as is remarked of the women
in Caernarvonshire; and yet it is nothing more than friendly
conversation. To a stranger the language sounds as unmusical as it is
difficult; and to learn it--you may as well hope to master Chinese.
Czechish names and handbills appear on the walls; the names of
villages, with the usual topographical particulars, are written up in
German and Czechish, of which behold a specimen:

[Illustration:

Ort und Gemeinde. _Misto á Obec._
Horzowitz.
Bezirk Jechnitz. _Okres Jesenice._
Kreis Saaz. _Krái Zatéc._
Königr. Böhm. _Kral: Ceské._]

In some of the villages no one but the landlord of the best inn can
speak German, and you have only your eyes by which to study the
natives and their ways. For my own part, my Czechish vocabulary being
foolishly short, I could not ask the villagers why they preferred
sluttishness to tidiness, though I longed to do so. It comprised three
words only: _Piwo_, _Chleb_, _Máslo_--Beer, Bread, Butter.

Crosses are frequent, erected at the corners where bye-roads branch
off. Not the huge wooden things you see in Tyrol; but light iron
crucifixes, graceful in form and brightly gilt, and mounted on a stone
pedestal. Nearly all have been set up by private individuals to
commemorate some family event: _By the married Pair_, you may read on
one; _Dedicated to the Honour of God, by two Sisters_, on another; _In
Memory of my Daughter, by Peter Schmidt, Bauer_, on a third--all
apparently from some pious motive.

While eating a crust under the pretentious sign, _Stadt Carlsbad_, at
Horosedl, I saw how the dowager hostess practised her domestic
economy. She was preparing dinner for the family, after her manner,
drawing her hand repeatedly across her nose, for the stove was hot and
the day sultry. She sliced cucumbers with an instrument resembling a
plane, sprinkled the slices with salt, then squeezed them well between
her hands, and exposed them to the sun in a shallow basket, one of
five or six which, woven almost as close and water-tight as
calabashes, served her as dishes. Then she grated a lump of hard brown
dough, and used the coarse grains to thicken the soup--a substitute
for vermicelli common among the peasantry.

The hostess, meanwhile, chatted with me and set the table. She
professed to admire the English, and thought it an honour that an
Englishman had once slept a night in her house, "although he had to
look into a book for all he wanted to say." She coincided entirely in
the Saxon schoolmaster's opinion, that all best things came from
England.

As the clock struck eleven in came half a dozen serving men and
maidens, and sat down to dinner with the master and mistress. The
dowager supplied them with soup, beef, a mountain of potato-dumplings,
and cucumber salad, and ate her portion apart with undoubting
appetite. An old beggar crept in and stood hat in hand imploring
charity for God's sake! She scolded him for his intrusion, and then
gave him a smoking hot dumpling and a word of sympathy, which he
received and acknowledged with humble thanks and the sign of the
cross.

It is a relief along this part of the road to see frequent hop
plantations, and here and there rocks as richly red as the crimson
cliffs of Sidmouth, while at rarer intervals a pale mass of sandstone
on a distant hill-slope puts on the appearance of an enormous
antediluvian fossil. I was pacing briskly along, enjoying a fresh
breeze that had sprung up, when I heard a voice behind me: "_Ach!_ at
last. I saw you from far, and said to myself, Perhaps that is a
journey-companion--let me overtake him."

Immediately a man, who walked as if he enjoyed the exercise, and wore
what looked like his Sunday suit, came up to my side, and proposed to
join company, so as to shorten the way with talk. We soon got through
the preliminaries, and started topics enough to last all the rest of
the day. The stranger notified himself as a _Mechaniker_ from Neudeck,
going to Prague on business for his master. He, too, had much to say
in praise of England. He had once worked with an Englishman, a certain
James, or _Ya-mes_, as he pronounced it, and had ever since held him
in the highest esteem and admiration. "That was a man!" he exclaimed;
"if all Englishmen are the same, no wonder their nation is so great."

English files also were not less praiseworthy--a fact of which
Sheffield ought to be proud, seeing that her handicraft has often been
reproached of late. "To dance," said the _Mechaniker_, "is not more
pleasure than to file with an English file. How it bites, and lasts so
long! Even an old one that has been thrown away for months is better
than a German file. One is honest steel--the other is too much like
lead." Some folk will, perhaps, feel surprised by this scrap of
experimental testimony in favour of Hallamshire.

We talked about wages. The _Mechaniker's_ earnings were six hundred
florins a year; a small sum, as it seems, to English notions for a
skilled workman in machinery--one held in high consideration by his
master. Ordinary workmen get one-third less; he was, therefore, well
content, and told me he could spare something for the savings bank,
but not so much as formerly, owing to the increased price of
provisions.

So with sundry discourse we came to Kruschowitz, where we dined,
looking out on thick belts of fruit-trees, that embower the village,
and relieve the pale green of little plantations of acacias that show
here and there among the bright-red roofs. Most of the houses exhibit
the Czechish style, which shuns height and dispenses with an upper
story. Then we went on at an after-dinner pace to Rentsch, where,
striking into the old road to Prague, now but little frequented, we
shortened the distance by four or five miles. All Czechish now, both
to eye and ear. A difference is perceptible in the fields, the
implements, sheds, and vehicles; they are not so neat or workmanlike
in appearance as in the German districts, and yet the broad crops of
wheat, already turning yellow, betoken glad abundance.

Now we found pleasant footpaths through the beech-woods that border
the road, and enjoyed the cool shade and the sound of rustling leaves.
The men we met had a slouching gait, and the women, wearing coarse,
baggy cotton stockings, and flimsy cotton gowns, and shabby kerchiefs
on their heads, were unmistakable dowdies--an appearance which has
come to be considered essentially Celtic. However, they failed not to
salute us with their "_dobrýtro_" (good day) as we passed.

The aspect of Neu Straschitz, the next village on our way, shows how
we are getting into the heart of the country--the land of the Czechs.
Wide streets, which make the low whitewashed houses look still lower
than they are; a great, uneven square, patched here and there with
ragged grass, bestrewn with rough logs of timber, ornamented at one
side by a row of saplings, unhappy looking, as if pining for the rank
of trees; on the other by a statue of St. John Nepomuk. Very lifeless!
No merry noise of children in summer evening gambols; no fathers and
mothers chatting in the cool lengthening shadows. The only living
creatures are a man, a woman, and a dog, all three as far apart as
possible. There is nothing stirring even around the _Bezirksamt_ or
the church.

Glazed windows are few: an opening in the wall, with a hinged shutter,
suffices for most of the houses. And for door they have a big archway
closed by heavy wooden gates, looking very inhospitable. Here and
there one of these gates stands a little open, and you may get a peep
at the interior, a square court, enclosed by stable, barn, and
dwelling, heaped with manure and ugly rubbish. No notion here, you
will say, of the fitness of things. Look at the wagon--a basket on
wheels--the wheelbarrow, the rakes, huddled away anyhow, as if they
were just as well in one place as another. Perhaps they are. Quaint
old Fuller says of the Devonshire cotters of his day, "Vain it is for
any to search their houses, being a work beneath the pains of a
sheriff, and above the power of any constable." You will, perhaps, say
the same here. Look in-doors! the same slovenliness prevails. The room
would be just as comfortable, or rather uncomfortable, if chairs and
table changed places; if the higgledy-piggledy at one end were
shifted to the other. The condition of the utensils is by no means
unimpeachable; and repelled by the pervading odour, you will not be
less thankful than proud that your lot is not cast among the Czechs.

The inn is an exception, and has the appearance of being too good for
the village. The _Kellnerinn_ told us we could have as many bedrooms
as we chose, for they were all empty. I was content with my day's
walk, about twenty-five miles; but the _Mechaniker_, impatient to
arrive at Prague, resolved to travel two hours farther; so, after he
had finished his tankard of beer, we shook hands, and he went on
alone, the _Kellnerinn_ assuring him as he departed that he would find
good sleeping quarters almost every half-hour.

CHAPTER X.

A Talk with the Landlord -- A Jew's Offer -- A Ride in a
Wagen -- Talk with the Jew -- The Stars -- A Mysterious
Gun-barrel -- An Alarm -- Stony Ammunition -- The Man with
the Gun -- The Jew's opinion of him -- Sunrise -- A Walk --
The White Hill -- A Fatal Field -- Waking up in the Suburbs
-- Early Breakfasts -- Imperial and Royal Tobacco --
Milk-folk -- The Gate of Prague -- A Snappish Sentry -- The
Soldiers -- Into the City -- Picturesque Features and
crowding Associations -- The Kleinseite -- The Bridge --
Palaces -- The Altstadt -- Remarkable Streets -- The
Teinkirche -- The Neustadt -- The Three Hotels.

The landlord came in a few minutes afterwards, and, to encourage me to
tell him all he wished to know about myself, declared himself a
German. That he should ever have been so stupid as to tempt fortune at
Neu Straschitz was a mistake haunting and vexing him continually. A
living was not to be got in such a miserable village, and among such
miserable people, and he meant to migrate as soon as he could find
some one more stupid than himself to take the inn off his hands.

I had seen two or three German names in the street, and asked him if
they were of long standing. "Not very." And he went on to say that the
Stock-Bohemians, as the Czechs are called, are perpetually encroached
on, pressed within narrower limits by the German element. Though a
good deal was said about Czechish vigour and intellectuality, some
folk thought that the language would at no distant day cease to be
spoken. As for the character of the Czechs, there was scarcely a
German who did not believe them to be sly, false, double-faced. And
what says the proverb?--Dirt is the offspring of Lying and Idleness.
For his part, he knew the Czechs were dirty, but he didn't quite know
whether, in other respects, they were worse than their neighbours. Any
way, he rather liked the thought of removing from among them.

After all this, mine host thought he had a fair claim on me for a
sight of an English gold coin, and answers to all his questions
concerning England. I was doing my best to satisfy him, when the
_Kellnerinn_ called my attention to a _Herr_ who was going to start
with his _Wagen_ in the course of the evening for Prague; and she
suggested, very disinterestedly as it seemed to me, that the
opportunity was too good to be lost.

_Wagen_ is as comprehensive a word as our "conveyance:" the _Herr_
looked like a man who might be going to Prague in a carriage, so, as
he promised plenty of room, and asked no more than a florin for the
twenty miles, I accepted his offer. Having yet business to settle, he
went out, and promised to call for me at nine o'clock. He had no
sooner left the room, than the landlord said, "He is a Jew; but you
need not be afraid of him. He is a very honest fellow, and comes here
often."

I saw no reason to be afraid, and when the Jew came back at the
appointed hour was ready to accompany him. He led the way to a back
street, where we waited in front of one of the low, undemonstrative
houses. Presently the big gate swung back, and out came the
_Wagen_--one of the four-wheeled basket wagons, drawn by a single
horse pulling awkwardly at one side of the heavy pole. I had imagined
something a little better than that; however, as the wagon was half
full of new hay, with a comfortable back-cushion of clover, I
scrambled in on one side while the Jew did the same on the other, and
the driver, a Czech, perched himself uncomfortably on a bar in front.

The wagon was just wide enough for two; and, what with the elastic
sides and soft hay, there was no painful jolting. The west shone
gloriously with the golden arch of sunset as we drove out of the
village and entered on a bad road winding across the open fields; and
Twilight came on so softly that you might have fancied Day was
lingering to lend her his palest rays. The Jew was disposed to talk,
and betrayed no little curiosity on the subject of travelling. Was it
not very irksome to be away from home? was it not very expensive? and
how much money did one need to carry? was there no danger? and so
forth. But what interested him most was the question as to the money:
he returned to it again and again.

Next, he had much to ask concerning London--the sort of business
transacted in the great city--the rate of profit--in short, he put me
through a whole social and commercial catechism, from which he drew a
conclusion that London would not be an undesirable place of residence.

So it went on, interrupted only by his saying a few words now and then
to the driver in Czechish, until my turn came, and I opened my
questioning about Prague. The Jew, however, was readier in asking
questions than in answering; indeed, he was stingy in reply, as if
words were worth a florin the dozen.

As the stars brightened the night became cold, and set me shivering.
The Jew brought two cloaks out of a bag, and, wrapped in one of these,
I lay on my back looking up at the sky, thinking of home-scenes and
home-friends as my eye wandered from one bright spot to another; and
solemn was the impression made on me by the sight of the glorious
handiwork.

"For the bright firmament
Shoots forth no flame
So silent, but is eloquent
In speaking the Creator's name."

I could not fail to note that astronomers have reason for telling us
that meteoric phenomena are more common on any night than would be
believed by those not accustomed to observe the heavens, for I saw
twelve shooting-stars within two hours.

As we went on, the lights in the public-houses became fewer, and ere
long disappeared, and the silence was only disturbed by the fitful
barking of dogs in the distance, and the slow noise of the wheels. Our
horse dropped into a walk, and the driver off to sleep, and I was
still gazing at the stars when I heard footsteps near the side of the
wagon. Turning my eyes, without rising, I saw the top of a gun-barrel
about two yards off, apparently resting on some one's shoulder. The
sound of the footsteps woke the driver, who immediately began to
quicken the horse's pace, but very cautiously, as if to avoid
suspicion. The Jew seemed uneasy, and muttered a word or two in a low
tone; the whip was used, the horse broke into a trot, but the
gun-barrel was not left behind; I could still see it in the same
place, keeping pace with the wagon.

What did it mean? One time I fancied that perhaps the hay on which I
lay so innocently was but a disguise for something contraband, whereof
a cunning gendarme had gotten scent. Then I remembered the landlord's
desire to see a gold coin, and the Jew's curiosity as to the amount
and quality of a traveller's money, and a faint suspicion of having
fallen into a trap did occur to me. Meanwhile the horse trotted in
earnest; the gun-barrel was left in the rear; then the whip was plied
vigorously; the Jew spoke energetically; the driver jumped from his
perch, picked up two big stones, threw them into the wagon, and drove
quickly on again.

"There is one for you, and one for me," said the Jew to me, in a loud
whisper.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"The stones," he replied; "one for you, and one for me, if we are
attacked."

"Attacked or not, we are three to one, and one of the three is an
Englishman."

The Jew did not answer, for the footsteps were again heard approaching
at a run, and soon the gun-barrel appeared once more abreast of the
wagon. The driver kept the horse up to his speed, the Jew fumbled
about with his feet for the big stones, and the chase--if such it
could be called--continued for about ten minutes.

All at once the gun-barrel darted from the road-side towards the
wagon. I immediately sat up, and found myself face to face, and but a
few inches apart, with the bearer of the weapon--a wild-looking
fellow, wearing a slouched cap and hunting-jacket. A faint exclamation
of surprise escaped him, and, whether it was that he saw two persons
in the wagon, besides the driver, or that we did not look worth his
trouble, I know not, but he gradually dropped behind, and we lost
sight of the gun-barrel.

A minute passed. "Now," said the Jew, "we are rid of him."

But scarcely had he spoken, than a shrill whistle sounded afar through
the silence of the night, followed after a short interval by a whistle
at a distance from the road.

"Quick! quick!" was now the word to the driver. "He is calling his
comrades: they will be down upon us. Quick! quick!"

The Czech seemed well inclined to obey; the pace was quickened into a
gallop, and, in about a quarter-hour, we came to a village, where,
stopping in front of the inn, he filled the rack with clover from the
wagon, and gave the horse to feed.

The place with its littery appendages looked unked, lying half in deep
shadow; the door was fast, and not a light shone from the windows,
cheating my hope of a cup of coffee. The Jew now sat up, talked for
awhile vehemently with the driver, then said, turning to me, "We have
had an escape. That fellow meant nothing good--nothing good--nothing
good. A real bad fellow!"

"Was he a robber?"

"Perhaps worse. He meant nothing good. We are well out of it. I hope
we shall not see him again."

We did not; and by-and-by, as we went on again, and I lay looking up
at the stars, they seemed to grow dim, then twinkle strangely, and at
last they disappeared. It may be that I slept, for when next I looked
at the sky it was flecked by streams of rosy tints, the fields were
covered with dew as a veil, and, by the timid chirping of birds, and
other signs, the eye might note the preparations for lifting the veil
at the approach of the sun. My sheltering cloak, my hair and eyebrows,
were thickly covered with dew, cold as the brightening dawn. The Jew,
similarly bepearled, lay sleeping soundly, the Czech nodded on his
perch, and the horse, taking advantage of the slumber, was moving only
at a sober walk.

It was not yet five when I alighted about three miles from Prague, to
get warm by walking the remaining distance. The Jew took his florin
with much demonstration of thanks, horse and driver roused up, and the
wagon was soon out of sight.

A few minutes brought me to the _Weissenberg_--White Hill--a
battle-field not less fatal than famous. The road is bordered by ample
rows of trees; woods thick with foliage clothe the neighbouring
hollows and acclivities, and on the left, sloping gently upwards, with
here and there a break, rises the hill. Here, then, was the scene of
which I had often read, where Frederick of the Palatinate, who had
married a princess of England, daughter of James I., lost the crown of
Bohemia. Not long had he worn it--indeed, some of his contemporaries
called him the Winter King--when he was forced to flee, with his wife
and children, among them the infant Rupert, who afterwards won renown
as chief of the Cavaliers in England. Treachery, as late researches
show, aided the combined forces of Ferdinand of Austria and Maximilian
of Bavaria, and from that day Bohemia ceased to be an independent
monarchy, and became a province of the Austrian Empire, a loss yet
mourned by many, who join in the poet's lament:

"Ach Gott! die Weissenberger Schlacht
Erreicht wohl Ostrolenka's Trauer,
Und die darauf erfolgt die Racht,
Hat trübere als Sibiriens Schauer."

Terrible, indeed, was the _night_ that followed! And when one reads of
Ferdinand's faithlessness and cruelty, his murderous vengeance on the
chiefest of the conquered people, the wonder is not that Bohemia
should have revolted, but that she did not reconquer her birthright.

Thoughts of the past came crowding through my mind as I paced across
the ground, and presently pursued my walk. I was approaching a city
remarkable in itself, and in its historical associations, but for the
moment my attention was drawn to immediate objects. As I went on down
the now continuous descent, the tops of towers and spires came into
view in the distance below, and on either hand appeared indications
that a metropolis was not far off. Early folk were opening the booths,
shops, and public-houses, which, scattered among the trees, presented
ere long an unbroken line on both sides of the road. Cooling drinks
were set out on tables, and many a shutter invited the passer-by to
_Beer_ and _Brandy_, in various phrase. Now stalls covered with
cherries and currants alternate with piles of bread, hard-boiled eggs,
cheese, and smoked sausages; and working people stop to eat their
earliest breakfast. Every few yards sits a woman with a basket of
fresh, tempting _Semmel_--fancy bread, as we should call it--most of
the little loaves thickly sprinkled with poppy-seeds, dear to the
native palate. And here and there stands what looks like a roomy
sentry-box, painted yellow, and adorned with the Austrian blazon--an
_Imperial and Royal Booth for the sale of Tobacco_.

Already the road is alive with vehicles, for from every lane and
byepath speed dog-carts, or little wagons on two wheels, or large
wagons on four wheels, all laden with tin cans of milk for the city.
How the dogs pant, and the horses snort! for the driver, and his or
her two or three companions, keep the animals at full speed, sparing
neither lash nor voice. Long before they come into sight you can hear
their shrill chatter, mingled with merry laughter, and, as they burst
into view, a shout from all the others adds excitement to the race,
and away they go, each trying to be first.

Half a mile farther, and I overtake many of them at the turn of the
road, where the women are sitting on the bank, putting on stockings
and shoes. Some remount the wagons; others walk quietly onwards,
showing a neat ankle and clean white leg to the morning sun. Now the
city wall frowns towards you, and, once round the turn, there is the
gate--_Reichsthor_--a few soldiers hanging about, and many persons
passing to and fro, while the curious towers of the Strahow monastery,
where Rupert was born, peer above trees and vine-slopes on the right.
I passed through the gloomy arch unchallenged by any of the guards,
and had got some distance down the steep street, when a man made me
aware that shouts in the rear were intended for me. I turned: a
soldier, who had come a few yards from the cavern-like gate, was
making very peremptory use of his voice, and, as soon as I saw him,
he beckoned with angry gestures. I retraced my steps, but at too slow
a pace to satisfy the Imperial functionary, for he turned again and
again, each time with the same impatient gesture. No sooner did I come
within earshot, than he cried, snappishly, "Why did you not give me
your passport?"

"For two reasons," I answered, with a laugh; "this is my first visit
to Prague, and I have not yet learnt your regulations; and secondly,
why did you let me go by without asking me for it?"

The lounging group of soldiers laughed as this was spoken, and my
questioner having led the way to his darksome den, built at the elbow
of the arch so as to command both approaches, took my passport and
gave me the official receipt without further parley.

As I emerged again into the sunshine, one of the soldiers said, "Do
you know what? When any one goes away into the city without stopping
at the guard-house, he must always come back to the gate where he
entered, and give up his passport."

I thanked him for his information, and took my way once more down the
street. It was just six o'clock: all the shops were open; working
people thronged the footways; heavy teams toiled slowly up the hill
towards the gate; the milk-folk hurried down with noisy clatter, while
men wearing glazed hats and a canvas uniform swept the streets. Signs
of early rising everywhere.

The peculiar features of the city multiply as you advance. High on the
left, its cathedral tower springing above the rest, appears the
Hradschin--an imposing mass of building in the factory style of
architecture, stretching, as one might guess, for half a mile along
the bold eminence, commanding the country for miles around. You can
count four hundred windows. There, as every one knows, the Thirty
Years' War began, by certain angry Bohemian nobles pitching two
Imperial commissioners and their secretary out of one of the windows.
Little did the haughty ejectors think of the consequences of their
exploit--that before thirty years were over, 30,000 villages and more
than a million men would be destroyed by war!

Being very hungry, I was fain to drink a draught of milk and eat one
of the poppy-seeded loaves at the door of one of the little shops,
looking round all the while on curious gables, panelled fronts,
ancient gateways, more numerous as we descend. Lower down, we are in
the oldest part of the city, among the palaces of the great nobles
whose names figure in history--Kollowrat, Lobkowitz, Wallenstein, and
others. Massive edifices, whereby your eye and steps are alike
arrested. And on every side are narrow lanes and courts, some nothing
but a steep stair, and these, winding in and out, increase the charm
of the ornamented architecture, and produce wonderful bits of
perspective. Such effects of light and shade, and glorious touches of
colour!

Then a church crowded with carvings; old women sitting on the steps,
young women and matrons going in to the early mass, of which, as the
doors swing to and fro, you hear the loud notes of the organ. Then a
square, and tall obelisk, and arcaded houses; and turning a corner
there rises the bridge tower, strikingly picturesque. As my eye caught
sight of its graceful roof and slender finials, I could not repress an
exclamation of surprise and pleasure. Then through the narrow arch,
and we are on the ancient bridge, looking down on the broad stream of
the Moldau, flowing with noisy rush through the sixteen arches built
600 years ago; at houses, palaces, and churches rising one above
another in the _Kleinseite_ through which we have just passed, and in
the _Altstadt_ on the opposite side; at the mosaic pavement; at the
gigantic statues which terminate every pier, noteworthy saints from
the Bohemian calendar, chiefest among them St. John Nepomuk, who with
his crescentic belt of five large ruby stars might be taken for
another Orion. In no city that I have yet seen have I felt so much
pleasure, or such varied emotions, as during my walk into Prague.

Then we pass under the equally picturesque bridge tower of the
_Altstadt_, and enter narrow streets lined with good shops, and full
of bustle; and after many puzzling ins and outs, we emerge into the
spacious area of the Ring--a lively scene, people crossing in all
directions, or sauntering under the arcades; here and there sentries
pacing up and down, and small parties of soldiers, in gay uniforms,
marching away to beat of drum. And above the farther houses there
shoot up the two towers of the _Teinkirche_--one of the most famous
churches in Prague--which were built by George Podiebrad. The church
itself is screened by the houses; but, whenever you see those gr

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