Transcriber's Note:

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

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.

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.

ERRATA.

Page 87, last line, for visitors, read villagers.
Page 153, 11 lines from bottom, for Hraba's, read Hraba's.
Page 153, 11 lines from bottom, for Pstrossischer, read Pstrossischer.
Page 172, last line of text, for Heilen, read Heiles.

A JULY HOLIDAY
IN
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—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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. Bœhmen, 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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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 visitors 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.

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.

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."