Having in various countries drunk so much and heard so much of the
celebrated refreshing Selters or Selzer water, I determined one
lovely morning to exchange the pleasure of rambling about the woods
of Schlangenbad for the self-imposed duty of visiting the brunnen of
Nieder-Selters: accordingly, I managed to procure a carriage, and with
three post-horses away I trotted, sitting as upright and as full of
exuberant enjoyment as our great departed lexicographer in his hack
chaise. The macadamized road on which I travelled, with the sight of
men and boys sitting by its side, spitefully cracking with slight
hammers little stones upon flat big ones, might easily have reminded
me of old England; but five women, each carrying on her head sixteen
large stone bottles of Schlangenbad water to wash the faces of the
ladies of Schwalbach--the dress of three peasants with long pipes in
their mouths--a little cart drawn by two cows--the Prince of Saxe
Cobourg in a rough carriage pulled by horses without blinkers and in
rope harness--an immense mastiff, driving before him to be slaughtered
a calf not a week old, and scarcely as high as himself--all these
trifling incidents, combined with the magnificent outline of wooded
hills which towered above the road, constantly reminded me that I was
still under the political roof and in the dominions of "The Duke."
On arriving at Schwalbach, I learned that the remainder of the journey,
which was to occupy six hours, was to be performed on roads which, in
the English language, are termed so very properly "cross." Accordingly,
passing under the great barren hill appropriated to the Schwein-General
of Langen-Schwalbach, we followed for some time the course of a green
grassy valley, the herbage of which had just been cut for the second
time; and then getting into a country much afflicted with hills, the
horses were either straining to ascend them, or suffering equally
severely in the descent. In many places the road was hardly as broad
as the carriage, and as there was generally a precipice on one side,
I might occasionally have felt a little nervous, had it not been for
sundry jolts, happily just violent enough to prevent the mind thinking
of anything else.
Passing the Eisenhammer, a water-mill lifting an immense hammer, which
forges iron by its fall (a lion which the water-drinkers of Schwalbach
generally visit), I proceeded through the village of Neuhof to Würges,
where we changed horses and, what was still more important, bartered
an old postilion for a young one. For a considerable time our road
ascended, passing through woods and park-like plantations belonging to
the Duke of Nassau's hunting-seat "Die Platte;" at last we broke away
from these coverts which had environed us, traversing a vast undulating
unenclosed country, furrowed by ravines and deep valleys, many of which
we descended and ascended. The principal crops were potatoes, barley,
oats, rye, and wheat,--the three former being perfectly green, the
two latter completely ripe; and as it happened, from some reason or
other, that these sets of crops were generally sown on the same sort
of land, it constantly occurred that the entire produce of some hills
wore the green dress of spring, while other eminences were as wholly
clothed in the rich dusky garments of autumn. The harvest, however, not
having commenced, and the villages being, generally speaking, hidden in
the ravines, the crops often seemed to be without owners. Descending,
however, into valleys, we occasionally passed through several very
large villages, which were generally paved, or rather studded with
paving-stones; and as the carriage-wheels hopped from one to another,
the sensation (being still too fresh in my memory) I had rather decline
to describe: suffice it to say, that the painful excitation vividly
expressed in my countenance must have formed an odd contrast with the
dull, heavy, half-asleep faces, which, as if raised from the grave by
the rattling of my springs as well as joints, just showed themselves at
the windows, as if to scare me as I passed. From poverty, their thin
mountain air and meagre food, the inhabitants of all these villages
looked dreadfully wan, and really there was a want of animation among
the young people, as well as the old, which it was quite distressing to
witness; the streets seemed nearly deserted, while the mud houses, with
their unpainted windows, appeared to be as dry and cheerless as their
inmates; here and there were to be seen children, with hair resembling
in colour and disorder a bunch of flax--but no youthful merriment, no
playfulness--in short, they were evidently sapless chips off the old
wooden blocks which were still gaping at me from the window-frames.
At one of these solemn villages the postilion stopped at a "gasthaus"
to bait his horses. Odd as it may sound, it is nevertheless true,
that German post-horses have seldom what we should term bridles.
Snaffle-bits, ending with Ts instead of rings, being put into their
mouths, are hooked (by these Ts) to iron billets in the head-pieces of
common stable-halters, by which arrangement, to feed the animals, it is
only necessary, without taking them from the carriage, to unhook one
end of the bits, which immediately fall from their mouths; a slight
trough, on four legs, is then placed before them, and the traveller
generally continues, as I did, to sit in his carriage watching the
horses voraciously eating up slices of black rye bread.
In England, there is no surer recipe known for making a pair of horses
suddenly run away with one's carriage, than by taking off their
blinkers to allow them to see it; but though our method decidedly suits
us the best, yet in Germany the whole system of managing horses from
beginning to end is completely different from ours. Whether there is
most of the horse in a German, or of the German in a horse, is a nice
point on which people might argue a great deal; but the broad fact
really is, that Germans live on more amicable terms with their horses,
and understand their dispositions infinitely better, than the English:
in short, they treat them as horses, while we act towards them, and
drill them, as if they were men; and in case any one should doubt that
Germans are better horsemasters than we are, I beg to remind them of
what is perfectly well known to the British army--namely, that in the
Peninsular war the cavalry horses of the German legion were absolutely
fat, while those of our regiments were skin and bone.
In a former chapter I have already endeavoured to explain, that instead
of reining a horse's head _up_, as we do, for draught, the Germans
encourage the animal to keep it _down_; but besides this, in all their
other arrangements they invariably attend to the temper, character,
and instinct of the beast. For instance, in harness, they intrust
these sensible animals (who are never known to forget what they have
once seen) with the free use of their eyes. Their horses see the wheel
strike a stone, and they avoid the next one; if they drag the carriage
against a post, they again observe the effect; and seeing at all
times what is behind them, they know that by kicking they would hurt
themselves: when passengers and postilion dismount, from attentive
observation, they are as sensible as we are that the draught will
suddenly become less, and, consequently, rejoicing at being thus left
to themselves, instead of wishing to run away, they invariably are
rather disposed to stand still.
As soon as, getting tired, or, as we are often too apt to term it,
"lazy," they see the postilion threaten them with his whip, they know
perfectly well the limits of his patience, and that after eight, ten,
or twelve threats, there will come a blow: as they travel along, one
eye is always shrewdly watching the driver--the moment he begins the
heavy operation of lighting his pipe, they immediately slacken their
pace, knowing, as well as Archimedes could have proved, that he cannot
strike fire and them at the same time: every movement in the carriage
they remark; and to any accurate observer who meets a German vehicle,
it must often be perfectly evident that the poor horses know and feel,
even better than himself, that they are drawing a coachman, and three
heavy baronesses with their maid, and that to do that on a hot summer's
day is--no joke. When their driver urges them to proceed, he does it
by degrees; and they are stopped, not as bipeds, but in the manner
quadrupeds would stop themselves.
Now, though we all like our own way best, let us for a moment (merely
while the horses are feeding) contrast with the above description our
English mode of treating a horse.
In order to break in the animal to draught, we put a collar round his
neck, a crupper under his tail, a pad on his back, a strap round his
belly, with traces at his sides, and lest he should see that though
these things tickle and pinch, they have not power to do more, the poor
intelligent creature is blinded with blinkers; and in this fearful
state of ignorance, with a groom or two at his head and another at his
side, he is, without his knowledge, fixed to the pole and splinter-bar
of a carriage. If he kicks, even at a fly, he suddenly receives a heavy
punishment, which he does not comprehend--something has struck him, and
has hurt him severely; but, as fear magnifies all danger, so, for aught
we know or care, he may fancy that the splinter-bar, which has cut him,
is some hostile animal, and expect, when the pole bumps against his
legs, to be again assailed in that direction.
Admitting that in time he gets accustomed to these phenomena,
becoming, what we term, steady in harness, still, to the last hour
of his existence, he does not clearly understand what it is that is
hampering him, or what is that rattling noise which is always at his
heels: the sudden sting of the whip is a pain with which he gets but
too well acquainted, yet the "_unde derivatur_" of the sensation he
cannot explain--he neither knows when it is coming, nor where it comes
from. If any trifling accident, or even irregularity, occurs--if any
little harmless strap, which ought to rest upon his back, happens to
fall to his side--the poor, noble, intelligent animal, deprived of
his eyesight, the natural lanterns of the mind, is instantly alarmed;
and though, from constant heavy draught, he may literally, without
metaphor, be on his last legs, yet if his blinkers should happen to
fall off, the sight of his own master--of his very own pimple-faced
mistress--and of his own fine yellow carriage in motion--would scare
him so dreadfully, that off he would probably start, and the more they
all pursued him the faster would he fly!
I am aware that many of my readers, especially those of the fairer sex,
will feel disposed to exclaim--Why admire German horses? Can there be
any in creation better fed or warmer clothed than our own? In black and
silver harness are they not ornamented nearly as highly as ourselves?
Is there any amusement in town which they do not attend? Do we not take
them to the Italian Opera, to balls, plays, to hear Paganini, &c.; and
don't they often go to two or three routs of a night? Are our horses
ever seen standing before vulgar shops? And do they not drive to church
every Sunday as regularly as ourselves?
Most humbly do I admit the force of these observations; all I persist
in asserting is, that horses are foolishly fond of their eyesight--like
to wear their heads awkwardly, as Nature has placed them; and that they
have bad taste enough to prefer dull German grooms and coachmen to our
sharp English ones.
As soon as my horses had finished their black bread, all my idle
speculations concerning them vanished; the snaffle-bits were put into
their mouths--the trough removed--and on we proceeded to a village
where we again changed.
The features of the country now began to grow larger than ever; and
though crops, green and brown, were, as far as the eye could reach,
gently waving around me, yet the want of habitations, plantations, and
fences gave to the extensive prospect an air of desolation: the picture
was perhaps grand, but it wanted foreground; however, this deficiency
was soon most delightfully supplied by the identical object I was in
search of--namely, the brunnen and establishment of Nieder-Selters,
which suddenly appeared on the road-side close before me, scarcely a
quarter of a mile from its village.
The moment I entered the great gate of the enclosure which, surrounded
by a high stone wall, occupies about eight acres of ground, so strange
a scene presented itself suddenly to my view, that my first impression
was, I had discovered a new world inhabited by brown stone bottles; for
in all directions were they to be seen rapidly moving from one part
of the establishment to another--standing actually in armies on the
ground, or piled in immense layers or strata one above another. Such a
profusion and such a confusion of bottles it had never entered human
imagination to conceive; and, before I could bring my eyes to stoop
to detail, with uplifted hands I stood for several seconds in utter
amazement.
On approaching a large circular shed, covered with a slated roof,
supported by posts, but open on all sides, I found the single brunnen
or well from which this highly celebrated water is forwarded to
almost every quarter of the globe--to India, the West Indies, the
Mediterranean, Paris, London, and to almost every city in Germany. The
hole, which was about five feet square, was bounded by a framework of
four strong beams mortised together; and the bottom of the shed being
boarded, it very much resembled, both in shape and dimensions, one of
the hatches in the deck of a ship. A small crane with three arms, to
each of which there was suspended a square iron crate or basket, a
little smaller than the brunnen, stood about ten feet off; and while
peasant girls, with a stone bottle (holding three pints) dangling on
every finger of each hand, were rapidly filling two of these crates,
which contained seventy bottles, a man turned the third by a winch,
until it hung immediately over the brunnen, into which it then rapidly
descended. The air in these seventy bottles being immediately displaced
by the water, a great bubbling of course ensued; but, in about twenty
seconds, this having subsided, the crate was raised; and, while seventy
more bottles descended from another arm of the crane, a fresh set of
girls curiously carried off these full bottles, one on each finger
of each hand, ranging them in several long rows upon a large table
or dresser,--also beneath the shed. No sooner were they there, than
two men, with surprising activity, put a cork into each; while two
drummers, with a long stick in each of their hands hammering them down,
appeared as if they were playing upon musical glasses.
Another set of young women now instantly carried them off, four and
five in each hand, to men who, with sharp knives, sliced off the
projecting part of the cork; and this operation being over, the poor
jaded bottles were delivered over to women, each of whom actually
covered 3000 of them a day with white leather, which they firmly bound
with packthread round the corks; and then, without placing the bottles
on the ground, they delivered them over to a man seated beside them,
who, without any apology, dipped each of their noses into boiling hot
rosin; and, before they had recovered from this operation, the Duke of
Nassau's seal was stamped upon them by another man, when off they were
hurried, sixteen and twenty at a time, by girls to magazines, where
they peacefully remained ready for exportation.
Although this series of operations, when related one after another,
may sound simple enough, yet it must be kept in mind that all were
performed at once; and when it is considered that a three-armed crane
was drawing up bottles seventy at a time, from three o'clock in the
morning till seven o'clock at night (meal hours excepted), it is
evident that, without very excellent arrangement, some of the squads
either would be glutted with more work than they could perform, or
would stand idle with nothing to do:--no one, therefore, dares to hurry
or stop; the machinery, in full motion, has the singular appearance
which I have endeavoured to describe; and certainly, the motto of the
place might be that of old Goethe's ring--
"Ohne hast, ohne rast."
Having followed a set of bottles from the brunnen to the store, where I
left them resting from their labours, I strolled to another part of the
establishment, where were empty bottles calmly waiting for their turn
to be filled. I here counted twenty-five bins of bottles, each four
yards broad, six yards deep, and eight feet high. A number of young
girls were carrying thirty-four of them at a time on their heads to
an immense trough, which was kept constantly full by a large fountain
pipe of beautiful clear fresh water. The bottles on arriving here were
filled brimful (as I conceived for the purpose of being washed), and
were then ranged in ranks, or rather solid columns, of seven hundred
each, there being ten rows of seventy bottles.
It being now seven o'clock, a bell rung as a signal for giving over
work, and the whole process came suddenly to an end: for a few seconds,
the busy labourers (as in a disturbed ant-heap) were seen irregularly
hurrying in every direction: but in a very short time, all had
vanished. For a few minutes I ruminated in solitude about the premises,
and then set out to take up my abode for the night at the village, or
rather town, of Nieder-Selters: however, I had no sooner, as I vainly
thought, bidden adieu to bottles, than I saw, like Birnam Wood coming
to Dunsinane, bottles approaching me in every possible variety of
attitude. It appears that all the inhabitants of Nieder-Selters are
in the habit of drinking in their houses this refreshing water; but
as the brunnen is in requisition by the Duke all day long, it is only
before or after work that a private supply can be obtained: no sooner,
therefore, does the evening bell ring, than every child in the village
is driven out of its house to take empty bottles to the brunnen; and
it was this singular-looking legion which was now approaching me. The
children really looked as if they were made of bottles; some wore a
pyramid of them in baskets on their heads--some were laden with them
hanging over their shoulders before and behind--some carried them
strapped round their middle--all had their hands full; and little
urchins that could scarcely walk were advancing, each hugging in its
arms one single bottle. In fact, at Nieder-Selters, "an infant" means
a being totally unable to carry a bottle, puberty and manhood are
proved by bottles; a strong man brags of the number he can carry; and a
superannuation means a being no longer able in this world to bear ....
bottles.
The road to the brunnen is actually strewed with fragments, and so are
the ditches; and when the reader is informed that, besides all he has
so patiently heard, bottles are not only expended and exported, but
actually are _made_ at Nieder-Selters, he must admit that no writer can
possibly do justice to that place unless every line of his description
contains, at least once, the word .... bottle. The moralists of
Nieder-Selters preach on bottles. Life, they say, is a sound bottle,
and death a cracked one--thoughtless men are empty bottles--drunken
men are leaky ones; and a man highly educated, fit to appear in any
country and in any society, is, of course, a bottle corked, rosined,
and stamped with the seal of the Duke of Nassau.
As soon as I reached the village inn, I found there all the slight
accommodation I required: a tolerable dinner soon smoked on the table
before me; and, feeling that I had seen quite enough for one day of
brown stone bottles, I ventured to order (merely for a change) a
long-necked glass one of a vegetable fluid superior to all the mineral
water in the world.
The following morning, previous to returning to the brunnen, I strolled
for some time about the village; and the best analysis I can offer
of the Selters water is the plain fact, that the inhabitants of the
village, who have drunk it all their lives, are certainly, by many
degrees, the healthiest and ruddiest looking peasants I have anywhere
met with in the dominions of the Duke of Nassau.
This day being a festival, on reaching the brunnen at eleven o'clock
I found it entirely deserted--no human being was to be seen: all had
been working from three o'clock in the morning till nine, but they were
now at church, and were not to return to their labour till twelve. I
had, therefore, the whole establishment to myself; and going to the
famous brunnen, my first object was to taste its water. On drinking it
fresh from the source, I observed that it possessed a strong chalybeate
taste, which I had never perceived in receiving it from the bottle. The
three iron crates suspended to the arms of the crane were empty, and
there was nothing at all upon the wooden dressers which, the evening
before, I had seen so busily crowded and surrounded: in the middle of
the great square were the stools on which the several cork-covering
women had sat; while, at some distance to the left, were the solid
columns or regiments of uncorked bottles, which I had seen filled
brimful with pure crystal water the evening before. On approaching this
brown looking army, I was exceedingly surprised at observing from a
distance that several of the bottles were noseless, and I was wondering
why such should ever have been filled, when, on getting close to these
troops, I perceived, to my utter astonishment, that not only about
one-third of them were in the same mutilated state, but that their
noses were calmly lying by their sides, supported by the adjoining
bottles! What could possibly have been the cause of the fatal disaster
which in one single night had so dreadfully disfigured them, I was
totally at a loss to imagine: the devastation which had taken place
resembled the riddling of an infantry regiment under a heavy fire; yet
few of our troops, even at Waterloo, lost so great a proportion of
their men as had fallen in twelve hours among these immovable phalanxes
of bottles. Had they been corked, one might have supposed that they had
exploded, but why nothing but their noses had suffered I really felt
quite incompetent to explain.
As it is always better honestly to confess one's ignorance, rather
than exist under its torture, with a firm step I walked to the door of
the governor of the brunnen; and sending up to him a card, bearing the
name under which I travelled, he instantly appeared, politely assuring
me that he should have much pleasure in affording any information I
desired.
Instantly pointing to the noseless soldiers, my instructor was good
enough to inform me, that bottles in vast numbers being supplied to
the Duke from various manufactories, in order to prove them, they are
filled brimful (as I had seen them) with water, and being left in that
state for the night, they are the next morning visited by an officer of
the Duke, whose wand of office is a thin, long-handled, little hammer,
which at the moment happened to be lying before us on the ground.
It appears that the two prevailing sins to which stone bottles are
prone, are having cracks, and being porous, in either of which cases
they, of course, in twelve hours, leak a little.
The Duke's officer, who is judge and jury in his own _court_-yard,
carries his own sentences into execution with a rapidity which even
our Lord Chancellor himself can only hope eventually to imitate.
Glancing his hawk-like eye along each line, the instant he sees a
bottle not brimful, without listening to long-winded arguments, he
at once decides "that there can be no mistake--that there shall be
no mistake;" and thus at one blow or tap of the hammer, off goes the
culprit's nose. "So much for Buckingham!"
Feeling quite relieved by this solution of the mystery, I troubled
the governor with a few questions, to reply to which he very kindly
conducted me to his counting-house, where, in the most liberal and
gentlemanlike manner, he gave me all the data I required.
The following, which I extracted from the daybook, is a statement
showing the number of bottles which were filled for exportation during
the year 1832, with the proportionate number filled during each month.
Large. Small.
January, 1832 301 25
February 9,235 2,100
March 304,529 95,714
April 207,887 49,562
May 167,706 61,589
June 155,688 14,063
July 76,086 16,388
August 58,848 9,159
September 27,216 9,555
October 23,512 3,297
November 2,323 25
December 151 44
--------- -------
1,033,662 261,521
Besides the above, there is a private consumption, amounting, on an
average, to very nearly half a million of bottles per annum.
It will, I hope, be recollected that by the time a bottle is sealed
it has undergone fifteen operations, all performed by different
people. The Duke, in his payments, does not enter into these details,
but, delivering his own bottles, he gives 17 1/2 kreuzers (nearly
sixpence) for every hundred, large or small, which are placed, filled,
in his magazines. The peasants, therefore, either share their labour
and profits among themselves, or the whole of the operations are
occasionally performed by the different members of one family; but so
much activity is required in constantly stooping and carrying off the
bottles, that this work is principally performed by young women of
eighteen or nineteen, assembled from all the neighbouring villages;
and who, by working from three in the morning till seven at night, can
gain a florin a day, or 30 florins a month, Sunday (excepting during
prayers) not being, I am sorry to say, at Nieder-Selters, a day of rest.
For the bottles themselves the Duke pays 4 1/2 florins per cent. for
the large ones, and 3 florins per cent. for the small ones. The large
bottles, when full, he sells at the brunnen for 13 florins a hundred.
His profit, last year, deducting all expenses, appeared to be,
as nearly as possible, 50,000 florins; and yet, this brunnen was
originally sold to the Duke's ancestor for a single butt of wine!
On coming out of the office, the establishment was all alive again,
and the peasants being in their Sunday clothes, the picture was highly
coloured. Young women in groups of four and five, with little white or
red caps perched on the tops of their heads, from which streamed three
or four broad ribands, of different colours, denoting the villages
they proceeded from, in various directions, singing as they went, were
walking together, heavily laden with bottles. They were dressed in
blue petticoats, clean white shifts tucked up above the elbows, with
coloured stays laced, or rather half unlaced, in front. Old women,
covering the corks with leather, in similar costume, but in colours
less gaudy, were displaying an activity much more vigorous than their
period of life. Across this party-coloured, well-arranged system, which
was as regular in its movements as the planets in their orbits, an
officer of the Duke, like a comet, occasionally darted from the office
to the brunnen, or from the tiers of empty bottles which had not yet
been proved, to the magazine of full ones ready to embark on their
travels.
In quitting the premises, as I passed the regiments of bottles, an
operation was proceeding which I had not before witnessed. Women in
wooden shoes were reversing the full bottles; in fact, without driving
these brown soldiers from their position, they were making them stand
upon their heads instead of upon their heels--the object of this
military somerset being to empty them; however, every noseless bottle,
water and all, was hurled over a wall, into a bin prepared on purpose
to receive them; and the smashing sound of devastation which proceeded
from this odd-looking operation it would be very difficult to describe.
Having now witnessed about as much as I desired of the lively brunnen
of Nieder-Selters, I bade adieu to this well-regulated establishment,
feeling certain that its portrait would, in future, re-appear before my
mind, in all its vivid colours whensoever and wheresoever I might drink
the refreshing, wholesome beverage obtained from its bright, sparkling
source. My carriage had long been waiting at the gate: however, having
aroused my lumbering and slumbering driver, I retraced my steps,
was slowly re-jolted homewards, and it was late before I reached my
peaceful abode in the gay, green little valley of Schlangenbad.