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 villagers as the "iron
spring." Then, as we shook hands and parted, he made another low bow,
and hoped I would recommend all my friends to seek for entertainment
under his sign. It would be ungracious not to comply with his wish; so
should any of my friends have the patience or courage to read these
pages, and an inclination to visit Buchau, I hereby counsel them to
tarry at the _Herrnhaus_.
The castle, or rather the ruin, rises on the summit of a rounded hill
about a mile from the village. There is but little in them to charm
either the eye or the fancy, for their name and place recall nothing
that lingers in the memory. A few words suffice to tell that here once
stood the castle of Hartenstein, otherwise Hungerberg, sheltering
knights as lawless as any reiving Johnstone, till King George
Podiebrad, intolerant of their wild ways, rooted them out in 1468, and
knocked their stronghold to pieces. He showed them the less mercy,
from having had, the year before, to lay siege for twelve weeks to a
castle near Raudnitz, held by conspirators who set him at defiance.
Engelhaus, as is believed, felt the first touch of ruin some fifty
years later.
Nevertheless, the half-hour spent in the excursion is not time lost,
for the spiral path that winds round the hill is well-nigh hidden by
wild flowers--a right royal carpet, and perfumed withal, swept by all
the breezes. And then there is always the view while you scramble
about among the broken walls and bits of towers, getting peeps at
parts of the landscape framed by a shattered window. It is something
to note how unvarying is the scenery: hills shaped like barn roofs;
the same undulations; vast fields; a few ponds; dark masses of firs,
lacking somewhat of cheerfulness notwithstanding the sunshine; and
the village in the midst of all, an irregular patch of gray and white.
Far as eye can reach it is the same, and so shall we find it all the
way to Prague.
The wind increased mightily while I was on the hill, and as it swept
coldly over the broad slopes of grain and clover, the whole landscape
seemed to become a great, green, rippling sea.
My recollections of this day include--a flock of geese grazing on a
bit of common about every league; men leading oxen by a strip of hide
to pasture on the roadside grass; women cutting fodder in nooks and
corners; shepherds, whose booted legs gave them anything but a
pastoral appearance; rows of cherry-trees, and the guards in straw
huts keeping watch over the fruit; and miles of road irksomely
straight between plum-trees.
Here and there you come to a homestead or _Gasthaus_, surrounded by a
high and thick whitewashed wall, with one or more arched gateways, as
if the inmates could not give up the mediæval habit of living within a
fortress. On approaching Liebkowitz, the pale colour of the land
changes to a warm red, and fields of peas which seem endless, and
small plantations of hops, diversify the surface, and contrast with
the village, where the clean white pillars of the gateways, the red
roofs, topped here and there with a purple ball, engage your eye.
At Lubenz, where the main road, with its bordering of tall poles and
telegraphic wire turns aside to the Saatzer Circle, I struck into the
direct route for Prague, and keeping on at an easy pace, getting a
passing view of Schloss Petersburg on the right--a factory-like
building--I came at eventide to the _Gasthof zum Rose_ at Willenz.
There is many a chapel in England smaller than the common room at the
_Rose_, and the same may be said of nearly every roadside inn at which
I stayed. Large as the rooms are, it is sometimes difficult to find a
seat among the numerous guests; and on Sundays especially they are
overcrowded. Here in one corner stood the stove enclosed by a dresser,
on which all the preparations for cooking were carried on; and, in the
opposite corner, the bar behind a wooden fence, running up to the
ceiling. Bread, smoked sausage, _schnaps_, and liqueurs, are served
from the bar; beer is fetched directly from the cellar.
The host was thrifty, and kept his four daughters busy in waiting on
customers. The eldest presided at the stove, and the other three went
continually to and fro, refilling the tankards of beer-drinkers, or
dealing out delicacies from the bar. Comely damsels they were, dressed
in purple bodices, and pink skirts that trailed on the floor in all
the amplitude prescribed by the milliners at Paris. I could not fail
to be struck by the frequency of their visits to the cellar to supply
the demands of about twenty men, who, seated at one of the tables,
appeared to have been making a day of it. Tankard after tankard was
swallowed with marvellous rapidity, and still the cry was "more." For
the first time, in my few trips to the Continent, I saw drunkards, and
these were not the only sots that came before me during the present
journey: all, however, within Bohemia.
Casual customers would now and then drop in, call for beer, drink a
small quantity, and leave the tankard standing on the table and go
away for half an hour, then return, take another gulp, and so on. One
of the tables was covered by these drink-and-come-again tankards, and
though all alike in appearance, I noticed that every man knew his own
again. Among these bibbers by instalments the landlord was
conspicuous, for he took a gulp from his tankard every five minutes,
and never left it a moment empty.
Now and then slouched in a troop of dusty-booted wagoners, who drank a
cup of coffee, and went slouching forth to their wearisome journey. At
times a half-dozen peasants strode noisily in, and refreshed
themselves with a draught of beer for their walk home; and sausage and
little broils were in constant request. The host rubbed his hands, and
well he might, for trade was brisk; and when he brought me a baked
chicken--which, by the way, is another favourite dish in Bohemia--for
my supper, and heard my praise of his beer, he told me that he brewed
his own beer and grew his own hops. "You will see two big pockets of
hops on the landing when you go to bed," he added, with the look of an
innkeeper thoroughly self-satisfied. And then he sat down and gave his
two sons a writing-lesson.
After supper, one of the pink-robed damsels placed a wooden
candlestick, nearly a yard in height, on the table, and brought the
inevitable book--that miscellaneous collection of travellers'
autographs, kept for the edification of the Imperial police. More
inquisitorial than any I had yet seen, this book contained three
columns, in one of which I had to note whether I was married or
single; "Catholic or other beliefed;" acquainted with any one in any
of the places I intended to visit, or not!
Having entered the required particulars, the damsel leaning over the
page the while, I asked her what use would be made of them?
"The gendarme comes to look at the book," she answered, "and if he
found the columns empty, so would he blame my father sorely, and wake
you up with loud noise to ask the reason. Ah! sometimes he comes
before bedtime; sometimes not till midnight, when all folk are asleep.
Then must doors be opened and questions answered; and if he discovers
some one in bed whose name is not yet in the book, then he makes great
outcry, and my father must pay a fine, and the stranger must to the
guard-house if he have not good passport. Truly, the law is strong
over the book."
Happy land! Paternal government is so careful of the governed, so
anxious to encourage sedentary virtues, that no one is allowed to go
more than four hours, about twelve miles, from home without a passport
or ticket of residence (_Heimathschein_); and should any one not quite
so tame as his fellows wish to overpass the prescribed limit, paternal
government not unfrequently keeps him waiting three days for the
precious permit, or refuses it altogether. In a town which we shall
come to by-and-by, I saw a poor woman, who begged leave to visit one
of her children some fifteen miles distant, turned away with an
uncompromising denial. Think of this, my countrymen!--Islanders free
to jaunt or journey whithersoever ye will: be ye mighty or mean--even
ticket-of-leave holders.
Whatever the cause, the regulations concerning passports are in
Bohemia very rigorous. It may be that the people have not forgotten
they once had a king of their own, or that a remarkable intellectual
movement is taking place among the Czechs, or that a simmering up of
Protestantism has become chronic within the ring of mountains;
whatever the cause, the pressure of authority's heaviest hand is
manifest. For my own part--to mention a little thing among great
things--I was more fidgetted about my passport in Bohemia than ever
anywhere else.
It is worse in Hungary. In that province the burden of oppression is
felt to a degree inconceivable by an Englishman. Passports for France
or England were peremptorily refused to Hungarians of whatever degree
during the year 1855; and in 1856, when the rigour was somewhat
relaxed, leave was granted for three months only. And should any one
be known to have paid a visit to Kossuth while in London, even though
he might believe the exile to be a better orator than ruler, he would
find the discipline of imprisonment awaiting him on his return _home_.
Think of Albert Smith, or any other enterprising tourist, having to
ask Lord Clarendon's permission to steam up the Rhine, ascend Mont
Blanc, or travel anywhither! 'Tis well the Magyars are not a hopeless
race.
The members of the Hungarian Academy at Pesth are not allowed to hold
their weekly meetings unless an Imperial Commissioner be present to
watch the proceedings, and stop the discussion of forbidden subjects.
Not a word must be spoken concerning politics, or liberty in any form.
History is tolerated only when she discourses of antiquities--urns,
buildings, dress and manners, philology, or art. Science even must
wear fetters, and preserve herself demure and orthodox. A speculative
philosopher might as well attempt to utter high treason, as to read a
paper demonstrating by geological proofs the countless ages of the
earth's existence, or to quote a chapter from the _Vestiges of
Creation_. This work is included among the prohibited books, of which
a list is sent to the Academy once a week. One copy of the _Times_--a
solitary feather from Liberty's wing--finds its way into Pesth: a rare
indulgence for the Englishman who reads it. Imagine Sir Richard Mayne
sitting at meetings of the Royal Society, with power to stop Sir
Roderick Murchison in his Silurian evidences; or the Rev. Baden Powell
in his speculations and inferences concerning the _Unity of Worlds_;
or the utterance of Professor Faraday's opinions concerning
gravitation; and telling them they shall not read Hugh Miller's
_Testimony of the Rocks_!
But to return. Among those who dropped in was a tall, grizzly peasant,
who presently began a talk with me about what he called his sad
condition. His lot was a hard one, because the country was kept down;
and hoping for better times would be vain while France and England
maintained their alliance. All who felt themselves aggrieved--and
their number was great--saw no prospect of redress but in a new
outbreak of strife between those two nations; let that only come, and
from the Rhine to the Vistula all would be in revolution, wrong would
be punished, and the right prevail. He knew many a peasant who was of
the same way of thinking.
Not being able to flatter him with hopes of a rupture between the Lion
and the Cock, I suggested his taking the matter into his own hands,
and making the best of present circumstances. Thrift and diligence
would do him more good than a revolution. Whereupon he told me how he
lived; how hard he worked to cultivate his plot of ground; how rarely
he ate anything besides bread and potatoes; and as for beer, it was
never seen under his roof.
"Do you think it fair, then," I rejoined, "to sit here drinking? Why
not carry home a measure of beer, and let your wife share it?"
He made no answer; but rose from his seat, shook me by the hand, and
walked heavily away.