Hirschberg -- The Officers' Tomb -- A Night Journey --
Spiller -- Greifenberg -- Changing Horses -- A Royal Reply
-- A Griffin's Nest -- Lauban -- The Potato Jubilee --
Görlitz -- Peter and Paul Church -- View from the Tower --
The Landskrone -- Jacob Böhme -- The Hidden Gold -- A
Theosophist's Writings -- The Tombs -- The Underground
Chapel -- A Church copied from Jerusalem -- The Public
Library -- Loebau -- Herrnhut.
It was so dark when the omnibus from Warmbrunn arrived at
Hirschberg--about five miles--that I lost the sight of its pretty
environment, watered by the Bober and Zacken, and of its old
picturesque houses, the gables of which were dimly visible against the
sky. The town has more than seven thousand inhabitants, and for trade
ranks next to Breslau. Its history is that of most towns along this
side of Silesia: so much suffering by war, that you wonder how they
ever survived. A memorial of the latest scourge is to be seen in the
Hospital churchyard--a cast-iron monument in memory of three
Prussians, who, wounded at Lützen in 1813, died here on the same day.
Under their names runs the inscription: _They died in an Iron time for
a Golden_.
Not being able to see anything, I booked a place by _Stellwagen_ for
Görlitz, and supped in preparation for a night of travel. We started
at eleven, a company numerous enough to fill three vehicles, those
lowest on the list taking their seats in the hindmost. As these
hindmost carriages are changed at every stopping-place with the
horses, I and other unfortunates had to turn out at unseasonable
hours, and to find, in two instances, that we had not changed for the
better--soft seats and cleanliness for hard seats and fustiness. So at
Spiller: so at Greifenberg.
It adds somewhat to one's experiences to be roused from uneasy slumber
at midnight with notice to alight. You feel for umbrella and knapsack,
and step down into the chill gloom of a summer night; and while the
leisurely work of changing goes on, stroll a little way up or down the
roughly-paved street, looking at the strange old houses, all so still
and lifeless, as if they were fast asleep as well as their inmates.
Why should you be awake and shivering when honest folk are a-bed? and
you feel an inclination to envy the sleepers. If you turn a corner and
get out of sight of the Posthouse, the houses look still more lonely
and unprotected: not a glimmer to be seen, and it seems unfair that
every one should be comfortable but you. Or from the outside of a
house you picture to yourself those who inhabit it; or, perhaps, you
get a peep into the churchyard, or venture through a dark arch to what
looks like an ancient cloister, and your drowsy thought gives way to
strange imaginings.
But the night is chilly. Let us go into the Posthouse. There is
comfort by the stove in the inner room, and the woman who has sat up
to await our arrival brings an acceptable refreshment of coffee and
cakes. Steaming coffee, with the true flavour; and not sixpence a cup,
but six kreutzers. Then the driver blows his horn, and each one takes
his allotted seat, to slumber if he can through another jolting stage.
Greifenberg, a town of three thousand inhabitants, on the Queiss, is
proud of four things: manufacture of fine linen and damask, a griffin
in its coat-of-arms, and a right royal word of the Great Frederick.
Certain deputies having appeared before the monarch to thank him for
his prompt and generous aid in restoring the town after a great fire
in 1783--"For that am I here!" was his kingly reply.
About two miles distant is the Greifenstein, a basaltic hill, so named
from a nest of young griffins found on the top of it at a date which
no one can remember. It is now crowned by the ruins of a castle which
was given by the Emperor Charles IV., in the fourteenth century, as a
reward for service to the brave Silesian knight Schaffgotsch. Were it
daylight we might see in the Romish church a vault which has been the
burial-place of the Schaffgotsch family since 1546.
It was early morning when we came to Lauban, and changed carriages by
the side of the grass-grown moat at a break in the old round-towered
wall. The view from the adjacent _Steinberg_ is described as equal in
beauty to any other scene in Prussia. Unfortunately I had not time to
judge for myself; but hope to go and see some future day. Perhaps,
while waiting here, you will be reminded that Lauban was one of the
Silesian towns which, on the 19th of August, 1836, held a jubilee to
celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of the introduction of the
potato into Europe by the famous circumnavigator Drake--as the
promoters said. Of course potatoes cooked in many ways appeared
plentifully at every table over half the province.
We reached Görlitz at eight, and for some reason, perhaps known to the
driver, went through the streets in and out, up and down, across the
Neisse to the _Postamt_ in the new quarter, at a slow walking pace. I
had three hours to wait for a train, and to improve the time, after
comforting myself at the _Goldenen Strauss_, mounted to the top of the
Peter and Paul church tower. Erected on a rocky eminence, rising
steeply from the river, it commands a wide prospect. The town itself,
a busy place of more than 18,000 inhabitants, closely packed, as in
the olden time, around the church; spreading out beyond into broad,
straight streets and squares, well-planted avenues, and pretty
pleasure-grounds; and in this roomy border you see bleaching-greens,
the barracks, the gymnasium, and observatory. From thence your eye
wanders over the hills of Lusatia to the distant mountains--a fair
region, showing a thousand slopes to the sun. About two miles distant
the _Landskrone_ rises from the valley of the Neisse--a conspicuous
rocky hill bristling with trees. We got a glimpse of it from
_Schneekoppe_; and now you will perhaps fancy it a watch-tower, midway
between the Giant Mountains and the romantic highlands of Saxony.
The sight of that hill recalls the name of the "Teutonic
philosopher"--Jacob Böhme. He was born at Alt-Seidenberg, about a mile
from Görlitz, in 1575; and he relates that one day when employing
himself as herdboy, to relieve the monotony of shoemaking, he
discovered a cool bosky crevice on the _Landskrone_, and crept in for
shelter from the heat of the sun. Inside, to his great surprise, he
saw a wooden bowl, or vase, full of money, which he feared to touch,
and went presently and told certain of his playmates of the discovery.
With them he returned to the hill; but though they searched and
searched again, they could never find the cleft, nor the wonderful
hoard. A few years later, however, there came a cunning diviner, who,
exploring with his rod, discovered the money and carried it off; and
soon after perished miserably, for a curse had been declared on
whomsoever should touch the gold.
Fate had other things in store for Jacob, and allured him from his
last to write voluminous works on theosophy, wherein he discusses the
most mysterious questions about the soul, its relations to God and the
universe, and such like; and great became the poor shoemaker's repute
among the learned. Some travelled from far to confer with him; some
translated his books into French and English; some studied German that
they might read them in the original; and even Isaac Newton used at
times to divert his mind from laborious search after the laws of
gravitation by perusal of Böhme's speculations. That Jacob was not a
dreamer on all points is clear from what he used to pen for those who
begged a scrap of his writing:
"_Wem Zeit ist wie Ewigkeit,
Und Ewigkeit wie die Zeit,
Der ist befreit von allem Streit._"[I]
There is something to be seen in the church itself as well as from
the top of the tower. It is a singularly beautiful specimen of Gothic
architecture of the fifteenth century. The great height of the nave,
with the light and graceful form of the columns and arches, produce an
admirable effect, to which the high altar, the carved stone pulpit,
and the large organ do no violence. It is one of those buildings you
could linger in for hours, contemplating now its fair proportions, now
the old tombs and monuments, and quaint devices of the sculptor's art.
Below the floor at the eastern end is an underground chapel, a century
older than the church itself, hewn out of the solid rock. Preaching is
held in it once a year. The attendant will make you aware in the dim
light of a spring that simmers gently up and fills a basin scooped in
the solid stone of the floor.
The church of the Holy Cross in the Nicolai suburb is remarkable as
having been built, and with a sepulchre, after the original at
Jerusalem by a burgomaster of Görlitz, who travelled twice to
Jerusalem, in 1465 and in 1476, to procure the necessary plans and
measurements for the work. There is a singularity about the sepulchre:
it is always either too long or too short for any corpse that may be
brought to it, and yet appears large enough for a Hercules.
The town possesses two good libraries, each containing about twenty
thousand volumes. In the _Rathsbibliothek_ you may see rare
manuscripts, among them the _Sachsenspiegel_; and a book which
purports to have been printed before the invention of printing,
bearing date 1400! The other library belongs to the Society for the
Promotion of Science, who have besides a good collection of maps,
fossils, minerals, and philosophical instruments. Perhaps here in
England writers and scholars in provincial towns will some day be able
to resort to libraries and museums as easily as in the small towns of
Germany. Many an English student would be thankful to find in his
native town even one such library as those at Görlitz.
The train from Breslau kept good time. It dropped me at Loebau, where
there is a church in which service is performed in the Wendish tongue.
From hence a branch line runs to Zittau. I stopped half way at
Herrnhut, the head-quarters of the Moravians: a place I had long
wished to see.
FOOTNOTE:
[I] To whom time is as eternity,
And eternity as time,
He is freed from all strife.