its characteristic architecture which catch the eye ever and anon among
the houses of Cattaro. The landing-place, the marina, the space between
the coast and the Venetian wall, where we pass for the last time under
the winged lion over the gate, has put on the air of a boulevard. But
the forms and costume of Bocchesi and Montenegrins, the men of the gulf,
with their arms in their girdles, no less than the men of the black
mountain, banish all thought that we are anywhere but where we really
are, at one of the border points of Christian and civilized Europe. If
in the sons of the mountains we see the men who have in all ages held
out against the invading Turk, we see in their brethren of the coast the
men who, but a few years back, brought Imperial, Royal, and Apostolic
Majesty to its knees ...
At Cattaro the Orthodox Church is on its own ground, standing side by
side on equal terms with its Latin rival, pointing to lands where the
Filioque[14] is unknown and where the Bishop of the Old Rome has even
been deemed an intruder. The building itself is a small Byzantine
church, less Byzantine in fact in its outline than the small churches of
the Byzantine type at Zara, Spalato, and Traü. The single dome rises,
not from the intersection of a Greek cross, but from the middle of a
single body, and, resting as it does on pointed arches, it suggests
the thought of Périgueux and Angoulême. But this arrangement, which is
shared by a neighboring Latin church, is well known throughout the East.
The Latin duomo, which has been minutely described by Mr. Neale,[15] is
of quite another type, and is by no means Dalmatian in its general look.
A modern west front with two western towers does not go for much; but it
reminds us that a design of the same kind was begun at Traü in better
times. The inside is quite unlike anything of later Italian work.
The traveler whose objects are of a more general kind turns away from
this border church of Christendom as the last stage of a pilgrimage
unsurpassed either for natural beauty or for historic interest. And, as
he looks up at the mountain which rises almost close above the east end
of the duomo of Cattaro, and thinks of the land[16] and the men to which
the path over that mountain leads, he feels that, on this frontier at
least, the spirit still lives which led English warriors to the side of
Manuel Komnênos, and which steeled the heart of the last Constantine to
die in the breach for the Roman name and the faith of Christendom.
VIII
OTHER AUSTRIAN SCENES
CRACOW[17]
BY MÉNIE MURIEL DOWIE
Cracow, old, tired and dispirited, speaks and thinks only of the ruinous
past. When you drive into Cracow from the station for the first time,
you are breathless, smiling, and tearful all at once; in the great
Ring-platz--a mass of old buildings--Cracow seems to hold out her arms
to you--those long sides that open from the corner where the cab drives
in. You do not have time to notice separately the row of small trees
down on one side, beneath which bright-colored women-figures control
their weekly market; you do not notice the sort of court-house in the
middle with its red roof, cream-colored galleries and shops beneath; you
do not notice the great tall church at one side of brick and stone most
perfectly time-reconciled, or the houses, or the crazed paving, or the
innocent little groups of cabs--you only see Cracow holding out her arms
to you, and you may lean down your head and weep from pure instinctive
sympathy. Suddenly a choir of trumpets breaks out into a chorale from
the big church tower; the melancholy of it I shall never forget--the
very melody seemed so old and tired, so worn and sweet and patient, like
Cracow. Those trumpet notes have mourned in that tower for hundreds of
years. It is the Hymn of Timeless Sorrow that they play, and the key
to which they are attuned in Cracow's long despair. Hush! That is her
voice, the old town's voice, high and sad--she is speaking to you.
Dear Cracow! Never again it seems to me, shall I come so near to the
deathless hidden sentiment of Poland as in those first moments. It would
be no use to tell her to take heart, that there may be brighter days
coming, and so forth. Lemberg may feel so, Lemberg that has the feelings
of any other big new town, the strength and the determination; but
Cracow's day was in the long ago, as a gay capital, a brilliant
university town full of princes, of daring, of culture, of wit. She has
outlived her day, and can only mourn over what has been and the times
that she has seen; she may be always proud of her character, of the
brave blood that has made scarlet her streets, but she can never be
happy remodeled as an Austrian garrison town, and in the new Poland--the
Poland whose foundation stones are laid in the hearts of her people,
and that may yet be built some day--in that new Poland there will be no
place for aristocratic, high-bred Cracow.
During my stay in the beautiful butter-colored palace that is now a
hotel, I went round the museums, galleries, and universities, most if
not all of which are free to the public. It would be unfair to give the
idea that Cracow has completely fallen to decay. This is not the case.
Austria has erected some very handsome buildings; and a town with such
fine pictures, good museums, and two universities, can not be complained
of as moribund. At the same time, I can only record faithfully my
impression, and that was that everything new, everything modern, was
hopelessly out of tone in Cracow; progress, which, tho' desirable, may
be a vulgar thing, would not suit her, and does not seem at home in her
streets.
About the Florian's Thor, with its round towers of old, sorrel-colored
brick, and the Czartoryski Museum, there is nothing to say that the
guide-book would not say better. In the museum, a tattered Polish flag
of red silk, with the white eagle, a cheerful bird with curled tail,
opened mouth, chirping defiantly to the left, imprest me, and a portrait
of Szopen (Chopin) in fine profile when laid out dead. For amusement,
there was a Paul Potter bull beside a Paul Potter willow, delightfully
unconscious of a coming Paul Potter thunderstorm, and a miniature of
Shakespeare which did not resemble any of the portraits of him that I
am familiar with. Any amount of Turkish trappings and reminiscences of
Potocki and Kosciuszko, of course. As I had no guide-book, I am quite
prepared to learn that I overlooked the most important relics.
In the cathedral, away up on the hill of Wawel, above the river Vistula
(Wisla) I prowled about among the crypts with a curious specimen of
beadledom who ran off long unintelligible histories in atrocious
Viennese patois about every solemn tomb by which we stood. So far as I
was concerned it might just as well have been the functionary who herds
small droves of visitors in Westminster Abbey. I never listen to these
people, because (i) I do not care to be informed; and (ii) since I
should never remember what they said, it is useless my even letting it
in at one ear. The kindly, cobwebby old person who piloted me
among those wonderful kings' graves in Cracow was personally not
uninteresting, indeed a fine study, and his rigmaroles brought up
infallibly upon three words which I could not fail to notice: these
were "silberner Sarg vergoldet" (silver coffin, gilded). It had an odd
fascination for me this phrase, as I stood always waiting for it; why, I
wondered, should anybody want to gild a good solid silver coffin?
At the time of my first visit, the excavation necessary to form the
crypt for the resting-place of Mickiewicz[18] was in progress, and I
went in among the limey, dusty workmen, with their tallow candles,
and looked round. In return for my gulden, the beadle gave me a
few immortelles from Sobieski's tomb, and some laurel leaves from
Kosciuszko's; and remembering friends at home of refinedly ghoulish
tastes, I determined to preserve those poor moldering fragments for
them.
Most of my days and evenings I spent wandering by the Vistula and in and
out of the hundred churches. My plan was to sight a spire, and then walk
to the root of it, so to speak. In this manner I saw the town very well.
The houses were of brick and plaster, the rich carmine-red brick that
has made Cracow so beautiful. On each was a beautiful façade, and
pediments in renaissance, bas-relief work of cupids, and classic figures
with ribands and roses tying among them, seeming to speak, somehow, of
the dead princes and the mighty aristocracy which had cost Cracow so
dear.
In the Jews' quarter that loud lifelong market of theirs was going
forward, which required seemingly only some small basinfuls of sour
Gurken and a few spoonfuls of beans of its stock-in-trade. Mingling
among the Jews were the peasants, of course; the men in tightly fitting
trousers of white blanket cloth, rich embroidered on the upper part and
down the seams in blue and red; the women wearing pink printed muslin
skirts, often with a pale blue muslin apron and a lemon-colored fine
wool cloth, spotted in pink, upon the head. They manifested a great
appreciation of color, but none of form, and after the free dress of
the Hucal women, these people, mummied in their red tartan shawls--all
hybrid Stewarts, they seemed to me--were merely bright bundles in the
sunshine.
In the shops in Cracow, French was nearly always the language of attack,
and a good deal was spoken in the hotel. I had occasion to buy a great
many things, but, according to my custom, not a photograph was among
them; therefore, when I go back, I shall receive perfectly new and fresh
impressions of the place, and can cherish no vague memories, encouraged
by an album at home, in which the nameless cathedrals of many countries
confuse themselves, and only the Coliseum at Rome stands forth, not to
be contradicted or misnamed.
But it became necessary to put a period to my wandering, unless I wished
to find myself stranded in Vienna with "neither cross nor pile." The
references to money-matters have been designedly slight throughout these
pages. It is not my habit to keep accounts. I have never found that
you get any money back by knowing just how you have spent it, and a
conscience-pricking record of expenses is very ungrateful reading. So,
when a certain beautiful evening came, I felt that I had to look upon it
as my last. Being too early for the train, I bid the man drive about in
the early summer dark for three-quarters of an hour.
To such as do not care for precise information and statistics in foreign
places, but appreciate rather atmosphere and impression, I can recommend
this course. In and out among the pretty garden woods, outside the town,
we drove. Buildings loomed majestically out of the night; sometimes it
was the tower of an unknown church, sometimes it was the house of some
forgotten family that sprang suggestively to the eye, and I was grateful
that I was left to suppose the indefinite type of Austrian bureau, which
occupied, in all probability, the first floor. Then we came to the
river, and later, Wawel stood massed out black upon the blue, the
glorious gravestone of a fallen Power.
All the stars were shining, and little red-yellow lights in the castle
windows were not much bigger. Above the whisper of the willows on its
bank came the deep, quiet murmur of the Vistula, and every now and then,
over the several towers of the solemn old palaces and the spires of the
church where Poland has laid her kings, and so recently the king of the
poets, the stars were dropping from their places, like sudden spiders,
letting themselves down into the vast by faint yellow threads that
showed a moment after the star itself was gone.
Later, as I looked from the open gallery of the train that was taking me
away, I could not help thinking that, just a hundred years ago, Wawel's
star was shining with a light bright enough for all Europe to see;
but even as the stars fell that night and left their places empty, so
Wawel's star has fallen and Poland's star has fallen too.
ON THE ROAD TO PRAGUE[19]
BY BAYARD TAYLOR
I was pleasantly disappointed on entering Bohemia. Instead of a dull,
uninteresting country, as I expected, it is a land full of the most
lovely scenery. There is everything which can gratify the eye--high blue
mountains, valleys of the sweetest pastoral look and romantic old ruins.
The very name of Bohemia is associated with wild and wonderful legends
of the rude barbaric ages. Even the chivalric tales of the feudal times
of Germany grow tame beside these earlier and darker histories. The
fallen fortresses of the Rhine or the robber-castles of the Odenwald
had not for me so exciting an interest as the shapeless ruins cumbering
these lonely mountains. The civilized Saxon race was left behind; I
saw around me the features and heard the language of one of those rude
Slavonic tribes whose original home was on the vast steppes of Central
Asia.
I have rarely enjoyed traveling more than our first two days' journey
toward Prague. The range of the Erzgebirge ran along on our right; the
snow still lay in patches upon it, but the valleys between, with their
little clusters of white cottages, were green and beautiful. About six
miles before reaching Teplitz we passed Kulm, the great battlefield
which in a measure decided the fate of Napoleon. He sent Vandamme with
forty thousand men to attack the allies before they could unite their
forces, and thus effect their complete destruction. Only the almost
despairing bravery of the Russian guards under Ostermann, who held him
in check till the allied troops united, prevented Napoleon's design. At
the junction of the roads, where the fighting was hottest, the Austrians
have erected a monument to one of their generals. Not far from it is
that of Prussia, simple and tasteful. A woody hill near, with the little
village of Kulm at its foot, was the station occupied by Vandamme at
the commencement of the battle. There is now a beautiful chapel on its
summit which can be seen far and wide. A little distance farther the
Czar of Russia has erected a third monument, to the memory of the
Russians who fell. Four lions rest on the base of the pedestal, and on
the top of the shaft, forty-five feet high, Victory is represented as
engraving the date, "Aug. 30, 1813," on a shield. The dark pine-covered
mountains on the right overlook the whole field and the valley of
Torlitz; Napoleon rode along their crests several days after the battle
to witness the scene of his defeat.
Teplitz lies in a lovely valley, several miles wide, bounded by the
Bohemian mountains on one side and the Erzgebirge on the other. One
straggling peak near is crowned with a picturesque ruin, at whose foot
the spacious bath-buildings lie half hidden in foliage. As we went
down the principal street I noticed nearly every house was a hotel; we
learned afterward that in summer the usual average of visitors is five
thousand.[20] The waters resemble those of the celebrated Carlsbad; they
are warm and practically efficacious in rheumatism and diseases of like
character. After leaving Teplitz the road turned to the east, toward a
lofty mountain which we had seen the morning before. The peasants, as
they passed by, saluted us with "Christ greet you!"
We stopt for the night at the foot of the peak called the Milleschauer,
and must have ascended nearly two thousand feet, for we had a wide view
the next morning, altho' the mists and clouds hid the half of it. The
weather being so unfavorable, we concluded not to ascend, and descended
through green fields and orchards snowy with blossoms to Lobositz, on
the Elbe. Here we reached the plains again, where everything wore the
luxuriance of summer; it was a pleasant change from the dark and rough
scenery we left.
The road passed through Theresienstadt, the fortress of Northern
Bohemia. The little city is surrounded by a double wall and moat which
can be filled with water, rendering it almost impossible to be taken. In
the morning we were ferried over the Moldau, and after journeying nearly
all day across barren, elevated plains saw, late in the afternoon, the
sixty-seven spires of Prague below.
I feel out of the world in this strange, fantastic, yet beautiful, old
city. We have been rambling all morning through its winding streets,
stopping sometimes at a church to see the dusty tombs and shrines or to
hear the fine music which accompanies the morning mass. I have seen no
city yet that so forcibly reminds one of the past and makes him forget
everything but the associates connected with the scenes around him.
The language adds to the illusion. Three-fourths of the people in the
streets speak Bohemian and many of the signs are written in the same
tongue.
The palace of the Bohemian kings still looks down on the city from the
western heights, and their tombs stand in the cathedral of St. John.
When one has climbed up the stone steps leading to the fortress, there
is a glorious prospect before him. Prague with its spires and towers
lies in the valleys below, through which curves the Moldau with its
green islands, disappearing among the hills which enclose the city on
every side. The fantastic Byzantine architecture of many of the churches
and towers gives the city a peculiar Oriental appearance; it seems to
have been transported from the hills of Syria....
Having found out first a few of the locations, we haunted our way with
difficulty through its labyrinths, seeking out every place of note or
interest. Reaching the bridge at last, we concluded to cross over and
ascend to the Hradschin, the palace of the Bohemian kings. The bridge
was commenced in 1357, and was one hundred and fifty years in building.
That was the way the old Germans did their work, and they made a
structure which will last a thousand years longer. Every pier is
surmounted with groups of saints and martyrs, all so worn and timebeaten
that there is little left of their beauty, if they ever had any. The
most important of them--at least to Bohemians--is that of St. John
Nepomuk, now considered as the patron-saint of the land. He was a priest
many centuries ago [1340-1393] whom one of the kings threw from the
bridge into the Moldau because he refused to reveal to him what the
queen confest. The legend says the body swam for some time on the river
with five stars around its head.
Ascending the broad flight of steps to the Hradschin, I paused a moment
to look at the scene below. A slight blue haze hung over the clustering
towers, and the city looked dim through it, like a city seen in a dream.
It was well that it should so appear, for not less dim and misty are the
memories that haunt its walls. There was no need of a magician's wand to
bid that light cloud shadow forth the forms of other times. They
came uncalled for even by Fancy. Far, far back in the past I saw the
warrior-princess who founded the kingly city--the renowned Libussa,
whose prowess and talent inspired the women of Bohemia to rise at her
death and storm the land that their sex might rule where it obeyed
before. On the mountain opposite once stood the palace of the bloody
Wlaska, who reigned with her Amazon band for seven years over half
Bohemia. Those streets below had echoed with the fiery words of Huss,
and the castle of his follower--the blind Ziska, who met and defeated
the armies of the German Empire--molders on the mountains above. Many a
year of war and tempest has passed over the scene. The hills around have
borne the armies of Wallenstein and Frederick the Great; the war-cry of
Bavaria, Sweden and Poland has echoed in the valley, and the red glare
of the midnight cannon or the flames of burning palaces have often
gleamed along the "blood-dyed waters" of the Moldau...
On the way down again we stept into the St. Nicholas Church, which was
built by the Jesuits. The interior has a rich effect, being all of brown
and gold. The massive pillars are made to resemble reddish-brown
marble, with gilded capitals, and the statues at the base are profusely
ornamented in the same style. The music chained me there a long time.
There was a grand organ, assisted by a full orchestra and large choir of
singers. It was placed above, and at every sound of the priest's bell
the flourish of trumpets and deep roll of the drums filled the dome with
a burst of quivering sound, while the giant pipes of the organ breathed
out their full harmony and the very air shook under the peal. It was
like a triumphal strain. The soul became filled with thoughts of power
and glory; every sense was changed into one dim, indistinct emotion of
rapture which held the spirit as if spellbound.
Not far from this place is the palace of Wallenstein, in the same
condition as when he inhabited it. It is a plain, large building having
beautiful gardens attached to it, which are open to the public. We
went through the courtyard, threaded a passage with a roof of rough
stalactitic rock and entered the garden, where a revolving fountain was
casting up its glittering arches.
THE CAVE OF ADELSBERG[21]
BY GEORGE STILLMAN HILLARD
The night had been passed at Adelsberg, and the morning had been
agreeably occupied in exploring the wonders of its celebrated cavern.
The entrance is through an opening in the side of a hill. In a few
moments, after walking down a gentle descent, a sound of flowing water
is heard, and the light of the torches borne by the guides gleams
faintly upon a river which runs through these sunless chasms, and
revisits the glimpses of day at Planina, some ten miles distant.
The visitor now finds himself in a vast hall, walled and roofed by
impenetrable darkness of the stream, which is crossed by a wooden
bridge; and the ascent on the other side is made by a similar flight of
steps. The bridge and steps are marked by a double row of lights, which
present a most striking appearance as their tremulous luster struggles
through the night that broods over them. Such a scene recalls Milton's
sublime pictures of Pandemonium, and shows directly to the eye what
effects a great imaginative painter may produce with no other colors
than light and darkness. Here are the "stately height," the "ample
spaces," the "arched roof," the rows of "starry lamps and blazing
cressets" of Satan's hall of council; and by the excited fancy the dim
distance is easily peopled with gigantic forms and filled with the
"rushing of congregated wings."
After this, one is led through a variety of chambers, differing in size
and form, but essentially similar in character, and the attention is
invited to the innumerable multitude of striking and fantastic objects
which have been formed in the lapse of ages, by the mere dropping of
water. Pendants hang from the roof, stalagmites grow from the floor like
petrified stumps, and pillars and buttresses are disposed as oddly as
in the architecture of a dream. Here, we are told to admire a bell, and
there, a throne; here, a pulpit, and there, a butcher's shop; here, "the
two hearts," and there, a fountain frozen into alabaster; and in every
case we assent to the resemblance in the unquestioning mood of Polonius.
One of the chambers, or halls, is used every year as a ball-room, for
which purpose it has every requisite except an elastic floor, even to a
natural dais for the orchestra.
Here, with the sort of pride with which a book collector shows a Mazarin
Bible or a folio Shakespeare, the guides point out a beautiful piece of
limestone which hangs from the roof in folds as delicate as a Cashmere
shawl, to which the resemblance is made more exact by a well-defined
border of deeper color than the web. Through this translucent curtain
the light shines as through a picture in porcelain, and one must be very
unimpressible not to bestow the tribute of admiration which is claimed.
These are the trivial details which may be remembered and described,
but the general effect produced by the darkness, the silence, the vast
spaces, the innumerable forms, the vaulted roofs, the pillars and
galleries melting away in the gloom like the long-drawn aisles of a
cathedral, may be recalled but not communicated.