PRAGUE, BOHEMIA, _July 12, 1841_.
I will give you some idea of the mode of travel in Hungary. Between
Vienna and Pest there is a separate posting establishment, set on
foot by peasants, who drive their own horses, and travel twice as
expeditiously as an ordinary post. Their only carriage is a light
wagon, which is furnished with an abundance of straw or hay to make it
comfortable, with a rude temporary cover of matting thrown over it, to
protect from the rays of the sun, and rain. The pace at which these
conveyances travel is absolutely wonderful, especially some of the
stages. One of these stages, of forty miles, was performed within four
hours, with a stop of fifteen minutes to water. Most of the time they
went at the most rapid speed, keeping the horses, of which there were
four, at a full gallop.
It is a curious, but attractive sight, to see the wild looking driver,
with his long black hair floating in the breeze, his broad-brimmed
hat and feather, as he turns around to ask for your admiration when
his four, little, clean-limbed nags are rattling away over hills and
through hollows, at a rate absolutely frightful. Go slow he will not;
and if you escape being overturned, and left by the road-side, you are
fortunate.
Hungary is a rich agricultural country, producing immense quantities of
grain of different kinds. In the opinion of some, it is not uncommon
for travellers to exaggerate; and when I say that we passed through
fields ten miles in extent, with wheat on both sides as far as the
eye could reach, it will scarcely appear credible. The small Hungarian
towns present a singular appearance, having mostly one long and very
broad street. The houses all stand with their gables to the street,
are one story high, and about eighteen feet wide, with but one front
window, but extending very deep to the rear. In towns of three or four
hundred houses, you will scarcely discover two with any other covering
than a thatched straw roof, but they are all well whitewashed, and have
a greater appearance of comfort and neatness than one would suppose.
The estates are very large, and most of the peasants are mere slaves.
It is amusing to see them on Sunday, or a holiday, with their gay
attire; their round-topped broad-brimmed hats filled with feathers
and gay flowers, and the rest of their peculiar dresses decked in
corresponding style, with gaudy finery, remind one of our American
Indians.
On our route to this city from Vienna, we stopped at Brunn, the capital
of Moravia, a city with a population of forty thousand. The sect
called Moravians originated in this country. It is a manufacturing
city, and may be regarded as the Austrian Leeds for its cloths and
woollen stuffs. Baron Trenck, the savage leader of the Pandours, the
wild vanguard of the Austrian army, died here, and is buried in the
church of the Capuchins. About ten miles from Brunn lies the famous
battle-field of Austerlitz.
This city stands in a basin-shaped valley, cut in two by the river
Moldau. It is surrounded on all sides by rocks or eminences, upon which
slope the buildings of the city, rising tier above tier as they recede
from the water’s edge. There is something of Asiatic splendor in the
aspect and form of the domes, turrets, spires, and minarets, which
rise up without number on all sides. The most imposing building is the
ancient palace of the Bohemian kings, which stands upon the crest of
an eminence, and overlooks all the other buildings of the city. The
population is one hundred and twenty thousand.
The city contains much to interest strangers. The Aldstadt, as its
name imports, is connected with the new part of the town by a bridge
of massive stone, which was begun in the year 1356, by the emperor
Charles IV., and finished in 1507; it is one thousand seven hundred
and ninety feet long, and is ornamented with fifty-six statues of
saints, twenty-eight on each side,--one of them a bronze statue of
St. Nepomuck, who, according to the Popish legend, was thrown from
this bridge into the river and drowned, in 1383, by king Wenceslaus,
because he refused to betray the secrets confided to him by his queen
in the holy rite of confession. The spot is now marked by five stars
and a cross, in imitation of the miraculous flames which for three
days after he was drowned, were seen flickering over the place where
his body lay under water. The river was dragged, his body found and
encased in a gorgeous silver shrine, and placed in the cathedral. From
this circumstance, he became the patron saint of bridges; and wherever
I have travelled in Catholic countries, I find the statue of St. John
Nepomuck occupying the same situation by the bridges. The shrine and
chapel in the cathedral are among the most richly finished in the
world. The body is contained in a crystal coffin, inclosed in one of
silver, and held aloft by angels as large as life, also of silver. The
candelabra which stand around, the ever-burning lamps which hang above,
are of the same precious metal, weighing altogether two thousand five
hundred pounds. About three miles from the city is the field of the
famous battle of Prague, won by Frederick the Great, in the celebrated
Seven Years’ War. The cathedral is still standing at which Frederick
aimed his cannon when he attacked the city, and is now a perfect museum
of antiquities. Two hundred and fifteen balls passed through the roof.
It is an interesting place to visit. The Jews quarter here, and occupy
a part of the city by themselves, but are not locked up at night as in
Rome and some other places that I have visited. It is recorded that
in 1290 they were almost exterminated here by the fanaticism of the
ignorant part of the people, who charged them with insulting the Host.
The most ancient synagogue here, the Jews assert, is nine hundred years
old; the dust of ages remains undisturbed in it, and brooms, water,
or whitewash would be considered sacrilege. It is a small apartment,
supported on arches by three pillars, dingy with age and smoke. In some
of their festivals they bear torches and lamps for days and nights,
which accounts for the smoky and gloomy walls. The burial-ground, not
far from the synagogue, is a singular spot. It is a large inclosure
in the centre of the Jewish city, filled with the dead of centuries.
One old headstone was pointed out which bears the date of the twelfth
century. Many of them bear symbols of the tribes to which the departed
belonged; a pitcher marks Levi, and so on.
We visited the palace of the Bohemian Kings. It is said to contain
one thousand four hundred and forty apartments, and some are very
splendid in size and decorations. The window is shown where three
nobles were thrown out and fell eighty feet, having issued tyrannical
edicts against the Protestants, which gave rise to the Thirty Years’
War that ended in 1640. We next visited the palace of the great
chieftain Wallenstein. It is stated that one hundred houses were
purchased and pulled down to make room for building the palace and
clearing the grounds around it. It is now occupied by the descendants
of Wallenstein. Those who visited the palace in his lifetime have
left behind a surprising account of its splendor, and the regal style
kept up by the proprietor. His stables contained three hundred saddle
and carriage horses, fed out of marble mangers. Sixty pages, of noble
families, were kept in the establishment to wait upon him, and when
he went from home fifty carriages each drawn by four or six horses
conveyed himself and suite, and fifty wagons carried his baggage, while
the whole train was followed by fifty extra horses. His fortune was
enormous, and yet during the wars he was often at a loss for means to
raise a few thousand florins, so terribly did the country suffer.
The monastery of Straliew, whose library contains fifty thousand
volumes, has scarcely its equal in this part of the world for its
splendor, being lined throughout with walnut wood, and richly
ornamented with gilding. It contains, among other things of interest,
the autograph of Tycho Brahe, the great astronomer, and a portrait of
the famous Ziska, who, it is said, bequeathed his skin to his followers
with directions that it should be tanned and stretched upon a drum, in
order that its sound might inflict upon his enemies a portion of that
terror which his presence while living had invariably produced among
them.