CHAPTER I.

Produced by Tamás Róth and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was

produced from scanned images of public domain material

from the Google Print project.)

Transcriber's Note: To improve readability, dashes between entries in

the Table of Contents and in chapter subheadings have been converted to

periods.

GERMANY, BOHEMIA, AND HUNGARY,

VISITED IN 1837.

By

THE REV. G. R. GLEIG, M.A.,

_CHAPLAIN TO THE ROYAL HOSPITAL, CHELSEA._

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON:

JOHN W. PARKER, WEST STRAND.

M.DCCC.XXXIX.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.

Page

CHAP. I. The Gulden Krone. Count Thun's Castle and Grounds. Glorious

Scenery. The March resumed. Superstitions of the Bohemians not

Idolatry. State of Property. Agricultural Population. Kamnitz. The

Cow-herds. Stein Jena. Hayde 1

CHAP. II. Our Landlady and Washerwoman. The Einsiedlerstein. Its

Dungeons and Hall. Its History. Inscription over the Hermit's Grave.

Lose our Way. Guided by a Peasant. His Conversation. Mistaken for

Italian Musicians. Gabel 34

CHAP. III. General Appearance of the Place. The Inn. Ludicrous

Mistakes. The Public Room. Astonishment of the People at the sight

of Englishmen. The Priests. Scene in the Tap-Room. Kindness of the

People. Our Fishing Operations. A Chasse, and a Daylight Ball 57

CHAP. IV. Our Landlord becomes our Guide. Peculiar Scenery of this

part of Bohemia. A Village Beer-house. Travelling Mechanics. The

Torpindas. Toilsome March. Marchovides. Entertainment there 80

CHAP. V. March renewed. Scenery more and more grand. A Population

of Weavers. Hochstadt. The Iser. Magnificent River, and capital

Trouting. Starkenbach. Kindness of the Inhabitants. Carried to the

Chancellor's House. Fish the Iser again. The effect of my sport on

a Religious Procession. Supper at the High Bailiff's. Game at Chess.

Take leave of our kind Hosts with mutual regret 105

CHAP. VI. The Elbe, a Mountain-stream. We Fish it. Dine on our

Fish in a Village Inn. The Young Torpinda. Arnau. The Franciscan

Convent. Troutenau. The Wandering Minstrels. March continued. Fish

the River. Village Inn, and account of the Torpindas. First Meeting

with these formidable People in a Wood. Another Pedestrian Tourist.

Aderspach. Excellent Quarters. Remarkable Rocks. The Minstrels

again 128

CHAP. VII. Walk to Shatzlar. Magnificent Scenery. Extreme Fatigue. Our

Landlord. Early associations awakened by a Scene in the Market-place.

Rest for a day. Ascent of Schnee-Koppee. Halt at a Village on the

Silesian side 161

CHAP. VIII. Warmbrunn. Objects around. Dilemma. Hirschberg. How

Travellers may manage when their Purses grow light. Pass for

Russians, and derive great benefit from the arrangement. Lang-Wasser.

Greiffenberg. The Prussian Landwehr. Golden Traum. Scene in the

Village Inn. Bernstadt. Hernhut. The Hernhuters. Agriculture in

Bohemia. Schlukenau. Schandau 179

CHAP. IX. The Diligence from Dresden to Töplitz. The Field of Kulm.

The Battle, and the Monuments that record it 243

CHAP. X. Töplitz. Its Gaieties. Journey resumed. First View of

Prague. General Character of the City. The Hradschin. Cathedral.

University. Historical details connected with it. The Reformation

in Bohemia 278

CHAP. XI. The Jews' Town. Visits to various Points worth noticing.

State of Public Feeling 333

CHAP. XII. Quit Prague. Journey to Brünn by Königgratz. State of

the Country. Brünn. Its Public Buildings. Absence of the Moravian

Brethren 353

CHAP. XIII. Country between Brünn and Vienna. Vienna. Journey to

Presburg. Presburg. The Hungarian Constitution 372

GERMANY, BOHEMIA, AND HUNGARY, IN 1837.

CHAPTER I.

THE GULDEN KRONE. COUNT THUN'S CASTLE AND GROUNDS. GLORIOUS SCENERY.

THE MARCH RESUMED. SUPERSTITIONS OF THE BOHEMIANS NOT IDOLATRY. STATE

OF PROPERTY. OF THE AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. KAMNITZ. THE COW-HERDS.

STEIN JENA. HAYDE.

We had quitted home not unprepared for the suspicious looks which

innkeepers might be expected to cast upon us, strangely equipped as we

were, rude of speech, and so very humble in the style of our travel. We

were, therefore, nothing daunted by the somewhat cold reception which

our host of the Golden Crown vouchsafed; and boldly questioned him

relative to his means of supplying our wants, namely, supper, a bottle

of wine, and a good bed-room. The confidence of our tone seemed to

restore his; for he forthwith conducted us upstairs; and we were

ushered into a snug little apartment, in which stood two beds, a table,

a chest of drawers, and four or five chairs. This was all, in the way

of lodging, of which we were desirous; and the next point to be settled

was supper. What could they produce? Had they any mutton? No. Beef?

None. Poultry? Nothing of the sort. What then? Veal, or, as it is

elegantly termed, calf's-flesh, which could be served up within the

space of an hour and a-half, either gokocht,--that is, boiled, or

grebraten,--_i.e._, roasted. And here let me observe once for all, that

he whose taste or whose stomach cannot be satisfied with veal, had

better not travel in Germany. For veal is to the Germans what beef is

to us,--the everyday diet of such as devour animal food at all; whereas

beef they seem to use only at large hotels as materials for soup-making,

while mutton is a luxury. Neither is it difficult to account for this.

There are no extensive pasturages, even in the mountain districts of

Germany, as there are in the Highlands of Scotland, and in the fens of

Lincolnshire and Kent. Wherever the land has been cleared of wood, it

is laid under the plough; wherever the wood continues, the utmost care

is taken to prevent cattle and sheep from breaking in, and so destroying

what is the principal fuel of the country. The consequence is, that

people cannot afford to rear more cattle than is absolutely necessary

for working the land, and supplying the dairies,--nor, indeed, if they

could afford it, would the means of doing so be attainable. Hence the

poor little calves, while yet in that state of innocence which entitles

them among the Irish to the generic appellation of staggering bobs, are

in nine cases out of ten transferred to the butcher, whose stall, if it

contain nothing else, is sure to furnish an abundant supply of dead

animals, which you might easily mistake for cats that have perished by

atrophy.

Being fully aware of these important particulars, we expressed neither

surprise nor regret when the solemn announcement was made to us, that

we might have roasted veal for supper; but having ordered it to be

prepared, together with an eyer-kuchen, or egg-souffle, as a supporter,

we set about changing our attire preparatory to a ramble through the

town. My friend, the Honourable Francis Scott, having kindly introduced

me to Count Thun, I sent my card by the waiter to the castle, and

learned, to my great disappointment, that the family were all in

Prague. It is needless to add, that, in the absence of the owners, I

was conducted over the castle and grounds by a very intelligent

domestic, or that, returning on another occasion, I stand indebted to

its owner for much kindness. I do not think, however, that there is any

justification for the practice which too much prevails, of first

accepting the hospitality of a stranger, and then describing the mode

in which it was dispensed. I content myself, therefore, with stating

that everything in the household of Count Thun corresponds to his high

rank and cultivated tastes; and that he who has once enjoyed, even for

a brief space, as I did, the pleasure of his conversation, will desire

few things more earnestly, than that another opportunity of so doing

shall occur.

The castle of Tetchen is a very noble thing, and its situation

magnificent. It crowns the summit of a rock overhanging the Elbe, and

commands, from its windows, one of the most glorious prospects on

which, even in this land of glorious scenery, the eye need desire to

rest. Originally a baronial hold, it has, in the progress of time and

events, gradually changed its character. It now resembles a college or

palace, more than a castle. You approach it from the town by a long

gallery, walled in on both sides, though open to the sky, and are

conducted to an extensive quadrangle, round which the buildings are

erected. They do not belong to any particular school, unless that

deserve to be so designated, which the Italian architects, some century

and a-half ago, introduced, to the decided misfortune of the

proprietors, into Germany. Thus, the schloss of which I am speaking, is

not only cut up into different suites of apartments, but each suite,

besides being accessible by a door that opens to the court, is

surrounded along the interior by an open gallery, into which each

individual chamber-door opens. The consequence is, that in winter, at

least, it must be next to impossible to keep any part of the house

warm, for the drafts are endless, and the exposure to the atmosphere is

very great.

When we visited Tetchen for the second time, the contents of a very

valuable green-house appeared to have been brought forth into the

central court. The effect was most striking; for all sorts of rare and

sweet-smelling shrubs were there; and flowers of every dye loaded the

air with their perfume. The gardens, likewise, which lie under the

rock, and in the management of which the count takes great delight,

were beautiful. One, indeed, a fruit garden, is yet only in its

infancy; but another, which comes between the castle and the

market-place, reminded me more of the shady groves of Oxford than of

anything which I have observed on the Continent. Count Thun, moreover,

having visited England, and seen and justly appreciated, the

magnificent parks which form the characteristic charm of our scenery,

seems willing, as far as the different situations of the two countries

will allow, to walk in our foot-steps. He has enclosed a rich meadow

that runs by the bank of the Elbe, and treats it as his demesne. All

this is the more praiseworthy on his part, that even in his own day the

castle of Tetchen has suffered most of the calamities of war, except an

actual siege. Twice during the late struggle, was it seized and

occupied as a post, a garrison put into the house, and cannon mounted

over the ramparts; nay, the very trees in the garden, which it cost so

much pains to cultivate, and such a lapse of time to nourish, were all

destined to be cut down. Fortunately, however, an earnest remonstrance

from the count procured a suspension of the order, till the enemy

should make his approaches; and as this never happened, the trees still

survive, to afford the comfort of their shade both to their owner and

his visitors. The havoc occasioned by the throwing up of batteries was

not, however, to be avoided; and it is only within these three or four

years that the mansion has resumed its peaceful character.

There is an excellent library in the castle of Tetchen, of which the

inmates make excellent use. It contains some valuable works in almost

all the European languages, with a complete set of the classics; and as

the tastes of the owner lead him to make continual accessions to it,

the hall set apart for its reception, though of gigantic proportions,

threatens shortly to overflow. I must not forget, however, that even by

these allusions to the habits of my host, I am touching upon the line

which common delicacy seems to me to have prescribed; therefore when I

have stated that a brighter picture of domestic affection and happiness

has rarely come under my observation than that with which my hurried

visit to Tetchen presented me, I pass to other matters, not perhaps in

themselves either more important or more interesting, but affording

freer scope to remark, because not calculated to jar against individual

feeling.

To wander amid these beautiful gardens, and gaze from the summer-house

along the course of the Elbe, occupied all the space of time which my

companion and I had set apart for the preparation of our evening meal.

We accordingly returned to the inn, fully disposed to do justice to the

viands which might be served up to us. They were well dressed, and the

bottle of Hungarian wine which accompanied them was excellent, so that

when we sallied forth again to examine the town, it was in the most

benevolent temper of mind imaginable. Every object was seen through a

highly favourable medium. The little quiet square and market-place,

with its ever-flowing but very dirty fountain, appeared emblematical of

the contented and happy lot of the people who dwelt round it. The Elbe,

glowing in the rich and varied hues of sunset, had about him a thousand

charms, for which language has no power of expression; and finally, the

view from a small chapel which stands on the summit of a rock about an

English mile below the town--that as it would have delighted even a

hungry man, was to us enchanting. Seriously, and without attributing

too much to the genial influence of a change of habiliments, and a good

supper, I have seldom looked upon a scene altogether so fascinating as

that which now lay before me.

Our sleep that night was sound and refreshing. We had ordered breakfast

at half-past five, and till five nothing occurred to disturb us; but

then the old and well-nigh forgotten habits of the campaigner seemed to

come back upon me, for I awoke to a second at the time which I had

fixed upon. Up we sprang; arrayed ourselves in our walking-dresses,

stowed away our more gentlemanlike habiliments in the knapsacks, and

addressed ourselves to breakfast. In Germany, as has been stated

elsewhere, this is but a sorry affair of a meal at the best; it

consists of nothing more than a cup or two of coffee, with some

sweetish cakes; but we took care to order, over and above, a moderate

supply of white bread and butter, and we consumed it all, much to our

host's surprise and edification. Then came the settling of the bill,

which seemed to please him better, and we were once more _en route_.

Our point to-day was Hayde, a town which our informants described as

distant from Tetchen about seven stunden,--that is to say, seven hours'

good walking, in other words, from twenty-one to twenty-four English

miles. There was nothing in this announcement calculated to alarm us,

for we had compassed the day before at least five-and-twenty miles, and

though somewhat over-wrought when we first came in, we were now fresh

and vigorous. But I am bound to add that either the miles proved more

numerous than we had been led to expect, or that we were in bad case

for walking. I have seldom suffered more from blistered feet and

positive weariness, than I did on my march to Hayde.

The sun was shining brightly in a cloudless sky, when we quitted

Tetchen. The cool air of the morning still, however, blew around us,

and the landscape which seemed so fair even in the last glimmering of

twilight, appeared now more beautiful than ever. Our route lay up the

face of one of the hills by which, on all sides, Tetchen is surrounded,

and we saw before us the long and regular sweep of the high road by

which it behoved us to travel. For a brief space, however, a foot-way

through a succession of green fields, all of them sparkling with the

dew, was at our command, and we gratefully availed ourselves of it; for

it is one of the advantages which a pedestrian enjoys over the

traveller, either in a carriage or on horseback, that, provided he be

sure of the direction in which his object lies, he may cast both

highways and bridle-paths behind him.

The effect which is produced upon a Protestant traveller by the

frequent recurrence, in Catholic countries, of crucifixes, chapels, and

images, both by the road-side and elsewhere, has been frequently

described. At first, you are affected with a sense almost of awe; which

even to the last does not wholly evaporate; especially if you find, as

we did this morning, that by the inhabitants, these symbols are held in

profound veneration. In passing from Hernskrietchen to Tetchen, such

objects had repeatedly crossed our view; and we had seen the country

people lift their hats and cross themselves as they neared them. To-day

we found a rustic on his knees before a chapel, within which, gaudily

painted and dressed, were waxen images of a Virgin and child. Was this

idolatry? I cannot believe it. Even if his prayer were addressed to the

Virgin, which I have no right to assume that it was, should I be

justified in charging this poor man with a breach of the second

commandment in the Decalogue, merely because he besought the mother of

Christ to intercede for him with her Son and his Redeemer? Absurd and

unmeaning such prayers to saints unquestionably are; for where is the

ground for believing that they hear us; or even if they do, what right

have we to suppose that they can or will presume to interfere in

matters which nowise concern them? And when, over and above all this,

we found upon a practice in itself so unmeaning, the monstrous doctrine

of human merit, then, indeed, that which was originally foolish,

becomes presumptuous and wicked. But the accusation of idolatry is by

far too grave to be lightly brought against any class of persons whose

creed is, in all essential particulars, the same with our own, and who

err only in this, that they believe a great deal too much. It is,

therefore, to be regretted, that in their zeal to remove error, so many

well-intentioned persons should exaggerate the faults which they

combat; for, independently of the wound which is thereby inflicted upon

Christian charity, prejudices are but confirmed in proportion as

indignation is roused. "You may demonstrate to me, if you can, that we

are mistaken in supposing that the souls of the faithful hear us; but

why allege that we put our trust in them, because we pray to them?

Don't you get your ministers to pray for you when you are sick? Don't

they pray for you in your churches; and is our purpose in addressing

the saints different from yours in your dealings with your pastor? We

only beseech the Virgin, or St. John, to do that for us, which you get

a man of like passions and frailties with yourself to do for you."

Such is the Roman Catholic's mode of repelling the charge of idolatry

which we bring against him; and in good truth I do not see how his

argument is to be set aside. But take other grounds with him, and

behold how the case stands. "I don't accuse you of idolatry, far from

it; but I do assert that you are acting very absurdly. For, first,

there is nothing in Scripture which justifies us in believing that the

spirits of the deceased are aware of what is passing on earth at all;

and secondly, were it otherwise, such creatures could not, unless they

possessed the faculty of ubiquity, pay the smallest attention to

petitions which are addressed to them at the same time from perhaps an

hundred or a thousand different places. If St. John, for example, be at

this moment listening to a devotee in the island of Sincapore, how can

he hear me who am calling to him out of Bohemia? Our minister, on the

other hand, acts but as our mouth-piece, and it is expressly ordered in

the New Testament that the church shall pray for her sick members." Now

here is a dilemma out of which I cannot understand how the

saint-worshipper is to escape. For St. John is either a creature, or he

is not. If he be a creature, it is impossible that he can be present in

two spots at one and the same moment. He cannot, therefore, attend at

once to me, who address him in Bohemia, and to the saint-worshipper who

solicits his aid from the banks of the Mississippi. If he can be

present with us both, and with tens of thousands besides, then he must

possess the attribute of ubiquity, and is, of course, not a creature.

In the latter case, what is he? This, then, I humbly conceive to be the

weapon with which errors in the Roman Catholic's faith may most

appropriately be assailed, for though it inflict a temporary wound upon

men's self-love by questioning the powers of discrimination, leaves, at

least, their moral and religious intentions unquestioned, and

themselves, as a necessary consequence, unfettered by the strongest of

all shackles, that of outraged principle.

By the time we had reached the chaussée, or main road, the morning was

considerably advanced, and each new hour brought with it a wonderful

accession of heat. Not a cloud was in the sky, and for a while, we were

entirely destitute of shade. For though here, as elsewhere in Germany,

the waysides be planted with rows of trees, the trees were as yet too

young to prove essentially useful to the wanderer, and, to add to our

misery, we had a long and toilsome ascent before us, with a broad,

smooth, macadamised causeway, by which to accomplish it. It is true,

that as often as we paused to look round, the glories of that

magnificent scene gave us back our courage. Nevertheless, nature in

this situation, as she is wont to do in most others, would have her

way. We became exceedingly weary, and were fain, on reaching a wood

near the summit, to sit down and rest.

Early as it was when our journey began, we soon found that we had no

chance of getting the road to ourselves. Many wayfarers were already

abroad, among whom were several women, loaded like jackasses, with

enormous panniers filled with I know not what species of evidently

heavy goods. The tasks, indeed, which custom has imposed upon the lower

classes of women in Germany, create in a stranger extreme surprise, if

not indignation. I have spoken of the effects of this ungallant

arrangement as they display themselves in Saxony; and I am bound to add

that, in Bohemia, the same system is pursued, and the very same results

produced. Besides a large portion of the field-work, such as hoeing,

weeding, digging, planting, &c., it has fallen to the Bohemian women's

share to be the bearers of all burdens; whether fire-wood be needed

from the forest, grass, butter, eggs, and other wares required in the

market-place, or trusses of hay lie abroad in the fields which it is

necessary to fetch home. The inevitable consequence is, that, generally

speaking, a woman ceases to have even a trace of youth about her by the

time she has passed thirty. At three or four-and-twenty, she becomes

brown and wrinkled, a year or two later, she loses her teeth, and last

of all comes the goitre, which, by utterly destroying the symmetry of

her form, leaves her, at thirty, little better than a wreck. As to the

really old folks, the grandams and maiden aunts of the community, these

are, at all moments, in a condition to play with effect the characters

of Macbeth's witches; and when, as not unfrequently happens, they judge

it expedient to go about bareheaded, the resemblance which they bear to

the respectable individuals just alluded to, is complete. Yet in youth,

not a few of the girls are extremely pretty; which makes you the more

regret that the customs of the country, by subjecting them to such

severe hardships, should rob them of their bloom before their time.

Having rested under the shadow of our friendly grove sufficiently long

to permit my making a rough sketch of the valley beneath us, we resumed

our march, and rounding the hill, opened out a new prospect, scarcely

inferior in point of beauty, though widely different in kind, from that

which had passed from our gaze. We looked down upon a sort of basin,

fertile, and cultivated to the minutest corner, round which, like

sentinels on duty, were gathered a succession of mountains, covered to

their peaks with foliage. The dark hue of the fir was here beautifully

intermixed with the fresher green of the birch and hazel; while

occasionally, an enormous rock raised his bald front over all, more

after the fashion of a huge ruin, the monument of man's vanity, than of

a fabric of nature's creation. But the circumstance which more than all

others surprised us, was the density of the population. Of large towns

there seem to be, in Bohemia, very few; but every vale and strath is

crowded with human dwellings, village succeeding village, and hamlet

treading on hamlet, with the most remarkable fecundity. On the other

hand, you may strain your eyes in vain in search of those species of

habitations which give to our English landscapes their peculiar charm.

There is no such thing in all Bohemia,--I question whether there be in

all Germany,--as a park; and as to detached farm-houses, they are

totally unknown. The nobility inhabit what they term schlosses, that is

to say, castles or palaces, which are invariably planted down, either

in the very heart of a town or large village, or at most, a gunshot

removed from it. No sweeping meadows surround them with their tasteful

swells, their umbrageous covers and lordly avenues; no deer troop from

glade to glade, or cluster in groups round the stem of some giant oak,

their favourite haunt for ages. But up to the very hall-door, or at

least to the foundations of the wall, which girdles in the court-yard,

perhaps twelve or twenty feet wide, the plough regularly passes. A

garden, the graff generally possesses, and his taste in flowers is

good; but it almost always happens that his very garden affords no

privacy, and that his flowers are huddled together within some narrow

space, perhaps in the very court-yard of which I have already spoken as

alone dividing his mansion from the open and cultivated fields.

With respect, again, to the condition of the cultivators, that is, in

all respects, so different from the state of our agricultural gentlemen

at home, that, even at the hazard of saying over again what has been

stated a thousand times already, I must describe it at length. In the

first place, then, there is no class of persons in Bohemia corresponding

to our English farmer. Nobody hires land in order to make a profit out

of it; at least nobody for such a purpose hires a large tract of land;

but each individual cultivates his own estate, whether it be of wide or

of narrow extent. Thus the graff, or prince, though he be the owner of

an entire circle, is yet the only farmer within that circle. He does

not let an acre of ground to a tenant. But having built what he

conceives to be an adequate number of bouerin-hauses, he plants in each

of these a bouerman, and pays him for tilling the ground. These

bouerin-hauses, again, are all clustered together into villages, so

that the bouerman is never without an abundant society adapted to his

tastes; and very happily, albeit very rudely, his days and nights

appear to be spent.

The land in Bohemia does not, however, belong exclusively to any one

order in the community. Many bouermen are owners of their farms, some

of them to the extent of one hundred acres and more; while almost every

township has its territories, which, like the noble's estate, are

cultivated for the benefit of the burgh. But in all cases it is the

owner, and not the cultivator, to whom the proceeds of the harvest

belong. These are, indeed, gathered in and housed for him by his

representatives, who, in addition to some fixed money-payment, for the

most part enjoy the privilege of keeping a cow or two on the wastes

belonging to the manor; but all the risk and trouble of converting his

grain into money attaches to the proprietor of the soil.

Two results spring out of this order of things alike detrimental to the

well-being of society. First there does not exist, at least in the

agricultural districts, any middle class of society at all, which is

everywhere divided into two orders,--the gentry and the peasantry. In

cities and large towns the case is, of course, different; for there the

cultivation of letters and of trade has its influence on the human

mind; and professions hold something like the rank which ought of right

to belong to them when they are what is called liberal. But in the

country, even the doctor and the priest seldom find their way to a more

lordly board than that of the bouerman; and stand, in consequence, at

all times, on a level with the miller, the butcher, and the host of the

gasthof. Secondly, the nobles, having little ready money at command,

possess no means, whatever their inclination may be, materially to

improve the condition of their dependants; while their own time being

largely engrossed by the cares of buying and selling, they not

unfrequently neglect to cultivate those mental powers in which many of

them are naturally rich. Numerous exceptions to this latter rule

doubtless everywhere prevail; for I am bound to add, that such of the

nobility as honoured me with their acquaintance, were men of refined

tastes and very enlarged understandings. But the rule itself holds good

nevertheless, and would equally do so in any other country where a

similar order of things existed.

Through a succession of these villages, most of them inhabited

exclusively by bouermen, we made our way, not without exciting, by the

novelty of our costume, a large share of public curiosity. As often as

we found it necessary, however, to put a question to one of the

wonderers, we never failed to meet with a civil reply: indeed, I must

do the Bohemians of all ranks the justice to record, that a kinder,

more obliging, and less mercenary people, it has never been my fortune

to visit. Illustrations of this fact, I shall have occasion in the

course of my narrative, to give, though for the present I content

myself with stating the fact broadly.

I do not recollect that anything worthy of mention befel till we

reached Kamnitz,--an old town, and the centre of a circle,--through

which it behoved us to pass, in order to gain first Stein Jena, and

ultimately Hayde. The town itself lies in a hollow, and is begirt near

at hand by well-wooded hills; but in itself it offers few attractions

to the stranger. Narrow and deserted streets, with shops mean and

slenderly stocked, tell a tale of stagnant commerce; indeed, I may

observe, once for all, of the country towns in Bohemia, that it is not

among them that the traveller will find food for reflection, or sources

of gratification. Far removed from the sea, with which their single

communication is by the Elbe, the Bohemians have slender inducement to

apply their energies to trade, which is, in consequence, not perhaps

dead,--for there are manufactures of various kinds in the kingdom, and

more than one iron foundry, but exceedingly sickly and torpid.

Kamnitz, like other chief towns of circles, has its schloss,--the

property of the emperor,--in which the officials and the subordinates

at once reside and administer justice. It can boast, likewise, of a

large church and a prison; but as there was nothing in the exterior of

these buildings which at all excited our admiration, we did not delay

to examine them. With respect, again, to other matters, I am aware of

only one custom in the place, of which it is worth while to take

notice. Kamnitz, it appears, is very much of an agricultural town; that

is to say, many owners of small estates dwell there, and many cattle

are kept. During the winter months, both here and elsewhere, the cattle

never breathe the air of heaven; but are kept mewed up in their stalls,

and fed on hay, and other dry fodder. When the hay crop has been

gathered in, and the fields are ready for them, they are sent abroad to

graze, but always under the guidance of keepers, who, at least in

Kamnitz, are strictly professional persons. Their mode of proceeding is

this. At early dawn, there is a flourish of cow-horns in the

streets,--a signal for opening the stable-door, and leading forth the

cattle to pasture. The animals are then collected in the market-place,

and handed over to the charge of their appointed keepers, who, two or

three in number, drive the herd abroad, and are responsible that they

commit no trespass on the growing corn. At night, a similar process

takes place. The cattle are led back by the keepers to the

market-place: horns are again sounded; upon which each bouerman either

comes in person, or sends his deputy to receive the beasts, and so

conducts them to their stalls for milking.

Kamnitz has at one period been a fortified town, though probably that

period is very remote,--for against modern artillery a place so

situated could not hold out a single day. Its gateways, and some

fragments of the old wall, remain,--objects at all times too

interesting to be wantonly removed. Beneath a couple of these venerable

arches we passed,--first on entering, then on leaving the town,--after

which we found ourselves traversing a long and irregular hamlet, which

in the form of a suburb lines one side of the road, and so faces a

pretty little stream that skirts the other. Crossing the rivulet by a

bridge with two arches, we began to climb the hill, on the brow of

which Stein Jena is situated, and from which our friend, the young

priest of Auffenberg, had given us to understand, that we should obtain

one of the most magnificent views in this part of Bohemia. Long and

toilsome was this ascent; for though the main road was still beneath

our feet, so perfectly had its fabricators set the rules of their art

at defiance, that it ran sheer and abrupt, with scarce a trifling

deflection, from the base to the summit. The sun, also, beat upon us

with a power which we found it extremely uncomfortable to sustain, and

our thirst was excessive. And here it may, perhaps, be worth while for

the benefit of other pedestrians, to remark, that we began our march,

in reference to the victualling department, on an utterly erroneous

principle. Breakfasting at half past five or six o'clock in the

morning, we made up our minds not to eat a solid meal again till our

day's work should be accomplished; in other words, to content ourselves

at noon with some slight refreshment, such as a morsel of bread, or a

sandwich and a little weak brandy and water, swallowed in the shade of

some grove, and to sup heartily when we should come in to our night's

quarters, at six or seven o'clock in the evening. The experience of

this day sufficed to convince me that in arranging this plan I had not

been so successful as the Duke of Wellington used to be with his

commissariat. Our bread had become hard and mouldy. Our brandy was as

hot as fire, and we could not find a spring of water sufficiently

sheltered to cool it. For consistency-sake, however, we twisted down a

few mouthfuls, but we could not manage more; and it was unanimously

voted, that thenceforth an hour's halt at mid-day in some house of

call, would be an arrangement alike conducive to the refreshment of our

limbs, and the well-being of our stomachs.

Having reposed about half an hour by the margin of a weedy pond, from

which a loud if not an harmonious concert of bull-frogs unceasingly

issued, we buckled on our knapsacks once more, and, by a desperate

effort, reached Stein Jena about three o'clock in the afternoon. It

seldom happens that a natural scene, of which you have been led to form

high expectations, does not disappoint you; yet I am bound in justice

to acknowledge that in the account which he gave of the view from this

point, the interesting curate of Auffenberg used the language of

moderation. Elevated to a height of perhaps two thousand feet, we

beheld across the valley beneath us, hill above hill arise,--all of

them pyramidal, shaggy with forests of pine, beech, and oak, and

interlaced one with another, so as to form the wildest yet most

graceful combinations. The scene, too, was in one striking respect

different from any on which we had yet gazed; namely, that cultivation

was almost entirely kept out of view, because our position was such as

to throw the depths of the plain behind the screen of their overhanging

mountains. It was, indeed, only when we looked to the right, where on a

level with ourselves fields of rye were waving, that the fact of our

not having wandered into some uncleared and uninhabited region was

demonstrated.

Stein Jena itself is a large, straggling, but remarkably neat village,

of which the street is on both sides shaded by rows of trees, and where

the houses can in many instances boast of being planted within the

range of well-kept and tasteful gardens. It was on the top of the

common beyond the village, however, that we paused to obtain our view,

and to make one of those rude sketches which in such situations the

most unpractised hand is induced to attempt; after which we again

pushed forward. Ten minutes' walk carried us over the ridge, and then

what a spectacle burst upon us! A huge plain was at our feet, green

with the most abundant crops of grass and corn, and here and there

broken in upon by a tall conical hill, which rose like a thing of art,

and stood alone in the level. Surrounding the plain on all sides, were

ranges of mountains, those near at hand resembling in their general

character the graceful hills upon which we had just turned our

backs,--those in the distance more precipitous and rugged, and above

all, white along their summits with snow. There needed, in short, but

some sheet of water,--a lake or a river winding through the valley, to

complete such a picture as Stanfield would love to copy, and the

humbler but not less enthusiastic worshipper of nature, gaze upon for

hours unwearied. For not only was there wood and pasturage, hill and

dale, rock and forest, in abundance,--but the haunts of man, without

which a cultivated scene is always incomplete, rose there in abundance.

There lay Hayde,--a compact and apparently well-built town; about three

miles to the right of it, and nestling back its own cliffs, was

Burgstein; while farther off Gabel, Reichstadt, with a countless number

of villages besides, told of the busy hands by which these fair fields

were tilled and kept in order. Heartily thanking our poetical friend

for the instructions which he had communicated to us, and charmed out

of all sense of fatigue for the moment, we continued our march, till

the shelter of a vast wood received us, at once shutting out the

glories of the panorama beneath, and screening us from the sun's rays,

which had for some time back beat with inconvenient violence upon us

from above.

It was six o'clock when we reached the inn at Hayde, faint, hungry, and

foot-sore. Our reception was not very cordial, nor did we this time, I

am sorry to say, succeed in perfectly thawing the ice in which the

landlady had encased herself; but we took her bad humour patiently,

showed her that we were well disposed to be merry, and obtained in five

minutes, first a very tolerable apartment, and by-and-by the best room

in the house. Perhaps, indeed, it may be as well to state, that our

first reception, even in Bohemia, was not always flattering. Yet

somehow or another, it invariably came to pass, with the solitary

exception of Hayde, where our usual tactics failed us, that before we

had been ten minutes under the roof of a Bohemian innkeeper, not only

he, but his whole household, were at our devotion. Neither was any

marvellous art required to bring this result about. We acted merely as

persons of common sense will always act in similar situations. We

turned the landlady's ill-humour or stiffness into a joke, spoke bad

German, mixed it with French and English, and won her heart by showing

that we were neither sensitive nor fastidious. And the landlady's heart

being fairly won, all the rest was easy. The husband, as in duty bound,

fell into his wife's views, and the servants took their cue from their

superiors. In Hayde, however, though we so far gained our end, that a

good supper with a comfortable apartment were afforded us, we have no

right to boast of our progress in the hostess's affections. She kept

cruelly aloof from us during the whole of our sojourn, and made us pay

at our departure just twice as much as, for similar fare, we were

charged at any other gasthof in Bohemia.