A July Holiday in Saxony, Bohemia, and Silesia

CHAPTER I

What the Bookseller said—A Walk in Frankfort—What the Portress said—Glimpses of Landscapes—Forest and River—Würzburg—Stein Wine—View from the Citadel-hill—A Change of Bedrooms—Coming to an Understanding with the Reader—Good Night!

"How happens it," I said to a bookseller in the Zeil, "that a map of Bohemia is not to be had in all Frankfort?"

"How it happens?" he answered, with a knowing smile: "because no one ever goes to Bohemia."

He searched and searched, as did a dozen of his fraternity whom I had previously visited, and found maps in number of Switzerland, Tyrol, Thuringia, Franconia, Turkey even, and Montenegro; but not the one I wanted.

"Such a thing is never asked for," he said, deprecatingly. "Suppose you go to Franconia instead."

All at once he bethought himself of an inner closet, and there he discovered a map of Bohemia; but not a travelling map: an overcrowded sheet that confused the eye, and promised but little assistance for the byeways. However, under the circumstances, I took it as better than none.

"You will not get the map you want till you arrive at Prague," was the sort of encouragement I got some twenty-four hours afterwards from a Bohemian Professor in the Medical School at Würzburg.

I saw Frankfort under all the charm of a first visit. I perambulated the narrow streets, and the Judengasse, where dwell not a few of the nine thousand Jewish residents; and stood long enough on the bridge that bestrides the muddy Main to note the ancient towers, and the bits of antiquity peeping up here and there in the city and the Sachsenshausen suburb—contrasted by the modern look of the spacious quays. And of course I saw the house in which Goethe was born, and Dannecker's Ariadne, and the Römer, that relic of the olden time, crowded with reminiscences of the Empire. You may see the whole line of Emperors in panels round the wainscot of the stately hall on the first floor; some grim warriors in plate and mail; some in scholar's gown; some in slashed sleeves and tight hosen, and some in velvet robes. Here, after the crown had been placed on their heads in the adjacent cathedral, they went through certain formal ceremonies with cumbrous pomp and held their festival, as may be read in the vivid descriptions of Goethe's Autobiography.

Having glanced at the imperial effigies from Conrad down to Francis, and at the scene from the balcony outside, I dropped half a franc into the hand of the lady portress, and had crossed the landing, when she came tripping after me, and, with an air of lofty pity, returned the coin, requesting me to "give it to a beggar."

The gentleman in charge of the Ariadne had made me a polite bow for a similar fee; so I complied with the lady's request, and gave the piece of silver among five beggars, each of whom favoured me with a blessing in return.

At noon, on the 3rd of July, I left Frankfort for Würzburg. The landscape at first is tame, and you will have to watch closely, in more senses than one, as the train speeds across, for the scenes and objects that relieve it. There are glimpses of the Taunus mountains; of Wilhelmsbad, embowered in a pleasant wood; of Hanau, a dark-red town, where the dark-red sandstone station is enlivened by Virginian creeper running gracefully up the columns; and of memorable battlefields. And of a dark-red mill, in a green grassy hollow, with its dripping wheel; and in the middle of the garden a globe of fire that dazzles your eye, and is nothing other than a carboy inverted on a stake, after the Dutch manner, to serve as a mirror, in which may be seen a panorama of the neighbourhood. And everywhere women cutting down the rye, wearing bright red kerchiefs on their heads that rival the poppies in splendour.

Beyond Aschaffenburg the country improves. Wooded hills alternate with lengthy slopes of vines, deep shady coombs, and leafy valleys, where brooks frolic along in frequent windings, and villages nestle, and gray church spires shoot above the tree-tops. Then parties of woodcutters, well armed with axes and wedges, enter the train, and each man lights his pipe, and they talk of their craft among themselves in a rustic dialect. And the train dashes into the forest of Spessart, and under the hills, winding hither and thither between miles of trees, the remains, as is said, of that great Hercynian forest which schoolboys read about in their Latin studies. The nursery of them that overthrew Rome; and one of the haunts of Freedom before she took refuge in the mountains, and in a certain island of the sea.

At Lohr, a town prettily situate on the Main, the railway road and river come near together, and the frequent windings of the stream brighten the landscape. We saw the steamer labouring upwards on her two days' trip from Frankfort to Würzburg. Then a village where the Saal falls in, and more and more vines, and old walls gay with yellow stonecrop, and on the right the ruin of Karlstadt, and by-and-by Würzburg comes in sight, and our five hours' journey is over.

Bavarian art attracts and gratifies your eye as you alight. The station is an elegant structure in the Pompeiian style, ingeniously contrived for the purposes of the railway and post-office, and yet to preserve the architectural character. An impatient traveller might well beguile the time by admiring the proportions, the colouring, and the tasteful decorations along the colonnades. The building forms one side of a square in the newest quarter of the town.

A curious sign, the Kleebaum, caught my eye in the first street, and I trusted myself beneath it. The Kellner took my knapsack; asked if "that was all," and led me high up to a small homely-furnished room on the third floor, in which, however, the quality of cleanliness was not wanting, and that is what an Englishman cares most about. At dinner I treated myself to a pint of the Stein wine, for which the neighbourhood is famous, and am prepared to add my testimony as to its merits. The bottles have a jolly bacchanalian look about them, being globes somewhat flattened at the sides, and contain, when honest, a quart. The cost is from two to three florins a bottle; but a temperate guest is allowed to drink and pay for the half only, at his pleasure. With vineyards producing such wine around them, it is little wonder that the Prince-Bishops were always ready to fight for their good city of Würzburg. The Strangers' Book followed the dinner as a matter of course, and when the landlord saw that I signed my name as "from London," and heard me inquire for the residence of one of the Professors, he put off his natural manner and became obsequious: a change that gave me no pleasure.

There is more of life, more to interest the attention in Würzburg, than in some places which are much more frequented and talked of. The streets generally are narrow, and built in picturesque disregard of straight lines; now widening suddenly for a brief space, now diminishing and bending away in a new direction. And you saunter onwards, wondering at the panelled house-fronts with their profuse ornament: grotesque carvings of animals' heads, of clustering fruits in bold relief at the intersections; windows with quaint canopies and curiously-wrought gratings; fanciful door-heads and gables; in short, a variety of architectural conceits on which your eye will fondly linger. Now, at a corner, you come upon an ancient turret with conical roof, now a sculptured fountain, now images of the Virgin or some of the saints over the doors; and anon huge statues of the Bishops remind you of the men who built and prayed for Würzburg. So numerous are the churches erected to perpetuate their memory or adorn their inheritance, that you need not go many yards whenever you feel inclined to meditate in a "dim religious light."

You meet numbers of soldiers, for there is a citadel beyond the river, and water-bearers with their tall tubs slung on their backs going to or from the fountains, and now and then a peasant woman with conical hat and skirts the very opposite of the fashion; and except that nearly all the women you see are bareheaded, there is nothing else remarkable in costume.

Stroll to the river-side; what prodigious piles of firewood at one side of the quay, and what a busy fleet of barges moored on the other. The Main here is about as wide as the Thames at Richmond, and is spanned by a bridge quite in keeping with the city. At either end stands an arched gateway, with statues niched in the massive masonry, and saints above the rounded piers.

Cross the bridge, and mount the citadel-hill on the left bank, and you will have a surprise. The hill terminates in a craggy precipice, crowned by the stronghold and its defences, and you look down on shelfy gardens planted here and there among the rocks; and over the whole city. The river flows by in a bold curve, cutting off a small suburb from the main portion of the city, which spreads, crescent-formed, on the opposite shore. An imposing scene. Thirty-one towers, spires, domes, and steeples spring from the great masses and ridges of dark-red lofty roofs, and these are everywhere dotted with rows of little windows which resemble a half-opened eye. Indeed, the curved line of the tiles makes the resemblance so complete, that you can easily fancy the eyes are taking a sly peep at what is going on below, or winking at the sunbeams, as a prelude to falling asleep for the night.

The sun was dropping behind me in the west, and before me lay the city, looking glorious in the golden light. Row after row of the sleepy eyes caught the ray with a momentary twinkle; the gilded weathercocks flashed and glistened, and the reflection falling on the river made pathways of quivering light across the ripples.

Presently eight struck from the cathedral, and the clocks of all the churches followed, each with its own peculiar note. One or two solemn and sonorous, in imitation of the big bell; others shrill and saucy, as if they alone had the right to record the march of the silent footsteps; a few sedate, and one irresolute. Now here, now there, now yonder, as if the striking never would cease, and suggesting strange analogies between clocks and the race who wind them up.

Trees rise here and there among the houses, and form a green belt round the city, thickest in the gardens of the royal palace, a stately edifice comprising among its two hundred and eighty-four rooms the suite in which the Emperors used to lodge when on their way to be crowned at Frankfort. And beyond the trees begin the vines, acre after acre to the tops of the whole encircling rim of hills. Broad slopes teeming with wine and gladness of heart, but looking bald in the distance from want of trees. One of these hills—the Köppele, so named from a chapel on the summit—is a favourite resort of the inhabitants, who perhaps find in the view therefrom a sufficient reward for a long ascent, unrefreshed by shade or rustling leaves.

Seen from the hill, Würzburg is said to resemble Prague; not without reason, as I afterwards found. It would be, in my opinion, the more pleasing picture of the two, were its frame set off and beautified by patches of forest.

I kept my seat on the outward angle of a thick wall till the golden light, sliding slowly up the hills, at last vanished from their brow, and left the whole valley in shadow. Then I went down and sauntered about the streets, while the gloom within the porticos and gateways, behind buttresses and up the narrow alleys, deepened and deepened; and ended by discovering a stranger willing to talk in a well-lighted coffee-house.

On my return to the Kleebaum the Kellner lit two candles, and conducted me, not to the little room "up three pair," but to the best bedroom on the first floor.

What magic in that little item—"from London!"

Now, gracious reader, suppose we come to an understanding before I get into bed. You are already aware that I am going to Bohemia, not to scale snow-crowned mountains, or plunge into awful gorges, for there are none. The highest summit we shall have to climb together is under five thousand feet; and there is none of that tremendous and magnificent scenery which is to be seen in Switzerland and Tyrol. If, however, you are willing to accompany me to a peculiar country—one which, like Ireland, is most picturesque around its borders—rich in memorials of the past and in historical associations, fertile and industrious, we will journey lovingly together. Now on foot, though perhaps not so much as usual; now a flight by rail, or a steam-boat trip, or by diligence or wagon, according as the circumstances befall. We shall find on the way occasion for discourse, somewhat to observe, for the people are remarkable, and subjects to read about; improving the hours as best we may.

Our next halt shall be at the old Saxon town of Altenburg, where there is something to be seen and heard of worth remembering; then over the Erzgebirge to Carlsbad, the bathing-place of kings, and through the rustic villages to Prague. Then to the Mittelgebirge; down the Elbe, to a scene of rural life and industry; away to the Riesengebirge—the mountains haunted by Rübezahl—and the wonderful rocks of Adersbach. Then over the frontier into Silesia, to Herrnhut, the head-quarters of the Moravians, to Dresden and the Saxon Switzerland, Berlin, Magdeburg, and Hamburg, from whence a voyage across the North Sea will bring us home again.

It may be that this scheme is not to your liking. If so, we can part company here, and you will perhaps never read the completion of that "Story of the King of Bohemia and his Seven Castles," which Corporal Trim began for Uncle Toby and never finished.

And so, good night!

CHAPTER II

Würzburg—The University—Red, Green, and Orange Caps—The Marienkapelle—The Market—The Cathedral—The Palace—Spacious Cellars—A Professor's Hospitality—To Bamberg—Frost—Hof—A Shabby Peace—The Arch-Poisoner—Dear Bread—A Prime Minister Hanged—Altenburg—The Park—The Castle—Reminiscences and Antiquities—The Chapel—The Princes' Vault—Wends—Costumes in the Market-place—Female Cuirassiers—More about the Wends—Grossen Teich—The Plateau—The Cemetery—Werdau.

Würzburg is now the chief town of the Circle of the Lower Main; it was once the capital of a principality governed by a line of eighty bishops, and figures prominently in German history. The University, founded in 1403, is deservedly famous, having numbered among its professors many of first-rate abilities: a distinction it still retains. What with schools, with resources in art and science, cultivated society, and ample means of recreation, the old city is an agreeable residence.

Under the guidance of Professor Kölliker, I visited the botanic garden, the anatomical museum, and the medical school, which is one of the best in Europe. The Julius Hospital, a noble institution, founded by one of the Prince-Bishops, whose statue is erected not far from the building, affords opportunities for study seldom found in provincial towns. The students, after the manner of their kind, form themselves into societies distinguished by the colour of their caps, as you will soon discover by meeting continually in the streets little groups of red, green, or orange caps, marking the three divisions.

Then, while the Professor lectured to his class, I strolled away to the market-place, and saw how the women, leaving their shoulder-baskets at the door of the Marienkapelle—Mary Chapel—went in and recited a few prayers, kneeling on the floor. A commendable preparation, I thought, for the work of buying and selling. The mounds of vegetables in frequent rows, and numerous baskets of cherries and strawberries, with heaps of fresh dewy flowers between, the many red kerchiefs and moving throng, and the wares displayed at the wooden booths, made up an animated spectacle. Live geese roosting contentedly in shallow baskets awaiting their sale without an effort to escape, were remarkable among the enticements of the poultry-market. A few yards farther were little stalls with rolls of butter, resembling in shape a ship's topsail-yard, alternating with piles of lumps or rather dabs of butter, each wrapped in a piece of old newspaper. These were bought by poor folk.

The Marienkapelle is a fine specimen of pointed Gothic, with a graceful spire, which having become dilapidated and unsafe, was undergoing repair at the time of my visit. The inside is spoiled by overmuch whitewash, and the outside by an irregular row of petty shops—an uncouth plinthe—around the base; and this is not the only church in the city which has its character and fair proportions marred by such clustering barnacles.

On the spot where the cathedral now stands rearing its four towers aloft, St. Killian, an Irish missionary, was martyred more than a thousand years ago. The lofty arched nave is supported by square columns, of which the lower portions are hidden by pictures. Marble statues of the Bishops, with sword and crosier in hand, betokening their twofold character of priest and warrior, are ranged along the walls; and the whole interior has a bright and cheerful aspect.

Of the other churches, I need not say more than that the New Minster enjoys the honour of possessing St. Killian's bones; that St. Peter's at Rome is reproduced in the church of St. John; and that St. Burkhardt's, at the foot of the citadel-hill, is built in the round style.

The spacious grounds and gardens of the palace are well laid out. There are umbrageous avenues, terraces, fountains, paths winding among flower-beds and away under the trees and through the shrubberies to nooks of complete solitude. In some parts the plantations are left untrimmed, and give an air of wildness to the scene. In the rear, steps lead to the top of the wall, from whence you may look over greater part of the grounds, and fancy yourself in a region of forest. The townsfolk have free access; and you meet now and then a solitary student poring over his book, or groups of strollers, or nursemaids with troops of children. The palace, which dates from the year 1720, shows the consequences of neglect. Hohenschwangau has greater attractions for the royal family than Würzburg; and now, after a view of the staircase and chapel, there is nothing in the rusty and faded apartments that once exhibited the magnificence of the Bishops to detain you. The cellars are large enough to contain 2200 tuns of wine. What rollicking nights the retainers must have had!

The Professor proved himself not less hospitable than learned. We dined together, and he introduced me to one of his colleagues, the Bohemian mentioned in the second page, who gave me a letter to his father at Prague. And then, after a sojourn of twenty-four hours, I departed.

To see Nuremberg, and journey from thence into Bohemia, across the Böhmerwaldgebirge, had been in my thoughts; but finding on inquiry that more time would be required for that route than I could spare, I decided for Saxony. So, away to Bamberg, sixty miles distant, the starting-place of the Leipzig and Nuremberg trains. There was an hour to wait, and then in deep twilight on we went for Altenburg.

Although the night was in July, I shivered with cold. The temperature, indeed, was remarkable. Three days previously I had seen white frost between Aix-la-Chapelle and Cologne, and for the first ten nights of the month frosts occurred all over Germany. At two o'clock we came to Hof, where there was a change of train, and time to drink a cup of coffee, doubly acceptable under the circumstances. The country around is bleak, a region of bare low hills, of unfavourable repute owing to its cold. A farmer who came into the train told us there was thin ice on the ponds. Here and there the hollows were filled with a dense mist, and resembled vast lakes, and the outlook was so cheerless that I was glad to sleep, till sunrise, with its splendours, woke up our drowsy party to welcome light and warmth.

What a change since the former year! Then the war was all the topic among those who were thrown together while travelling. Now, Sebastopol and the Crimea seemed clean forgotten, and no one had a word to say even about the Sick Man at Constantinople. No, all was changed, and talkers busied their tongues concerning the "shabby peace," as they called it, the dearness of food, and—William Palmer. The simple-minded Bavarians could not understand why England should have been so magnanimous towards her Muscovitish antagonist, until it was suggested to them that France, having come to the bottom of her purse notwithstanding all the flourishes to the contrary, the war had to be ended.

"And could England have kept on?"

"Yes, for forty years, if necessary."

"What a country!" they exclaimed—"what gigantic wealth!" And then they wondered that peace had not brought lower prices, and talked with grave faces and timorous forebodings about the dearness of bread. Scarcely a place did I visit where bread was not dearer than in London.

But the arch-poisoner was the prevailing theme; and eager discussions on the incidents of his trial and execution showed how widespread was the excitement he had occasioned. Even in little towns I saw Prozess gegen William Palmer for sale in the booksellers' windows. The Germans, however, thought theirs the best law, as it inflicts perpetual imprisonment only, and not death, in cases where the poison is not discovered in the body of the victim; and they would by no means agree that to hang a villain out of the way whether or no, was the preferable alternative. While the talk was going on, some one was sure to tell of what took place when the news of the execution was flashed from England. Palmer is hanged, was the brief yet fearful despatch. The clerk who received it, by some strange fatality, read Palmer as an abbreviation of Palmerston; and within an hour all Germany was startled by the news, and bewildered with speculations as to the causes which had induced the exemplary English nation to get rid of their Prime Minister by so summary a process. "Palmerston gehänget!" ejaculated one after another, with a chuckle.

At seven o'clock we arrived at Altenburg. A night in a railway train is not the best preparation for a day of sight-seeing. However, after the restorative of a wash and breakfast at the Bayerische Hof, the first hotel that presented itself, I crossed the road to the grounds belonging to the castle. By a bold undulating slope, laid out as an English park, you mount to a plateau, where a well-kept garden contrasts agreeably with the tall avenues and grouped masses of foliage. Small pleasure-houses stand here and there among the trees, and you see a pavilion built in the style of a Greek temple. A little farther, and there are the ducal opera-house, the orangery, and the stables—a handsome range of buildings. And beyond is the Little Forest—Wäldchen—enclosed by a wall, where, among the stately trees, you may see two, the Princes' Oaks—Prinzeneichen—so named from an interesting event in Saxon history, of which we shall perhaps have some particulars by-and-by. The plateau, moreover, commands views of a fertile and well-wooded country all broken up by low hills, the lowest slopes of the Ore mountains—Erzgebirge—which show their dark swelling outlines far away in the south.

You descend suddenly into a gap, which isolates an eminence—the hill of Stirling in miniature—terminating in a porphyry cliff, crowned by the castle. A convenient ascent brings you into an irregular court-yard, shut in on opposite sides by the oldest and newest parts of the building. Architecture of the thirteenth century mated curiously with that of the eighteenth; and both occupying the site of what was already a fortress in the tenth. The castle owes its present form to the Dukes Friedrich the Second and Third, who, in 1744, completed their thirty-eight years of alterations.

The place is a strange medley. Gray, weatherbeaten walls, with square towers and jutting turrets, intruded on by modern masonry—Neptune in his cockle-shell car in the midst of a fountain, and sentries pacing up and down, and soldiers lounging about their shabby-looking quarters—grim passages, and uncomfortable chambers. The Austrian arms, which you may yet see cut in the stone over a doorway, mark the granary built by the Electress Margaret for stores of corn, in order that, when grain became dear, she might save the townsfolk from hunger. A little farther and you come to the Mantelthurm, a round tower, with walls seven yards thick, commonly called the Bottle, from the form of its slated roof. It has two ugly chambers, which were used as dungeons up to 1641, after which it did duty as a magazine; and now the lower part is a cinder-hole. Adjoining is the Jünkerei—once the pages' quarters—in which are certain official apartments and the armoury. The Imperialists plundered the castle, during the Thirty Years' War, of most of its treasures and curiosities; and later, many specimens of mediæval armour were carried off to Coburg, leaving little besides objects which have an intimate relation with Saxon history. Weapons old and new, banners, garments, paraphernalia used in ducal funerals, and many things which belonged to persons connected with the Robbery of the Princes (Prinzenraub). In recent times a museum of antiquities has been added: articles of furniture, books, and other rarities which perpetuate the memory of eminent individuals—urns and other funereal remains dug up in the neighbourhood—ethnographical specimens chiefly from Australia and the Sunda Islands—and a collection of china, presented by the Minister Baron von Lindenau.