{5}
At Eleven O'clock On The Same Night We Reached
PRAGUE.
As it was my intention to pursue my journey after two days, my first
walk on the following
Morning was to the police-office, to procure a
passport and the all-important pass-warrant; my next to the custom-
house, to take possession of a small chest, which I had delivered up
five days before my departure, and which, as the expeditor affirmed,
I should find ready for me on my arrival at Prague. {6} Ah, Mr.
Expeditor! my chest was not there. After Saturday comes Sunday; but
on Sunday the custom-house is closed. So here was a day lost, a day
in which I might have gone to Dresden, and even visited the opera.
On Monday morning I once more hastened to the office in anxious
expectation; the box was not yet there. An array of loaded wagons
had, however, arrived, and in one of these it might be. Ah, how I
longed to see my darling little box, in order that I might - NOT
press it to my heart, but unpack it in presence of the excise
officer!
I took merely a cursory glance at Prague, as I had thoroughly
examined every thing there some years before. The beautiful
"Graben" and Horse-market once more excited my admiration. It was
with a peculiar feeling that I trod the old bridge, from which St.
John of Nepomuk was cast into the Moldau for refusing to publish the
confession of King Wenceslaus' consort. {7} On the opposite bank I
mounted the Hradschin, and paid a visit to the cathedral, in which a
large sarcophagus, surrounded and borne by angels, and surmounted by
a canopy of crimson damask, is dedicated to the memory of the saint.
The monument is of silver, and the worth of the metal alone is
estimated at 80,000 florins. The church itself is not spacious, but
is built in the noble Gothic style; the lesser altars, however, with
their innumerable gilded wooden figures, look by contrast extremely
puny. In the chapel are many sarcophagi, on which repose bishops
and knights hewn in stone, but so much damaged, that many are
without hands and feet, while some lack heads. To the right, at the
entrance of the church, is the celebrated chapel of St. Wenceslaus,
with its walls ornamented with frescoes, of which the colours and
designs are now almost obliterated. It is further enriched with
costly stones.
Not far from the cathedral is situated the palace of Count Czernin,
a building particularly favoured with windows, of which it has one
for every day in the year. I was there in an ordinary year, and saw
365; how they manage in leap-year I do not know. The view from the
belvedere of this palace well repays the observer. It takes in the
old and new town, the noble river with its two bridges (the ancient
venerable-looking stone structure, and the graceful suspension-
bridge, six hundred paces long), and the hills round about, clothed
with gardens, among which appear neat country-houses.
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