There
is however this difference between them, that the Italian vetturini will
abate their price, if their carriage is full excepting one place, and that
they must start, whereas the German Landkutscher never abate their price.
I paid for my journey from Vienna to Prague thirty-five florins Wiener
Waehrung, and we made the journey in five days. Our first day's journey
brought us to Hoellabrunn, having stoppd to dinner at Stockeran. The road is
excellent and the several towns and villages we past thro' clean and well
built. The landscape was either a plain, or gently undulating and extremely
well cultivated.
Bohemia resembles Moravia, being an exceedingly rich corn country,
generally open; not many trees about the country near the road side, except
at the Chateau and farm houses. The language is a dialect of the
Sclavonic, mixed with some German; but at the inns there is always one or
two servants who speak German. In Bohemia a traveller not speaking German,
and who has no interpreter with him, would find himself greatly
embarrassed. The Bohemians call themselves in their own language
Cherschky, and the Hungarians call themselves Magyar.
[117] Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata, canto XV, ottave 31, 32:
Un uom della Liguria avra ardimento
All' incognito corao esporsi in prima...
Tu spiegherai, Colombo, a un nuovo polo
Lontane si le fortunate antenne... - ED.
[118] Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, XL, 31, 1. - ED.
[119] See reference to Eustace p. 131.
[120] Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, XXVIII, 38, 7. - ED.
[121] Boileau, Satires, XI, v. 117.
[122] The drama, Der Wold bei Hermannstadt, is the work of Johanna
Fraenul von Weissenthurn (1773-1847), a celebrated Viennese actress
and authoress. An opera was written on the same text by W. Westmeyer,
- ED.
[123] Because I am an Englishman - You are an Englishman? you are certainly
a North-German; you speak very correct German. - Gentlemen, I tell you
I am an Englishman; many English study and speak the German language
and if you had held a long conversation with me, you would soon have
perceived from my faults in speaking, that I am not a German. - But you
have answered our questions so correctly. - Why not, the same questions
have been put to me so often that I have all the necessary answers by
heart like a catechism.
[124] Where is my father?
[125] "You wish to know where your father is? He is under arrest; people
were well disposed to him; but he is placed under arrest, because he
was unruly, and if you are unruly you will be placed under arrest
likewise."
CHAPTER XVII
SEPTEMBER 1818-MARCH 1819
The splendid city of Prague - The German expression, "To give the
basket" - Journey from Prague to Dresden - Journey from Dresden to Berlin - A
description of Berlin - The Prussian Army - Theatricals - Peasants talk about
Napoleon - Prussians and French should be allies - Absurd policy of the
English Tories - Journey from Berlin to Dresden - A description of
Dresden - The battle of Dresden in 1813 - Clubs at Dresden - Theatricals -
German beds - Saxon scholars - The picture gallery - Tobacco an ally of
Legitimacy - Saxon women - Meissen - Unjust policy of Europe towards the King
of Saxony.
PRAGUE, 4 Sept.
Prague is a far more striking and splendid city than Vienna, without its
faubourgs. The streets are broader; and it has a more cheerful and less
confined appearance than the old town of Vienna. The position of Prague too
is very romantic and picturesque, part of it lying on a mountain and part
on a plain; and it stands on the confluent of two rivers, the Mulda and the
Braun. The upper part of the city, called Oberburg, stands on a height
called Ratschin, and on this height stands a most magnificent palace and
other stately buildings. There is a beautiful panoramic view from this part
of Prague. In this part of the city too is the cathedral of St Wenzel or
Wenceslaus, who was its founder. His tomb and that of St John Nepomucene, a
favorite saint of the Bohemians, is in this church. The Cathedral is of
extreme solidity, but little ornamented, having been plundered by the
Swedes in 1648. The canopy over the shrine of St John Nepomucene has a
profusion of votive offerings appended to it. The lower part of Prague is
divided into two parts by the Mulda. The bridge across the Mulda is one of
the finest in Europe. It has twenty-four arches, its length is 1700 feet
and its breadth 35. Among several statues on this bridge is a very
remarkable one of Jesus Christ, made of bronze gilt, which cost a large sum
of money to its founder, a Jew! There is a Latin inscription on it which
explains the paradox. There stood on the same spot a wooden statue of
Christ in the XVI century. One day an opulent Jew, on passing by, made some
scoffing or contemptuous remark on it. He was overheard by some of the
people, accused of blasphemy and condemned to die; but on expressing great
contrition and offering to pay a fine to any amount, he was pardoned, on
the condition of his promising to erect a bronze statue gilt of Jesus
Christ on the same spot, at his own expense, with an inscription explaining
the reason of its construction; which promise he punctually performed.
Prague abounds in Jews. Two-thirds at least of its population are of that
persuasion. In the lower town the most striking edifices are the palace of
the Wallenstein family, descendants of the famous Wallenstein, so
distinguished in the Thirty Years war.
