A July Holiday in Saxony, Bohemia, and Silesia

I returned to the Felsenstadt for my knapsack. For supper, bed, and breakfast the charge was equal to three and threepence, in which was included an extra fifteen kreutzers for the bedroom, which I had insisted on having all to myself. When guests are very numerous they have to sleep four in a room. Take your change in Prussian money, for "Kaiserliches geld," as the folk here call it—that is, imperial money—will not be current where you stop to dine.

I retraced my steps for about a mile along the road by which I came yesterday, and at the church took a road branching off to the right. It leads through Ober Adersbach. The villagers were going to church: the men wearing tall polished boots and jackets, the women with their heads ungracefully muffled in red, blue, green, or yellow kerchiefs, and displaying broad, showy skirts and aprons, and clean white stockings. Now and then came an exception: a man in a light-blue jacket, and loose, baggy breeches; a woman with a stiff-starched head-dress, not unlike those worn in Normandy.

The road continually rises, and by-and-by you cannot tell the main track from the byeways among the cottages. Still ascending, however, you come out a short distance farther on the brow of a precipitous hill, where you are agreeably surprised by another Silesian view—broad, rolling fields of good red land, bearing vetches, clover, flax, and barley, the little town of Schömberg in their midst, and always hills on the horizon. From the brow, a deep lane and a path through the fir-wood on the cliffy hill-side, lead you down to the road where finger-posts, painted black and white, indicate that we have exchanged the Austrian eagle for the Prussian. I must have crossed the frontier two or three times yesterday and to-day, but I saw no custom-house anywhere, and no guards, except at Grenzbäuden.

Other signs showed me on nearing Schömberg that I had left Bohemia. The men are tall, of sallow complexion, and angular face. They wear long dark-blue coats and boots up to their knees, and stiff blue caps with a broad crown, and they carry pink or blue umbrellas. The women wear the same colour, and do not look attractive; and there is an Evangelische Kirche, in which the preaching is of Protestant faith and doctrine.

The town has two thousand inhabitants, some of whom dwell in houses that are a pleasure to look upon, around the market-place. The gables—no two alike—are painted pale green, white, gray, or yellow, and what with the ornaments, the broken outlines, and arcades of wood and brick, the great square makes up a better picture than is to be seen in many a famous city. Although Sunday, the mill turned by the Kratzbach clacks briskly; there are stalls of fruit, bread, and toys under the arcades, and by the side of two or three wagons in the centre a group of blue-coated men. They look sedate, and talk very quietly, as if they felt the day were not for work.

From hence the road, planted with beeches, limes, and mountain-ash, leads across well-cultivated fields, and between wooded slopes of the Ueberschar hills to Ullersdorf, where Schneekoppe is seen peeping over a dark ridge on the left. I asked one of the weavers who inhabit here if he earned two dollars a week.

"Gott bewahr!" he exclaimed, opening his eyes and holding up his hands apparently in utter amazement, "that would be too gladsome (frolich). No; I can be thankful for one dollar."

Content with one dollar a week, which means a perpetual diet of rye bread and potatoes.

Liebau and Schömberg, about five miles apart, are in many respects twin towns. If Liebau has not a strikingly picturesque market-place, nor a reputation for Knackwürsten (smoked sausage), it has a new Protestant church, some good paintings in the Romish church, and a Kreuzberg, once the resort of thousands of pilgrims. The neighbouring Tartarnberg was, according to tradition, the site of a Tartar camp in 1241. Rusty, half-decayed horseshoes and arrow-heads are still found at times upon it.

After dining at the Sonne, I bought a dessert at a stall under the arcade: the woman gave me nearly a gallon of cherries for three-halfpence, with which I started for Schmiedeberg, ten miles farther. Numbers of villagers were walking on the road, all the women bedecked with pink aprons, and looking healthy and happy. Perhaps out of twenty or more chubby-faced children, who manifested a lively appetite for fruit, two or three will remember that they met a strange man who gave them a handful of cherries, and how that their mothers became all of a sudden eloquent with thanks, and bade them kiss their hands, and do something pretty. Unluckily, by the time I had gone two miles there was an end of the cherries.

The road runs between the Schmiedeberger Kamm and the Landeshuter Kamm. The main road, which crosses the latter from Schmiedeberg to Landeshut, is called the Prussian or Silesian Simplon, for it is the highest macadamized road in Prussia, its summit being at an elevation of more than 2200 feet. Extra horses are required to pass it; and the saying goes that millions of dollars have been paid on a stone at the top, known as the Vorspannsteine.

Among rural objects you see huge barns; a tiled roof resting on tall, square pillars of brick, the intervals between which are boarded. And here and there a farm, with all the homestead enclosed by a high whitewashed wall, which has two arched entrances. The cottages are low, their roofs a combination of thatch and shingle, their shutters an exhibition of rustic art, bright red, with an ornamental wreath in the centre of the panels; and the wooden column, on which a saint stands by the wayside, displays a flowery spiral on a ground of lively green. To a man who was leaning over his gate, I said that it was very stupid to mar the effect of such artistic decorations by a slushy midden at the front door.

"We don't think so: we are used to it," was his answer.

Now and then you meet a little low wagon, the tilt-hoops painted blue, and the harness glittering with numerous rings and small round plates of brass. In the village of Buchwald the mill was at work, and the men were busy at the grindstone grinding their scythe-blades in readiness for the morrow. Here we come upon the Bober, grown to a lively stream, running along the edge of the far-spreading meadows on the left. About half a mile farther a wagon-track slants off to the right, making a short cut over the Kamm to Schmiedeberg. It leads you by pleasant ways along hill-sides, across fields and meadows, into lonely vales and solitary lanes, that end on shaggy heather slopes. To me the walk was delightful, for uninterrupted sunshine, a merry breeze, and rural peace, favourable to the luxury of idle thought, lent a charm to pretty scenery.

From Dittersbach the road ascends the Passberg, which, on the farther side, sends down a steep descent to Schmiedeberg. The town lies in a deep valley, and is so long from one extremity of its scattered outskirts to the other that you will be nearly an hour in walking through it, while, for the most part, it is little more than one street in width. It has an ancient look, and, owing to the many gardens and bleaching-grounds among the houses, combines country with town. The Rathhaus is a fine specimen of tasteful architecture.

From working in iron, the Schmiedebergers have turned to the making of shawls and plush, and the entertainment of holiday travellers. The iron trade began in an adventure on the Riesengebirge. Two men were crossing the mountains, when one, whose shoes were thickly nailed, found himself suddenly held fast on the stony path, unable to advance or return. He shook with terror. What else could it be than a spell thrown over him by Rübezahl? At length, by the other's assistance, he broke the spell; and the two having brought away with them the stone of detention, it was recognised as magnetic iron stone; and already, in the twelfth century, iron works were established, around which Schmiedeberg grew into a town. It now numbers four thousand inhabitants.

Hither come tourists from far to see the mountains; and during your half hour's rest at the Schwarzes Ross, you will be amused by witnessing the eager manifestations of the newly-arrived, their exuberant gestures while bargaining with a guide, and the liberal way—the bargain once made—in which they load him with rugs, cloaks, coats, caps, bonnets, bags, bundles, umbrellas, parasols, and other travelling gear, until he carries a mountain on his own shoulders. Besides the trip to Schneekoppe, some mount to the great beech-tree and the Friesenstein, on the Landeshuter Kamm; or visit the laboratories at Krummhübel, where liqueurs, oils, and essences, are distilled and prepared from native plants: chemical operations first set on foot in 1700 by a few students of medicine who fled from Prague to escape the consequences of a duel. And some go beyond Krummhübel to look at Wolfshau, a place in the entrance of the Melzergrund, so shut in by wooded hills that it never sees the sun during December. And some to the village of Steinseifen, where, among iron-workers and herbalists, dwell skilful wood-carvers; one of whom for a small fee exhibits a large model of the Riesengebirge—a specimen of his own handiwork.

On the left, as you leave Schmiedeberg, is the Ruheberg, a small castle standing in a bosky park belonging to a Polish prince, where the townsfolk find pleasant walks. Two miles farther, and the leafy slopes of Buchwald appear on the right, embowering another castle, and a park laid out in the English style, and with such advantages of position, among which are fifty-four ponds, that it has become an elysium for the neighbourhood.

Once clear of the town, and the mountain-range opens on the left—rounded heights, ridges, scars, and peaks stretching away for miles on either side of the Koppe. Another hour, and turning from the main road which runs on to Hirschberg, you see houses scattered about the plain, built in the Alpine style, with outside stair and galleries, and broad eaves. We are in the village of Erdmannsdorf—the asylum granted by the King of Prussia to about a hundred Tyrolese families, who, in 1838, had to quit their native country for conscience' sake. They were Protestants hated by their bigoted neighbours, and disliked by the priests; and so became exiles. Nowhere else in Prussia could they have seen mountains at all approaching in grandeur those which look down on their native valley, and yet they must at first have deeply mourned the difference.

Remembering my former year's experiences, I wished to find myself once more among the Tyrolese. True enough, there they were in their picturesque costume, in striking contrast with the Silesians; but there was a degenerate look about the Wirthshaus, as if they had forgotten their original cleanliness, which repelled me, and I went on to the Schweizerhaus, a large inn near the royal Schloss. As usual, it was overfull, so great is the throng of visitors, and I had to try in another direction, which brought me to the Gasthof und Gerichtskretscham, where the landlord promised me a bed if I would not mind sleeping in the billiard-room.

CHAPTER XXV

Schnaps and Sausage—Dresdener upon Berliners—The Prince's Castle at Fischbach—A Home for the Princess Royal—Is the Marriage Popular?—View from the Tower—Tradition of the Golden Donkey—Royal Palace at Erdmannsdorf—A Miniature Chatsworth—The Zillerthal—Käse and Brod—Stohnsdorf—Famous Beer—Rischmann's Cave—Prophecies—Warmbrunn.

At Fischbach, in a pleasant valley, about an hour's walk from Erdmannsdorf, stands a castle belonging to Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, which is shown to curious tourists. A Dresdener, who thought it worth the trouble of the walk, asked me to accompany him next morning, and we started after an early breakfast. Early as it was a party of Silesian peasants were breaking their fast with Schnaps, sausage, and rye bread. Think of Schnaps and sausage at seven in the morning!

The Dresdener beguiled the way by laughing at the peculiarities of three Berliners, whom we had left behind at the Gasthof. A Prussian cockney, he said, was sure to betray himself as soon as he began to talk, for nothing would satisfy him but the most exalted superlatives. "When you hear," he continued, "a man talk of a thing as gigantic—incomprehensibly beautiful—ravishingly excellent—insignificantly scarcely visible—set him down at once as a Berliner. You heard those three last night, how they went on; as we say in our country, hanging their hats on the topmost pegs. Yracious yoodness! what yiyantic yabble!" And the Saxon cockney laughed as heartily at his own wit as if it had been good enough for Punch.

The castle is an old possession of the Knights Templars, repaired and beautified. It has towers and turrets, and windows of quaint device; a small inner court, and a surrounding moat spanned by a bridge at the entrance. Outside the moat are shady walks and avenues of limes, and the gardens, which did not come up to my notion of what is royal either in fruits or flowers. With plantations on the hills around, and in the park, the whole place has a pleasant bowery aspect.

As we crossed the bridge, there seemed something inhospitable in the sight of two large cannon guarding the entrance; but the portress told us they were trophies from Afghanistan, captured at the battle in which Prince Waldemar was wounded—a present from the British government. The fittings of the room are mostly of varnished pine, to which the furniture and hangings do no violence. There are a few good paintings, among them a portrait of the Queen of Bavaria, which you will remember for beauty above all the rest; nor will you easily forget the marble head copied from the statue of Queen Louisa in the mausoleum at Charlottenburg. From looking at the rarities, the portress called us to hear the singing of an artificial bird, and seemed somewhat disappointed that we did not regard it as the greatest curiosity of all.

"A snug little place," said the Dresdener, as we walked from room to room. "Not quite what your Princess Royal has been used to, perhaps; but she will be able to pass summer holidays here agreeably enough."

And quickly the question followed: "But what do you think of the marriage in England. Is it very popular?"

"Not very," I answered; "your Prussian Prince would have stood no chance had the King of Sardinia only been a Protestant. Nothing but her wholesome ingredient of Protestantism saves Prussia from becoming an offence to English nostrils."

"So-o-o-o-o!" ejaculated the Dresdener, while he made pointed arches of his eyebrows. "That sounds pretty in the Prince's own castle."

We went to the top of the tower, and looked out on the domain, the mountain chain, and the encircling hills—among which the rocky Falkenstein—the climbing test of adventurous tourists—rises conspicuous. According to tradition, great things are in store for the quiet little village of Fischbach; it is destined to grow into a city. In the Kittnerberg, a neighbouring hill, a golden donkey is some day to be found, and when found the city is forthwith to start up, and the finder to be chosen first burgomaster.

Erdmannsdorf, once the estate of brave old Gneisenau, was bought by the former King Frederick William III., who built in a style combining Moorish and Gothic the Schloss, or palace, which, with its charming grounds and bronze statues of men-at-arms at the entrance keeping perpetual guard with battle-axes, rivals the Tyrolese and their houses in attracting visitors. No barriers separate the grounds from the public road, and you may walk where you please along the broad sandy paths, under tall groves, through luxuriant shrubberies, round rippling lakes, and by streams which here and there tumble over rocky dams. The place is a miniature Chatsworth, with its model village. Within the limits of the smooth green turf and well-kept walks stands the church, an edifice with a tall square tower in the Byzantine style. The palace, too, has a tall tower, from the top of which, on our return to Erdmannsdorf—that is the Dresdener and I—we got a view of the royal domain, and the scattered houses of the Tyrolese, and always in the background the Riesengebirge.

Remembering their native valley, the Tyrolese named their settlement Zillerthal, and many a one comes here expecting to see a romantic valley. But all immediately beneath your eye is a great plain watered by the Lomnitz—the stream which flows out of the Big Pond up in the mountains—cut up by fields and meadows, crowded with trees around the palace, and in the deer-park adjoining. Only in Ober-Zillerthal, which lies nearer to the mountains, do the colonists have the pleasure of ascending or descending in their walks.

The Tyrolese themselves built their first house entirely of wood, after the old manner; and this served as model for all the rest, which, with stone walls for the lower story, have been erected at the king's expense. The colonists find occupation in cattle-breeding and field-work, or in the great linen factory, the tall chimney of which is seen from far across the plain; and are well cared for in means of education and religious worship. In their Friedhof you may see the first Tyrolese grave, the resting-place of Jacob Egger, a blind old man of eighty-three, who died soon after the immigration.

Not far from the palace is a singular group of rocks named Käse und Brod (Cheese and Bread), on the way to which you pass a stone quarry, where you can pick up fine crystals of quartz, and see men digging feldspar for the china-manufacturers at Berlin.

Here I parted from the Dresdener and took the road to Warmbrunn—about six miles distant. Half way, at the foot of the rocky Prudelberg, lies the village of Stohnsdorf, famed for its beer; and not without reason. But while you drink a glass, the landlord will tell you that clever folk in distant places—Berlin or Dresden—damage the fame by selling bottled Stohnsdorfer brewed from the waters of the Spree or Elbe.

If inclined for a scramble up the Prudelberg, take a peep into Rischmann's Cave among the rocks, for from thence, in 1630, the prophet Rischmann delivered his predictions with loud voice and wild gestures. He was a poor weaver, who fancied himself inspired, and, although struck dumb in 1613, could always find speech when he had anything to foretel. Woe to Hirschberg was the burden of his prophecy: war, pestilence, and famine! The tower of the council-house should fall, and the stream of the Zacken stand still. Honour and reverence awaited the weaver, for everything came to pass as he had foretold. The Thirty Years' War brought pestilence and famine; the tower did fall down; and the Zacken being one of those rivers with an intermittent flow, its stream was subject to periodical repose.

After frequent ups and downs, you come to the brow of a hill which overlooks a broad sweep of the Hirschbergerthal, and the little town of Warmbrunn, chief among Silesian spas—lying cheerfully where the valley spreads itself out widest towards the mountains. You will feel tempted to sit down for awhile and gaze on the view—for it has many pleasing features—touches of the romantic with the pastoral, and the town itself wearing an unsophisticated look. Seume said of the Hirschberg Valley—"Seldom finds one a more delightful corner of the earth; seldom better people."

CHAPTER XXVI

The Three Berliners—Strong Beer—Origin of Warmbrunn—St. John the Baptist's Day—Count Schaffgotsch—A Benefactor—A Library—Something about Warmbrunn—The Baths—Healing Waters—The Allée—Visitors—Russian Popes—The Museum—Trophies—View of the Mountains—The Kynast—Cunigunda and her Lovers—Served her right—The Two Breslauers—Oblatt—The Baths in the Mountains.

I had gone a little way along the street when I heard voices crying, "Eng-lischmann! Eng-lischmann! Eng-lischmann!" and, looking about, I saw the three Berliners at the window of an hotel. "You must come up!" "You must come up!" "You must come up!" cried one after the other; so up I went. We had half an hour of yood-natured yossip about our morning's adventures, not forgetting the merits of Stohnsdorf; and one of them said something about the famous beer that justified the Dresdener's criticism. "Isn't it yood? Isn't it strong? Why it is so strong that if you pour some into your hand, and hold it shut for ten minutes, you can never open it ayain!"

The old story. Some time in the twelfth century, Duke Boleslaw IV., while out hunting, struck the trail of a deer, and following it, was led to a Warmbrunn (Warm Spring), in which, as by signs appeared, the animals used to bathe. The duke bathed too, and perhaps with benefit; for near by he built a chapel, and dedicated it to the patron saint of Silesia—John the Baptist. The news spread, even in those days; and with it a belief that on St. John's Day the healing properties of the spring were miraculously multiplied. Hence, on the 24th of June, sick folk came from far and near to bathe in the blessed water, and some, thanks to the energy of their belief, went away cured. And this practice was continued down to the year 1810.

Such was the origin of the present Marktfleck (Market Village) Warmbrunn. In 1387 King Wenzel sold it to Gotsche Schoff—Stemfather, as the Germans say, of Count von Schaffgotsch, who now rules with generous sway over the spa and estates that stretch for miles around. It was he who built the Schneegrubenhaus; who made the path up the Bohemian side of Schneekoppe; who opens his gardens and walks to visitors, and a library of forty thousand volumes with a museum for their amusement and edification; who established a bathing-house with twenty-four beds for poor folk who cannot pay, and who spares no outlay of money or influence to improve the place and attract strangers.

Warmbrunn now numbers about 2300 inhabitants, who live upon the guests during the season, and the rest of the year by weaving, bleaching, stone-polishing, and wood-carving. Of hotels and houses of entertainment there is no lack; the Schwarzer Adler and Hôtel de Prusse among the best. But as at Carlsbad, nearly every house has its sign, and lets lodgings, dearest close to the baths, and cheaper as the distance increases, till in the outskirts, and they are not far off, you can get a room with attendance for two dollars a week, or less. Of refectioners there is no lack in the place itself, or about the neighbourhood.

There are six baths. The Count's and Provost's—or Great and Little Baths—are near the middle of the village, separated by the street. These are the oldest. The water bursts up clear and sparkling from openings in coarse-grained, flesh-red granite, at a temperature of 94 degrees Fahrenheit in the great basin, and 101 degrees in the little basin. It is soft on the palate, with a taste and odour of sulphur, and in saline and alkaline constituents resembles the waters of Aix-la-Chapelle and Töplitz. It is efficacious in cases of gout, contractions, skin diseases, and functional complaints; in some instances with extraordinary results. I heard of patients who come to Warmbrunn so crooked and crippled that they can neither sit nor stand, nor lie in a natural posture, who have to be lifted in and out of the bath, and yet, after two months' bathing, have been able to walk alone.

Although patients bathe a number together, the throng is so great in the hot months that many have to study a lesson in patience till their turn comes. Some, to whom drinking the water is prescribed, resort to the Trinkquelle; and in the other bathing-houses there are all the appliances for douche, showers, vapour, and friction. One room is fitted up with electrical and galvanic apparatus, to be used in particular cases.

With so many visitors Warmbrunn has an appearance of life and gaiety; the somewhat rustic shops put on an upstart look, or a timid show of gentility. The Allée, a broad tree-planted avenue opening from the main street, by the side of the Count's Schloss, is the favourite promenade. Here, among troops of Germans, you meet Poles and Muscovites, some betraying their nationality by outward signs. I saw three men of very dingy complexion and sluggish movement, clad in shabby black coats, with skirts reaching to their heels, who seemed out of place among well-dressed promenaders. They were Russian popes. Great personages have come here at times in search of health, and on such occasions the little spa has grown vain-glorious. In 1687 the queen of John Sobieski III. came with one thousand attendants. In 1702 came Prince Jacob, their son, and stayed a year; and since then dignitaries without number, among the latest of whom was Field-Marshal Count von Ziethen, who took up his abode here in 1839.