XIV.
Prague, Bohemia, July 12, 1841.
I will give you some idea of the mode of travel in Hungary. Between Vienna and Pest there is a separate posting establishment, set on foot by peasants, who drive their own horses, and travel twice as expeditiously as an ordinary post. Their only carriage is a light wagon, which is furnished with an abundance of straw or hay to make it comfortable, with a rude temporary cover of matting thrown over it, to protect from the rays of the sun, and rain. The pace at which these conveyances travel is absolutely wonderful, especially some of the stages. One of these stages, of forty miles, was performed within four hours, with a stop of fifteen minutes to water. Most of the time they went at the most rapid speed, keeping the horses, of which there were four, at a full gallop.
It is a curious, but attractive sight, to see the wild looking driver, with his long black hair floating in the breeze, his broad-brimmed hat and feather, as he turns around to ask for your admiration when his four, little, clean-limbed nags are rattling away over hills and through hollows, at a rate absolutely frightful. Go slow he will not; and if you escape being overturned, and left by the road-side, you are fortunate.
Hungary is a rich agricultural country, producing immense quantities of grain of different kinds. In the opinion of some, it is not uncommon for travellers to exaggerate; and when I say that we passed through fields ten miles in extent, with wheat on both sides as far as the eye could reach, it will scarcely appear credible. The small Hungarian towns present a singular appearance, having mostly one long and very broad street. The houses all stand with their gables to the street, are one story high, and about eighteen feet wide, with but one front window, but extending very deep to the rear. In towns of three or four hundred houses, you will scarcely discover two with any other covering than a thatched straw roof, but they are all well whitewashed, and have a greater appearance of comfort and neatness than one would suppose.
The estates are very large, and most of the peasants are mere slaves. It is amusing to see them on Sunday, or a holiday, with their gay attire; their round-topped broad-brimmed hats filled with feathers and gay flowers, and the rest of their peculiar dresses decked in corresponding style, with gaudy finery, remind one of our American Indians.
On our route to this city from Vienna, we stopped at Brunn, the capital of Moravia, a city with a population of forty thousand. The sect called Moravians originated in this country. It is a manufacturing city, and may be regarded as the Austrian Leeds for its cloths and woollen stuffs. Baron Trenck, the savage leader of the Pandours, the wild vanguard of the Austrian army, died here, and is buried in the church of the Capuchins. About ten miles from Brunn lies the famous battle-field of Austerlitz.
This city stands in a basin-shaped valley, cut in two by the river Moldau. It is surrounded on all sides by rocks or eminences, upon which slope the buildings of the city, rising tier above tier as they recede from the water’s edge. There is something of Asiatic splendor in the aspect and form of the domes, turrets, spires, and minarets, which rise up without number on all sides. The most imposing building is the ancient palace of the Bohemian kings, which stands upon the crest of an eminence, and overlooks all the other buildings of the city. The population is one hundred and twenty thousand.
The city contains much to interest strangers. The Aldstadt, as its name imports, is connected with the new part of the town by a bridge of massive stone, which was begun in the year 1356, by the emperor Charles IV., and finished in 1507; it is one thousand seven hundred and ninety feet long, and is ornamented with fifty-six statues of saints, twenty-eight on each side,—one of them a bronze statue of St. Nepomuck, who, according to the Popish legend, was thrown from this bridge into the river and drowned, in 1383, by king Wenceslaus, because he refused to betray the secrets confided to him by his queen in the holy rite of confession. The spot is now marked by five stars and a cross, in imitation of the miraculous flames which for three days after he was drowned, were seen flickering over the place where his body lay under water. The river was dragged, his body found and encased in a gorgeous silver shrine, and placed in the cathedral. From this circumstance, he became the patron saint of bridges; and wherever I have travelled in Catholic countries, I find the statue of St. John Nepomuck occupying the same situation by the bridges. The shrine and chapel in the cathedral are among the most richly finished in the world. The body is contained in a crystal coffin, inclosed in one of silver, and held aloft by angels as large as life, also of silver. The candelabra which stand around, the ever-burning lamps which hang above, are of the same precious metal, weighing altogether two thousand five hundred pounds. About three miles from the city is the field of the famous battle of Prague, won by Frederick the Great, in the celebrated Seven Years’ War. The cathedral is still standing at which Frederick aimed his cannon when he attacked the city, and is now a perfect museum of antiquities. Two hundred and fifteen balls passed through the roof. It is an interesting place to visit. The Jews quarter here, and occupy a part of the city by themselves, but are not locked up at night as in Rome and some other places that I have visited. It is recorded that in 1290 they were almost exterminated here by the fanaticism of the ignorant part of the people, who charged them with insulting the Host.
The most ancient synagogue here, the Jews assert, is nine hundred years old; the dust of ages remains undisturbed in it, and brooms, water, or whitewash would be considered sacrilege. It is a small apartment, supported on arches by three pillars, dingy with age and smoke. In some of their festivals they bear torches and lamps for days and nights, which accounts for the smoky and gloomy walls. The burial-ground, not far from the synagogue, is a singular spot. It is a large inclosure in the centre of the Jewish city, filled with the dead of centuries. One old headstone was pointed out which bears the date of the twelfth century. Many of them bear symbols of the tribes to which the departed belonged; a pitcher marks Levi, and so on.
We visited the palace of the Bohemian Kings. It is said to contain one thousand four hundred and forty apartments, and some are very splendid in size and decorations. The window is shown where three nobles were thrown out and fell eighty feet, having issued tyrannical edicts against the Protestants, which gave rise to the Thirty Years’ War that ended in 1640. We next visited the palace of the great chieftain Wallenstein. It is stated that one hundred houses were purchased and pulled down to make room for building the palace and clearing the grounds around it. It is now occupied by the descendants of Wallenstein. Those who visited the palace in his lifetime have left behind a surprising account of its splendor, and the regal style kept up by the proprietor. His stables contained three hundred saddle and carriage horses, fed out of marble mangers. Sixty pages, of noble families, were kept in the establishment to wait upon him, and when he went from home fifty carriages each drawn by four or six horses conveyed himself and suite, and fifty wagons carried his baggage, while the whole train was followed by fifty extra horses. His fortune was enormous, and yet during the wars he was often at a loss for means to raise a few thousand florins, so terribly did the country suffer.
The monastery of Straliew, whose library contains fifty thousand volumes, has scarcely its equal in this part of the world for its splendor, being lined throughout with walnut wood, and richly ornamented with gilding. It contains, among other things of interest, the autograph of Tycho Brahe, the great astronomer, and a portrait of the famous Ziska, who, it is said, bequeathed his skin to his followers with directions that it should be tanned and stretched upon a drum, in order that its sound might inflict upon his enemies a portion of that terror which his presence while living had invariably produced among them.