A Mysterious Adventure.
One of the most curious Old Castles I was ever at, was that of Baden. The word “Baden” is German, and signifies “bathing,” and it is here that much bathing takes place. The city is situated in a charming vale, about two leagues from the river Rhine.
The Castle is one of the “lions” of those parts; it is situated on a rock, and affords from all sides the most splendid prospect. The road to it is well cut, and made as easy as the nature of the ground will permit; but it was a full hour before Keet (who is one of the best and most courageous of companions) and I reached the place where the wide-spread ruin stands. The rock on which it is placed is many hundred feet above the level of the Rhine; and, being almost in the shape of a sugar-loaf, the panorama is perfect.
Keet said his prayers, which he generally does on any painful ascent, and with the pathos of an old Greenwich Pensioner, blessed the steps, the brambles, and the hard stumps that annoyed him. He also performed sundry pious ejaculations to the tyrannical lords of the ancient domain, wishing them in the “abodes of bliss,” with a fervor and pathos truly marvellous. At last, we were shown, amid ruins, a low-browed, dark, shaggy, doleful, savage, ugly-looking archway, at which Keet curled the hair of his upper lip, as did Don Quixote when about to attack the Fulling Mills; while I, like Sancho, stood by, opening the sandwich-box, and the little bottle of very weak liquor, called water, which Keet eyed with great jealousy. We had a fierce-looking man as a guide, with a great black beard, clod-hopping shoes, a long pole with a spike in it—and he had lost his nose, one eye, and all his front teeth! When we came to this ugly-looking gateway, our guide, whom Keet called “Ferocio,” knocked with his spike-stick at the thick walls of the building, and cried out in mournful accents,—“This is the great gigantic gateway of the powerful, puissant, and portentious Castle of Baden; where men were strangled, women were pressed to death, and children were done for in a most sanguinary, blood-thirsty, and barbarous manner. Behold,” said he, in continuation, “the frowning granite that seems to yawn upon you with the sleep of seven centuries. Within these blocks of stone, was the famous ever-to-be-remembered, and never-to-be-forgotten secret tribunal; below it are the secret chambers, the secret prisons, the secret dungeons, and the secret horrors of this unsatisfactory pile of buildings; but, come my friendships, we will go to the within port, and there you shall see all the horrors of the dungeons as it appears by the light of the flambeau. You would like to see the dungeons!—Gents?”
To this appellation we gave the most profound of bows, as much like the obeisances of a “gent” of any of the seven drapers’ establishments as we could assume. “Now, gents!” said the guide, “elevate the lids of your desiring eyes, and follow me.” We did so, till we came to a low portal gate, hedged round with ruins—dark, damp, and nauseous. “Stand here, gents,” said the guide, with a fierce aspect and a menacing tone; “stand here and contemplate, while I fetches the key.” After keeping us waiting for a short time, he returned, holding in his hand a gigantic key, which, having brandished with a mysterious air for some seconds, he put into the lock—the old door grated on its hinges, and at last stood open. He then looked at us sternly, and with the accents of Hamlet’s Ghost, said in a hollow voice, “Follow me!”
Keet pulled out his “cheese-toaster,” and having deliberately sharpened it on the stone door-posts, and brandished it as “Ferocio” did the key, he gave me an expressive leer, and we followed. When we got into the door-way, we perceived the passage to be very dark, but we followed—took a turning to the right and then to the left, but all was dark as “Erebus,” and we began to feel comical. Keet called out to the guide, “I say, old fellow, I hope you are not going too far in this darkness visible.” “Nouagh!” said the guide, with a grunt that echoed through the place, “I av’ a flare-up in my pack!” With that he turned round, and rubbing a lucifer on the wall, and pulling a flambeau from his pocket, lighted it, and we proceeded.
We first came to another door, little and sturdy, and grim;—this he kicked open with his foot. We then descended some stone steps; we then went up a few steps, then down again, then round a corner, and then through a niche, till having passed a third door-way without a door, we came to a large vaulted room, lighted by heavy-barred windows from above. “This,” said the guide, “is the place in which the women were confined in time of war, lest they should unman the soldiers by their frightments. Here they were all shut up like ‘cats in a barn,’ and, it is said, that sometimes they fought to desperation. These here marks on the wall are said to be occasioned by their mutual recriminations, and the lex talions, as von gent called Alberto Smytheti say.”
The whole of this part of the structure is of Roman workmanship, but the dungeons to which they lead are evidently of German construction; and were, no doubt, appendages to the original pile; and designed for the exercise of some of the delightful eccentricities of German Margraves or Margravines, which Keet called “little amiabilities of temper and prejudice.” We now reached a low vaulted room, and our guide, with great coolness, took from his German small clothes, two thick candles, which having lighted, we were told to carry them. “Gents,” said he, “look to your heads against the walls, your feet against the floors, and your elbows against the angles, don’t step into holes, and say your prayers when you see a cross upon the stones, for that place once belonged to——one who shall be nameless.”
Our guide now unbolted a small door, and descending two or three steps, we entered a narrow passage which we could just squeeze through, and this terminated in a square, vaulted room. The aspect of the passage, and still more the dismal horror of the vault, which Keet said, “smelt of bye-gone silent systems,” removed all fears that I should not find dungeons terrible enough. It was quite impossible that stone walls can convey a feeling of more hopeless desolation. From this square room branched one more opening; but the utter darkness, the earthy smell, the coldness, the damp, the sullen mystery of the intricate windings it comprehended were such, that we now made, what Keet called, an “awful pause.”
Our guide, however, was not so timid. He said, courageously, “Come allons, gents. If you die here, you will not want a burying,” and he led the way, with a “mind your head here,” and “mind your feet there.” We were, after many tortuous windings, stopped by a door of stone, a foot thick, hewn in one piece out of the granite rock. This door stood ajar, and our “Ferocio” opened it with his thick stick, which he used as a lever. We squeezed past it—Keet gave it one of his pious addresses, and made the sign of the cross. “This is the little Bijou,” said the guide, “a nice little gem of a prison.” It was a small, vaulted stone room, utterly dark, damp, cold, and horribly mouldy to the nose and lungs—and deadly to the body and soul. We shuddered—Keet looked savage, and clenched his “cheese-toaster” with revenge in his looks, as if he would have summoned up the Ghost of the villainous Old Baron—who could form such dungeons—back again to earth, to have a stab at him.
“This is the next,” said the guide, as he passed through another massive door of rock, and another dismal vault. “This is the third,” said he, and passed into another. “This is the fourth,” said he, and took out his brandy bottle—“and this is the fifth,” hurrying us along, and taking sup after sup from the aforesaid brandy bottle—“and this is the eighth, ninth, and tenth.” There were, indeed, ten such horrible dungeons; some of them hewn out of the solid rock, as well as the passages which led to them, and others are constructed of immense blocks of stone.
After passing through several passages, we reached a chamber of lesser dimensions, the aspect and atmosphere of which might have chilled a lion’s heart. Our guide paused as he passed the threshold, took another dose, of course, from his brandy bottle, and said:—“This is the ‘Zammination Chamber.’” Many massive iron rings fastened into the walls of this room, gave indications, sufficiently intelligible, of the mode in which the questionings were wont to be carried on there.
One of the openings that led from this frightful room terminated in a wall, along which another passage rose at right angles. Exactly at the corner at which the turn was made, the footing of solid earth or rock that we had hitherto trod, was changed for a flooring of planks; which, if not quite loose, were yet so placed as to leave considerable space between them. He suffered us to pass over them, and when we had entered the door-way that stood at right angles, he stopped saying—“Here, this is the Oubliette,” and pointed as he spoke to the planks we had passed.
“And what is the Oubliette?” “It means Maurecement!” said the guide, “a sort of ‘eternal without a bottom.’ When a foreigner was sentenced to be forgotten, he was made to pass from the judgment-hall through this door, these planks then sunk beneath him, he was universitied as he fell to the bottom, and was heard of no more.” I shall tell you more of the horrors of this place in another chapter.
A few Words about the Egyptians,
ANCIENT AND MODERN.
In many respects Egypt is one of the most interesting countries on the face of the earth. It was the cradle of infant science—and the first seat of regular government; and if we go back into the darkness of bye-gone ages, we shall find in Egypt the first dawn of social intelligence. The land of the Pharoahs was an old country in the infant age of Greece. The earliest writers of Europe describe its grandeur as having already reached its consummation, and even as beginning to pass away. In the days of Homer, the capital of the Thebaid, with its hundred gates, and its vast population, was a subject of wonder, and what that poet relates of it, as illustrated by the recondite criticism of a Mitford, would scarcely be believed, were it not that the remains which, even after a lapse of three thousand years, continue to resist the injuries of the atmosphere and of barbarism, bear evidence to a still greater magnificence than is recorded in the pages of the Odyssey. Keet, the antiquarian and traveller, whose Asiatic researches do him so much honor, spent a considerable time in Egypt under the patronage of Ali Pacha, and made it his business to search into the past and present state of that wonderful people. Rich in the intelligence of modern science, he bears testimony to the improving capabilities of the modern Egyptians. In examining the monuments of that ancient people, he formed conclusions as to their former manners and customs, by no means uninteresting. He discourses to us of the “Dead, and of their Burial.” “In ancient times,” he tells us that, “a talent of silver, four-hundred-and-fifty pounds, was often employed in a funeral. The relations of the deceased” says he, “announced to the judges that a ‘dead’ is about to pass the canal, and of the place to which he belonged. Two-and-forty judges are then collected and arranged on a semicircular bench, which is situated on the bank of the canal, the boat is prepared, and the pilot, who is called by the Egyptians, ‘Charon,’ is ready at his post. But before the body is put into the boat, the authorities assemble, and one, who is called the accuser, or sateen, brings forward against the deceased all his crimes. The judges deliberate—an advocate replies to the accuser—if the accuser makes out his case against the advocate, the deceased is denied honourable interment, and may be cast into Tophet to be consumed; but if his conduct has been good, he is ferried over the lake, and his soul is supposed to enter the realms of eternal bliss, prepared for the righteous from all eternity.”
The Egyptians had many curious manners and customs. Unlike the other Oriental nations, the Egyptians, like the English, since the times of Shakspeare, Sir Philip Sydney, Raleigh, and other beard-wearers, did not wear beards. They were the only people that practised shaving from remote antiquity, and they held it as the sign of civilization, as it was also considered by the Normans. We invariably find the captives from barbarous tribes depicted with rough beards and shaggy locks, as if no more striking marks could be given of their inferiority to the highly cultivated nation which was subjected to the sway of the Pharoahs. In the engraving, we behold two captive Jews, with an Egyptian warrior before and an Egyptian attendant behind. The Jews have their beards, the Egyptians have not; and in the engraving following, we have two warriors, each leading two captives: the warriors have the bow-and-arrow—the bow being not a stick bent in a rounded form, but a piece of wood bent at a very wide angle. The captives are bound and bearded, and their costume consists of a long cloak, which falls nearly to the ancles, leaving their front dresses exposed, while that of the Egyptians are like petticoats.
Leaving beards for awhile, we may remark upon the law processes of the Egyptians. In civil suits, the number of judges—or, rather, the jury—was thirty; and it is worthy of notice, that their president wore a breast-plate adorned with jewels, upon which the word Truth appeared strongly emblazoned. The eight books of the laws were spread open in court; the pleadings of the advocates were in writing, in order that the feelings of the judges might not be improperly biased by the eloquence of the orator. The president delivered the sentence of his colleagues by touching the successful party with the mysterious symbol of truth and justice, which adorned his person.
In their battles, the Egyptians were very ferocious, and after they were over, exercised many barbarities, by the immolation of their prisoners. An admirable representation of a battle-field is found on the walls of the great Temple of Medinet Habou. The South, and part of the East wall is covered with a battle scene, where the cruel punishment of the vanquished, by cutting off their hands and maiming their bodies, is performed in the presence of the Chief, who has seated himself in repose, on the back part of his chariot, to witness the execution of this horrid sentence. Heaps of amputated hands are counted over before him, and an equal number of scribes, with scrolls in their hands, are writing down the account: as many rows of prisoners stand behind, to undergo a similar mutilation in their turns. Their hands are bound behind their backs, or lashed over their heads, or thrust into eye-shaped manacles. Some of their heads are twisted completely round; and some of them are turned back to back, and their arms lashed together round the elbows, and thus they are marched up to punishment.
In ancient times, the Egyptian system, as now, was one of the most cruel tyranny. Large masses of men were ordered, at the will of a despot, to “labour, in the sweat of their brow,” to their death. The slavery of the lower orders gave birth to the Pyramids. What masses were employed, and how human life was wasted, is evinced by the manner in which Necho made his canal, connecting the Nile with the Red Sea. Things are now much the same in that country. Mehemet Ali, the Pacha of Egypt, obliged 150,000 men—chiefly Arabs from Upper Egypt—to work on his canal, connecting the Nile with the Sea at Alexandria; 20,000 of that number perished during the execution of the work. The construction of the railroad from Cairo to Alexandria is not, however, conducted on this wicked principle; and things are beginning to wear the appearance of humanity.
One of the great labours of the ancient Egyptians was brick-making. The bricks were made of the clay of the district, or mud of the Nile; and in the Egyptian monuments, we have many representations, not only of the manner in which brick-making was carried on, but also of the application of bricks in the construction of houses. When Moses commenced his mission, the Hebrews were chiefly occupied in making these large bricks, dried in the sun, and compacted with straw, such as may be seen in the Nimroud ruins. These bricks were often made use of in the upper parts of houses, and in process of time, the weather, and the heat of the sun, destroyed the more fragile part of a building, and buried the strong foundations of it beneath their ruins. In the engraving I have here introduced, the mode of making the brick is delineated; some of the brick-makers are cutting the clay—others are moulding it into parallelepipedom forms, and placing the bricks in a row for drying. In the drawing, the bricks appear to be one above another, but this appearance is given in consequence of the Egyptians using no perspective in their drawings. The mode of arranging them was in rows, flat upon the ground; they were then baked by the heat of the sun, and the long dry weather, which lasts for months in this part of the world.
In building their houses, the Egyptians arranged the bricks much after the same manner as we do at present, and had a kind bitumenous cement for mortar. In the engraving, copied from one of the Egyptian tombs, we have, first the taskmaster, sitting in the usual Egyptian custom, with a long rod or stick in his hand; below him is a slave, who has just brought some bricks to be used on the building; before him is another slave, with masses of cement or bitumen, and below this figure are others, building up a wall, or side of a house.
The Pyramids, of which I have so often spoken, are, above all things, the most wonderful of the Egyptian antiquities, and exhibit the science of early times graphically. Nor were their temples less majestic. That erected at Sais had in it a sanctuary, which consisted of a single stone. The carriage of this employed two thousand men for the whole period of three years. The length of this hallowed stone was twenty-one cubits, the width fourteen, and the height eight—and allowing the cubit to be one foot seven inches, you will have an idea of its diminsions. The practice of erecting monolithic (single stone) temples was very general in Egypt, some striking specimens having been preserved in various parts of the country. Pilgrimages and sacrifices were a part of the system of religion. The latter were employed for the expiation of sins. The worshipper placed his hand on the head of the victim, loaded it with imprecations, and its last gasp was the seal of his pardon. Till the reign of Amasis, even human victims were offered. Besides the heavenly bodies, some kinds of animals, also, were worshipped. These were not regarded as mere symbols, but adored as actual gods, like the Apis and Mnevis; this worship arose from the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians. In one of their places of worship, the painting below was found, which represents offerings, attended by priestesses, coming to the temple. And with this, I shall conclude my notes upon Egypt.
