We fared well that night, both as to eating and sleeping. Our supper was excellent, our beds clean, and the charge for the whole barely two shillings,—a practical illustration of the soundness of the advice which we had received from our friendly Hernhuter. It was difficult, indeed, to conceive how, even in Silesia, the people could afford to treat us as they did, for so small a sum. Yet we paid our bill without expressing, even by a careless word, that its amount surprised us; and restrained our very mirth till a turn in the road placed us beyond the hazard of being detected in its indulgence.
There had been a considerable fall of rain while we slept; so that at seven o'clock in the morning, when our march began, we had every prospect before us of a pleasant journey. There was no dust to annoy; the hedge-rows, on either hand, (for it must be remembered that, in all the states of Germany, the highways are planted, at the expense of the government, with a double row of trees,) sent forth an unceasing concert of sweet sounds, and the very people whom we met, seemed by their joyous countenances to confess the influence of the balmy atmosphere. And by the way, I must not forget to observe, that the costumes of the country people, both male and female, had varied a good deal since we commenced our ramble. In the neighbourhood of Tetchen, the smock-frock made its appearance among wagoners and even labouring men, while the women wore, as in Saxony, short bodice jackets with long skirts, red or red and white striped petticoats, and round their heads either a flaring red handkerchief, or a cap adorned behind with two enormous flies. As we penetrated further into Bohemia, the smock-frock among the men gave place to a cloth or velvetine jacket, and the cap was supplanted by a coarse steeple-crowned hat. It strikes me that the female portion of the community exhibited less love of change, till we reached Silesia; and then I looked twice before I could persuade myself, that Queen Elizabeth, and the dames and virgins of her day, were not returned to upper air. Long waists, with hips famously padded, reduced the shapes of such as had any shape, to the symmetry of a wasp, while round their necks were enormous, stiffly-starched ruffs, which stuck out so far, and rose so high, as to give to the red, round, blowsy faces which protruded over them, a tolerably exact resemblance to so many field-turnips. More comical-looking animals I have rarely seen, though they were evidently of a different opinion.
We passed through Greiffenberg about eight o'clock, and found it by no means the formidable sort of place which our fears,—the offspring of our poverty,—had represented it to be. An old town, built irregularly along the side of a hill, it seems to possess neither trade nor manufactures; indeed, a flour-mill or two, planted by the river's side, sufficiently marked it out as the head of a purely agricultural district. The view from the eminence above, is, however, exceedingly fine. Sweeping over a vast and fertile plain, throughout which abundance of wood is scattered, and resting from time to time upon some old ruin, one of which, called Kreifenstein Castle, and the property of Graff Schaff-Koatch, presents a peculiarly striking appearance, the eye finds its powers of vision bounded at last by the Riesengebirgen, which have as yet lost no portion of the sublimity of character that belongs to them, though they are now removed to a distance, as the crow flies, of at least twenty miles. We took what we suspected would prove to be our last distinct view of the magnificent range, not without experiencing a portion of that melancholy which never fails to arise out of a lasting separation even from inanimate objects, which may have gratified our tastes, or interested our imaginations.
We had met on the road as we trudged along, several small parties of soldiers; twos and threes, belonging to the landwehr, or militia of the country, of which the season for training was arrived. This was not, however, the commencement of our acquaintance with that remarkably fine-looking body of men. While we lingered in Hirschberg, doubtful what course to pursue, there marched past the window of the hotel about two hundred as superb infantry as I should desire to see; stout, well-made, soldier-like fellows, in the full vigour of manhood, well bearded and moustached, and altogether presenting the appearance of men who had served at least half-a-dozen campaigns, and were ready to serve half-a-dozen more. Their uniform resembled that of the Prussian infantry in general; that is to say, they wore blue, well-made coats, white trousers, chacos with small round white tufts, and hairy knapsacks on their backs. Their muskets were longer, and smaller in the bore than ours, and the barrels were fastened to the stocks by brass rings that encircled them. Nothing could exceed the order or regularity of their movements: their step, it struck me, was shorter than ours, but then it fell more rapidly; their equipments were decidedly neater; and above all, the load which each man carried was much less considerable. In one respect, however, and only in one, we have an advantage over them. They still adhere to the practice of carrying a large camp-kettle for each mess, whereas our tins suffice both for cooking and containing the meat when cooked, and with one of these each man is supplied.
I have elsewhere explained the process by which every male inhabitant of Prussia becomes in some shape or another, available for the military defence of the country. I need not now recur to the subject, further than by stating, that I have seen no portion of what is called the regular army, which would bear a moment's comparison with the half-battalion of landwehr, that passed me in the streets of Hirschberg. Neither is the circumstance greatly to be wondered at. Out of the two or three hundred men which composed that corps, one-half, perhaps, had done active duty, ere the new system of recruiting was introduced; when the term of service extended to fifteen instead of three years; and individuals were not, as they are now, turned over to the landwehr, with a military education still unfinished, and in many cases scarcely begun. The consequences were, that their carriage was more upright, their air more martial, and their style of march more orderly by far, than anything which I had an opportunity of observing, even in the garrison of Berlin. Something, too, is perhaps attributable to the more advanced ages of the landwehr. No one dislikes to see a frequent intermixture of beardless faces, either in a line or in a column; but an entire battalion of boys is not satisfactory. Now these men were in the full strength and vigour of their days. Their countenances were well bronzed, their moustachios rough, and the very dust that enveloped them told nothing against the general hardihood of their bearing. I looked upon them with unqualified respect, and said to my young companion, that if all the landwehr regiments be composed of similar materials, Prussia can have nothing to apprehend from any hostile movement on the part either of Austria, or of France.
We had received a route, as usual, from our host at Lang-Wasser, and corrected it in some trifling particulars, at the suggestion of a turnpike keeper,—an old soldier, as in Prussia these functionaries usually are, and a fine-looking, well-bred, and intelligent fellow. Among other places, we were to make, by the way, for a village called Golden Traum, where, as we hoped to reach it about noon, we proposed to eat our dinner. But we did not succeed in this point. Having been misdirected at an unlucky turn in a wood where two roads branched off from one another, we found ourselves, after an hour's toil, further from Golden Traum than ever, and were forced, not to retrace our steps, but to make our way as we best could, across the country, in order to reach it. We came in, accordingly, tired and somewhat out of humour, at one o'clock, to a poor but clean village beer-house, where the only viands produceable, were brown bread, butter, and sausages, a considerable quantity of which disappeared before persons whose appetites were a great deal too keen to be fastidious.
The situation of Golden Traum, overhanging the rocky and well-wooded bank of the river Queiss, is exceedingly striking, and the stream, being clear and rapid, held out to us the prospect of good sport. Encouraged, therefore, by the remembrance of the moderate charges at Lang-Wasser, we resolved to spend the remainder of the day here, provided our landlady could accommodate us with beds, and fare a little more delicate for supper. With respect to the latter of these points, it was soon and satisfactorily settled. We had our choice of beef and veal, and we chose of course veal's elder brother: but the report of the dormitory was not so satisfactory. There was no spare chamber in the house, but they would make up for us a couple of beds, with mattresses, sheets, &c., in the tap-room; and they assured us, that it would be entirely at our command by ten o'clock at the latest. As my companion appeared to think these dispositions excellent, and spoke vehemently in favour of the day's fishing, I consented to halt. We consigned our baggage to the care of the landlady, put our tackle in order, and descended to the stream.
Like many other things in creation, the Queiss was far from realizing the expectations which its flattering appearance had excited. There was little water in the channel, and that little contained few trout; but roach were there in abundance. Now a roach, either at the end of my line or on the table, happens to be my aversion, and finding that I was perpetually deceived by the avidity with which the scaly monsters seized my fly, I soon wound up. Not so my boy. With the most laudable perseverance he continued to flog the water, much to the detriment of the roach tribe; one of which, by the way, proved, when he brought him ashore, to be the largest of his species I had ever seen. The monster must have weighed a pound and a half at the least. But this was not all. Towards evening the trout began to show themselves, and the young Piscator caused some havoc among them. He caught about a dozen, the heaviest of which might have well nigh passed muster either at Troutenau or Eisenhammer.
We had been interrupted in our sport by a thunder-storm; the reverberations of which, as peal after peal smote against rock and fell, were very fine. The rain, however, which came down in torrents, was not quite so agreeable, and forced us to seek shelter in a mill, where I was a good deal amused by the sort of taste which the honest miller had displayed in ornamenting his best apartment. The walls were stuck round with engravings, one of which represented Jonah in two situations: first, smoking a pipe by the seaside, and afterwards working his way out of a huge fish's jaws; while close beside him was a ship, considerably less in point of size than the prophet. As to Nineveh, it stood upon a rock in the middle of the ocean, and had all its houses covered with bright red tiles. But that was nothing. There were several portraits of distinguished public characters here; and among others, Hawser Trunnion, a British admiral. I must say that the old commodore looked uncommonly well, with his flowing wig, just as Smollett describes it, and a pipe in his mouth.
We had ordered supper at seven; at half-past seven we reached the hotel, and found the meal ready. Alas! however, for the results of having issued our orders somewhat hastily. Instead of a substantial piece of roast beef, a basin of soup was placed before each, to which succeeded, sans potatoes, sans greens, sans any other vegetables of any sort, two small morsels of bouillie, boiled to tatters. We were not, however, to be put off with such sorry fare as this, so we begged our landlady to dress for us some of the fish which we had taken; and she set about it immediately. But long before the fish were ready, a multitude of new guests came pouring in, and we found ourselves in a situation which exceedingly amused us for a while, though in the end it grew tiresome.