BADEN-BADEN.
Along almost the whole way from Wisbaden to Baden-Baden, we have Belgium on our right, and Devonshire on our left. The road, which generally skirts the bases of the undulating hills to the eastward, has hardly a rise or fall, the alluvial and fertile plain stretching away to the Rhine, till the mountains of Alsace arrest the attention on the western bank of that river. The whole space between the hills and the river, was, indisputably, a lake, at some remote period, drained by the breaking down of some obstruction to the stream—probably in the vicinity of the present Lurley-rocks.
Five or six miles from Rastadt and the Rhine, embosomed in a narrow dell, and encircled by steep and wooded hills, lies the far-famed Baden-Baden. The comparative localities of Wisbaden and this place, might be imagined by supposing the former to be a saucer, and the latter an egg-cup. And yet the air of Baden, though in an egg-cup, is fresher if not purer, than that of its celebrated rival of Nassau, where there are no eminences of any altitude within some miles of the town. It is true that the thermal springs of Wisbaden are a few degrees higher in temperature than those of Baden, but this is quite insufficient to account for the difference of atmosphere.
A very few visits to the wells in the morning, the hells in the evening, and the hotels in the middle of the day, will convince any observant traveller that three-fourths of the sojourners at Baden, go there to drink wine rather than water—and to lose money, rather than regain health.
The thermal springs here are of great antiquity. They served to scour the Roman legions stationed at Baden, in the days of Aurelian, as they now do to scald the pigs and poultry of the butchers and poulterers of the same place. The far-famed Ursprung issues from the ruins of an old Roman structure on the side of a hill overlooking the town, at a temperature of 154 degrees of Fahrenheit, and in quantities sufficient to wash and drench the whole town, visitors and all. The water is translucid, and tastes much less either of the chickens or salt, than its contemporary of the Kochbrunnen at Wisbaden. It has, however, especially in the baths, a very faint odour of bear’s grease, or green fat, which I have noticed when speaking of the Kochbrunnen. The whole of the solid contents in a pint of the water, are only about 24 grains, of which common salt makes 16 grains, the other ingredients being chiefly lime, in different combinations with sulphuric, muriatic, and carbonic acids. There is just iron enough for the chemists to swear by—but not for the drinkers to distinguish by taste.
Whatever may have been the reputation of the Baden waters, taken internally, I apprehend that their fame is not very great in the present day. On several successive mornings, between five and eight o’clock, at the Ursprung, I never could muster more than 130 bibbers—many of whom appeared to have been attracted to the Paleotechnicon from curiosity rather than in search of health. Except occasionally a fashionable lady’s-maid, or governess, no English were seen at the spring. The waters being led, however, into all the principal hotels, where there are baignoires in abundance, the number of bathers outstrip very considerably the number of bibbers. Although the waters of Baden are neither so potent when drunk, nor so stimulant when bathed in, as those of Wisbaden and many other places, yet they manage to do a fair proportion of the annual mischief occasioned by hot mineral springs in general. Thermal spas and quack doctors, indeed, have more good luck than usually falls to the lot of men and things. They completely reverse the order of events in the moral world. Their good actions are graven on brass—their evil deeds are written in water. Unless some illustrious character receive his quietus in a hot bath—as the Duke of Nassau did at Kissengen—
“Abstulit clarum cita mors Achillem”—
we seldom hear a word about the inferior souls who are deprived of their terrestrial tenements by the boiling Kochbrunnen, Ursprung, or Sprudel. And, when a great man actually falls a sacrifice, sufficient mischief is done before his death, by his example and recommendation. It is well known that the Duke of Nassau’s preference of the Kissengen waters to those of his own Wisbaden, drew many illustrious patients to the former springs, who would have been contented with the latter. That the hot mineral baths produce a powerful effect even in health, and still more in disease, we have ample proofs. We need only take the testimony of my friend Dr. Granville himself, who will not be suspected of any prejudice or timidity in respect to these agents. “One of the first effects of the hot water bath at Baden (and I may say the same of Toplitz, Carlsbad, Wisbaden, &c.) produced on me, was an almost irresistible inclination to fall asleep. To resist this is of the utmost consequence.” “The operation of bathing in water endowed with much power, from heat and other circumstances, is not to be viewed lightly. Much mischief has arisen—nay, fatal results have followed, from its indiscriminate adoption. A rich merchant, who, but a few hours before, had been noticed on the public promenade after dinner, on the day after our arrival, was found dead in a bath at 8 o’clock of the same evening. A lady was pointed out to me, who had lost the use of her limbs after using three hot baths.”