Schlangenbad, although a charmingly pretty spot, is not one to fascinate a painter. The landscape is unvaryingly green, and that green is too monotonous in tone for effect in a picture. Moreover, it lies shut in by hills, and there is no distant horizon to give the value of foreground and middle distance. But less critical eyes find much to admire in Schlangenbad. The great wide road leading to it from Eltville testifies to its former popularity in the days of family coaches and postilions. Nowadays an ugly steam tram transports the traveller from the Rhine to the "Serpent's Bath," and nearly poisons and chokes him en route with the horrible smoke it emits. Half of the tram is open to the air at the sides, like a char-a-banc; and when we travelled by it a little party of Germans were enjoying an Ausflug, each man with one eye cocked on the scenery and the other on the look-out for a Bier-garten.
Next to me sat a student, whose face was so slashed and gashed that it reminded one of "Amtshauptmann Weber" (in Reuter's delightful book), whose "face looked as if he had sat down upon it on a cane-bottomed chair." Opposite the student was a middle-aged fat "Assessor," with a small girl in long frilled drawers and short petticoats; and on the other side of the gangway were two homely-looking women in lead-coloured garments. As we passed through Altdorf the child drew her father's attention to a fat goose which waddled away as the tram approached. "Sieh mal, Vater," said she, "die schöne Gans." ("Look, father, at the beautiful goose.") "O! die Gans," said her practical and prosaic parent, "wird viel schöner sein, mein Kind, wenn sie gebraten ist." ("The goose will be much more beautiful, my child, when it is roast.") "And has an accompaniment of sage-stuffing and apple-sauce," I added, to which he in all serious conviction bowed an assent.
The valley up which we journeyed was green and pleasant. There were no walls or fences on either side of the road, but trees shaded the wayfarer, and his outlook on gardens, bean-poles, orchards, and vines was agreeable enough. If he chose to look further afield a silvery streak called the Rhine was visible, and beyond that again low blue hills stretched away until their cobalt and that of the sky got mixed on the palette of Nature. From this valley comes the famous Rauen-thaler wine. Most of the hills, indeed, are covered with vines, and the village houses showed grapes hanging from their eaves and peeping in at their windows.
At Neudorf we paused to pick up a Barmherzige Schwester; and as our halt was exactly in front of the village shop I amused myself by making a mental inventory of its contents. The window—an ordinary one—had wooden shelves nailed across it; and on these were displayed soap, slates and slate-pencils, bottles of peppermint lozenges, hearthstone, flannel, lemon-drops, gingham, sausages, and gingerbread.
The houses of the village were covered with rough stucco, and white or yellow-wash was swished liberally over them. Under their deep eaves an occasional small image of Die Mutter Gottes was to be seen. Many were covered with grape-vines, and all had clean muslin blinds at their windows, and often pots of geraniums and fuchsias outside. Sunflowers, dahlias, and roses grew in the little patches of garden by the road; and all was charming and primitive, save for the discordant electric fittings which hung midway on the telegraph-posts, and the anomaly of a brand new brick Brod-fabrik just outside the village.
All the way up the "cane-bottomed chair" and the "Assessor" smoked stolidly, while their women-folk cackled like human geese. "Wie schön!" "Colossal!" "Entzückend!" "Reizend!" Nothing but incessant and weary adjectives! I turned with relief to the "Barmherzige Schwester," a prim and silent little figure in neat blue cotton gown, black apron, and white kerchief pinned over her shining hair.
The tram stopped at last before the village church, and we all got out. To our left, as we faced the Kurhaus, straggled a long line of houses with deep verandahs and balconies, to our right shady walks and bath-houses and beautiful woods. Here and there amid the hotels and villas was a shop, and we knew that Schlangenbad marched with the times when we saw the word "Schamponieren" and a bunch of Empire curls exhibited as a modern trophy. We stopped at a shop and examined its wares, which, indeed, hung chiefly on the shutters. There were Swiss embroidered gowns and blouses to be bought, edelweiss penwipers, wooden paper-cutters, and clocks with chamois climbing wooden rocks. Nothing apparently in that shop had been "made in Germany." When we reached the verandah of the "Nassauer Hof" we were gladdened by bows from the "Assessor" and the student, who with the "cackling geese" were seated at a long table consuming piles of Apfelkuchen, Streuselkuchen, and Napfkuchen to an accompaniment of steaming coffee.
As for dull, useful information Schlangenbad, of course, was known to the Romans, and they bathed in its waters. The Middle Ages seem to have neglected Spas generally, and to have been dead to the joys of a bath. At all events, nothing more was heard about Schlangenbad or its springs until in 1687 a wooden hut was put over what was known as the "Römer Bad." Next the Landgraf of Hesse awoke to the virtues of its waters, and caused the "Oberes Kurhaus" to be built. Five years later, the "Nassauer Hof" was erected, and a time of prosperity and fashion set in for Schlangenbad. The waters have always had a great reputation for beautifying the skin and healing wounds and sores. It is on record that Frederick the First of Sweden ordered four thousand bottles of Schlangenbad water a year as eau de toilette, and another and still vainer sovereign three hundred a week. After this who shall dare say that women have the monopoly of vanity?
Besides embellishing, the Schlangenbad waters are good in nervous disorders, rheumatism, and asthma. They are of an exquisite light-blue colour, and when bathing in them one's limbs have the appearance of marble. That the Schlangenbad people think highly of their "cure" is obvious. I bought a map of the district (manufactured in the place) and found the word Schlangenbad printed in huge letters, while the neighbouring town of Wiesbaden was in such small ones that it looked as if scarcely worth mentioning at all.