Bubbles from the Brunnens of Nassau / By an Old Man.

by Sir Francis Bond Head

but though they congregate,—though like birds of a feather they flock together, is there, I ask, anything arrogant in their behaviour? and that respect which they meet with from every one, does it not seem to be honestly their due? That uncommonly awkward, short, little couple, who walk holding each other by the hand, and who, apropos to nothing, occasionally break playfully into a trot, are a Jew and Jewess lately married; and, as it is whispered that they have some mysterious reason for drinking the waters, the uxorious anxiety with which the little man presents the glass of cold comfort to his herring-made partner, does not pass completely unobserved. That slow gentleman, with such an immense body, who seems to be acquainted with the most select people on the walk, is an ambassador, who goes nowhere—no, not even to mineral waters, without his French cook, a circumstance quite enough to make everybody speak well of him—a very honest, good-natured man he seems to be; but as he walks, can anything be more evident than that his own cook is killing him, and what possible benefit can a few glasses of cold water do to a corporation which Falstaff’s belt would be too short to encircle?

Often and often have I pitied Diogenes for having lived in a tub; but this poor ambassador is infinitely worse off, for the tub, it is too evident, lives in him, and carry it about with him he must wherever he goes; but, without smiling at any more of my water companions, it is time I should descend to drink my second and third glass. One would think that this deluge of cold water would leave little room for tea and sugar; but miraculous as it may sound, by the time I got to my “hof,” there was as much stowage in the vessel as when she sailed; besides this, the steel created an appetite which it was very difficult to govern.

As soon as breakfast was over, I generally enjoyed the luxury of idling about the town; and, in passing the shop of a blacksmith, who lived opposite to the Goldene Kette, the manner in which he tackled and shod a vicious horse always amused me. On the outside wall of the house, two rings were firmly fixed; to one of which the head of the patient was lashed close to the ground; the hind foot, to be shod, stretched out to the utmost extent of the leg, was then secured to the other ring about five feet high, by a cord which passed through a cloven hitch, fixed to the root of the poor creature’s tail.

The hind foot was consequently very much higher than the head; indeed, it was so exalted, and pulled so heavily at the tail, that the animal seemed to be quite anxious to keep his other feet on terra firma. With one hoof in the heavens, it did not suit him to kick; with his nose pointing to the infernal regions, he could not conveniently rear; and as the devil himself was apparently pulling at his tail, the horse at last gave up the point, and quietly submitted to be shod.

Nearly opposite to this blacksmith, sitting under the projecting eaves of the Goldene Kette, there were to be seen, every day, a row of women with immense baskets of fruit, which they had brought over the hills, on their heads. The cherries were of the largest and finest description, while the quantity of their stones lying on the paved street, was quite sufficient to show at what a cheap rate they were sold. Plums, apricots, greengages, apples, and pears, were also in the greatest profusion; however, in passing these baskets, strangers were strictly ordered to avert their eyes. In short, whenever raw fruit and mineral water unexpectedly meet each other in the human stomach, a sort of bubble-and-squeak contest invariably takes place—the one always endeavouring to turn the other out of the house.

The crowd of idle boys, who like wasps were always hovering round these fruit-selling women, I often observed very amusingly dispersed by the arrival of some German grandee in his huge travelling carriage. For at least a couple of minutes before the thing appeared, the postilion, as he descended the mountain, was heard, attempting to notify to the town the vast importance of his cargo, by playing on his trumpet a tune which, in tone and flourish, exactly resembled that which, in London, announces the approach of Punch. There is something always particularly harsh and discordant in the notes of a trumpet badly blown; but when placed to the lips of a great lumbering German postilion, who, half smothered in his big boots and tawdry finery, has, besides this crooked instrument, to hold the reins of two wheel horses, as well as of two leaders, his attempt, in such deep affliction, to be musical, is comic in the extreme; and, when the fellow at last arrived at the Goldene Kette, playing a tune which I expected every moment would make the head of Judy pop out of the carriage, one could not help feeling that, if the money which that trumpet cost had been spent in a pair of better spurs, it would have been of much more advantage and comfort to the traveller; but German posting always reminds me of the remark which the Black Prince was one day heard to utter, as he was struggling with all his might to shave a pig.

However, though I most willingly join my fellow-countrymen in ridiculing the tawdry heavy equipment of the German postilion, one’s nose always feeling disposed to turn itself upwards at the sight of a horseman awkwardly encumbered with great, unmeaning, yellow worsted tassels, and other broad ornaments, which seem better adapted to our fourpost bedsteads than to a rider, yet I reluctantly acknowledge that I do verily believe their horses are much more scientifically harnessed, for slow heavy draught, than ours are in England.

Many years have now elapsed since I first observed that, somehow or other, the horses on the Continent manage to pull a heavy carriage up a steep hill, or along a dead level, with greater ease to themselves than our English horses. Let any unprejudiced person attentively observe with what little apparent fatigue three small ill-conditioned animals will draw not only his own carriage, but very often that huge overgrown vehicle, the French diligence, or the German eil-wagen, and I think he must admit that, somewhere or other, there exists a mystery.

But the whole equipment is so unsightly—the rope harness is so rude—the horses without blinkers look so wild—there is so much bluster and noise in the postilion, that, far from paying any compliment to the turn-out, one is very much disposed at once to condemn the whole thing, and not caring a straw whether such horses be fatigued or not, to make no other remark than that, in England, they would have travelled at nearly twice the rate, with one-tenth of the noise.

But neither the rate nor the noise is the question which I wish to consider; for our superiority in the former, and our inferiority in the latter, cannot be doubted. The thing I want, if possible, to account for, is, how such small weak horses do manage to draw one’s carriage up hill, with so much unaccountable ease to themselves.