When the carriage stopped, my first impression (which but too often, I regret to say, has been an erroneous one) was not in favour of the place; for, though its colours were certainly very beautiful, yet, from being so completely surrounded by hills, it seemed to wear some of the features of a prison; and when, my vehicle driving away, I was first left by myself, I felt for a moment that the little band of music, which was playing upon the terrace above my head, was not quite competent to enliven the scene. However, after I had walked in various directions about this sequestered spot, sufficiently not only to become acquainted with its locale, but to discover that it possessed a number of modest beauties, completely veiled from the passing gaze of the stranger, I went to the old “Bad-Haus,” to obtain rooms from the bath-master (appointed by the Duke), who has charge of both these great establishments.
I found the little man seated in his office, in the agony of calculating upon a slate the amount of seven times nine; perceiving, however, that instead of multiplying the two figures together, he had reared up a ladder of seven nines, which he was slowly ascending, step by step, I felt quite unwilling to interrupt him; and as his wife appeared to be gifted with all or many of the little abilities in which he might have been deficient, I gladly availed myself of her offer to show me over the two buildings, in order that I might select some apartments.
The old “Bad-Haus,” and Hotel de Nassau, which, being united together, form one of the two great buildings I have mentioned, are situated on the side of the hill close to the macadamized road which leads to Mainz; and to give some idea of the gigantic scale on which these sorts of German bathing establishments are constructed, I will state, that in this rambling “Bad-Haus” I counted 443 windows, and that, without ever twice going over the same ground, I found the passages measured 409 paces, or, as nearly as possible, a quarter of a mile!
Below this immense barrack, and on the opposite side of the road, is the new “Bad-Haus,” or bathing house, pleasantly situated in a shrubbery. This building (which contains 172 windows) is of a modern construction, and straddling across the bottom of the valley, the celebrated water, which rises milk-warm from the rock, after supplying the baths on the lower story, runs from beneath it. No sooner, however, does the fluid escape from the building, than a group of poor washerwomen, standing up to their knees on a sheet, which is stretched upon the ground, humbly make use of it before it has time to get to the two little mills which are patiently waiting for it about a couple of hundred yards below.
After having passed, in the two establishments, an immense number of rooms, each furnished by the Duke with white window-curtains, a walnut-tree bed with bedding; a chestnut-tree table, an elastic spring sofa, and three or four walnut-tree chairs, the price of each room (on an average from 10d. to 2s. a-day) being painted on the door, I complimented the good, or, to give her her proper title, the “bad” lady who attended me, on the plain, but useful order in which they appeared; in return for which she very obligingly offered to show me the source of the famous water, for the sake of which two such enormous establishments had been erected.
In the history of the little duchy of Nassau, the discovery of this spring forms a story full of innocence and simplicity. Once upon a time there was a heifer, with which everything in nature seemed to disagree. The more she ate, the thinner she grew—the more her mother licked her hide, the rougher and the more staring was her coat. Not a fly in the forest would bite her—never was she seen to chew the cud, but hide-bound, and melancholy, her hips seemed actually to be protruding from her skin. What was the matter with her no one knew—what could cure her no one could divine;—in short, deserted by her master and her species, she was, as the faculty would term it, “given over.”
In a few weeks, however, she suddenly re-appeared among the herd, with ribs covered with flesh—eyes like a deer—skin sleek as a mole’s—breath sweetly smelling of milk—saliva hanging in ringlets from her jaw! Every day seemed to re-establish her health; and the phenomenon was so striking, that the herdsman, feeling induced to watch her, discovered that regularly every evening she wormed her way, in secret, into the forest, until she reached an unknown spring of water, from which, having refreshed herself, she quietly returned to the valley.
The trifling circumstance, scarcely known, was almost forgotten by the peasant, when a young Nassau lady began decidedly to show exactly the same incomprehensible symptoms as the heifer. Mother, sisters, friends, father, all tried to cure her, but in vain; and the physician had actually
“Taken his leave with sighs and sorrow,
Despairing of his fee to-morrow,”
when the herdsman, happening to hear of her case, prevailed upon her, at last, to try the heifer’s secret remedy—she did so; and, in a very short time, to the utter astonishment of her friends, she became one of the stoutest and roundest young women in the duchy.