Passing from the bridge through the Aujezder Thor, you come to the pleasant slopes and gardens of the Laurenzberg, a hill that overlooks the city and country around. Winding paths agreeably shaded lead upwards, until you are stopped on the summit by massive fortifications; the great "Bread-wall," or "Hunger-wall"—for it is known by both names—which Karl IV. built all round the city five hundred years ago to give work to the citizens in a season of distress. From a buttress which projects clear of the trees, that cover all the hill-side with a broad mass of foliage, you have a wide prospect. Greater part of the city from the Jews' quarter to the Wissehrad lies beneath the eye as a panorama. The Moldau—breaking from between low hills, with here and there a Kahn floating, or a long, narrow raft drifting to the gap in the dam—flows past in a grand curve between towers and palaces, wretched hovels and stately churches, and onwards round the hills below to join the Elbe. The islands are open as a map, and you see the puffs of smoke from the rifles on the Schützen Insel. It is a striking but disappointing view, for notwithstanding the ancient gables and various towers that shoot aloft, the city has somewhat the aspect of a collection of factories, so monotonous are the long lines of white, many-windowed wall, bearing their long slopes of bright red roof. Street after street stretching away, all of the same character, and scattering on the outskirts into a tame country, cruelly disappoint your expectations of the picturesque. Here and there are large patches of green among houses, and rows of poplars shooting up. Yet, after all, there is something in the view which makes you linger. In some of its architectural forms and features it partly realizes your mental pictures of the East, and your imagination flies back to the remote days when the Czechs left their far-away home towards the sunrise, and wandered on till their leader, looking down from the hills on the valley of the Moldau, determined that here should be the seat of his empire. I sat for an hour on the rough coping of the buttress looking down on the scene, while the leaves rustled cheerfully in a cooling breeze, and the sunbeams glistened and flashed from a thousand windows, and gilded weathercocks, and the lively ripples of the muddy stream.
If inclined for a quiet stroll, you may wander among the trees and rocks on the crown of the hill, or visit the church of St. Lawrence, from whom the hill takes its name. From the highest summit, in very favourable weather, it is possible to see St. Georgsberg, near Raudnitz, and peaks of the Mittelgebirge and Riesengebirge—mountains on the Saxon and Silesian frontier.
On coming down from the hill, I prowled for awhile about the Kleinseite, where, besides the antiquities and rare old palaces, you are struck by the number of schools and institutions for education. Strange groupings indeed in this quarter of the city! Palaces as rich in treasures of art and literature as in historical associations, side by side with miserable hovels and narrow, crooked streets, where poverty lurks in rags and squalor. Little bits of architecture, that are a delight to look on, catch your eye in unexpected places, peering out in some instances from among things that delight not the eye. But the schools are close by, and innovation creeps slowly on though few perceive it.
You may mount to the Hradschin by some of these byeways, where you will see how many windows have inner gratings, and how here and there the prison-like aspect is relieved by plants and flowers that screen the iron bars; and by these signs may you know where honest poverty dwells. In the Hohler Weg and Neue Welt you have specimens of the Rookery of Prague. At length, after many ins and outs and bits of steep stair, you find yourself on the terrace in front of the Hradschin, and you will be tempted to pause on the steps and survey the view across the house-tops.
The mass of buildings here is large enough, and shelters inhabitants enough to form a town. It includes a royal fortress—the archbishop's residence—a nunnery and monastery, a penal reformatory, besides lodgings of the official functionaries.
A considerable portion of the huge pile is now used as barracks for infantry and cavalry, and things military abound within its courts. There are sentries on duty, and soldiers off duty lounging about the guard-house, while their muskets lean against a rail painted black and yellow. But you pass unchallenged, and while crossing the quadrangle may see the word SALVE in large characters in the pavement.
In the third court you come to the cathedral, an unfinished edifice dedicated to St. Vitus, still showing marks of Hussite mischief, and of the Great Frederick's cannon-balls. It covers the site of a church built in 930 in honour of the same saint by Wenzel the Holy—he who planted the first vineyard in Bohemia, on the eastern slope of the Hradschin hill. The foundation-stone of the present structure was laid by Charles IV., during the lifetime of his father John; and although the building went on for forty-two years, it was never completed. In 1673 Leopold I. made an attempt to finish it according to the original plan; but he did nothing more than build a few columns in different styles, which stood in the fore-court until 1842, when they were pulled down, as the beginning of a new effort for completing the structure. Stimulated by the zeal of Canon Pesina, a Prague Cathedral Building Union was founded, with Count Francis Thun for chief; and preparations were made for the work, and for raising a million florins to pay for it, when the troubles of 1848—fatal to so many hopes and noble purposes—put a stop to the proceedings.
If the outside disappoint you by sundry additions and contradictory ornaments, which spoil the pure effect of the original Gothic, you will find cause enough for astonishment inside. At the western end of the nave stands the richly-carved mausoleum, erected in 1589 by Kollin of Nuremberg, at the cost of Rudolf II. It is of Carrara marble, and in magnitude and beauty of sculpture may well vie with Maximilian's tomb in the Court Church at Innsbruck. Royal dust is plentiful in the vault beneath, for therein lie, besides Rudolf himself, Charles IV. and his four wives, Wenzel IV., Ladislaus Posthumus, George von Podiebrad, Ferdinand I. and his wife Anna, Maximilian II., and the Archduchess Maria Amelia, who was buried in 1804. From admiring the manifold carvings, which show the touch of the true artist, you will perhaps look next at the tomb of St. John Nepomuk, on the right near the altar. Surely no other saint, or living bishop, even in this age of testimonials, ever had such a service of plate presented to him as that! It is a small mountain of silver. On high, silver angels hold a canopy over a silver shrine, which, borne aloft by angels, life size, contains the martyr's body in a crystal coffin, set off by shining statues, glittering ornaments, bas-reliefs, and tall candlesticks, all alike made of silver. If current testimony may be relied on, there are nearly two tons of the precious metal therein dedicated to the holy Johannes. No wonder that you see the saint's statue on so many bridges in Bohemia, and even for a few miles beyond the frontiers.
The curiosities of the church are more than can be examined in a brief visit. There are twelve chapels ranged about the nave—the last fitted up as an oratory for the Imperial family. In one of them you may see the foot of a candlestick, which, according to tradition, was one of those made for Solomon's Temple, from whence it was conveyed to Rome, and afterwards to Milan, where Wladislaus I. seized the precious relic, and he brought it to Prague. At all events, the workmanship shows signs of great antiquity. And near the western end there hangs a "true image"—a head of Christ, the holy placid features showing a trace of sadness, the eyes looking at you with an earnest, though pitying expression. It is a remarkable specimen of early art; much venerated by the devout, who would soon obliterate it by kisses were it not protected by glass. A moustachioed man came up, and, taking off his hat, pressed his lips upon the sacred mouth while I was still looking at the painting.
Frescoes bordered by gems adorn the walls of St. Wenzel's chapel; and here are preserved the saint's helmet and coat of mail, a brass ring to which he clung when he fell murdered by his brother's hand, and other relics. Here also the Bohemian regalia are kept in rigorous security under seven locks: St. Wenzel's sword is among them, and with this, after his coronation, the monarch creates knights of St. Wenzel's order.