The verger gives you his cut-and-dry description; but, as he may omit to tell you a little bit of history, it would be well to remember that in this chapel the Archduke Ferdinand was chosen King of Bohemia in 1526, whereby the kingdom has ever since belonged to the house of Hapsburg.
Further concerning statues, lamps, tombs, and paintings, and the organ, with its 2831 pipes, the treasure-chamber, where, among other things, are sixteen leaves of St. Mark's Gospel in the hand of the Evangelist—the rest said to be at Venice—the trinary chapel, and the seven bells in the tower, among which "Big Sigmund" weighs thirteen tons, and the octagon chapel, and the pulpit in the fore-court, may be read in guide-books.
Go next to the Loretto Platz, and look at the palace which once belonged to Count Czernin, and at the Loretto chapel—an exact copy of the far-famed Holy House in Popedom. Or perhaps you will take more interest in remembering that in a house near this chapel Tycho Brahe made the observations from which he and Kepler produced the Tabulæ Rudolphinæ—a work well known to astronomers; perpetuating in its title the name of their munificent patron.
As old engravings testify, the Hradschin once looked picturesque when its twenty-two high-roofed towers were all standing. Of these only four remain; and in the Black Tower you may see fearsome specimens of mediæval dungeons. If those grim walls could speak, the fate would be known of some of Bohemia's worthiest, who, within a year after the battle of the White Hill, suddenly disappeared from among their families and friends, and were never more heard of.
You may end your exploration by crossing to the opposite side of the hill, and taking a view of the great range of buildings from the Staubbrücke, which crosses the Hirschgraben, and commands a prospect over the north-western environs of the city, and of the contrasts between the palace on the hill-top and the frowsy haunts at the foot.
CHAPTER XII.
The Tandelmarkt—Old Men and Boys at Rag Fair—Jews in Prague—The Judenstadt—Schools and Synagogues—Remote Antiquity—Ducal Victims—Jewish Bravery—Removal of Boundary Wires.
From the Hradschin, with its imperial associations, living and dead, to an Old Clothes Market, is a change over which you may laugh or lament, according to your mood. If you have seen Rag Fair in London, you can form a weak notion of what I saw in the Tandelmarkt at Prague on my return to the Altstadt from the palatial hill. For, besides the difference of architecture, which heightens the general effect, foreign Jews, whether in consequence of shabbier clothes or dirtier habits, have always a more picturesque appearance than their brethren in England.
What a gabble! accompanied by gesticulations so violent that you would think the traders were coming to blows. Old men bent by age, of venerable aspect and beard patriarchal, stand chaffering as eagerly for cast-off garments as if they had Methuselah's years before them in which to enjoy the proceeds. "It is naught," argues the buyer; and the graybeards whine over their frippery, and turn it about, and display it to the best advantage, and reply in a tone that extorts at last the reluctant coins from the customer's pocket.
Look at the boys! How they ply nimbly hither and thither, picking up stray bargains: adepts already in the craft of their grandsires. Look at their fathers! No whining in their traffic: but hard altercation, in which patient subterfuge proves more than a match for vehemence. Here and there, however, a cunning Czech, by sharp practice with his tongue, and a timely exhibition of his money, succeeds in carrying off a blouse or hosen on his own terms; and the Hebrew, while pouching the coins, sends after him low mutterings, which forebode ill to the next customer.