In the meantime, here we are in the Brühl, a street important enough, no doubt, so far as its inhabitants and traffic are concerned, but neither beautiful nor picturesque. The houses are high and flat, and, from a peculiarity of build about their tops, seem to leer at you with one eye. Softly over the pebbles! and mind you don’t tread on the pigeons. They are the only creatures in Leipsic that enjoy uncontrolled freedom. They wriggle about the streets without fear of molestation; they sit in rows upon the tops of houses; they whirl in little clouds above our heads; they outnumber, at a moderate estimate, the whole human population of the city, and are as sacred as the Apis or the Brahmin bull. As we proceed along the Brühl, the evidences of the traffic become more perceptible. Square sheds of a dingy black hue line one side of the way, and are made in such a manner, that from being more closed boxes at night, they readily become converted into shops in the daytime, by a falling flap in front, which in some cases is adjusted so as to perform the part of a counter. These booths form the outer depositories of the merchandise of the fair, and are generally filled with small and inexpensive articles. The real riches accumulated in Leipsic during these periods, are stowed in the massive old houses: floor above floor being filled with them, till they jam up the very roof, and their plenitude flow out into the street. The booths, where not private property, are articles of profitable speculation with the master builders of the city. They are of planed deal painted, and are neatly enough made. They are easily stowed away in ordinary times, and, when required, are readily erected, being simply clammed together with huge hooks and eyes.
We have not proceeded half-way down the Brühl, when we are accosted by a veritable child of Israel, who in tolerably good English requests our custom. Will we buy some of those unexceptionable slippers? In spite of my cap and blouse, it is evident that I bear some national peculiarity about me, at once readable to the keen eyes of the Jew; and upon this point, I remember that my friend Alcibiade, of Argenteuil, jeweller, once expressed himself to me thus: “You may always distinguish an Englishman,” said he,
“by two things: his trousers and his gait. The first never fit him, and he always walks as if he was an hour behind time.”
We are at the sign of the Golden Horn. Its very door-way is blocked up for the moment by an enormous bale of goods, puffy, and covered with cabalistic characters. When we at length enter the outer gate of the house, we find ourselves in a small court-yard paved with stone and open to the sky, but now choked with boxes and packages, piled one upon the other in such confusion, that they appear to have been rained from above, rather than brought by vulgar trucks and human hands. Herr Herzlich, whose house this is, resides on the third floor. As we ascend the winding stair to his apartments, we perceive that the building occupies the four sides of the courtyard, and that on the third floor a wooden gallery is suspended along one side, and serves as a means of connection between the upper portions of the house. Queerly-shaped bundles, and even loose goods, occupy every available corner; and as we look down from the gallery into a deep window on the opposite side, we perceive a portly, moustachioed gentleman busily counting and arranging piles of Prussian bank-notes, while heaps of golden coin, apparently Dutch ducats, or French louis d’or, are built up in a golden barricade before him. We pause before the door of Herr Herzlich, master goldsmith and house-owner, and prepare to deliver our letter of introduction. They are trying moments, these first self-presentations; but Herr Herzlich is a true-hearted old Saxon, who raises his black velvet skullcap with one hand, as I announce myself, while with the other he lowers his silver spectacles from his forehead on to his nose. Then, with all sorts of comforting words, as to my future prospects in Leipsic, he sends me forth rejoicing.
Once more in the open street, we pass up the crowded way into the market-place. A succession of wooden booths lines the road; and many of the houses have an overhanging floor resting on sturdy posts, which makes the footpath a rude colonnade. Here are piled rolls and bales of cloth, while the booths are crammed with a heterogeneous collection of articles of use and ornament diversified beyond description. A strange knot of gentlemen arrests our attention for a moment. They are clad in long gowns of black serge, and wear highly-polished boots reaching to the knee. Some have low-crowned hats, others a kind of semi-furred turban, but they all have jet black hair arranged in innumerable wiry ringlets, even to their
beards. They are Polish Jews, and trade chiefly in pearls, garnets, turquoises, and a peculiar sort of ill-cut and discoloured rose-diamonds.
The market-place is scarcely passable for the crowd, and the wooden booths are so thickly studded over its whole space, as to allow of only a narrow footway between them. Here we see pipes and walking-sticks, enough not only for the present, but for generations unborn. Traversing the ground by slow degrees, we bend towards the Dresden gate, and come upon the country people, all handkerchief and waistcoat, who line the path with their little stores of toys, of eggs, butter, and little pats of goats’-milk cheese. Here is a farmer who has straggled all the way from Altenburg. He wears a queer round-crowned hat, with the rim turned up at the back; a jacket with large pockets outside, a sort of trunk hose, and black boots reaching to the knee. A little beyond him is a band of musicians with wind instruments, in the full costume of the Berg-leute, or mountaineers of Freiberg. With their jackets of black stuff, trimmed with velvet of the same hue, and edged at the bottom with little square lappets; their dark leggings and brimless hats, they look like a party of Grindoff the miller’s men in mourning.
As we approach the gates, the stalls and wares dwindle into insignificance, until they disappear altogether; and so we pass out of the city to the picturesque promenades which surround it. Afar off we hear the booming and occasional squeal of the real Fair. It is not without its drollery, and, if not equal to “Old Bartlemy” in noise and rude humour, has a word to say for itself on the point of decency. It is, however, but child’s play after all, and abounds with toys and games, from a half-penny whistle to an electric machine. Leipsic is now in its waking hours; but a short time hence her fitful three weeks’ fever will have passed away, and, weary with excitement, or as some say, plethoric with her gorge of profits, she will sink into a soulless lethargy. Her streets will become deserted, and echo to solitary footsteps; and whole rows of houses, with their lately teeming shops, will be black and tenantless, and barred and locked in grim security. The students will shine among the quiet citizens; the pigeons will flap their wings in idleness, and coo in melancholy tones as they totter about the streets; and the last itinerant player (on the flageolet, of course) will have sounded his farewell note to the slumbering city.
CHAPTER XIV.
down in a silver mine.