bove the river's level some
fourteen hundred feet. And we clambered on, never wearying; by mountain
fall and sombre cavern, and round the base of an old rock up to a
fortress, till we reached the iron gates; and, amid the echo of repeated
passwords and the clatter of military arms, entered its gloomy portal.
We entered only to pass through; and having admired from the summit a
glorious summer prospect, we journeyed on again into the plains beyond,
and so entered the Austrian territory at Peterswald.

Then there was a great change from fertility to barrenness. From the
moment we entered Bohemia we were oppressed by a sense of poverty, of
sloth, or some worse curse resulting from Austrian domination, which
seemed to have been enough to cripple even Nature herself as she stood
about us. It was evident that we had got among another race of people,
or else into contact with a quite different state of things. At the
first inn we found upon the road, although it was a mighty rambling
place, with stone staircases and spacious chambers, there was not bedding
enough in the whole establishment for our party of five, and yet we were
the only guests. We were reduced to the expedient of spreading the two
mattresses at our disposal close together upon the bare boards, and so
sleeping five men in one double bed. A miserable night we had of it. We
fared better at Prague, which town we entered the next day. That is a
fine old city. From the first glimpse we caught of it from an adjoining
hill, bathing its feet, as it were, in the Moldan, we were charmed.
There was a wonderful cluster of minarets and conical towers, half
Eastern, half German, piled up to the summit of the castle hill. There
was the beautifully barbarous chapel of Johann von Nepomuk, with its
silver tomb. It was all one mass of picturesque details, beautiful in
their outline and impressive in their very age,--and, I may add, dirt. A
rare picture of middle-age romance is Prague--a fragment of the past,
uninjured and unchanged. The new suspension bridge across the Moldan
looks ridiculous; it is incongruous; what has old Prague to do with
modern engineering? It is a noble structure, to be sure, of which the
inhabitants are proud; but it was designed and executed for them by an
Englishman.

From Prague we tramped with all the diligence of needy travellers to
Brunn, the capital of Moravia. Our march was straggling. Foremost
strode Alcibiade Tourniquet, jeweller