ect to cultivate those mental powers in which many of
them are naturally rich. Numerous exceptions to this latter rule
doubtless everywhere prevail; for I am bound to add, that such of the
nobility as honoured me with their acquaintance, were men of refined
tastes and very enlarged understandings. But the rule itself holds good
nevertheless, and would equally do so in any other country where a
similar order of things existed.

Through a succession of these villages, most of them inhabited
exclusively by bouermen, we made our way, not without exciting, by the
novelty of our costume, a large share of public curiosity. As often as
we found it necessary, however, to put a question to one of the
wonderers, we never failed to meet with a civil reply: indeed, I must
do the Bohemians of all ranks the justice to record, that a kinder,
more obliging, and less mercenary people, it has never been my fortune
to visit. Illustrations of this fact, I shall have occasion in the
course of my narrative, to give, though for the present I content
myself with stating the fact broadly.

I do not recollect that anything worthy of mention befel till we
reached Kamnitz,--an old town, and the centre of a circle,--through
which it behoved us to pass, in order to gain first Stein Jena, and
ultimately Hayde. The town itself lies in a hollow, and is begirt near
at hand by well-wooded hills; but in itself it offers few attractions
to the stranger. Narrow and deserted streets, with shops mean and
slenderly stocked, tell a tale of stagnant commerce; indeed, I may
observe, once for all, of the country towns in Bohemia, that it is not
among them that the traveller will find food for reflection, or sources
of gratification. Far removed from the sea, with which their single
communication is by the Elbe, the Bohemians have slender inducement to
apply their energies to trade, which is, in consequence, not perhaps
dead,--for there are manufactures of various kinds in the kingdom, and
more than one iron foundry, but exceedingly sickly and torpid.

Kamnitz, like other chief towns of circles, has its schloss,--the
property of the emperor,--in which the officials and the subordinates
at once reside and administer justice. It can boast, likewise, of a
large church and a prison; but as there was nothing in the exterior of
these buildings which at all excited our admiration, we did not delay
to examine them. With respect, again, to other matters, I am aware of
onl