umatic or gouty affections. It is
worthy of remark, that the Austrian medical officers send the
valetudinary among the soldiers to these baths from a very great
distance. When I was there, I saw detachments belonging to almost all
the regiments which occupy quarters in Bohemia; and I was given to
understand that they had come thither as invalids, and would, when
cured, return to their respective stations.

The Germans, though not famous for their hospitality, are proverbially
a gregarious people; and at Toeplitz, and indeed at all the
watering-places, they appear to live in public. There are tables-d'hote
at all the principal hotels, where, both at dinner and supper, the
company meet on terms of the most easy familiarity. To enhance the
pleasure of the feast, moreover, Bohemian minstrels,--not unfrequently
women,--come and sit down in the Saal while you are eating, and sing
and play with equal taste and harmony. While this is going on within,
dense crowds collect about the doors and windows in the street, with
whose proximity,--as the genuine love of music attracts them, and they
are as orderly and well-behaved as the most fastidious could
desire,--no human being is, or can be, annoyed. By-and-by, the meal
comes to a close, and then the guests either sally forth to enjoy the
fresh air in the Prince of Clari's garden, or sit down on benches along
the trottoir, and smoke their pipes as contentedly and joyously as if
they were a thousand miles removed from an Englishman's horror,--the
public eye. I dare say there might be some tincture of prejudice about
me, but I confess that I regretted to see the clergy fall in so freely
with this latter custom. A priest smoking his pipe on a form, in a
public street, beside the window of an inn, did not appear to me to be
quite in his legitimate position.

I did not find that there were any public gaming-houses in Toeplitz;
though it was whispered that the practice of gaming was not unknown in
private circles. It may be so; though I am bound to say that I could
perceive no evidences of it. In like manner, a thousand tales were told
of other matters which went forward sedulously, of which it is not
worth while to take notice. But the general impression left upon my
mind by a few days' sojourn in the town was, that it had all the charms
about it which we expect to find in fashionable watering-places, and
that he who could not make himself happy there for a season, must lay
the blame, n