fair time at leipsic.
From Berlin to Leipsic by rail, in an open carriage, is not the most interesting journey in the world. Whirr, whizz, burr! away we hum through the keen Spring air, between pleasant banks and dark fir-woods, not very rapidly indeed, for we travel under government regulations, but pleasantly enough if it were not for the sparks and the dust. There are few objects of interest on our route, till we perceive the towers of Wittenberg rising out of the hollow on the left, and we are at once buried in a dream about the simple monk of Eisleben, who, in his struggle against the papal authority, grew into the gigantic proportions of a Luther.
At Köthen we change carriages, for we are on the Saxon frontier. With a snort and a roar, we start upon our journey over the dull waste, which can be described in no better way than by the single word repeated: sand, sand, sand. And now it comes on to rain, and my thin blouse is but a sorry shred to withstand the cold, dead drizzle. By degrees the heavy night clouds wrap themselves round us, fold by fold, till we see the engine fire reflected on the ground like a flying meteor; and the forms of lonely trees on the roadside come upon us suddenly, like spectres out of the darkness.
“Have you a lodging for the night, friend?” inquires a kind voice near me, speaking to my very thoughts.
“No. I am a stranger in Leipsic.”
“And your herberge?”
“I know nothing of it.”
The inquirer is a little man with a thin face, and a voice which might be disagreeable, were it not mellowed by good nature. He tells me, then, that he is a jewel-case maker, and has no doubt that I shall find a ready shelter in the herberge of his trade till the morning, if I am willing to accept of it. It is in the Little Churchyard. In spite of this ominous direction I shake the good man heartily by the hand, and, although I lose him in the darkness and confusion of the railway-station, cling mentally to the Little Churchyard as a passportto peace and rest. I don’t know how it is that I escape interrogation by the police, but once out of the turmoil of the crowd, I find myself wandering by a deep ditch and the shadowy outline of a high wall, seeking in vain amid the drizzling mist for one of the gates of the city. When almost hopeless of success, a welcome voice inquires my destination; and, under the guidance of a worthy Saxon, I find myself in Kleine Kirche Hof at last. There is the herberge in question, but with no light—welcoming sign!—for it is already ten o’clock, and its guests are all in bed. Dripping with rain, and with a rueful aspect, I prefer my request for a lodging. The “vater” looks dubiously at me out of the corner of one eye, till, having inspected my passport, he brightens up a little, and thinks he can find me a bed, but cannot break through the rules of his house so far as to give me any supper. It is too late.
Lighting a small lantern he leads the way across a stone-paved yard, and, opening one leaf of the folding-doors of a stable at its upper end, inducts me at once into the interior. It also is paved with stones, is small, and is nearly choked up with five or six bedsteads. The vater points to one which happily is as yet untenanted, and says, “Now, make haste, will you? I can’t stop here all night.” Before I have time to scramble into bed we are already in darkness, and no sooner is the door closed than my bed-fellows, who seemed all fast asleep a moment before, open a rattling fire of inquiries as to my parentage, birthplace, trade, and general condition; and having satisfied all this amiable questioning we fall asleep.
We turn our waking eyes upon a miserable glimmering which finds its way through the wooden bars of our stable-door; but it tells us of morning, of life, and of hope, and we rise with a bound, and are as brisk as bees in our summary toilet. With a dry crust of bread and a cup of coffee, we are fortified for our morning’s work. I have a letter of introduction upon Herr Herzlich of the Brühl, at the sign of the Golden Horn, between the White Lamb and the Brass Candlestick. Every house in Leipsic has its sign, and the numbers run uninterruptedly through the whole city, as in most German towns; so that the clown’s old joke of “Number One, London,” if applied to them, would be no joke at all.
I leave the gloomy precincts of Little Churchyard, and descending a slight incline over a pebbly, irregular pavement, with scarcely a sign of footpath, arrive at the lower end of the Brühl. There is a murmur of business about the place, for thisis the first week of the Easter Fair, but there are none of those common sounds usually associated with the name to English ears. No braying of trumpets, clashing of cymbals, or hoarse groaning of gongs; no roaring through broad-mouthed horns, smacking of canvass, or pattering of incompetent rifles. All these vulgar noises belonging to a fair, are banished out of the gates of the city: which is itself deeply occupied with sober, earnest trading.
Leipsic has the privilege of holding three markets in the year. The first, because the most important, is called the Ostermesse, or Easter Fair, and commences on Jubilee Sunday after Easter. It continues for three weeks, and is the great cloth market of the year. The second begins on the Sunday after St. Michael, and is called Michialismesse. It is the great Book Fair, is also of three weeks’ duration, and dates, as does the Easter Fair, from the end of the twelfth century. The New Year’s Fair commences on the First of January, and was established in fourteen hundred and fifty-eight. Curiously enough, the real business of the Fair is negotiated in the week preceding its actual proclamation; it is then that the great sales between manufacturers and merchants, and their busy agents from all parts of the continent, are effected, while the three weeks of the actual Fair are taken up in minor transactions. No sooner is the freedom of the Fair proclaimed than the hubbub begins; the booths, already planted in their allotted spaces—every inch of which must be paid for—are found to be choked up with stock of every description, from very distant countries: while every town and village, within a wide radius, finds itself represented by both wares and customers.
It is not, however, all freedom even at fair time. The guild laws of the different trades, exclusive and jealous as they are, are enforced with the utmost severity. Jews, in general, and certain trades in particular,—shoemakers, for example,—are not allowed the same privileges as the rest; for their liberty to sell is restricted to a shorter period, and woe to the ambitious or unhappy journeyman who shall manufacture, or expose for sale, any article of his trade, either on his own account or for others, if they be not acknowledged as masters by the Guild. Every such article will be seized by the public officers, deposited in the Rathhaus, and severe punishment—in the shape of fines—inflicted on the offender. The last week of the Fair is called the pay-week; the Thursday and Friday in this week being severally pay and assignation days. The traffic at the EasterFair, before the establishment of railways, was estimated at forty millions of dollars, but since, by their means, increased facilities of transit between Leipsic and the two capitals, Berlin and Dresden, have been afforded, it has risen to seventy millions of dollars, or ten millions five hundred thousand pounds sterling.
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 theirbeards. 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.
down in a silver mine.
The sojourner in Leipsic, while strolling through its quaint old streets and spacious market-place, will be attracted, among other peculiarities of national costume, by one which, while startling and showy, is still attractive and picturesque. The wearer is most probably a young man of small figure and of pallid appearance. He is dressed in a short jacket, which is black, and is enriched with black velvet. The nether garments are also black. His head is covered with a black brimless hat, and a small semicircular apron of dark cloth is tied, not before, but behind. This is one of the Berg-leute, mountain people; he comes from the Freiberg silver district, and is attired in the full dress of a miner.
Doubtless, these somewhat theatrically attired mountaineers hold a superior position to the diggers and blasters of the earth. The dress is, perhaps, more properly that worn in the mountains, than that of the miners themselves. Still, even their habiliments, as I afterwards learned, are but a working-day copy of this more costly model; and the semicircular apron tied on behind, is more especially an indispensable portion of the working dress of the labouring miner.
From Leipsic, the mines are distant about seventy English miles. We—who are a happy party of foot-wanderers bound for Vienna—spend three careless days upon the road. Look at this glorious old castle of Altenburg, gravely nodding from its towering rock upon the quaint town below. It is the first station we come to, and is the capital of the ancient dukedom of Saxon-Altenburg. Look at the people about us! Does it not strike you as original, that what is here called modest attire, would elsewhere be condemned as immoral and ridiculous? Each of the males, indeed, presents an old German portrait, with short plaited and wadded jacket, trunk breeches, and low hat, with a rolled brim. But the women! With petticoats no deeper than a Highlandman’s kilt, and their legs thusguiltless of shoes or stockings, the bust and neck are hideously covered by a wooden breastplate, which, springing from the waist, rises at an angle of forty-five degrees as high as the chin; and on the edge of it is fastened a handkerchief, tied tightly round the neck. A greater disfigurement of the female form could scarcely have been devised. Yet, to these good people, it is doubtless beauty and propriety itself; for it is old, and national.
Through pretty woods and cultivated lands; beside rugged, roadside dells, we trudge along. We halt in quiet villages, snug and neat even in their poverty; or wend our way, in the midst of sunshine, through endless vistas of fruit-laden woods, the public road being one rich orchard of red-dotted cherry-trees: purchasable for a mere fraction, but not to be feloniously abstracted. Through Altenburg, Zwickau, Oederon, and Chemnitz; up steep hill paths, and by the side of unpronounceable villages, until, on the morning of the fourth day, we straggle into Freiberg.
Freiberg is the walled capital of the Saxon ore mountains, the Erzgebirge; the centre of the Saxon mining administration. One of its most spacious buildings is the Mining Academy, which dates from 1767. Here are rich collections of the wonderful produce of these mountains; models of mining machines, of philosophical and chemical apparatus; class and lecture rooms, and books out of number. Here Werner, the father of geology, and Humboldt, the systematiser of physical geography, were pupils. The former has bequeathed an extensive museum of mineralogy to the Academy, which has been gratefully named after its founder, the Wernerian Museum.
Freiberg holds up its head very high. The Mining Academy stands one thousand two hundred and thirty-one feet above the sea, although this is by no means the greatest altitude in the long range of mountains, which form a huge boundary line between the kingdoms of Saxony and Bohemia. The general name for the whole district is the Erzgebirg-Kreis—the circle of ore mountains—and truly they form one vast store of silver, tin, lead, iron, coal, copper, and cobalt ores; besides a host of chemical compounds and other riches. The indefatigable Saxons have worked and burrowed in them for more than seven hundred years.
We proceed to the Royal Saxon Mining Office, and request permission to descend into the “bowels of the land.” This is accorded us without difficulty, and we receive a beautiful specimen ofGerman text, in the shape of a lithographed Fahrschein, or permission to descend into Abraham’s Shaft and Himmelfahrt, and to inspect all the works and appliances thereunto belonging. This Fahrschein especially informs us, that no person, unless of the Minerstand (fraternity of miners), can be permitted to descend into the Zechen or pits, who is not eighteen years old; nor can more than two persons be intrusted to the care of one guide. We cheerfully pay on demand the sum of ten silver groschens each (about one shilling), for the purpose—as we are informed in a note at the bottom of the Fahrschein—of meeting the exigencies of the Miners’ Pension and Relief Fund.
The mine we are about to inspect, which bears the general title of Himmelsfurst—Prince of Heaven—is situated near to the village of Brand. How fond these old miners were of Biblical designations! and what an earnest spirit of religion glowed within them! There is another mine in the vicinity, at Voightberg, called the Old Hope of God; but we must recollect that Freiberg was one of the strongholds of early Protestantism, and that the first and sternest of the reformers clustered about its mountains. They have a cold, desolate look; and we think of the gardens we have left at their bases, and of the forests of fir-trees which wave upon some of the loftier pinnacles of these same Erzgebirge. Nor are the few men we meet of more promising appearance: not dwarfed nor stunted, but naturally diminutive, with sallow skins and oppressed demeanour. How different are the firm, lithe, sun-tanned mountaineers, who breathe the free air on the summits of their hills!
We are near the entrance of the mine; and, entering the neat, wooden office of the Schachtmeister, or mine-controller, we produce our credentials. Having signed our names in a huge book (in which we decipher more than one English name), we are passed to the care of an intelligent-looking guide; who, although still in early manhood, is of the same small and delicate growth observable in the miners generally.
Our guide, providing himself with small lanterns and an ominous-looking bundle, leads the way out of the Schachtmeister’s office to another portion of the same building. Here are heaps of dark grey “macadamised” stones;—silver and lead ores just raised from the pit; over whose very mouth we are unknowingly standing. A windlass is in the centre of the chasm; and it is by means of this windlass that the metalliferous substance is raised to the surface insquare wooden boxes. Here the dressing of the ores commences; boys cluster in all directions, under the wooden shed, and in oilier sheds beyond that. Here the ores are picked and sorted, washed and sieved, and, we believe, crushed or pulverised, according to the amount of metal contained in them, till they are in a fit state for the smelting furnace. We are not admitted to a minute inspection of these processes; but, under the direction of our guide, turn towards the mouth of the pit which we are to descend. Ere we leave the shed, we pick out a small block of ore as a memorial of the visit, and are astonished at its weight; bright yellow, and dull lead-coloured crystals gleam over its surface; and a portion of the gneiss, from which it has been broken, still adheres to it.
We follow our guide across a dusty space towards a wooden building with a conical roof; and, as we approach it, we become conscious of, rather than hear, the sweet, melancholy sound of a bell, which, at minute intervals, tones dreamily through the air. Whence comes that sad sound? In the centre of the shed is a square box, open at the top; and immediately above hangs the small bell; thence comes the silvery voice.
“For what purpose is this bell?” we inquire of our guide.
“It is the bell of safety.”
“Does it sound a warning?”
“No, the reverse; its silence gives the warning. The bell is tolled by a large water-wheel, immediately below the surface. By means of this wheel, and others at greater depths, the whole drainage of this mine is effected. If, by any means, these waterwheels should cease to act, the bell would cease to sound, and the miners would hasten to the day, for no man could tell how soon his working might be flooded.”
“And can it be heard throughout the mine?”
“Through this portion of it. Probably the water acts as a conductor of the sound; but the miners listen earnestly for its minute tolling.”
Toll on, thou messenger of comfort! May thy voice ever tell of safety to the haggard toiler, deep in the earth!
Our guide now directs us to attire ourselves in the garments disgorged from the portentous-looking bundle. They consist of a pair of black calico trousers, a dark, lapelled coat, a leathern semicircular apron, buckled on behind—the strap of which serves to hook a small lantern on in front—and a terrible brimless felt hat, whichwe feel to be a curse the moment we put it on, and which we never cease to anathematise, up to the instant when we take it off. These habiliments being drawn over our ordinary clothing, do not facilitate our motions, or help to keep us in so cool a state as might be desirable.
Over the edge of the square box, and down a stone staircase cut through the solid granite, we follow our guide. We pause on the first few steps, and are just able to distinguish the huge, broad water-wheel, slowly revolving in its stony chamber: its spokes, like giant arms, sweep through the wet darkness with scarcely a sound, but a low dripping and gurgling of water. That terrible staircase! dark and steep and slimy! Water drips from its roof and oozes from its walls. It is so low, that instead of bending forward as the body naturally does when in the act of descent, we are compelled to throw our heads back at the risk of dislocating our necks, in order that the detestable hat may not be driven over our eyes by coming in contact with the roof. Down, down the slippery steps; feeling our way along slimy walls: through the dense gloom, and heavy, moist air! The way seems to wave and bend we scarcely know how; sometimes we traverse level galleries, but they only lead us again to the steep, clammy steps, cut through the tough rock, always at the same acute angle. Down, down, six hundred feet! and our guide whispers to us to be careful how we go, for we are in a dangerous place: he has brought us to this portion of the mine to show us how the water accumulates when undisturbed.
The vein of ore has, in this part, ceased to yield a profit for the necessary labour, and the works have been abandoned. We creep breathlessly down until our guide bids us halt; and, holding out his lantern at arm’s length, but half reveals, in the pitchy darkness, a low-roofed cavern, floored by an inky lake of still, dead water; in which we see the light of the lantern reflected as in a mirror. It is fearful to look on—so black and motionless: a sluggish pool, thick and treacherous, which seemingly would engulf us without so much as a wave or a bubble; and we are within a foot of its surface! We draw involuntarily back, and creep up the steep stair to the first level above us.
Along a narrow gallery we proceed for a short space, and then down again; still down the interminable steps, till our knees crack with the ever uniform motion, and the hot perspiration streams from every pore. The air is so thick and heavy, that we occasionallydraw breath with a half gasp; and still we descend, till we hear the muffled ring of steel,—tink, tink, tink,—immediately near us, and are suddenly arrested in our downward course by the level ground.
We are in a narrow gallery, considerably loftier than any we have yet seen; for we can walk about in it without stooping. At the further end are two miners, just distinguishable by the tiny glow of their lanterns. From these proceed the ring of steel—the muffled tinkling in the thick air we had heard—and we see that they are preparing for a “blast.” With a long steel rod, or chisel, they are driving a way into the hard rock (geologists say there is little else in the Erzebirge than the primitive gneiss and granite), and thus prepare a deep, narrow chamber, within which a charge of gunpowder is placed and exploded. The hard material is rent into a thousand pieces, bringing with it the ore so indefatigably sought.
With every limb strained and distorted, the miners pursue their cramping labours, grovelling on the earth. The drilling or boring they are engaged in is a slow process, and the choice of a spot, so that the explosion may loosen as much of the lode and as little of the rock as possible, is of considerable importance. They cease their labours as we enter, and turn to look at us. The curse of wealth-digging is upon them. They, in their stained and disordered costume, seated on the ground on their semicircular leather aprons (for that is the obvious use of this portion of the dress, in these moist regions); we, in our borrowed garments and brimless beavers, with flushed features and dripping hair. The miners do not wear the abominable hats, at least “beneath the day,” that is, in the mines.
“Is this the bottom of the mine?” we inquire anxiously.
The guide smiles grimly as he answers, “We are little more than half-way to the bottom; but we can descend no deeper in this direction.”
Heaven knows we have no desire!
“This is the first working,” he continues. “The rest of the mine is much the same as you have already seen. We have no other means of reaching the workings than by the stone staircases you have partly descended.”
“What are the miners’ hours of work?”
“Eight hours a day for five days in the week at this depth,” is the answer. “In the deeper workings the hours are fewer.”
“What is the extent of the mine?” we demand.
“I cannot tell. There is no miner living who has traversed them all. The greater portion is out of work, and spreads for miles under ground.”
“And the depth?”
“About two hundred fathoms—twelve hundred feet—the sea level. The ‘Old Hope of God’ is sixty feet below the level of the sea.”
“Are there many mines like this?”
“There are about two hundred mines in all, with five hundred and forty pits: in all the mines together there are some four thousand eight hundred hands, men and boys. This mine occupies nine hundred of them.”
“And your pay?”
“One dollar a week is a good wage with us.”
One dollar is about three shillings of English money! This seems small pay, even in cheap Saxony.
“But,” we pursue our inquiries, “you have no short time, and are pensioned?—at least, so says our Fahrschein.”
“We are paid our wages during sickness, and are never out of work. When we can no longer use the pick, nor climb these staircases, we can retire upon our pension of eight silver groschens a week.”
Tenpence! Magnificent independence! This is digging for silver with a vengeance.
But we are faint with fatigue; and, bidding adieu to the two miners, we gladly agree to our guide’s suggestion of ascending to the happy daylight. Our way is still the same; although we mount by another shaft, most appropriately named Himmelfahrt—the path of heaven; but we clamber up the same steep steps; feel our way along the same slimy walls, and occasionally drive our hats over our eyes against the same low, dripping roof. With scarcely a dry thread about us; our hair matted and dripping; beads of perspiration streaming down our faces, we reach the top at last; and thank Heaven, that after two hours’ absence deep down among those terrible “diggins,” we are permitted once more to feel the bracing air, and to look upon the glorious light of day.
Our labours, however are not over. Distant rather more than an English mile from Himmelsfürst are the extensive amalgamation works, the smelting furnaces and refining ovens. Painfully fatiguedas we are, we cannot resist the temptation of paying them a brief visit. The road is dusty and desolate; nor are the works themselves either striking or attractive. An irregular mass of sheds, brick buildings, and tall chimneys, present themselves. As we approach them we come upon a “sludge hole”—the bed of a stream running from the dredging and jigging works; where, by the agency of water, the ore is relieved of its earthy and other waste matter, and the stream of water—allowed to run off in separate channels—deposits, as it flows, the smaller particles washed away in the first process. These are all carefully collected, and the veriest atom of silver or lead extracted. It is only the coarser ores that undergo this process; the richer deposits being pulverised and smelted with white or charred wood and fluxes, without the application of water, and refined by amalgamation with quicksilver. The two metals are afterwards separated by distilling off the latter.
Here are heaps of scoria—stacks of piglead, wood, coke, limestone and waste earth, everything, indeed, but silver; although we are emphatically in a silver mining district, silver is by no means the material which presents itself in the greatest bulk. Having placed ourselves under the direction of one of the workmen, we are led into some newly built brick buildings, where force-pumps and other water appliances, erected at great cost by the Saxon government, are gratefully pointed out to us. These water-works are equally applicable to the extinction of fire, as to the preparation of ores.
Into what an incomprehensible maze of words should we be betrayed, were we to attempt a description of the multifarious operations for the extraction and refining of metals! Every description of ore, or metalliferous deposit, requires a different treatment: each suggested and verified by laborious experience and vigilant attention. In some cases the pure silver is separated by mechanical means; in others the ore is roasted, in order to throw off the sulphur, arsenic, and other volatile matters, which are separately collected and form no inconsiderable portion of the valuable produce of the mine. These roastings again are smelted with a variety of fluxes, and in different states of purification, until they are ready for refining.
Here are roasting furnaces, dull and black; huge brick tubes with swollen ends; others built in, and ready for ignition. Everywhere, we see pigs of lead, sometimes lying about in reckless confusion, at others, neatly packed in square stacks. Now, they bring us to ahuge circular oven, with at least half-a-dozen firmly closed iron doors, and as many glowing caves; and a swarthy man, armed with an iron rake, swinging open one of the iron doors with a ring and a clatter, we look in upon a small lake of molten silver, fuming, and steaming, and bubbling. The iron rake is thrust in, and scrapes off the crumbling crust—the oxide of lead, which has formed upon its surface. The silver fumes and flashes, and a white vapour swims in the air. The swarthy man swings the iron door to with a clang, takes us by the arm, and bids us look through into a dark cavity, and watch the white drops which fall at intervals like tiny stars from above. This is the quicksilver evaporated from the heated silver in the furnace, which passes through the chimney into a kind of still, and is restored to its original condition.
And what is the result of all this skill and labour? We find that the average produce of the Saxon mines is from three to four ounces of silver to the hundred pounds’ weight of ore; and that the mines about Freiberg yield annually nearly four hundred and fifty thousand ounces of silver. We find further that the total mines of the Erzgebirge-Kreis—“circle of ore mountains”—of which those of Freiberg form a portion, produce a total of seven hundred and twenty thousand ounces of silver every year; besides from four hundred to five hundred tons of lead, one hundred and forty tons of tin, about thirty tons of copper, from three thousand five hundred to four thousand tons of iron, and six hundred tons of cobalt. They are rich also in arsenic, brimstone, and vitriol, and contain, in no inconsiderable quantities, quicksilver, antimony, calamites, bismuth, and manganese. Even precious stones are not wanting; garnets, topazes, tourmalines, amethysts, beryls, jaspers, and chalcedonies having been found.
A shrewd old workman tells us, with a proud satisfaction, that when Napoleon’s power was crushed, and Saxony had to pay the penalty of her adhesion to the French conqueror, in the shape of various parings and loppings of her already narrow territories—that Prussia gloated with greedy eyes, and half stretched out an eager hand to grasp the Erzgebirge and their mineral riches. “Aber,” exclaims he with a chuckle, “die sind noch Sächische,Gott sey dank!” “But they are still Saxon, thanks be to God!”
All things considered (the Australian diggins included), we came to the conclusion, from our small experience of Saxon mines, thatthere are more profitable, and even more agreeable occupations in the world than mining—pleasanter ways, in short, of getting a living, than digging for silver in Saxony, or even for gold in Australia.
a lift in a cart.
We left Dresden in the middle of July, a motley group of five: a Frenchman, an Austrian, two natives of Lübeck, and myself; silversmiths and jewellers together; all of us dulyvisédby our several ambassadors through Saxon Switzerland, by way of Pirna, on to Peterswald. The latter is the frontier town of Bohemia, and forms, therefore, the entrance from Saxony into the Austrian empire.
At dusk we were on the banks of the Elbe, at the ferry station near Pillnitz, the summer dwelling of the King of Saxony. Having crossed the broad stream, we leapt joyously up the steep path that led into a mimic Switzerland; a country of peaks, valleys, and pine trees, wanting only snow and glaciers. For three days we wandered among those wild regions; now scaling the bleak face of a rock; now stretched luxuriously on the purple moss, or gathering wild raspberries by the road side. From the abrupt edge of the overhanging Bastei we looked down some six hundred feet upon the wandering Elbe, threading its way by broad slopes, rich with the growth of the vine; or by bleached walls of stone, upon which even the lichens seemed to have been unable to make good their footing. From the narrow wooden bridge of Neu Rathen, we looked down upon the waving tops of fir trees, hundreds of feet beneath us. Then down we ourselves went by a wild and jagged path into a luxuriant valley called by no unfit name, Liebethal—the Valley of Love!
Then there was Königstein, seen far away, a square-topped mountain, greyish white with time and weather, soaring above 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 Brünn, the capital of Moravia. Our march was straggling. Foremost strode Alcibiade Tourniquet, jeweller and native of Argenteuil, the best fellow in the world: but one who would persist in marching in a pair of Parisian boots with high, tapering heels, bearing the pain they gave with little wincing. For him the ground we trod was classical, for we were in the neighbourhood of Austerlitz. Immediately in his rear swaggered the Austrian, with swarthy features and black straggling locks, swaddled and dirty; he was called “bandit” by general consent. The other three menof our party tramped abreast under the guidance of a Lübecker, a smart upright fellow, who, on the strength of having served two years in an infantry regiment, naturally took the position of drill-sergeant, and was dignified with the name of Hannibal on that account.
We halted to rest in the village of Bischowitz, where the few straggling houses, and the dreary, almost tenantless hostelry, told their own sorrows. But we got good soup, with an unlimited supply of bread, which formed a dinner of the best description; for, besides that the adopted doctrine in Germany is that soup is the best meat for the legs, we found that it also agreed well with our pockets. While in the full enjoyment of our rest, we observed that an earnest conversation had sprung up between the landlord and a ruddy-featured fellow in a green half-livery.
“Whither are you going, friends?” inquired the landlord at length, advancing towards us.
“We were going to Brünn by the high-road,” we answered.
“This man will carry you beyond Chradim for azwanzigera head,” said the landlord, pointing to the half-liveried fellow, who began gesticulating violently, and marking us off with his fingers as if we were so many sheep. This was a tempting offer for foot travellers, each burthened with a heavy knapsack. Chradim was eleven German miles on our road—a good fifty miles in English measurement—and we were all to be transported this distance for a total of about three shillings and sixpence. We therefore inspected thefurwerk, which did not promise much; but as it was drawn by a neat sturdy little horse, who rattled his harness with a sort of brisk independence that spoke well for a rapid journey, we readily decided upon the acceptance of the offer made by the Bohemian driver. That worthy shook his head when we addressed him, and grunted out “Kein Deutsch,”—“No German.” Indeed we found that, excepting people in official situations, innkeepers, and the like, the German language was either unknown to, or unacknowledged by the natives. In less than half an hour we had tumbled our knapsacks into the cart—which was a country dray, of course without either springs or seats—and disposing ourselves as conveniently as we could on its rough edges, were rattling and jolting off over the uneven road towards Collin, our station for the night.
The country through which we passed was uncultivated and uninteresting; but, like the rest that we had seen, it spoke of apoverty rather induced than natural. With the exception of the two villages of Planinam and Böhmishbrod we scarcely saw a house, and human creatures were extremely scarce. As we approached Collin we halted for a moment to look at a column of black marble erected on the roadside to commemorate the devotion of a handful of Russian troops, who had at this spot checked the progress of the whole French army for many hours. A little later, and we were lodged at our inn in the market-town of Collin, where we supped on bread and cheese and good Prague beer. A wild chorus of loud voices, and an overwhelming odour of tobacco and onions, were the accompaniments of our meal. The morrow being market-day in Collin, the whole population of the district had flocked to the town, and the houses of accommodation were all full. Our common room was quite choked up with sturdy forms in white loose coats; broad country faces, flushed with good humour, or beer, shone upon us from all sides. Our driver, who had been very sedate and reserved during the whole of the day, soon joined a cluster of congenial spirits in one corner, and was the thirstiest and most uproarious of mortals. As for ourselves, we seemed to be made doubly strangers, for there was not a word of German spoken in our hearing. Hours wore on, and the country folks seemed to enjoy their town excursion so extremely well, that there were no signs of breaking up, till mine host made his appearance and insisted upon the lights being put out, and upon the departure of his guests to bed. But, beds; where were they? Our military Lübecker laughed at the idea.
“There are never more than two beds in a Bohemian house of entertainment,” said he, “and the landlord by law claims the best of the two for himself. The other is for the first comer who pays for it. Perhaps we shall get some straw, perhaps not. At the worst there are the boards.”
But we did get some straw, after considerable trouble, and the whole crowd of boozers (with the exception of our driver, who went to bed with his horses) set about preparing couches for themselves, with a tact that plainly showed how well they were accustomed to it. The straw was spread equally over the whole chamber, and each man turned over his heavy oaken chair, so that its back became a pillow. Divested of boots and coats, we were soon stretched upon our litters, thirty in a room.
Our morning duty was to shake the loose straw out of our hair and ears, and then to clear away every vestige of our nightaccommodation, in order that a delicious breakfast of rich, black, thick coffee, and plain bread, might be spread before us in the same room. The country folks were all at market, and, as far as we could see, so was our driver. He was nowhere to be found. We had vague notions of his having decamped; but considering that we had only paid him two zwanzigers out of the five bargained for, the supposition seemed hardly a reasonable one. After seeking him in vain through every room in the house, in the crowded market place, and in the neat little town, full of low, square-built houses and whitened colonnades, we thought of the stable, and there we found our friend, stretched on his back among the hoofs of his horse, who, careful creature, loving him too well to disturb him, never stirred a limb.
We saw our guide in a new light that day. In spite of all our urging, it was nine o’clock before we fairly quitted Collin, and he was then already in an exhilarated state, having taken several strong draughts to cool his inward fever. We would have given much to have been able to converse with him; for, as we were about to start, he grinned and gesticulated in such a violent way—having, evidently, something to communicate which he was unable to express—that we called the host to our assistance.
“You must not be alarmed,” said the landlord in explanation, “if he should swerve from the high-road, for he thinks of taking you cross country, and it may be a little rough.”
We started at last, and the brave little horse rattled along at a gallant pace. “Hi, hi, hi!” shouted the Bohemian, and away we went along the well-beaten high-road, jolted unmercifully; our knapsacks dancing about our feet like living creatures. We were too much occupied in the task of keeping our seats, to be able to devote much attention to the country, until, having passed Czaslau, we turned suddenly out of the high-road, and came upon a scene of cultivation and refinement that was very charming. A rapid cooling down of our driver’s extravagance of manner was the immediate result of our entering upon the well-kept paths, and between smooth lawns; we went at a decent trot, following a semicircular road, by which we were brought immediately in front of a noble mansion. At the door of an inn, which pressed upon the pathway, our Bohemian halted and addressed to us a voluble and enthusiastic harangue in his own language (one that has a soft and pleasant sound): evidently he meant to impress us with the beauty of the scene.
We soon learned all about it from the landlord of the inn. Our driver was a liveried servant of the Prince before whose mansion we had stopped, and he was probably running much risk of dismissal in letting his grace’s country cart for hire. He was a sad dog, for, in the course of a quarter of an hour he ran up a score upon the strength of an alleged promise on our parts to pay all expenses, and succeeded in wheedling another zwanziger in advance out of our cashier, the military Lübecker. This piece of money, however, on being proffered in payment of a last half-pint of beer, was instantly confiscated by the landlord for previous arrears.
Amid a hurricane of abuse, exchanged between landlord and driver, we clattered out of private ground to the main road again. Our charioteer had risen into a state of exaltation that defied all curb, and in a short time we were again firmly planted before the sign-post of a public-house. But here there was no credit, and our good-natured Lübecker having doled out a fourth zwanziger on account, was scarcely surprised to see it pounced upon and totally appropriated by the host in liquidation of some ancient score. With a shout of rage, or rather a howl, from our Bohemian whip, we again set forward. “Hi, hi, hi!” and helter-skelter we went, through bush and bramble, where indeed there was no trace or shadow of a beaten track. The Bohemian was lost to control; he shouted, he sang, he yelled, savagely flogging his willing beast all the while, until we began to have serious fears for the safety of our necks. Presently we were skimming along the edge of the steep bank of a broad and rapid stream, wondering internally what might possibly come next, when, to our terror, the Bohemian, pointing with his whip to the opposite bank, suddenly wheeled the horse and rude vehicle round, and before we could expostulate with or arrest him in his course, plunged down a long slope and dashed into the river, with a hissing and splashing that completely blinded us for a few seconds, and drenched us to the skin. We held on with the desperation of fear; but before we could well know whether we swam or rode we had passed the stream, and our unconquered little horse was tugging us might and main up the opposite bank. That once obtained, we saw before us a wide expanse of heath, rugged and broken, and no trace of any road.
But horse and driver seemed to be alike careless about beaten tracks. The Bohemian grew wilder at every step, urging on his horse with mad gestures and unearthly cries. His driving wasmiraculous; along narrow strips of road, scarcely wide enough to contain the wheels, he passed in safety; sometimes skimming the outer ridge of a steep bank, and when, seemingly about to plunge into an abyss, suddenly wheeling both horse and cart round at an acute angle, and darting on with a reckless speed to new dangers and new escapes. We had been told that he was an admirable hand at the rein when sober; but, when drunk, he certainly surpassed himself. As for ourselves, we were in constant fear of our lives; and, being utterly unacquainted with the country and the language, and unable to control the extravagances of our driver, we calmly awaited, and almost invoked, the “spill” that seemed inevitable.
But the paroxysm of the Bohemian had reached its height; from an incarnate devil, in demeanour and language, he rapidly dropped into childish helplessness, and finally into a deep uncontrollable slumber. This was a state of things which, at first, threatened more danger than his open madness; but then it was the horse’s turn to showhisquality. He saw that a responsibility devolved upon him, and he was quite equal to the occasion. He seemed to know his way as well without as with his master. We guessed this; and, taking the reins from the hands of the quite helpless Bohemian, we left the gallant animal to take whatever course he thought most prudent. The good beast brought us well out of the tangled heath, and once more to a level, open road.
Soon, a neat village was before us, and we came to the resolution that we would dismount there at all hazards. But then our sleepy driver suddenly started into life, and, with a terrible outburst of wrath, gave us, by motions, to understand that we had gone beyond his destination. We paid very little heed to him; but, leaping from the cart, felt grateful for the blessing of whole bones. There remained still one zwanziger unpaid; but, to our astonishment, the Bohemian relapsed into his old rage when this was tendered to him, and, by a complication of finger reckoning, explained to us that he had never received more than two. In fact, he ignored all that had passed during his drunken fit. Argument being on each side useless, we also betook ourselves to abuse, and a terrible conflict of strong language, in which neither party understood the other, was the result. We entered the chief inn of the village, followed by the implacable Bohemian, who, though ejected several times, never failed to re-appear, repeating his finger calculations every time, andconcluding each assault with the mystical words, “Sacramentum hallaluyah!” The landlord came at length to our assistance; and, by a few emphatic words in his own language, exorcised this evil spirit.
We pursued our way by Hohenmauth, and having missed somehow the larger village of Chradim, lodged for the night in a lonely hamlet. We walked fully thirty-two miles the next day, through a wild, neglected country, and hobbled into Loitomischl as the night was setting in.
We were now upon the borders of Bohemia, and saw glaring on the wall of a frontier hostelry, “Willkommen zu Mähren”—“Welcome to Moravia.” We sealed the welcome by a sumptuous breakfast of sausages and beer in the frontier town of Zwittau—a pleasant place, with a spacious colonnaded market-square—and finished our meal on a green bank on the outskirts of the town, with a heap of sweet blackberries, of which we had purchased a capful for six kreutzers shein. It was a quiet, beautiful Sunday morning, and the country folks were streaming towards the church. They were all in holiday trim, with a strong tendency to Orientalism in the fashion of their garments. The women’s head-dresses were arranged with much taste, consisting generally of a large handkerchief, or shawl, folded turban-wise, with hanging ends; but the heads of the men were surmounted by an atrocious machine, in the shape of a hat, which, with its broad, rolled brim, its expanded top, and numerous braidings and pendants, could be nothing less than an heirloom in a family. We marched some twenty-five miles that day, and as the even darkened, entered the village of Goldentraum—Golden dream—happy name! for here, after four nights of straw-litter, we slept in beds.
Seated in the travellers’ room was a group which at once arrested our attention. A swarthy man, with scattered, raven locks, and a handsome countenance, was filling a glass with red wine from a round-bellied flask. His companion, a black, shaggy-bearded fellow, ragged and filthy, sat opposite to him; while close by the wall, squatted on the ground, was a squalid, olive-skinned woman, with black, matted hair, who was vainly endeavouring to still the cries of a child, swaddled at her back. The men wore slouched Spanish hats, and wide cloaks, which, partly thrown aside, revealed the rags and dirt beneath. Bohemian gipseys—real Bohemians were they—filchers and beggars, whose ample cloaks were intended as muchfor a convenient means of concealing stolen property, as articles of dress. Our military Lübecker thought they would be very useful as a foraging party. They sat laughing and sipping their wine, now and then handing a glass of the liquor, in an ungracious way, to the woman squatted on the ground; and who received it with a real or assumed humility which was, perhaps, the most curious part of the picture. Here three of our companions, Alcibiade, the Viennese silversmith, and one of the Lübeckers, were unable to proceed further on foot, and took places in the “fast coach;” while “Hannibal” and myself tramped the remaining twenty miles which lay between us and Brünn, the capital of Moravia.
It was again Sunday, our usual rest day, and I stood in the open square before the huge church at Brünn, watching the motley, shifting, and clamorous crowd which had converted its very steps into a market-place. There was something strikingly Eastern in the character of the women’s attire: intensely gaudy and highly contrasted; and their head-dresses the very next thing to a turban with double-frilled ends. There was also something peculiarly Catholic in the nature of the articles exposed for sale; beads, crosses, coloured pictures of saints, and tiny images of suffering Saviours; but more especially in the manner in which the Sunday had been turned into a market-day. Above all, and through all, the impressive tones of the solemn chant, mingled with bursts of inspiring music, pealed out of the open doorway, round which clustered the kneeling devotees.
Our lame companions started on the following day by rail for the Austrian capital, while we took the high road. The country through which we passed was beautifully undulated; hill and dale following each other in regular succession, and in a far different state of order and cultivation to the neglected plains of Bohemia. We were now in Austria proper, and everything spoke of prosperity and comfort. Neat, populous villages, hung upon every hill-side—the southern side invariably—and there were no shortcomings in the accommodation for man or horse. But our finances were in a miserable plight; and our sustenance during the two and a half days occupied in tramping the more than eighty miles between Brünn and Vienna, consisted for the most part of fruit, bread, and water. We crossed the Danube at a place called “Am Spitz,” where there is an interminable bridge across the broad flood, and entered Vienna almost penniless.
the turks’ cellar.
You enter the old town of Vienna from Leopoldstadt by the Ferdinand Bridge; and, walking for a few minutes parallel with the river, come into a hollow called the Tiefer Grund; passing next under a broad arch which itself supports a street spanning the gulley, you find on the left hand a rising ground which must be climbed in order to reach a certain open space of a triangular form, walled in by lofty houses, called “Die Freiung,”—the Deliverance. In it there is an old wine-house, the Turks’ Cellar, and there belongs to this spot one of the legends of Vienna.
In the autumn of the year sixteen hundred and twenty-seven, when the city was so closely invested by the Turks, that the people were half famished, there stood in the place now called “Freiung,” or thereabouts, the military bakery for that portion of the garrison which had its quarters in the neighbourhood. The bakery had to supply not only the soldiers, but bread was made in it to be doled out to destitute civilians by the municipal authorities; and, as the number of the destitute was great, the bakers there employed had little rest. Once in the dead of the night, while some of the apprentices were getting their dough ready for the early morning batch, they were alarmed by a hollow ghostly sound as of spirits knocking in the earth. The blows were regular and quite distinct, and without cessation until cockcrow. The next night these awful sounds were again heard, and seemed to become louder and more urgent as the day drew near; but, with the first scent of morning air, they suddenly ceased. The apprentices gave information to the town authorities; a military watch was set, and the cause of the strange noises in the earth was very soon discovered. The enemy was under ground; the Turks, from their camp on the Leopoldiberg, were carrying a mine under the city; and, not knowing the levels, had approached so nearly to the surface that there was but a mere crust between them and the bakehouse floor.
What was to be done? The danger was imminent—the remedy must be prompt and decisive. A narrow arm of the Danube ran within a hundred yards of the place: pick and spade were vigorously plied, and in a short time a canal was cut between the river and the bakery. Little knew the Turks of the cold water that could then at any time be thrown upon their undertaking. All was still. The Viennese say that the hostile troops already filled the mine, armed to the teeth, and awaiting only a concerted signal to tell them that a proposed midnight attack on the walls had diverted the attention of the citizens. Then they were to rush up out of the earth and surprise the town. But the besieged, forewarned and forearmed, suddenly threw the flood-gates open and broke a way for the water through the new canal under the bakehouse floor; down it went bubbling, hissing, and gurgling into the dark cavern, where it swept the Mussulmans before it, and destroyed them to a man.
This was the origin of the Turks’ Cellar; and although the title is perhaps unjustly appropriated by the winehouse I have mentioned, yet there is no doubt that the tale is true, and that the house at any rate is near the spot from which its name is taken. Grave citizens even believe that the underground passage still exists, walled and roofed over with stone, and that it leads directly to the Turks’ camp, at the foot of the Leopoldiberg. They even know the size of it, namely, that it is of such dimensions as to admit the marching through it of six men abreast. Of this I know nothing; but I know from the testimony of a venerable old lady—who is not the oldest in Vienna—that the bakers’ apprentices were formerly allowed special privileges in consideration of the service once rendered by some of their body to the state. Indeed, the procession of the bakers, on every returning anniversary of the swamp-in of the Turks, when they marched horse and foot from the Freiung, with banners, emblems, and music, through the heart of the city to the grass-grown camp outside the city walls, was one of the spectacles that made the deepest impression on this chatty old lady in her childhood.
The Turks’ Cellar is still famous. It is noted now, not for its bread or its canal-water, but for its white wine, its baked veal, and its savoury chickens. Descend into its depths (for it is truly a cellar and nothing else) late in the evening, when citizens have time and money at their disposal, and you find it full of jolly company. As well as the tobacco-smoke will permit you to see what the placeresembles, you would say that it is like nothing so much as the after cabin of a Gravesend steamer on a summer Sunday afternoon. There is just such a row of tables on each side; just such a low roof; just such a thick palpable air, uncertain light, and noisy steamy crowd of occupants. The place is intolerable in itself, but fall-to upon the steaming block of baked veal which is set before you; clear your throat of the tobacco-smoke by mighty draughts of the pale yellow wine which is its proper accompaniment; finally, fill a deep-bowled meerschaum with Three Kings tobacco, creating for yourself your own private and exclusive atmosphere, and you begin to feel the situation. The temperature of mine host’s cellar aids imagination greatly in recalling the idea of the old bakehouse, and there comes over you, after a while, a sense of stifling that mixes with the nightmare, usually constituting in this place an after-supper nap. In the waking lethargy that succeeds, you feel as if jostled in dark vaults by a mob of frantic Turks, labouring heavily to get breath, and sucking in foul water for air.
Possibly when fully awakened you begin to consider that the Turks’ Cellar is not the most healthful place of recreation to be in; and, cleaving the dense smoke, you ascend into sunlight. Perhaps you stroll to some place where the air is better, but which may still have a story quite as exciting as the catastrophe of the imperial bakehouse: perhaps to Bertholdsdorf; a pretty little market-town with a tall-steepled church, and a half ruined battlement, situated on the hill slope about six miles to the south of Vienna. It forms a pretty summer day’s ramble. Its chronicler is the worthy Markt-richter, or Town-justice, Jacob Trinksgeld; and his unvarnished story, freely translated, runs thus:—
“When the Turkish army, two hundred thousand strong without their allies, raised the siege of Raab, the retreating host of rebels and Tartars were sent to overrun the whole of Austria below the Enns on this side of the Danube, and to waste it with fire and sword. This was done. On the ninth of July, detached troops of Spahis and Tartars appeared before the walls of Bertholdsdorf, but were beaten back by our armed citizens. Those attacks were repeated on the tenth and twelfth, and also repulsed; but as at this time the enemy met with a determined resistance from the city of Vienna, which they had invested, they gathered in increased force about our devoted town, and on the fifteenth of July attacked us with such fury on every side that, seeing it was no longer possible to hold outagainst them, partly from their great numbers, and partly from our failing of powder; and, moreover, seeing that they had already set fire to the town in several places, we were compelled to seek shelter with our goods and chattels in the church and fortress, neither of which were as yet touched by the flames.
“On the sixteenth, the town itself being then in ashes, there came a soldier dressed in the Turkish costume, save that he wore the leather jerkin of a German horseman, into the high street, and waving a white cloth, he called out in the Hungarian language, to those of us who were in the fortress, that if we would ask for grace, both we and ours should be protected, and a safe conduct (salva quartier) given to us, that should be our future defence. Thereupon we held honest counsel together, citizens and neighbours then present, and in the meantime gave reply, translated also into Hungarian, that if we should agree thereto, we would set up a white flag upon the tower as a sign of our submission. Early on the morning of the nineteenth of July there came a Pasha from the camp at Vienna, at the head of a great army, and with him the same Turk who had on the previous day made the proposal to us. And the Pasha sat himself down upon a red carpet spread on the bare ground, close by the house of Herr Streninger, till we should agree to his terms. It was five o’clock in the morning before we could make up our minds.
“Then, when we were all willing to surrender, our enemies demanded, in the first place, that two of our men should march out of the fortress as hostages, and that two Turks should take their places with us; and that a maiden, with loose streaming hair, and a wreath upon her forehead, should bring forth the key of the town, seeing that this place had never till then been taken by an enemy. Further, they demanded six thousand florins ransom from us, which, however, we abated to four thousand, handing to them two thousand florins at once, upon three dishes, with the request that the remainder should be allowed to stand over till the forthcoming day of John the Baptist. As soon as this money had been paid over to them, the Pasha called such of our faithful garrison as were in the church to come out and arrange themselves in the square, that he might see how many safe-conducts were required; but, as each armed man came to the door, his musket was torn out of his hand, and such as resisted were dragged by the hair of the head into the square by the Turks, and told that they would need no weapons, seeing thatto those who sought for mercy, the passes would be sufficient protection. And thus were our arms carried away from us.
“As soon as the whole garrison, thus utterly defenceless, were collected in the public square, there sprang fifty Turks from their horses, and with great rudeness began searching every one of them for money or other valuables; and the citizens began already to see that they were betrayed into a surrender, and some of them tried to make their escape—among others, Herr Streninger, the town-justice; but he was struck down immediately, and he was the first man murdered. Upon this, the Pasha stood up, and began to call out with a loud, clear voice to his troops, and as they heard his words, they fell upon the unarmed men in the market-place, and hewed them down with their scimitars without pity or remorse—sparing none in their eagerness for the butchery, and which, in spite of their haste, was not ended till between one and two o’clock in the afternoon. Of all our citizens, only two escaped the slaughter, and they contrived to hide themselves in the tower; but those who fled out of the town were captured by the Tartars, and instantly dispatched. Then, having committed this cruel barbarism, they seized the women and children who had been left for safety in the church, and carried them away into slavery, taking care to burn and utterly destroy the fortress ere they departed. And when Vienna was relieved, and the good people there came among the ruins of Bertholdsdorf, they gathered together the headless and mangled remains of our murdered citizens to the number of three thousand five hundred, and buried them all in one grave.”
In “eternal remembrance” of this catastrophe, the worthy town-justice, Trinksgeld, in seventeen hundred ordered a painting to be executed, representing the fearful scene described. It occupies the whole of one side of the Town-hall, and in its quaint minuteness of detail, and defiance of perspective—depicting, not merely the slaughter of the betrayed Bertholdsdorfers, but the concealment of the two who were fortunate enough to escape, and who are helplessly apparent behind some loose timber—would be ludicrous, were it not for the sacred gravity of the subject.
As it is, we quit the romantic little town with a sigh, and turning our faces towards Vienna, wonder what the young Turks of eighteen hundred and fifty-four may possibly think of the Old Turks of one hundred and thirty years ago.