a taste of austrian jails.
At the “Fete de Dieu,” in Vienna (theFrohnleichnamsfest), religious rites are not confined to the places of worship—the whole city becomes a church. Altars rise in every street, and high mass is performed in the open air, amid clouds of incense and showers of holy water. The Emperor himself and his family swell the procession.
I had taken a cheering glass of Kronewetter with the worthy landlord of my lodgings, and sauntered forth to observe the day’s proceedings. I crossed the Platz of St. Ulrick, and thence proceeded to the high street of Mariahilf—an important suburb of Vienna. I passed two stately altars on my way, and duly raised my hat, in obedience to the custom of the country. A little crowd was collected round the parish church of Mariahilf; and, anticipating that a procession would pass, I took my stand among the rest of the expectant populace. A few assistant police, in light blue-grey uniforms with green facings, kept the road.
A bustle about the church-door, and a band of priests, attendants, and—what pleased me most—a troop of pretty little girls came, two and two, down the steps, and into the road. I remember nothing of the procession but those beautiful and innocent children, adorned with wreaths and ribbons for the occasion. I was thinking of the rosy faces I had left at home, when my reflections were interrupted by a peremptory voice, exclaiming, “Take off your hat!” I should have obeyed with alacrity at any other moment; but there was something in the manner and tone of the “Polizeidiener’s” address which touched my pride, and made me obstinate. I drew back a little. The order was repeated; the crowd murmured. I half turned to go; but, the next moment, my hat was struck off my head by the police-assistant.
What followed was mere confusion. I struck the “Polizeidiener;” and, in return, received several blows on the head from behind witha heavy stick. In less than ten minutes I was lodged in the police-office of the district; my hat broken and my clothes bespattered with the blood which had dropped, and was still dropping, from the wounds in my head.
I had full time to reflect upon the obstinate folly which had produced this result; nor were my reflections enlivened by the manners of the police-agents attached to the office. They threatened me with heavy pains and punishments; and the Polizeidiener whom I had struck, assured me, while stanching his still-bleeding nose, that I should have at least “three months for this.”
After several hours’ waiting in the dreary office, I was abruptly called into the commissioner’s room. The commissioner was seated at a table with writing materials before him, and commenced immediately, in a sharp offensive tone, a species of examination. After my name and country had been demanded, he asked:
“Of what religion are you?”
“I am a Protestant.”
“So! Leave the room.”
I had made no complaint of my bruises, because I did not think this the proper place to do so; although the man who dealt them was present. He had assisted, stick in hand, in taking me to the police-office. He was in earnest conversation with the Polizeidiener, but soon left the office. From that instant I never saw him again; nor, in spite of repeated demands, could I ever obtain redress for, or even recognition of, the violence I had suffered.
Another weary hour, and I was consigned to the care of a police-soldier; who, armed with sabre and stick, conducted me through the crowded city to prison. It was then two o’clock.
The prison, situated in the Spengler Gasse, is called the “Polizei-Haupt-Direction.” We descended a narrow gut, which had no outlet, except through the prison gates. They were slowly opened at the summons of my conductor. I was beckoned into a long gloomy apartment, lighted from one side only, and having a long counter running down its centre; chains and handcuffs hung upon the walls.
An official was standing behind the counter. He asked me abruptly:
“Whence come you?”
“From England,” I answered.
“Where’s that?”
“In Great Britain; close to France.”
The questioner behind the counter cast an inquiring look at my escort:—
“Is it so?” he asked.
The subordinate answered him in a pleasant way, that I had spoken the truth. Happily an Englishman, it seems, is a rarity within those prison walls.
I was passed into an adjoining room, which reminded me of the back parlour of a Holywell Street clothes shop, only that it was rather lighter. Its sides consisted entirely of sets of great pigeon-holes, each occupied by the habiliments or effects of some prisoner.
“Have you any valuables?”
“Few enough.” My purse, watch, and pin were rendered up, ticketed, and, deposited in one of the compartments. I was then beckoned into a long paved passage or corridor down some twenty stone steps, into the densest gloom. Presently I discerned before me a massive door studded with bosses, and crossed with bars and bolts. A police-soldier, armed with a drawn sabre, guarded the entrance to Punishment Room No. 1. The bolts gave way; and, in a few moments, I was a prisoner within.
Punishment Room No. 1, is a chamber some fifteen paces long by six broad, with a tolerably high ceiling and whitened walls. It has but two windows, and they are placed at each end of one side of the chamber. They are of good height, and look out upon an inclosed gravelled space, variegated with a few patches of verdure. The room is tolerably light. On each side are shelves, as in barracks, for sleeping. In one corner, by the window, is a stone sink; in another, a good supply of water.
Such is the prison; but the prisoners! There were forty-eight—grey-haired men and puny boys—all ragged, and stalking with slippered feet from end to end with listless eyes. Some, all eagerness; some, crushed and motionless; some, scared and stupid; now singing, now swearing, now rushing about playing at some mad game; now hushed or whispering, as the loud voice of the Vater (or father of the ward) is heard above the uproar, calling out “Ruhe!” (“Order!”)
On my entrance I was instantly surrounded by a dozen of the younger jail-birds, amid a shout of “Ein Zuwachs! Ein Zuwachs!” which I was not long in understanding to be the name given to the last comer. “Was haben sie?” (What have you done?) was the nexteager cry. “Struck a Polizeidiener!” “Ei! das ist gut!” was the hearty exclamation; and I was a favourite immediately. One dirty villanous-looking fellow, with but one eye, and very little light in that, took to handling my clothes; then inquired if I had any money “up above?” Upon my answering in the affirmative my popularity immediately increased. They soon made me understand that I could “draw” upon the pigeon-hole bank to indulge in any such luxuries as beer or tobacco.
People breakfast early in Vienna; and, as I had tasted nothing since that meal, I was very hungry; but I was not to starve; for soon we heard the groaning of bolts and locks, and the police-soldier who guarded the door appeared, bearing in his hand a red earthen pot, surmounted by a round flat loaf of bread “for the Englishman.” I took my portion with thanks, and found that the pipkin contained a thick porridge made of lentils, prepared with meal and fat; in the midst of which was a piece of fresh boiled beef. The cake was of a darkish colour; but good wholesome bread. Altogether, the meal was not unsavoury. Many a greedy eye watched me as I sat on the end of the hard couch, eating my dinner. One wretched man seeing that I did not eat all, whispered a proposal to barter his dirty neckerchief—which he took off in my presence—for half of my loaf. I satisfied his desires, but declined the recompense. My half-emptied pipkin was thankfully taken by another man, under the pretence of “cleaning it.”
One of my fellow-prisoners approached me.
“It is getting late,” said he; “do you know what you have got to do?”
“No.”
“You are the Zuwachs (latest accession), and it is your business to empty and clean out the ‘Kiefel’” (the sink, etc.)
“The devil!”
“But I dare say,” he added, carelessly, “if you pay the Vater a ‘mass-bier,’” (something less than a quart of beer), “he will make some of the boys do it for you.”
“With all my heart.”
“Have you a rug?”
“No.”
“You must ask the Corporal, at seven o’clock; but I dare say the Vater will find you one—for a ‘mass-bier’—if you ask him.”
I saw that a mass-bier would do a great deal in an Austrian prison.
The Vater, who was a prisoner like the rest, was appealed to. He was a tall, burly-looking young man, with a frank countenance. He had quitted his honest calling of butcher, and had taken to smuggling tobacco into the city. This is a heavy crime; for the growth, manufacture, and sale of tobacco is a strict Imperial monopoly. Accordingly, his punishment had been proportionately severe—two years’ imprisonment. The sentence was now approaching completion; and, on account of good conduct, he had received the appointment of Vater to Punishment Room No. 1. The benefits were enumerated to me with open eyes by one of the prisoners—“Double rations, two rugs, and a mass-bier a day!”
The result of my application to the Vater was the instant calling out of several young lads, who crouched all day in the darkest end of the room—a condemned corner, abounding in vermin; and I heard no more of the sink and so forth. The next day a newcomer occupied my position.
At about seven o’clock the bolts were again withdrawn, the ponderous door opened, and the Corporal—who seemed to fill the office of ward-inspector—marched into the chamber. He was provided with a small note-book and a pencil, and made a general inquiry into the wants and complaints of the prisoners. Several of them asked for little indulgences. All these were duly noted down to be complied with the next day—always supposing that the prisoner possessed a small capital “up above.” I stepped forward, and humbly made my request for a rug. “You!” exclaimed the Corporal, eyeing me sharply. “Oh! you are the Englishman?—No!”
I heard some one near me mutter: “So; struck a policeman! No mercy for him from the other policemen—any of them.”
The Vater dared not help me; but two of his most intimate friends made me lie down between them; and, swaddled in their rugs, I passed the night miserably. The hard boards, and the vermin, effectually broke my slumbers.
The morning came. The rules of the prison required that we should all rise at six, roll up the rugs, lay them at the heads of our beds, and sweep out the room. Weary and sore, I paced the prison while these things were done. Even the morning ablution was comfortless and distressing; a pocket-handkerchief serving but indifferently for a towel.
Restless activity now took full possession of the prisoners. There was not the combined shouting or singing of the previous day; but there was independent action, which broke out in various ways. Hunger had roused them; the prison allowance is one meal a day: and although, by husbanding the supply, some few might eke it out into several repasts, the majority had no such control over their appetite. Tall, gaunt lads, just starting into men, went roaming about with wild eyes, purposeless, pipkin in hand, although hours must elapse before the meal would come. Caged beasts pace their narrow prisons with the same uniform and unvarying motion.
At last eleven o’clock came. The barred door opened, and swiftly, yet with a terrible restraint—knowing that the least disorder would cost them a day’s dinner—the prisoners mounted the stone steps, and passed slowly, in single file, before two enormous caldrons. A cook, provided with a long ladle, stood by the side of each; and, with a dexterous plunge and a twist, a portion of porridge and a small block of beef were fished up and dashed into the pipkin extended by each prisoner. Another official stood ready with the flat loaves. In a very short time, the whole of the prisoners were served.
Hunger seasoned the mess; and I was sitting on the bedstead-end enjoying it, when the police-soldier appeared on the threshold, calling me by name.
“You must leave—instantly.”
“I am ready,” I said, starting up.
“Have you a rug?”
“No.”
I hurried out into the dark passage. I was conducted to the left; another heavy door was loosened, and I was thrust into a gloomy cell, bewildered, and almost speechless with alarm. I was not alone. Some half-dozen melancholy wretches, crouching in one corner, were disturbed by my entrance; but half-an-hour had scarcely elapsed, when the police-soldier again appeared, and I was hurried out. We proceeded through the passage by which I had first entered. In my way past the nest of pigeon-holes “up above,” my valuables were restored to me. Presently a single police-soldier led me into the open street.
The beautiful air and sunshine! how I enjoyed them as we passed through the heart of the city. “Bei’m Magistrat,” at the corner of the Kohlmarkt was our destination. We entered its porticoed door, ascended the stone stairs, and went into a small office, wherethe most repulsive-looking official I have anywhere seen, noted my arrival in a book. Thence we passed into another pigeon-holed chamber, where I delivered up my little property, as before, “for its security.” A few minutes more, and I was safely locked in a small chamber, having one window darkened by a wooden blind. My companions were a few boys, a courier—who, to my surprise, addressed me in English—and a man with blazing red hair.
In this place I passed four days, occupied by what I suppose I may designate “my trial.” The first day was enlivened by a violent attack which the jailer made upon the red-haired man for looking out of window. He seized the fiery locks, and beat their owner’s head against the wall. I had to submit that day to a degrading medical examination.
On the second day I was called to appear before the “Rath,” or counsel. The process of examination is curious. It is considered necessary to the complete elucidation of a case, that the whole life and parentage of the accused should be made known; and I was thus exposed to a series of questions which I had never anticipated:—The names and countries of both of my parents; their station; the ages, names, and birthplaces of my brothers and sisters; my own babyhood, education, subsequent behaviour, and adventures; my own account, with the minutest details of the offence I had committed. It was more like a private conference than an examination. The Rath was alone—with the exception of his secretary, who diligently recorded my answers. While being thus perseveringly catechised, the Rath sauntered up and down; putting his interminable questions in a friendly chatty way, as though he were taking a kindly interest in my history, rather than pursuing a judicial investigation. When the examination was concluded, the secretary read over every word to me, and I confirmed the report with my signature.
The Rath promised to do what he could for me; and I was then surprised and pleased by the entrance of my employer. The Rath recommended him to write to the English Embassy in my behalf, and allowed him to send me outer clothing better suited to the interior of a prison than the best clothes I had donned to spend the holiday in.
I went back to my cell with a lightened heart. I was, however, a little disconcerted on my return by the courier, who related an anecdote of a groom, of his acquaintance, who had persisted insmoking a cigar while passing a sentinel; and who, in punishment therefor, had been beaten by a number of soldiers, with willow rods; and whose yells of pain had been heard far beyond the prison walls. What an anticipation! Was I to be similarly served? I thought it rather a suspicious circumstance that my new friend appeared to be thoroughly conversant with all the details (I suspect from personal experience) of the police and prison system of Vienna. He told me (but I had no means of testing the correctness of his information) that there were twenty Rathsherrn, or Counsellors; that each had his private chamber, and was assisted by a confidential secretary; that every offender underwent a private examination by the Rath appointed to investigate his case—the Rath having the power to call all witnesses, and to examine them, singly, or otherwise, as he thought proper; that on every Thursday the “Rathsherrn” met in conclave; that each Rath brought forward the particular cases which he had investigated, explained all their bearings, attested his report by documentary evidence prepared by his secretary, and pronounced his opinion as to the amount of punishment to be inflicted. The question was then decided by a majority.
On the third day, I was suddenly summoned before the Rath, and found myself side by side with my accuser. He was in private clothes.
“Herr Tuci,” exclaimed the Rath, trying to pronounce my name, but utterly disguising it, “you have misinformed me. The constable says he did notknockyour hat off—he onlypulledit off.”
I adhered to my statement. The Polizeidiener nudged my elbow, and whispered, “Don’t be alarmed—it will not go hard with you.”
“Now, constable,” said the Rath; “what harm have you suffered in this affair?”
“My uniform is stained with blood.”
“Frommyhead!” I exclaimed.
“Frommynose,” interposed the Polizeidiener.
“In any case it will wash out,” said the Rath.
“And you,” he added, turning to me,—“are you willing to indemnify this man for damage done?”
I assented; and was then removed.
On the following morning I was again summoned to the Rath’s chamber. His secretary, who was alone, met me with smiles and congratulations: he announced to me the sentence—four days’imprisonment. I am afraid I did not evince that degree of pleasure which was expected from me; but I thanked him, was removed, and, in another hour, was reconducted to Punishment Room No. 1.
The four days of sentence formed the lightest part of the adventure. My mind was at ease: I knew the worst. Additions to my old companions had arrived in the interval. We had an artist among us, who was allowed, in consideration of his talents, to retain a sharp cutting implement fashioned by himself from a flat piece of steel—knives and books being, as the most dangerous objects in prison, rigidly abstracted from us. He manufactured landscapes in straw, gummed upon pieces of blackened wood. Straw was obtained, in a natural state, of green, yellow, and brown; and these, when required, were converted into differently-tinted reds, by a few hours’ immersion in the Kiefel. He also kneaded bread in the hand, until it became as plastic as clay. This he modelled into snuffboxes (with strips of rag for hinges, and a piece of whalebone for a spring), draughts, chess-men, pipe-bowls, and other articles. When dry, they became hard and serviceable; and he sold them among the prisoners and the prison officials. He obtained thus a number of comforts not afforded by the prison regulations.
On Sunday, I attended the Catholic chapel attached to the prison—a damp unwholesome cell. I stood among a knot of prisoners, enveloped in a nauseous vapour; for there arose musty, mouldy, effluvia which gradually overpowered my senses. I felt them leaving me, and tottered towards the door. I was promptly met by a man who seemed provided for emergencies of the kind; for he held a vessel of cold water, poured some of it into my hands, and directed me to bathe my temples. I partly recovered; and, faint and dispirited, staggered back to the prison. I had not, however, lain long upon my bed (polished and slippery from constant use), when the prison guard came to my side, holding in his hand a smoking basin of egg soup “for the Englishman.” It was sent by the mistress of the kitchen. I received the offering of a kind heart to a foreigner in trouble, with a blessing on the donor.
On the following Tuesday, after an imprisonment of, in all, nine days, during which I had never slept without my clothes, I was discharged from the prison. In remembrance of the place, I broughtaway with me a straw landscape and a bread snuff-box, the works of the prison artist.
On reaching my lodging I looked into my box. It was empty.
“Where are my books and papers?” I asked my landlord.
The police had taken them on the day after my arrest.
“And my bank-notes?”
“Here they are!” exclaimed my landlord, triumphantly. “I expected the police; I knew you had money somewhere, so I took the liberty of searching until I found it. The police made particular inquiries about your cash, and went away disappointed, taking the other things with them.”
“Would they have appropriated it?”
“Hem! Very likely—under pretence of paying your expenses.”
On application to the police of the district, I received the whole of my effects back. One of my books was detained for about a week; a member of the police having taken it home to read, and being, as I apprehend, a slow reader.
It was matter of great astonishment, both to my friends and to the police, that I escaped with so slight a punishment.
what my landlord believed.
My Bohemian landlord in Vienna told me a story of an English nobleman. It may be worth relating, as showing what my landlord, quite in good faith and earnest, believed.
You know, Lieber Herr, said Vater Böhm, there is nothing in the whole Kaiserstadt so astonishing to strangers as our signboards. Those beautiful paintings that you see—Am Graben and Hohe Markt,—real works of art, with which the sign-boards of other countries are no more to be compared, than your hum-drum English music is to the delicious waltzes of Lanner, or the magic polkas of Strauss. Imagine an Englishman, who knows nothing of painting, finding himself all at once in front of one of those charming compositions—pictures that they would make a gallery of inLondon, but which we can afford to put out of doors; he is fixed, he is dumb with astonishment and delight—he goes mad. Well, Lieber Herr, this is exactly what happened to one of your English nobility. Milor arrived in Vienna; and as he had made a wager that he would see every notability in the city and its environs in the course of three days, which was all the time he could spare, he hired a fiaker at the Tabor-Linie, and drove as fast as the police would let him from church to theatre; from museum to wine-cellar; till chance and the fiaker brought him into the Graben. Milor got out to stretch himself, and to see the wonderful shops, and after a few turns came suddenly upon the house at the sign of the Joan of Arc.
“Goddam!” exclaimed Milor, as his eye met the sign-board.
There he stood, this English nobleman, in his drab coat with pearl buttons, his red neckcloth, blue pantaloons and white hat, transfixed for at least five minutes. Then, swearing some hard oaths—a thing the English always do when they are particularly pleased—Milor exclaimed, “It is exquisite! Holy Lord Mayor, it is unbelievable!”
Mein Lieber, you have seen that painting of course, I mean Joan of Arc, life-size, clad in steel, sword in hand, and with a wonderful serenity expressed in her countenance, as she leads her flagging troops once more to the attack upon the walls. It has all the softness of a Coreggio, and the vigour of a Rubens. Milor gave three bounds, and was in the middle of the shop in a moment.
“That picture!” he exclaimed.
“What picture—Eurer Gnaden?” inquired the shopkeeper, bowing in the most elegant manner.
“It hangs at your door—Joan of Arc, I wish to buy it.”
“It is not for sale, Eurer Gnaden.”
“Bah!” ejaculated Milor, “I must have it. I will cover it with guineas.”
“It is impossible.”
“How impossible?” cried Milor, diving into the capacious pocket of the drab coat with the pearl buttons, and drawing forth a heavy roll of English bank-notes, “I’ll bet you anything you like that it is possible.”
You know, mein Lieber, that the English settle everything by a wager; indeed, betting and swearing is about all their language is fit for. For a fact, there were once two English noblemen, from Manchester or some such ancient place, who journeyed down theRhine on the steam-boat. They looked neither to the right nor to the left; neither at the vine-fields nor the old castles; but sat at a table, silent and occupied with nothing before them but two lumps of sugar, and two heaps of guineas. A little crowd gathered round them wondering what it might mean. Suddenly one of them cried out, “Goddam, it’s mine!” “What is yours?” inquired one who stood by, gaping with curiosity. “Don’t you see,” replied the other, “I bet twenty guineas level, that the first fly would alight upon my lump of sugar, and by God, I’ve won it!”
To return to Milor. “I’ll bet you anything you like that it is possible,” said he.
“Your grace,” replied the shopkeeper, “my Joan of Arc is beyond price to me. It draws all the town to my shop; not forgetting the foreigners.”
“I will buy your shop,” said the Englishman.
“Milor! Graf Schweinekopf von Pimplestein called only yesterday to see it, and Le Comte de Barbebiche.”
“A Frenchman!” shouted Milor.
“From Paris, your grace.”
“Will you sell me your Joan of Arc?” was the furious demand. “I will cover it with pounds sterling twice over.”
“Le Comte de Barbebiche—”
“You have promised it to him?”
“Yes!” gasped Herr Wechsel, catching at the idea.
“Enough!” cried the English nobleman; and he strode into the street. With one impassioned glance at the figure of La Pucelle, he threw himself into his fiaker, and drove rapidly out of sight.
On reaching his hotel, he chose two pairs of boxing gloves, a set of rapiers, and a case of duelling pistols; and, thus loaded, descended to his fiaker, tossed them in, and started off in the direction of the nearest hotel. “Le Comte de Barbebiche”—that was the pass-word; but everywhere it failed to elicit the desired reply. He passed from street to street—from gasthaus to gasthaus—everywhere the same dreary negative; and the day waned, and his search was still unsuccessful. But he never relaxed; the morning found him still pursuing his inquiries; and midday saw him at the porte cochére of the Hotel of the Holy Ghost, in the Rothenthurm Strasse, with his case of duelling pistols in his hand, his set of rapiers under his arm, and his two pairs of boxing-gloves slung round his neck.
“Deliver my card immediately to the Comte,” said he to theattendant; “and tell him I am waiting.” He had found him out. Luckily, the Comte de Barbebiche happened to be in the best possible humour when this message was conveyed to him, having just succeeded in dyeing his moustache to his entire satisfaction. He glanced at the card—smiled at himself complacently in the mirror before him, and answered in a gracious voice, “Let Milor Mountpleasant come up.”
Milor was soon heard upon the stairs; and, as he strode into the room, he flung his set of rapiers with a clatter on the floor, dashed his case of duelling pistols on the table, and with a dexterous twist sent one pair of boxing-gloves rolling at the feet of the Comte, while, pulling on the other, he stood in an attitude of defence before the astonished Frenchman.
“What is this?” inquired the Comte de Barbebiche.
“This is the alternative,” cried the Englishman. “Here are weapons; take your choice—pistols, rapiers, or the gloves. Fight with one of them you must and shall, or abandon your claim to Joan of Arc.”
“Mon Dieu! What Joan of Arc? I do not have the felicity of knowing the lady.”
“You may see her, Am Graben,” gravely replied Milor, “outside a shop door, done in oil.”
“Heh!” exclaimed the astonished Comte, “in oil—an Esquimaux, or a Tartar, pray?”
“Monsieur le Comte, I want no trifling. Do you persist in the purchase of this picture? I have set my heart upon it; I love it; I have sworn to possess it. Make it a matter of money, and I will give you a thousand pounds for your bargain; make it a matter of dispute, and I will fight you for it to the death; make it a matter of friendship, and yield up your right, and I will embrace you as a brother, and be your debtor for the rest of my life.”
The Comte de Barbebiche—seeing that he had to do with an Englishman a degree, at least, more crazed than the rest of his countrymen—entered into the spirit of the matter at once, and chose the easiest means of extricating himself from a difficulty.
“Milor,” he exclaimed, advancing towards him, “I am charmed with your sentiments, your courage, and your integrity. Take her, Milor—take your Joan of Arc; I would not attempt to deprive you of her if she were a real flesh and blood Pucelle, and my own sister.”
The Englishman, with a grand oath, seized the Comte’s hand in both his own, and shook it heartily; then scrambling up his paraphernalia of war, spoke a hurried farewell, and disappeared down the stairs.
The grey of the morning saw Milor in full evening costume, pacing the Graben with hurried steps, watching with anxious eyes the shop front where his beloved was wont to hang. He saw her carried out like a shutter from the house, and duly suspended on the appointed hook. She had lost none of her charms, and he stood with arms folded upon his breast, entranced for awhile before the figure of the valiant maiden.
“Herr Wechsel,” said he abruptly, as he entered the shop; “Le Comte de Barbebiche has ceded his claim to me. I repeat my offer for your Joan of Arc—decide at once, for I am in a hurry.”
It certainly does appear surprising that Herr Wechsel did not close in with the offer at once; perhaps he really had an affection for his picture; perhaps he thought to improve the bargain; or, more probably, looking upon his strange customer as so undoubtedly mad, as to entertain serious fears as to his ever receiving the money. Certain it is, that he respectfully declined to sell.
“You refuse!” shouted Milor, striking his clenched fist upon the counter; “then, by Jove! I’ll—but never mind!” and he strode into the street.
The dusk of the evening saw Milor in the dress of a porter, pacing the Graben with a steady step. He halted in front of his cherished Joan; with the utmost coolness and deliberation unhooked the painting from its nail, and placing it carefully, and with the air of a workman, upon his shoulder, stalked away with his precious burden.
Imagine the consternation of Herr Wechsel upon the discovery of his loss. His pride, his delight, the chief ornament of his shop was gone; and, moreover, he had lost his money. But his sorrow was changed into surprise, and his half-tearful eyes twinkled with satisfaction as he read the following epistle, delivered into his hands within an hour after the occurrence:—
“Sir,—You will find placed to your credit in the Imperial Bank of Vienna the sum of five thousand pounds, the amount proffered for your Joan of Arc. Your obstinacy has driven me into the commission of a misdemeanour. God forgive you. But I have kept my word.“I am already beyond your reach, and you will search in vain for my trace.In consideration for your feelings, and to cause you as little annoyance as possible, I have placedmyJoan of Arc into the hands of a skilful artist; and I trust to forward you as accurate a copy as can be made.“Yours,Mountpleasant.”
“Sir,—You will find placed to your credit in the Imperial Bank of Vienna the sum of five thousand pounds, the amount proffered for your Joan of Arc. Your obstinacy has driven me into the commission of a misdemeanour. God forgive you. But I have kept my word.
“I am already beyond your reach, and you will search in vain for my trace.In consideration for your feelings, and to cause you as little annoyance as possible, I have placedmyJoan of Arc into the hands of a skilful artist; and I trust to forward you as accurate a copy as can be made.
“Yours,Mountpleasant.”
And Milor kept his word, mein Lieber, and the copy hangs Am Graben to this day in the place of the original. The original shines among the paintings in the splendid collection of Milor at Mountpleasant Castle.
I will not pretend to say, concluded Vater Böhm, reloading his pipe, that the English have any taste, but they certainly have a strange passion for pictures; and, let them once get an idea into their heads, they are the most obstinate people in the world in the pursuit of it.
an execution at vienna.
Carl Fickte, a native of Vienna, stood condemned for execution. His crime was murder. He was convicted of having enveigled his nephew, of eight years old, to the Mölker bastion of the city fortification, and of having thrown him over the parapet into the dry ditch below. The depth of the fall was between thirty and forty feet, and the shattered body of the boy explained his miserable death. His nephew’s cloak became loosened in the struggle, and remained in the hands of Fickte, who sold it, and spent the produce in a night’s debauch. This cloak led to the discovery of the murderer, and after a lapse of eight months to his conviction and execution.
I had resolved to witness the last act of the law, and started from home at six o’clock on the appointed morning. A white mist filled the air, and gradually thickened into rain; and by the time I had reached the spot—a distance of about two miles—a smart shower was falling. The place of execution is a field in the outskirts of the city, bounded on one side by the main road, and close to the “Spinnerinn am Kreuz,” an ancient stone cross, standing onthe edge of the highway. From this spot a beautiful view of the city is obtained.
The crowd was already gathering, and carts, benches, and platforms were in course of arrangement by enterprising speculators, for the accommodation of the people. A low bank which skirted the field was soon occupied, and every swell of the ground was taken advantage of. Soon the rain fell in torrents, and the earth became sodden and yielding; but no pelting shower, no sinking clay, could drive the anxious crowd from the attractive spectacle. Still on they came, men and women together; laughing and joking; their clothes tucked about them, and umbrella-laden. Over the field; on to the slippery bank, whence, every now and again, arose a burst of uproar and laughter, as some part of the mound gave way, and precipitated a snugly-packed crowd into the swamp below.
Venders of fruit, sausages, bread, and spirits, occupied every eligible situation, and from the early hour, and the unprepared state of the spectators, found abundant patronage.
A clatter was heard from the city side, and a body of mounted police galloped along the high road, halted at the gallows, and formed themselves into a hollow square around it. The gibbet was unlike our own, it had no platform, and no steps; but was a simple frame formed by two strong upright, and one horizontal beam. There was a little entanglement of pulleys and ropes, which I learned to understand at a later hour.
Still the rain came pouring down, in one uninterrupted flood, that nothing but the excitement of a public execution could withstand. And still the people clustered together in a dense crowd, under the open air and pelting rain, shifting and reeling, splashing and staggering, till the field became trodden into a heavy, clinging paste of a full foot deep. But no one left the spot; they had come for the sight, and see it they would. Over the whole field and bank, and rising ground, a perfect sea of umbrellas waved and swayed with the crowd, as they vainly sought a firmer resting place among the clogging clay. An hour went by, but there was no change, except a continued accession to the crowd. It was wonderful how patiently they stood under the watery hurricane; helplessly embedded in a slimy swamp; feverish and anxious; with no thought but the looming gallows, towards which all eyes were turned, and the miserable culprit, whose sudden end they were awaiting to see.
Fagged, at length, and soaked with rain, I left the slough, andgaining the highroad, pressed towards the city to meet the cavalcade. A rushing of people, and a confused cry, told me of its approach. “There he is!” Yes, there! in that open cart, surrounded by mounted police, and pressed on all sides by a hurrying crowd. On either side of him sit the prison officials; while in front, an energetic priest, with all the vehemence and gesticulation of the wildest religious fervour, is evidently urging him to repentance.
It is the law of Austria, that no criminal, however distinctly his crime may have been proved by circumstantial evidence, can suffer death, till he has himself confirmed the evidence by confession. But any artifice can be lawfully employed to entrap him into an acknowledgment of his guilt; therefore, although the sentence of the law may often be deferred, it is rare indeed that its completion is averted. Fickte had of course confessed. A flush was on his face; but there was no life or intellectual spirit there.
Another battle with the crowd, and I stood in the rear of the gibbet. After a weary interval, the scharfrichter—executioner—mounted, by means of a ladder, to the cross beam of the gallows. By the action of a wheel the culprit slowly rose into the air, but still unhurt. Three broad leathern straps confined his arms; and perfectly motionless, held in a perpendicular position by cordage fixed to the ground, and to the beam above, he awaited his death. No cap covered his face. A looped cord passing through another pulley, was placed under his chin, the cord running along the cross-beam, and the end fixed to a wheel at the side of the gibbet.
The culprit kissed the crucifix; a single turn of the wheel; a hoarse cry of “Down with the umbrellas!” and his life had passed away; though no cry, no struggle, announced its departure. The scharfrichter laid his hand upon the heart of the criminal, then, assured of his death, descended. And still, amid the incessant rain, with eager eyes bent upon the dead, the crowd waited, gloating on the sight. According to the sentence of the law, the corpse, with nothing to hide its discoloured and distorted features, remained hanging till the setting of the sun.
Ashamed, wearied, and horrified, I hurried home; only halting on my way to purchase the “Todesurtheil,” or “Death-sentence,” which was being cried about the streets. This is an official document, and indeed the only one with which the people of Vienna are gratified on such a subject. Trials are not public, nor canthey be reported; and although the whole of the details invariably ooze out through the police, no authentic account appears before the public till the sentence is carried out.
The “Todesurtheil” appears, like our “Last Dying Speech,” at the time of the execution, but contains no verses; being a simple, and very brief narrative of the life and crime of the condemned. He is designated by his initials only, out of delicacy to his relatives, although his real name is, somehow or other, already well known.
Six months later there occurred another execution, but I had no curiosity to witness it. The condemned was a soldier, who, in a fit of jealousy, had fired upon his mistress; but killed a bystander instead. There was no mystery about the affair, and he was condemned to death.
On the day previous to his execution, he was allowed to receive the visits of his friends and the public. Only a single person was admitted at a time. He awaited his visitor (in this instance, an acquaintance of my own), with calmness and resolution; advanced with outstretched hand to meet him; greeting him with a hearty salutation. The visitor, totally unprepared for this, trembled with a cold shudder, as he received the pressure of the murderer’s hand; murmured a blessing; dropped a few coin into the box for the especial benefit of his soul, and hurriedly withdrew.
On the following morning the condemned quitted his prison for the gibbet. But the soldier, unlike the civilian—the soldier who has forfeited his right to a military execution—must walk to his death. The civilian rides in the felon’s cart; the soldier, in undress, must pace the weary way on foot. Imagine a death-condemned criminal walking from the Old Bailey to Copenhagen Fields to the gallows, and you have a parallel case.
a jail episode.
While in the full enjoyment of that luxury, “A Taste of Austrian Jails,” already related in these pages, I met with a man whose whole life would seem to signify perversion; a “dirty, villanous-looking fellow, with but one eye, and very little light in that.” A first glance at this fellow would call up the reflection, “Here is the result of badeducation, and bad example, induced perhaps by natural misfortunes, but the inevitable growth of filth and wretchedness in a large city.”
With thin, straggling wisps of hair thrown, as it were, on his head, a dull glimmer only in his one eye, and his whole features of a crafty, selfish character—such he was; clad in a long, threadbare, snuff-coloured great-coat, reaching almost to his heels, and which served to hide the trowsers, the frayed ends of which explained their condition; on his bare feet he wore a pair of trodden-down slippers, with upper leathers gaping in front with open mouths; a despicable rascal to look at, and yet this was a brother of one of the magistrates of Vienna.
It was soon evident to me that this individual was held in great respect by the rest of the prisoners; such an influence has education,—for he was an educated man,—even in such a place as a common jail.
I was soon informed of the peculiar talent which gave him a prominent position. He was an inexhaustible teller of stories; and, added my informant, “he can drink as much beer as any three men in Vienna.”
This was saying a great deal.
On the second night of my incarceration in Punishment Room No. 1, I had an opportunity of judging of his powers; for, on our retiring to our boards and rugs, which, according to prison regulations, we were bound to do at the ringing of the eight o’clock bell, I heard his peculiar voice announce from the other side of the room, where he lay, propped up against the wall by the especial indulgence of his comrades, that he was about to tell a story. I could not sleep, but lay upon the hard planks listening, as he recounted with a wonderful power of language, and no mean amount of elocutionary dignity, some principal incidents in the life of Napoleon. His companions lay entranced; they did not sleep, for I could hear their whispers, and, now and then, their uneasy shiftings on the relentless wood. And so he went on, and I fell off to sleep before he had come to a conclusion.
This was repeated each night of my confinement, for which he received his due payment in beer from his fellow prisoners.
He professed to have a great affection for me; would take my arm, and walk with me up and down the ward, telling me of his acquirements, little scraps of his history, and invariably making a request for a little beer.
On one occasion it was suggested by the “Vater” that he should tell us his own story.
“My story!” chuckled the unashamed rascal. “Why, all Vienna knows my story. I am the brother of Rathherr Lech, of the Imperial-royal-city-police-bureau of Vienna. My brother is a great man; I am a vagabond.Hedeserves it, andIdeserve it; but he is my brother for all that, and I put him in mind of it now and then.
“My brother, by his zeal and talent, has acquired great learning, and raised himself to a position of honour and independence. And why have I not done the same? Because I am lazy, have got weak eyes, and am fond of beer. I do not care for your wine; good Liesinger beer is the drink for me.
“My brother wished me to attain a lofty position in the world. I am the younger. He paid teachers to instruct me, and I learned a great deal; but it was dry work, and I sought change, after days of study, in beer-cellars, among a few choice boosers. And my eyes were weak, and close study made them worse; and many a day I stole from my lessons on the plea of failing sight. My brother, who is a good fellow, only that he does not sufficiently consider my weakness, employed physicians and oculists out of number; and among them I lost the sight of one eye. It was of no use; I did not like the labour of learning, and I made my weak eyes an excuse for doing less than I could have done.
“At last I gave it up altogether, and my brother got me into the ‘Institute for the Blind.’Thatwould not do for me at all; I was not blind enough forthat. So, one day, when the door was open, and the weather fine, I strolled home again to my brother. This vexed him greatly; but he got over it, and then he placed me in the ‘Imperial Bounty.’ A stylish place, I can tell you, where few but nobles were allowed.
“But how could I, a lusty young fellow, be happy among that moping, musty, crampt-up lot of old respectables? Not I! so, as I could not easily get out in the day-time, I ran away one night, and went back to my old quarters. At first my brother would not see me; but that passed over, for he could not let me starve. He then obtained for me a post in the ‘Refuge for the Aged;’ about the dullest place in all Vienna. I was too young to be one of the members, so they gave me a birth, where I did nothing. But what was the use of that? I could not live among that company ofmumbling, bible-backed old people; and if I could, it was all the same, for they kicked me out at the end of a month for impropriety.
“It was lucky for me that I tumbled into a legacy about this time, of eighty gulden münz. I enjoyed myself while it lasted, and never troubled my brother with my presence.
“It did not last long; for, what with drinking beer, and wearing fine clothes, and taking a dashing lodging on the Glacis, I found my eighty guldens gone, just as I was in a position to enjoy them most. But I was never very proud; so, seeing that there was nothing to be done, but to go without beer, or to humble myself to my brother, the rath, I chose the latter course as the most reasonable, and made my peace with him at once.
“And what do you suppose he did for me? He said I had disgraced myself and him at all the other places, so he could do nothing but send me to the ‘Asylum for the Indigent.’ But I did not stay there long. There was no beer there; nothing but thin soup and rind-fleish (fresh boiled beef) all the year round. And a pretty lot of ill-bred, miserable ignoramuses they were—the indigent! Not a spark of life or jollity in the place.
“One day I coolly walked out of the ‘Asylum,’ made off to a house I well knew, and ran up a credit account in my brother’s name of good eight guldens for beer and tobacco. A glorious day! for I forgot all about the ‘asylum,’ and the ‘indigent,’ and every mortal pain and trouble in this inconvenient world.
“I was awakened from a deep dream by a heavy hand on my shoulder, and a loud voice in my ear.
“‘Holloa! friend Lech.’
“‘What’s the matter?’ inquired I, gaping.
“‘Get up, and I’ll tell you.’
“‘Who are you?’
“‘You’ll know that soon enough; I am a police officer.’
“‘And where am I, in God’s name?’
“‘Why, lying on your back, on the open Glacis.’
“That was pleasant, was it not? So they took me to the police-bureau, in the first case, for lying out in the open air; and when they found that I had used my brother’s name to incur a debt, without his permission, they gave me two months for fraudulent intentions.
“‘Why did you not stay at the “Bounty?”’ expostulated my friend, the police-assistant, as we were talking the matter over.
“‘Because it was too aristocratic and uncomfortable,’ answered I.
“‘Perhaps the Rathherr, your brother, will be able to get you into the “Refuge,”’ said he, in a consoling way.
“‘God bless you! they have kicked me out of there long ago.’
“‘Then I know of nothing but the “Indigent” left for you.’
“‘My worthy friend,’ said I, ‘that is the very last place I came from.’
“But I was determined to be revenged. When my time was expired, I sallied forth with my mind fully made up as to what I was to do. I knew the hour when my brother, in pursuance of his duties, usually entered the magistrate’s office, and, attired as I was—look at me! just as I am now—in this old coat, the souvenir of the ‘Indigent,’ and these free-and-easy slippers, I waited at the great entrance of the Magistracy, to pay my respects to my brother, the Rath.
“I saw him coming; and, as soon as he reached the foot of the flight of stone steps, I marched forward, gave him a mock salute, and exclaimed, in a loud voice,
“‘Good morning, brother!’
“‘What is the meaning of this?’ demanded he.
“‘Look here, brother!’ said I, ‘look at this coat, and these shoes.’
“‘Remove this fellow!’ exclaimed he to the police, who were standing at his heels.
“I knew what would be the result, but had determined to have the play out. So I drew off my slipper, and, thrusting my hand right through the hole at the toe, I made a bit of play with my fingers, and shouted in his ear:
“‘Look at this, brother. Are you not ashamed to see me? Look here! Look at this kripple-gespiel (puppet show)! Look!’
“Of course I was laid hold of; and here I am for another two months, for insulting a city functionary.”
This story was received with a glee only equalled by the gusto with which it was related. The last expression, “kripple-gespiel,” was peculiarly his own.
Before leaving Vienna, about a month after my release, I haddetermined to see the Brühl, a wild, wooded, and mountainous district, at a short distance from the city. We had spent a delightful day among its thick pine woods, and on its towering heights, and in the evening made our way to the small town of Mödling, where we intended to take the railway to Vienna. But there was a grand fête in the pleasure grounds close to the town, accompanied by a magnificent display of fireworks. This whiled away the time, and it was already dark, as we at length bent our steps towards the railway station.
Suddenly a voice that I knew too well, struck upon my ear.
“Pity the poor blind!” it exclaimed.
I turned, and behold! there was my one-eyed jail acquaintance, planted against a brick wall, a stout staff, at least six feet long, in his hand, and his apparently sightless eyes turned up to the sky.
“Pity the poor blind!”
In the greatest fear lest, even in his present blind condition, he might recognise, and claim me as an acquaintance, I hurried from the spot with all the speed of which I was capable, and, thank Heaven, never set eyes upon him again.
a walk through a mountain.
I lately took a walk through the substance of a mountain, entering at the top, and coming out at the bottom, after a two or three mile journey underground. Perhaps the story of this trip is worth narrating. The mountain was part of an extensive property belonging to the Emperor of Austria, in his character of salt merchant, and contained the famous salt mine of Hallein.
The whole salt district of Upper Austria, called the Salzkammergut, forms part of a range of rocks that extends from Halle in the Tyrol, passes through Reichenthal in Bavaria, and continues by way of Hallein in Salzburg, to end at Ausse in Styria. The Austrian part of the range is now included in what is called thedistrict of Salzburg, and that district abounds, as might be expected, in salt springs, hot and cold, which form in fact the baths of Gastein, Ischl, and some other places. The names of Salzburg (Saltborough), the capital, and of the Salzack (Saltbrook), on the left bank of which that pleasant city stands, indicate clearly enough the character of the surrounding country. Hallein is a small town eight miles to the south-east of Salzburg, and it was to the mine of Hallein, as before said, that I paid my visit.
On the way thither, we, a party of three foot-travellers, passed through much delightful rock and water scenery. From Linz, the capital of Upper Austria, we got through Wells and Laimbach to the river Traun, and trudged afoot beside its winding waters till we reached the point of its junction with the Traunsee, or Lake of Traun. At Gmunden, we stopped to look over the Imperial Salt Warehouses. The Emperor of Austria, as most people know, is the only dealer in salt and tobacco with whom his subjects are allowed to trade. His salt warehouses, therefore, must needs be extensive. They are situated at Gmunden to the left of the landing-place, from which a little steamer plies across the lake; and they are so built as to afford every facility for the unloading of boats that bring salt barrels from the mine by the highway of the Traun. The warehouses consisted simply of a large number of sheds piled with the salt in barrels, a few offices, and a low but spacious hall, filled, in a confused way, with dusty models. There were models of river-boats and salt moulds, mining tools, and tram ways, hydraulic models of all kinds, miniature furnaces, wooden troughs, and seething pans. We looked through these until the bell from the adjacent pier warned us, at five o’clock in the evening, to go on board the steamer that was quite ready to puff and splash its way across the beautiful green lake. We went under the shadow of the black and lofty Traunstien, and among pine-covered rocks, of which the reflections were mingled in the water with a ruddy glow, that streamed across a low shore from some fires towards which we were steering.
The glow proceeded from the fires of the Imperial Saltern, erected at Ebensee. We paid a short visit to the works, which have been erected at great cost; and display all the most recent improvements in the art of getting the best marketable salt from saline water. We found that the water, heavily impregnated, is conductedfrom the distant mines by wooden troughs into the drying pan. The pan is a large shallow vessel of metal, supported by small piles of brick, and a low brick wall about three feet high, extending round two-thirds of its circumference; leaving one-third, as the mouth of the furnace, open to the air. Among the brick columns, and within the wall, the fire flashed and curled under the seething pan. Ascending next into the house over the great pan, and looking down upon the surface and its contents through sliding doors upon the floors, we saw the white salt crusting like a coat of snow over the boiling water, and being raked, as it is formed, by workmen stationed at each of the trap doors. As the water evaporated, the salt was stirred and turned from rake to rake; and finally, when quite dry, raked into the neighbourhood of a long-handled spade, with which one workman was shovelling among the dried salt, and filling a long row of wooden moulds, placed ready to his hand. These moulds are sugar-loaf shaped, and perforated at the bottom like a sugar mould, in order that any remaining moisture may drain out of them. The moulds will be placed finally in a heated room before the salt will be considered dry enough for storeage as a manufactured article.
The brine that pours with an equable flow into the seething pan at Ebensee, is brought by wooden troughs from the salt mine at Hallein, a distance of thirty miles in a direct line. It comes by way of mountains and along a portion of the valley of the Traun, through which we continued our journey the same evening from Ebensee, until the darkness compelled us to rest for the night at a small inn on a hill side. The next day we went through Ischl and Wolfgang, and spent three hours of afternoon in climbing up the Scharfberg, which is more than a thousand feet higher than Snowdon, to see the sunset and the sunrise. There was sleeping accommodation on the top: so there is on the top of Snowdon. On the Scharfberg we had a hay-litter in a wooden shed, and ate goat’s cheese and bread and butter. We saw neither sunset nor sunrise, but had a night of wind and rain, and came down in the morning through white mist within a rugged gully ploughed up by the rain, to get a wholesome breakfast at St. Gilgen on the lake. More I need not say about the journey than that, on the fifth day after leaving Ebensee, having rested a little in the very beautiful city of Salzburg, we marched into the town of Hallein, at the foot of the Dürrnberg, the famous salt mountain, called Tumal by old chroniclers,and known for a salt mountain seven hundred and thirty years ago.
After a night’s rest in the town, we were astir by five o’clock in the morning, and went forward on our visit to the mines. In the case of the Dürrnberg salt mine, as I have already said, the miner enters at the top and comes out at the bottom. Our first business, therefore, was to walk up the mountain, the approach to which is by a long slope of about four English miles.
We met few miners by the way, and noticed in them few peculiarities of manners or costume. The national dress about these regions is a sort of cross between the Swiss Alpine costume and a common peasant dress of the lowlands. We saw indications of the sugar-loafed hat; jackets were worn almost by all, with knee-breeches and coloured leggings. The clothing was always neat and sound, and the clothed bodies looked reasonably healthy, except that they had all remarkably pale faces. The miners did not seem bodily to suffer from their occupation.
As we approached the summit of the Dürrnberg, the dry brownish limestone showed its bare front to the morning sun. We entered the offices, partly contained in the rock, and applied for admission into the dominion of the gnomes. Our arrival was quite in the nick of time, for we had not to be kept waiting, as we happened to complete the party of twelve, without which the guides do not start. It was a Tower of London business; and, as at the Tower, the demand upon our purses was not very heavy. One gulden-schein—about tenpence—is the regulated fee. Our full titles having been duly put down in the register, each of us was furnished with a miner’s costume, and, so habited, off we set.
We started from a point that is called the Obersteinberghauptstollen; our guides only having candles, one in advance, the other in the rear.
We were sensible of a pleasant coldness in the air when we had gone a little way into the sloping tunnel. The tunnel was lofty, wide, and dry. Having walked downwards on a gentle decline for a distance of nearly three thousand feet through the half gloom and among the echoes, we arrived at the mouth of the first shaft, named Freudenberg. The method of descent is called the “Rolle.” It is both simple and efficacious. Down the steep slope of the shaft, and at an angle, in this case, of forty-one and a half degrees, runs a smooth railway consisting of two pieces of timber, each of about thethickness of a scaffold pole; they are twelve inches apart, and run together down the shaft like two sides of a thick ladder without the intervening rounds. Following the directions and example of the foremost guide, we sat astride, one behind the other, on this wooden tramway, and slid very comfortably to the bottom. The shaft itself was only of the width necessary to allow room for our passage. In this way we descended to the next chamber in the mountain, at a depth of a hundred and forty feet (perpendicular) from the top of the long slide.
We then stood in a low-roofed chamber, small enough to be lighted throughout by the dusky glare of our two candles. The walls and roof sparkled with brown and purple colours, showing the unworked stratum of rock-salt. We stood then at the head of the Untersteinberghauptstulm, and after a glance back at the narrow slit in the solid limestone through which we had just descended, we pursued our way along a narrow gallery of irregular level for a further distance of six hundred and sixty feet. A second shaft there opened us a passage into the deeper regions of the mine. With a boyish pleasure we all seated ourselves again upon a “Rolle”—this time upon the Johann-Jacob-berg-rolle, which is laid at an angle of forty-five and a half degrees—and away we slipped to the next level, which is at the perpendicular depth of another couple of hundred feet.
We alighted in another chamber where our candles made the same half gloom, with their ruddy glare into the darkness, and where there was the same sombre glittering upon the walls and ceiling. We pursued our track along a devious cutting, haunted by confused and giant shadows, suddenly passing black cavernous sideways that startled us as we came upon them, and I began to expect mummies, for I thought myself for one minute within an old Egyptian catacomb. After traversing a further distance of two thousand seven hundred feet we halted at the top of the third slide, the Königsrolle. That shot us fifty-four feet deeper into the heart of the mountain. We had become quite expert at our exercise, and had left off considering, amid all these descents and traverses, what might be our real position in the bowels of the earth. Perhaps we might get down to Aladdin’s garden and find trees loaded with emerald and ruby fruits. It was quite possible, for there was something very cabalistic, very strong of enchantment in the word Konhauserankehrschachtricht, the name given to the portion of themine which we were then descending. Konhauser-return-shaft is, I think, however, about the meaning of that compound word.
So far we had felt nothing like real cold, although I had been promised a wintry atmosphere. Possibly with a miner’s dress over my ordinary clothing, and with plenty of exercise, there was enough to counteract the effects of the chill air. But our eyes began to ache at the uncertain light, and we all straggled irregularly along the smooth cut shaft level for another sixty feet, and so reached the Konhauser-rolle, the fourth slide we had encountered in our progress.
That cheered us up a little, as it shot us down another one hundred and eight feet perpendicular depth to the Soolererzeugungswerk-Konhauser—surely a place nearer than ever to the magic regions of Abracadabra. If not Aladdin’s garden, something wonderful ought surely by this time to have been reached. I was alive to any sight or sound, and was excited by the earnest whispering of my fellow adventurers, and the careful directions as to our progress given by the guides and light-bearers.
With eager rapidity we flitted among the black shadows of the cavern, till we reached a winding flight of giant steps. We mounted them with desperate excitement, and at the summit halted, for we felt that there was space before our faces, and had been told that those stairs led to a mid mountain lake, nine hundred and sixty feet below the mountain’s top; two hundred and forty feet above its base. Presently, through the darkness, we perceived at an apparently interminable distance a few dots of light, that shed no lustre, and could help us in no way to pierce the pitchy gloom of the great cavern. The lights were not interminably distant, for they were upon the other shore, and this gnome lake is but a mere drop of water in the mountain mass, its length being three hundred and thirty, and its breadth one hundred and sixty feet.
Our guides lighted more candles, and we began to see their rays reflected from the water; we could hear too the dull splashing of the boat, which we could not see, as old Charon slowly ferried to our shore. More lights were used; they flashed and flickered from the opposite ferry station, and we began to have an indistinct sense of a spangled dome, and of an undulating surface of thick, black water, through which the coming boat loomed darkly. More candles were lighted on both sides of the Konhauser lake, a very Styx, defying all the illuminating force of candles; dead and dark in itsdim cave, even the limits of which all our lights did not serve to define. The boat reached the place of embarcation, and we, wandering ghosts, half walked and were half carried into its broad clumsy hulk, and took each his allotted seat in ghostly silence. There was something really terrible in it all; in the slow funereal pace at which we floated across the subterranean lake; in the dead quiet among us, only interrupted by the slow plunge of the oar into the sickly waters. In spite of all the lights that had been kindled we were still in a thick vapour of darkness, and could form but a dreamy notion of the beauty and the grandeur of the crystal dome within which we men from the upper earth were hidden from our fellows. The lights were flared aloft as we crept sluggishly across the lake, and now and then were flashed back from a hanging stalactite, but that was all. The misty darkness about us brought to the fancy at the same time fearful images, and none of us were sorry when we reached the other shore in safety. There a rich glow of light awaited us, and there we were told a famous tale about the last Arch-ducal visit to these salt mines, where some thousands of lighted tapers glittered and flashed about him, and exhibited the vaulted roof and spangled lake in all their beauty. As we were not Archdukes, we had our Hades lighted only by a pound of short sixteens.
We left the lake behind us, and then, traversing a further distance of seventy feet along the Wehrschachtricht, arrived at the mouth of the Konhauser Stiege. Another rapid descent of forty-five feet at an angle of fifty degrees, and we reached Rupertschachtricht, a long cavern of the extent of five hundred and sixty feet, through which we toiled with a growing sense of weariness. We had now come to the top of the last and longest “slide” in the whole Dürrnberg. It is called the Wolfdietrichberg-rolle, and is four hundred and sixty-eight feet long, carrying us two hundred and forty feet lower down into the mountain. We went down this “slide” with the alacrity of school-boys, one after another keeping the pot boiling, and all regulating our movements with great circumspection, for we knew that we had far to go and we could never see more than a few yards before us.
Having gained the ground beneath in safety, our attention was drawn to a fresh water well or spring, sunk in this spot at great cost by order of the Archduke, and blessed among miners. Amid all the stone and salt and brine, a gush of pure fresh water at our feet was very welcome to us all. The well was sunk, however, to getwater that was necessary for the mining operations. We did not see any of those operations underground, for they are not exhibited; the show-trip underground is only among the ventilating shafts and galleries. Through the dark openings by which we had passed, we should have found our way (had we been permitted) to the miners. I have seen them working in the Tyrol, and their labours are extremely simple. Some of the rock-salt is quarried in transparent crystals, which undergo only the process of crushing before they are sent into the market as an article of commerce. Very little of this grain salt is seen in England, but on the continent it may be found in some of the first hotels, and on the table of most families. It is cheaper than the loaf salt, and is known in Germany under the title ofsalzkorn, and in France, asselle de cuisine. In order to obtain a finer grained and better salt, it is necessary that the original salt-crystals should be dissolved, and for this purpose parallel galleries are run into the rock, and there is dug in each of them a dyke or cistern. These dykes are then flushed with water, which is allowed to remain in them undisturbed for the space of from five to twelve months, according to the richness of the soil; and, being then thoroughly saturated with the salt that it has taken up, the brine is drawn off through wooden pipes from Hallein over hill and dale into the evaporating pans.