Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837 Part 5

"All this is very plain," said I, "but you forget the state of our finances. How are we two to exist for three days on seven dollars and a-half? and remember that, at Hernhut, we are two good marches from Schandau."

"You will exist very well," replied our acquaintance, "if you will only act with prudence. Don't let people know that you are Englishmen; for the most honest man among us considers it quite fair to charge an Englishman at least one-third more for everything than he charges a German."

We thanked him heartily for this hint; and having paid for our dinner the odd half dollar, we resumed our progress with exactly seven of these precious coins in our pockets.

We had compa.s.sed nine good miles already; and under any other circ.u.mstances than the present, should have as soon thought of flying to Schandau through the air, as of marching one-and-twenty more; but as the old proverb expresses it, "Necessity has no law." Every approach of fatigue was accordingly resisted by the aid of reflection; which suggested, truly enough, that to loiter, would involve us in difficulties and embarra.s.sments, which, however transient they might be, could not fail of annoying us while they operated. But as we drew towards Greiffenberg, we remembered that it had been described as a large and thriving town, and a large and thriving town, we conceived, would not suit with the low condition of our exchequer. We accordingly resolved to stop short at some village a mile or two on this side of it; and at a place called Lang-Wa.s.ser, we found precisely the sort of hotel of which we were in search. It was just one degree elevated above a pot-house; and its owner contrived to accommodate us with a chamber to ourselves. Here, then, in the character of Russians, we fixed our head-quarters, and right well and cheaply we fared and were attended to.

I have nothing to say about Lang-Wa.s.ser, except that it is a small straggling towns.h.i.+p, of which the keeper of our hotel was the burgomaster; and that the great majority of the inhabitants being Roman Catholics, a Romish priest was in possession of the benefice. I found, likewise, that there prevailed among his flock, that attachment to their own communion which the Roman Catholics are never ashamed to avow, even though it may subject them to the charge of bigotry. One of the first questions put to us was, whether we were Catholics? and on our taking advantage of the equivoque, and replying in the affirmative, the tongues of the whole family seemed to be loosed. They had no predilection for the creed, or the wors.h.i.+p, or the persons of their evangelical neighbours. How different, in this respect, has been the bearing of all among the Protestant population of Prussia with whom I have conversed. If the subject of religion chanced to be introduced at all,--and unless introduced by me, this never once happened,--it was treated as something not only not interesting to the feelings of the speaker, but of the power of which to excite an interest in anybody, he could form no notion. Is it not a pity that, under a government avowedly Protestant, such a line of policy should be taken up, as to root out all zeal for the truth, among such as profess to be its followers, while the followers of error continue enthusiastically attached to it?

We fared well that night, both as to eating and sleeping. Our supper was excellent, our beds clean, and the charge for the whole barely two s.h.i.+llings,--a practical ill.u.s.tration of the soundness of the advice which we had received from our friendly Hernhuter. It was difficult, indeed, to conceive how, even in Silesia, the people could afford to treat us as they did, for so small a sum. Yet we paid our bill without expressing, even by a careless word, that its amount surprised us; and restrained our very mirth till a turn in the road placed us beyond the hazard of being detected in its indulgence.

There had been a considerable fall of rain while we slept; so that at seven o'clock in the morning, when our march began, we had every prospect before us of a pleasant journey. There was no dust to annoy; the hedge-rows, on either hand, (for it must be remembered that, in all the states of Germany, the highways are planted, at the expense of the government, with a double row of trees,) sent forth an unceasing concert of sweet sounds, and the very people whom we met, seemed by their joyous countenances to confess the influence of the balmy atmosphere. And by the way, I must not forget to observe, that the costumes of the country people, both male and female, had varied a good deal since we commenced our ramble. In the neighbourhood of Tetchen, the smock-frock made its appearance among wagoners and even labouring men, while the women wore, as in Saxony, short bodice jackets with long skirts, red or red and white striped petticoats, and round their heads either a flaring red handkerchief, or a cap adorned behind with two enormous flies. As we penetrated further into Bohemia, the smock-frock among the men gave place to a cloth or velvetine jacket, and the cap was supplanted by a coa.r.s.e steeple-crowned hat. It strikes me that the female portion of the community exhibited less love of change, till we reached Silesia; and then I looked twice before I could persuade myself, that Queen Elizabeth, and the dames and virgins of her day, were not returned to upper air. Long waists, with hips famously padded, reduced the shapes of such as had any shape, to the symmetry of a wasp, while round their necks were enormous, stiffly-starched ruffs, which stuck out so far, and rose so high, as to give to the red, round, blowsy faces which protruded over them, a tolerably exact resemblance to so many field-turnips. More comical-looking animals I have rarely seen, though they were evidently of a different opinion.

We pa.s.sed through Greiffenberg about eight o'clock, and found it by no means the formidable sort of place which our fears,--the offspring of our poverty,--had represented it to be. An old town, built irregularly along the side of a hill, it seems to possess neither trade nor manufactures; indeed, a flour-mill or two, planted by the river's side, sufficiently marked it out as the head of a purely agricultural district. The view from the eminence above, is, however, exceedingly fine. Sweeping over a vast and fertile plain, throughout which abundance of wood is scattered, and resting from time to time upon some old ruin, one of which, called Kreifenstein Castle, and the property of Graff Schaff-Koatch, presents a peculiarly striking appearance, the eye finds its powers of vision bounded at last by the Riesengebirgen, which have as yet lost no portion of the sublimity of character that belongs to them, though they are now removed to a distance, as the crow flies, of at least twenty miles. We took what we suspected would prove to be our last distinct view of the magnificent range, not without experiencing a portion of that melancholy which never fails to arise out of a lasting separation even from inanimate objects, which may have gratified our tastes, or interested our imaginations.

We had met on the road as we trudged along, several small parties of soldiers; twos and threes, belonging to the landwehr, or militia of the country, of which the season for training was arrived. This was not, however, the commencement of our acquaintance with that remarkably fine-looking body of men. While we lingered in Hirschberg, doubtful what course to pursue, there marched past the window of the hotel about two hundred as superb infantry as I should desire to see; stout, well-made, soldier-like fellows, in the full vigour of manhood, well bearded and moustached, and altogether presenting the appearance of men who had served at least half-a-dozen campaigns, and were ready to serve half-a-dozen more. Their uniform resembled that of the Prussian infantry in general; that is to say, they wore blue, well-made coats, white trousers, chacos with small round white tufts, and hairy knapsacks on their backs. Their muskets were longer, and smaller in the bore than ours, and the barrels were fastened to the stocks by bra.s.s rings that encircled them. Nothing could exceed the order or regularity of their movements: their step, it struck me, was shorter than ours, but then it fell more rapidly; their equipments were decidedly neater; and above all, the load which each man carried was much less considerable. In one respect, however, and only in one, we have an advantage over them. They still adhere to the practice of carrying a large camp-kettle for each mess, whereas our tins suffice both for cooking and containing the meat when cooked, and with one of these each man is supplied.

I have elsewhere explained the process by which every male inhabitant of Prussia becomes in some shape or another, available for the military defence of the country. I need not now recur to the subject, further than by stating, that I have seen no portion of what is called the regular army, which would bear a moment's comparison with the half-battalion of landwehr, that pa.s.sed me in the streets of Hirschberg. Neither is the circ.u.mstance greatly to be wondered at. Out of the two or three hundred men which composed that corps, one-half, perhaps, had done active duty, ere the new system of recruiting was introduced; when the term of service extended to fifteen instead of three years; and individuals were not, as they are now, turned over to the landwehr, with a military education still unfinished, and in many cases scarcely begun. The consequences were, that their carriage was more upright, their air more martial, and their style of march more orderly by far, than anything which I had an opportunity of observing, even in the garrison of Berlin. Something, too, is perhaps attributable to the more advanced ages of the landwehr. No one dislikes to see a frequent intermixture of beardless faces, either in a line or in a column; but an entire battalion of boys is not satisfactory. Now these men were in the full strength and vigour of their days. Their countenances were well bronzed, their moustachios rough, and the very dust that enveloped them told nothing against the general hardihood of their bearing. I looked upon them with unqualified respect, and said to my young companion, that if all the landwehr regiments be composed of similar materials, Prussia can have nothing to apprehend from any hostile movement on the part either of Austria, or of France.

We had received a route, as usual, from our host at Lang-Wa.s.ser, and corrected it in some trifling particulars, at the suggestion of a turnpike keeper,--an old soldier, as in Prussia these functionaries usually are, and a fine-looking, well-bred, and intelligent fellow.

Among other places, we were to make, by the way, for a village called Golden Traum, where, as we hoped to reach it about noon, we proposed to eat our dinner. But we did not succeed in this point. Having been misdirected at an unlucky turn in a wood where two roads branched off from one another, we found ourselves, after an hour's toil, further from Golden Traum than ever, and were forced, not to retrace our steps, but to make our way as we best could, across the country, in order to reach it. We came in, accordingly, tired and somewhat out of humour, at one o'clock, to a poor but clean village beer-house, where the only viands produceable, were brown bread, b.u.t.ter, and sausages, a considerable quant.i.ty of which disappeared before persons whose appet.i.tes were a great deal too keen to be fastidious.

The situation of Golden Traum, overhanging the rocky and well-wooded bank of the river Queiss, is exceedingly striking, and the stream, being clear and rapid, held out to us the prospect of good sport.

Encouraged, therefore, by the remembrance of the moderate charges at Lang-Wa.s.ser, we resolved to spend the remainder of the day here, provided our landlady could accommodate us with beds, and fare a little more delicate for supper. With respect to the latter of these points, it was soon and satisfactorily settled. We had our choice of beef and veal, and we chose of course veal's elder brother: but the report of the dormitory was not so satisfactory. There was no spare chamber in the house, but they would make up for us a couple of beds, with mattresses, sheets, &c., in the tap-room; and they a.s.sured us, that it would be entirely at our command by ten o'clock at the latest. As my companion appeared to think these dispositions excellent, and spoke vehemently in favour of the day's fis.h.i.+ng, I consented to halt. We consigned our baggage to the care of the landlady, put our tackle in order, and descended to the stream.

Like many other things in creation, the Queiss was far from realizing the expectations which its flattering appearance had excited. There was little water in the channel, and that little contained few trout; but roach were there in abundance. Now a roach, either at the end of my line or on the table, happens to be my aversion, and finding that I was perpetually deceived by the avidity with which the scaly monsters seized my fly, I soon wound up. Not so my boy. With the most laudable perseverance he continued to flog the water, much to the detriment of the roach tribe; one of which, by the way, proved, when he brought him ash.o.r.e, to be the largest of his species I had ever seen. The monster must have weighed a pound and a half at the least. But this was not all. Towards evening the trout began to show themselves, and the young Piscator caused some havoc among them. He caught about a dozen, the heaviest of which might have well nigh pa.s.sed muster either at Troutenau or Eisenhammer.

We had been interrupted in our sport by a thunder-storm; the reverberations of which, as peal after peal smote against rock and fell, were very fine. The rain, however, which came down in torrents, was not quite so agreeable, and forced us to seek shelter in a mill, where I was a good deal amused by the sort of taste which the honest miller had displayed in ornamenting his best apartment. The walls were stuck round with engravings, one of which represented Jonah in two situations: first, smoking a pipe by the seaside, and afterwards working his way out of a huge fish's jaws; while close beside him was a s.h.i.+p, considerably less in point of size than the prophet. As to Nineveh, it stood upon a rock in the middle of the ocean, and had all its houses covered with bright red tiles. But that was nothing. There were several portraits of distinguished public characters here; and among others, Hawser Trunnion, a British admiral. I must say that the old commodore looked uncommonly well, with his flowing wig, just as Smollett describes it, and a pipe in his mouth.

We had ordered supper at seven; at half-past seven we reached the hotel, and found the meal ready. Alas! however, for the results of having issued our orders somewhat hastily. Instead of a substantial piece of roast beef, a basin of soup was placed before each, to which succeeded, sans potatoes, sans greens, sans any other vegetables of any sort, two small morsels of bouillie, boiled to tatters. We were not, however, to be put off with such sorry fare as this, so we begged our landlady to dress for us some of the fish which we had taken; and she set about it immediately. But long before the fish were ready, a mult.i.tude of new guests came pouring in, and we found ourselves in a situation which exceedingly amused us for a while, though in the end it grew tiresome.

The character of Russians had never sat upon us very easily. We were constantly afraid lest some one should address us in the Russian language, and we fancied that a demand for our pa.s.sports, which might come at any moment, must inevitably convict us of an imposture. Seeing, therefore, that Golden Traum wore a singularly modest air, we resumed, on entering it, our proper lineage, and never laid it aside again till we reached home. Now, there happened to be in the village a bouerman, who had served under Blucher at Waterloo, and had seen, during the period of the occupation of Paris, a good deal of the English army.

This man no sooner learned that two Englishmen were arrived, than he not only came himself, but brought all his neighbours to pay their respects to us. There was first the schoolmaster, a stout short man, highly impressed with the idea of his own dignity, and a determined smoker. There was the miller, the smith, the butcher, the s.e.xton,--everybody, in short, who had a groschen or two to spend, and a stock of curiosity to be gratified. Nor did they come alone. Their wives and children followed them _en ma.s.se_, till the tap-room was crowded. What could we do? To devour our fish in the sight of the mult.i.tude, without offering to share it with them, might have impressed them with an unfavourable opinion of our country, while to afford even a morsel to each individual present, would have required thrice the amount cooked and even caught. We therefore adopted a middle course, seldom either a wise or a fortunate one, but in the present instance the only course within our reach. We distributed the trout among the parties who had occupied seats at our table; and won the hearts of the old soldier and his wife, the miller and his wife, the blacksmith and his wife, with all their children; who, seeing their mothers begin to eat, set up such a clamour that we were fain to hand over for their use all the bones, with such portions of flesh as chanced to adhere to them. Then followed sundry small flasks of schnaps, some cans of beer, and two or three bottles of sour country wine; under the influence of which the tap-room became, ere long, a scene of extraordinary hilarity.

The old soldier raved about the "guten Anglesisch soldaden," and p.r.o.nounced "der Hertoch von Wellington," worthy to take rank with Blucher himself. This, of course, drew from me sundry compliments to the valour and discipline of the Prussian army, till in a few minutes we were sworn brothers. "The French! what could the French do, or indeed all the world besides, against the English and Prussians united, who between them had restored peace to Europe, and dethroned Buonaparte;" but I am not quite sure that we decided the question by whom the battle of Waterloo was won,--a matter concerning which my friend appeared to be sensitive, and I, in the consciousness of having fact to fall back upon, felt altogether indifferent.

For an hour or two the scene was highly diverting, though I cannot say that it had the effect of confirming me in my opinions touching the const.i.tutional sobriety of the German people. The good folks round me drank like fishes, and I must do the women the justice to observe, that in this sort of exercise they were by no means less alert than their husbands. The method of proceeding was this:--To some eight or ten persons a couple of liqueur gla.s.ses were allotted. These being filled, a sip was taken out of each, by the individuals who appeared to preside over the destinies of the bottle; they were then handed round, and drank in portions till drained dry. No time was, however, lost in replenis.h.i.+ng them, so that the fire was both brisk and well sustained.

Neither were the courtesies of civilised life omitted. At each separate sip the party sipping pledged the whole company; so that on a moderate computation, I had my health drunk that night at least a hundred and fifty times.

Ten o'clock struck, but the joyous rout exhibited no symptoms of moving; eleven came, and still they sat. This was rather too much of a good thing; for we must needs be a-foot by five in the morning, and we could not lie down till the chamber should be cleared. At last the schoolmaster, through the haze which his beer, and schnaps, and tobacco-smoke, had drawn around him, discovered that I was yawning with some vehemence, and looking tired. He accordingly rose, and suggested an adjournment; but his proposition was scouted. They must have one bottle more, and they had it; another, and they had that too; till I began to fear that they meant to favour us, as I recollect long ago favouring a delicate friend of mine at College,--that is, to sit up with us till the hour of march arrived, and then give us a convoy. But the memory of my poor friend's first letter, in which he described the misery of a mail-coach journey to Bristol, after a sleepless night, put me on my guard. I hinted that we had all better get to bed, and my hint was immediately taken. They went away in the best humour possible, after repeatedly shaking us by the hands, and wis.h.i.+ng us all manner of prosperity, both abroad and at home.

I should flatter the good landlady at Golden Traum, if I were to say, that her beds were either clean or comfortable. In fact, we did not venture to undress; and we were up punctual to the moment which over-night we had fixed upon as convenient for starting. Again, however, the linen which we had committed to the care of the washerwoman, was to seek, and our journey, much to our chagrin, was delayed till past seven. Meanwhile, we got from the hostess as much information respecting her neighbourhood as she had to communicate. The appearance of the village had struck us, on entering, as singular. The houses, instead of wood, which is the material commonly used in the construction of German villages, were all built of brick, and they looked quite new. Moreover, there was no church; but only the ruins of some walls and a tower standing. On inquiring into the cause of all this, we learned, that four years ago, during the heat of the summer, when everything in the fields was parched up, and the very rivers dry, some woodmen incautiously set fire to the brushwood in a neighbouring forest, and all the efforts to extinguish it proved fruitless. The flame spread for miles around, consuming heath, dry gra.s.s, corn, and even trees, nor did the town of Golden Traum escape. It was burned to the ground, as well as all the detached cottages near it. From the effects of this disastrous conflagration, it had not yet, and probably never would, recover. Some houses were, indeed, built; and built of materials which seemed better suited to withstand a similar visitation, should it occur; but there were no funds wherewith to restore the church, and the lord of the manor was a great deal too poor to undertake such an enterprise. "An application has, indeed, been made,"

continued our informant, "to the authorities at Berlin, and we hope some time or another to have a new church; for we miss the bells sadly on feast-days, and it is a pleasant thing once a week to meet all one's neighbours, and see how they are dressed. But for the present, our pastor performs divine service in a room upstairs, and is not troubled with a crowded congregation."

It had rained hard during the night, and showers still continued to fall early in the morning, a circ.u.mstance which reconciled us, not a little, to our compulsory halt of two hours beyond our time. But by seven, the clouds dispersed, and our linen being restored and packed in our knapsacks, we begged to have the bill. It amounted to no more, in spite of all the beer and schnaps of the previous evening, than one dollar and four groschens. Here, then, we were relieved altogether from the apprehensions under which, up to that moment, we had laboured. Our point, to-night, was Hernhut, whence, with a little management, and some extra pressure, we expected to reach Schandau in one day; and we had still five dollars, and a little more, in our purse.

From Golden Traum to Hernhut, we were recommended to pa.s.s by way of Marklissa and Bernstadt, the former a manufacturing place of some note in Prussian Silesia, the latter one of the frontier-towns of Saxony. We followed those directions faithfully, and erring only once, to be put right again immediately by a very civil woman, we soon left our last night's quarters far behind. But we did not succeed in reaching our proposed point of destination. Fatigue gained the mastery over us while we were yet three hours' march from Hernhut, and at seven in the evening, we came reluctantly to the conclusion, that a halt in Bernstadt was necessary.

There had occurred no incident during our march that deserves to be recorded; neither had we pa.s.sed any object that struck us as remarkable. The scenery, far more tame than we had been accustomed to in Bohemia, drew forth small admiration, and in Marklissa, a bustling, but irregularly-built town, we made no delay. In like manner, I may say of Bernstadt, that it contains little, which can, in any way, interest a stranger. A church, with a remarkably tall spire, is its chief ornament; and the inn, in the market-place, where we put up, was a fair one. A stroll through the streets, therefore, as well as a ramble in the churchyard, hardly compensated for the labour of effecting it; and we returned to supper at eight o'clock, well-disposed to cut the day as short as possible. But we were now in Saxony, and the Saxon police thought fit to convince us, that, however negligent their brother-officials in Austria and Prussia might be, they were not to be caught napping. I was sound asleep, when about twelve o'clock, a loud rapping at the chamber-door awoke me. I demanded the cause of so ill-timed an interruption, and was informed that the gendarmes had come to obtain a sight of our pa.s.sport, and that I must get up and show it.

The reader will easily believe that I obeyed this mandate, not quite in the placid temper of mind which is habitual to me. In fact, I was exceedingly angry, as I had reason to be; for we came in at seven, the police were perfectly aware of our arrival, and supposing that the national prosperity of Saxony had depended on us, there was ample time to ascertain that we were neither spies nor incendiaries, between that hour and bed-time. I, therefore, poured out upon the intruder,--the landlord of the inn,--a tolerable volley of abuse, and desired him to retail it all, in better German, to the gendarme below. In spite of my wrath, I could not keep my gravity, when after having desired him to deliver such a message to the policeman as an angry man is apt to convey, indicating, I am afraid, a wish, on my part, that the official would remove to less comfortable quarters than Bernstadt, the host, with all possible gravity replied, "Goot." There was no resisting this, and I laughed heartily.

The pa.s.sport was correct enough, and the gendarme, after listening to sundry warm expostulations, delivered, not through the medium of the host, but directly by myself, stammered out some excuse on the score of duty, and hinted that they were obliged to be constantly on the alert, in consequence of the frequent inundation of fugitive Poles into the country. Alas, the poor Poles! Defeated in their attempt to free themselves from the yoke of the stranger, and driven to seek, in exile, the safety which is denied to them at home, they cannot find anywhere, throughout continental Europe, a resting-place for the soles of their feet. For even Saxony,--the child, a feeble one, doubtless,--but still a child, of the revolutionary mania of 1830,--is afraid to afford an asylum to men whose sole crime is, that they have struggled, or perhaps pined only in secret, to restore to their native land its place among the nations of Europe. I was not, of course, so imprudent as to take any notice of the gendarme's observation; but I thought within myself, that the government of a free country deserved little respect which could permit itself to be dragooned into the persecution of a body of men, from whom Saxony, at least, has sustained no injury.

The gendarme having departed, I returned to bed, and slept till six in the morning. We then breakfasted, and a little before nine, arrived at one of the most interesting places which the student of human nature will find in all Germany. Hernhut, in every sense of the term, a missionary settlement, offers to the eye of the curious and the reflecting, a spectacle as striking as can well be conceived. Here is no diversity of opinion on religious subjects, no indifference, real or pretended, to religion itself, no postponement of duty to convenience, no deference to police regulations which is not paid to a higher principle. Religion is in Hernhut, what law and custom are elsewhere, the main-spring of people's actions. They work and play, they a.s.sociate together, or dwell apart, they go out and come in, rise up, and lie down; they perform every office of life strictly, or at least avowedly, under the sanction of the faith of which they are the professors. There may be hypocrisy in all this, though I could discover no traces of it, for human nature is a curious compound at the best; but at least there is a moral courage which commands our unqualified respect, inasmuch as everything is done without parade, without moroseness, without the utterance of a single expression which can convict them of a desire to be admired of men, far less of undervaluing or mistrusting the motives of others.

What the origin of the Hernhuters really is, seems to be a point as yet scarcely determined. Mosheim, in his _Ecclesiastical History_, speaks vaguely of them; and Dr. Maclaine, his English translator, has attributed to them practices and opinions which are quite contrary to fact. Confounding them with the Picards, whom John Ziska, the famous Hussite general, well-nigh exterminated, the latter speaks of them as practising all the absurd impurities of the Pre-Adamites, and he appeals for support to Stinstra's pastoral letter,--one of the most uncandid as well as impertinent productions that ever came from the pen even of an Anabaptist. For my own part, I see no reason to doubt that they are what they profess to be, the descendants of the Bohemian or Moravian brethren, whom the bigotry of the house of Austria drove from their homes, and of whom remnants are yet to be found, both in Poland and Hungary. Their church is episcopal in its const.i.tution; their tenets agree with the Augsburg Confession of Faith; their ritual is plain and bare, almost like that of the Presbyterian church of Scotland; and their attention to psalmody very great. It has been much the practice of the surrounding towns.h.i.+ps, as well in Bohemia as in Silesia and Saxony, to speak slightingly of them. But a brief sojourn among them, sufficed to convince me that they were at least as honest as any of those by whom their honesty had been called in question.

The word Hernhut signifies "a seeker of the Lord;" and it was their excessive earnestness in the service of religion, that, according to one account, earned for them and their settlement the names which they still retain. Another tradition says, that Hut was the name of the individual by whom the first of the colony was led to this particular spot; and that as from him, Herr Hut, or Gentleman Hut, their village derived its appellation, so the inhabitants of the village came to be known as Hernhuters. Between these conflicting statements, (and both were communicated to me on the spot,) I do not pretend to decide. I only know that to Count Zinzendorf,--of well-established notoriety,--the fathers were in 1722 indebted for their settlement on the spot of ground which their sons still occupy; and that, grateful for the kindnesses which their sect received both from him and his children, they have ever held the name in the highest possible respect.

Count Zinzendorf was, beyond all question, partially insane. His opinions, wild and extravagant in the extreme, had a strong tendency to vitiate the moral principle; and the Hernhuters having derived from his bounty all that they possessed, would not refuse to listen when he chose to address them, even in their religious meetings. But it is a mistake to attribute to him the character of a leader. He was their protector in civil affairs, but he was not their bishop. He had a voice in their synods, but he was not supreme. In spite, therefore, of the obscene rhapsodies which were printed, and put into circulation, as his discourses, I see no reason to believe that his opinions were ever adopted as those of the community. On the contrary, they have all along professed to subscribe in sincerity to the Augsburg Confession; and surely their own a.s.sertions are more to be relied upon, than those of their enemies.

Hernhut is, as I have said, in the strictest sense of the term, a missionary settlement. The people inhabit a town, cleaner, neater, and in every respect more attractive, than any of a similar size, which I have visited in Germany. They own a considerable tract of country round it, which they cultivate with excellent skill; and they carry on among themselves all manner of trades and professions. Civil magistrates they have none, for the supreme government has not forced such upon them; but their affairs are regulated by a synod, in which all the clergy, with a certain number of lay-elders, have seats. The law, again, to which they profess to pay obedience, is that of G.o.d. Whatever contradicts the morality of the Gospel is, by them, accounted illegal, and they punish the guilty by spiritual censures, and at last by excommunication. This latter amounts, in fact, to expulsion from the place; for an excommunicated brother or sister finds no one with whom to maintain a correspondence. I found, indeed, by the presence of a gendarme among them, that the government did not leave them absolutely un.o.bserved; but his duty seems to be very light, and his manner is singularly subdued and respectful.

In this place, remarkable everywhere, there are one or two points, to which the visitor is conducted, as more than others deserving his attention. Foremost among these are the Broder-house, the Schweister-house, and the Predecher-house,--the latter being the name which the Hernhuters think fit to bestow upon their church, or house of public wors.h.i.+p. The Broder and Schweister-houses are, as their names denote, asylums, within which a certain number of men and women, members of the church of Hernhut, find shelter. Not that the inmates of these well-regulated abodes are all paupers. On the contrary, you meet in the Schweister-house persons belonging to every cla.s.s of life, from the decayed or friendless gentlewoman down to the poor worn-out laundress; and the state of the Broder-house is, in every respect, the same. But one roof covers them all, and though their treatment beneath it may vary a little in regard to the lodging, diet, &c., afforded them, they are treated by one another, as well as by their fellow-religionists who visit them, strictly as brothers and sisters.

When, for example, the portress opened the door of the Schweister-house to us, and found that we were foreigners, she stated that Sister Handman could speak French, and to Sister Handman's apartment we were forthwith conducted, nothing loth to follow. We found it furnished with great taste, and the lady herself, well-bred and intelligent; yet the humblest person in the house called her only schweister, and she did not appear to desire or to look for more.

The Schweister-house contains one hundred and thirty females, of all ages, from seventy and eighty down to twelve. For the younger members of the community, there is a school, where they are instructed in reading, writing, arithmetic, French, sewing, embroidery, and music,--of all which branches of education, members of the community are the teachers. The elders employ their time a good deal in needle-work, and knitting; chiefly in the fabrication of pretty little articles, such as purses, s.h.i.+rt-collars, tapestry covering for chairs, work-bags, &c., all of which are sold for the benefit of the inst.i.tution, to visitors; or sent off from time to time, to London, Berlin, the United States of America, and other places where the Hernhuters have established missionary stations. There, it is said, they obtain ready customers, and the money so earned is faithfully applied to missionary purposes. Of course, the more essential, though less elegant departments in the management of a household, are not neglected. Among the sisters, there are matrons, housekeepers, cooks, chamber-maids, scullions, laundresses, and even errand-women;--all of them accustomed from their youth to more or less of manual labour, and all supported out of common funds of the inst.i.tution. Such persons, as well as a large majority of those on whom they attend, pay no board.

The Schweister-house is their home; which they are free to quit, however, at pleasure; and they all live on a footing of perfect equality. One large room serves as the common eating-hall; one, which engrosses an entire front of the building, is the dormitory; while a chapel, where there is an altar, sees them a.s.sembled every morning to sing a hymn, to the accompaniment of a harpsichord, and pray with one of the ministers who attends them.

Previous to our visit to the Schweister-house, we had inspected the church,--a plain unadorned hall, fitted up with benches, two galleries, and a sort of table or altar. There is neither desk nor pulpit, for the service stands in no need of such adjuncts, inasmuch as the devotional parts of it consist mainly of psalm-singing, and the exhortation is delivered, like a lecturer's address at the British Inst.i.tution, from the table. Unfortunately for myself, I did not happen, on either occasion of visiting the place, to reach it on a festival; but the music, I am told, is exceedingly good, and the choir is led by an organ. It may be worth while to add, that the principle which has established a Broder-house and Schweister-house apart from one another, operates in the temple of the Hernhuters,--the men and women occupy distinct sets of benches, with a considerable s.p.a.ce between them.

The pastors or clergy of this singular sect, inhabit apartments connected with the church, and adjoining to it. Not fewer than seven are always resident in the town, of whom three are bishops, and they are all family men. I do not know how they are accommodated in the sort of college which was pointed out as their common home; but I should think indifferently.

Our next visit was to the cemetery. To reach it we were obliged to traverse a considerable portion of the town, than which I have seen nothing in Germany so neat and clean, and what we should describe in England as thoroughly comfortable-looking. The streets were all wide and well-paved; the houses substantial, yet airy; and everything about them, from the gla.s.s in the windows to the bra.s.s knockers on the doors, clean as hands could make them.

The cemetery lies, perhaps, a couple of hundred yards beyond the outskirts of the town. You ascend to it,--for it occupies the elbow of a green hill,--by a broad gravel road, cut through the centre of luxuriant meadows, and shaded on either side by rows of lime-trees.

This conducts you to a gateway, over the arch of which on the outer side, are inscribed in German, the words "Christ is risen from the dead;" while the corresponding side within the enclosure bears as its motto, "And is become the first-fruits of them that slept." And truly it would be hard to imagine a spot of earth, within which the enthusiast,--aye, and even the man who, without being an enthusiast, has ever so slight a tinge of romance in his nature,--would more desire to sleep out that last slumber.

A sort of oblong square, it is girdled round by a well-trimmed hedge of limes, from which, at intervals, pollarded trees shoot up; while the corners are thickly woven each into a shady arbour, where seats are arranged for the accommodation of the contemplative. It is, however, after you have pa.s.sed beneath the arch, that the holy quiet of the spot strikes you most forcibly. Laid out with singular good taste into parallelograms, and having the paths which divide them one from another, shaded by limes, it presents to your gaze no confused heap of irregular mounds, overgrown with nettles and other noxious weeds, but well-kept, yet unornamented plains, where, side by side, each covered by a flat stone,--the record of their births, and death, and nothing more,--the deceased brothers and the sisters of this singular community lie at rest. Even here, however, in the grave-yard of a people studious to preserve, as far as such a thing is possible, the primitive equality of man with man, some distinction is paid to the ashes of the great,--not because in their season of mortality these ashes made up a n.o.ble family, but because the family in question have been mighty benefactors to the sect. In the centre of a wide road which separates the cemetery into two halves,--and on the right of which the males of the place are buried, while the portion on the left is devoted exclusively to women,--repose all that was once seen among men of Count Zinzendorf and his kindred, covered over by nine stone tombs, on the elevated lids of which their t.i.tles and designations are inscribed. The Count himself, to whom Hernhut owes its prosperity, and in some sort, its character, occupies the central position of all; and he is supported on either hand by the graves of his descendants. Nor will the number of these graves ever be increased. The family of Zinzendorf has become extinct; and no other relics of humanity may hope to be honoured as they were, by the simple, yet reflecting members of the Hernhut community.

We lingered in this beautiful spot a good half-hour, and quitted it, at the termination of that period, "wiser and better men," at least for the moment. Altogether different from the Pere La Chaise, or any other cemetery which I had ever visited before, it struck me as const.i.tuting the very beau ideal of a burying ground,--grave, yet not severe,--neat, yet free from every approach to gaudiness,--well kept, yet bearing about it no impress of the hands that trimmed it, and in its situation and arrangements perfect. Here are no clumsy pillars, nor urns, nor sarcophagi, no, nor even crosses. Flowers are utterly unknown, and garlands tabooed. But the arrangement of the pollarded limes, which both surround and intersect the square, is, as it ought to be in such a place, at once formal and appropriate, casting each of the gravel-walks into a pleasant shade, while between them all lies open. With respect, again, to the graves, these are distinguished from the general level of the ground only by the small, flat, hewn stone, which is laid over each, and they seem to be about four feet apart from one another. I observed that the Hernhuters seem, from the first formation of the cemetery, to have observed, in conducting their funerals, the same regularity which appears to prevail in all their daily proceedings. The first of their community who paid the debt of nature,--after the burying-ground was laid out, and the colony put upon its present footing,--lies under his stone, close to the angle which is formed by the meeting of the central walk and that which pa.s.ses along the side of the hedge next the entrance. In like manner, I observed that, far to the rear of the two lines which enclose, as it were, the tombs of the Zinzendorfs, there are blank s.p.a.ces, which will doubtless be filled up, as the course of time sweeps away generation after generation from their hopes and their fears, their anxieties, their pursuits, and their follies.

On quitting the grave-yard, our guide,--an intelligent old man,--conducted us towards a sort of observatory, from which, as it occupies the summit of the hill, a fine view of the surrounding country is to be obtained. The scene was altogether very pleasing; for cultivation is carried on everywhere to a great extent, and there is no lack either of ornamental wood, or human habitations,--while, far in the distance, the mountains of Silesia and Bohemia are seen, forming a n.o.ble back-ground to the panorama. Nor was the effect of music, heard at a distance, as happened with us to be the case, out of keeping with the character of the things around us. A band of strolling minstrels chanced to be wending their way through a village, in the bottom of the vale far beyond Hernhut, and the air which they were performing, borne back upon the light breeze, sounded very sweetly. In a word, our visit to the tombs of the Hernhuters, with all its accompaniments of sight and sound, affected us at the moment with feelings singularly delightful, of which the recollection still abides by us, as Moore beautifully describes the odour of the roses, lingering about the fragments of the broken vase, which once contained the roses themselves.

After inserting our names, according to established usage, in a book which is contained in the wooden tower of the observatory, we returned to the inn, and offered our guide money. He would not accept a groschen, though he had too much good sense and good taste, to affect indignation at what he could not but perceive was not designed for an insult. We prevailed upon him, however, to eat his luncheon with us, and found him both an intelligent companion, and willing to impart his information freely.

He told us, what future inquiries have since confirmed, that the Church of Hernhut has branches in very many lands. At Berlin, there is an establishment on a small scale, which is managed after the model of that in Silesia. London has also its little germ, somewhere, according to him, in the neighbourhood of Fulham; and in North America the settlements are numerous. But all look to Hernhut as to the fountain-head of their church, and all receive from the synod there, periodical admonitions and instructions.

So much for the more spiritual and intellectual portion of our entertainment,--and now a word or two concerning that which was neither. I must not forget to record, for the benefit of all true lovers of excellent beer and excellent bread, that they will not find better than at Hernhut in all Germany. The claret, which was also good, held, in our estimation, a very secondary place to the clear, brisk, pale ale, which the waiter poured out for us from certain elegantly-shaped, green gla.s.s bottles, and the bread we p.r.o.nounced to be beyond all praise.

We quitted Hernhut about one o'clock, hoping, as the result proved, in the face of physical impossibilities, to reach Schandau that night. The idea was the more preposterous, that we knew perfectly well how far, by the line of the main road, the one place is divided from the other; but being told of a footpath over hill and vale, and having examined upon the map, the situations of the villages through which it led, we came to the conclusion that we should be able to compress the usual forty English miles into half that number. We were entirely mistaken in this rash inference; for, independently of the risks which we ran of losing the way,--a misfortune which, it must be confessed, more than once overtook us,--we ought to have recollected that even travellers on foot cannot proceed with the precision of an arrow's flight; inasmuch as standing corn is not to be trodden down, mora.s.ses must be avoided, and through woods and over mountains, paths are, for the most part, tortuous. Neither did it greatly surprise, however much it mortified us, to find, that on halting at a village in that part of Bohemia which pushes itself deep into the heart of Saxony, between Seibnitz and Hernhut, that we had accomplished scarcely one-fourth of our pilgrimage; and that, with scarce four hours of daylight before us, it was utterly hopeless to think of compa.s.sing the remaining three-fourths. Having ascertained, therefore, that good quarters were to be had at Schlukenau, a considerable town through which it would be necessary to pa.s.s, we made up our minds to halt there for the night; even though by doing so, we should leave ourselves twenty good miles to walk on the morrow.

We dined in a village inn, the landlord of which was a jolly old fellow; who, having an only daughter, married her to a bouerman in the place, and now the three generations,--for there was a family by the union, of course,--dwelt together very happily under the old man's roof. I mention this trifling circ.u.mstance because it enables me to give the substance of certain statistical details which were communicated to me, in the course of our walk, by the son-in-law. This latter, a remarkably athletic fine-looking fellow, who volunteered to give us a convoy, and direct us the nearest way to Schlukenau, had seen something of the world. He was in Strasburg in the year 1813, when a corps of English artillery manned the works, and he spoke in high admiration of the appearance and perfect discipline of the men. Now, however, he cultivated with excellent skill a farm of eighty or an hundred acres, of which he was the proprietor; and while he led me over his land, and pointed out with honest pride, the order in which it was kept, and the enormous crops which it produced, he very readily answered such questions as I put to him on the subject both of the Bohemian system of agriculture and of the profits arising out of it.

Wheat, as, indeed, my own previous observation had shown me, is not much cultivated in Bohemia. Here and there, where the soil is particularly favourable for it, the seed is sown; but rye is the staple commodity, with which, indeed, the fields were loaded. Out of rye, as I need scarcely mention, the Germans manufacture, not only the bread that is commonly in use among them, but almost all their ardent spirits, of which I have tasted very little, but which, whenever I did taste it, seemed to be execrable. Oats they likewise rear for their horses, as well as barley for malting; but these grains bear no proportion, in point of abundance, to the rye crops.

When the rye is removed, they sow the ground with clover; not, as with us, that they may feed it off, and so enrich the soil while they extract something from it, but for the purpose of securing a supply of dry fodder for their cattle, which, all the winter over, and throughout a considerable portion of the spring and summer, are kept in their stalls. Then come potatoes, then a season of fallow; after which a good coat of manure, to be followed by rye again. Whenever flax is grown, and next to rye it is, both here and in Saxony, more cultivated than any other grain, fallows are more frequent; for flax, as every child knows, drains the soil of all its nutritious qualities.

The implements used in agricultural operations seem to be ruder, and far more inefficient, than among us. The plough is precisely such an instrument as I recollect to have seen represented in my Delphin edition of Virgil's _Georgics_ when I was at school; and it is drawn indifferently by horses, bullocks, or heifers. Bullocks and heifers are, however, more commonly used than horses, though it is no unusual sight to see a horse and a heifer yoked together. There is no boy to drive; but the ploughman, as in Scotland, at once holds the stilts of the plough, and with his voice, and a long halter, guides the cattle.

With respect to the harrows, I saw little difference between them and our English implements, except that those in Germany are lighter, and never have more than one horse or one bullock attached to them.