Part 20

On leaving the great chaussée, which runs along the banks of the river, like the towing-path of a canal, we ascended the cross road, down which we had trundled so merrily in the morning, and without meeting cows, carts, toothless old women, or any other obstruction, I reached about midnight the Bad-Haus of Schlangenbad. On ascending the staircase, I found that the two little lamps in the passage had expired; however, the key of my apartments was in my pocket, the moon was shining through the window upon my table, and so before one short hour had elapsed, Rudesheim--the niggardly Bishop of Mainz, with his tower and rats--the bridal party--the enchanted cave--the lofty Rossel, and the magnificent range of the Niederwald, were all tumbling head over heels in my mind, while I lay as it were quietly beneath them--asleep.

WIESBADEN.

The day at last arrived for my departure from the green, happy little valley of Schlangenbad. Whether or not its viper baths really possess the effect ascribed to them, of tranquillizing the nerves, I will not presume to declare; but that the loneliness and loveliness of the place can fascinate, as well as tranquillize, the mind, I believe as firmly, as I know that the Schlangenbad water rubs from the body the red rust of Langen-Schwalbach.

Those who, on the tiny surface of this little world, please themselves with playing what they call "the great game of life," would of course abhor a spot in which they could neither be envied nor admired; but to any grovelling-minded person, who thinks himself happy when he is quiet and clean, I can humbly recommend this valley, as a retreat exquisitely suited to his taste.

After casting a farewell glance round apartments to which I felt myself most unaccountably attached, descending the long staircase of the New Bad-Haus, I walked across the shrubbery to my carriage, around which had assembled a few people, who, I was very much surprised to find, were witnessing my departure with regret!

Luy, who had followed my (I mean Katherinchen's) footsteps so many a weary hour, strange as it may sound (and so contrary to what the ass must have felt), was evidently sorry I was going. The old "Bad" man's countenance looked as serious and as wrinkled on the subject as the throat of his toad--his wan, sallow-faced Jezebel of a wife stood before the carriage steps waving her lean hand in sorrow, and the young maid of the Bad-Haus, who had made my bed, merely because I had troubled her for a longer period than any other visiter, actually began to shed some tears. The whole group begged permission to kiss my hand; and there was so much kind feeling evinced, that I felt quite relieved when I found that the postilion and his horses had spoiled the picture, in short, that we were trotting and trumpeting along the broad road which leads to Wiesbaden.

As I had determined on visiting the Duke of Nassau's hunting-seat "Die Platte" in my way to Wiesbaden, after proceeding about four miles, I left the carriage in the high road, and walking through the woods towards my object, I passed several very large plantations of fir-trees which had been so unusually thick that they were completely impervious, even to a wild boar; for, not only were the trees themselves merely a few inches asunder, but their branches, which feathered to the ground, interlaced one with another until they formed altogether an impenetrable jungle. Through this mass of vegetation, narrow paths about three feet broad were cut in various directions to enable the deer to traverse the country.

In passing through the beech forest, I observed that the roads or cuts were often as much as forty or fifty feet in breadth, and every here and there the boughs and foliage were artificially entwined in a very ingenious manner, leaving small loop-holes through which the Duke, his visiters, or his huntsmen, might shoot at the game as they wildly darted by. A single one of these verdant batteries might possibly be observed and avoided by the cautious, deep-searching eye of the deer, but they exist all over the woods in such numbers, that the animals, accustomed to them from their birth, can fear nothing from them, until the fatal moment arrives, when their experience, so dearly bought, arrives too late.

After advancing for about an hour through these green streets, I came suddenly upon the Duke's hunting-seat, the Platte, a plain white stone, cubic building, which, as if disdaining gardens, flowerbeds, or any artificial embellishment, stands alone, on a prominent edge of the Taunus hills, looking down upon Wiesbaden, Mainz, Frankfort, and over the immense flat, continental-looking country which I have already described. Its situation is very striking, and though of course it is dreadfully exposed to the winter's blast, yet, as a sporting residence, during the summer or autumn months, nothing I think can surpass the beauty and unrestrained magnificence of its view.

Before the entrance door, in attitudes of great freedom, there are two immense bronze statues of stags, most beautifully executed, and on entering the apartments, which are lofty and grand, every article of furniture, as well as every ornament, is ingeniously composed of pieces, larger or smaller, of buck-horn. Immense antlers, one above another, are ranged in the hall, as well as on the walls of the great staircase; and certainly when a sportsman comes to the Platte on a visit to the Duke of Nassau, everything his eyes can rest on, not only reminds him of his favourite pursuit, but seems also to promise him as much of it as the keenest hunter can desire: in short, without the slightest pretension, the Platte is nobly adapted to its purpose, and with great liberality it is open at almost all times to the inspection of "gentlemen sportsmen" and travellers from all quarters of the globe. About twelve hundred feet beneath it, in a comparatively flat country, bounded on two sides by the Rhine and the Main, lies WIESBADEN, the capital of the duchy of Nassau, the present seat of its government, and the spot by far the most numerously attended as a watering-place.

Looking down upon it from the Platte, this town or city is apparently about three-quarters of an English mile square, one quarter of this area being covered with a rubbishy old, the remainder with a staring formal new town, composed of streets of white stone houses, running at right angles to each other. As I first approached it, it appeared to me to be as hot, as formal, and as uninteresting a place as I ever beheld: however, as soon as I entered it, I very soon found out that its inhabitants and indeed its visiters entertain a very different opinion of the place, they pronouncing it to be one of the most fashionable, and consequently most agreeable, watering-places in all Germany.

In searching for a lodging, I at once went to most of the principal hotels, several of which I found to be grievously afflicted with smells, which (though I most politely bowed to every person I met in the passage) it did not at all suit me to encounter. At one place, as an excuse for not taking the unsavoury suite of apartments which were offered to me, I ventured quietly to remark, that they were very much dearer than those I had just left. The master at once admitted the fact, but craning himself up into the proudest attitude his large stomach would admit of, he observed--"_Mais--Monsieur! savez-vous que vous aurez à Wiesbaden plus d'amusement dans une heure, que vous n'auriez à Schlangenbad dans un an?..._"

In the horrid atmosphere in which I stood, I had no inclination to argue on happiness or any subject; so hastening into the open air, I continued my search, until finding, the landlord at the Englischen Hof civil, and exceedingly anxious to humour all my old-fashioned English whims and oddities, I accepted the rooms he offered me, and thus for a few days dropped my anchor in the capital of the duchy of Nassau.

About twelve thousand strangers are supposed annually to visit this gay watering-place, and consequently, to pen up all this fashionable flock within the limits of so small a town, requires no little ramming, cramming, and good arrangement. The dinner hour, or time of the tables-d'hôte, as at Langen Schwalbach, Schlangenbad, and indeed all other places in Germany, was one o'clock, and the crowds of hungry people who at that hour, following their appetites, were in different directions seen slowly but resolutely advancing to their food, was very remarkable. Voluntarily enlisting into one of these marching regiments, I allowed myself to be carried along with it, I knew not where, until I found myself, with an empty stomach and a napkin on my knees, quietly seated at one of three immense long tables, in a room with above 250 people, all secretly as hungry as myself.

The quantity of food and attention bestowed upon me for one florin filled me with astonishment; "and certainly," said I to myself, "a man may travel very far indeed, before he will find provisions and civility cheaper than in the duchy of Nassau!" The meat alone which was offered to me, if it had been thrown at my head raw, would have been not only a most excellent bargain, but much more than any one could possibly have expected for the money; but when it was presented to me, cooked up with sauces of various flavours, attended with omelettes, fruits, tarts, puddings, preserves, fish, &c. &c., and served with a quantity of politeness and civility which seemed to be infinite, I own I felt that in the scene around me there existed quite as much refreshment and food for the mind as for the body.

It is seldom or ever that I pay the slightest attention to dinner conversation, the dishes, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, being, in my opinion, so very much better; however, much against my will, I overheard some people talking of a duel, which I will mention, hoping it may tend to show by what disgusting, fiend-like sentiments this practice can be disgraced.

A couple of Germans, having quarrelled about some beautiful lady, met with sabres in their hands to fight a duel. The ugly one, who was of course the most violent of the two, after many attempts to deprive his hated adversary, of his life, at last aimed a desperate blow at his head, which, though it missed its object, yet fell upon, and actually cut off, the good-looking man's nose. It had scarcely reached the ground, when its owner, feeling that his beauty was gone, instantly threw away his sword, and with both arms extended, eagerly bent forward with the intention to pick up his own property and replace it; but the ugly German no sooner observed the intention, than, darting forwards with the malice of the devil himself, he jumped upon the nose, and before its master's face crushed it and ground it to atoms!

In strolling very slowly about the town, after dinner, the first object which aroused my curiosity was a steam I observed rising through the iron gratings, which at the corners of the streets, covered the main drains or common sewers of the town. At first I thought it proceeded from washerwomen, pig-scalders, or some such artificial cause; but I no sooner reached the great Koch-brunnen (boiling spring), than I learnt it was the natural temperature of the Wiesbaden waters that had thus attracted my attention.

As I stood before this immense cauldron, with eyes staring at the volume of steam which was arising from it, and with ears listening to a civil person who was voluntarily explaining to me that there were fifteen other springs in the town, their temperature being at all times of the year about 140° of Fahrenheit, I could not help feeling a sort of unpleasant sensation, similar to what I had experienced on the edges of Etna and Vesuvius; in short, I had been so little accustomed to live in a town heated by subterranean fire, that it just crossed my mind, whether, in case the engineer below, from laziness, should put on too many coals at once, or from carelessness should neglect to keep open his proper valves, an explosion might not take place, which would suddenly send me, Koch-brunnen, Wiesbaden, and Co., on a shooting excursion to the Duke's lofty hunting-seat, the Platte. The ground in the vicinity of these springs is so warm that in winter the snow does not remain upon it; and formerly, when these waters used to flow from the town into a small lake, from not freezing, it became in hard weather the resort of birds of all descriptions: indeed, even now, they say that that part of the Rhine into which the Wiesbaden waters eventually flow, is observed to be always remarkably free from ice.

Wiesbaden, inhabited by people called Mattiaci, was not only known to the Romans, but fortified by the twenty-second legion, who also built baths, the remains of which exist to the present day. Even in such remote ages, it was observed that these waters retained their heat longer than common water, or salt water, of the same specific gravity, heated to the same degree; indeed, Pliny remarked--"_Sunt et Mattiaci in Germania fontes calidi, quorum haustus triduo fervet._"

The town of Wiesbaden is evidently one which does not appreciate the luxury of "home, sweet home;" for it is built, not for itself, but for strangers; and though most people loudly admire the size of the buildings, yet, to my mind, there is something very melancholy in seeing houses so much too fine for the style of inhabitants to whom they belong. A city of lodging-houses, like an army of mercenaries, may to each individual be a profitable speculation, but no brilliant uniform, or external show, can secretly compensate for the want of national self-pride which glows in the heart of a soldier, standing under his country's colours, or in the mind of a man living consistently in his own little home.

About twenty years ago, the inhabitants of Wiesbaden were pent up in narrow, dirty streets, surrounded by swampy ditches and an old Roman wall. A complete new town has since been erected, and accommodation has thus been afforded for upwards of 12,000 strangers, the population of the place, men, women, and children included, scarcely amounting to 8000 souls.

During the gay season, of course all is bustle and delight; but I can conceive nothing less cheerful than such a place must become, when all its motley visiters having flown away, winter begins to look it in the face; however, certainly the inhabitants of Wiesbaden do not seem to view the subject at all in this point of view, for they all talk with great pride of their fine new town, and strut about their large houses like children wearing men's shoes ten times too big for their feet.

The most striking object at Wiesbaden is a large square, bounded on one side by a handsome theatre, on two others by a colonnade of shops, and on a third by a very handsome building called the Cursaal, an edifice 430 feet in length, having, in front, a portico supported by six Ionic columns, above which there is inscribed, in gold letters--

FONTIBUS MATTIACIS, MDCCCX.

On entering the great door, I found myself at once in a saloon, or ball-room, 130 feet in length, 60 in breadth, and 50 in height, in which there is a gallery supported by 32 marble pillars of the Corinthian order; lustres are suspended from the ceiling, and, in niches in the wall, there are twelve white marble statues, which were originally intended for Letitia Bonaparte, and which the Wiesbaden people extol by saying that they cost about 1200_l._

Branching from this great assembly-room, there are several smaller apartments, which in England would be called hells, or gambling-rooms.

The back of the Cursaal looks into a sort of parade, upon which, after dinner, hundreds of visiters sit in groups, to drink cheap coffee, listen to a band of most excellent cheap music, and admire, instead of swans, an immense number of snail-gobbling ducks and ducklings, which, swimming about a pond, shaded by weeping willows and acacias, come when they are called, and, ducklike, of course eat whatever is thrown to them.

Beyond this pond, which is within fifty yards of the Cursaal, there is a nice shrubbery, particularly pleasing to the stranger from the reflection, that at very great trouble, and at considerable expense, it has been planted, furnished with benches, and tastefully adorned by the inhabitants of Wiesbaden, for the gratification of their guests. From it a long shady walk, running by the side of a stream of water, extends for about two miles, to the ruins of the castle of Sonneburg.

Among the buildings of Wiesbaden, the principal ones, after the Cursaal and theatre, are the Schlosschen, containing a public library and museum, the hotels of the Four Seasons, the Eagle, the Rose, the Schutzenhof, and the Englischen Hof.

The churches are small, and seem adapted in size to the old, rather than to the new town. By far the greatest proportion of the inhabitants are Protestants, and their place of worship is scarcely big enough to hold them. At the southern extremity of the town there exists a huge pile of rubbish, with several high modern walls in ruins.

It appears that, a few years ago, the Catholics at Wiesbaden determined on building a church, which was to vie in magnificence with the Cursaal, and other gaudy specimens of the new town.

Eighty thousand florins were accordingly raised by subscription, and the huge edifice was actually finished, the priests were shaved, and everything was ready for the celebration of mass, when, à propos to nothing, "_occidit una domus!_" down it came thundering to the ground!

Whether it was blown up by subterranean heat, or burst by the action of frost,--whether it was the foundation, or the fine arched roof which gave way, are points which at Wiesbaden are still argued with acrimony and eagerness; and, to this day, men's mouths are seen quite full of jagged consonants, as they condemn or defend the architect of the building--poor, unfortunate Mr. Schrumpf!

After having made myself acquainted with the geography of Wiesbaden, I arose one morning at half-past five o'clock to see the visiters drinking the waters. The scene was really an odd one. The long parade, at one extremity of which stood smoking and fuming the great Koch-brunnen, was seen crowded with respectably-dressed people, of both sexes, all walking (like so many watchmen, carrying lanterns), with glasses in their hands, filled, half filled, or quarter filled, with the medicine, which had been delivered to them from the brunnen so scalding hot, that they dared not even sip it, as they walked, until they had carried it for a considerable time.

It requires no little dexterity to advance in this way, without spilling one's medicine, to say nothing of burning or slopping it over one's fellow patients. Every person's eye, therefore, whatever might be the theme of his conversation, was instantly fixed upon his glass; some few carried the thing along with elegance, but I could not help remarking that the greater proportion of people walked with their backs up, and were evidently very little at their ease. A band of Wind-instruments was playing, and an author, a native of Wiesbaden, in describing this scene, has sentimentally exclaimed--"_Thousands of glasses are drunk by the sound of music!_"

Four or five young people, protected by a railing, are employed the whole morning in filling, as fast as they can stoop down to the brunnen to do so, the quantities of glasses, which, from hands in all directions, are extending towards them; but so excessively hot is the cauldron, that the greater proportion of these glasses were, I observed, cracked by it, and several I saw fall to pieces when delivered to their owners. Not wishing to appear eccentric, which, in this amphibious picture any one is who walks about the parade without a glass of scalding hot water in his hand, I purchased a goblet, and the first dip it got cracked it from top to bottom.

In describing the taste of the mineral water of Wiesbaden, were I to say, that, while drinking it, one hears in one's ears the cackling of hens, and that one sees feathers flying before one's eyes, I should certainly grossly exaggerate; but when I declare that it exactly resembles very hot chicken broth, I only say what Dr. Granville said, and what in fact everybody says, and must say, respecting it; and certainly I do wonder why the common people should be at the inconvenience of making bad soup, when they can get much better from Nature's great stock-pot--the Koch-brunnen of Wiesbaden. At all periods of the year, summer or winter, the temperature of this broth remains the same, and when one reflects that it has been bubbling out of the ground, and boiling over, in the very same state, certainly from the time of the Romans, and probably from the time of the flood, it is really astonishing to think what a most wonderful apparatus there must exist below, what an inexhaustible stock of provisions to ensure such an everlasting supply of broth, always formed of exactly the same eight or ten ingredients--always salted to exactly the same degree, and always served up at exactly the same heat.

One would think that some of the particles in the recipe would be exhausted; in short, to speak metaphorically, that the chickens would at last be boiled to rags, or that the fire would go out for want of coals; but the oftener one reflects on these sorts of subjects, the oftener is the old-fashioned observation forced upon the mind, that let a man go where he will, Omnipotence is never from his view!

As leaning against one of the columns of the arcade under which the band was playing, I stood with my medicine in my hand, gazing upon the strange group of people, who with extended glasses were crowding and huddling round the Koch-brunnen, each eagerly trying to catch the eye of the young water-dippers, I could not help feeling, as I had felt at Langen-Schwalbach, whether it could be possible for any prescription to be equally beneficial to such differently made patients. To repeat all the disorders which it is said most especially to cure, would be very nearly to copy the sad list of ailments to which our creaky frames are subject. The inhabitants of Wiesbaden rant, the hotel-keepers rave, about the virtues of this medicine. Stories are most gravely related of people crawling to Wiesbaden and running home. In most of the great lodging-houses crutches are triumphantly displayed, as having belonged to people who left them behind.

It is good they say for the stomach--good for the skin--good for ladies of all possible ages--for all sorts and conditions of men. It lulls pain--therefore it is good, they say, for people going out of this world, yet equally good is it, they declare, for those whose fond parents earnestly wish them to come in. For a head-ache, drink, the inn-keepers exclaim, at the Koch-brunnen! For gout in the heels, soak the body, the doctors say, in the chicken-broth!--in short, the valetudinarian, reclining in his carriage, has scarcely entered the town than, say what he will of himself, the inhabitants all seem to agree in repeating--"_Benè, benè respondere; dignus es entrare nostro docto corpore!_"

However, there would be no end in stating what the Wiesbaden water is said to be good for; a much simpler course is to explain, that doctors do agree in saying that it is _not_ good for complaints where there is any disposition to inflammation or regular fever, and that it changes consumption into--death.