Part 4

The horse, thus treated, leans against the resistance which he meets with, and his weight being infinitely greater than his draught (I mean the balance being in his favour), the carriage follows him without much more strain or effort on his part, than if he were idly leaning his chest against his manger. It is true the flesh of his shoulder may become sore from severe pressure, but his sinews and muscles are comparatively at rest.

Now, as a contrast to this picture of the German horse, let any one observe a pair of English post-horses dragging a heavy weight up a hill, and he will at once see that the poor creatures are working by their muscles, and that it is by sinews and main strength the resistance is overcome; but how can it be otherwise? for their heads are considerably higher than nature intended them to be even in _walking_, in a state of liberty, carrying nothing but themselves. The balance of their bodies is, therefore, absolutely turned _against_, instead of leaning in favour of, their draught, and thus cruelly deprived of the mechanical advantage of weight which everywhere else in the universe is duly appreciated, the noble spirit of our high-fed horses induces them to strain and drag the carriage forwards by their muscles; and, if the reader will but pass his hands down the back sinews of any of our stage-coach or post-chaise horses, he will soon feel (though not so keenly as they do) what is the fatal consequence. It is true that, in ascending a very steep hill, an English postilion will occasionally unhook the bearing-reins of his horses; but the poor jaded creatures, trained for years to work in a false attitude, cannot, in one moment, get themselves into the scientific position which the German horses are habitually encouraged to adopt; besides this, we are so sharp with our horses--we keep them so constantly on the _qui vive_, or, as we term it, in hand--that we are always driving them from the use of their weight to the application of their sinews.

That the figure and attitude of a horse, working by his sinews, are infinitely prouder than when he is working by his weight (there may exist, however, false pride among horses as well as among men), I most readily admit, and, therefore, for carriages of luxury, where the weight bears little proportion to the powers of the two noble animals, I acknowledge that the sinews are more than sufficient for the slight labour required; but to bear up the head of a poor horse at plough, or at any slow, heavy work, is, I humbly conceive, a barbarous error, which ought not to be persisted in.

I may be quite wrong in the way in which I have just endeavoured to account for the fact that horses on the Continent draw heavy weights with apparently greater ease to themselves than our horses, and I almost hope that I am wrong; for laughing, as we all do, at the German and French harness, sneering, as we do, at their ropes, and wondering out loud, as we always do, why they do not copy us, it would not be a little provoking were we, in spite of our fine harness, to find out, that for slow, heavy draught, it is better to tie a horse's nose _downwards_, like the German, than _upwards_, like the English, and that the French way of leaving them at liberty is better than both.

THE BATH.

The eager step with which I always walked towards the strong steel bath, is almost indescribable. Health is such an inestimable blessing; it colours so highly the little picture of life; it sweetens so exquisitely the small cup of our existence; it is so like sunshine, in the absence of which the world, with all its beauties, would be, as it once was, without form and void, that I can conceive nothing which a man ought more eagerly to do than get between the stones of that mill which is to grind him young again, particularly when, as in my case, the operation was to be attended with no pain. When, therefore, I had once left my hof to walk to the bath, I felt as if no power on earth could arrest my progress.

The oblong slated building, which contains the famous waters of Langen-Schwalbach, is plain and unassuming in its elevation, and very sensibly adapted to its purpose. The outside walls are plastered, and coloured a very light red. There are five-and-twenty windows in front, with an arcade or covered walk beneath them, supported by an equal number of pilasters, connected together by Saxon arches. On entering the main door, which is in the centre, the great staircase is immediately in front, and close to it, on the left, there sits a man, from whom the person about to bathe purchases his ticket, for which he pays forty-eight kreuzers, about sixteen pence.

The Pauline spring is conducted to the baths on the upper story; the Wein brunnen supplies those below on the left of the staircase; the strong Stahl, or steel brunnen, those on the right; all these baths opening into passages, which, in both stories, extend the whole length of the building. At the commencement of each hour, there was always a great bustle between the people about to be washed, and those who had just undergone the operation. A man and woman attend above and below, and, quite regardless of their sex, every person was trying to prevail upon either of these attendants to let the old water out of the bath, and to turn the hot and cold cocks which were to replenish it. Restlessness and anxiety were depicted in every countenance; however, in a few minutes, a calm having ensued, the water was heard rushing into fifteen or sixteen baths on each floor. Soon again the poor pair were badgered and tormented by various voices, from trebles down to contra-bassos, all calling to them to stop the cocks. With a thermometer in one hand, a great wooden shovel in the other, and a face as wet as if it had just emerged from the bath, each servant hurried from one bath to another, adjusting them all to about 25° of Reaumur. Door after door was then heard to shut, and in a few minutes the passage became once again silent. A sort of wicker basket, containing a pan of burning embers, was afterwards given to any person who, for the sake of having warm towels, was willing to breathe carbonic acid gas.

As soon as the patient was ready to enter his bath, the first feeling which crossed his mind, as he stood shivering on the brink, was a disinclination to dip even the foot into a mixture which looked about as thick as a horse-pond, and about the colour of mullagitawny soup. However, having come as far as Langen-Schwalbach, there was nothing to say, but "_en avant_," and so, descending the steps, I got into stuff so deeply coloured with the red oxide of iron, that the body, when a couple of inches below the surface, was invisible. The temperature of the water felt neither hot nor cold; but I was no sooner immersed in it, than I felt it was evidently of a strengthening, bracing nature, and I could almost have fancied myself lying with a set of hides in a tan-pit. The half-hour, which every day I was sentenced to spend in this red decoction, was by far the longest in the twenty-four hours; and I was always very glad when my chronometer, which I always hung on a nail before my eyes, pointed permission to me to extricate myself from the mess. While the body was floating, hardly knowing whether to sink or swim, I found it was very difficult for the mind to enjoy any sort of recreation, or to reflect for two minutes on any one subject; and as half shivering I lay watching the minute hand of the dial, it appeared the slowest traveller in existence.

These baths are said to be very apt to produce head-ache, sleepiness, and other slightly apoplectic symptoms; but surely such effects must proceed from the silly habit of not immersing the head? The frame of man has beneficently been made capable of existing under the line, or near either of the poles of the earth. We know it can even live in an oven in which meat is baking; but, surely, if it were possible to send one half of the body to Iceland while the other was reclining on the banks of Fernando Po, the trial would be exceedingly severe; in as much as nature, never having contemplated such a vagary, has not thought it necessary to provide against it. In a less degree, the same argument applies to bathing, particularly in mineral waters; for even the common pressure of water on the portion of the body which is immersed in it, tends mechanically to push or force the blood towards that part (the head) enjoying a rarer medium; but when it is taken into calculation that the mineral mixture of Schwalbach acts on the body not only mechanically, by pressure, but medicinally, being a very strong astringent, there needs no wizard to account for the unpleasant sensations so often complained of.

For the above reason, I resolved that my head should fare alike with the rest of my system; in short, that it deserved to be strengthened as much as my limbs. It was equally old--had accompanied them in all their little troubles; and, moreover, often and often, when they had sunk down to rest, had it been forced to contemplate and provide for the dangers and vicissitudes of the next day. I, therefore, applied no half remedy--submitted to no partial operation--but resolved that, if the waters of Langen-Schwalbach were to make me invulnerable, the box which held my brains should humbly, but equally, partake of the blessing.

The way in which I bathed, with the reasons which induced me to do so, were mentioned to Dr. Fenner. He made no objection, but in silence shrugged up his shoulders. However, the fact is, in this instance, as well as in many others, he is obliged to prescribe no more than human nature is willing to comply with. And as Germans are not much in the habit of washing their heads,--and even if they were, as they would certainly refuse to dip their sculls into a mixture which stains the hair a deep-red-colour, upon which common soap has not the slightest detergent effect,--the doctor probably feels that he would only lose his influence were he publicly to undergo the defeat of being driven from a system which all men would agree to abominate; indeed, one has only to look at the ladies' flannel dresses which hang in the yard to dry, to read the truth of the above assertion.

These garments having been several times immersed in the bath, are stained as deep a red as if they had been rubbed with ochre or brickdust; yet the upper part of the flannel is quite as white, and, indeed, by comparison, appears infinitely whiter than ever: in short, without asking to see the owners, it is quite evident that, at Schwalbach, young ladies, and even old ones, cannot make up their minds to stain any part of their fabric which towers above their evening gowns; and, though the rest of their lovely persons are as red as the limbs of the American Indian, yet their faces and cheeks bloom like the roses of York and Lancaster; but the effect of these waters on the skin is so singular, that one has only to witness it to understand that it would be useless for the poor doctor to prescribe to ladies more than a pie-bald application of the remedy.

Although, of course, in coming out of the bath, the patient rubs himself dry, and apparently perfectly clean, yet the rust, by exercise, comes out so profusely, that not only is the linen of those people who bathe stained, but even their sheets are similarly discoloured; the dandy's neckcloth becomes red; and when the head has been immersed, the pillow in the morning looks as if a rusty thirteen-inch shell had been reposing on it.

To the servant who has cleaned the bath, filled it, and supplied it with towels, it is customary to give each day six kreuzers, amounting to twopence; and, as another example of the cheapness of German luxuries, I may observe, that, if a person chooses, instead of walking, to be carried in a sedan-chair, and brought back to his hof, the price fixed for the two journeys is--threepence.

Having now taken my bath, the next part of my daily sentence was, "to return to the place from whence I came, and there" to drink two more glasses of water from the Pauline. The weather having been unusually hot, in walking to the bath I was generally very much overpowered by the heat of the sun; but on leaving the mixture to walk to the Pauline, I always felt as if his rays were not as strong as myself; I really fancied that they glanced from my frame as from a polished cuirass; and, far from suffering, I enjoyed the walk, always remarking that the cold evaporation proceeding from wet hair formed an additional reason for preventing the blood from rushing upwards. The glass of cold sparkling water which, under the mid-day sun, I received after quitting the bath, from the healthy-looking old goddess of the Pauline, was delicious beyond the powers of description. It was infinitely more refreshing than iced soda water, and the idea that it was doing good instead of harm--that it was medicine, not luxury--added to it a flavour which the mind, as well as the body, seemed to enjoy.

What with the iron in my skin, the rust in my hair, and the warmth which this strengthening mixture imparted to my waistcoat, I always felt an unconquerable inclination to face the hill; and selecting a different path from the one I had taken in the morning, I seldom stopped until I had reached the tip-top of one of the many eminences which overhang the promenade and its _beau monde_.

The climate of this high table-land was always invigorating; and although the sun was the same planet which was scorching the saunterers in the valley beneath, yet its rays did not take the same hold upon the rare, subtile mountain air.

At this hour the peasants had descended into the town to dine. The fields were, consequently, deserted; yet it was pleasing to see where they had been toiling, and how much of the corn they had cut since yesterday. I derived pleasure from looking at the large heap of potatoes they had been extracting, and from observing that they had already begun to plough the stubble which only two days ago had been standing corn. Though neither man, woman, nor child were to be seen, it was, nevertheless, quite evident that they could only just have vanished; and though I had no fellow-creature to converse with, yet I enjoyed an old-fashioned pleasure in tracing on the ground marks where, at least, human beings had been.

Quite by myself I was loitering on these heights, when I heard the troop of Langen-Schwalbach cows coming through the great wood on my left; and wanting, at the moment, something to do, diving into the forest I soon succeeded in joining the gang. They were driven by a man and a woman, who received for every cow under their care forty-two kreuzers, or fourteen pence, for the six summer months: for this humble remuneration, they drove the cows of Schwalbach every morning into the great woods, to enjoy air and a very little food; three times a-day they conducted them home to be milked, and as often re-ascended to the forest. At the hours of assembling, the man blew a long, crooked, tin horn, which the cows and their proprietors equally well understood. Everybody must be aware, that it is not a very easy job to keep a set of cows together in a forest, as the young ones, especially, are always endeavouring to go astray; however, the two guides had each a curious sort of instrument by which they managed to keep them in excellent subjection. It consisted of a heavy stick about two feet long, with six iron rings, so placed that they could be shaken up and down; and, certainly, if it were to be exhibited at Smithfield, no being there, human or inhuman, would ever guess that it was invented for driving cows; and were he even to be told so, he would not conceive how it could possibly be used for that purpose. Yet, in Nassau, it is the regular engine for propelling cattle of all descriptions.

In driving the cows through the wood, I observed that the man and woman each kept on one flank, the herd leisurely proceeding before them; but if any of the cows attempted to stray--if any of them presumed to lie down--or if any one of them appeared to be in too earnest conversation with a great lumbering creature of her own species, distinguished by a ring through his nose, and a bright iron chain round his neck, the man, and especially the woman, gave two or three shakes with the ring, and if that lecture was not sufficient the stick, rings and all, flew through the air, inflicting a blow which really appeared sufficient to break a rib, and certainly much more than sufficient to dislodge an eye.

It was easy to calculate the force of this uncouth weapon, by the fear the poor animals entertained of it; and I observed, that no sooner did the woman shake it at an erring, disobedient cow, than the creature at once gave up the point, and hurried forwards.

In the stillness of the forest, nothing could sound wilder than the sudden rattling of these rings, and almost could one fancy that beings in chains were running between the trees. A less severe discipline would, probably, not be sufficient. However, I must record that the severity was exercised with a considerable proportion of discretion; for I particularly remarked that, when cows were in a certain interesting situation, their rude drivers, with unerring aim, always pelted them on the hocks.

Leaving the cows, and descending the mountain's side, I strolled through the little mountain hamlet of Wambach. In the middle of this simple retreat, there stood, overtopping most of the other dwellings, a tall slender hut, on the thatched roof of which was a wooden pent-house, containing a bell, which, three times a-day, tolled for reveille, noon-tide meal, and curfew. As the human tongue speaks by the impulse of the mind, so did this humble clapper move in obedience to the dictates of _a village watch_, which, when out of order, the parish was bound to repair.

From the upper windows of the principal house, I saw suspended festoons, or strings of apples cut in slices, and exposed to the sun to dry. A lad, smoking his pipe, was driving his mother's cow to fetch grass from the valley. Women, with pails in their hands, were proceeding towards the spring for water; others were returning to their homes heavily laden with fagots, while several of their idle children were loitering about before their doors.

But, as I had still another dose of water to drink from the Pauline, I hastened to the brunnen, and having emptied my glass (which, like the outside of a bottle of iced water, was instantaneously covered by condensation with dew), I found that it was time to prepare myself (as I beg leave to prepare my reader) for that very lengthy ceremony--a German dinner.

THE DINNER.

During the fashionable season at Langen-Schwalbach, the dinner hour at all the Saals is one o'clock. From about noon scarcely a stranger is to be seen; but a few minutes before the bell strikes one, the town exhibits a picture curious enough, when it is contrasted with the simple costume of the villagers, and the wild-looking country which surrounds them. From all the hofs and lodging-houses, a set of demure, quiet-looking, well-dressed people are suddenly disgorged, who, at a sort of funeral pace, slowly advance towards the Allee Saal, the Goldene Kette, the Kaiser Saal, and one or two other houses, _où l'on dîne_. The ladies are not dressed in bonnets, but in caps, most of which are quiet; the rest being of those indescribable shapes which are to be seen in London or Paris. Whether the stiff-stand-up frippery of bright-red ribands was meant to represent a house on fire, or purgatory itself--whether those immense white ornaments were intended for reefs of coral or not--it is out of my department to guess--ladies' caps being riddles only to be explained by themselves.

With no one to affront them--with no fine-powdered footman to attend them--with nothing but their appetites to direct them--and with their own quiet conduct to protect them--old ladies, young ladies, elderly gentlemen, and young ones, were seen slowly and silently picking their way over the rough pavement. There was no greediness in their looks; nor, as they proceeded, did they lick their lips, or show any other signs of possessing any appetite at all; they looked much more as if they were coming from a meal, than going to one: in short, they seemed to be thinking of anything in the dictionary but the word _dinner_. And when one contrasted or weighed the quietness of their demeanour, against the enormous quantity of provisions they were placidly about to consume, one could not help admitting that these Germans had certainly more self-possession, and could better muzzle their feelings, than many of the best-behaved people in the universe.

Seated at the table of the Allee Saal, I counted a hundred and eighty people at dinner in one room. To say, in a single word, whether the fare was good or bad, would be quite impossible, it being so completely different to anything ever met with in England.

To my simple taste, the cooking is most horrid; still there were now and then some dishes, particularly sweet ones, which I thought excellent. With respect to the made-dishes, of which there was a great variety, I beg to offer to the reader a formula I invented, which will teach him (should he ever come to Germany) what to expect. The simple rule is this:--let him taste the dish, and if it be not sour, he may be quite certain that it is greasy;--again, if it be not greasy, let him not eat thereof, for then it is sure to be sour. With regard to the order of the dishes, that, too, is unlike any thing which Mrs. Glasse ever thought of. After soup, which all over the world is the alpha of the gourmand's alphabet, the barren meat from which the said soup has been extracted is produced. Of course it is dry, tasteless, withered-looking stuff, which a Grosvenor-square cat would not touch with its whisker; but this dish is always attended by a couple of satellites--the one a quantity of cucumbers dressed in vinegar, the other a black, greasy sauce; and if you dare to accept a piece of this flaccid beef, you are instantly thrown between Scylla and Charybdis; for so sure as you decline the indigestible cucumber, souse comes into your plate a deluge of the greasy sauce! After the company have eaten heavily of messes which it would be impossible to describe, in comes some nice salmon--then fowls--then puddings--then meat again--then stewed fruit; and after the English stranger has fallen back in his chair quite beaten, a leg of mutton majestically makes its appearance!

I dined just two days at the Saals, and then bade adieu to them for ever. Nothing which this world affords could induce me to feed in this gross manner. The pig, who lives in his sty, would have some excuse; but it is really quite shocking to see any other animal overpowering himself at mid-day with such a mixture and superabundance of food. Yet only think what a compliment all this is to the mineral waters of Langen-Schwalbach; for if people who come here and live in this way morning, noon, and night can, as I really believe they do, return to their homes in better health than they departed, how much more benefit ought any one to derive, who, maintaining a life of simplicity and temperance, would resolve to give them a fair trial! In short, if the cold iron waters of the Pauline can be of real service to a stomach full of vinegar and grease, how much more effectually ought they to tinker up and repair the inside of him who has sense enough to sue them _in formâ pauperis_.