I am not going to describe either the baths themselves, or the customs which prevail in making use of them. Enough is done when I state that, in addition to the public establishments, where the humbler classes take the waters gratuitously, there are somewhere about ninety private bathing houses in the place, the demand for which, during the height of the season, is such that you must bespeak your turn at least a day or two beforehand, and adhere to the appointed minute religiously. For nobody is allowed to remain in the bathing-room more than three-quarters of an hour at a time, one quarter out of the four being claimed as necessary to clean out and prepare the apartment for the next visiter. The waters, I need scarcely add, belong to the class of alkalo-saline, and take their rise among the Erzgebirge, or Ore Mountains, hard by. They are extremely hot, and are regarded as especially useful in all cases of rheumatic or gouty affections. It is worthy of remark, that the Austrian medical officers send the valetudinary among the soldiers to these baths from a very great distance. When I was there, I saw detachments belonging to almost all the regiments which occupy quarters in Bohemia; and I was given to understand that they had come thither as invalids, and would, when cured, return to their respective stations. The Germans, though not famous for their hospitality, are proverbially a gregarious people; and at Toeplitz, and indeed at all the watering-places, they appear to live in public. There are tables-d'hote at all the principal hotels, where, both at dinner and supper, the company meet on terms of the most easy familiarity. To enhance the pleasure of the feast, moreover, Bohemian minstrels,--not unfrequently women,--come and sit down in the Saal while you are eating, and sing and play with equal taste and harmony. While this is going on within, dense crowds collect about the doors and windows in the street, with whose proximity,--as the genuine love of music attracts them, and they are as orderly and well-behaved as the most fastidious could desire,--no human being is, or can be, annoyed. By-and-by, the meal comes to a close, and then the guests either sally forth to enjoy the fresh air in the Prince of Clari's garden, or sit down on benches along the trottoir, and smoke their pipes as contentedly and joyously as if they were a thousand miles removed from an Englishman's horror,--the public eye. I dare say there might be some tincture of prejudice about me, but I confess that I regretted to see the clergy fall in so freely with this latter custom. A priest smoking his pipe on a form, in a public street, beside the window of an inn, did not appear to me to be quite in his legitimate position.