Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. IIGleig, G. R. (George Robert)
History
Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II
Gleig, G. R. (George Robert)
Austria -- Description and travel; Bohemia (Czech Republic) -- Description and travel; Germany -- Description and travel
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
shillings,--a practical illustration 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 coarse 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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