Читать книгу Bubbles from the Brunnens of Nassau - Francis Bond Sir Head - Страница 6

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At a quarter past five I arose, and as soon after as possible left the “hof.” Every house was open, the streets already swept, the inhabitants all up, the living world appeared broad awake, and there was nothing to denote the earliness of the hour, but the delicious freshness of the cool mountain air; which as yet, unenfeebled by the sun, just beaming above the hill, was in that pure state, in which it had all night long been slumbering in the valley. The face of nature seemed beaming with health, and though there were no larks at Schwalbach gently “to carol at the morn,” yet immense red German slugs were everywhere in my path, looking wetter, colder, fatter, and happier than they or I have words to express. They had evidently been gorging themselves during the night, and were now crawling into shelter to sleep away the day.

As soon as, getting from beneath the shaded walk of the Allee Saal, I reached the green valley leading to the Pauline brunnen, it was quite delightful to look at the grass, as it sparkled in the sun, every green blade being laden with dew in such heavy particles, that there seemed to be quite as much water as grass; indeed the crop was actually bending under the weight of nourishment which, during the deep silence of night, Nature had liberally imparted to it; and it was evident that the sun would have to rise high in the heavens before it could attain strength enough to rob the turf of this fertilizing and delicious treasure.

At this early hour, I found but few people on the walks, and on reaching the brunnen, the first agreeable thing I received there was a smile from a very honest, homely, healthy old woman, who having seen me approaching, had selected from her table my glass, the handle of which she had marked by a piece of tape.

“Guten morgen!” she muttered; and then, without at all deranging the hospitality of her smile, stooping down, she dashed the vessel into the brunnen beneath her feet, and in a sort of civil hurry (lest any of its spirit should escape), she presented me with a glass of her eau médicinale. Clear as crystal, sparkling with carbonic acid gas, and effervescing quite as much as champagne, it was nevertheless miserably cold; and the first morning, what with the gas, and what with the low temperature of this cold iron water, it was about as much as I could do to swallow it; and, for a few seconds, feeling as if it had sluiced my stomach completely by surprise, I stood hardly knowing what was about to happen, when, instead of my teeth chattering, as I expected, I felt the water suddenly grow warm within my waistcoat, and a slight intoxication, or rather exhilaration, succeeded.

As I have always had an unconquerable aversion to walking backwards and forwards on a formal parade, as soon as I had drank my first glass I at once commenced ascending the hill which rises immediately from the brunnen. Paths in zigzags are cut in various directions in the wood, but so steep, that very few of the water-drinkers like to encounter them. I found the trees to be oak and beech, the ground beneath being covered with grass and heather, among which were, growing wild, quantities of ripe strawberries and raspberries. The large red snails were in great abundance, and immense black-beetles were also in the paths, heaving at, and pushing upwards, loads of dung, &c., very much bigger than themselves; the grass and heather were soaked with dew, and even the strawberries looked much too wet to be eaten. However, I may observe, that while drinking mineral waters, all fruit, wet or dry, is forbidden. Smothered up in the wood, there was, of course, nothing to be seen; but as soon as I gained the summit of the hill, a very pretty hexagonal rustic hut, built of trees with the bark on, and thatched with heather, presented itself. The sides were open, excepting two, which were built up with sticks and moss. A rough circular table was in the middle, upon which two or three young people had cut their names; and round the inner circumference of the hut there was a bench, on which I was glad enough to rest, while I enjoyed the extensive prospect.

The features of this picture, so different from any thing to be seen in England, were exceedingly large, and the round rolling clouds seemed bigger even than the distant mountains upon which they rested. Not a fence was to be seen, but dark patches of wood, of various shapes and sizes, were apparently dropped down upon the cultivated surface of the country, which, as far as the eye could reach, looked like the fairy park of some huge giant. In the foreground, however, small fields, and little narrow strips of land, denoted the existence of a great number of poor proprietors; and even if Langen-Schwalbach had not been seen crouching at the bottom of its deep valley, it would have been quite evident that, in the immediate neighbourhood, there must be, somewhere or other, a town; for, in many places, the divisions of land were so small, that one could plainly distinguish provender growing for the poor man’s cow,—the little patch of rye which was to become bread for his children—and the half-acre of potatoes which was to help them through the winter. Close to the town, these divisions and subdivisions were exceedingly small; but when every little family had been provided for, the fields grew larger; and at a short distance from where I sat, there were crops, ripe and waving, which were evidently intended for a larger and more distant market.

As soon as I had sufficiently enjoyed the freshness and the freedom of this interesting landscape, it was curious to look down from the hut upon the walk which leads from the Allee Saal to the brunnen or well of Pauline; for, by this time, all ranks of people had arisen from their beds, and the sun being now warm, the beau monde of Langen-Schwalbach was seen slowly loitering up and down the promenade.

At the rate of about a mile and a half an hour, I observed several hundred quiet people crawling through and fretting away that portion of their existence which lay between one glass of cold iron water and another. If an individual were to be sentenced to such a life, which, in fact, has all the fatigue without the pleasing sociability of the treadmill, he would call it melancholy beyond endurance; yet there is no pill which fashion cannot gild, or which habit cannot sweeten. I remarked that the men were dressed, generally, in loose, ill-made, snuff-coloured great coats, with awkward travelling caps, of various shapes, instead of hats. The picture, therefore, taking it altogether, was a homely one; but, although there were no particularly elegant or fashionable-looking people, although their gait was by no means attractive, yet even, from the lofty distant hut, I felt it was impossible to help admiring the good sense and good feeling with which all the elements of this German community appeared to be harmonizing one with the other. There was no jostling, or crowding; no apparent competition; no turning round to stare at strangers. There was no “martial look nor lordly stride,” but real genuine good breeding seemed natural to all: it is true there was nothing which bore a very high aristocratic polish; yet it was equally evident that the substance of their society was intrinsically good enough not to require it.

The behaviour of such a motley assemblage of people, who belonged, of course, to all ranks and conditions of life, in my humble opinion, did them and their country very great credit. It was quite evident that every man on the promenade, whatever might have been his birth, was desirous to behave like a gentleman; and that there was no one, however exalted was his station, who wished to do any more.

That young lady, rather more quietly dressed than the rest of her sex, is the Princess Leuenstein; her countenance (could it but be seen from the hut) is as unassuming as her dress, and her manner as quiet as her bonnet. Her husband, who is one of the group of gentlemen behind her, is mild, gentlemanlike, and (if in these days such a title may, without offence, be given to a young man), I would add—he is modest.

There are one or two other princes on the promenade, with a very fair sprinkling of dukes, counts, barons, &c.

“There they go, altogether in a row!”

but though they congregate,—though like birds of a feather they flock together, is there, I ask, anything arrogant in their behaviour? and that respect which they meet with from every one, does it not seem to be honestly their due? That uncommonly awkward, short, little couple, who walk holding each other by the hand, and who, apropos to nothing, occasionally break playfully into a trot, are a Jew and Jewess lately married; and, as it is whispered that they have some mysterious reason for drinking the waters, the uxorious anxiety with which the little man presents the glass of cold comfort to his herring-made partner, does not pass completely unobserved. That slow gentleman, with such an immense body, who seems to be acquainted with the most select people on the walk, is an ambassador, who goes nowhere—no, not even to mineral waters, without his French cook, a circumstance quite enough to make everybody speak well of him—a very honest, good-natured man he seems to be; but as he walks, can anything be more evident than that his own cook is killing him, and what possible benefit can a few glasses of cold water do to a corporation which Falstaff’s belt would be too short to encircle?

Often and often have I pitied Diogenes for having lived in a tub; but this poor ambassador is infinitely worse off, for the tub, it is too evident, lives in him, and carry it about with him he must wherever he goes; but, without smiling at any more of my water companions, it is time I should descend to drink my second and third glass. One would think that this deluge of cold water would leave little room for tea and sugar; but miraculous as it may sound, by the time I got to my “hof,” there was as much stowage in the vessel as when she sailed; besides this, the steel created an appetite which it was very difficult to govern.

As soon as breakfast was over, I generally enjoyed the luxury of idling about the town; and, in passing the shop of a blacksmith, who lived opposite to the Goldene Kette, the manner in which he tackled and shod a vicious horse always amused me. On the outside wall of the house, two rings were firmly fixed; to one of which the head of the patient was lashed close to the ground; the hind foot, to be shod, stretched out to the utmost extent of the leg, was then secured to the other ring about five feet high, by a cord which passed through a cloven hitch, fixed to the root of the poor creature’s tail.

The hind foot was consequently very much higher than the head; indeed, it was so exalted, and pulled so heavily at the tail, that the animal seemed to be quite anxious to keep his other feet on terra firma. With one hoof in the heavens, it did not suit him to kick; with his nose pointing to the infernal regions, he could not conveniently rear; and as the devil himself was apparently pulling at his tail, the horse at last gave up the point, and quietly submitted to be shod.

Nearly opposite to this blacksmith, sitting under the projecting eaves of the Goldene Kette, there were to be seen, every day, a row of women with immense baskets of fruit, which they had brought over the hills, on their heads. The cherries were of the largest and finest description, while the quantity of their stones lying on the paved street, was quite sufficient to show at what a cheap rate they were sold. Plums, apricots, greengages, apples, and pears, were also in the greatest profusion; however, in passing these baskets, strangers were strictly ordered to avert their eyes. In short, whenever raw fruit and mineral water unexpectedly meet each other in the human stomach, a sort of bubble-and-squeak contest invariably takes place—the one always endeavouring to turn the other out of the house.

The crowd of idle boys, who like wasps were always hovering round these fruit-selling women, I often observed very amusingly dispersed by the arrival of some German grandee in his huge travelling carriage. For at least a couple of minutes before the thing appeared, the postilion, as he descended the mountain, was heard, attempting to notify to the town the vast importance of his cargo, by playing on his trumpet a tune which, in tone and flourish, exactly resembled that which, in London, announces the approach of Punch. There is something always particularly harsh and discordant in the notes of a trumpet badly blown; but when placed to the lips of a great lumbering German postilion, who, half smothered in his big boots and tawdry finery, has, besides this crooked instrument, to hold the reins of two wheel horses, as well as of two leaders, his attempt, in such deep affliction, to be musical, is comic in the extreme; and, when the fellow at last arrived at the Goldene Kette, playing a tune which I expected every moment would make the head of Judy pop out of the carriage, one could not help feeling that, if the money which that trumpet cost had been spent in a pair of better spurs, it would have been of much more advantage and comfort to the traveller; but German posting always reminds me of the remark which the Black Prince was one day heard to utter, as he was struggling with all his might to shave a pig.

However, though I most willingly join my fellow-countrymen in ridiculing the tawdry heavy equipment of the German postilion, one’s nose always feeling disposed to turn itself upwards at the sight of a horseman awkwardly encumbered with great, unmeaning, yellow worsted tassels, and other broad ornaments, which seem better adapted to our fourpost bedsteads than to a rider, yet I reluctantly acknowledge that I do verily believe their horses are much more scientifically harnessed, for slow heavy draught, than ours are in England.

Many years have now elapsed since I first observed that, somehow or other, the horses on the Continent manage to pull a heavy carriage up a steep hill, or along a dead level, with greater ease to themselves than our English horses. Let any unprejudiced person attentively observe with what little apparent fatigue three small ill-conditioned animals will draw not only his own carriage, but very often that huge overgrown vehicle, the French diligence, or the German eil-wagen, and I think he must admit that, somewhere or other, there exists a mystery.

But the whole equipment is so unsightly—the rope harness is so rude—the horses without blinkers look so wild—there is so much bluster and noise in the postilion, that, far from paying any compliment to the turn-out, one is very much disposed at once to condemn the whole thing, and not caring a straw whether such horses be fatigued or not, to make no other remark than that, in England, they would have travelled at nearly twice the rate, with one-tenth of the noise.

But neither the rate nor the noise is the question which I wish to consider; for our superiority in the former, and our inferiority in the latter, cannot be doubted. The thing I want, if possible, to account for, is, how such small weak horses do manage to draw one’s carriage up hill, with so much unaccountable ease to themselves.

Now, in English, French, and German harness, there exist, as it were, three degrees of comparison in the manner in which the head of the horse is treated; for, in England, it is elevated, or borne up, by what we call the bearing-rein; in France, it is left as nature placed it (there being to common French harness no bearing-rein); while, in Germany, the head is tied down to the lower extremity of the collar, or else the collar is so made that the animal is by it deprived of the power of raising his head.

Now, it is undeniable that the English extreme and the German extreme cannot both be right; and passing over for a moment the French method, which is, in fact, the state of nature, let us for a moment consider which is best, to bear a horse’s head up, as in England, or to pull it downwards, as in Germany. In my humble opinion, both are wrong: still there is some science in the German error; whereas in our treatment of the poor animal, we go directly against all mechanical calculation.

In a state of nature, the wild horse (as every-body knows) has two distinct gaits or attitudes. If man, or any still wilder beast, come suddenly upon him, up goes his head; and as he first stalks and then trots gently away, with ears erect, snorting with his nose and proudly snuffing up the air, as if exulting in his freedom; as one fore-leg darts before the other, one sees before one a picture of doubt, astonishment, and hesitation,—all of which feelings seem to rein him, like a troop-horse, on his haunches; but attempt to pursue him, and the moment he defies you—the moment, determining to escape, he shakes his head, and lays himself to his work, how completely does he alter his attitude!—for then down goes his head, and from his ears to the tip of his tail, there is in his vertebræ an undulating action which seems to propel him, which works him along, and which, it is evident, you could not deprive him of, without materially diminishing his speed.

Now, in harness, the horse has naturally the same two gaits or attitudes; and it is quite true that he can start away with a carriage, either in the one or the other; but the means by which he succeeds in this effort, the physical powers which, in each case, he calls into action, are essentially different; for in the one attitude he works by his muscles, and in the other by his own dead, or rather living, weight. In order to grind corn, if any man were to erect a steam-engine over a fine, strong, running stream, we should all say to him, “Why do you not allow your wheel to be turned by cold water instead of by hot? Why do you not avail yourself of the weight of the water, instead of expending your capital in converting it into the power of steam? In short, why do you not use the simple resource which nature has presented ready made to your hand?” In the same way, the Germans might say to us, “We acknowledge a horse can drag a carriage by the power of his muscles, but why do you not allow him to drag it by his weight?”

In France, and particularly in Germany, horses do draw by the weight; and it is to encourage them to raise up their backs, and lean downwards with their heads, that the German collars are made in the way I have described; that with a certain degree of rude science, the horse’s nose is tied to the bottom of his collar, and that the postilion at starting, speaking gently to him, allows him to get himself into a proper attitude for his draught.

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.