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CHAPTER VI
Dr. Fowler's Prescription—Carlsbad—"A Matlocky sort of a Place"—Springs and Swallows—Tasting the Water—The Cliffs and Terraces—Comical Signs—The Wiese and its Frequenters—Disease and Health—The Sprudel: its Discharge; its Deposit—The Stoppage—Volcanic Phenomena—Dr. Granville's Observations—Care's Rest—Dreikreuzberg—View from the Summit—König Otto's Höhe—"Are you here for the Cure?"—Lenten Diet—Hirschsprung—The Trumpeters—Two Florins for a Bed.
"To lie abed till you are done enough," says Dr. Fowler, of Salisbury, "is the way to promote health and long life;" and he justifies his assertion by living to the age of ninety, with promise of adding yet somewhat to the number. Remembering this, I let duty and inclination have their way the next morning, and the market-women in front of the inn had nearly sold off their baskets of flowers and vegetables before I set out to explore the wonders of Carlsbad.
"It's a Matlocky sort of a place!" cried a young lady, as I passed an elegant party, who were sauntering about the pleasant grounds behind the Theresienbrunn—"it's a Matlocky sort of a place!" And a merry laugh followed the iteration of her ingenious adjective. That it is not altogether inappropriate is apparent as soon as you arrive on the upper terrace and overlook a small town, lying deep between hills on either side of the Teple, a shallow and sharply-curved stream.
All the springs but two are on the left bank, a few yards from the water's edge. There is a little architectural display in the buildings by which they are covered: a domed roof, supported on columns, or a square, temple-like structure, flanked by colonnades. The water flows into a cavity, more or less deeply sunk below the surface, surrounded by stone steps, on which sit the nimble lasses, priestesses of health, who every morning from six to ten are busily employed in dispensing the exhaustless medicine. A few vase-like cups stand ready for use; but numbers of the visitors bring their own glass, carried as a bouquet in the hand, of tasteful Bohemian manufacture, striped with purple or ruby, and some of the purest white. All are made of the same size—to contain six ounces—and a few have a species of dial attached, by which to keep count of the number of doses swallowed. The visitors, having their glasses filled at the fountain, walk up or down the colonnade, or along the paths of the pleasure-ground, listening to music, or form little groups for a morning gossip, and sip and chat alternately till the glasses are emptied. The rule is to wait a quarter-hour between each refilling, so that a patient condemned to a dozen glasses dissipates three hours in the watery task. The number imbibed depends on the complaint and constitution: in some instances four glasses are taken; in others, from twenty to forty.
I tasted each spring as I came to it, and felt no inclination to repeat the experiment. The temperature of the Theresienbrunn is 134 deg., of the Mühlbrunn 138 deg., of the Neubrunn 144 deg., in itself a cause of dislike, especially in hot weather, and much more so when combined with a disagreeable bitter, and a flavour which I can only compare to a faint impression of the odour of a dissecting-room. No wonder some of the drinkers shudder as they swallow their volcanic physic! But more about the waters after we have seen the Sprudel.
In some places the cliff comes so near to the stream that there is no more than room for a colonnade, or narrow road, and here and there the path, stopped by a projecting rock, is carried round the rear of the obstacle by little intricate zigzags. And every minute you come to some ramifications of the narrow lanes, which here, so limited and valuable is the space, serve the purpose of streets, and afford ready access to the heights above. The houses rise tier over tier, in short rows, or perched singly on curious platforms excavated from the rock, in situations where back windows would be useless. The topmost dwellers have thus an opportunity to amuse their idleness by a bird's-eye view of what their neighbours are doing below. From May to September the influx of visitors is so great that every house is full of inmates.
As every house has its sign or designation, ingenuity has been not a little taxed to avoid repetitions. One ambitious proprietor writes up At the King of England; another, contenting himself with his native tongue, has König von England; a third, English House. A little farther, and you see Captain Cook; The Comet; The Aurora; and many varieties of Rings, Spoons, and Musical Instruments. Israelitisch Restauration notifies the tribes of a dining-room; here The Admiral, there The Corporal, yonder The Pasha claims attention; and in a steep street leading towards Prague I saw The A B C. And here and there a doll in a glass-case fixed to the wall, representing St. Anne—a favourite saint of the Bohemians—looks down on the sauntering visitors.
Continuing up the left bank you enter the market-place, where the indications of life and business multiply, and a throng are sipping around the Marktbrunn. This spring burst up from under the paving-stones in 1838; a temple was built over it, and ever since it has served as a temple of ease to some of the more crowded springs. A little farther, and you come to the Wiese, or meadow, which retains no more of grass than Hatton-garden does of gravelled paths and flower-beds: a row of houses and shops on one side, on the other a line of wooden booths concealing the river, and all between planted with trees which shelter an irregular regiment of chairs and tables. Here is the place where visitors most do congregate, pacing leisurely to and fro, or lounging on the chairs in front of the cafés, gossiping over the newspapers, or trifling around the stalls and shop windows.
A remarkable throng, truly! Some with an air highly dignified and aristocratic; but the greater part somewhat grotesque in appearance. Graceful ladies with those ungraceful sprawling bonnets not uncommon in Germany; men, lanky and angular, and short and round, and square and awkward, wearing astonishing wide-awakes. Such a variety of loose, baggy trousers, magnificent waistcoats, and gauzy gowns, that look impalpable almost as a cloud! Here comes a Polish Jew with manifest signs of having remained unclean beyond more than one evening; here a Czechish count, who has not forgotten his military paces; here a spectacled professor, with boots turned up peak-wise, and toes turned broadly out; here a group of Hebrews glittering with jewelry; and here a miscellaneous crowd from all the countries of Europe, but Germans the most numerous. Of English very few. There is nothing stiff or formal about them; to make things pleasant seems to be a tacit understanding, for disease has brought them all to one common level. All are animated by the hope of cure, and find therein an inspiration towards gaiety.
But who shall be gay in an hospital, among sallow, haggard faces, sunken eyes, and ghastly features? Some you see who, preyed upon by disease for years, have well-nigh lost all faith in the smiler who lingers so long at the bottom of the box; some afflicted by hypochondriasis appear to wonder that the sun should shine, that others can be happy while they themselves are so miserable. The lively fiddles, and twanging harps, and jingling tambourines—the Tyrolese minstrels—the glib conjuror, all fail to bring a flash of joy back to their deadened eye; to win for mirth one responsive thrill. I have never been more thankfully sensible of the blessing of robust health, than while strolling on the Wiese at Carlsbad.
What with its many stalls and shops, the Wiese resembles a bazaar. All sorts of trifles and knick-knacks tempt the visitor, and entice money from the purse. Among queer-looking toys you see Windsor Soap labelled in good, honest English; pipes, ribands, and pocket-books, fans, satchels, and jewelry, among specimens of Sprudelstein, and crystals and minerals, from the surrounding hills. Money-changers abound; and polyglot placards—English, French, German, Czechish, Hungarian—everywhere meet the eye. And not only here, but all over the town, brisk signs of business and prosperity are apparent. But to quote the gossip of my hostess, "many in Carlsbad have to endure hunger during the winter." The place is then deserted, for the season lasts only from May to September.
Turn into a short Gasse from the market-place, cross the foot-bridge, and you will see a Geyser without the fatigue of a voyage to Iceland. It is the far-famed Sprudel, or Bubbler. At one end of a colonnade open to the river on the right bank, a living column of water springs perpetually from the ground. Through an orifice in the centre of a basin about three feet deep, the water leaps and plays with a noise of gurgling, splashing, and bubbling, to a height of six or eight feet, and throwing off clouds of steam. Now it forms a column with palm-leafed capital—now a number of jets tumbling over in graceful curves—now broken, fan-like masses, all throbbing and dancing in obedience to the vigorous pulsations under ground. There is something fascinating in the sight. Allowing for the artificial elevation of the floor, the whole height of the jet is about twelve feet; and so has it leaped for ages, and with but one interruption since its fabulous discovery in the fourteenth century.
The Sprudel is the hottest of the springs, scalding hot, in fact, marking a temperature of 167 deg. Fahrenheit: hence the attendant Naiads—here a couple of strong-armed women—make use of a cup fixed to one end of a staff for filling the glasses. When a visitor approaches, the staff is held out to receive the glass; and after a plunge into the steaming jet, is handed back to the expectant drinker, who, taking his glass from the cup, swallows the contents at pleasure—if he can. The drinkers were but few when I came up, for ten o'clock was nigh; stragglers, who having arrived late, were sipping their last glasses—some not without a shudder. While the dose cooled, they examined the heads of walking-sticks, snuff-boxes, seals, and other specimens of Sprudelstein, on sale at a stall; or the time-tables and advertisement photographs hanging about the colonnade. The Naiads, in the interval, emptied ladles full of the water into stone-bottles, which a man rapidly corked in a noisy machine.
The waste water flows away along a wooden shoot to the river, where it sends small light wreaths of steam floating about on the surface. But I saw nothing at all like what has been often described as a cloud of steam perpetually hovering above the Sprudel, visible from afar. Regarded near at hand, or from a distance, there is no cloud visible in July, whatever may be the case in the cool months.
The quantity of water poured out every day by the Sprudel alone is estimated at two million gallons. Multiplied by 365, it becomes truly amazing. In this quantity, as shown by Gilbert, a German chemist, ten thousand tons of Glauber salt, and fifteen thousand tons of carbonate of soda are thrown up in a year. And this has been going on from immemorial ages, the waters depositing calcareous matter in their outflow, which has slowly formed a crust over the vast boiling reservoir beneath. And on this crust Carlsbad is built.
The constituents of all the springs, as proved by analyses, are identical with those of the Sprudel—soda in the form of carbonate, Glauber salt, and common salt; carbonic acid gas, and traces of iron and iodine. Bitumen is also found in a notable quantity, and a peculiar soapy substance, a species of animal matter, the cause, perhaps, of the cadaverous flavour already mentioned. The water, which when first caught is bright and clear, becomes turbid if left to cool, and throws down a pale-brown sediment. Ehrenberg, the celebrated microscopist of Berlin, who has examined specimens of this sediment under his microscope, declares it to be composed of fossil animalcules inconceivably minute; these animalcules being a portion of the material out of which Nature builds up the solid strata of the globe. Some patients have feared to drink the water because of the concreting property; but the medical authorities assure that in this respect it produces no injurious effect on the animal economy. Shopkeepers turn it to profit, and offer you fruits, flowers, plants, and other objects, petrified by the Sprudel water.
The roof of the colonnade above the spring is discoloured by the ascending steam; and standing on the bridge you can see how the wall is incrusted with calcareous matter, as, also, the big hump swelling up from the bed of the stream—a smooth ochreous coat, brightened in places by amber, in others darkened into a rich brown, or dyed with shades of green. This concretion is the Sprudelstein, or Sprudel-stone, noticed above; firm and hard in texture, and susceptible of a beautiful polish. A portion of the waste water is led into an adjoining building, where it undergoes evaporation to obtain the constituent salts in a dry state for exportation. From the other shoot, as it falls into the river, supplies are constantly dipped by the townsfolk, who use it to cook their eggs, to scald pork and poultry, and other purposes. All day long you may see women filling and carrying away on their shoulders big bucketfuls of the steaming water. Notwithstanding this constant inflow of hot water, the Teple appears to agree with fish, for I saw numbers swimming about in good condition but a short distance lower down. As a stream, it adds little to the salubrity of Carlsbad, for it is shallow, sluggish in places, and tainted by noisome drainage. Another cause of offence to the nostrils exists in what is so often complained of on the Continent, the obtrusive situation of the latrinæ at the principal springs. Only in England are such matters properly cared for.
In 1809, and for ten years thereafter, the Sprudel ceased to flow, and the water broke through at a spot some fifty feet distant, to which the name Hygieas Quelle was given. Here it continued to play till 1819, when it reappeared at the former source, and from that date there has been no interruption in the copious discharge of the Sprudel. The underground action is at times so powerful as to rend the crust and form new openings, and these, if large, have to be stopped, to prevent the loss of the springs. The yellow hump mentioned as swelling up from the river's bed, is nothing but a thick mass of masonry, braced together by iron bars, covering a great rent through which the waters once boiled up from below. Similar outbreaks occurred in 1713, and again fourteen years later, when attempts were made to ascertain the depth of the great subterranean reservoir by splicing poles together to a length of one hundred and eighty feet, but neither bottom nor wall could be touched in any direction. The hills around are of granite, containing mica and pyrites, and one of them, the Hirschsprung, is said to be the source of all the Carlsbad springs. Their bases come near together, and it is easy to imagine a huge cavern formed between them descending deep down into the bowels of the earth.
As regards the efficacy of the Carlsbad waters, let us hear Dr. Granville, an authority on the subject: "They exert their principal sanative action," he says, "1st, on all chronic affections which depend on debility of the digestive organs, accompanied by the accumulation of improper secretions; 2ndly, on all obstructions, particularly of the abdomen, which, as Becher, the oracle of Carlsbad, observes, they resolve and disperse; 3rdly, on the acrimony of the blood, which they correct, alter, evacuate, or drive towards the extremities and the surface of the body; 4thly, on calculous and gravelly deposits; 5thly, on many occult and serious disorders, the nature of which is not readily ascertained until after the partial use of the waters, such as tic doloreux, spasms, rheumatisms, and gout."
As if here were not virtues sufficient, the Doctor proceeds: "My own experience warrants me in commending the Carlsbad waters in all obstinate cases of induration, tumefaction, tenderness, and sluggish action of the liver; in imperfect or suppressed gout; in paralysis, dependent on the stomach, and not fulness of blood in the head; in cases of tic and nervous disorders; finally, in obstructions of the glands of the mesentery, and distended state of the splenetic vessels." The effect on stones in the bladder is almost magical, so promptly are they polished, reduced, rendered friable, and expelled, leaving the patient a happy example of perfect cure.
"It is the despondent," to quote once more from the Doctor, "the dejected, misanthropic, fidgetty, pusillanimous, irritable, outrageous, morose, sulky, weak-minded, whimsical, and often despairing hypochondriac—for he is all these, and each in turn—made so by continued indigestion, by obstinate and unremitting gout, by affections of the nerves of sympathy and of the gastric region, and by other equally active causes, that Carlsbad seems pre-eminently to favour." After reading this, the wonder is, not that the visitors number from five to six thousand in the course of the season, but that they are not ten times as many.
The Doctor finds nothing nauseous in the taste of the water. "Once arrived in the stomach," he says, "it produces an exhilarating sensation, which spreads itself to the intestinal canal generally." To him I leave the responsibility of this statement; for, preferring to let well alone, I sipped by spoonfuls only, and can therefore bring no testimony from my own experience. The practice of drinking the waters has almost set aside the once exclusive practice of bathing; but baths are always to be had, as well of mud and vapour as of the water of the springs.
Now, after this stroll through the town, let us take a wider survey. As we follow the street down the right bank, we see parties setting off in carriages for excursions to the neighbourhood, and rows of vehicles in the open places ticketed, Return to Marienbad, to Eger, to Töplitz, to Zwickau, and the like, and drivers on the alert for what your London cab-driver calls "a job." A short distance beyond the Morgenstern a path zigzags gradually up the hill and brings you soon under the shade of trees, and to many little nooks and sheltered seats contrived for delightful repose. One remote bower, apparently but little frequented, is inscribed, Care's Rest: make thyself happy. A little farther, and crossing a carriage-road, we come to a temple where you may have another rest, and enjoy at the same time the opening panorama. From hence the paths zigzag onwards to the top of the Dreikreuzberg—Three-Cross Hill—by easy shady slopes, which even a short-winded patient may ascend, while those with strong legs may shorten the distance by the steep cut-offs. An agreeable surprise awaits you at the top: a large, well-kept garden, gay and fragrant with flowers, surrounded by arbours of clipped fir, and a graceful screen of trees, while at one side stands a spacious Restauration—all clean and cheerful of aspect. From an elevated platform, or from the arched recesses on the terrace in front of the garden, you see all Carlsbad and the hilly region around.
Now you see how singularly crooked is the narrow valley in which the town is built; how the white houses gleam from the steep green sides of the farther hills, and straggle away to the wooded hollow at the head of the valley, from whence the river issues in a shining curve. In and out flows the stream past the church, past the springs and public buildings, cutting the town in two, on its way to fall into the Eger. Your eye takes in the life of the streets, the goings to and fro, but on a reduced scale—such tiny men and women, and little carriages! 'Tis as if one were looking into Lilliput. Opposite rises the precipitous rocky hill, the Hirschsprung, to the craggy summit of which we shall climb by-and-by; and beyond it, ridgy summits, away to the gloomy expanse of the Schlaggenwald. Many are the paths that penetrate the rearward valleys, and white roads curving along the hill-sides high above Carlsbad, and far up the distant slopes. Altogether the view is striking, and somewhat romantic; yet in the eyes of the Germans fresh from their flat, uninteresting country, it is "wunderschön"—an epithet which they never tire of heaping on the landscape.
From the garden a path leads along the ridge to a higher elevation, where the three tall crosses, seen for miles around, spring from a rocky knoll at the rear of a small semicircular opening, enclosed by firs, prettily intermingled with beech and birch. Heath and yellow broom grow from crevices in the rocks, and the wild thyme, crushed by your foot, fills the air with aromatic sweetness, for the spot is left to the nurture of the winds and the rain. It commands the same view as from the garden; but with a wider scope, and the town lying at a greater depth.
The path still curving along the ridge brings you presently to König Otto's Höhe—King Otto's Height—the highest point of the hill. This is also an untrimmed spot, with two or three seats, and a fluted granite column, surmounted by a globe and star, rising in the midst. You now look over some of the nearer hills, and get fresh peeps into the valleys, discovering topographical secrets. Raised high into the region of cooling breezes, yet easily accessible, it is a pleasant place for quiet recreation.
I took the shortest way down from Otto's Height, crossing the rough declivity and the fields that stretch far up the lower slope of the hill, and made a circuit to Findlater's monument at the upper extremity of Carlsbad. From the eminence on which it is erected you get a new prospect of the town, and up the valley of umbrageous retreats much resorted to by visitors on sultry afternoons.
On my way back to the Morgenstern I had another look at the Sprudel. The place was now deserted; the Naiads had departed; the stall-keeper had locked her glazed doors and withdrawn; and there was nothing near to subdue the vivid rushing sound of the water. So to remain till evening, when a few anxious patients would appear to quaff new draughts of health.
The inn was in all the bustle of dinner, after the manner of a table d'hôte, but without its formality—twenty little tables instead of a single large one. By this arrangement the guests formed small parties, and ate and chatted at pleasure. Many came in who were not lodgers in the house—among them a countess, from Moravia, to whom no more attention was paid, nor did she appear to expect it, than to the others. The absence of stiffness was, indeed, an agreeable characteristic of the company, who were mostly Germans.
"Are you here for the cure?" said an old gentleman who sat opposite me, and looked at my tankard of beer and salad with an air of surprise. "Are you not afraid?"
My answer reassured him. Visitors who come to drink the waters are required by medical authority to conform to a simple regimen. To eat no salad, fruit, or vegetables—to drink no beer or wine—to eat no bread. The exceptional cases are rare; hence the provision consists but of sundry preparations of meat, decanters of water, pudding resembling boiled pound-cake, and baskets of small rolls. The latter, made of wheaten flour, are not recognised as bread, but come under the common term, Semmel—the simmel of which we read in descriptions of lordly banquets in our Plantagenet days. The term bread is confined to the large brown and black loaves made of rye meal, the staple of household diet in Bohemia; and to Carlsbad patients this is forbidden. So Nature always goes on vindicating her simple laws, convincing mankind, in spite of themselves, of the wholesome effects of fresh air, daily exercise, plain food, and spring water; and mankind, returned to crowded cities and artificial pleasures, go on forgetting a lesson which is as old as the hills.
In the afternoon I mounted to the top of the Hirschsprung, and passed two or three hours on the jutting crags which overlook the town and a wide expanse of rolling fields and meadows towards Saxony. Stairs and fenced platforms on the outermost points enable you to survey in full security. The conformation of the crags is not unlike that which prevails in the Saxon Switzerland. Here and there tablets in the rock record the visits of royal personages, and on the topmost, surmounted by a cross, is an inscription in Russian, and the name of Czar Peter, who included among his exploits that of riding up the Hirschsprung on horseback in 1711.
You cannot be long in Carlsbad without hearing a flourish of trumpets from the top of the Watch-tower, announcing the arrival of visitors. No sooner do the trumpeters spy a carriage approaching from their lofty station, than they begin to sound, and, in proportion to the appearance of the vehicle, so do they measure out their blast—most wind for the proudest. While I was looking down, a sudden note, unusually prolonged, woke up the drowsy echoes, for rattling down the zigzagged highway from Prague came his unenviable majesty, Otho of Greece, to undergo a course of the Sprudel—at least, so said the newspapers. Not till he had alighted at the hotel did the trumpeters cease their salute, for kings can pay well; but let a dusty-footed wayfarer, with knapsack on shoulder, come into the town, and not a breath will they spare to give him welcome.
At six in the evening—having surveyed Carlsbad from within and without, and from the highest points on either side—I started to walk to Buchau, a village about ten miles off—an easy distance before nightfall. The Morgenstern charged me two florins for my bed, and less than two florins for all my diet—supper, breakfast, and dinner; which, in one of the dearest watering-places in Europe, was letting me off on reasonable terms.
