Excerpt from Pictures From Bohemia: Drawn With Pen and Pencil
It is in her villages and lesser towns that custom and costume still survive of past centuries; and it is in her mountain recesses that castle, and monastery, and mediaeval towns, full of a strange past glory, are to be studied. And it is in her mountains also that are seen the weird scenes of her rock towns, unsurpassed in Europe for wild savage grandeur. Her history speaks forth in the innumerable ruins of her castles that crown her mountain peaks, or hide amidst the secret passes of these natural rock towns; or in the beautiful architecture of such a church as that of St. Barbara at Kuttenberg, or ‘kutna Hora, ’ as the Bohemians term it.
Bohemia, with the above exceptions, is still an unknown land, and the English traveller who wanders amidst its small towns and villages could give curious items of the wonder and surprise of the inhabitants at the sight of an Englishman, even as strange as those of the more distant traveller who penetrates into the far east of Asia; and yet in the Middle Ages Bohemia exercised a mighty influence in European life. It is in a large degree to the noble teaching and martyr death of John Hus, and in lesser measure to the sturdy Hussite warriors in their linked waggon forts that Europe owes soul freedom. And a tour within her borders gives an insight into the passionate life of her people and offers sights and scenes of mediaeval life even today, that carry one back into feudal times.
The costumes of her peasants on fe’fe days is still the most vividly brilliant in Europe. Their love of music adds greatly to the pleasure of wandering amongst them, and a tour in Bohemia becomes a series of pleasant though ofttimes startling surprises, so sharp are the contrasts of life, and so sudden are the changes of scenery, theatrical yet fascinating. The historian and archaeologian, the geologist, musician, artist, and technologist will find much to study in Bohemia, and the tourist who travels even without a special aim, becomes deeply interested in the scenery and people and mediaeval remains. Through these ‘pen and Pencil Pictures’ we hope to interest many in her life of to-day, and to give some glimpses into the pleasure of wandering within Bohemia’s mountain borders.
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