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
