to tell me that he was one of the clerks employed in the counting-house, and having heard of my arrival from the Braumeister, could not resist the desire of speaking with an Englishman. Moreover, he would like to show me certain things which I had not yet seen, and he said, "If you pleasure in Prinzenraub find, so is glad to me."
We were friends in a moment. He led me first to the counting-house, and showed me the bust of Herr Ebert, who, as chief proprietor, had headed the procession in the former year, but was since deceased, saying, "We very, very sorry; every man love him. Ah! he was so good." Then running up-stairs to a large whitewashed apartment—one of the drinking-rooms used when guests are driven in-doors by bad weather—where a few portraits hung on the walls, he cried, "Here is something to see. But wait—you will have a tsigger?"
"With pleasure," I answered, "if it's good to drink."
"No, not drink," he replied. "What you call him?—to shmoke."
The room echoed with my laugh, and he prolonged it, as I rejoined, "Oh! you mean a cigar! No, thank you. Tobacco is one of the things I abhor."
"What you call him?" he exclaimed, in amazement—"cigar! Then what for a teacher is mine. But he is a German."
Our friendly relations were in no way deranged by my dislike of a "tsigger;" and we turned to the portraits, which comprised some of the personages involved in the Prinzenraub. The brave old Triller is represented in the costume of the period—a stalwart fellow, with ample black beard, bare legs, broad-brimmed hat, and loose frock tied by a belt round the waist. In one hand he grasps his pole, with the other supports the prince, who wearing red hosen and peaked red boots, looks up to him with tearful eye. Kunz appears lying down in the background, looking half-stunned and miserable. There are two miniatures—of the Triller and his wife—apparently very old, believed to be likenesses. In the excitement occasioned by the four hundredth anniversary, a poor shoemaker, hearing it talked of, came to the brewery with the paintings in his hand, and sold the two for a shilling. Besides these there are seven or eight other portraits, among which the features of Kunz impress you favourably. He has dark curly hair, a high forehead, a clear bright eye, moustache and pointed beard; the whole appearance and expression reminding you of Sir Philip Sidney.
What with fluent German and broken English the young clerk worked himself into enthusiasm, and showed me everything that had the remotest connexion with the subject, ending with a book containing the latest history of the Prinzenraub, and engravings of its incidents. Nor could he think of letting me depart till I had seen the whole premises, and the enormous cellars.
"The Triller is a good name for the brewery," he said, as we paced between the furlongs of barrels.
On my return to the town I found out the ancient dame who keeps the key of the church tower, and as she unlocked the door offered her a small silver coin. "No! no! no!" she exclaimed, "that is too much. A Dreier (halfpenny) is enough for me." A rare instance of disinterestedness. Once admitted, you find your way alone up to the topmost chamber, where dwells a woman with two or three children. She was winding up from the street below her daily supply of water when I entered out of breath with the ascent of so many steps, and paused in her task to conduct me to the platform, a height of about two hundred feet, from which the steeple springs one hundred and fifty feet higher. Wide and remarkable is the prospect: the rows of poplars which border the roads leading on all sides from the town divide the landscape into segments with stiff lines that produce a singular effect as they diminish gradually in thickness and vanish in the distance. Plenty of wood all around, merging towards the south into the vast fir forest which there darkens the long swells and rounded summits of the Erzgebirge: a region of contrasts, with its abounding fertility and unpicturesque foundries and mining-works. The town appears to better advantage from above than below, for the many green spots in the rear of the houses come into the view, and you see gleaming curves of the Mulde, and a great pond as at Altenburg, and the remains of the old walls, and the ditches, now in part changed into a garden promenade.
The mind becomes interested as well as the eye. You may grow dreamy over the fabulous adventures of the fair Princess Schwanhildis, in whose adventures, as implied in hoary tradition, the place originated; and if you desire proof, is it not found in the three swans, still borne in the town arms? Or you may revert to the sixth century only, when the Wends had a colony here, and worshipped Zwicz, one of their Sclavish fire-gods in the Aue, or meadow—whence the present name, Zwickau. Or you may remember that Luther often mounted the tower to gaze on the widespread view; and imagine him contemplating the scenes on which your eye now rests—a brief pause in his mighty work of rescuing Europe from the toils of priestcraft. A clumsy table yet remaining on the platform, though tottering and fallen on one side with age and weakness, is called "Luther's table;" the great Reformer having, as is said, once sat by it to eat. But the sentiment which such a relic should inspire is weakened by the inference that as the Zwickauers take no pains to preserve it from the weather, they at least are sceptical concerning its merits.
And the church itself. It is the largest, the finest specimen of Gothic, and has the biggest bell, in all Saxony, and excepting two towers in Dresden, is the highest. It dates from the eleventh century, and has been more than once restored. The interior well repays a visit. The slender, eight-sided pillars of the nave, the rare carvings of the bench-ends, and others about the choir and confessional, and in the sacristy, the high altar, by Wohlgemuth, of Nuremberg, the only one remaining of twenty-five which formerly stood around the walls, raise your admiration of art. If curious in such matters, you may see a splinter of the true cross—a relic from Popish times—still preserved. There are some good paintings, of which one by Lucas Cranach the Younger represents Jesus as "Children's Friend." It was painted at the cost of a burgomaster in honour of his wife's memory.
For one with time at discretion, Zwickau and the neighbourhood would yield a few days of enjoyable exploration. A remarkable instance of volcanic action is to be seen between Planitz and Niederkainsdorf, which has existed from time immemorial. Steam is continually bursting up from the coal strata beneath, of so high a temperature that the ground is always green even in the hardest winters. An attempt was made, a few years ago, to utilize the heat by establishing a forcing-garden on the spot; and in the adjacent forests there are land-slips, produced by disturbances of the strata, which are described as romantic in their effects. The valley of the Mulde offers much pleasing scenery; the castle of Stein and the Prinzenhöhle are within half a day's walk; and somewhat farther are the singular rocks at Greifenstein, a pile as of huge beds petrified. The legend runs that a princess, having married while her betrothed, whom she had promised never to forget, was absent, the fairies, exercising their right of punishment, turned her and all her household gear into stone, and the beds remain to commemorate the perfidy. There are, besides, baths and mineral springs at the village of Oberkainsdorf, and at Hohensteiner Bad; and curious old carvings in the castle of Schönfels; and, if you incline to geology, the coal measures abound in fossil plants and shells, while of minerals there is no stint.
The town has attractions of another sort: early-printed books, rare manuscripts, original letters by Luther and other Reformers, in the Library; the Rathhaus, on the front of which, over the door, you may see the three swans; and, among the archives, more letters by Luther and Melancthon. There are portraits of the two, by Cranach, in the neighbouring castle of Planitz. The house, No. 22, in the market-place, is that in which Luther lodged in 1522; Melancthon sojourned in No. 444, in the Burggasse; and No. 576, in the Schergasse, is where Napoleon had his quarters in 1812.
It was evening when I slung on my knapsack and began my walk in earnest. A short stage at the outset is no bad preparation for the work to follow. The road runs between the noisy factories, past vitriol works, smelting furnaces, and, thick with dust, is, for the first three or four miles, far from pleasant. At length the busy district is left behind, the trees bordering the highway look greener, and the river, separated but by a narrow strip of meadow, is near enough for its rippling to be heard. Excepting a miner now and then, wearing his short leathern hinder-apron,
