al associations, not a few of
them remarkable also as fine specimens of architecture. Although we have
no detailed account of Chopin's proceedings, we may be sure that
our patriotic friend did not neglect to look for and contemplate the
vestiges of his nation's past power and greatness: the noble royal
palace, degraded, alas, into barracks for the Austrian soldiery; the
grand, impressive cathedral, in which the tombs of the kings present
an epitome of Polish history; the town-hall, a building of the 14th
century; the turreted St. Florian's gate; and the monumental hillock,
erected on the mountain Bronislawa in memory of Kosciuszko by the
hands of his grateful countrymen, of which a Frenchman said:--"Void une
eloquence touts nouvelle: un peuple qui ne peut s'exprimer par la
parole ou par les livres, et qui parle par des montagnes." On a Sunday
afternoon, probably on the 24th of July, the friends left Cracow, and in
a rustic vehicle drove briskly to Ojcow. They were going to put up not
in the place itself, but at a house much patronised by tourists, lying
some miles distant from it and the highway. This circumstance led to
something like a romantic incident, for as the driver was unacquainted
with the bye-roads, they got into a small brook, "as clear and silvery
bright as brooks in fairytales," and having walls of rock on the
right and left, they were unable to extricate themselves "from this
labyrinth." Fortunately they met towards nine o'clock in the evening two
peasants who conducted them to their destination, the inn of Mr. Indyk,
in which also the Polish authoress Clementina Tanska, who has described
this district in one of her works, had lodged--a fact duly reported by
Chopin to his sister Isabella and friend Titus. Arriving not only tired
but also wet to above the knees, his first business was to guard against
taking a cold. He bought a Cracow double-woven woollen night-cap, which
he cut in two pieces and wrapped round his feet. Then he sat down by the
fire, drank a glass of red wine, and, after talking for a little while
longer, betook himself to bed, and slept the sleep of the just. Thus
ended the adventure of that day, and, to all appearance, without the
dreaded consequences of a cold. The natural beauties of the part of
the country where Chopin now was have gained for it the name of Polish
Switzerland. The principal sights are the Black Cave, in which during
the bloody wars with the Turks and Tartars the women an