elevated
plains, saw late in the afternoon the sixty-seven spires of Prague below
us! The dark clouds which hung over the hills, gave us little time to
look upon the singular scene; and we were soon comfortably settled in
the half-barbaric, half-Asiatic city, with a pleasant prospect of seeing
its wonders on the morrow.

CHAPTER XX.

SCENES IN PRAGUE.

_Prague._--I feel as if out of the world, in this strange, fantastic,
yet beautiful old city. We have been rambling all morning through its
winding streets, stopping sometimes at a church to see the dusty tombs
and shrines, or to hear the fine music which accompanies the morning
mass. I have seen no city yet that so forcibly reminds one of the past,
and makes him forget everything but the associations connected with the
scenes around him. The language adds to the illusion. Three-fourths of
the people in the streets speak Bohemian and many of the signs are
written in the same tongue, which is not at all like German. The palace
of the Bohemian kings still looks down on the city from the western
heights, and their tombs stand in the Cathedral of the holy Johannes.
When one has climbed up the stone steps lending to the fortress, there
is a glorious prospect before him. Prague, with its spires and towers,
lies in the valley below, through which curves the Moldau with its green
islands, disappearing among the hills which enclose the city on every
side. The fantastic Byzantine architecture of many of the churches and
towers, gives the city a peculiar oriental appearance; it seems to have
been transported from the hills of Syria. Its streets are full of
palaces, fallen and dwelt in now by the poorer classes. Its famous
University, which once boasted forty thousand students, has long since
ceased to exist. In a word, it is, like Venice, a fallen city; though as
in Venice, the improving spirit of the age is beginning to give it a
little life, and to send a quicker stream through its narrow and winding
arteries. The railroad, which, joining that to Brunn, shall bring it in
connection with Vienna, will be finished this year; in anticipation of
the increased business which will arise from this, speculators are
building enormous hotels in the suburbs and tearing down the old
buildings to give place to more splendid edifices. These operations, and
the chain bridge which spans the Moldau towards the southern end of the
city, are the only things which look modern--every thing