d as an Austrian garrison town, and in the new Poland--the
Poland whose foundation stones are laid in the hearts of her people,
and that may yet be built some day--in that new Poland there will be no
place for aristocratic, high-bred Cracow.

During my stay in the beautiful butter-colored palace that is now a
hotel, I went round the museums, galleries, and universities, most if
not all of which are free to the public. It would be unfair to give the
idea that Cracow has completely fallen to decay. This is not the case.
Austria has erected some very handsome buildings; and a town with such
fine pictures, good museums, and two universities, can not be complained
of as moribund. At the same time, I can only record faithfully my
impression, and that was that everything new, everything modern, was
hopelessly out of tone in Cracow; progress, which, tho' desirable, may
be a vulgar thing, would not suit her, and does not seem at home in her
streets.

About the Florian's Thor, with its round towers of old, sorrel-colored
brick, and the Czartoryski Museum, there is nothing to say that the
guide-book would not say better. In the museum, a tattered Polish flag
of red silk, with the white eagle, a cheerful bird with curled tail,
opened mouth, chirping defiantly to the left, imprest me, and a portrait
of Szopen (Chopin) in fine profile when laid out dead. For amusement,
there was a Paul Potter bull beside a Paul Potter willow, delightfully
unconscious of a coming Paul Potter thunderstorm, and a miniature of
Shakespeare which did not resemble any of the portraits of him that I
am familiar with. Any amount of Turkish trappings and reminiscences of
Potocki and Kosciuszko, of course. As I had no guide-book, I am quite
prepared to learn that I overlooked the most important relics.

In the cathedral, away up on the hill of Wawel, above the river Vistula
(Wisla) I prowled about among the crypts with a curious specimen of
beadledom who ran off long unintelligible histories in atrocious
Viennese patois about every solemn tomb by which we stood. So far as I
was concerned it might just as well have been the functionary who herds
small droves of visitors in Westminster Abbey. I never listen to these
people, because (i) I do not care to be informed; and (ii) since I
should never remember what they said, it is useless my even letting it
in at one ear. The kindly, cobwebby old person who piloted me
among those wonderful kings' graves in Cracow was