glorious prospect before him. Prague with its spires and towers
lies in the valleys 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....

Having found out first a few of the locations, we haunted our way with
difficulty through its labyrinths, seeking out every place of note or
interest. Reaching the bridge at last, we concluded to cross over and
ascend to the Hradschin, the palace of the Bohemian kings. The bridge
was commenced in 1357, and was one hundred and fifty years in building.
That was the way the old Germans did their work, and they made a
structure which will last a thousand years longer. Every pier is
surmounted with groups of saints and martyrs, all so worn and timebeaten
that there is little left of their beauty, if they ever had any. The
most important of them--at least to Bohemians--is that of St. John
Nepomuk, now considered as the patron-saint of the land. He was a priest
many centuries ago [1340-1393] whom one of the kings threw from the
bridge into the Moldau because he refused to reveal to him what the
queen confest. The legend says the body swam for some time on the river
with five stars around its head.

Ascending the broad flight of steps to the Hradschin, I paused a moment
to look at the scene below. A slight blue haze hung over the clustering
towers, and the city looked dim through it, like a city seen in a dream.
It was well that it should so appear, for not less dim and misty are the
memories that haunt its walls. There was no need of a magician's wand to
bid that light cloud shadow forth the forms of other times. They
came uncalled for even by Fancy. Far, far back in the past I saw the
warrior-princess who founded the kingly city--the renowned Libussa,
whose prowess and talent inspired the women of Bohemia to rise at her
death and storm the land that their sex might rule where it obeyed
before. On the mountain opposite once stood the palace of the bloody
Wlaska, who reigned with her Amazon band for seven years over half
Bohemia. Those streets below had echoed with the fiery words of Huss,
and the castle of his follower--the blind Ziska, who met and defeated
the armies of the German Empire--molders on the mountains above. Many a
year of w