uke Ferdinand, beside hundreds of
similar tokens.

The Cathedral of St. Stephen's, between five and six hundred years of
age, is of very great interest, and forms a rare example of pure Gothic.
The Imperial Library contains over three hundred thousand volumes.
Vienna has all the usual Christian charitable institutions, schools, and
progressive organizations of a great city of the nineteenth century.

From Vienna we continue our journey to Prague, the capital of Bohemia, a
quaint old city, founded in 1722 by the Duchess Libussa, and which has
to-day nearly sixty thousand inhabitants. It is crowded with historical
monuments, ancient churches, and queer old chapels, some of which are
ornamented by frescoes hardly rivalled by the finest at Rome and
Florence. One is here shown underground dungeons as terrible as those of
Venice, and to which historic associations lend their special interest.
It would seem that human beings could hardly exist in such holes for a
month, and yet in some of these, prisoners are known to have lingered
miserably for years. Prague was remarkable for its institutions of
learning and its scientific societies. The university, founded by
Charles IV. in 1348, had at one time a hundred professors and three
thousand students. This university enjoyed a world-wide reputation, but
all this has passed away. There are two or three large libraries, a
museum of natural history, a school for the blind, and several public
hospitals. We find here some beautiful specimens of glass manufacture,
for which Bohemia has long been celebrated, though she is now rivalled
in this line by both England and America.

Prague has had more than its share of the calamities of war, having been
besieged and taken six times before the year 1249. In the war of the
Hussites it was taken, burned, plundered, and sacked with barbarous
ferocity. The Thirty Years' War began and ended within its walls, and
during its progress the city was three times in possession of the enemy.
In 1620 the battle was fought just outside of the city in which
Frederick V. was conquered, and after which he was deposed. During the
Seven Years' War it fell into the hands of different victors, and in
1744 capitulated to Frederick the Great of Prussia. Indeed, until within
the last half-century Prague and its environs may be said to have been
little better than a constant battle-field. Seen from an elevated
position the city presents a very picturesque aspect. A f