ried visit to the castle we
started on the long drive to Oberleutensdorf, a smaller Schloss near
Komotau, where the Waldstein family was then staying. The air was sharp
and bracing; the two Russian horses flew like the wind; I was whirled
along in an unfamiliar darkness, through a strange country, black with
coal mines, through dark pine woods, where a wild peasantry dwelt in
little mining towns. Here and there, a few men and women passed us on
the road, in their Sunday finery; then a long space of silence, and we
were in the open country, galloping between broad fields; and always in
a haze of lovely hills, which I saw more distinctly as we drove back
next morning.

The return to Dux was like a triumphal entry, as we dashed through the
market-place filled with people come for the Monday market, pots and
pans and vegetables strewn in heaps all over the ground, on the rough
paving stones, up to the great gateway of the castle, leaving but just
room for us to drive through their midst. I had the sensation of an
enormous building: all Bohemian castles are big, but this one was like a
royal palace. Set there in the midst of the town, after the Bohemian
fashion, it opens at the back upon great gardens, as if it were in the
midst of the country. I walked through room after room, along corridor
after corridor; everywhere there were pictures, everywhere portraits of
Wallenstein, and battle-scenes in which he led on his troops. The
library, which was formed, or at least arranged, by Casanova, and which
remains as he left it, contains some 25,000 volumes, some of them of
considerable value; one of the most famous books in Bohemian literature,
Skala's _History of the Church_, exists in manuscript at Dux, and it is
from this manuscript that the two published volumes of it were printed.
The library forms part of the Museum, which occupies a ground-floor wing
of the castle. The first room is an armoury, in which all kinds of arms
are arranged, in a decorative way, covering the ceiling and the walls
with strange patterns. The second room contains pottery, collected by
Casanova's Waldstein on his Eastern travels. The third room is full of
curious mechanical toys, and cabinets, and carvings in ivory. Finally,
we come to the library, contained in the two innermost rooms. The
book-shelves are painted white, and reach to the low-vaulted ceilings,
which are white-washed. At the end of a bookcase, in the corner of one
of the windows, hangs a