A
Favorite Promenade On Sundays Is On The Faerber Insel Or Dyers Island,
Which Is A Small Island On The Mulda.
Here the young men of the town come
to dance with the grisettes and milliner girls of Prague, who are
renowned for their beauty and complaisance.
The Jewish burying ground is a curiosity for a person who has never visited
the Oriental countries. The tombstones are stowed thick together. Everybody
recollects the anecdote of the ingenious method adopted by Joseph II for
squeezing a large sum of money from the Jews of Prague, by giving out that
he intended to claim this cemetery, in order to build therein a Palace. The
Jews who, like all the Orientals, have the most profound veneration for the
spot where their ancestors are buried, presented a large sum of money to
the Emperor, to induce him to renounce his design.
The Stadt-Haus (Hotel de Ville) is a fine building; and the Marktplatz
(market square) is very spacious, and contributes much to the beauty of the
town. In the centre of it stands an ancient fountain of a dodecagonal form.
The basin is of red marble, and near it stands a large stone column, with a
statue of the Virgin, bronze gilt, on its summit. A well supplied market,
or rather fair, is carried on here every day in the week. The Theatre is a
fine building and is of immense size. I witnessd the representation of a
burlesque tragedy called Die Belagerung von Ypsilon (the siege of
Ypsilon), but I could not at all comprehend the cream of the jest.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 505 of 558
Words from 137156 to 137423
of 151859
