Page:Glimpses of Bohemia by MacDonald (1882).pdf/29

 meantime, the attractions of the antique carvings on this port, and the many interesting statues which ornament the bridge itself, the eye is fully occupied by the Hradschin, with its massive palaces and cathedral. This celebrated height may be said, both physically and historically, to fill a place in Prague analogous to that filled in Edinburgh by the Castle Rock, Parliament House, St. Giles’, and Holyrood combined. It is not so isolated from the town as our Castle, and it is much larger; but, like our Castle, it forms an object which never fails to please the eye. Some of the historical associations connected with the two places are more closely linked than is generally known. We show in Edinburgh the window from which James VI., as an infant, was lowered, to prevent his falling under the control of the popular party, who would have baptised him as a Protestant, while his mother’s friends privately baptised him in Stirling according to the rites of the Roman Church; and in the Hradschin you see the Cathedral, in which James’s daughter was crowned the Protestant Queen of Bohemia, and, as already noticed, the window from which the deputies of the Austrian Emperor were thrown out by the enraged Bohemian nobles.

Below the Hradschin, between it and the Laurenz Berg, a wooded height laid out partly as public gardens, lies the Kleinseite, a quarter of the city the aspect of which impresses one as semi-oriental, owing to the copper-covered domes, minaret-like pinnacles, and other Eastern types of church architecture to be seen. The Moldau flows through Prague with a semi-circular sweep. The view of the river from the bridge, towards the north, i.e., down stream, terminates with the lofty bank, above which lies the military exercise ground. Up stream the view is more varied and interesting. A short distance above the bridge are the weirs, erected to divert water from the river for the large flour-mills. Many rafts of timber from the Bohemian forests are constantly passing down to German ports; and it is almost as exciting to watch a raft being steered through the weirs of Prague as through the rapids of the St. Lawrence. Then there are four islands, picturesquely wooded, which add greatly to the beauty of this fascinating city; and beyond rises the fortress of the Wyssehrad, the original Citadel, and the castle of Libussa,