Page:Glimpses of Bohemia by MacDonald (1882).pdf/49

 lay before us. We were looking down on a broad strath of fertile country, dotted with towns and villages, and enlivened by a meandering river which here and there showed a glistening bend in the sunshine. Wooded hills, of pleasing contour, rose on the opposite side of the valley, while the higher hills of Silesia appeared beyond. Away to the north-east we could also see the cloud-capped tops of great mountains on the Hungarian frontier. Resuming our march, and looking to what was nearer us, we were surprised to find the grass full of crocuses, a sight we don’t see at home in September. Then a shepherd boy marched past us with his flock following, the leading sheep having a bell of roughly-hammered metal suspended from its neck. Soon we reached the southern side of the ridge and commenced the descent to Lhota. The view here was also most striking—totally different from that to the north. Instead of a broad strath, we looked down on a twisting glen, almost a ravine, well wooded, and surrounded by a sea of hill tops clad with pine, and exhibiting great variety of configuration, reminding one somewhat of the Deeside scenery about Ballater. Mr. Karafiat’s manse, a substantial little house, stands high on a hill, side, so embosomed in trees as to be quite invisible until one is close to it. The church stands a few yards apart from the manse. It is a wooden building, erected in 1784, in such a curious style that one might puzzle a long time over the purpose for which it was built before venturing to set it down as a church. We found it, however, to be most suitable, alike to the locality and the circumstances of the people.

On Sabbath we heard Mr. Karafiat preach to a congregation of nearly four hundred. The interior of the church we found to be well arranged, and wonderfully comfortable. In appearance, the congregation presented a great contrast to that at Klobouk. Here the people were darker and smaller, and had a pinched, weather-beaten look such as one finds among the poor classes of the Irish peasantry. For many years drunkenness has had a baneful effect in this district. It does not pay innkeepers, we were told, to bring up either wine or beer from the lowlands, hence they keep only brandy; and brandy-drinking, with insufficient feeding, has so deteriorated the physique of the people that