Page:Guide to the Bohemian section and to the Kingdom of Bohemia - 1906.djvu/71

53 presenter [sic] who intones the ritual; and leads the highly melodious anthems, which speak like voices from a strange unknown world. It is the beginning of „mai-ried“ the evening service of the Jews.

And from the depths of the town, from some distant spots, voices and echoes of rushing teeming life, full of joy and movement, call us, as if it were from a dream to reality, back into the bustle of the brightly lit streets, the inhabitants of which are enjoying their evening after their day’s work is done.

Here ends our one day’s walk during which we have seen the most beautiful, but not the largest part of Old Prague. Many and many objects are still left fo be seen, first of all the proud palaces of the Malá Strana (Small Town): those of the Princes Lobkovic, the Counts Schoenborn, Nostic (with a famous picture-gallery) the extinct counts of Michna, the house of the Maltese Knights (with a church of the Virgin Mary „sub catena“ from the Ist. half of the XIIIth. century) all surrounded by ancient gardens rising on the slopes of Mount Petřín, or situated on the banks of the picturesque Čertovka arm of the river Vltava. The edifices and their gardens are worthy of notice chiefly by their precious artistic monuments as well as by beautiful prospects of the neighbouring parts of the City. Then there are wide and spacious parks and public gardens: the Královská Obora, Letná (Belvedere) the large Seminary-garden with fields and a farm in the midst of the town, the splendid Kinský garden with a well arranged ethnographical Museum. And a row of other Museums, patterns of their kind, the renowned University of Charles IV. the oldest in Central Europe, the memorable scenes of Huss’ activity, dozens of interesting chapels, churches and temples in all imaginable styles of architecture. Then old monasteries, as that of St. Agnes from the Ist. half of the XIIIth. century; the interesting edifices of Charles’ foundations, the house of Franciscan friars with a gothic church of the Virgin Mary in nive; the famous slavonic monastery of Emaus, the grand work of the master-architect George of Prague, Karlov, with its gothic vault having the widest known