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Nicholas' Church, remarkable for the height of its spire and its beautifully arched cupola, I betook myself to Wimmer's gardens, and thence to the "Bastei," a place of public resort with the citizens of Prague. I could now observe the devastation caused by the rising of the water shortly before my arrival.
In 1848 the inner city of Vienna was enclosed within a broad and lofty bastion, fosse, and glacis. These were levelled in 1857. As soon as the troops were expelled, cannon were placed on the Bastei so as to command the approaches from without. The tunnelled gateways were built up, and barricades erected across every principal thoroughfare.
Just past the Konigstein, the Elbe, from westward, as its general course is, turns suddenly to northward; runs so for a mile and a half; then, just before getting to the BASTEI at Raden, turns suddenly to westward again, and so continues. Tourists know Raden," where the Prussians have just fished out a Bridge for themselves, "with the BASTEI high aloft to west of it.
A hill rising up from one side of the Bastei, terminates suddenly a short distance from it, in on abrupt precipice. In the intervening space stand three or four of those rock-columns, several hundred feet high, with their tops nearly on a level with the Bastei.
After passing the night at the little village of Uttewalde, a short distance further, we set out early in the morning for the Bastei, a lofty precipice on the Elbe. The way led us directly through the Uttewalder Grund, the most remarkable of all these chasms. We went down by steps into its depths, which in the early morning were very cold.
Then as we ascended higher, we saw pillars of rock separated entirely from the side and rising a hundred feet in height, with trees growing on their summits. They stood there gray and limeworn, like the ruins of a Titan temple. The path finally led us out into the forest and through the clustering pine trees, to the summit of the Bastei.
One end of the barricade abutted on the 'Golden Lamm. With the exception of the soldiers, the inn seemed to be deserted; and I wanted both food and lodging. The upper floor was full of JAGERS. The front windows over-looked the Bastei. These were now blocked with mattresses, to protect the men from bullets.
From the abrupt edge of the overhanging Bastei we looked down some six hundred feet upon the wandering Elbe, threading its way by broad slopes, rich with the growth of the vine; or by bleached walls of stone, upon which even the lichens seemed to have been unable to make good their footing.
A wooden bridge has been made across from one to the other, over which the traveller passes, looking on the trees and rocks far below him, to the mountain, where a steep zigzag path takes him to the Elbe below. We crossed the Elbe for the fourth time at the foot of the Bastei, and walked along its right bank towards Königstein. The injury caused by the inundation was everywhere apparent.
But the chance of hearing the Swedish Nightingale was more alluring than the Bastei and the lovely view from Konigstein, and at once the order of travel was interrupted, and the Easy Chair arrived eagerly in Berlin. The Berlin of those days was still a city in which the student could live economically, and hear the lectures of great teachers upon the most reasonable terms.
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