Having in various countries drunk so much and heard so much of the celebrated refreshing Selters or Selzer water, I determined one lovely morning to exchange the pleasure of rambling about the woods of Schlangenbad for the self-imposed duty of visiting the brunnen of Nieder-Selters: accordingly, I managed to procure a carriage, and with three post-horses away I trotted, sitting as upright and as full of exuberant enjoyment as our great departed lexicographer in his hack chaise. The macadamized road on which I travelled, with the sight of men and boys sitting by its side, spitefully cracking with slight hammers little stones upon flat big ones, might easily have reminded me of old England; but five women, each carrying on her head sixteen large stone bottles of Schlangenbad water to wash the faces of the ladies of Schwalbach—the dress of three peasants with long pipes in their mouths—a little cart drawn by two cows—the Prince of Saxe Cobourg in a rough carriage pulled by horses without blinkers and in rope harness—an immense mastiff, driving before him to be slaughtered a calf not a week old, and scarcely as high as himself—all these trifling incidents, combined with the magnificent outline of wooded hills which towered above the road, constantly reminded me that I was still under the political roof and in the dominions of “The Duke.”

On arriving at Schwalbach, I learned that the remainder of the journey, which was to occupy six hours, was to be performed on roads which, in the English language, are termed so very properly “cross.” Accordingly, passing under the great barren hill appropriated to the Schwein-General of Langen-Schwalbach, we followed for some time the course of a green grassy valley, the herbage of which had just been cut for the second time; and then getting into a country much afflicted with hills, the horses were either straining to ascend them, or suffering equally severely in the descent. In many places the road was hardly as broad as the carriage, and as there was generally a precipice on one side, I might occasionally have felt a little nervous, had it not been for sundry jolts, happily just violent enough to prevent the mind thinking of anything else.

Passing the Eisenhammer, a water-mill lifting an immense hammer, which forges iron by its fall (a lion which the water-drinkers of Schwalbach generally visit), I proceeded through the village of Neuhof to WÜrges, where we changed horses and, what was still more important, bartered an old postilion for a young one. For a considerable time our road ascended, passing through woods and park-like plantations belonging to the Duke of Nassau’s hunting-seat “Die Platte;” at last we broke away from these coverts which had environed us, traversing a vast undulating unenclosed country, furrowed by ravines and deep valleys, many of which we descended and ascended. The principal crops were potatoes, barley, oats, rye, and wheat,—the three former being perfectly green, the two latter completely ripe; and as it happened, from some reason or other, that these sets of crops were generally sown on the same sort of land, it constantly occurred that the entire produce of some hills wore the green dress of spring, while other eminences were as wholly clothed in the rich dusky garments of autumn. The harvest, however, not having commenced, and the villages being, generally speaking, hidden in the ravines, the crops often seemed to be without owners. Descending, however, into valleys, we occasionally passed through several very large villages, which were generally paved, or rather studded with paving-stones; and as the carriage-wheels hopped from one to another, the sensation (being still too fresh in my memory) I had rather decline to describe: suffice it to say, that the painful excitation vividly expressed in my countenance must have formed an odd contrast with the dull, heavy, half-asleep faces, which, as if raised from the grave by the rattling of my springs as well as joints, just showed themselves at the windows, as if to scare me as I passed. From poverty, their thin mountain air and meagre food, the inhabitants of all these villages looked dreadfully wan, and really there was a want of animation among the young people, as well as the old, which it was quite distressing to witness; the streets seemed nearly deserted, while the mud houses, with their unpainted windows, appeared to be as dry and cheerless as their inmates; here and there were to be seen children, with hair resembling in colour and disorder a bunch of flax—but no youthful merriment, no playfulness—in short, they were evidently sapless chips off the old wooden blocks which were still gaping at me from the window-frames.

At one of these solemn villages the postilion stopped at a “gasthaus” to bait his horses. Odd as it may sound, it is nevertheless true, that German post-horses have seldom what we should term bridles. Snaffle-bits, ending with Ts instead of rings, being put into their mouths, are hooked (by these Ts) to iron billets in the head-pieces of common stable-halters, by which arrangement, to feed the animals, it is only necessary, without taking them from the carriage, to unhook one end of the bits, which immediately fall from their mouths; a slight trough, on four legs, is then placed before them, and the traveller generally continues, as I did, to sit in his carriage watching the horses voraciously eating up slices of black rye bread.

In England, there is no surer recipe known for making a pair of horses suddenly run away with one’s carriage, than by taking off their blinkers to allow them to see it; but though our method decidedly suits us the best, yet in Germany the whole system of managing horses from beginning to end is completely different from ours. Whether there is most of the horse in a German, or of the German in a horse, is a nice point on which people might argue a great deal; but the broad fact really is, that Germans live on more amicable terms with their horses, and understand their dispositions infinitely better, than the English: in short, they treat them as horses, while we act towards them, and drill them, as if they were men; and in case any one should doubt that Germans are better horsemasters than we are, I beg to remind them of what is perfectly well known to the British army—namely, that in the Peninsular war the cavalry horses of the German legion were absolutely fat, while those of our regiments were skin and bone.

In a former chapter I have already endeavoured to explain, that instead of reining a horse’s head up, as we do, for draught, the Germans encourage the animal to keep it down; but besides this, in all their other arrangements they invariably attend to the temper, character, and instinct of the beast. For instance, in harness, they intrust these sensible animals (who are never known to forget what they have once seen) with the free use of their eyes. Their horses see the wheel strike a stone, and they avoid the next one; if they drag the carriage against a post, they again observe the effect; and seeing at all times what is behind them, they know that by kicking they would hurt themselves: when passengers and postilion dismount, from attentive observation, they are as sensible as we are that the draught will suddenly become less, and, consequently, rejoicing at being thus left to themselves, instead of wishing to run away, they invariably are rather disposed to stand still.

As soon as, getting tired, or, as we are often too apt to term it, “lazy,” they see the postilion threaten them with his whip, they know perfectly well the limits of his patience, and that after eight, ten, or twelve threats, there will come a blow: as they travel along, one eye is always shrewdly watching the driver—the moment he begins the heavy operation of lighting his pipe, they immediately slacken their pace, knowing, as well as Archimedes could have proved, that he cannot strike fire and them at the same time: every movement in the carriage they remark; and to any accurate observer who meets a German vehicle, it must often be perfectly evident that the poor horses know and feel, even better than himself, that they are drawing a coachman, and three heavy baronesses with their maid, and that to do that on a hot summer’s day is—no joke. When their driver urges them to proceed, he does it by degrees; and they are stopped, not as bipeds, but in the manner quadrupeds would stop themselves.

Now, though we all like our own way best, let us for a moment (merely while the horses are feeding) contrast with the above description our English mode of treating a horse.

In order to break in the animal to draught, we put a collar round his neck, a crupper under his tail, a pad on his back, a strap round his belly, with traces at his sides, and lest he should see that though these things tickle and pinch, they have not power to do more, the poor intelligent creature is blinded with blinkers; and in this fearful state of ignorance, with a groom or two at his head and another at his side, he is, without his knowledge, fixed to the pole and splinter-bar of a carriage. If he kicks, even at a fly, he suddenly receives a heavy punishment, which he does not comprehend—something has struck him, and has hurt him severely; but, as fear magnifies all danger, so, for aught we know or care, he may fancy that the splinter-bar, which has cut him, is some hostile animal, and expect, when the pole bumps against his legs, to be again assailed in that direction.

Admitting that in time he gets accustomed to these phenomena, becoming, what we term, steady in harness, still, to the last hour of his existence, he does not clearly understand what it is that is hampering him, or what is that rattling noise which is always at his heels: the sudden sting of the whip is a pain with which he gets but too well acquainted, yet the “unde derivatur” of the sensation he cannot explain—he neither knows when it is coming, nor where it comes from. If any trifling accident, or even irregularity, occurs—if any little harmless strap, which ought to rest upon his back, happens to fall to his side—the poor, noble, intelligent animal, deprived of his eyesight, the natural lanterns of the mind, is instantly alarmed; and though, from constant heavy draught, he may literally, without metaphor, be on his last legs, yet if his blinkers should happen to fall off, the sight of his own master—of his very own pimple-faced mistress—and of his own fine yellow carriage in motion—would scare him so dreadfully, that off he would probably start, and the more they all pursued him the faster would he fly!

I am aware that many of my readers, especially those of the fairer sex, will feel disposed to exclaim—Why admire German horses? Can there be any in creation better fed or warmer clothed than our own? In black and silver harness are they not ornamented nearly as highly as ourselves? Is there any amusement in town which they do not attend? Do we not take them to the Italian Opera, to balls, plays, to hear Paganini, &c.; and don't they often go to two or three routs of a night? Are our horses ever seen standing before vulgar shops? And do they not drive to church every Sunday as regularly as ourselves?

Most humbly do I admit the force of these observations; all I persist in asserting is, that horses are foolishly fond of their eyesight—like to wear their heads awkwardly, as Nature has placed them; and that they have bad taste enough to prefer dull German grooms and coachmen to our sharp English ones.

As soon as my horses had finished their black bread, all my idle speculations concerning them vanished; the snaffle-bits were put into their mouths—the trough removed—and on we proceeded to a village where we again changed.

The features of the country now began to grow larger than ever; and though crops, green and brown, were, as far as the eye could reach, gently waving around me, yet the want of habitations, plantations, and fences gave to the extensive prospect an air of desolation: the picture was perhaps grand, but it wanted foreground; however, this deficiency was soon most delightfully supplied by the identical object I was in search of—namely, the brunnen and establishment of Nieder-Selters, which suddenly appeared on the road-side close before me, scarcely a quarter of a mile from its village.

The moment I entered the great gate of the enclosure which, surrounded by a high stone wall, occupies about eight acres of ground, so strange a scene presented itself suddenly to my view, that my first impression was, I had discovered a new world inhabited by brown stone bottles; for in all directions were they to be seen rapidly moving from one part of the establishment to another—standing actually in armies on the ground, or piled in immense layers or strata one above another. Such a profusion and such a confusion of bottles it had never entered human imagination to conceive; and, before I could bring my eyes to stoop to detail, with uplifted hands I stood for several seconds in utter amazement.

On approaching a large circular shed, covered with a slated roof, supported by posts, but open on all sides, I found the single brunnen or well from which this highly celebrated water is forwarded to almost every quarter of the globe—to India, the West Indies, the Mediterranean, Paris, London, and to almost every city in Germany. The hole, which was about five feet square, was bounded by a framework of four strong beams mortised together; and the bottom of the shed being boarded, it very much resembled, both in shape and dimensions, one of the hatches in the deck of a ship. A small crane with three arms, to each of which there was suspended a square iron crate or basket, a little smaller than the brunnen, stood about ten feet off; and while peasant girls, with a stone bottle (holding three pints) dangling on every finger of each hand, were rapidly filling two of these crates, which contained seventy bottles, a man turned the third by a winch, until it hung immediately over the brunnen, into which it then rapidly descended. The air in these seventy bottles being immediately displaced by the water, a great bubbling of course ensued; but, in about twenty seconds, this having subsided, the crate was raised; and, while seventy more bottles descended from another arm of the crane, a fresh set of girls curiously carried off these full bottles, one on each finger of each hand, ranging them in several long rows upon a large table or dresser,—also beneath the shed. No sooner were they there, than two men, with surprising activity, put a cork into each; while two drummers, with a long stick in each of their hands hammering them down, appeared as if they were playing upon musical glasses.

Another set of young women now instantly carried them off, four and five in each hand, to men who, with sharp knives, sliced off the projecting part of the cork; and this operation being over, the poor jaded bottles were delivered over to women, each of whom actually covered 3000 of them a day with white leather, which they firmly bound with packthread round the corks; and then, without placing the bottles on the ground, they delivered them over to a man seated beside them, who, without any apology, dipped each of their noses into boiling hot rosin; and, before they had recovered from this operation, the Duke of Nassau’s seal was stamped upon them by another man, when off they were hurried, sixteen and twenty at a time, by girls to magazines, where they peacefully remained ready for exportation.

Although this series of operations, when related one after another, may sound simple enough, yet it must be kept in mind that all were performed at once; and when it is considered that a three-armed crane was drawing up bottles seventy at a time, from three o'clock in the morning till seven o'clock at night (meal hours excepted), it is evident that, without very excellent arrangement, some of the squads either would be glutted with more work than they could perform, or would stand idle with nothing to do:—no one, therefore, dares to hurry or stop; the machinery, in full motion, has the singular appearance which I have endeavoured to describe; and certainly, the motto of the place might be that of old Goethe’s ring—

“Ohne hast, ohne rast.”

Having followed a set of bottles from the brunnen to the store, where I left them resting from their labours, I strolled to another part of the establishment, where were empty bottles calmly waiting for their turn to be filled. I here counted twenty-five bins of bottles, each four yards broad, six yards deep, and eight feet high. A number of young girls were carrying thirty-four of them at a time on their heads to an immense trough, which was kept constantly full by a large fountain pipe of beautiful clear fresh water. The bottles on arriving here were filled brimful (as I conceived for the purpose of being washed), and were then ranged in ranks, or rather solid columns, of seven hundred each, there being ten rows of seventy bottles.

It being now seven o'clock, a bell rung as a signal for giving over work, and the whole process came suddenly to an end: for a few seconds, the busy labourers (as in a disturbed ant-heap) were seen irregularly hurrying in every direction: but in a very short time, all had vanished. For a few minutes I ruminated in solitude about the premises, and then set out to take up my abode for the night at the village, or rather town, of Nieder-Selters: however, I had no sooner, as I vainly thought, bidden adieu to bottles, than I saw, like Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane, bottles approaching me in every possible variety of attitude. It appears that all the inhabitants of Nieder-Selters are in the habit of drinking in their houses this refreshing water; but as the brunnen is in requisition by the Duke all day long, it is only before or after work that a private supply can be obtained: no sooner, therefore, does the evening bell ring, than every child in the village is driven out of its house to take empty bottles to the brunnen; and it was this singular-looking legion which was now approaching me. The children really looked as if they were made of bottles; some wore a pyramid of them in baskets on their heads—some were laden with them hanging over their shoulders before and behind—some carried them strapped round their middle—all had their hands full; and little urchins that could scarcely walk were advancing, each hugging in its arms one single bottle. In fact, at Nieder-Selters, “an infant” means a being totally unable to carry a bottle, puberty and manhood are proved by bottles; a strong man brags of the number he can carry; and a superannuation means a being no longer able in this world to bear .... bottles.

The road to the brunnen is actually strewed with fragments, and so are the ditches; and when the reader is informed that, besides all he has so patiently heard, bottles are not only expended and exported, but actually are made at Nieder-Selters, he must admit that no writer can possibly do justice to that place unless every line of his description contains, at least once, the word .... bottle. The moralists of Nieder-Selters preach on bottles. Life, they say, is a sound bottle, and death a cracked one—thoughtless men are empty bottles—drunken men are leaky ones; and a man highly educated, fit to appear in any country and in any society, is, of course, a bottle corked, rosined, and stamped with the seal of the Duke of Nassau.

As soon as I reached the village inn, I found there all the slight accommodation I required: a tolerable dinner soon smoked on the table before me; and, feeling that I had seen quite enough for one day of brown stone bottles, I ventured to order (merely for a change) a long-necked glass one of a vegetable fluid superior to all the mineral water in the world.

The following morning, previous to returning to the brunnen, I strolled for some time about the village; and the best analysis I can offer of the Selters water is the plain fact, that the inhabitants of the village, who have drunk it all their lives, are certainly, by many degrees, the healthiest and ruddiest looking peasants I have anywhere met with in the dominions of the Duke of Nassau.

This day being a festival, on reaching the brunnen at eleven o'clock I found it entirely deserted—no human being was to be seen: all had been working from three o'clock in the morning till nine, but they were now at church, and were not to return to their labour till twelve. I had, therefore, the whole establishment to myself; and going to the famous brunnen, my first object was to taste its water. On drinking it fresh from the source, I observed that it possessed a strong chalybeate taste, which I had never perceived in receiving it from the bottle. The three iron crates suspended to the arms of the crane were empty, and there was nothing at all upon the wooden dressers which, the evening before, I had seen so busily crowded and surrounded: in the middle of the great square were the stools on which the several cork-covering women had sat; while, at some distance to the left, were the solid columns or regiments of uncorked bottles, which I had seen filled brimful with pure crystal water the evening before. On approaching this brown looking army, I was exceedingly surprised at observing from a distance that several of the bottles were noseless, and I was wondering why such should ever have been filled, when, on getting close to these troops, I perceived, to my utter astonishment, that not only about one-third of them were in the same mutilated state, but that their noses were calmly lying by their sides, supported by the adjoining bottles! What could possibly have been the cause of the fatal disaster which in one single night had so dreadfully disfigured them, I was totally at a loss to imagine: the devastation which had taken place resembled the riddling of an infantry regiment under a heavy fire; yet few of our troops, even at Waterloo, lost so great a proportion of their men as had fallen in twelve hours among these immovable phalanxes of bottles. Had they been corked, one might have supposed that they had exploded, but why nothing but their noses had suffered I really felt quite incompetent to explain.

As it is always better honestly to confess one’s ignorance, rather than exist under its torture, with a firm step I walked to the door of the governor of the brunnen; and sending up to him a card, bearing the name under which I travelled, he instantly appeared, politely assuring me that he should have much pleasure in affording any information I desired.

Instantly pointing to the noseless soldiers, my instructor was good enough to inform me, that bottles in vast numbers being supplied to the Duke from various manufactories, in order to prove them, they are filled brimful (as I had seen them) with water, and being left in that state for the night, they are the next morning visited by an officer of the Duke, whose wand of office is a thin, long-handled, little hammer, which at the moment happened to be lying before us on the ground.

It appears that the two prevailing sins to which stone bottles are prone, are having cracks, and being porous, in either of which cases they, of course, in twelve hours, leak a little.

The Duke’s officer, who is judge and jury in his own court-yard, carries his own sentences into execution with a rapidity which even our Lord Chancellor himself can only hope eventually to imitate. Glancing his hawk-like eye along each line, the instant he sees a bottle not brimful, without listening to long-winded arguments, he at once decides “that there can be no mistake—that there shall be no mistake;” and thus at one blow or tap of the hammer, off goes the culprit’s nose. “So much for Buckingham!”

Feeling quite relieved by this solution of the mystery, I troubled the governor with a few questions, to reply to which he very kindly conducted me to his counting-house, where, in the most liberal and gentlemanlike manner, he gave me all the data I required.

The following, which I extracted from the daybook, is a statement showing the number of bottles which were filled for exportation during the year 1832, with the proportionate number filled during each month.

Besides the above, there is a private consumption, amounting, on an average, to very nearly half a million of bottles per annum.

It will, I hope, be recollected that by the time a bottle is sealed it has undergone fifteen operations, all performed by different people. The Duke, in his payments, does not enter into these details, but, delivering his own bottles, he gives 17½ kreuzers (nearly sixpence) for every hundred, large or small, which are placed, filled, in his magazines. The peasants, therefore, either share their labour and profits among themselves, or the whole of the operations are occasionally performed by the different members of one family; but so much activity is required in constantly stooping and carrying off the bottles, that this work is principally performed by young women of eighteen or nineteen, assembled from all the neighbouring villages; and who, by working from three in the morning till seven at night, can gain a florin a day, or 30 florins a month, Sunday (excepting during prayers) not being, I am sorry to say, at Nieder-Selters, a day of rest.

For the bottles themselves the Duke pays 4½ florins per cent. for the large ones, and 3 florins per cent. for the small ones. The large bottles, when full, he sells at the brunnen for 13 florins a hundred.

His profit, last year, deducting all expenses, appeared to be, as nearly as possible, 50,000 florins; and yet, this brunnen was originally sold to the Duke’s ancestor for a single butt of wine!

On coming out of the office, the establishment was all alive again, and the peasants being in their Sunday clothes, the picture was highly coloured. Young women in groups of four and five, with little white or red caps perched on the tops of their heads, from which streamed three or four broad ribands, of different colours, denoting the villages they proceeded from, in various directions, singing as they went, were walking together, heavily laden with bottles. They were dressed in blue petticoats, clean white shifts tucked up above the elbows, with coloured stays laced, or rather half unlaced, in front. Old women, covering the corks with leather, in similar costume, but in colours less gaudy, were displaying an activity much more vigorous than their period of life. Across this party-coloured, well-arranged system, which was as regular in its movements as the planets in their orbits, an officer of the Duke, like a comet, occasionally darted from the office to the brunnen, or from the tiers of empty bottles which had not yet been proved, to the magazine of full ones ready to embark on their travels.

In quitting the premises, as I passed the regiments of bottles, an operation was proceeding which I had not before witnessed. Women in wooden shoes were reversing the full bottles; in fact, without driving these brown soldiers from their position, they were making them stand upon their heads instead of upon their heels—the object of this military somerset being to empty them; however, every noseless bottle, water and all, was hurled over a wall, into a bin prepared on purpose to receive them; and the smashing sound of devastation which proceeded from this odd-looking operation it would be very difficult to describe.

Having now witnessed about as much as I desired of the lively brunnen of Nieder-Selters, I bade adieu to this well-regulated establishment, feeling certain that its portrait would, in future, re-appear before my mind, in all its vivid colours whensoever and wheresoever I might drink the refreshing, wholesome beverage obtained from its bright, sparkling source. My carriage had long been waiting at the gate: however, having aroused my lumbering and slumbering driver, I retraced my steps, was slowly re-jolted homewards, and it was late before I reached my peaceful abode in the gay, green little valley of Schlangenbad.