Hirschberg—The Officers' Tomb—A Night Journey—Spiller—Greifenberg—Changing Horses—A Royal Reply—A Griffin's Nest—Lauban—The Potato Jubilee—GÖrlitz—Peter and Paul Church—View from the Tower—The Landskrone—Jacob BÖhme—The Hidden Gold—A Theosophist's Writings—The Tombs—The Underground Chapel—A Church copied from Jerusalem—The Public Library—Loebau—Herrnhut.

It was so dark when the omnibus from Warmbrunn arrived at Hirschberg—about five miles—that I lost the sight of its pretty environment, watered by the Bober and Zacken, and of its old picturesque houses, the gables of which were dimly visible against the sky. The town has more than seven thousand inhabitants, and for trade ranks next to Breslau. Its history is that of most towns along this side of Silesia: so much suffering by war, that you wonder how they ever survived. A memorial of the latest scourge is to be seen in the Hospital churchyard—a cast-iron monument in memory of three Prussians, who, wounded at LÜtzen in 1813, died here on the same day. Under their names runs the inscription: They died in an Iron time for a Golden.

Not being able to see anything, I booked a place by Stellwagen for GÖrlitz, and supped in preparation for a night of travel. We started at eleven, a company numerous enough to fill three vehicles, those lowest on the list taking their seats in the hindmost. As these hindmost carriages are changed at every stopping-place with the horses, I and other unfortunates had to turn out at unseasonable hours, and to find, in two instances, that we had not changed for the better—soft seats and cleanliness for hard seats and fustiness. So at Spiller: so at Greifenberg.

It adds somewhat to one's experiences to be roused from uneasy slumber at midnight with notice to alight. You feel for umbrella and knapsack, and step down into the chill gloom of a summer night; and while the leisurely work of changing goes on, stroll a little way up or down the roughly-paved street, looking at the strange old houses, all so still and lifeless, as if they were fast asleep as well as their inmates. Why should you be awake and shivering when honest folk are a-bed? and you feel an inclination to envy the sleepers. If you turn a corner and get out of sight of the Posthouse, the houses look still more lonely and unprotected: not a glimmer to be seen, and it seems unfair that every one should be comfortable but you. Or from the outside of a house you picture to yourself those who inhabit it; or, perhaps, you get a peep into the churchyard, or venture through a dark arch to what looks like an ancient cloister, and your drowsy thought gives way to strange imaginings.

But the night is chilly. Let us go into the Posthouse. There is comfort by the stove in the inner room, and the woman who has sat up to await our arrival brings an acceptable refreshment of coffee and cakes. Steaming coffee, with the true flavour; and not sixpence a cup, but six kreutzers. Then the driver blows his horn, and each one takes his allotted seat, to slumber if he can through another jolting stage.

Greifenberg, a town of three thousand inhabitants, on the Queiss, is proud of four things: manufacture of fine linen and damask, a griffin in its coat-of-arms, and a right royal word of the Great Frederick. Certain deputies having appeared before the monarch to thank him for his prompt and generous aid in restoring the town after a great fire in 1783—"For that am I here!" was his kingly reply.

About two miles distant is the Greifenstein, a basaltic hill, so named from a nest of young griffins found on the top of it at a date which no one can remember. It is now crowned by the ruins of a castle which was given by the Emperor Charles IV., in the fourteenth century, as a reward for service to the brave Silesian knight Schaffgotsch. Were it daylight we might see in the Romish church a vault which has been the burial-place of the Schaffgotsch family since 1546.

It was early morning when we came to Lauban, and changed carriages by the side of the grass-grown moat at a break in the old round-towered wall. The view from the adjacent Steinberg is described as equal in beauty to any other scene in Prussia. Unfortunately I had not time to judge for myself; but hope to go and see some future day. Perhaps, while waiting here, you will be reminded that Lauban was one of the Silesian towns which, on the 19th of August, 1836, held a jubilee to celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of the introduction of the potato into Europe by the famous circumnavigator Drake—as the promoters said. Of course potatoes cooked in many ways appeared plentifully at every table over half the province.

We reached GÖrlitz at eight, and for some reason, perhaps known to the driver, went through the streets in and out, up and down, across the Neisse to the Postamt in the new quarter, at a slow walking pace. I had three hours to wait for a train, and to improve the time, after comforting myself at the Goldenen Strauss, mounted to the top of the Peter and Paul church tower. Erected on a rocky eminence, rising steeply from the river, it commands a wide prospect. The town itself, a busy place of more than 18,000 inhabitants, closely packed, as in the olden time, around the church; spreading out beyond into broad, straight streets and squares, well-planted avenues, and pretty pleasure-grounds; and in this roomy border you see bleaching-greens, the barracks, the gymnasium, and observatory. From thence your eye wanders over the hills of Lusatia to the distant mountains—a fair region, showing a thousand slopes to the sun. About two miles distant the Landskrone rises from the valley of the Neisse—a conspicuous rocky hill bristling with trees. We got a glimpse of it from Schneekoppe; and now you will perhaps fancy it a watch-tower, midway between the Giant Mountains and the romantic highlands of Saxony.

The sight of that hill recalls the name of the "Teutonic philosopher"—Jacob BÖhme. He was born at Alt-Seidenberg, about a mile from GÖrlitz, in 1575; and he relates that one day when employing himself as herdboy, to relieve the monotony of shoemaking, he discovered a cool bosky crevice on the Landskrone, and crept in for shelter from the heat of the sun. Inside, to his great surprise, he saw a wooden bowl, or vase, full of money, which he feared to touch, and went presently and told certain of his playmates of the discovery. With them he returned to the hill; but though they searched and searched again, they could never find the cleft, nor the wonderful hoard. A few years later, however, there came a cunning diviner, who, exploring with his rod, discovered the money and carried it off; and soon after perished miserably, for a curse had been declared on whomsoever should touch the gold.

Fate had other things in store for Jacob, and allured him from his last to write voluminous works on theosophy, wherein he discusses the most mysterious questions about the soul, its relations to God and the universe, and such like; and great became the poor shoemaker's repute among the learned. Some travelled from far to confer with him; some translated his books into French and English; some studied German that they might read them in the original; and even Isaac Newton used at times to divert his mind from laborious search after the laws of gravitation by perusal of BÖhme's speculations. That Jacob was not a dreamer on all points is clear from what he used to pen for those who begged a scrap of his writing:

There is something to be seen in the church itself as well as from the top of the tower. It is a singularly beautiful specimen of Gothic architecture of the fifteenth century. The great height of the nave, with the light and graceful form of the columns and arches, produce an admirable effect, to which the high altar, the carved stone pulpit, and the large organ do no violence. It is one of those buildings you could linger in for hours, contemplating now its fair proportions, now the old tombs and monuments, and quaint devices of the sculptor's art. Below the floor at the eastern end is an underground chapel, a century older than the church itself, hewn out of the solid rock. Preaching is held in it once a year. The attendant will make you aware in the dim light of a spring that simmers gently up and fills a basin scooped in the solid stone of the floor.

The church of the Holy Cross in the Nicolai suburb is remarkable as having been built, and with a sepulchre, after the original at Jerusalem by a burgomaster of GÖrlitz, who travelled twice to Jerusalem, in 1465 and in 1476, to procure the necessary plans and measurements for the work. There is a singularity about the sepulchre: it is always either too long or too short for any corpse that may be brought to it, and yet appears large enough for a Hercules.

The town possesses two good libraries, each containing about twenty thousand volumes. In the Rathsbibliothek you may see rare manuscripts, among them the Sachsenspiegel; and a book which purports to have been printed before the invention of printing, bearing date 1400! The other library belongs to the Society for the Promotion of Science, who have besides a good collection of maps, fossils, minerals, and philosophical instruments. Perhaps here in England writers and scholars in provincial towns will some day be able to resort to libraries and museums as easily as in the small towns of Germany. Many an English student would be thankful to find in his native town even one such library as those at GÖrlitz.

The train from Breslau kept good time. It dropped me at Loebau, where there is a church in which service is performed in the Wendish tongue. From hence a branch line runs to Zittau. I stopped half way at Herrnhut, the head-quarters of the Moravians: a place I had long wished to see.