LITMIR.BIZ

      ET us lift up our eyes unto the hills, the hills on which stands Prague, and if help do not come at once we may at least hope for inspiration; the beauty of the scene alone assures us. Look out from your terrace of a morning, a cloudless morning of early summer, and gainsay it if you can. The town is extending considerably, growing up the distant slopes on the far side of the river and trickling down into the little valleys, but the general outline of Prague is much the same as it has been for centuries; the eternal hills may be scarred and patched by us who have here no "abiding city," but they remain.

      I have already mentioned the hills on which Prague was built, and had decided that they are five in number, not seven as is popularly alleged. I have counted those hills several times over, and make their number five, and quite sufficient too; another two hills would mar the composition. At the risk of repeating myself, I maintain that Prague can well afford to be original and forgo any imitation of other cities by insisting on standing on seven hills; a truly great city should not descend to servile flattery. Paris, for example, undoubtedly a great city, is quite content to stand on two hills, Montmartre and Montparnasse, the latter quite worn flat by the levelling tendencies of modern times.

      It is now time that we delved down into the history of Bohemia, and in this we gain inspiration from the hills of Prague, the works of man that crown them and the traditions, legends, shreds of history that cling to them. Of these hills that of Vyšehrad is entitled to hold seniority in the history of Prague. It takes a place somewhat akin to that held by the Capitoline Hill of Rome. It was from here that the city started, though this hill has little left of former grandeur and shows nothing to compare with Rome's monuments to a glorious past. A crumbling block of masonry, the story of which is quite unknown, a round chapel dating from the days when Christianity was young among the Slavs and still found ready martyrs in its cause even among princes, and an enceinte of brick fortifications, stone-faced and in Vauban's best style, battered by Frederick the Great's guns, are all that Vyšehrad has to show by way of relics of a stormy past.

      Vyšehrad is about the first striking view you obtain of Prague as the train de luxe brings you round a bend before crossing the railway bridge over the Vltava. Travellers seeing Prague for the first time are apt to mistake this hill of Vyšehrad for the castle. I did so myself; my delight, therefore, at the first sight of Prague's crowning glory, the Hradšany, was all the greater.

      Seen against the evening sky, Vyšehrad looks very imposing; it is at its best by winter twilight, when the heavy mass is dully reflected on the surface of the frozen river. Then you may gain some idea of what this rugged promontory stands for in the life-history of a race that has passed through great tribulation. Two Gothic spires point to the skies, rising from a church which, despite its newness, seems more in accord with the spirit of Prague than do the copper domes of Jesuit structures; but then this church is built on foundations so ancient as to defy investigation by the most assiduous chroniclers. No doubt those spires are right enough in their way, but they are almost painfully modern and unromantic compared to a square bit of crumbling masonry that clings limpet-like to the crags of Vyšehrad overhanging the river at the feet of the twin church towers. For here, according to legend, is the cradle of the city of Prague. In popular parlance this bit of masonry is called Libuša's bath, and hereby hangs a tale to introduce which we must hark back some fourteen centuries.

      Some time in the sixth century—nobody seems to know exactly or to care much when it was—one Czech or Czechus was wandering about this land of Bohemia with a party of friends and relatives, probably a whole tribe of them. Czech seems to have had the country to himself; if he had met any strangers there would have been a fight, and we should have heard about it. It may therefore be assumed that the former occupants, probably lodgers only, had moved on. There was much movement going on in those early centuries of the Christian era, the main tendency being from north-east to south-west, from cold, damp and short-commons to warmth and plenty. Now we have sufficient reason to believe that Thuringians and Rugians abode for a while in Bohemia and parts of Bavaria, and Lombards in Moravia, and that these gentry, hearing of loot to be had in plenty farther south, left their temporary homes, crossed the Danube and made themselves unpopular elsewhere, leaving the lands of Bohemia and Moravia to anyone who cared to take them. This happened some time about the middle of the sixth century, which gives us something more definite to go upon as to Czech's place in time. Anyway, there were Czech, his friends and relations wandering at their own sweet pleasure over the rolling wood-clad landscape of Bohemia. On this excursion Czech espied from afar a peculiar shaped hill (not one of the hills of Prague) to which he promptly gave the appropriate name of Řip. Now this innocent-looking word is, by virtue of the sign placed over the R, pronounced in a peculiar manner; between the initial consonant and the "i" you should insert a sound somewhat like that of the French "j" as in "jamais," for instance. Heaven and the Czechs only know what meaning you would convey did you neglect this euphonious concatenation of consonants and simply say "rip"—probably something to cover the young person with confusion; but rightly pronounced, and with due regard to the soft but insistent sibilant, this mixture of sounds means—toadstool. It is all so simple when once you know: Řip = toadstool—and there you are. The description tallies too: the hill of Řip does look like a toadstool; I have seen it myself, and am prepared to support Czech's statement on oath. Anyway, Řip stands there still, much the same as when Czech discovered it, but for a chapel dedicated to St. George on its summit, the result of some one else's piety.

      You can see Řip for miles round, as it has chosen a fairly level plain out of which to arise much like a mushroom on the lawn after a rainy night. No wonder, then, that Czech made straight for Řip, climbed to the top, looked around him, approved of what he saw, and decided to stay. He did, so did his friends and relatives and those that came after them, and no power on earth was able to shift them. The descendants of Czech are there still. One of these told me that the best and sturdiest type of Czech is bred round about Řip; he was born thereabouts himself, and should know. I am prepared to believe it anyway, as my friend is certainly of the best and sturdiest type of Czech.

      That much for Czech and his descendants; we must now skip a century or two which even Cosmas of Prague was unable to fill out with legend, and return to the lady whose bath I have already referred to. Not that I believe the ruined bits of wall to have contained a lady's bathroom; I have tried to imagine Libuša using the place for the morning tub, and have failed to conjure up any picture that would carry conviction. However, I do not wish to prejudice the case; come out to Prague and judge for yourself.

      Libuša was one of three sisters, daughters of Krok, Prince of Bohemia, or at least some part of it, for frontiers in those very early days were even more elastic than those drawn by International Commissions. Anyway, there was Krok lording it over as much of Bohemia as he could control, from his fastness of Vyšehrad. Of Libuša's sisters, Kazi and Teta, nothing but their names is known even in legend; they passed into oblivion on Krok's demise, for he ordained that Libuša, his youngest daughter, should succeed him. Libuša, according to legend, was a model of all the virtues, and as in those days there was no ever-ready Press lurking to pounce on historical inaccuracies, we may accept the statement of kindly Saga.

      Libuša had a rare gift,

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