Great Cities Through Travelers' Eyes Read online

  We left then and continued to climb higher up the hill. What did you think of what you saw, asked Miss Stein. Well I did see something. Sure you did, she said, but did you see what it had to do with those two pictures you sat in front of so long at the vernissage. Only that Picassos were rather awful and the others were not. Sure, she said, as Pablo once remarked, when you make a thing, it is so complicated making it that it is bound to be ugly, but those that do it after you they don’t have to worry about making it and they can make it pretty, and so everybody can like it when the others make it.

  PRAGUE

  Built on an ancient crossing point of the Vltava River (Moldau in German), Prague developed around its castle (Hrad) in the 9th century. An early prince was Wenceslas, who was murdered in c. 939 but became the city’s patron saint. It became the chief town of Bohemia and in the 14th century the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV built the university and the Charles Bridge over the river. In the early 1400s Jan Hus led a movement of religious reform, and it was a centre of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century.

  After devastation in the Thirty Years War (1618–48), the now-Catholic city flourished and became a renowned centre for arts and music. In the 19th century Prague was still under Austrian rule and saw the development of industry, which complemented the city’s cultural heritage.

  Following the First World War, Prague became capital of the new republic of Czechoslovakia (described by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1938 as ‘a faraway country’ of whose ‘people we know nothing’.) It was under German occupation between 1940 and 1945, and under Soviet domination to 1989, despite the short-lived Prague Spring of 1968. It is now capital of the Czech Republic.

  1591 FYNES MORYSON

  English gentleman and traveller Fynes Moryson (see page 21) visited Prague in the 1590s, recording the sights and other curiosities.

  In the afternoon we went three miles, for the most part through fruitful hills of corn, the rest through rocks and mountains planted with vines, and so came to Prague, through which the river Molda runneth, but is not navigable. On the west side of Molda is the emperor’s castle, seated on a most high mountain, in the fall whereof is the suburb called Kleinseit, or little side. From this suburb to go into the city, a long stone bridge is to be passed over Molda, which runs from the south to the north, and divides the suburb from the city, to which as you go, on the left side is a little city of the Jews, compassed with walls, and before your eyes towards the east, is the city called new Prague, both which cities are compassed about with a third, called old Prague. So as Prague consists of three cities, all compassed with walls, yet is nothing less than strong, and except the stench of the streets drive back the Turks, or they meet them in open field, there is small hope in the fortifications thereof.

  The streets are filthy, there be divers large marketplaces, the building of some houses is of freestone, but the most part are of timber and clay, and are built with little beauty or art, the walls being all of whole trees as they come out of the wood, the which with the bark are laid so rudely, as they may on both sides be seen. Molda in the winter used to be so frozen, as it bears carts, and the ice thereof being cut in great pieces, is laid up in cellars for the emperor and princes to mingle with their wine in summer, which me thinks can neither be savoury, nor healthful, since neither the heat of the clime, nor the strength of the Bohemian wines (being small and sharp) require any such cooling.…

  In public inns they demand some six Bohemian grosh for a meal, yet do they not commonly give meals at an ordinary rate, as they do through all Germany; but what meat you require, that they dress, and the servant buying all things out of doors (after the manner of Poland) makes a reckoning of the expenses. My self had my diet with a citizen very conveniently for a dollar and a half weekly. I did here eat English oysters pickled, and a young Bohemian coming in by chance and tasting them, but not knowing the price, desired the merchant to give him a dish at his charge, which contained some twenty oysters, and finding them very savoury, he called for five dishes one after another, for which the merchant demanded and had of him five dollars, the dearness no less displeasing his mind, then the meat had pleased his taste.

  As you pass over Molda from the suburb Kleinseit, into the city, there is a hand of stone as it were cut off upon the gate of the city; signifying to strangers, that whosoever draws a sword there, or upon the bridge, loses his hand; and the like hand there is to the same purpose, on the Senate house in the town. The emperor hath two enclosures walled about, which they call gardens, one of which is called Stella, because the trees are planted in the figure of stars, and a little fair house therein is likewise built, with six corners in form of a star. And in this place he kept twelve camels, an Indian ox, yellow, all over rugged, and hairy upon the throat like a lion; and an Indian calf, and two leopards, which were said to be tame, if such wild beasts may be tamed. They were of a yellow colour spotted with black, the head partly like a lion, partly like a cat, the tail like a cat, the body like a greyhound, and when the hunts-man went abroad, at call they leaped up behind him, sitting upon the horse like a dog on the hinder parts; being so swift in running, as they would easily kill a hart.…

  In the church of the emperor’s castle, these things are to be seen. A fair chapel named after the emperor’s sister, married to the French king and crowned queen of the French. Another chapel belonging to the Barons, called Popelii (the greatest family of the kingdom, next to the Baron of Rosenberg) which chapel is proper to them for burial, and is dedicated to St Andrew the Apostle. In the emperor’s church is a monument of Rudolf II, then living emperor, built of white marble, and compassed with grates of iron. In the same place lie buried Charles IV in the year 1378. Wenceslaus in the year 1419, Ladislaus in the year 1459. Ferdinand IV in the year 1564. Maximillian II in the year 1577 (all being archdukes of Austria, and emperors) and George Pogiebrachius a Bohemian, and king of Bohemia. To all these is one monument erected, and that of small beauty.…

  In Old Prague towards the south, and upon the east side of Molda, there is an old palace, where they shew a trapdoor, by which the queen was wont to slide down into a bath, where she used to satisfy her unlawful lust. In the same place is graven the leap of a horse, no less wonderful then Bayard’s fabulous leap. The house of Kelley, a famous English alchemist, was of old a sanctuary, and built for an order of friars…

  I lived at Prague some two months.

  1786 HESTER LYNCH PIOZZI

  Hester Lynch Piozzi (1741–1821), an English woman of letters and – as Hester Lynch Thrale – friend of Samuel Johnson, visited Prague in 1786 and was struck by the quality of the food on offer. Written in conversational style, her two-volume Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany (1789) recorded her impressions and adventures on the Grand Tour.

  The eating here is incomparable; I never saw such poultry even at London or Bath, and there is a plenty of game that amazes one; no inn so wretched but you have a pheasant for your supper, and often partridge soup. The fish is carried about the streets in so elegant a style it tempts one; a very large round bathing-tub, as we should call it, set barrow-wife on two not very low wheels, is easily pushed along by one man, though full of the most pellucid water, in which the carp, tench and eels are all leaping alive, to a size and perfection I am ashamed to relate; but the tench of four and five pounds weight have a richness and flavour one had no notion of till we arrived at Vienna, and they are the same here.

  How trade lands or moves in these countries I cannot tell; there is great rigour shewn at the customs house; but till the shopkeepers learn to keep their doors open at least for the whole of the short days, not shut them up so and go to sleep at one or two o’clock for a couple of hours, I think they do not deserve to be disturbed by customers who bring ready money. Tomorrow [30 November 1786] we set out, wrapped in good furs and flannels, for Dresden.

  1936 ALBERT CAMUS

  The young French phil
osopher and novelist Albert Camus (1913–1960) visited interwar Prague and recorded his feelings of isolation in his essay Death in the Soul.

  I arrived in Prague at six in the evening.… I came out of the station, walked by some gardens and found myself suddenly thrown into the middle of the Avenue Wenceslas, swarming with people at that time in the evening. Around me were a million people who had been alive all this time and whose existence had never impinged upon mine. They were alive. I was thousands of kilometres away from a familiar country. I could not understand their language. They all walked quickly. And as they overtook me, they all cut themselves off from me. I felt lost.

  I had little money. Enough to live for six days.… So I set out to look for a cheap hotel. I was in the new part of town, and all those that I could see were bursting with lights, laughter and women. I walked faster. Something in my rapid pace already seemed like flight. However, towards eight in the evening, exhausted, I reached the old town. There I was attracted by a modest-looking hotel, with a small doorway. I go in. I fill in the form, take my key. I have room number 34 on the third floor. I open the door and find myself in a most luxurious room. I look to see how much it costs – twice as expensive as I thought. The problem of money becomes really acute. I can live only poorly in this great city.…

  I washed, shaved, and methodically explored the town. I lost myself in the sumptuous baroque churches, trying to rediscover a homeland in them, but emerging emptier and in deeper despair after this disappointing encounter with myself. I wandered along the Vltava and saw the water swirling and foaming at its dams. I spent endless hours in the immense silent and empty district of the Hradchin. At sunset, in the shadow of its cathedral and palaces, my lonely step echoed along the streets.… Once, however, in a baroque cloister at the far end of town, the gentleness of the hour, the softly tinkling bells, the clusters of pigeons flying from the old tower, together with something like the scent of herbs and nothingness, gave birth in me to a silence full of tears, that almost delivered me.… And what other profit can we seek to draw from travel? Here I am stripped bare, in a town where the notices are written in strange, incomprehensible hieroglyphs, where I have no friends to talk to, in short where I have no distractions.

  And I can now say that what I retain from Prague is the smell of cucumbers soaked in vinegar, which are sold at every street corner to eat between your fingers, and whose bitter and piquant flavour would awake and feed my anguish as soon as I had crossed the threshold of my hotel. That, and perhaps also a certain tune played on an accordion. Beneath my windows a blind, one-armed man, sitting on his instrument, kept it in place with one buttock while opening and shutting it with his one good hand. It was always the same childish and tender tune which woke me every morning and set me down brusquely in the unadorned reality where I was floundering.

  RIO DE JANEIRO

  Rio de Janeiro, often described as one of the most beautifully located cities in the world, set on a bay enclosed by soaring forested mountains, was founded in 1565 by the Portuguese, becoming capital of Brazil when the Portuguese royal family moved there in 1808. It remained the capital of the newly independent Empire of Brazil in 1822, and of the republic of Brazil from 1889. Its population, like that of the whole country, was strongly influenced by a high level of African slavery, a fact that many visitors noticed and commented upon, often with disquiet.

  1788 JOHN WHITE

  The Irish-born White (c. 1756–1832) sailed from Britain to New South Wales with Captain Arthur Phillips and the First Fleet of convicts (see page 298) as the principal naval surgeon; he became surgeon-general for the new colony until 1794, when he returned to Britain. In August 1788, on the way to Australia, the fleet was refitted at Rio, staying for a month. His journal was notionally written for a scholarly friend in England, but it was later published.

  Rio de Janeiro is said to derive its name from being discovered on St Januarius’s day. It is the capital of the Portuguese settlements in South America and is situated on the west side of a river, or, more properly (in my opinion), of a bay. Except that part which fronts the water, the city is surrounded by high mountains, of the most romantic form the imagination can fashion to itself any idea of.…

  The inhabitants in general are a pleasant, cheerful people, inclining more to corpulency than those of Portugal; and, as far as we could judge, very favourably inclined to the English. The men are strait and well-proportioned. They do not accustom themselves to high living, nor indulge much in the juice of the grape.

  The women, when young, are remarkably thin, pale and delicately shaped; but after marriage they generally incline to be lusty, without losing that constitutional pale, or rather sallow, appearance. They have regular and better teeth than are usually observable in warm climates, where sweet productions are plentiful. They have likewise the most lovely, piercing, dark eyes, in the captivating use of which they are by no means unskilled. Upon the whole, the women of this country are very engaging; and rendered more so by their free, easy and unrestrained manner.

  Both sexes are extremely fond of suffering their hair, which is black, to grow to a prodigious length. The ladies wear it plaited and tied up in a kind of club, or large lump, a mode of hair-dressing that does not seem to correspond with their delicate and feminine appearance. Custom, however, reconciles us to the most outré fashions; and what we thought unbecoming the Portuguese considered as highly ornamental. I was one day at a gentleman’s house, to whom I expressed my wonder at the prodigious quantity of hair worn by the ladies, adding that I did not conceive it possible for it to be all of their own growth. The gentleman assured me that it was; and, in order to convince me that it was so, he called his wife and untied her hair, which, notwithstanding it was in plaits, dragged at least two inches upon the floor as she walked along. I offered my service to tie it up again, which was politely accepted, and considered as a compliment by both.

  1821 MARIA GRAHAM

  As a young British-born woman, Maria Graham (1785–1842) lived in India and – after the death of her husband in 1821 – Chile. In 1823 she visited the new Empire of Brazil and was appointed tutor to the princess Maria da Gloria. Later she moved to London and became the centre of a group of artists. She wrote of her experiences in India, Ceylon, Brazil and Chile.

  15 December Nothing that I have ever seen is comparable in beauty to this bay. Naples, the Firth of Forth, Bombay harbour and Trincomalee, each of which I thought perfect in their beauty, all must yield to this, which surpasses each in its different way. Lofty mountains, rocks of clustered columns, luxuriant wood, bright flowery islands, green banks, all mixed with white buildings; each little eminence crowned with its church or fort; ships at anchor or in motion; and innumerable boats flitting about in such a delicious climate – combine to render Rio de Janeiro the most enchanting scene that imagination can conceive.…

  18 December I have begun housekeeping on shore. We find vegetables and poultry very good, but not cheap; fruit is very good and cheap; butcher’s meat cheap, but very bad: there is a monopolist butcher, and no person may even kill an animal for his own use without permission paid for from that person; consequently, as there is no competition, he supplies the market as he pleases. The beef is so bad, that it can hardly be used even for soup meat, three days out of four; and that supplied to the ships is at least as bad: mutton is scarce and bad: pork very good and fine; it is fed principally on manioc and maize, near the town; that from a distance has the advantage of sugar cane. Fish is not so plentiful as it ought to be, considering the abundance that there is on the whole coast, but it is extremely good; oysters, prawns and crabs are as good as in any part of the world. The wheaten bread used in Rio is chiefly made of American flour, and is, generally speaking, exceedingly good. Neither the captaincy of Rio, nor those to the north, produce wheat; but in the high lands of St Paul’s, and the Minas Gerais, and in the southern provinces, a good deal is cultivated, and with great success. The great article of food here is the manioc meal, or far
inha; it is made into thin broad cakes as a delicacy, but the usual mode of eating it is dry: when at the tables of the rich, it is used with every dish of which they eat, as we take bread; with the poor, it has every form – porridge, brose, bread; and no meal is complete without it: next to manioc, the feijao or dry kidney bean, dressed in every possible way, but most frequently stewed with a small bit of pork, garlic, salt and pimento, is the favourite food; and for dainties, from the noble to the slave, sweetmeats of every description, from the most delicate preserves and candies to the coarsest preparations of treacle, are swallowed wholesale.…

  1 May I have this day seen the Val Longo; it is the slave-market of Rio. Almost every house in this very long street is a depot for slaves. On passing by the doors this evening, I saw in most of them long benches placed near the walls, on which rows of young creatures were sitting, their heads shaved, their bodies emaciated and the marks of recent itch upon their skins. In some places the poor creatures were lying on mats, evidently too sick to sit up. At one house the half-doors were shut, and a group of boys and girls, apparently not above fifteen years old, and some much under, were leaning over the hatches, and gazing into the street with wondering faces. They were evidently quite new negroes. As I approached them, it appears that something about me attracted their attention; they touched one another, to be sure that all saw me, and then chattered in their own African dialect with great eagerness. I went and stood near them, and though certainly more disposed to weep, I forced myself to smile to them, and look cheerfully, and kissed my hand to them, with all which they seemed delighted, and jumped about and danced, as if returning my civilities. Poor things! I would not, if I could, shorten their moments of glee, by awakening them to a sense of the sad things of slavery; but, if I could, I would appeal to their masters, to those who buy, and to those who sell, and implore them to think of the evils slavery brings, not only to the negroes but to themselves, not only to themselves but to their families and their posterity.