The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1892-11-14
IN FOREIGN LANDS.
Noted German Baths-carisbad, Franzen-
bad-The sprudel Brunnen- Swift
Eoorrespondence ofthe Press

BAsLE, Switzerland, Oct. 20th.-After
leaving the weird old city of Nuremberg
one unsuspectingly plunges into region
of Acadian beauty and idyllic country
life. The Pegnitz valley is wonderland
of picturesque sweetness, nesting among
the fair mountains which lie above and
around. In quiet resorts this valley
offers unexcelled accommodations to
people desiring perfect quiet and isola-
ton from the world. What the Germans
call ''turhauses' spring up all about with
no greater reference, oftentimes, to cures
than that which good hygiene, fresh air
and agreeable scenery can afford. This
Nuremberg Switzerland as it is called,
like its mighty namesake and all its los
ter sisters is well filled with quiet people
from Germany and Austria and occa-
sionally with some from other lands.
One would fain linger here as he would
behind so many open doors to hayens OF
rest. but Europe is too full of objective
points to the hard pressed tourist, and so
hurrying by the Bayreuth junction, just
too late for 1.-THE P. rsivap' one catches
glimpses of Franconia Switzerland, and
passing it as going by the caves of the
Syrens, he halts at last at the foot of one
Of the ''Fichtelgebirgea at Eyer, the
dark foreground of some dire scenes IN
the ssThirty Years" War; This broad
belt of mountain and table land which
takes in all the mountain region men
toned above, commencing far back IN
Bavaria. goes on swallowing up section
after, section, including the Thuringian
Forest, the Err and Mittelgebirge, on the
frontier of Bohemia and Saxon Switzer-
land and extends beyond the Giant into
(Riesengebirge) to Silesia.
Schiller settled down at Eyer in an old
dwelling opposite the burgomaster
house, where the CHASTITY assassination OF
Wallenstein took place, and wrote his
tragedy called ''Wallenstein,' which has
been read and acted with SO much inter
est ever since. A tablet marks the house
where Schiller lived, and the whole sur
roundings of the market place to this
day whisper of foul deeds. One almost
shivers in the court beneath, while an
old croning guide points to the winding
staircase in the narrow dark passage
which leads to the fatal chamber, where
the man of Napoleonic ambition met the
reward of treachery. In this rude cham
Der hang rude pictures of the deed and
mementos of the man, and in a castle
overlooking the town, with old towers OF
the Barbarossa time, on that doleful
night more murder was done, the Off
GERS of Wallenstein being killed here a
few hours before he met his fate at the
hands of assassins in the Burgomaster's
house. The old castle still stands, a dis
mantled fortress, with it's drawbridge and
easements intact, the castle never hav-
ing been inhabited since that hour.
The Bathing Resorts of Bohemia.
There are ''Bads' enough in this re-
the kissing waters of many of them indi-
cate volcanic strata that may in time
blow up part of Saxony and all of Bo-
hernia, Marienbad, Alexanderbad, Fran
zenbad, Carlsbad and Teplitz are all
within few hours distance from each
other.
From Eyer five minutes by train takes
you out to Franzenbad, where you find
fashion and wealth trying to entrap
beauty from the sparkling waters which
gush forth out of bubbling wells into
shimmering fountains. In no place in
Europe, believe, except Monte Carlo,
unless it be Homberg, can we find SO
much wealth and display in so short
space and time as at Franzenbad, for in
Paris it is longer drawn out, and so of
course is mixed up with other elements.
1t is the Fountain of Youth that people
seek at Franzenbad, since, unlike the 9TH
er bathing resorts, no signs of i'll health
appear here. 1t seems simply pleasure
cure, and entirely unlike Carlsbad, only
two or three hours distant on the Bohe-
milan frontier.
All is cosmopolitan at Carlsbad, dis
ease and the mud baths being the great
Jewellers which, like death, enlist the
rich as well as the poor. People of every
class, from every land, bring to Carlsbad
certificates from doctors of every degree
of importance, and from all ranks of So
ciety. Emperors and princes come here
and people who look like beggars are
walking alone. The Queen of Austria,
who had just finished cure, was just
leaving as we arrived, and as it was the
height of the season other grandees were
taking her place. Miles of furnished
hotels, some of them very fine, with togis
marked at the gate, offer accommodate
lions proportionate to all grades; and as
forssfood, it is said, and our experience
verifies the assertion there is no food of
any consequence tobe found at Carlsbad,
a strict diet being a part of the regime,
and the baskets of rolls on the heads OF
such number of peasant women, and
the half dozen in the hands of almost
every patient going home from the
springs, indicate that bread is the staple
commodity here.
Health and strength are the prizes
most sought at Carlsbad, and he who
could go forth from this sickly looking
throng with the stamp of health on his
brow would be the most envied of all.
But the cure here is of such an heroic
type that only few can rally at once
from the reactionary influences, and
when the season closes it looks like an
army of dead men who march forth.
And so successive cures follow along, at
Teplitz, Schandan, and in the Thurin-