Moldau, because he refused to reveal to him what the queen confessed.  The legend says the body swam for some time on the river, with five stars around its head.  The 16th of May, the day before we arrived, was that set apart for his particular honor; the statue on the bridge was covered with an arch of green boughs and flowers, and the shrine lighted with burning tapers.  A railing was erected around it, near which numbers of the believers were kneeling, and a priest stood in the inside.  The bridge was covered with passers-by, who all took their hats off till they had passed.  Had it been a place of public worship, the act would have been natural and appropriate, but to uncover before a statue seemed to us too much like idolatry, and we ventured over without doing it.  A few years ago it might have been dangerous, but now we only met with scowling looks.  There are many such shrines and statues through the city, and I noticed that the people always took off their hats and crossed themselves in passing.  On the hill above the western end of the city, stands a chapel on the spot where the Bavarians put an end to Protestantism in Bohemia by the sword, and the deluded peasantry of the land make pilgrimages to this spot, as if it were rendered holy by an act over which Religion weeps!

Ascending the broad flight of steps to the Hradschin, I paused a moment to look at the scene below.  A slight blue haze hung over the clustering towers, and the city looked dim through it, like a city seen in a dream.  It was well that it should so appear, for not less dim and misty are the memories that haunt its walls.  There was no need of a magician’s wand to bid that light cloud shadow forth the forms of other times.  They came uncalled for, even by fancy.  Far, far back in the past, I saw the warrior-princess who founded the kingly city—­the renowned Libussa, whose prowess and talent inspired the women of Bohemia to rise at her death and storm the land that their sex might rule where it obeyed before.  On the mountain opposite once stood the palace of the bloody Wlaska, who reigned with her Amazon band for seven years over half Bohemia.  Those streets below had echoed with the fiery words of Huss, and the castle of his follower—­the blind Ziska, who met and defeated the armies of the German Empire—­moulders on the mountain above.  Many a year of war and tempest has passed over the scene.  The hills around have borne the armies of Wallenstein and Frederic the Great; the war-cry of Bavaria, Sweden and Poland has echoed in the valley, and the red glare of the midnight cannon or the flames of burning palaces have often gleamed along the “blood-dyed waters” of the Moldau!