Yesterday morning early we took our departure from Freystadt, & came to this place; a distance of eight german miles; five of which are in single stage from Sprotau here— The face of the country has visibly & greatly improved as we came along; & although we still had to wade through miles of sands more, or less deep, we were frequently relieved by patches of good roads, & by beautiful fields of wheat, rye, barley, oats, & especially flax, which appeared in a highly flourishing condition. As it happens to be just now harvest time, we passed many groups of reapers; a sight of which would have afforded us more satisfaction, had we not known, that they were far from gathering the bounties of the season for themselves, & had they not by frequently soliciting our charity proved the wretchedness of their condition— We had travelled through Saxony, a part of the march, & a corner of Bohemia last year at this time, & then too had met many a company of reapers— We had seen several last week, as we came from Berlin; but we had never seen them beg— Since we entered Silesia, yesterday & the day before, certainly more than twenty times, as we passed by troops of peasants of both sexes, who were gathering the harvest, a woman from among them, & sometimes two, or three ran from the fields to our carriage, with a little bunch of flowers, tied up with some ears of the grain they were gathering, which they threw into the carriage at the windows, by way 316 of begging for a dreyer, or half a grosh—1 The reason of this is, because the condition of the peasant in Silesia is much worse than in the electorate— For although personal servitude exists alike in both provinces, yet the serf in the March is never obliged to labour for his Lord, more days than there are— In Silesia, he is often obliged to furnish ten days in a week. Judge then after the man & his wife have both labored five days in seven for the lord, what sort of subsistance they can earn in the remaining two, (one of which is a sunday) for themselves.

This so little travelling through this country, that unless post horses are bespoken before hand, they must be waited for, untill they can be brought in by some peasant from the fields. Thus we were obliged to stop yesterday three hours at Sprotau, & to employ the time went round the town to see whatever of remarkable it contained— It is a small place with about two thousand inhabitants, one third of whom are catholics— It stands upon the Bober a small branch of the Oder, which likewise runs through this town, but is too small to be navigable, & only serves at Sprotau, to give motion to a number of corn mills & fulling mills, which we saw fully employed. The manufactory of broad cloth is likewise carried on at Sprotau, at Freystadt & indeed in all the towns in this part of Silesia, though in none of them excepting Goldberg, to so great an extent as at Grünberg.

In Sprotau there is a convent of nuns, dedicated to St: Mary Magdalen, who not being so liberal in their open intercourse with our sex as their great patroness, could not be visited by me.2 But Louisa went to see them— It seems they were not so well acquainted with, or so highly reverent of the name of Adams, as the worthy magistrates of Freystadt; for being informed we were Americans, they took it for granted we were Turks, & were under no small apprehension least Louisa, & Epps should be turkish men in disguise. The old ladies, for they are all declining far into the vale of years, began to tremble for their chastity, knowing it to be a thing for which the turks have very little respect— You, who know how much my wife & her maid look like Turkish ravishers, will perhaps be suspicious, that the alarms of the pious sisterhood are wont to be in the inverted proportion to the dangers that may threaten their most precious jewel.

We went over the catholic church, which joins upon the nunnery, & is alike dedicated to Mary Magdelen. Of the pictures hung round 317 the church, & the alter pieces, those, which represent here were alone tolerable. There was an immage, modeled upon the famous one of our Lady at Loretto, which Buonaparte took the liberty of sending to Paris, about four years ago—3 The most remarkable thing I met in the church was a paper posted up, on the inner side of a confessional; written in Latin, & containing a list of the sins to which the ordinary priest was forbidden to grant absolution, as being expressly reserved for the consideration of the holy father himself— I expected to have found at least some heinous crimes upon the list, but unless the murder of a priest may be considered of that denomination, there was not one. The offences were—burying an heretic in holy ground—reading the books of the heretics, without a special licence—refusing to pay tithes—& about a dozen others all of the same stamp—all having some reference to the papal authority— Observe particularly, that the unpardonable crime of reading heretical books is expressed in terms so vague & comprehensive (libros hereticorum) that they may be construed by the priest to mean almost any books he pleases— And this paper is publickly posted in a country where the catholics themselves are but a tolerated sect, the subjects of a protestant sovereign. It is possible indeed that the restraints of the romish church upon its followers may be more rigorous & more public in such a country, than where its authority is unquestioned & unopposed— Silesia was originally under the Austrian government, a catholic province; at this time, about one half of its inhabitants still adhere to that religion, & although the steady maxims of the prussian Government, & still more the revolutions of time & opinions have powerfully operated to introduce a spirit of mutual forbearance, if not of harmony, there is perhaps no part of Europe, where the root of bitterness between the two parties is yet so deep, & cleaves with such stubbornness to the ground as here— The catholics hate the protestants the more, for their having now the secure & unlimited liberty in their worship; & the protestants envy the catholics the priviledges they still retain, which the Prussian government has bound itself to preserve.4 Mr Zölner, who has published his tour through Silesia, made in the year 1791, & from whom I draw much of the information I give you, says, that it is common here for a catholic to exhibit, before a Lutheran judge, a complaint against another catholic, for calling him a Lutheran, & requiring satisfaction for what he considers as the blackest slander that could be cast upon him.5

About halfway between Sprotau, & this place we first came in sight of the mountains towards which we are travelling, & from which we are still about forty of our miles distant.

Before I give you an account of our journey hither, I must say something of what we saw yesterday at Bunzlau, & which I had not time to tell you, before we continued our journey.

The principal manufactory of Bunzlau, is in pottery; particularly of those brown coffee pots & milk pots, of which you have seen many at the inns of Berlin & through the electorate— Of these potters there are at Bunzlau, each of whom employs six or eight workmen— We saw them make several large pots such as are commonly used to hold butter— From a cubic mass of clay, about a foot thick, they form in about five minutes, the pot, by merely moulding it with the hand, while it whirls round upon a sort of circular bench placed before the workman— We could not however stay long to see them, for they work in the same room, where the Ovens are heated to bake the pots, & its warmth was to us intolerable— In the yard of this pottery, there is a pot of prodigious size, made about half a century ago, which contains nearly fifty bushels— It is about twelve feet high; is hooped like a barrel, which it resembles in form, & is kept in a house built on purpose for it— The Germans appear to have a particular predilection for things of an uncommon dimensions in their kind; the tuns of Heidelberg & Königstein, & this pot serve as examples to show how much size enters into their ideas of the sublime.6

But the greatest curiosities at Bunzlau, are two mechanical genius’s by the name of Jacob, & of Hüttig, a carpenter, & a weaver, who are next door neighbours to each other— The first has made a machine, in which by the means of certain clock work a number of puppets about six inches high, are made to move upon a kind of stage, so as to represent in several successive scenes the passion of Jesus Christ— The first exibits him in the garden at prayer, while the three apostles are sleeping at a distance. In the last he is shewn dead, in the sepulchre, guarded by two roman soldiers— The intervening scenes represent the treachery of Judas; the examination of Jesus before Caiaphas, the dialogue between Pilate & the jews, concerning him; the denial of Peter, the scourging & the crucifixion— It is all accompanied by a mournful dirge of music, & the maker, by way of explanation repeats the passages of scripture, which relates the events 319 he has undertaken to show— I never saw a stronger proof how powerful the impression of objects, which are brought immediately home to the senses is— I have heard & read more than one eloquent sermon, upon the passion, but I confess, none of their most labored efforts at the pathetic, ever touched my heart with one half the force of this puppet show— The traitor’s kiss, the blow struck by the high priest’s servant, the scourging, the nailing to the cross, the spunge of vinegar, every indignity offered, & every pain inflicted, occasioned a sensation when thus made perceptible to the eye, which I had never felt at mere description; & when we rose to come away, Louisa’s eyes were full of tears.

Hüttig the weaver, with an equal, or superior mechanical genius, has applied it in a different manner, & devoted it to geographical, astronomical, & historical pursuits— In the intervals of his leasure from the common weaver’s work, which affords him subsistance, he has become a very learned man— The walls of his rooms are covered with maps & drawings of his own representing, here the course of the Oder, with all the towns & villages, through which it runs; there the mountains of Switzerland, & those of Silesia, over both of which, he has travelled in person— In one room he has two large tables, one raised above the other—on one of them he has ranged all the towns & remarkable places of Germany, & on the other of all Europe; they are placed according to their respective geographical bearings. The names of the towns are written on a small square piece of paper, & fixed in a slit on the top of a peg, which is stuck into the table. The remarkable mountains are shewn by small pyramidical black stones, & little white pyramids are stationed at all the spots, which have been distinguished by any great battle, or other remarkable incident— The man himself in explaining his work, shews abundance of learning relative to the antient names of places, & the former inhabitants of countries to which he points; & amused us with anecdotes of various kinds connected with the lands he has marked out. Thus in shewing us the Alps, he pointed to the spots over which the french army of reserve so lately passed, & where Buonaparte so fortunately escaped being taken by an austrian officer, & then he gave us a short comment of his own upon the character & extraordinary good fortune of the first consul.7 In a second room he has a large machine representing the copernican system of the universe; it is made so that the whole firmament of fixed stars moves round our solar system once in every twenty four hours, & thus always exhibits the stars in the exact position relative to our earth, in which they 320 really stand. Internally he has stationed all the planets, which belong to our system, with several satellites, & all the comets that have been observed during the last three centuries. In a third room he has another machine, exhibiting in different parts the various phases of the moon, & those of Jupiter’s satellites— The apparent motion of the sun round the earth, & the real motion of the earth round the sun.

In his garret he has another work, upon which he is yet occupied, & which being his last labor seems to be that in which he takes the most delight. Upon a very large table similar to that in the first room, he has inlaid a number of thin plates of wood formed so as to represent a projection of the earth upon Mercator’s plan. All the intervals between the plates of wood designate that portion of the world, which is covered with water. He has used a number of very small ropes of different colours drawn over the surface in such a manner as to describe the tracks of all the celebrated circumnavigators of the globe. The colours of the ropes distinguish the several voyages from each other. To three of these great adventurers, who he thinks claim especial preeminence above the rest Columbus, Anson & Cook, he has shewn a special honor by three little models of ships, bearing their names, which are placed upon the surface of his ocean, in some spot of their respective courses—8 The names of all the other voyagers, & the times at which their voyages, were performed, are marked by papers fixed at the points of their departure. Such is the imperfect description I can give you from a short view of the labours of this really curious man— He must be nearly, or quite seventy years old, & has all his life time been of an infirm constitution. But his taste for the sciences he told was hereditary in his family, & had been common to them all, from his great grandfather down to himself. His dress & appearance were those of a common weaver; but his countenance expressive at once of meditation & ingenuity; his eyes at once full of enthusiastic fire, & amiable good nature, was a model upon which Lavater might expatiate with exultation— He enquired who we were; & was as much transported at the names of American, & of Adams, as the magistrates of Freystadt— At these frequent & spontaneous expressions of respect shewn to our name, I hope neither you nor I shall feel any improper pride; at least our filial affection may be allowed to rejoyce at them. The honest & ingenious weaver, on our taking leave, made us smile by exclaiming, that now, if he could but have a traveller from Africa, come to see his works, he could boast of having had visitors from all the four quarters of the globe. Yours.9

At the close of my last letter I left you, in a cool refreshing shade, in the view of the Kockelfall, from which we proceeded the same evening to this inn— It was, as you may suppose a fatiguing day; though not so much so, as one or two we have gone through since, & several, which still await us— This village in one respect resembles 322 an American country, more than any other spot I have seen in Europe. It contains about 350 houses, & 1600 inhabitants, but they are scattered over an extent of several miles square, & the houses are all strey’d about in spots at an hundred rods & more from each other— The german travellers, who visit the place, all speak of the arrangement as of something extraordinary; though to me it appeared perfectly familiar, from having been so much used to it in our own country—

I had only written thus far when I was called away to perform our last & most important labour upon the present excursion; from which we returned here yesterday— After six most fatiguing days in immediate succession we propose spending a few days in this pleasant town to rest ourselves, in which I shall have time to bring up the arrears of my narrative with you.

We had been obliged to take one of the common post chaises of the country, to go to Schreibershau the roads being such that our own carriage was not suitable for them. Even the post chaise could not answer the purpose of our travels beyond that place, & for the remainder of our excursions we could use no other carriage than a peasent’s cart, without springs, or seats; instead of which however we had a couple of boards fixed across the cart, & covered with straw; which upon the whole was really, or was thought better than sitting on the bottom of the cart itself.

Thus equiped we left Schreibershau between 5 & 6, in the morning of the 31st: & rode untill noon, over some of the worst roads it has ever been my lot to meet, to see the glass houses on the borders of Bohemia. There are two, one on the Silesian, the other on the Bohemian side of the boundaries, & about two english miles distant from each other— We saw them both— The mere glass house is much the same on both sides; excepting that the Bohemian is larger, & makes a great variety of articles— The principal things we saw made, were vials, bottles, tumblers, wineglasses coffee pots, & a sort of glass wire used upon lustres—1 I believe the proprietors of these works are not fond of having strangers come to inspect them, & they have some reason for such an aversion— In five or six instances, & at both the houses, the particular workman, whom we stopped to look at, failed in the article he was making, evidently because we were looking upon him; whether because his attention 323 was involuntarily drawn from his work to the spectators, or because the conciousness of being looked at, excited the ambition of appearing to do the work with perfect ease, & occasioned failure from carelessness, or by a contrary effect raised that unusual anxiety to do well, which defeats its own purpose, I shall not determine, but such was the fact— The Bohemian was much superior in quality, & about 50 percent cheaper than that of their neighbours— They have likewise in the same village, & belonging to the same manufactory, glass cutters, grinders, & gilders, so that the whole process is completed on the spot. At the Silesian works they barely blow the glass. Much of the Bohemian glass is handsome, & if they would but consult the english work in the same article to improve the elegance of their forms, it would be difficult to distinguish between them— As it is, the immense difference between the prices of Bohemian, & of english glass, even making every allowance for the necessary difference in the price of transportation, convinces me that an advantageous trade in this article too, might be carried on between our country & Bohemia, & I hope it will one day. You will perhaps think I recur too frequently to this idea; but I confess one of the chief objects of the present tour, was to obtain information respecting the manufactures of these countries,2 with this special view— To diminish the commercial dependence of our country upon G. Britain ought in my opinion to be one of the favorite objects of every american patriot, & in addressing these letters to you, I presume those parts of them, which relate to commerce & the manufactures will meet the eye, & as far as is proper the attention of the President.

After spending about four hours in looking over all these works, we returned to Schreibershau, by the same road we had travelled in the morning, & reached that place at about ten at night— I suppose the distance not more than ten english miles, but the road is so mountanous, & rocky, that the cart could scarcely for a quarter of a mile on the way proceed upon a quicker pace, than a walk.— The hills were partly covered with, & had been partly stripped of their woods, chiefly birch & pine, used as well at the glass works, as at the manufactory of vitriol— Much of the wood is heaped, ready cut & split, along by the sides of the road, & much of it lies in the beds where all the streams run, to be floated down, when the season shall shewll their currents sufficiently for the purpose.

Both in returning, & going we stopped at a peasant’s hut, where 324 we found excellent brown bread, water, milk, & butter & tolerably cheese— These articles are found in their utmost perfection in every part of the mountains, even where you can get nothing else.

In making the usual excursions upon these mountains, it is necessary to be accompanied by a guide; for an acquaintance with all the places to be visited, towards some of which not so much as a foot path conducts, is a sort of profession; & in all professions some one person following it, will always be more eminent than all the rest, so here, Siegmund Seidler, junr: originally a poor shoemaker of Schreibershau, is the most widely celebrated of all the guides upon the Giant mountains. Zöllner, who published his tour hither, which he made in 1791, the next year, first brought forward in the lists of fame, this indefatigable leader, who has been celebrated by all the German tourists on this route since that time—3 So far superior is he deemed to all his brother trudges, that our friend the professor at Frankfurt, who had been before us here, advised us, if Seidler should happen upon our arrival at Scheibershau, to be out, with other company, rather to wait four, or five days untill his return, than to take any other guide— By good luck for us, he came home this morning at two o’clock from having attended another company, & from this day we engage him.

To make an easy day’s work, we determined to content ourselves this day with visiting the Zacken fall. At noon we left our inn, & after riding two hours in the cart, & walking an hour more, we reached the spot. As we rode along, about twenty women & children gathered round us to beg, who followed us all the rest of the way to the fall, & a great part of it back. The situation of this fall is as wild & romantic, as that of the Kockel, & it is three times as high—that is, nearly 150 feet. It seems here, as in many other places in this neighbourhood as if some violent convulsion of Nature had riven the rocks, & made these formidable chasms, which yawn from so many of the elevations. At this place you stand upon one side of the cleft & see the water dask down from the other; upon a level with yourself; between you & the stream is an abrupt precipice, which seems the more profound, for being so narrow; per=4 about an hundred yards— With the help of a ladder I descended to the bottom, & walked partly over the rocks, & partly over the billets of wood lying in the bed of the stream to the spot from which the water falls— We likewise went round by a winding foot path on the top, to 325 the spot from which the streams launches itself— From these three several positions the views are altogether different, & neither of them should be admitted. We returned as we went, & reached our inn at about 6. in the evening—

It is the fashion among the German travellers, who perform this tour, to make long & laboured descriptions of these two water falls, & at our inn at Schreibershau, a book like that of the Kÿnast is kept, in which all, who visit them, may insert their names— This book we found full of bombastic exclamations at the grandeur of the two cataracts; but the extreme scantiness of the sheet, or rather wire of water that falls, makes them utterly unworthy of that name, & fully justifies the lines written by some frenchman, who appears to have amused himself at the expence of all the fustian exclaimers at these spectacles— His lines are the only good ones found in the book.

This day was devoted to the view of the Schneegruben, or Snow pits, considered as among the greatest curiosities of the mountains, & likewise to visit the source & the fall of the Eble.

At 7 in the morning, we took to the cart, & after jolting over the rocks up hill for two hours came to the place beyond which no carriage can proceed— We had procured an armed chair & a couple of men at Schriebershau, for the purpose of carrying Louisa part of the way, but she made little use of them— It would astonish you, as it does me, to see how she supports the fatigues of this journey, which is considered as so much beyond the strenght even of the strongest women, that our guide, who has followed this business these twelve years, assured me he had never conducted but one lady before upon this tour— From the time when we left the cart, we ascended for about an hour a stepp, of which you can form an idea, when I tell you that it was throughout, about equal to the steepest part of Beacon hill in Boston. We then came to a peasant’s, here called a Baude, (pronounce it, in english, bouder) of which there are many upon the mountains, & of which, as they & their inhabitants have several distinguishing peculiarities, I shall say something more in a future letter— After resting an hour & taking some refreshment at 326 this, which is known by the name of the Silesian baude, we recommenced our ascent, & after toiling, & panting half an hour longer reached, what is called the back of the Riesengebirge, that is the summit of the whole range; though single rocks & hills upon them rise yet much higher— On this back, we found a boundary stone between Bohemia, & Silesia; for the limits of the two provinces run all along upon this summit— We had however another half hour’s walk, chiefly ascending though less steep than before; when instantly a precipice nearly fifteen hundred feet deep opened its gastly jaws before us— A sort of isthmus, or tongue of land however allowed us to proceed about an hundred rods further, untill we could fix ourselves against the side of a rock, & look over into the tremendous depth— We had then the precipice on both sides of us, & it passes by the respective names of the great & the small snow-pit— They are so called because generally the snow at the bottom remains unmelted the whole round, although this has not been the case for the last two summers, & at present they contain no snow at all— We were now elevated more than 4000 feet above the level of the sea; beyond the jaws of the precepice, somewhat higher than ourselves, was the summit of a mountain called the great wheel, or the great storm cap— Just beneath our feet was the dreadful precipice, at the bottom of which lofty pines slanting downwards upon the still descending mountain, scarcely appeared to us of the height of a lady’s needle; while beyond the foot of the mountains our eyes ranged to an almost immeasurable distance over hills & dales, corn fields & pastures, cities & villages, untill they were lost in the grey vapours, that bordered the far extended region— The weather, which is here almost always cold, even when the regions below are melting with heat, was so unusually mild that we had no occasion to take our cloaks, while we sat about an hour & enjoyed the prospects around us— At the snow pits, as at the falls, there is every appearance, as if the immense masses of granite, of which these mountains consist, had been split & shivered by some great natural convulsion— The basaltic rocks, which rise in irregular pyramidical shafts from the bottom of the pits, to the hight of five hundred feet furnish materials for the controversy between the natural philosophers, whether it is a marine, or volcanic production— Louisa from this spot returned to the Silesian baude, while I took an hour & a half more, to visit the source, & the fall of the Elbe, which required about a mile of descent on the Bohemian side. As there was no path leading towards it, & part of the way was not only 327 very steep, but between low bushes & shrubs, in which the feet might easily get entangled, this was the most disagreable part of this days journey— The fall of the Elbe is higher than either of those on the Silesian side, being about 250 feet; but has the same disadvantage of extremely penurious waters; a disadvantage, which though much less in the Spring of the year, than at present, must always be considerable, owing to the extremity of the falls, to the sources of their streams— In returning from this fall we saw two, or three of the eleven springs, from which according to some of the German writers, the Elbe, derives its name, as well as its waters. Yours—7