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136 RIESBECK’S TRAVELS THROUGH GERMANY,
made to produce wine, and I have tafted fome melnikers very little inferior to the fe-
cond fort of Bourdeaux wines. The firft ftocks were brought from Burgundy. The
country, however, will hardly be able to produce a fufficiency of this article for con-
fumption, but it has other advantages to make up for the lofs. As it poffeffes moft of
the prime neceflaries of life, and by that means commands a fuperiority of trade which
none of the neighbouring countries can difpute with it, it provides a great part of Silefia,
Saxony, and Auftria with corn, and alfo fells them fomecattle. The circle of Saafler is
alone able to furnifh all Bohemia, populous as the country is, with corn even in moderate
years. The excellent Bohemian hops are carried as far as the Rhine in great quantities.
The breed of horfes is likewife wonderfully improved within thefe few years, and bring
annually large fums of money into the country. The Bohemian tin is the beft of any,
next to the Englifh; and they carry on a very confiderable trade in alum, and feveral
kinds of precious {tones, particularly garnets. ‘The large woods, in which the country
abounds, furnifh materials for the wonderful manufactories of glafs, which bring a great
deal of money into the country, and find their way into every part of Europe frem Por-
tugal to Sweden. Within thefe few years they have alfo made large quantities of very
good and uncommonly cheap hats, with which they fupply great part of the inhabitants
of Auftria, Bavaria, and Franconia. The handkerchief and linen manufactories are alfo
in good repute.
‘The Bohemian travels much. Some as dealers in glafs, who goas far as England and
Italy, and fome as bafket and fieve-makers. Ihave met with large caravans of thefe on
the Upper Rhine and in the Netherlands. Thefe people commonly come home with
pretty large fums of money ; they keep together like brothers whilft they are in foreign
countries. They have indeed an uncommon fhare of patriotifm, anda kind of con-
fidence in each other, which often makes them pafs in the eyes of ftrangers fora favage
and barbarous people, though they really are not fo. b
Since the days of Hufs they have a fecret hatred to the Germans, which does not
arife fo much from bad temper as from a kind of national pride. Moft of the farmers
who live near the roads {peak German; but as they do not like to talk to a ftranger
without neceility, they pretend not to underftand a word of what the traveller fays, and
make their fport of him amongft themfelves. It has been attempted to make them fend
their children to German fchools, but hitherto they have all proved abortive. They
have an unfpeakable averfion to whatever is German. I have heard young men here
talk of the battles which their anceftors, under Zifka, fought againft the Germans, with
a degree of warmth and pride, which made them very amiable in my eyes. They ftill
remember too, thatthe refidence of the court at Prague formerly rendered the country
flourifhing, and lament that the preference which has been given to Auftria, in confe-
quence of a flight mifunderltanding, carries off large fums-annually from the country,
which are fent to Vienna partly by the court and partly by the nobility. The late Em-
prefs was extremely offended with them on account of this mifunderftanding, and Bohe-
mia was the only one of her old hereditary dominions which fhe never vifited.
‘The Huflites are {till very numerous in the country. Some think that a fourth part
of the inhabitants are of this fect, which has alfo fpread widely in Moravia. Scarce
four years are palt fince above ten thoufand farmers made a little ftand to recover’their
freedom of opinion; but they were foon quieted, and the thing had no further confe-
quences. :
Voltaire and fome other hiftorians have much mifreprefented the famous Hufs and
his doctrines. ‘They look upon this reformer as a man of a very limited underftanding,
and think that his object went ne further than to procure the clergy leave to marry,
and
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