John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, August 20, 1800

Waldenberg. 20. August. 1800.

The shortness of my paper, & of my time
yesterday abridged my discription of the natural ruins at Adersback,
one of the most curious objects we have yet viewed upon this
journey. As I was closing my letter, the king & queen passed
under our windows, on their way to Furstenstein. There, a double
entertainment combining the fashionable amusements of antient &
modern times, a carousel & a masquerade was prepared for
them.

The carousel was in a style of great splendour
& magnificence. The sixteen knights, the herald and the
bannerest were clad, not in armour, but in the fashionable full dress of the age of Charles
the fifth & Francis the first. The ceremonies were performed
with rigorous accuracy according to the usages of chivalry. The
exercises of the knights were in themselves nothing at all. The
highest proof of skill was to take a ring, from the hand of a
statue, with the point of the spear, upon an horse in full gallop.
Even this, very few of them succeeded in doing. At any riding
amphitheatre in Europe, or America, may be seen for half a crown the
same things performed with infinitely more skill & address, but
the close adherence to the forms usual in the times when knighthood
was its glory; the pomp & solemnity of the representation; the
contrast between the grandeur of the spectacle, & the old ruin’d
walls, the relics of five centuries, & between the romantic
wildness of the extensive prospect around, & the crowded
thousands, who were present to see the show, all contributed to
produce a pleasing effect. The four most successful knights received
medals of different value proportioned to the degree of the prize
they obtained. The queen hung the medals upon their necks. It was
expected that after the names of the victors had been proclaimed,
& the herald had thrice called out to ask, if any knight were
yet disposed to dispute the prizes adjudged a strange would appear
& enter the lists to renew the contest for the first medal, but
this expectation was disappointed. 1

The masked ball was given in the house, where the
count now resides, an elegant & richly furnished modern
building, which was illuminated upon the occasion. There were
scarcely any masks in character, & no attempt was made by those,
that were, to support them. Upon the whole it was very dull. The
principal company consisted of the knights, who had performed at the
carousel & their ladies; three quarters of these to say the
least were dissatisfied at the issue of the day, in which as is very
common on such occasions, the race was not to the swift, nor the
battle to the strong; for it so happened that the very best riders
of the company failed in obtaining any one of the prizes. Thus the
countenances in shade, & the multitude of black dominos, with
unmeaning, or hideous masks, gave the whole rather the appearance of
a funeral procession, than of an high festivity. We stayed not more
than half an hour, & a little after midnight returned to our inn
at Waldenberg. 2

Schweidnitz. 21. August. Thursday.

Yesterday afternoon we came from Waldenberg,
three german miles, to this town. About half way between the two
places we descended from the hill upon which Fürstenstein is situated,
& leaving the small town of Freyberg at our left hand, enterred
upon a very extensive plain, which admirably contrasts with those
mountanous regions, where we have so agreably passed about four
weeks. The mountain towns properly so called are five, from four of
them, Hirschberg, Schmiedeberg, Landeshut, & Waldenberg, my last
letters to you are dated. 3 Upon our return we
hope to see the fifth, which is Greiffenberg, & is situated just
upon the borders of Saxony. We have now gone through the most
interesting part of our journey. The mountain towns & the
mountains themselves, with their inhabitants, have a peculiar
character, distinct even from that of the rest of Silesia, &
much more so from the other Prussian provinces. Their distance from
the sea & even from all inland navigation, secludes them from
that great & continual intercourse with the rest of the world,
which according to Yorick’s happy illustration, effaces the
appropriate stamp, at the same time that it gives the highest polish
to human characters. Accordingly we find something original &
characteristic in almost every individual we meet— As their country
is seldom visited by strangers, their hospitality is cordial, warm,
confiding, & carried sometimes so far as would be troublesome,
if gratitude could admit any thing to be troublesome, which proceeds
from such good intentions. The habitual industry so general among
them preserves them from that excessive poverty, & those vices,
which are prevalent in some countries still more favored by nature,
though even here the comfort of the great mass of the people is so
much inferior to what their industry deserves, that humanity cannot
contemplate their condition without a sigh of compassion. Yet they
have a priviledge very unusual in the prussian dominions; a great
& valuable priviledge, the worth of which they fully know, &
in which they take a proper pride. It is that of having no soldiers
quartered upon them; no troops in garrison. This circumstance alone
would be sufficient to produce an immense difference between the
character of the people here, & that of their less fortunate
fellow subjects. Instead of that perpetual, unvaried &
disgusting view of Idleness, & misery & vice, with the
uniform on the back, & the gun in the hand, it is truly
refreshing to the soul, to see towns & villages, & I might
almost say the very mountain wilds teeming with active & useful
labour. In consequence of this exemption too, that reverence for the
military character, which the policy of the state has rendered
necessary in Prussia, extends not here. To go through the exercises
of a review is not considered as the most exalted of all mortal accomplishments; nor is an
epaulette the golden image before which all the people must
prostrate themselves in sign of worship. The badges of monarchy
being thus remote, & the nobility, who reside in the province
having generally their houses in the country, the manners of the people in the towns have
more of a republican, than a monarchical cast, & the general
equality among the citizens gives them a social turn, which I have
seldom seen in other parts of Germany. In every one of the towns we
found some institution, of an assembly where the citizens in
confortable circumstances, with their families, meet once a week, or
oftener to enjoy the pleasures of conversation & social
amusements.

Yet however interesting the sight of this country
may be to a traveller passing through it, at this season of the
year, its attractions are counterbalanced by too many inconveniences
to make it an inviting place for a permanent residence. We have had
ample occasion to convince ourselves that the representations of the
prussian travellers in these regions, who make Saturnian times roll
round again, to bless this land with innocence & happiness, are
greatly exagerated to say the least. Those passions, which in the
more closely accumulated societies of mankind, contribute to make
human life miserable, being here confined to a narrower sphere,
& applied to smaller objects are still active to make it
uncomfortable. The climate is at least by ten degrees of latitude
more rigorous, than that of the same parallel upon level ground.
Those mountain tops, where we were regaled with refreshing breezes,
are almost the whole year round swept with chilling blasts. Those
trees, which now wave their verdure over the brows of the hills,
three quarters of the year stretch forth their leafless branches, as
if to implore the mercy of an unrelenting sky. Those fields, which
now seem to exult under the burden of their fertility, six months of
the twelve lie bleaching under a thick crust of snow. The
transitions from heat to cold even at the fairest season, are so
great, so frequent & sudden, as often to prove pernicious to the
health; & scarcely any of the fruits of temperate regions here
enjoy enough of the genial warmth of the sun to attain maturity. If
one were to give full credit to Zöllner, the most moderate of the
Prussian tourists in Silesia, one would suppose beggary to be a
thing unheard of on the Silesian side of the mountains, but that the
instant you set your foot into Bohemia, they swarmed round you by
thousands— The superior condition of the Silesians is indeed very
clearly & even strongly marked in this particular, as the
beggars are certainly more numerous on the Bohemian side. But even on
the other, we were not fortunate enough
to pass a single day without meeting more than one beggar, & the
train of women & children, who followed us to the Zackenfall,
gasping for a dryer, was as numerous, as that which pursued us among
the ruins of Adersbach.

The accomodations for travellers upon the
mountains themselves, are very miserable, but in the towns, the inns
are rather above the average of public houses in Germany. Almost
every where we found good butter, bread, coffee, milk & water.
The water indeed which trickles down the sides of the mountains in
ten thousand streams, which you pass at almost every tenth step you
take, is so clear & cool, that some self controul is necessary
to avoid drinking it while you are sweating under the toil of the
ascent. The mountaneers however take no precautions of this kind,
but freely drink from the brooks at the very moment when they are in
the profusest perspiration. If I were a Physician I should perhaps
enquire whether the goitres , of which
we have heard so much upon the mountains of Switzerland, & which
are by no means uncommon upon these, are not partly imputable to
this carelessness. 4

Just on this side of Freyberg upon our ride
hither, we stopped & I went down into a lime pit, which was
close by the side of the road. Its depth might be about 120 feet. At
the same place there was formerly a quarry of marble, which is now
exhausted. We saw one furnace, in which they were burning lime
stone; it was in the open air; like a deep kettle sunk into the
ground, upon which they lay alternately a layer of coal, & a
layer of stone, which they keep thus continually burning, the whole
summer through. At the bottom of the pit, were small ponds of water,
which some of the workmen were employed in pumping out. There was a
mashine on the top, like those used under the Adelphi buildings, to
answer the same purpose. 5 We saw one large
block of the marble, which was formerly drawn from the quarry. It
was a bluish stone, with a very small mixture of white; apparantly a
marble of the most ordinary kind. The works have been carried on
about thirty years.

Schweidnitz is a large & handsomely built
town, containing about six thousand inhabitants with a garrison
usually of about two thousand men. It is chiefly remarable as one of
the three fortresses, (Silberberg & Glatz, are the two others)
upon which the fate of Silesia, in the wars between Austria &
Prussia, must always depend. But as the place is situated in the
midst of a large plain, & has not even a navigable river running
before it the place is far from strong, & mere art has never yet
contrived a fortification, which is not capable to subdue.
Schweidnitz therefore has never been able to stand a long siege,
& in the seven years war, was four times taken & retaken.
The catholics in the town are in the proportion of one, to four
protestants. There are four cloisters, but like most of the Silesian
convents they are almost entirely without monks, or nuns; excepting
one of the order of S t: Ursula, where
seven & twenty poor sisters bewail their virginity, & of
which my wife can give a better account than I can, as the good nuns
according to the rules of their order hold the male sex too much in
abomination to admit any of us publickly within their walls. 6

I am sorry to say that Sweidnitz is not yet
ashamed to enjoy the priviledge of suffering no jews within the
town. The occasion, which gave rise to this ridiculous &
barbarous regulation is represented in a picture, which yet
disgraces the catholic church in the town— under which is a german
inscription relating the story after the catholic fashion. It
relates that about the year 1450, certain jews obtained possesion of
a consecrated host, which they treated with contempt &
indignity—which the picture further explains by representing two of
the jews as stabbing the wafer with daggers, & the wafer of
course as streaming with blood— For this offence ten jews &
seven of their wives were burnt at the stake, & the town was
formally priviledged never again to be contaminated with the
presence of a jew. 7

This catholic church was first built by Bolko,
the little, the last duke of Schweidnitz, & the same pious
personage, whose gradations of greatness were so accurately measured
upon the inscription at Grussau. It has gone through various
adventures, & a singular succession of proprietors, &
finally belonged to the jesuits untill the abolition of their order
in 1775. It has highest steeple in all Silesia, from which there is
an extensive & beautiful prospect of the wide plains, which
surround the town, to the distant mountains, which look like a wall
round the horizon. 8

The lutheran church was one of the three, which
were stipulated to be built in Silesia, by the treaty of Westphalia;
the priviledge was granted upon condition that the fabric should
only be of wood & plaister, which gives it on the outside the
appearance of a barn. But as a compensation for this external
restraint the Lutherans indulged themselves by ornamenting more
profusely the inside of the church, & it is sufficiently
spacious to contain a congregation of five thousand persons. It
assembles nearly that number in their devotions almost every sunday,
to this day.— 9 In general, we find the churches very well filled on Sunday, in
every town, which have had an opportunity to visit at that time.

This morning the queen passed through this town
on her way to Glatz. She was received with much ceremony, & a
procession of twelve pretty maidens clad in white, went with an
address to her & some small presents. We have spent the day here
partly for the purpose of letting her majesty get so far before us,
as not to deprive us of lodging place at the inns, & of post
horses on the roads.

Your’s, 10