ABSTRACT
En route to Dresden Monday 19July Left Prague at ½ past 5 for the hotel at Oberiste on the river side whence the steamer starts, & passed over twelve or fifteen miles of country covered as far as the eye could see with ripe grain crops. Started at 7 o’clock by a small steamer on the Elbe for Dresden – an Englishman for Captn – about midday came to a part where the banks become more varied & picturesque called Bohemian Switzerland – after proceeding two or three hours longer we passed into the scenery called Saxon Switzerland one of the loveliest spots in Germany. At Sonnenstein near Pirna was shewn a large building used as a lunatic asylum judiciously placed in one of the most charming scenes in Europe. On board made the acquaintance of Mr. Jos. Edwd Krug a retired mercht. of Prague, & an intelligent man – he spoke of the present state of manufactures in Bohemia -says although spinning, printing, etc have increased in the neighborhood of Vienna, those industries have decayed in the vicinity of Prague – flax spinning has suffered from competition with the machinery of England, & the weavers are every where distressed, because they are not allowed to have the yarn from abroad free of duty – he tells me the glass manufacture is not flourishing in Bohemia – in the meantime the land is not properly cultivated for want of capital, & there is a project now on foot for starting agricultural banks to supply the means of cultivating the soil. There is an idea that a part of the land can be converted into paper & circulated as money & that this will add to the capital of the country which arises from a vague & erroneous notion of the nature of a circulating medium – bank notes or even coin as money do not constitute capital, they only serve as the means of circulating the wealth of a country – to augment the quantity of money, when you really want an increase of commodities, is like 161multiplying the number of waggons in a country where there was a lack of merchandise or produce to load them with – my companion goes so far, in speaking of the bad agriculture of Bohemia, as to say that the land of that kingdom does not pay 1 per ct upon its reasonable value – there wants more cattle, sheep, pigs etc better roads, carts, ploughs etc – an improved system of manuring, cropping, etc. Bohemia does not now consume the whole of its agricultural protection. In the mean time whilst capital has been wanting for the land every effort has been made from the time of the emperor Joseph, 60 or 70 years ago, till the present time to tempt capital into manufactures. About 20 miles from Dresden passed the frontier of the Zollverein & had our luggage examined. Near Dresden passed by the palace of Pillnitz, close to the river side, from whence was issued the famous manifesto against the French revolution. 1
