detached at Eger, whence it is taken to Carlsbad, whither go those who have occasion to repent them of the evil they have wrought in themselves by self-indulgence; there they fast and prepare for the next season of overeating, among peculiarly beautiful surroundings.

From Eger onwards we pass out of the zone of German predominance and into the ancient land of Bohemia, over wooded heights and broad fertile fields, past Marienbad, beloved of our King Edward, and where are also many who love his memory, past Pilsen, and winding along a clear river, the Berounka, its banks crowned here and there by castles and chapels, each with a story all its own yet part of the life of the people of Bohemia, until a sharp curve brings you to the meeting of the waters of Berounka and Vltava within hail of Prague.

You should travel to Prague when the days are long, so you will be rewarded by a very fair view as the train crosses the placid River Vltava. Out of a shadowy mass of grey houses with tiled roofs, divided by the glittering, winding river, rises the Castle of Prague, a massive building crowned by a church of which the soaring spires, pinnacles, and flying buttresses s'accusent against the western sky. The train then plunges you into a tunnel, a long tunnel taken slowly, where you may reflect on the vision you have seen, the vision of another city "that is at unity in itself."

You have had your first glimpse of Prague, and it was beautiful, so you set about endeavouring to enter into the spirit of the place, to absorb its atmosphere and to study its character. For every ancient city that has stood up against adversity and overcome it has a very definite character of its own. And it is a mysterious, wonderful thing this character, this cachet of a great city; the charm of Paris or the grandeur of London, the glittering stillness of Venice or the insistent glory of eternal Rome.

The character of a city, as is that of man, is formed by experience, chiefly adverse, and is made evident by the work the city has done for humanity, its creator and its care. From the study of a city's character may you look into its future and presage whether it be likely to achieve success or doomed to failure. For there have been failures among cities as among men, some pathetic owing to inherent weakness, others as a consequence of their own misdeeds.

Contrast Constantinople with Eternal Rome. Constantinople, with its pathetic remains of greatness, failed to remain "at unity in itself"; ancient Byzantium the "Guardian of the Gate" against the invading Oriental, lived to see its churches turned into mosques, below which lie, broken and untended, the porphyry monuments of Paleologue and Cantacuzene.

What of things beautiful was spared wandered to Rome, whence from the crumbling remnants of an old civilization came the light of the Renaissance that spread over Western Europe.

Most pathetic of all cities that have failed is Amarapura, not so long ago the capital of Burma, and a flourishing city on the banks of the Irrawaddy, placed indeed in the most appropriate position for its former purpose.

But a new King came who was not content with the capital of his fathers, so he ordered its removal. A sycophantic priesthood was loud in prophecies of the great future of the new capital to be built some few miles away, but Mandalay is this day the provincial centre of the government of a race alien to those who founded the city; the race of Kings, the last scion of which abandoned the city of his fathers, is all but extinct, and Amarapura has returned to the jungle from which it rose.

Now this, I admit, appears to have nothing to do with the city of Prague; it is indeed a far stretch of vision from "a Terrace in Prague" to the banks of the Irrawaddy.

Nevertheless, memories of far-off days in Burma came surging up one day as I sat on my terrace reading a newspaper printed and published in the city that lay shrouded in historic mist below. The paper brought news of an old acquaintance, not exactly a close, not even a bowing acquaintance, for we were generally kept apart by force of circumstances (which he might have controlled) at a distance of about a rifle-shot. This acquaintance was one Wun Thu, a son of Thebaw, last of the Burman Kings.

Wun Thu objected strongly to British rule, and emphasized his objection by making trouble with his bands of patriots, whom we called dacoits, robbers.

Even my peaceable occupation of surveying the land met with obstruction on the part of Wun Thu, and led to a frequent exchange of perfectly harmless rifle-shots. And here in Prague, looking down over my newspaper from the terrace of my choice, I seemed to see the spires of the city mass closer together and take on the form of giant jungle trees, the broad Vltava to shrink to the narrow silver thread of a mountain stream at the crossing of which Wun Thu's sporting warriors had levelled their blunderbusses lashed to trees and warranted harmless to all but the men behind them; the paper told of another rising led by Wun Thu. Wun Thu had lain "doggo" for many years—at least he had done nothing to attract the attention of Central Europe—yet here he was, a man of my age and on the downward slope, following the post-war instinct of making trouble—for himself chiefly, as his attempt failed. I feel sorry for my old acquaintance; like so many of us of a former generation, he no longer fits into the picture; he is probably too honest to succeed under present-day conditions. However, Wun Thu has been banished to Ceylon, and I am still writing about Prague. Even in this I am last and, I willingly admit, least of a goodly company.

First in time of this goodly company is Cosmas of Prague, who wrote his chronicles early in the twelfth century. There are yet earlier German chronicles which make mention of the Bohemians, but the city of Prague was not in the days in which they were written. Those German chronicles suggest that the Bohemians who came into their land some time in the sixth century were at one time tributary to the Avari, an Asiatic tribe which had taken possession of the greater part of present-day Hungary, and were rather a nuisance to Western Europe.

It will be remembered that Charlemagne had forceful argument with these Avari; it had something to do with that worthy's trip to visit the Empress of the East; there was a squabble about fares, river dues and such matters. However, this is vieux jeu, and has nothing to do with Prague. The Avari were devoted to the time-honoured practice of robbing and ravishing their neighbours, among them the Bohemians. These latter seem to have borrowed one Samo the Frank, a strong man, from one of the northern Slavonic tribes, and as he proved a success, invited him to be King over them.

Samo accepted the invitation, and is said to have founded the first great Slavonic State with Bohemia as nucleus and a strong castle at Vyšehrad, of which we shall have more to tell hereafter. The neighbouring Franks became uneasy at Samo's increasing importance, and under Dagobert, their King, invaded Bohemia, to be badly beaten at Wogastisburg, which, according to Count Lützow, was near the present town of Cheb. Samo extended his territory after this victory, and appears to have lived till about the middle of the seventh century.

There ensues a complete lapse in the chronicling of the history of Bohemia until Cosmas took up the tale.

Having no historical records of events since the days of Samo, he drew upon a rich store of legend which, coloured by his lively imagination, forms a glowing and vivid background to the story of this interesting and attractive branch of the great Slavonic race, I am not competing with Cosmas. Bohemia has produced many chroniclers and historians since his day, men whose