Prague’s Diary: History of Prague (Elementary-Intermediate level)

Founded in the latter part of the 9^th century, Prague became the seat of the kings of Bohemia. The city flourished during the 14^th century reigns of Charles IV, who ordered the building of the New Town, the Charles Bridge, St Vitus Cathedral and the Charles University.

For centuries, Prague was a multi-ethnic city with an important Czech, German and (a mostly Yiddish, German speaking) Jewish population. The four cities that previously formed Prague only unified in 1784 to proclaim the Prague we know today. These four cities were Hradcany, Lesser Town, Old Town and New Town. In 1850 the city underwent further expansion when the Hebrew district Josefov was constructed and in 1883 Vysehrad.

From 1939, when the country was occupied by the Nazis, and during WWII, most Jews either fled the city or were killed in the Holocaust. The German population, which had formed the majority of the city’s inhabitants till the 19^th century, was expelled in the aftermath of the war.

Prague was under communist rule for over 40 years and seldom visited by tourists until after the Velvet Revolution on 17 November 1989. From the moment freedom came to the streets, the city started enjoying a huge economic boom, even more so after the Czech Republic joined the European Union in 2004. Now, it is a very popular tourist destination – according to statistics, it is the 5^th most visited city in Europe.

The city is situated on both banks of the River Vltava in central Bohemia. Prague is the Czech Republic’s capital and the cradle of Czech culture. Many famous writers, artists, athletes and sportspeople, models and film directors were born here.

Prague has a huge number of buildings of special architectural interest. In 1992, the historical centre of the city, covering 866 hectares was listed in the UNESCO World Cultural and Natural Heritage Register. No matter where you go, you will discover parts of the city’s multilayer history dating back to the Holy Roman Empire, the Habsburg Empire, the first Czechoslovak Republic (1918), the Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, the Communist Republic of Czechoslovakia to the present time of a democratic Czech Republic.

THE TALE OF THE MONKEY AND THE HARE (Elementary-Intermediate level)

A monkey and a hare were great friends. They lived together, ate together, and walked about together. One day they saw a man from Darrang going to a feast and bearing plantains and betel-nuts, and they said to one another that they must contrive some plan to get hold of his load. So the monkey sent the hare to wait on the road, but himself hid in the jungle. And when the man came up and saw the hare sitting on the road, he put down his load, and ran after him. No sooner had he done so, than the monkey came and carried off the plantains and betel-nuts into a tree, and, for fear the hare should return, ate them all up in a great hurry, keeping only the skins of the plantains for his friend.

But when the man found that he could not catch the hare, he gave up the chase, and went home disconsolate; and so the hare went back, searching for his friend, and shouting his name. But when he found him and demanded his share of the spoil, the monkey offered only the skins of the plantains, and the hare, in his rage, said that he would have his revenge. So, first of all, he went and sat very quietly under some kachu plants. Then the monkey climbed down from the tree and began crying "My friend! My friend!" and the hare replied "Who are you calling friend? I am watching the king's sugarcane field. What do you want?" Then the monkey came forth and said "Ah, my friend, give me a little of the cane to suck." But the hare said "I cannot give you any. If the Raja were to hear, he would beat me." But as the monkey grew importunate, he said "Eat, then, if you will, and don't blame me." But when he ate, the acrid juice of the kachu caught his tongue, and he rolled on the ground howling. But the hare only said "It's your own fault. I told you not to." Then he went and sat beneath a wasps' nest. And the monkey, moaning and complaining, followed him and asked him what he was doing there, and the hare replied that he was watching the king's cymbals. "Let me play on them, only a little!" entreated the monkey. But the hare said "I daren't do it. The Raja would kill me." "I will only play very gently," said the monkey, and, prevailing by means of his importunity, clapped his hands on the wasps' nest and broke it, and straightway the wasps stung his mouth and face and body all over, so that he rolled on the ground crying out in agony. But the hare only said "I told you not to, and you would not listen, what could I do?" And then he went away to where a gowal snake lay. And again the monkey followed him, and asked what he was doing there. And the hare said that he was watching the king's sceptre. "Ah! Let me brandish it, do," said the monkey, and for all the hare's warnings would seize the sceptre. Whereby he got bitten, and was in greater pain than ever. Then the rabbit went away and sat down on a marsh, and the monkey followed him once more, crying as he went, and when he again questioned his friend, the hare said: "This is what they call the king's litter." "Let me sit on it for a moment," said the monkey. "I can't do it," said the hare, "what would the king say? I think you are a fool, my friend. I tell you not to do things and you will persist." But the monkey did not listen to him and jumped on to the marsh and stuck miserably in the mud. And then the hare said "Now, my friend, you give me plantain skins to eat, do you? You can stay where you are. I wish you good-day. I am off." And, so saying, he left the monkey and went his ways.

And first of all a rhinoceros came. But when the monkey begged for help, he said that he was hungry and thirsty, and really could not stop; he was very sorry; and, so saying, he too went away.

And when a buffalo presently came, the monkey addressed him, but he, too, had other business, and went away. Last of all there came a tiger, who was extremely hungry, and to him the monkey said, "My father, if you do not help me out of this scrape, I have no help left," and with such and such like words the monkey entreated him. But the tiger said "What good will it do me if I help you?" and was going away, when the monkey cried out "Father, father, take me out of the dreadful marsh, and then, if you like, clean me and eat me." And the tiger was so hungry that he said: "It is not so much that I want to eat you, but if I rescue one fallen into such calamity, it will be well with me hereafter. However, as you yourself have offered yourself to be eaten, I see no harm." So saying, he stretched out his tail into the marsh, and the monkey, grasping it, was drawn out. Then the monkey said: "Let me get dry in the sun, and when I am a bit cleaner, you can eat me." And so saying he sat him down in the sun and waited. But presently the tiger looked another way, and the monkey slipped up a tall tree. But the tiger, being in a great rage, waited two or three days at the foot of the tree. But, as the monkey would not descend, he lay at the tree's root as one dead, and opened his mouth with his teeth grinning, and the flies came and buzzed in his mouth, so that at last the monkey thought that of a verity he was dead. So finally he crawled down, and slowly inserted his tail in the tiger's mouth. But the tiger never stirred. Then he felt one of the tiger's great paws. But the tiger never stirred. Then the monkey said "Ah, you would scrunch my bones to make your bread, would you?" and danced about gaily, and cried "See if you can eat my head now," and, so saying, he put his head in the tiger's jaws. And then the jaws closed with a scrunch, and that was the end of the monkey. And that's all!

HIGH LEAPS BY DEER (Elementary- Intermediate level)

Mr. Gordon Boles, a sportsman who has hunted all over the world, has recorded some remarkable leaps taken by deer when pursued. His observations have been chiefly in his native district, Exmoor, the land of "Lorna Doone," in India, and in Northwestern Canada. Uncontrollable fear and partial blindness caused by long pursuit, he gives as reasons for deer taking leaps which usually end in death. Once, while hunting with the Devon and Somerset stag hounds, he saw a hind leap 300 feet from a cliff to the seashore. She was dashed to pieces. In the excitement of the chase one of the hounds followed her.

On another occasion a stag made a bold burst for the open, going straight for the sea. He came to the edge of a cliff, some hundreds of feet above the beach, and then dashed restlessly backward and forward, as if seeking a path to descend.

He either missed his footing or jumped, and when the hunters came up he was seen below, a shattered mass, with the horns broken into small pieces. Mr. Boles is inclined to think that the stag committed suicide deliberately.

Another deer, which made the leap at about the same place, landed safely and swam out to sea. Men pursued him in a boat and killed him.

In India Mr. Boles wounded a sambur, which resembles somewhat the common deer. The sambur showed fight on a narrow path overhanging a precipice. Mr. Boles fired again, but in his excitement aimed too low, the ball passing beneath the deer and striking the ground just back of his hind legs. The deer turned and deliberately leaped over the height.

A fine buck he wounded in Northwestern Canada, when pursued by the dog, jumped from a height of 100 feet into a shallow stream and broke his neck.

THE OLD MAN AND THE TIGER (Elementary-Intermediate level)

There was once an old man, who, when he was cutting reeds for his fence in the jungle, heard a tiger growling close to him; and it happened that at that moment a bird also flew away. On which the old man, though he was in truth very frightened, called after the bird "Ah! If you had only stopped, I would have taught you the secret of the ghughu ban." And this saying he kept on repeating, so that the tiger said to himself "What is it that the old man is saying? I must get him to tell me; and in that case I won't even eat him." So he called to the old man. "Look here, old man, what is that about the ghughu ban?" But the old man, answering not a word, kept on chopping his reeds. Then the tiger crept up quite close to him, and said to the old man "If you don't tell me what you are talking about, I will eat you!" But the old man, for all his fear, only said "You come to my house tomorrow, and I will tell you." Very early the next morning the tiger asked his way to the old man's house, and when he got there, it being still early morning, the old man said "And what may your honour be pleased to want?" And the tiger replied "I want to know what you were talking about yesterday." But the old man replied "I cannot possibly teach you alone. You had better go and get two or three other tigers." And so the tiger went away and returned with two or three of his brethren. In the meanwhile the old man had spread his unthreshed paddy in the yard. And, putting his earliest acquaintance first, he tied all the tigers to the post, round which the cattle revolve when they are treading out the grain, and set them to work to tread.

But the one in the middle, who was unaccustomed to such labour, cried out in a piteous voice that his head ached, and that he was getting very giddy. But the old man said "Wait a bit, my friend; you haven't learned yet." And when the tiger complained again, the old man fetched his goad and pricked him sore, so that, giddy and stumbling, he had to go round and round, and when the tiger said "I shall die at this rate," the old man replied "You wanted to learn the ghughu ban yesterday, and unless you endure this trouble, you cannot possibly learn;" and, so saying, pricked him the more cruelly. Finally, the tiger said "If so be, I must be in pain, I must be. But I don't see what it is all about." Then the old man replied "This is precisely what they called the ghughu ban." Then the tiger said "I see, I see, now let us go. We have learned our lesson." But the old man said "Wait a bit, the paddy is nearly trodden out," and would not stop pricking the tigers for all their entreaties. And when the paddy was all threshed, the old man began untying their bonds. But before he had finished, the tigers were in such pain that they tore the rope out of his hands and ran away. When they stopped to rest, they saw the old man's rope, and said to one another "If we do not give the old man his rope again, we shall get into further trouble." So, after much debate, the first tiger was deputed to take it back.

So back he went, trembling with fear in every limb, and, getting close to the old man's house, offered him his rope. But the old man said "It is night, and I am in bed. I can't come out. Put the rope in at the window." So the tiger put it on his tail and thrust it in at the window. But the old man had his knife ready and cut the tiger's tail off. On which the tiger once more fled, howling with pain. But the old man shouted after him "You may run as far as you like, but my brother is after you, and will catch you." On which the tiger ran faster than ever. At last, however, he stopped to rest near a cool pool of water, and, not seeing the old man's brother, dipped the wounded stump of his tail into the pool for refreshment. But a crab, which dwelt in that pool, nipped the stump of his tail; and the tiger crying "The old man's brother has caught me!" again fled through the jungle, and it was not till the crab was knocked off against the trees that he at last rested. And that's all!

SOME QUEER PHILIPPINE CUSTOMS (Elementary-Intermediate level)

The occurrence of a death in a Filipino family in Bulacan is the signal for an immediate celebration. "Our brother has gone to a happy land, and we must rejoice," they say. Relatives and friends are invited to come, and an orchestra is summoned. Then the dancing and feasting begin, and continue until the time of the funeral, which in this climate takes place within twenty-four hours.

Those who have the means buy a black cloth-covered casket ornamented with spangles and bows of bright blue ribbon. The poor rent the "town coffin," a plain tin box, evidently designed for those of medium stature, for a year or two ago, in a funeral procession, the feet of the deceased, incased in bright blue plush chinelas, were seen sticking out at one end.

The orchestra heads the procession through the streets, usually playing some lively air learned from the American soldiers. The popular funeral music is "A Hot Time," and it keeps the procession moving at a brisk pace.

Thursday is the favorite day for weddings in Bulacan, as it is "bargain day" in the matrimonial market. On Thursdays the priest marries many couples at a time, and consequently at less expense to each couple.

Four o'clock in the morning is the favorite hour. Following the ceremony the newly married pair return to the bride's home, where dancing and feasting ensue till sundown.

A bride to whose wedding feast some Americans were invited had a romantic prelude to her nuptials. The parents of the bride were strenuously opposed to the match, owing to a strong disinclination on the part of the groom to do any sort of labor. So Anastasia was sent up into the mountains to visit among relatives, and traces of her whereabouts were carefully concealed from Felicidad, the groom elect.

But Felicidad, although too indolent to support his prospective bride, did not purpose that another should win her, so he summoned several faithful friends to his aid and began an active search. His devotion was rewarded with success, and three weeks later Felicidad returned in triumph, with radiant Anastasia borne aloft on the shoulders of two of his trusty friends. The following Thursday, in company with fifteen other happy couples, they were married.