A July Holiday in Saxony, Bohemia, and Silesia

Then up a steep stony acclivity to a higher elevation, another of the great steps or terraces which compose the Bohemian side of the mountains. From the top we should have seen Schneekoppe himself, had he not been hidden by clouds; however, we saw a mass of gray cumulus behind which old Snowhead lurked, and that was something.

Rougher and rougher grows the way: more and more of the big boulders lying as if showered down; and here and there singular piles of rock appear. Some resemble woolsacks heaped one above another, and flattened; some a pilastered wall, all splintered and cracked, sunken at one end; some heathen tombs and imitations of Stonehenge; and some animal forms hewn by rude people in the ancient days with but indifferent success. On one, an experienced guide—which mine was not—will show you the impression of a large hand, and tell you it is Rübezahl's glove.

The path makes many a jerk and twist among the rocks; at times through a dense scrub of Knieholz—a dwarfish kind of fir, crooked as rams'-horns, peculiar to these mountains, and, as travellers tell us, to the Carpathians. To its abundant growth some of the hills owe their dark green garment. Half an hour of such walking brought us in sight of Rübezahl's chancel—walls of rocks split into horizontal layers—and strangely piled, as if by the hands of crazy Cyclopean builders. A fearsome place in olden time; now a shelter to the Schneegrubenhaus, where you will choose to rest and dine before further exploration.

The house stands on the verge of a mighty precipice, from which you have a wide view over the most beautiful and picturesque part of Silesia. It was a glorious sight, miles of hill and dale, forest and meadow stretching far away—yellow and green, and blue and purple—touched here and there by flashing lights where the sun fell on ponds and lakes; villages, seemingly numberless, basking in the warmth of a July sun. The Hirschbergerthal, into which we shall travel ere many days be over, lies outspread beneath as in a map; Warmbrunn, with its baths in the midst, five hours distant, and yet apparently so near that you fancy a musket-shot would break one of the gleaming windows. Although, as some say, there is a want of water, you will still think it a view worth climbing the Riesengebirge to see. "There is only one Silesia!" cried the Great Frederick, when he looked down upon it from the Landeshuter Kamm.

Having feasted your eye with the remote, you will turn to look at the two Schneegruben—greater and lesser snow-gulfs. To the right and left the precipice is split by a frightful chasm a thousand feet deep, between jagged perpendicular cliffs. Looking cautiously over the edge, you scan the gloomy abyss where the sun never shines except for a brief space in the early morn. You see a chaos of fallen blocks and splinters, where the winter's snow, often unmelted by the summer rains, forms miniature glaciers, from one of which the Kochel springs to charm wondering eyes with its fall in the lowlands by Petersdorf. You see how the jutting crags threaten to tumble; how the heaps far below are overgrown by treacherous Knieholz, and form ridges which dam the sullen waters of two or three small lakes. A patch of green, a small meadow, smiles up at you from the lesser gulf; and it surprises you somewhat to be told that a painstaking peasant makes hay there, by stacking the grass on high poles, and carries it in winter when snow enables him to use a sledge.

If sure of foot, you may scramble down the ridge and look at the cliffs from below, and on the way at a remarkable geological phenomenon. In the western declivity the ruddy granite is cut in two by a stratum of basalt, which broadens as you descend, its surface cut up by pale gray veins resembling a network. It is said to be the only instance in Europe of basalt found at such a height, and in such intimate neighbourhood with granite. It is laborious walking at the base, and dangerous where vegetation screens the numerous crevices. However, if you take pleasure in botany, there are rare plants to repay the exploit; and if you care only for the romantic, to have been frowned down upon by the tremendous cliffs will suffice you.

When you climb back to the summit the host will ask you to look at his museum, and collection of knick-knacks for sale—memorials of the Schneegruben. There are crystals, and specimens from the neighbouring rocks, and carvings cut out of the Knieholz, an excellent wood for the purpose. Among these latter are heads of Rübezahl, with roguish look and bearded chin, to be used as whistles, or terminations for mountain-staves. Or, if you desire it, he will fire a small mortar to startle the echoes. You may, however, rouse echoes for yourself by rolling big stones into the gulf; but beware lest you meet the fate of Anton, the guide, who, in 1825, while starting a lump of rock, lost his balance, fell over, and was dashed to pieces against the crags.

Such cliffs are said to be characteristic of the Riesengebirge. Another example of a Schneegrube occurs near Agnetendorf, which is six hundred feet deep. And close by it is the Wandering Stone, a huge granite block of thirty tons' weight, which has moved three times within memory, to the wonder of the neighbourhood. In 1810 it travelled three hundred feet, in 1822 two hundred, and in 1848, between the 18th and 19th of June, about twenty-five paces.

Another characteristic of these mountains, as I discovered, is that when you have climbed up one of their great steps or terraces, you have to make a deep descent on the farther side before coming to the next, whereby the labour of the ascent is increased. On leaving the Schneegruben, you traverse a level so thickly strewn with boulders and rocky fragments that you fancy more would not lie, till, coming presently to the descent, you find nothing but stone. In and out, rise and fall; now a long stride that shakes you rudely; now a cheating short step—such is the manner of your going down. Nothing but stone! the track in many places scarcely visible though trodden for years. You will think it a terrible stair before you have finished. Near the foot we met a party going up, one a lady seated in a Tragsessel—a sedan-chair without its case—carried by two men. Talk of palanquin-bearers in Hindoostan! their work must be play compared with that of these Silesian chair-carriers. I pitied them as they toiled up the stony steep, hard to climb with free limbs, much more so with such a burden; and yet they looked contented enough, though very damp. We met three more chairs, each with its lady, in the course of the next two hours.

Nothing has ever realized my idea of utter desolation so entirely as the sight of that stony steep when I looked back on it from below. A great rounded hill of stone, blocks on blocks up-piled to the summit, sullen as despair, notwithstanding the greenish tinge of clinging lichen. I wondered whether the accursed hills by the Dead Sea could look more desolate.

Rough walking now, through straggling Knieholz; across stony ridges, and past more of the uncouth piles of rock that look weird-like in the slanting sunbeams. All at once you hear the noise of a hurdy-gurdy: a surprise in so deserted a region, and you may fancy Rübezahl at his pranks again; but presently you see a beggar squatted in the bush, whose practised ear having caught the sound of footsteps before you came in sight, the squeak is set a-going to inspire charity. And now these musical surprises will beset you every half-mile—flageolet, tambourine, clarionet, or fiddle. Where do the musicians live? No signs of a house are visible near their lurking-places.

We came to a Baude, a lonely farmstead, with a few fields around: the dwelling roughly built of wood, without upper story. Many similar buildings are scattered among the mountains—cause of thankfulness to weary travellers, for the inmates are always ready with rustic fare and lodging. Here the guide had to ask the way, having already come farther than he knew. The path led us across swampy ground, where you walk for a mile or two on stepping-stones through open fir woods, always meeting some group of rocks. Another half-hour, and we emerged into a little green vale, shut in by high steep hills and forest, the Spindlerbaude standing at the upper end. My guide being afraid to venture farther, I released him, and engaged another; one in full professional costume—tall boots, peaked hat, and embroidered jacket—who undertook to go the remaining distance with me for twenty kreutzers. While I drank a glass of beer, a man and woman made the room ring again with harp and clarionet.

It was past six when we started, and betook ourselves at once to the steep ridge behind the Baude. Once up, we saw Schneekoppe rising as a dark cone in the distance, and away to the right the Mädelstein, so named from a shepherdess having been frozen to death while sheltering under the rock from a snow-storm. On the Bohemian side, towards the south, the view is confined; but northwards, over Silesia, it spreads far as eye can reach, the nearer region in deep shade, for the sun is dropping low. By-and-by we leave the broken stony ground for the grassy ridge of the Lahnberg, where the path skirts a cliff, which, curving round to the right and left, encloses the Grosser Teich, a black lake, on which you look down from a height of six hundred feet. The inky waters fill an oval basin about twenty-four acres in extent and seventy-five feet deep, and remain quite barren of fish, although attempts have been made to stock it with trout. The superflux forms a stream named the Great Lomnitz.

From hence more rock-masses are in sight: the Mittagstein, so named because the sun stands directly over it at mid-day, a sign to the haymakers and turf-diggers; the Dreisteine, fifty feet high, resembling the ruin of a castle, split into three by a lightning stroke a hundred years ago; the Katzenschloss (Cat's Castle) and others, which the guide will tell you owe their names to Rübezahl.

We cross the Teichfelder and look down on the Little Pond: a lively sheet of water, for the surface is rippled by a waterfall that leaps down the precipice, and beneath trout are numerous as angler can desire. You will notice something crater-like in the form of the cliffs of both ponds: no traces of lava are, however, to be discovered.

We passed the Devil's Gulf, through which flows the Silver Water, and came to more rough ground, and scrub, and lurking bagpipers. The veil of twilight was drawn over Silesia, and the peaks and ridges on the right loomed large and hazy against the darkening sky. We came to the Riesenbaude on the edge of the Riesengrund (Giant's Gulf), from which uprears a steeper slope than any we had yet encountered.

It is incredibly steep, the path making short zigzags, as on the Gemmi, fenced by a low wall. On either side you see nothing but loose slabs of stone, which must have made the ascent well-nigh impossible to unpractised feet, before Count Schaffgotsch constructed the new path at his own cost. A hard pull to finish with. However, in about twenty minutes we come to a level, where the wind blows strong and cold, and something that looks like a house and a circular tower looms through the dusk. The guide steps forward and opens a door, which admits us to a dim passage. He opens another door, and I am dazzled by the lights of a large room, where some forty or fifty guests are sitting at rows of tables eating, drinking, and smoking, while three women with harps sing and play in a corner.

To step from the chill gloom outside into such a scene was a surprise; and after my long day's walk to find a comfortable sofa five thousand feet above the sea, was a solace which I knew how to appreciate.

CHAPTER XXI

Comforts on the Koppe—Samples of Germany—Provincial Peculiarities—Hilarity—A Couplet worth remembering—Four-bedded Rooms—View from the Summit—Contrast of Scenery—The Summit itself—Guides in Costume—Moderate Charges—Unlucky Farmer—The Descent—Schwarzkoppe—Grenzbäuden—Hungarian Wine—The Way to Adersbach—Forty Years' Experience.

Here, on the top of Schneekoppe, you find the appliances of luxury and elegance as well as of comfort. Many kinds of provisions, good wine, and beer of the best. A bazaar of crystals, carvings, Rübezahl's heads, and mountain-staves. Beds for fifty guests, and Strohlager (straw-lairs) for fifty more, besides music and other amusements, make up a total which satisfies most visitors. Do not, however, expect a room to yourself, for each chamber contains four beds, in one of which you will have to sleep or accept the alternative of straw. I heard no demur to these arrangements: in fact, most of the guests seemed to like throwing off conventionalities of the nether world while up among the clouds. For water—that is, to drink—you pay the price of beer, and with a disadvantage; seeing that, from being kept in beer-casks, its flavour is beery.

The company, though German, is very mixed: specimens of the men and women-kind from many parts of Germany. Here are Breslauers, who will say cha for ja: Berliners, who—cockneys of another sort, give to all their g's the sound of y—converting green into yreen, goose into yoose: gobble into yobble: Bremeners, whose Low Dutch has a twang of the Northumbrian burr; besides Saxons, Hanoverians, Mecklenburgers, and a happy couple, who told me they came from Gera—a principality about the size of Rutlandshire. Flat faces and round faces are the most numerous. The Silesians betray themselves by an angular visage and prominent chin. "Every province in Prussia," says Schulze to Müller, "has its peculiarity, or property, as they call it. Thus, for example, Pomerania is renowned for stubbornness; East Prussia for wit; the Rhineland for uprightness; Posen for mixed humour; the Saxon for softness; the Westphalian for hams and Pumpernickel; and Silesia—for good-nature." And here, on the highest ground in all North Germany, you may any day between Midsummer and Michaelmas bring the humourous philosopher's observations to the test.

Hilarity prevailed: the songstresses sang their best and twanged their strings with nimble fingers, and—came round with a sheet of music. Then a few of the guests migrated into the little chambers which on two sides open from the principal room; then a few more; and I noticed that some stopped to read a label affixed to the wall. I did the same. It bore a couplet:

Wisse nur des Narren HandMalt und schreibt auf Tisch und Wand. 8

Three hairy faces lay fast asleep on their pillows in the room to which I was shown. The bodies to which they belonged were covered with coats and wrappers, as well as blanket, for the night was very cold, and the wind blew around the house with an intermittent snarl.

I did not rise with the next morning's sun, but two hours later. By that time the mists had cleared off, or become so thin as not to conceal the landscape, and, on going out among the shivering groups, I saw an open view all round the horizon. The Silesian portion is by far the most attractive. To the south-west the Jeschken catches your eye, and, far beyond, the swelling outline of the Erzgebirge; to the south you see towns and villages in the valley of the Elbe, and in a favourable atmosphere the White Hill of Prague: in like circumstances Breslau can be seen, though forty-five miles distant to the north-east, and Görlitz with its hill—Landskrone—almost as far to the north-west, and on rare occasions, it is said, you can see the foremost of the Carpathians.

Not one of the remotest points was visible. I took pleasure in tracing my yesterday's route, in which the Schneegruben is all but hidden by an intervening ridge, and in surveying that which I had now to follow. There, in the direction towards Breslau, lay Schatzlar, and the lonely peak of the Zobten—the navel of Silesia, as old writers call it; and miles away easterly the Heuscheuer, a big hill on the Moravian frontier, which looks down on Adersbach, where we shall sleep to-night, if all go well. You can see a long stretch of the Isergebirge—mountains of the Iser which form part of the range—and deep gulfs, and grim rocky slopes, and pleasant valleys. But it is not the mountain scenery of Switzerland or Tyrol: you miss the awful precipices, the gloomy gorges thundering ever with the roar of waterfalls, the leagues on leagues of crowding hills, cliffs and forests, rushing higher and higher, till they front the storm zone with great white slopes and towering peaks that dazzle your eye when the sun looks at them. Here no snow remains save one "lazy streak" in a hollow of the crags on the heights above the Riesengrund. Imagine Dartmoor heaved up to twice its present elevation, and your idea of the view from Schneekoppe will come but little short of the reality.

The summit itself is a stony level, half covered by the inn, with its appurtenances and the chapel, leaving free space all round for visitors. Its height is 4965 Prussian feet above the sea. The boundary line between Bohemia and Silesia, which follows an irregular course along the range, crosses it. A chapel, dedicated to St. Lawrence, was first erected here by Count Leopold von Schaffgotsch, in 1668-81; but only since 1824 have Koppe-climbers found a house on the top to yield them shelter and entertainment. While walking about to get the view from every side you will not fail to be struck by the numerous guides in peaked hats, with broad band and feather, velveteen jackets heavy with buttons and braid; and not less by their coarse rustic dialect than by their costume. Extremes meet, and you will notice much in common, in sound at least, between this very High Dutch and the Low Dutch from Bremen and Hamburg.

The afternoon is the best time for the view. The shadows then fall to the east, as when I saw it yesterday from the Schneegruben; the sun is behind you, looking aslant into the Silesian vales, searching out whatever they possess of beautiful, and bringing out the lights on towns and villages for leagues around.

I had been told more than once while on the way that the charges on Schneekoppe were "monstrous;" but my supper, bed, and early cup of coffee with rusks, cost not more than one florin fifty kreutzers, service included; a sum by no means unreasonable, especially when you remember that all the provant has to be carried up on men's shoulders.

I have always been favoured with fine weather when among mountains, and here was no exception. The Riesengebirge, are, however, as much visited by fog, rain, and mist, as the mountains of Wales. Tourists come at times even from the shores of the Baltic, and go back disappointed, through prevalence of clouds and stormy weather. I heard of a farmer living not farther off than Schmiedeberg, who had climbed the Koppe thirteen times to look down on his native land, and every time he saw nothing but rain. There came one summer a few weeks of drought; the ground was parched, and fears were entertained for the crops. Thereupon the neighbouring farmers assembled, waited on the persevering mountain-climber, and besought him to go once more up Schneekoppe.

"Up Schneekoppe! for what?"

"If you do but go, look ye, it will be sure to rain, and we shall be so thankful."

Soon after six I started for the descent into Silesia, in company with two young wool-merchants from Breslau. On this side the slope is easy; but, as on the other side, after falling for awhile, the path makes a rise to pass over Schwarzkoppe (Black Head), a hill rough with heather. To this succeeded pleasant fir-woods, then birch and beech, and before eight we came to Grenzbäuden (frontier-buildings), a place renowned for its hospitality wherever lives a German who has seen the mountains. Three houses offer entertainment; but Hübner's is the most resorted to. There you find spacious rooms, a billiard-table, a piano, maps on the walls, and a colonnade for those who prefer the open air; and sundry appliances by which weather-bound guests may kill time. But, by common consent, Hübner's chief claim to consideration is, that Hungarian wine never fails in his cellar.

"Did you taste the Hungarian wine?" is the question asked of all who wander to the Giant Mountains.

The two Breslauers were not less ready for breakfast than myself. We each had a half-bottle of the famous wine, and truly its reputation is not unmerited. If you can imagine liquid amber suffused with sunshine, you will know what its colour is. It looks syrupy, and has the flavour of a sweet Madeira, not, as it appeared to me, provocative of a desire for more. Neither of the Breslauers inclined to try a second half-bottle, notwithstanding their exuberant praises; but one of them, sitting down to the piano, broke out with a

"Vivat vinum Hungaricum"

that made the room echo again. Its price is about twenty pence a bottle; but once across the boundary line, and you must pay three shillings. In winter, when snow lies deep, sledge-parties glide hither from Schmideberg to drink Hungarian, have a frolic, and then skim homewards down-hill swift as the wind.

I had a talk with Meinherr Hübner about the shortest way to Schatzlar. To think of going to Adersbach through Schatzlar was, he assured me, a grand mistake. The road was very hilly, hard to find, and, under the most favourable circumstances, I need not look to walk the distance in less than eighteen hours. My Frankfort map, with all its imperfections, had not yet misled me: it showed the route by Schatzlar to be the shortest, and on that I insisted.

"Take my advice," rejoined Hübner; "it has forty years' experience to back it. Go down to Hermsdorf, and from thence through Liebau and Schömberg. That is the only way possible for you. The other will take you eighteen hours."

The route suggested was that I hoped to follow on leaving Adersbach, and to travel twice over the same ground did not suit my inclination, and it was the longest. Moreover, I wished to keep within the Schmiedeberger Kamm; and forty years' experience to the contrary notwithstanding, I refused to be advised.

I may as well mention at once that by five in the afternoon of the same day I was in Adersbach.

CHAPTER XXII

The Frontier Guard-house—A Volunteer Guide—A Knave—Schatzlar—Bernsdorf—A Barefoot Philosopher—A Weaver's Happiness—Altendorf—Queer Beer—A Short Cut—Blunt Manners—Adersbach—Singular Rocks—Gasthaus zur Felsenstadt—The Rock City—The Grand Entrance—The Sugarloaf—The Pulpit—The Giant's Glove—The Gallows—The Burgomaster—Lord Brougham's Profile—The Breslau Wool-market—The Shameless Maiden—The Silver Spring—The Waterfall—A Waterspout—The Lightning Stroke.

About a musket-shot below the Bäuden stands the frontier guard-house. The two wool-merchants who had left Warmbrunn for the ordinary three days' excursion in the mountains, having no passports to show, were detained, while I, accredited by seven visas, had free passage and wishes for a pleasant journey. I took a road running immediately to the right, and had not gone far when one of Hübner's men came running after, and offered to show me the way to Schatzlar for twenty kreutzers.

"If you mean the road," I answered, "I don't want you. But if you mean the shortest way, across fields, through bush, anywhere to save distance, come along."

He hesitated a moment, and came. We scrambled anywhere; up and down toilsome slopes of ploughed fields, through scrub and brake. We saw the hamlet of Klein Aupa and the Golden Valley on the right. When, after awhile, Schneekoppe came in sight, it appeared from this side to be the crest of a long, gradually-rising earth-wave. After about an hour and a half of brisk walking, we came to a brow, from which the ground fell steeply to a homely, straggling village, embosomed in trees, beneath. "There, that's Schatzlar," said Hübner's man, and, pointing to a lane that twisted down the slope, "that's the way to it."

Hübner's man plays knavish tricks. On descending into the village I found it to be Kunzendorf: however, it was on the right way, and another two miles brought me to Schatzlar, a village of one street, the houses irregular; high, dark, wooden gables, resting on a low, whitewashed ground story, lit by shabby little windows. Here I took a road on the left, leading to Bernsdorf, from which, as it rises, you can presently look back upon the striped hill behind Schatzlar, the castle, now tenanted by the Bezirksrichter, and the beechen woods where the Bober takes its rise: a stream that flows northwards and falls into the Oder.