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CHAPTER XX
Stephanshöh—A Presumptuous Landlord—Czechs again—Stewed Weavers—Prompt Civilities—The Iser—A Quiet Vale—Barrande's Opinion of the Czechs—Rochlitz—An offshoot from Tyre—A Happy Landlord—A Rustic Guide—Hill Paths—The Grünstein—Rübezahl's Rose Garden—Dreary Fells—Source of the Elbe—Solitude and Visitors—The Elbfall—Stony Slopes—Strange Rocks—Rübezahl's Glove—Knieholz—Schneegruben—View into Silesia—Tremendous Cliffs—Basalt in Granite—The Landlord's Bazaar—The Wandering Stone—A Tragsessel—A Desolate Scene—Rougher Walking—Musical Surprises—Spindlerbaude—The Mädelstein—Great Pond and Little Pond—The Mittagstein—The Riesengrund—The Last Zigzags—An Inn in the Clouds.
Soon after six the next morning I was on the top of Stephanshöh—about twenty minutes' walk from the inn—prepared to enjoy the view: and did enjoy all that was not concealed by mist. Every minute, too, as the heaving vapour melted away, so did the landscape widen and rejoice in the sunbeams. We are here on the roots of the Riesengebirge, and all around is a rolling country, rising higher and higher towards the north. Because of the view the height is famous throughout the neighbourhood; visitors come to it even from Reichenberg.
While I was drinking my early cup of coffee, the landlord came forward, made a bow, and expressed his hope to see me again some day.
"Hope not," I replied, "for besides plaguing folk about their passport, you lodge them between dirty sheets over an unswept floor. Good morning!"
Beware, reader, of Przichowitz!
The road winding along a hill-side leads you onwards high above the valleys that open at every bend. After about an hour it narrows into a footpath, which presently branches off into many paths down the steep slope of a secluded vale. A woman of whom I asked the way shook her head, and answered, "Böhmisch," and to my surprise I found myself once more among the Czechs. A Sclavonic wedge, so to speak, here cuts between the German-speaking population who inhabit the northern border. With its base in the heart of the kingdom, it stretches away to the Silesian frontier, traceable for the most part by the names of numerous villages ending in witz.
I chose a path for myself which led down between patches of clover and rye, beetroot and potatoes, through little orchards, under rows of limes, to a house which, at a distance, had an imposing, spacious appearance; deceitful till you come near. The ground stage is nothing but a rough mass of masonry supporting that which is really the house—a low wooden edifice, swarming with weavers, reared aloft, probably, to keep it out of the way of floods. As I mounted the rude steps in quest of information, a weaver opened a casement and put out his head, letting out, at the same time, a rush of the depraved air in which he and his mates were working. I asked the way.
He shook his head, and answered, "Böhmisch."
He did more. He started up from his loom, came actually forth into the wholesome air, and ran to a cottage some distance off, making signs to me to wait his return. He came presently back wearing a triumphant look, accompanied by another weaver, who could speak German enough to assure me that I was on the right track for Rochlitz, and that the mountain stream flowing so merrily past was the Iser. Poor men! they both had a pale, sodden look, which moved me to recommend fresh air and open windows. But no: they shivered, and could not weave when the windows were open.
A bright stream is the Iser, and plenteous of trout: a water such as the angler loves, now brawling over shallows, now sleeping in hazel-fringed pools. You will pause more than once while climbing the hill beyond to scan the vale. All the greater slopes are broken up with lesser undulations—wherein much is half seen, and thickly-patched with wood; little cottages nestle everywhere among the trees, the little chapel near the summit; and here and there on the outskirts a dark ridge of firs reminds you of the melancholy miles of forest beyond. Here, far from great roads, all breathes of calm and content, all sights and sounds are rural; you hear the water babbling to the whispering leaves, and might fancy yourself in the very home of happiness. But
"The statutes of the golden age,
That lingered faint and long
In sylvan rites of olden time,
So dear to ancient song,
The world hath trampled in its haste
At Mammon's shrine to bow;
And many a Tyre our steps may find,
But no Arcadia now."
With the Iser the Czechs are left behind. While taking leave of the oval-faced people, the opportunity seems fitting to bring forward a few words of testimony concerning them, which may be weighed against that mentioned in a former page. Barrande, the distinguished geologist, says, in his Silurian System of Bohemia, that, in 1840, he and his friends commenced a regular exploration of strata, employing native labourers in different parts of the country, either singly making new excavations, or in groups opening quarries. "These labourers," he continues, "provided with the necessary tools, and practically instructed by working with us for some time, soon acquired the knowledge indispensable for distinguishing every organic trace—the objects of our studies—at the first glance. In this respect we have often had occasion to admire the intelligence of the Bohemians (Czechs), even of those belonging to the humblest class. Some among them employed in our researches during ten or twelve years acquired a remarkable skill as seekers of fossils. They gather up and put together the smallest fragments which belong to any specimen broken in splitting the rock; they use a lens to discover the fugitive traces of the minutest embryo, and they know very well how to distinguish all rare or new forms in the district to which they are attached. A sort of nomenclature, improvised by themselves out of the Bohemian language, has served us to designate both the species and formations in which they are found."
Thus, with his rustic Czechs, Mr. Barrande could carry on investigations at a distance, while in his study at Prague he prepared his truly great work for publication. One of the diggers brought in the specimens once a week; and in this way were discovered fifteen hundred species of what geologists call Silurian and Cambrian fossils, the existence of which in Bohemia was before unknown.
It is not far to Rochlitz—perhaps a mile—but the vale is hidden ere you arrive by the shoulder of the hill. Almost the first house is Gast und Einkehr Haus zur Linde, and it has a living sign—a beautiful linden-tree. Here cleanliness prevails, and the speech is German; but the room is so hot from the scorching stove, that I prefer to eat my second breakfast on the grass in the shadow of the lime, and listen to the busy hum of countless bees among the branches. The room, however, was a study—a sort of museum: racks overhead, three glass closets, twenty-four pictures, a sofa, a score of daddy-longlegs chairs, a guitar and fiddle, two beds in view besides one shut off by a screen, and all the sundries common to a public-house. But for good housewifery it would be hideous.
The landlord, a man of friendly speech, came out for a talk. From his orchard we could look down into a charming dell: a sylvan retreat, marred, alas! by an offshoot from Tyre. From among the trees there rose the tall chimney and staring walls of a factory; and while we talked, a dozen men went past, each wheeling a barrow-load of lime, from a distance of two miles, for the building. Mine host felt glad at the prospect of work for the people. "We have nine thousand inhabitants in Rochlitz," he said; "'tis a great place. To walk through it you must take three hours." And he pointed out a cliff overlooking a valley where mining works had just been bought by a Russian for two hundred thousand florins. "Yes, there would be work enough for the people." Plenty of work at little wages. A weaver earns one florin twenty-four kreutzers a week, and the happy few who achieve two florins are regarded as rich by their neighbours: perhaps with envy and admiration.
Then he pointed out his own ground, and his forest run reaching to the very hill-top, all of which had cost him fifteen thousand florins; and he turned to all quarters of the compass with the air of a man well pleased with himself. "Those," he said, stretching his finger towards a row of short, round, wooden columns with conical roofs—"those are my beehives; come and look at them."
These hives are about four feet high, fixed clear of the ground by stakes driven through the turf, and are constructed in compartments one fitting above the other. The bees begin to work in the lowest, and, when that is filled, ascend into the upper stories. One among them seemed deserted.
"Let us see what's the matter," said the landlord; and he lifted off the top story. Immediately there swarmed out thousands of earwigs.
"Huhu! that's not the sort of bees we want. Coobiddy, coobiddy!" And judging from the lusty crow that followed it, chanticleer and his seraglio must have had a satisfactory repast.
But Schneekoppe was yet far off, and there was no time to be lost if I wished to reach that Mont Blanc of German tourists before night. I inclined to leave the rough-beaten track through the valleys for short cuts across the hills, and asked the landlord about a guide. His woodcutter, who was splitting logs close by, knew great part of the way, and was ready to start there and then and carry my knapsack for a florin. He put a piece of coarse brown bread into a bag, which he lashed to one of the straps, and away we went.
"Good-bye!" said the landlord: "a month later and you would have had company enough; for then students come in herds to see the mountains."
We struck at once up a grassy hill on the left, and could soon look down on Rochlitz—houses scattered along either side of a narrow road in a deep valley; and, far in the rear, on Hochstadt, a wee town of great trade. Then we came to a Jägerhaus, and plunged into a pine forest, walking for two or three miles along winding paths, paved with roots, under a solemn shade where, here and there, sunny gleams sought out the richest brown of the tall, straight stems, and the brightest emerald among the patches of damp moss. At times we came to graceful birches scattered among the firs, and their drooping branches and silvery boles looked all the more beautiful amid companions so unbending.
We emerged on a bare, turfy slope, and came presently to a stony ridge on the right—the Grünstein—so named from a large bright green circle of lichen on the broken rocks which first catch your eye. A little farther along the same ridge, and the guide points to a great ring of stones on the slope as Rübezahl's Rose-garden, and the name makes you aware that here is the classic ground of gnomery. You remember the German storybooks read long ago with delight, wonder, or fear: the impish pranks, the tricks played upon knaves, the lumps of gold that rewarded virtue; the marvellous world deep underground, and all the weird romance.
You will perhaps think that imps had a right to be mischievous in such a region. On the left opens a wild, dreary expanse of fells—the coarse brown turf strewn with hassocks of coarser grass, and pale lumps of quartz intermingled, and rushy patches of darker hue showing where the ground is soft and swampy. It has a lifeless aspect, increased by a few scattered bushes of Knieholz that look like firs which have stunted themselves in efforts to grow. Now and then an Alpine lark twitters and flits past, as if impatient to escape from the cheerless scene.
We crossed these fells, guided by an irregular line of posts planted far apart. In places the ground quakes under your foot, and attempts to cut off curves are baffled by treacherous sloughs. On you go for nearly an hour, the view growing wilder, until, in the middle of a spongy meadow, known as the Naworer Wiese, you see a spring bubbling up in a circular basin. It is the source of the Elbe.
Here, 4380 feet above the sea-level, the solitude is complete. Here you may lie on your back looking up at the idle clouds, and enjoy the luxury of silence, for the prattle of the water disturbs it not. You will think it no loss that nothing now remains of monuments which the Archdukes Joseph and Rainer once erected here to commemorate their visit: the lonely scene is better without them. There are monuments not far off more to your mind. Towards the south rises the Krkonosch Berg7—sometimes called the Halsträger—and Kesselkoppe towards the west; great purple-shaded slopes of darkest green.
Not often during the summer will you find real solitude, as we did; for the Germans come in throngs and sit around the little pool to quaff the sparkling water, or pour libations of richer liquor. Is not this the birthplace of the Elbe, the river that carries fatness to many a broad league of their fatherland, and merchandise to its marts? Many a merry picnic has Krkonosch witnessed, and many a burst of sentiment. Hither used to come in the holidays—perhaps he comes still—a certain rector of a Silesian school with his scholars; and after their frolics he would teach them that the life of a river was but the symbol of their own life; and then, after each one had jumped across the sprightly rivulet, he bade them remember when in after years they should be students at Wittenberg, how they had once sprung from bank to bank of the mighty stream. The Elbe has, however, two sources: this the most visited. The other is ten miles distant on the southern slope of Schneekoppe. They unite their waters in the Elbgrund.
A stream is formed at once by the copious spring. We followed it down the slope—
"Infant of the weeping hills,
Nursling of the springs and rills"—
to a rocky gulf, where it leaps a hundred feet into the precipitous chasm, and chafes onwards in a succession of cascades far below, gathering strength for its rush through the mountain barrier—the Saxon Highlands—and its long, lazy course through the plains of Northern Germany. Here a little shanty is erected, the tenants of which dam the water, and let it loose for its plunge when tourists arrive who are willing to pay a fee to see Nature improved on. But you may scramble about the rocks and down to the noisy influx of the Pantsche Fall as long as you please, and peep over into the deep gulf, without any payment.
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.
