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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 Hand
Malt 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.

Beech woods adorn this part of the country, and relieve the dark slopes of firs which here and there border the landscape; and everywhere you see signs of careful cultivation. After passing Bernsdorf—a village on the high road to Trautenau—I fell in with a weaver, and we walked together to Altendorf. A right talkative fellow did he prove himself; a barefoot philosopher, clad in a loose garment of coarse baize. He lived at Kunzendorf, where he kept his loom going while work was to be had, and, when it wasn't, did the best he could without. Thought a dollar a week tidy wages; a dollar and a half, jolly; and two dollars, wonderfully happy. Never ate meat; never expected it, and so didn't fret about it. Bread, soup, and a glass of beer at the Wirthshaus in the evening, was all he could get, and a weaver who got that had not much to complain of. All this was said in a free, hearty tone, that left me no reason to doubt its sincerity.

The country was no longer what it had been. Twelve years ago the land to the right and left, all the way from Schatzlar, was covered with forest; now it was all fields, and every year the fields spread wider, and up the hills; and though firewood was dearer, potatoes, beetroot, and rye were more plentiful; and that seemed only fair, because every year more mouths opened and wanted food.

For every cottage we passed my philosopher had a joke; something about the bees' humming-tops, or frogs' hams, that sent the inmates into roars of laughter. I invited him to eat bread and cheese with me at Altendorf: he stared, gave a whoop of surprise, and accepted. Of all the large rooms I had yet seen in a public-house the one in the Wirthshaus here was the largest; spacious enough for a town-hall. The groined and vaulted ceiling rests on tall, massive pillars; four chandeliers hang by long strings; in one corner stands a two-wheeled truck; an enormous bread-trough; platter-shaped baskets filled with flour, and a mountain of washing utensils. Trencher-cap brought us two glasses of beer—tall glasses, to match the room, vase-like in form, and fifteen inches high at least. The beer was of the colour of porter, and, as I thought, of a very disagreeable flavour; but the weaver took a hearty pull, smacked his lips, and pronounced it better than Bavarian, or Stohnsdorfer, or any other kind. That was the sort they always drank at Kunzendorf, and wholesome stuff it was; meat and drink too. He emptied my glass after his own—for one taste was enough for me—and then, as he bade me good-bye, and went his way, he expressed a hope that he might meet with an Englishman every time he took the same walk.

From Altendorf a short cut by intricate paths over a wooded hill saves nearly two miles in the distance to Adersbach. It is a pretty walk, up and down slopes gay with loosestrife—Steinrosen, as the country folk call it—and among rocks, of which one of the largest is known as the Gott und Vater Stein. You emerge in a shallow valley, at Upper Adersbach, and follow the road downwards, past low-shingled cottages, the fronts coloured yellow with white stripes, the shutters blue, and all the rearward portion showing white stripes along the joints of the old dark wood, and crossing on the ends of the beams. The eaves are not more than six feet from the ground, so that where the house stands back in a garden, it is half buried by apple-trees and scarlet-runners, and the cabbages and flowers look in at the windows. The people are as rustic as their dwellings. Ask a question, and a blunt "Was?" is the first word in answer; no "Wie meinen sie?" as in other places. Good Papists, nevertheless, for they stop and recite a prayer before one of the gaudy crucifixes, which, surrounded by angels bearing inscribed tablets, or ornamented by pictures of the Virgin and St. Anne, stand within a wooden fence at the roadside here and there along the village.

The valley narrows, and presently you see strange masses of stone peering from the fir-wood on the right, more and more numerous, till at length the rock prevails, and the trees grow only in gaps and clefts. The masses present astonishing varieties of the columnar form, some tall and upright, others broken and leaning; and looking across the intervening breadth of meadow, you can imagine doorways, porticos, colonnades, and grotesque sculptures. Here and there, fronting the rest, stands a semicircular mass, as it were a huge grindstone, one half buried in the earth, or a pile that looks like a weatherbeaten, buttressed wall; and, raised by the slope of the ground, you see the tops of other masses, continuing away to the rear.

The spectacle grows yet more striking, for the height and dimensions of the rocks increase as you advance. About a mile onwards and a short range of similar rocks appears isolated in a wood on the left. Here a whitewashed gateway bestrides the road—the entrance to the Gasthaus zur Felsenstadt (Rock-City Inn), resorted to every year by hundreds of visitors.

Old Hübner was clearly mistaken. In seven hours of easy walking I had accomplished the distance from Grenzbäuden, and was ready, after half an hour's rest, to explore the wonders of Adersbach.

The custom of the place is, that you shall take a guide whether or no, pay him a fee for his trouble, and another for admission besides; and to carry it out, a staff of guides are always at the service of visitors. Their costume is the same as that of the mountain guides—boots, buttons, hat and feather, and velveteen. You may wait and join a party if you like: I preferred going alone.

The meadow behind the house is planted with trees forming shady walks. Here the guide calls your attention to two outlying masses, one of which he names Rubezahl, the other the Sleeping Woman. He talks naturally when he talks, but when he describes or names anything he does it in the showman's style—"Look to the left and there you see Admiral Lyons a-bombardin' of Sebastopol," &c.; and so frequent and sudden were these changes of voice and manner, that at last I could not help laughing at them, even in places where laughter was by no means appropriate. We crossed the brook—Adersbach—to an opening about forty feet broad, which forms an approach to the Rock City that makes a deep impression on you, and excites your expectations. It is an avenue bordered on either side by the remains of such buildings and monuments as we saw specimens of in the mountains on our way hither, only here the Cyclopean architects worked on a greater scale, and crowded their edifices together. Here, indeed, was their metropolis; and this the grand entrance, where now vegetation clothes the ruin with beauty.

The road is soft and sandy: everywhere nothing but sand underfoot. The objects increase in magnitude as we proceed. Great masses of cliff look down on us, their sides and summit clothed with young trees—beech, birch, fir, growing from every crevice. The sand accumulated round their base forms a broad, sloping plinth, overgrown with long grass, creeping weeds, and bushes, through which run little paths leading to caverns, vaults, and passages in the rock. Some of the caverns are formed by great fragments fallen one against the other; some in the solid rock have the smooth and worn appearance produced by the action of the water, as in cliffs on the sea-shore; the galleries and passages are similarly formed; but here and there you see that the mighty rock has been split from head to foot by some shock which separated the halves but a few inches, leaving evidence of their former union in the corresponding inequalities of the broken surfaces.

Presently we step forth into a meadow from which a stripe of open country undulates away between the bordering forest. Here, where the path turns to the left, you see the Sugarloaf, a huge detached rock some eighty feet high, rising out of a pond. Either it is an inverted sugarloaf, or you may believe that the base is being gradually dissolved by the water. Here, contrasted with the smooth green surface, you can note the abrupt outline of the rocks and its similarity to that of a line of sea-cliffs. Here are capes, headlands, spits, bays, coves, basins, and outlying rocks, reefs, and islets; but with the difference that here every crevice is full of trees and foliage, and branches overtop the crests of the loftiest.

As yet we have seen but a suburb; now, having crossed the meadow, we enter the main city of the rocky labyrinth, and the guide, ever with theatrical tone and attitude, sets to work in earnest. He points out the Pulpit, the Twins, the Giant's Glove, the Chimney, the Gallows, the Burgomaster's Head; and bids you note that the latter wears a periwig, and has a snub nose. Some of these are close to the path, others distant, and only to be seen through the openings, or over the top of the nearer masses. The resemblance to a human head is remarkably frequent, always at the top of a column. I discovered Lord Brougham's profile, and advised the guide to remember it for the benefit of future visitors.

Now the rocks are higher; they crowd close on the path, and presently we come to a narrow passage through a tremendous cliff, where further progress is barred by a door. And here you discover the use of the guide. Before unlocking, he holds out his hand for the twenty-kreutzer fee, which every one must pay for admittance; his own fee will be an after consideration. He then shows you the figure of a Whale in the face of the cliff on the left, then you cross the wooden bridge, and are locked in, as before you were locked out. There is, however, a free way through the water. The little brook that flows so prettily by the side of the path out to the entrance, comes through a vault in the cliff, about thirty yards, and by stooping you can see the glimmer of light from the far end. Three women came that way with bundles of firewood on their backs, and they wade it every time they go in quest of fuel. The water is less than a foot in depth.

The passage is narrow and gloomy between the cliffs. As we emerge, the guide, pointing to a tall rock two hundred and fifty feet in height, names it the Elizabeth Tower of Breslau. Then comes the Breslau Wool-market, from a fancied resemblance in the surrounding rocks to woolsacks. Not far off are the Tables of Moses, the Shameless Maiden, St. John the Baptist, the Tiger's Snout, the Backbone, a long broken column, which forms a disjointed vertebræ. A long list of names might be given were it desirable. For the most part the resemblances are not at all fanciful; in some instances so complete, that you can scarcely believe the handiwork to be Nature's own. She was, however, sole artificer.

We come to a small grassy oasis, where a damsel offers you a goblet of water from the Silver Spring, and invites you to buy crystals or cakes at her stall. The guide shows you the Little Waterfall, a feeder of the brook struggling in a crevice, and conducts you by a steep, rocky path to a cavern into which the Great Waterfall tumbles from a height of about sixty feet. The rocky sides converge as they rise, and leave an opening of a few feet at the apex through which the water falls into a shallow pool beneath. The margin of this pool, a narrow ledge, is the standing-place.

The quantity of water is not great, but it makes a pretty cascade down the rugged side of the darksome cavern. After you have looked at it for a minute or two, the guide blows a shrill whistle, and before you have time to ask what it means, the gloom is suddenly deepened. You look up in surprise. The mouth of the cavern is entirely filled by a torrent which in another second will be down upon your head. You cannot start back if you would; the rock prevents, and in an instant you see that the water makes its plunge with scarcely a splash on the brim of the pool.

Artificial improvement of waterfalls affords me but little pleasure. Here, however, the effect was so surprising that, as the water gleamed and danced in the dusky cavern, and the rushing roar and rapid gurgle at the outlet filled the place with loud reverberations, and the light spray imparted a sense of coolness, I was made to feel there might be an exception.

In our further wanderings we met sundry parties of visitors all led by guides who had the same theatrical trick as mine. You return by the same way to the locked door; but explorations are being made to discover a new route among objects sufficiently striking. Outside the door all is free, and you may roam and make discoveries at pleasure. There are steep gullies which lead into very wild places, where for want of bridges, galleries, and beaten paths, the labour and fatigue of exploration are sensibly multiplied.

In June, 1844, as inscribed on one of the stones, a waterspout burst over Adersbach, and flooded all the tortuous ways among the rocks to a depth of nine feet. Another inscription records the escape of two Englishmen in 1709. They were sheltering from a thunderstorm, when the rock under which they stood was struck by lightning, and the summit shattered without their receiving harm from the falling lumps. Inscriptions of another sort abound—the initials, or entire name and address, of hundreds of visitors, who with chisel or black paint have thought it worth while to let posterity know of their visit to Adersbach. Some ambitious beyond the ordinary, have climbed up thirty or forty feet to carve the capital letters.