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CHAPTER XXIII

The Echo—Wonderful Orchestra—Magical Music—A Feu de joie—The Oration—The Voices—Echo and the Humourist—Satisfying the Guide—Exploring the Labyrinth—Curious Discoveries—Speculations of Geologists—Bohemia an Inland Sea—Marble Labyrinth in Spain—A Twilight View—After a'.

"Will it please you to walk to the echo?" asks the guide, when we come back to the meadow. And if you assent—as every one does—he turns to the left and leads you up the open ground above-mentioned to a small temple—the Echo House. You see a man standing near the house playing a clarionet, pausing now and then to recite; but no answering note or word do you hear. But take your seat on the bench against that perpendicular rock on his right, and immediately you hear a whole orchestra of wind instruments among the rocks. Such delicious music! Soft, wild, warbling, rising and falling, melting one into the other in a way that you fancy could only be accomplished by a band of Kobolds with Rübezahl for a leader. And when the player blows short phrases with pauses between, what mocking sprite is that who imitates the sound, flitting from crevice to crevice repeating the tones over and over again, fainter and fainter, till they seem not to die away, but to float out of hearing?

Then his companion comes forward and fires a gun, a signal, so you might believe, for a great discharge of musketry among the rocks, platoon after platoon firing a feu de joie. One—two—three—four! The two men hold up their hands to signify—Listen yet! then comes the rattle of the fifth round from the short range of rocks which we saw on the left while coming down the valley; and the firing commenced by the troops in camp is ended by the outposts.

Then one of the men makes a short oration about the wonders here grouped by which Nature attracts man from afar and fills him with joy and astonishment; voices repeat the oration among the rocks, and then—he comes to you for his fee. For the gunshot the tax is eight kreutzers; and if you give eight more for the music and oration, the two echo-keepers will not look unhappy.

And now, if still incredulous, you may talk to the echo yourself. My test was perfectly convincing, for it woke up a dozen cuckoos among the rocks. When Schulze, the humourist already mentioned, was here, he questioned the mysterious voice concerning political matters, and got unhesitating answers. For example:

Philosopher

Echo

 
"Wie steht's um Hellas?
Helas! Helas! Helas!
Wat hältst du von Russels Worte?
Worte! Worte! Worte!
Wat fehlt in Hessen?
Essen! Essen! Essen!
Was möchten gern die Wallachen?
Lachen! lachen! lachen!
Fließt dort (in Russia) nicht Milch und Honig?
Jo nich! jo nich! jo nich!
Wann kommt Deutschland zur Harmonie?
O nie! O nie! O nie!
Es fehlt ja man eene Kleinigkeit?
Einigkeit! Einigkeit! Einigkeit!"
 

Unluckily, the points would all become blunt if translated; I am constrained, therefore, to leave them in the original.

My guide waited to be "satisfied." I asked him what amount of fee he usually received?

"Sometimes," he answered, "I get a dollar."

"But commonly not more than ten kreutzers?"

"M—m—ja, that is true."

"Then what would you say to fifteen kreutzers?"

"Sir, I would say that I wish such as you would come every day to Adersbach."

He left me fully "satisfied." And so, reader, you see that the picturesque is burdened with a tariff in Bohemia as it is in certain parts of England, Scotland, and Wales.

I went back to the rocks. The locked door does not shut in all the wonders, and there are miles which you may explore freely. But unless you stick a branch here and there into the sand, or "blaze" the trees, you will never find your way out again. The great height of the rocks surprises you not less than their amazing number. They are intersected by blind alleys, open alleys, and lanes innumerable, intertwisting and crossing in all directions. Many a cavern, den, and grotto will you see, and many a delightful sylvan retreat, where the solitude is perfect; many a bower which is presently lost. Now you are overcome by wonder, now by awe, for thoughts will come to you of great rock cities and temples smitten by judgments; of the giant race that warred with the gods and were slain by thunder-bolts; of those who worshipped stones and burnt sacrifice on the loftiest rocks.

A few paces farther, and seeing how tall trees grow everywhere among the stony masses, how smaller trees and shrubs shoot from the crevices, and moss enwraps pillar and buttress, and fringes the cliffs, you will think of Nature's silent revolutions; of the ages that rolled away while the labyrinth of Adersbach was formed. Here, so say the geologists, currents of water running for innumerable years, have worn out channels in the softer parts of a wide stratum of sandstone, and produced the effects we now witness. The stratum must have been great, for the rocks extend, more or less crowded, away to the Heuscheuer, a distance of three or four leagues. The mountain itself presents similar phenomena even on its summit.

A supposition prevails, based on much observation, that the whole of Bohemia was once covered by a vast lake, or inland sea. The conformation of the country, its ring-fence of mountains—whence the term Kessel Land (Kettle Land) among the Germans—broken only where the Elbe flows out, while almost every stream within the territory finds its way into that river, besides the fossil deposits so abundantly met with, are facts urged by the learned in favour of their views. It may have been during the existence of this great sea that the rocks were formed.

It might be interesting to inquire whether the rocky labyrinth at Torcal, not far from Antequera, in Spain, presents phenomena similar to those of Adersbach. The rocks, as I have read, are of marble, covering a great extent of ground in groupings singularly picturesque.

It was dusk when I had finished my prowl, for such it was, accompanied by much scrambling. Then I climbed to the top of one of the outlying crags for a view across the maze, and when I saw the numerous gray heads peering out from the feathery fir-tops, here and there a bastion, a broken pillar, and weather-stained tower, the fancy once more possessed me that here was a city of the giants—its walls thrown down, its buildings destroyed, and its rebellious inhabitants turned to stone.

Gradually the hoary rocks looked spectral-like, for the dusk increased, the clouds gathered heavily, and rain began to fall. I walked back to the inn, feeling deeply the force of the Ettrick Shepherd's words, "After a', what is any description by us puir creturs o' the works o' the great God?"

CHAPTER XXIV

Baked Chickens—A Discussion—Weckelsdorf—More Rocks—The Stone of Tears—Death's Alley—Diana's Bath—The Minster—Gang of Coiners—The Bohdanetskis—Going to Church—Another Silesian View—Good-bye to Bohemia—Schömberg—Silesian Faces and Costume—Picturesque Market-place—Ueberschar Hills—Ullersdorf—An amazed Weaver—Liebau—Cheap Cherries—The Prussian Simplon—Ornamented Houses—Buchwald—The Bober—Dittersbach—Schmiedeberg—Rübezahl's Trick upon Travellers—Tourists' Rendezvous—The Duellists' Successors—Erdmannsdorf—Tyrolese Colony.

As Grenzbäuden is renowned for Hungarian wine, so is Adersbach for baked chickens, and every guest, unless he be a greenhorn, eats two for supper. They are very relishing, and quite small enough to prevent any breach of your moderate habit.

Visitors were numerous: some reading their guide-books, some beginning supper, some finishing, some rounding up the evening with another bottle—for Hungarian is to be had in Adersbach. A party near me sat discussing with much animation the demerits of the taxes which impoverish, and of the beggars who importune, travellers around the City of the Rocks, and they drew an inference that the landlord's charges would not be parsimonious. Then they wandered off into the question of temperature—the temperature of Schneekoppe. Not one of them had yet trodden old Snowhead, so they went on guessing at the question, till I mentioned that it had been very cold up there in the morning.

"In the morning! This morning? Heut, mean you?"

"Yes, this very morning; for I was up there."

"Heut! Heut! Heut! Heut!" ejaculated one after another, the last apparently more surprised than the first.

"Yes, this very day."

They would not believe it. I took up a sprig of heather from the side of my plate, which I had gathered on Schwarzkoppe, and showed them that as a token; and explained that the distance was, after all, not so very great, and might have been shortened had I descended directly from the Koppe into the Riesengrund, and laid my course through the village of Dorngrund.

They believed then; but having travelled the road prescribed to me by Father Hübner, could not imagine the distance from the mountain to be but about twenty miles.

By rising early the next morning, when all was bright and fresh and the dust laid by the night's rain, I got time for another stroll among the rocks, and to walk two miles farther down the valley to Weckelsdorf, where another part of the rocky labyrinth is explorable. The rocks here are on a greater scale than at Adersbach, and rising on the slope of a hill, their romantic effect is increased, as also the difficulty of wandering among them. The proprietor, Count von Nummerskirch, has, however, taken pains to render them accessible by bridges, galleries, and stairs. A sitting figure, whose head-dress resembles that of the maidens of Braunau, is named the Bride of Braunau; near her is the Stone of Tears; the Todtengasse (Death's Alley) is never illumined by a ray of sunshine; there is the Cathedral, and near it Diana's Bath; and at last the Minster, a natural temple, the roof a lofty pointed arch, where, while you walk up and down in the dim light, an organ fills the place with a burst of sound. It is sometimes called the Mint, or Money Church, because of a gang of coiners having once made it their head-quarters. The rocks have been a hiding-place for others as well as rogues. During the Hussite wars, many families found a refuge within their intricate recesses, little liable to a surprise, at a time when entrance was hardly possible owing to the numerous obstructions.

As at Adersbach, there is a fee to pay for unlocking a door; there is an echo which answers the guide's voice, his pistol and horn, and has to be paid for. Nevertheless, you will neither regret the outlay of time and kreutzers in your visit to Weckelsdorf. If able to prolong your stay, you may take an excursion of a few hours to the Heuscheuer, and see a smaller Adersbach on its very summit—the highest of these extraordinary rock-formations. Or there is the ruin of Bischoffstein, within an easy walk, once the stronghold of the Bohdanetski family, who held half a score of castles around the neighbourhood, and made themselves obnoxious by their Protestantism and robberies, and envied for their wealth. They suffered at times by siege and onslaught from their neighbours, and at length their castles were demolished, and forty-seven Bohdanetskis and adherents were hanged by the emperor's command. The rest of the family, it is said, took flight, and settled in England. Is Baddenskey, who sits wearily at his loom down there in joyless Spitalfields, a descendant?

I returned to the Felsenstadt for my knapsack. For supper, bed, and breakfast the charge was equal to three and threepence, in which was included an extra fifteen kreutzers for the bedroom, which I had insisted on having all to myself. When guests are very numerous they have to sleep four in a room. Take your change in Prussian money, for "Kaiserliches geld," as the folk here call it—that is, imperial money—will not be current where you stop to dine.

I retraced my steps for about a mile along the road by which I came yesterday, and at the church took a road branching off to the right. It leads through Ober Adersbach. The villagers were going to church: the men wearing tall polished boots and jackets, the women with their heads ungracefully muffled in red, blue, green, or yellow kerchiefs, and displaying broad, showy skirts and aprons, and clean white stockings. Now and then came an exception: a man in a light-blue jacket, and loose, baggy breeches; a woman with a stiff-starched head-dress, not unlike those worn in Normandy.

The road continually rises, and by-and-by you cannot tell the main track from the byeways among the cottages. Still ascending, however, you come out a short distance farther on the brow of a precipitous hill, where you are agreeably surprised by another Silesian view—broad, rolling fields of good red land, bearing vetches, clover, flax, and barley, the little town of Schömberg in their midst, and always hills on the horizon. From the brow, a deep lane and a path through the fir-wood on the cliffy hill-side, lead you down to the road where finger-posts, painted black and white, indicate that we have exchanged the Austrian eagle for the Prussian. I must have crossed the frontier two or three times yesterday and to-day, but I saw no custom-house anywhere, and no guards, except at Grenzbäuden.

Other signs showed me on nearing Schömberg that I had left Bohemia. The men are tall, of sallow complexion, and angular face. They wear long dark-blue coats and boots up to their knees, and stiff blue caps with a broad crown, and they carry pink or blue umbrellas. The women wear the same colour, and do not look attractive; and there is an Evangelische Kirche, in which the preaching is of Protestant faith and doctrine.

The town has two thousand inhabitants, some of whom dwell in houses that are a pleasure to look upon, around the market-place. The gables—no two alike—are painted pale green, white, gray, or yellow, and what with the ornaments, the broken outlines, and arcades of wood and brick, the great square makes up a better picture than is to be seen in many a famous city. Although Sunday, the mill turned by the Kratzbach clacks briskly; there are stalls of fruit, bread, and toys under the arcades, and by the side of two or three wagons in the centre a group of blue-coated men. They look sedate, and talk very quietly, as if they felt the day were not for work.

From hence the road, planted with beeches, limes, and mountain-ash, leads across well-cultivated fields, and between wooded slopes of the Ueberschar hills to Ullersdorf, where Schneekoppe is seen peeping over a dark ridge on the left. I asked one of the weavers who inhabit here if he earned two dollars a week.

"Gott bewahr!" he exclaimed, opening his eyes and holding up his hands apparently in utter amazement, "that would be too gladsome (frolich). No; I can be thankful for one dollar."

Content with one dollar a week, which means a perpetual diet of rye bread and potatoes.

Liebau and Schömberg, about five miles apart, are in many respects twin towns. If Liebau has not a strikingly picturesque market-place, nor a reputation for Knackwürsten (smoked sausage), it has a new Protestant church, some good paintings in the Romish church, and a Kreuzberg, once the resort of thousands of pilgrims. The neighbouring Tartarnberg was, according to tradition, the site of a Tartar camp in 1241. Rusty, half-decayed horseshoes and arrow-heads are still found at times upon it.

After dining at the Sonne, I bought a dessert at a stall under the arcade: the woman gave me nearly a gallon of cherries for three-halfpence, with which I started for Schmiedeberg, ten miles farther. Numbers of villagers were walking on the road, all the women bedecked with pink aprons, and looking healthy and happy. Perhaps out of twenty or more chubby-faced children, who manifested a lively appetite for fruit, two or three will remember that they met a strange man who gave them a handful of cherries, and how that their mothers became all of a sudden eloquent with thanks, and bade them kiss their hands, and do something pretty. Unluckily, by the time I had gone two miles there was an end of the cherries.

The road runs between the Schmiedeberger Kamm and the Landeshuter Kamm. The main road, which crosses the latter from Schmiedeberg to Landeshut, is called the Prussian or Silesian Simplon, for it is the highest macadamized road in Prussia, its summit being at an elevation of more than 2200 feet. Extra horses are required to pass it; and the saying goes that millions of dollars have been paid on a stone at the top, known as the Vorspannsteine.

Among rural objects you see huge barns; a tiled roof resting on tall, square pillars of brick, the intervals between which are boarded. And here and there a farm, with all the homestead enclosed by a high whitewashed wall, which has two arched entrances. The cottages are low, their roofs a combination of thatch and shingle, their shutters an exhibition of rustic art, bright red, with an ornamental wreath in the centre of the panels; and the wooden column, on which a saint stands by the wayside, displays a flowery spiral on a ground of lively green. To a man who was leaning over his gate, I said that it was very stupid to mar the effect of such artistic decorations by a slushy midden at the front door.

"We don't think so: we are used to it," was his answer.

Now and then you meet a little low wagon, the tilt-hoops painted blue, and the harness glittering with numerous rings and small round plates of brass. In the village of Buchwald the mill was at work, and the men were busy at the grindstone grinding their scythe-blades in readiness for the morrow. Here we come upon the Bober, grown to a lively stream, running along the edge of the far-spreading meadows on the left. About half a mile farther a wagon-track slants off to the right, making a short cut over the Kamm to Schmiedeberg. It leads you by pleasant ways along hill-sides, across fields and meadows, into lonely vales and solitary lanes, that end on shaggy heather slopes. To me the walk was delightful, for uninterrupted sunshine, a merry breeze, and rural peace, favourable to the luxury of idle thought, lent a charm to pretty scenery.

From Dittersbach the road ascends the Passberg, which, on the farther side, sends down a steep descent to Schmiedeberg. The town lies in a deep valley, and is so long from one extremity of its scattered outskirts to the other that you will be nearly an hour in walking through it, while, for the most part, it is little more than one street in width. It has an ancient look, and, owing to the many gardens and bleaching-grounds among the houses, combines country with town. The Rathhaus is a fine specimen of tasteful architecture.

From working in iron, the Schmiedebergers have turned to the making of shawls and plush, and the entertainment of holiday travellers. The iron trade began in an adventure on the Riesengebirge. Two men were crossing the mountains, when one, whose shoes were thickly nailed, found himself suddenly held fast on the stony path, unable to advance or return. He shook with terror. What else could it be than a spell thrown over him by Rübezahl? At length, by the other's assistance, he broke the spell; and the two having brought away with them the stone of detention, it was recognised as magnetic iron stone; and already, in the twelfth century, iron works were established, around which Schmiedeberg grew into a town. It now numbers four thousand inhabitants.

Hither come tourists from far to see the mountains; and during your half hour's rest at the Schwarzes Ross, you will be amused by witnessing the eager manifestations of the newly-arrived, their exuberant gestures while bargaining with a guide, and the liberal way—the bargain once made—in which they load him with rugs, cloaks, coats, caps, bonnets, bags, bundles, umbrellas, parasols, and other travelling gear, until he carries a mountain on his own shoulders. Besides the trip to Schneekoppe, some mount to the great beech-tree and the Friesenstein, on the Landeshuter Kamm; or visit the laboratories at Krummhübel, where liqueurs, oils, and essences, are distilled and prepared from native plants: chemical operations first set on foot in 1700 by a few students of medicine who fled from Prague to escape the consequences of a duel. And some go beyond Krummhübel to look at Wolfshau, a place in the entrance of the Melzergrund, so shut in by wooded hills that it never sees the sun during December. And some to the village of Steinseifen, where, among iron-workers and herbalists, dwell skilful wood-carvers; one of whom for a small fee exhibits a large model of the Riesengebirge—a specimen of his own handiwork.

On the left, as you leave Schmiedeberg, is the Ruheberg, a small castle standing in a bosky park belonging to a Polish prince, where the townsfolk find pleasant walks. Two miles farther, and the leafy slopes of Buchwald appear on the right, embowering another castle, and a park laid out in the English style, and with such advantages of position, among which are fifty-four ponds, that it has become an elysium for the neighbourhood.

Once clear of the town, and the mountain-range opens on the left—rounded heights, ridges, scars, and peaks stretching away for miles on either side of the Koppe. Another hour, and turning from the main road which runs on to Hirschberg, you see houses scattered about the plain, built in the Alpine style, with outside stair and galleries, and broad eaves. We are in the village of Erdmannsdorf—the asylum granted by the King of Prussia to about a hundred Tyrolese families, who, in 1838, had to quit their native country for conscience' sake. They were Protestants hated by their bigoted neighbours, and disliked by the priests; and so became exiles. Nowhere else in Prussia could they have seen mountains at all approaching in grandeur those which look down on their native valley, and yet they must at first have deeply mourned the difference.

Remembering my former year's experiences, I wished to find myself once more among the Tyrolese. True enough, there they were in their picturesque costume, in striking contrast with the Silesians; but there was a degenerate look about the Wirthshaus, as if they had forgotten their original cleanliness, which repelled me, and I went on to the Schweizerhaus, a large inn near the royal Schloss. As usual, it was overfull, so great is the throng of visitors, and I had to try in another direction, which brought me to the Gasthof und Gerichtskretscham, where the landlord promised me a bed if I would not mind sleeping in the billiard-room.