There were five of us. The little New-Yorker, plump, blonde, and pretty,
I call Cecilia: that is not her name, but if she suggested any saint it
was the patron saint of music. Her soul was full of it, and it ran off
the ends of her fingers in the most enchanting manner. Elise, half
French, as you would see at a glance, was from the Golden Gate,--as
dainty and pretty a bit of femininity as ever wore French gowns with the
inimitable American air. Elise could smile her way straight through the
world. All barriers gave way before her dimples, and with her on board
ship we never feared icebergs at sea, feeling confident they would melt
away before her glance. Thirdly, there was myself, and then I come to
the masculine two-fifths of our party. First, the curate. He was young
in years and in his knowledge of the great world. His parish had sent
him to the Continent with us to regain his somewhat broken health. He
sometimes spoke of himself as a shepherd, and he liked to talk of the
Church as his bride: he always blushed when he looked straight at Elise.
Cecilia liked him because his clerical coat gave tone to the party, and
his dignity was sufficient for us all, thus saving us the trouble of
assuming any. Lastly, there was Samayana, which was not his name either,
from Bombay,--a real, live East-Indian nabob. In his own country he
travelled with three tents, a dozen servants, as many horses, and always
carried his laundress with him. Yet he never seemed lonely with
us,--which we thought very agreeable in him. Crawford had just created
Mr. Isaacs, and we fancied there was a resemblance,--barring the
wives,--and he told us such graphic stories of life in India that we
were not always sure in just which quarter of the globe we were touring.
Both Samayana and the curate were picturesque--for men. Two beings more
opposed never came together, yet they liked each other thoroughly.
Samayana was greatly admired in European society for his color, his gift
as a _raconteur_, and the curious rings he wore. He was very dusky, and
Cecilia, being very blonde, valued him as a most effective foil and
adjunct. We were seeing Germany in the most leisurely fashion, courting
the unexpected and letting things happen to us.
On the day of which I write we spent the early morning on the Königsee,
in Bavaria, the loveliest sheet of water in Germany, vying in grandeur
with any Swiss or Italian lake. Its color is that of the pheasant's
breast, and the green mountain-sides, almost perpendicular in places,
rise till their peaks are in the clouds and their snows are perpetual.
Stalwart, bronzed peasant girls, in the short skirts of the Bavarian
costume, rowed us about. A few years ago, in answer to a petition, King
Louis I. promised them that never in his reign should steam supplant
them. They laughed happily and looked proudly at their muscle when we
hinted at their being tired.
We landed at different points and strolled into wooded valleys, visited
artificial hermitages, stopped for a bite at a restaurant connected with
a royal hunting-château, and listened lazily to Elise's telling of the
legends of the region, accompanied by the music of some little waterfall
coming from the snow above and gleefully leaping into the lake. We
crossed the rocky, wild pasture-land lying between the Königsee and the
Obersee, that tiny lake that faithfully gives back as a mirror all the
crags, peaks, and snowy heights which hide it away there as if it were
indeed the precious opal you may fancy it to be when viewed from above.
We drifted back to the little inn, where we were approached by a
respectful _Kutscher_, who asked if we would not like to go down into a
salt-mine. Whatever we did, it was with one accord, and the answer came
in chorus, "_Ja, gewiss!_" Elise glanced down at her dainty toilet, a
look instantly interpreted by the _Kutscher_, who explained that
costumes for the descent were furnished, that the exploration was not
fatiguing, and that the carriages were ready.
It was all done in an "_Augenblick_," the bill was paid, the _Trinkgeld_
was scattered, and we were rattling away through as beautiful a region
as you will find, even in Switzerland. The snow-peaks were dazzlingly
white in the sunshine; in the ravines and defiles the darkness lingers
from night to night; singing, leaping Alpine streams came like molten
silver from the glaciers over the rocky ledges and through the hanging
forests, and a swift river ran through this happy, fertile valley of
peace and plenty in which our roadway wound. The peasants looked content
and well-to-do, and were picturesquely clothed. We stopped an old man
and bargained for the quaint, antique silver buttons on his coat, and
paid him twice its weight in silver money for the big silver buckle at
his belt. We were stopped at the frontier, and accommodatingly rose
while the custom-officers politely looked under the carriage-seats. The
wine we had just drunk was not taxable, while that we were about to
drink was: so we presented our remaining bottles to the officers to save
them the trouble of making change. Up to that time we had turned our
horses to the right: once over the Austrian line, custom demanded we
should turn to the left, a change to which the _Kutscher_ readily
accommodated himself. One is kept geographically informed in that region
by this difference in manners on the high-road in Austria and Bavaria.
We argued a little about the fittingness of women working in the fields.
Cecilia thought it preferable to washing dishes, and one of us, who
believes herself not born to sew, maintained that to rake hay was more
agreeable than sitting at sewing-machines or making shirts at twenty
cents apiece after the manner of New-York workwomen. But once
indignation and excitement took possession of us all as we caught sight
of a bare-footed, slight young girl toiling up a ladder and carrying
mortar along a scaffold to men laying bricks on the second story of a
new building. The girl had a complexion like a rose-leaf, her uncovered
hair gleamed like gold in the sunshine, her head was exquisitely set on
her shoulders. The curate sighed deeply, Samayana uttered a strong word
in Hindoostanee, and there was a feminine cry of "Shameful!" when the
girl, putting down her load, folded her white arms, whose sinew and
muscle an athlete might have envied, and, with teeth and smile as
faultless as our Elise's, threw us down a "_Gruss Gott_!" If there ever
beamed content and happiness from human face we saw it in that of this
peasant beauty, who had no conception of our commiseration. We gave her
back a "God greet thee!" "All the same," said Cecilia indignantly,
"women should _not_ carry mortar." We had noticed that Cecilia's
indignation on account of the workingwoman of Germany was extreme if the
woman was pretty.
We came at last to the mouth of the mine, from which issued a narrow
railway for the transportation of the salt-ore, and above, zigzag on the
mountain-side, ran the conduit carrying the salt, still in liquid form,
to the boiling-house. A waterfall four hundred feet high furnished power
for the great pump. About the entrance to the mine clustered a number of
buildings. Many carriages were already there, for it was the height of
the tourists' season, and this was the show-mine of the Salzkammergut.
Some military officers were standing about, a dozen or more natives
lounged on the piazzas, and nearly every carriage contained one or more
occupants, evidently waiting for travelling-companions then in the mine.
There was the fat woman who couldn't think of such an exploration, the
nervous woman who hated dark places and never went underground, a few
invalids and some chattering girls and young men who had previously been
through the mine and had come over from Salzburg for the drive, and some
very fine youths and young women who wouldn't be seen in a miner's
costume. There were a score or more of these travellers, and as many
more coachmen, and miners off duty, hanging about. A building on the
opposite side of the road was indicated to us ladies as the place in
which we were to change our costumes. Now, here was a pleasant gauntlet
to run in male attire! However, a hundred strangers were not to deter
us, and, _possibly_, this costume might be becoming. There were worse
figures in the world than ours, and who knew but this miners' dress
might show our forms to an advantage at which they had never been seen
before? Encouraged by the thought, we gave our treasures into safe
keeping and permitted the attendant to disrobe us. She spoke a dialect
which had little meaning to us, and we carried on our conversation by
signs.
She hung our habiliments on pegs, giving Elise's a little womanly caress
for their prettiness. She brought in exchange a costume which made us
helpless from laughter, until we were painfully sobered by the thought
of the spectators outside. A pair of white duck trousers that might have
been made of pasteboard, so stiff were they and so defined the crease
ironed at their sides, came first. Our measures were not taken. The
attendant accommodatingly turned them up about ten inches at the bottom,
the edge then coming to our ankles, which somehow looked very
insignificant and as if protruding from paper shoe-boxes that had been
sat upon. These nether garments extended beyond us at either side to
such a distance that that roundness of form which we had fancied this
costume might display was not in the least perceptible. A black alpaca
jacket reaching to our knees came next. These, too, had been warranted
to fit the biggest woman who might visit the Salzkammergut, and one
would easily have taken in all three of us. Elise, always ingenious,
found hers so long on the shoulder that she fitted her elbow into the
armsize. We pinned them up here and pinned them in there, and tucked
our hair into little black caps, and fastened the broad leather belt
about our waists, stuck a lantern in at the side, and announced
ourselves in readiness. The dressing-maid, however, was not done with
us. She brought three very heavy leathern aprons, attached to strong
waist-bands. The leather was three-quarters of an inch thick; and I need
not add that these square aprons did not take graceful folds. Elise,
after regarding the curious article a moment, decided it would be no
addition to her toilet, and politely declined it. Cecilia's _nez
retroussé_ went yet higher up in the air. Feeling that the maid knew
better than I, I meekly put one on as I had been taught from my babyhood
to wear an apron, when a sudden twitch brought it around _behind_. She
quickly adjusted the others in the same fashion. We dared not look at
each other, and each assumed a manner as if attired in the court costume
of the country; but I venture to say that more grotesque, ridiculous
creatures never went out into the daylight, Cecilia, going first, wisely
did not attempt to go through the door full front, and we sidled after
her to avoid collision between our stiff sail-like trousers and the
door-jambs.
We tried to believe that clothes do not make the woman,--they do much
toward it,--and with an air of great dignity went into the face of that
miscellaneous company, to be greeted with a terrific and tremendous
shout of laughter. A panic seized us, and I found myself standing stock
still in the middle of the road, as if stage-struck, the others running
like the wind. It was for a moment only, and I followed, the laughter
sounding more and more demoniacal to my ears. I was impelled as never
before in my life. Was some one striking me from behind? It was that
diabolical leathern apron giving me a blow at every step, its violence
increasing with my ever-accelerated speed. How grateful the shelter of
that cave-like aperture in the mountain, where stood the gentlemen
similarly attired, the curate so absurd that we forgot all about his
other "cloth" and laughed immoderately in his face. Samayana was still
picturesque. Cecilia was in a rage. "I'll never cross that road again
before those horrid people, if I stay here a thousand years!" she
exclaimed, with flashing eyes; and Elise breathlessly gasped,
"Oh-that-awful-apron! It-beat-me-as-I-ran,-like-a-whip.
I-felt-like-a-donkey-pursued-by-the-donkey-boy!"
The guide lighted our lanterns, and, with a last hysterical laugh, we
followed him into the earth, through long, narrow, humid passage-ways,
the temperature not unpleasant, other passage-ways branching off and
suggesting the labyrinth which we knew extended for a great distance in
every direction. We finally came to a lighted chamber, the entrance to
the shaft. The flickering lights showed us the end of a great, smooth,
wooden beam, which, at an angle of forty-five degrees, seemed to be
going down into darkness, ending nowhere, as far as we could see. We had
not been prepared in our minds for this descent or the manner in which
it was to be made. The miner placed himself astride the great beam,
keeping his position by holding on to a rope. He put Elise behind him,
and, drawing her arms around his waist, clasped her hands in front of
him. The curate was then requested to mount the wooden horse and embrace
Elise firmly. He hesitated but a moment, and in another I found myself
behind him, hanging for dear life on to the English shepherd, to be in
turn encircled by Samayana, and last of all came Cecilia, doing her best
to get her plump little arms around the Indian. The darkness below was a
trifle appalling. We were cautioned not to unclasp our hands, lest we
should lose them, and naturally we clung the closer to each other.
There was just a moment of suspense and suppressed excitement, when,
with a sharp cry, the miner loosened his hold, and by the impulse of our
own weight we shot, with a velocity not to be described, two hundred and
forty-feet into the earth. The miner acting as a brake brought us up
gently enough, so that we felt scarcely anything of a shock. Cecilia, to
be sure, left her breath about two-thirds of the way up, and suffered
some inconvenience till she accumulated more, and the curate forgot to
loosen his hold on Elise for an unpardonable length of time, while he
gathered his wits, and I could feel that he was blushing when he came to
his senses. It was in adjusting our attire that we discovered the
necessity and value of our leathern aprons. Had we been plunged into a
pool of water we should have sizzled. They were hot from the friction.
They speedily became our dearest of friends and possessions, for we had
three more of these shafts to slide down, and we grew faint at the bare
thought of losing them. Cecilia, after our second slide, suggested, in a
language the gentlemen did not understand, that she would like her turn
at being embraced, since she always lost her breath at the start and was
afraid. This remark met with no response, as neither Elise nor I wanted
to run the risk of being lost off behind, and felt a selfish sense of
security that made the shooting of the shafts delightful and somewhat
similar to the coasting and sliding down balusters of our childhood.
We traversed many long galleries on different levels. Through some of
these ran the aqueduct which brought the fresh water in, and another
which conveyed the salt water out, twenty miles away. We were in the
bosom of a mountain of salt rock, which is constantly forming, and is
therefore a never-ending source of wealth. For centuries this mine has
been worked. The salt rock is quarried and carried out in the form of
rock-salt. Another method of obtaining salt is by conveying water into
the large, excavated chambers, drawing it off and boiling down when it
becomes impregnated. This water attracts and dissolves the saline
matter, but, as water cannot so affect the slaty portion of the rock, it
leaves it often in most fantastic shapes, sometimes as pillars or
depending, curtain-like sheets. These chambers kept full of water are
constantly changing their level on the withdrawal of the liquid. After
three or four weeks two feet of the roof will be found to have been
dissolved and two feet of _débris_ found upon the floor. Curiously
enough, this _débris_ in time acquires the property of the salt rock.
There are chambers above chambers, some of them five hundred yards in
circumference, and miles of galleries. One of these chambers, which was
illuminated, showed floor, walls, and ceiling of pure rock-salt, very
lovely in color, though not so brilliant as in the mine of Wieliczka,
which is likened to four subterranean cities, one below the other, hewn
from rose-colored rock. Samayana secured of our guide red, yellow, blue,
and purple specimens.
The miners are obliged to divest themselves of all clothing when at
their dangerous work, as any garment will so absorb the salt as to
become hard and brittle, tearing the skin painfully. They must be
relieved every few hours, and, though short-lived, they work for a
pittance an American laborer would scorn.
Descending a flight of steps after shooting the third shaft, we came
upon a scene which filled us with wonder. There, far down in the earth,
lay a tiny tranquil lake of inky blackness, its borders outlined with
blazing torches. At the extreme end were the entwined letters "F.J."
(Franz Joseph), gleaming in candle-lights, and over our heads the
miners' greeting, _"Glück auf!"_ traced in fire. On the pink salt-rock
roof--the miners call it _der Himmel_--rested the fearful weight of the
superincumbent mountain. It was an awful thought, and the curate did not
hesitate an instant in seizing Elise's outstretched hand, as if she were
seeking, and he glad to give, a bit of comfort in this
strangely-impressive place. We entered a little boat waiting to take us
across the Salz Sea to the opposite shore. There was not a sound, save
the dipping of the oar. We tasted the black water. The Dead Sea cannot
be salter. We were hushed and oppressed, as if each felt the weight of
the great mountain-mass over us.
The miners were not at work on that day, but like gnomes they were
silently coming and going in the shadows, never omitting the "_Glück
auf!_" as they met and parted. There were long, weary stairs to climb.
Finally we came to a little car running on a narrow inclined track. In
this we went rapidly through galleries and dry chambers, and finally
were propelled into the daylight with an unexpected velocity. We had
become quite accustomed to our attire, but declined the proposition of
the photographer, who wished to turn his camera upon us for the benefit
of friends in America, and we gained the dressing-room with much more
composure than we had felt when leaving it.
It is believed that these mines were worked in the first century; and
many a grave has been opened in excavating which gave up bones and
copper ornaments once belonging to Celtic salt-miners of the third and
fourth centuries. Towers erected in the thirteenth century are still
strongholds. The whole region, too, is full of salt-springs. The lofty
mountains and rich valleys, the sequestered lakes and blue-gray rivers
with their waterfalls, and the old castles, quaint costumes, and
legends, make it a tempting country for such ease-loving travellers as
were we five, and for the intrepid Alpine climber it offers almost as
much as any part of Switzerland.
That night we drove into Mozart's birthplace just as the Salzburg chimes
were playing an evening hymn of his composing. The curate and Elise
seemed to have found something down in the salt-mine of which they did
not choose to talk, and, as we bade each other good-night, Cecilia said,
"I'm glad I did it, but _I_ wouldn't go down there again: would _you_?"
and Sarnayana and I thought we wouldn't; but the others looked as if
ready to repeat the excursion the following day.
P.S.--Elise and the curate are to be married, and the parish is to have
a shepherdess. Cecilia, Samayana, and I have no doubt of its being a
love-match. She never could marry him after seeing him in a salt-mine
costume if she didn't love him. MARGERY DEANE.