Mittenwald.--Mountain chapels.--Saint Anna’s young and fair
worshippers.--Road to Inspruck.--Maximilian’s tomb.--Vast range of
prospects.--A mountain torrent.--Schönberg.
July 26.
The sun rose many hours before me, and when I got up was spangling the
surface of the lake, which spreads itself between steeps of wood,
crowned by lofty crags and pinnacles. We had an opportunity of
contemplating this bold assemblage as we travelled on the banks of the
lake, where it forms a bay sheltered by impending forests; the water,
tinged by their reflection with a deep cerulean, calm and tranquil.
Mountains of pine and beech rising above, close every outlet; and, no
village or spire peeping out of the foliage, impress an idea of more
than European solitude.
From the shore of Walchen-see, our road led us straight through arching
groves, which the axe seems never to have violated, to the summit of a
rock covered with daphnes of various species, and worn by the course of
torrents into innumerable craggy forms. Beneath, lay extended a chaos of
shattered cliffs, with tall pines springing from their crevices, and
rapid streams hurrying between their intermingled trunks and branches.
As yet, no hut appeared, no mill, no bridge, no trace of human
existence.
After a few hours’ journey through the wilderness, we began to discover
a wreath of smoke; and presently the cottage from whence it arose,
composed of planks, and reared on the very brink of a precipice. Piles
of cloven fir were dispersed before the entrance, on a little spot of
verdure browsed by goats; near them sat an aged man with hoary whiskers,
his white locks tucked under a fur cap. Two or three beautiful children
with hair neatly braided, played around him; and a young woman dressed
in a short robe and Polish-looking bonnet, peeped out of a wicket
window.
I was so much struck with the appearance of this sequestered family,
that, crossing a rivulet, I clambered up to their cottage and sought
some refreshment. Immediately there was a contention amongst the
children, who should be the first to oblige me. A little black-eyed girl
succeeded, and brought me an earthen jug full of milk, with crumbled
bread, and a platter of strawberries fresh picked from the bank. I
reclined in the midst of my smiling hosts, and spread my repast on the
turf: never could I be waited upon with more hospitable grace. The only
thing I wanted was language to express my gratitude; and it was this
deficiency which made me quit them so soon. The old man seemed visibly
concerned at my departure; and his children followed me a long way down
the rocks, talking in a dialect which passes all understanding, and
waving their hands to bid me adieu.
I had hardly lost sight of them and regained my carriage before we
entered a forest of pines, to all appearance without bounds, of every
age and figure; some, feathered to the ground with flourishing branches;
others, decayed into shapes like Lapland idols. Even at noonday, I
thought we should never have found our way out.
At last, having descended a long avenue, endless perspectives opening
on either side, we emerged into a valley bounded by hills, divided into
irregular inclosures, where many herds were grazing. A rivulet flows
along the pastures beneath; and after winding through the village of
Walgau, loses itself in a narrow pass amongst the cliffs and precipices
which rise above the cultivated slopes and frame in this happy pastoral
region. All the plain was in sunshine, the sky blue, the heights
illuminated, except one rugged peak with spires of rock, shaped not
unlike the views I have seen of Sinai, and wrapped, like that sacred
mount, in clouds and darkness. At the base of this tremendous mass lies
the hamlet of Mittenwald, surrounded by thickets and banks of verdure,
and watered by frequent springs, whose sight and murmurs were so
reviving in the midst of a sultry day, that we could not think of
leaving their vicinity, but remained at Mittenwald the whole evening.
Our inn had long airy galleries, with pleasant balconies fronting the
mountain; in one of these we dined upon trout fresh from the rills, and
cherries just culled from the orchards that cover the slopes above. The
clouds were dispersing, and the topmost peak half visible, before we
ended our repast, every moment discovering some inaccessible cliff or
summit, shining through the mists, and tinted by the sun, with pale
golden colours. These appearances filled me with such delight and with
such a train of romantic associations, that I left the table and ran to
an open field beyond the huts and gardens to gaze in solitude and catch
the vision before it dissolved away. You, if any human being is able,
may conceive true ideas of the glowing vapours sailing over the pointed
rocks, and brightening them in their passage with amber light.
When all was faded and lost in the blue ether, I had time to look around
me and notice the mead in which I was standing. Here, clover covered its
surface; there, crops of grain; further on, beds of herbs and the
sweetest flowers. An amphitheatre of hills and rocks, broken into a
variety of glens and precipices, open a course for several clear
rivulets, which, after gurgling amidst loose stones and fragments, fall
down the steeps, and are concealed and quieted in the herbage of the
vale.
A cottage or two peep out of the woods that hang over the waterfalls;
and on the brow of the hills above, appears a series of eleven little
chapels, uniformly built. I followed the narrow path that leads to them,
on the edge of the eminences, and met a troop of beautiful peasants, all
of the name of Anna (for it was St. Anna’s day) going to pay their
devotion, severally, at these neat white fanes. There were faces that
Guercino would not have disdained copying, with braids of hair the
softest and most luxuriant I ever beheld. Some had wreathed it simply
with flowers, others with rolls of a thin linen (manufactured in the
neighbourhood), and disposed it with a degree of elegance one should not
have expected on the cliffs of the Tyrol.
Being arrived, they knelt all together at the first chapel, on the
steps, a minute or two, whispered a short prayer, and then dispersed
each to her fane. Every little building had now its fair worshipper, and
you may well conceive how much such figures, scattered about the
landscape, increased its charms. Notwithstanding the fervour of their
adorations (for at intervals they sighed and beat their white bosoms
with energy), several bewitching profane glances were cast at me as I
passed by. Do not be surprised, then, if I became a convert to idolatry
in so amiable a form, and worshipped Saint Anna on the score of her
namesakes.
When got beyond the last chapel, I began to hear the roar of a cascade
in a thick wood of beech and chestnut that clothes the steeps of a wide
fissure in the rock. My ear soon guided me to its entrance, which was
marked by a shed encompassed with mossy fragments and almost concealed
by bushes of rhododendron in full red bloom--amongst these I struggled,
till reaching a goat-track, it conducted me, on the brink of the foaming
waters, to the very depths of the cliff, whence issues a stream which,
dashing impetuously down, strikes against a ledge of rocks, and
sprinkles the impending thicket with dew. Big drops hung on every spray,
and glittered on the leaves partially gilt by the rays of the declining
sun, whose mellow hues softened the rugged summits, and diffused a
repose, a divine calm, over this deep retirement, which inclined me to
imagine it the extremity of the earth--the portal of some other region
of existence,--some happy world beyond the dark groves of pine, the
caves and awful mountains, where the river takes its source! Impressed
with this romantic idea, I hung eagerly over the gulph, and fancied I
could distinguish a voice bubbling up with the waters; then looked into
the abyss and strained my eyes to penetrate its gloom--but all was dark
and unfathomable as futurity! Awakening from my reverie, I felt the
damps of the water chill my forehead; and ran shivering out of the vale
to avoid them. A warmer atmosphere, that reigned in the meads I had
wandered across before, tempted me to remain a good while longer
collecting dianthi freaked with beautifully varied colours, and a
species of white thyme scented like myrrh. Whilst I was thus employed, a
confused murmur struck my ear, and, on turning towards a cliff, backed
by the woods from whence the sound seemed to proceed, forth issued a
herd of goats, hundreds after hundreds, skipping down the steeps: then
followed two shepherd boys, gamboling together as they drove their
creatures along: soon after, the dog made his appearance, hunting a
stray heifer which brought up the rear. I followed them with my eyes
till lost in the windings of the valley, and heard the tinkling of their
bells die gradually away. Now the last blush of crimson left the summit
of _Sinai_, inferior mountains being long since cast in deep blue shade.
The village was already hushed when I regained it, and in a few moments
I followed its example.
July 27.--We pursued our journey to Inspruck, through the wildest scenes
of wood and mountain, where the rocks were now beginning to assume a
loftier and more majestic appearance, and to glisten with snows. I had
proposed passing a day or two at Inspruck, visiting the castle of
Embras, and examining Count Eysenberg’s cabinet, enriched with the
rarest productions of the mineral kingdom, and a complete collection of
the moths and flies peculiar to the Tyrol; but, upon my arrival, the
azure of the skies and the brightness of the sunshine inspired me with
an irresistible wish of hastening to Italy. I was now too near the
object of my journey, to delay possession any longer than absolutely
necessary, so, casting a transient look on Maximilian’s tomb, and the
bronze statues of Tyrolese Counts, and worthies, solemnly ranged in the
church of the Franciscans, set off immediately.
We crossed a broad noble street, terminated by a triumphal arch, and
were driven along the road to the foot of a mountain waving with fields
of corn, and variegated with wood and vineyards, encircling lawns of
the finest verdure, scattered over with white houses. Upon ascending the
mount, and beholding a vast range of prospects of a similar character, I
almost repented my impatience, and looked down with regret upon the
cupolas and steeples we were leaving behind. But the rapid succession of
lovely and romantic scenes soon effaced the former from my memory.
Our road, the smoothest in the world (though hewn in the bosom of rocks)
by its sudden turns and windings, gave us, every instant, opportunities
of discovering new villages, and forests rising beyond forests; green
spots in the midst of wood, high above on the mountains, and cottages
perched on the edge of promontories. Down, far below, in the chasm,
amidst a confusion of pines and fragments of stone, rages the torrent
Inn, which fills the country far and wide with a perpetual murmur.
Sometimes we descended to its brink, and crossed over high bridges;
sometimes mounted halfway up the cliffs, till its roar and agitation
became, through distance, inconsiderable.
After a long ascent we reached Schönberg,[5] a village well worthy of
its appellation: and then, twilight drawing over us, began to descend.
We could now but faintly discover the opposite mountains, veined with
silver rills, when we came once more to the banks of the Inn. This
turbulent stream accompanied us all the way to Steinach, and broke by
its continual roar the stillness of the night, half spent, before we
retired to rest.