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.