Schnaps and Sausage -- Dresdener upon Berliners -- The
Prince's Castle at Fischbach -- A Home for the Princess
Royal -- Is the Marriage Popular? -- View from the Tower --
Tradition of the Golden Donkey -- Royal Palace at
Erdmannsdorf -- A Miniature Chatsworth -- The Zillerthal --
Käse and Brod -- Stohnsdorf -- Famous Beer -- Rischmann's
Cave -- Prophecies -- Warmbrunn.
At Fischbach, in a pleasant valley, about an hour's walk from
Erdmannsdorf, stands a castle belonging to Prince Wilhelm of Prussia,
which is shown to curious tourists. A Dresdener, who thought it worth
the trouble of the walk, asked me to accompany him next morning, and
we started after an early breakfast. Early as it was a party of
Silesian peasants were breaking their fast with _Schnaps_, sausage,
and rye bread. Think of _Schnaps_ and sausage at seven in the morning!
The Dresdener beguiled the way by laughing at the peculiarities of
three Berliners, whom we had left behind at the _Gasthof_. A Prussian
cockney, he said, was sure to betray himself as soon as he began to
talk, for nothing would satisfy him but the most exalted superlatives.
"When you hear," he continued, "a man talk of a thing as gigantic--
incomprehensibly beautiful--ravishingly excellent--insignificantly
scarcely visible--set him down at once as a Berliner. You heard those
three last night, how they went on; as we say in our country, hanging
their hats on the topmost pegs. Yracious yoodness! what yiyantic
yabble!" And the Saxon cockney laughed as heartily at his own wit as
if it had been good enough for _Punch_.
The castle is an old possession of the Knights Templars, repaired and
beautified. It has towers and turrets, and windows of quaint device; a
small inner court, and a surrounding moat spanned by a bridge at the
entrance. Outside the moat are shady walks and avenues of limes, and
the gardens, which did not come up to my notion of what is royal
either in fruits or flowers. With plantations on the hills around, and
in the park, the whole place has a pleasant bowery aspect.
As we crossed the bridge, there seemed something inhospitable in the
sight of two large cannon guarding the entrance; but the portress told
us they were trophies from Afghanistan, captured at the battle in
which Prince Waldemar was wounded--a present from the British
government. The fittings of the room are mostly of varnished pine, to
which the furniture and hangings do no violence. There are a few good
paintings, among them a portrait of the Queen of Bavaria, which you
will remember for beauty above all the rest; nor will you easily
forget the marble head copied from the statue of Queen Louisa in the
mausoleum at Charlottenburg. From looking at the rarities, the
portress called us to hear the singing of an artificial bird, and
seemed somewhat disappointed that we did not regard it as the greatest
curiosity of all.
"A snug little place," said the Dresdener, as we walked from room to
room. "Not quite what your Princess Royal has been used to, perhaps;
but she will be able to pass summer holidays here agreeably enough."
And quickly the question followed: "But what do you think of the
marriage in England. Is it very popular?"
"Not very," I answered; "your Prussian Prince would have stood no
chance had the King of Sardinia only been a Protestant. Nothing but
her wholesome ingredient of Protestantism saves Prussia from becoming
an offence to English nostrils."
"_So-o-o-o-o!_" ejaculated the Dresdener, while he made pointed arches
of his eyebrows. "That sounds pretty in the Prince's own castle."
We went to the top of the tower, and looked out on the domain, the
mountain chain, and the encircling hills--among which the rocky
Falkenstein--the climbing test of adventurous tourists--rises
conspicuous. According to tradition, great things are in store for the
quiet little village of Fischbach; it is destined to grow into a city.
In the _Kittnerberg_, a neighbouring hill, a golden donkey is some day
to be found, and when found the city is forthwith to start up, and the
finder to be chosen first burgomaster.
Erdmannsdorf, once the estate of brave old Gneisenau, was bought by
the former King Frederick William III., who built in a style combining
Moorish and Gothic the _Schloss_, or palace, which, with its charming
grounds and bronze statues of men-at-arms at the entrance keeping
perpetual guard with battle-axes, rivals the Tyrolese and their
houses in attracting visitors. No barriers separate the grounds from
the public road, and you may walk where you please along the broad
sandy paths, under tall groves, through luxuriant shrubberies, round
rippling lakes, and by streams which here and there tumble over rocky
dams. The place is a miniature Chatsworth, with its model village.
Within the limits of the smooth green turf and well-kept walks stands
the church, an edifice with a tall square tower in the Byzantine
style. The palace, too, has a tall tower, from the top of which, on
our return to Erdmannsdorf--that is the Dresdener and I--we got a view
of the royal domain, and the scattered houses of the Tyrolese, and
always in the background the _Riesengebirge_.
Remembering their native valley, the Tyrolese named their settlement
Zillerthal, and many a one comes here expecting to see a romantic
valley. But all immediately beneath your eye is a great plain watered
by the Lomnitz--the stream which flows out of the Big Pond up in the
mountains--cut up by fields and meadows, crowded with trees around the
palace, and in the deer-park adjoining. Only in Ober-Zillerthal, which
lies nearer to the mountains, do the colonists have the pleasure of
ascending or descending in their walks.
The Tyrolese themselves built their first house entirely of wood,
after the old manner; and this served as model for all the rest,
which, with stone walls for the lower story, have been erected at the
king's expense. The colonists find occupation in cattle-breeding and
field-work, or in the great linen factory, the tall chimney of which
is seen from far across the plain; and are well cared for in means of
education and religious worship. In their _Friedhof_ you may see the
first Tyrolese grave, the resting-place of Jacob Egger, a blind old
man of eighty-three, who died soon after the immigration.
Not far from the palace is a singular group of rocks named _Käse und
Brod_ (_Cheese and Bread_), on the way to which you pass a stone
quarry, where you can pick up fine crystals of quartz, and see men
digging feldspar for the china-manufacturers at Berlin.
Here I parted from the Dresdener and took the road to Warmbrunn--about
six miles distant. Half way, at the foot of the rocky _Prudelberg_,
lies the village of Stohnsdorf, famed for its beer; and not without
reason. But while you drink a glass, the landlord will tell you that
clever folk in distant places--Berlin or Dresden--damage the fame by
selling bottled _Stohnsdorfer_ brewed from the waters of the Spree or
Elbe.
If inclined for a scramble up the _Prudelberg_, take a peep into
Rischmann's Cave among the rocks, for from thence, in 1630, the
prophet Rischmann delivered his predictions with loud voice and wild
gestures. He was a poor weaver, who fancied himself inspired, and,
although struck dumb in 1613, could always find speech when he had
anything to foretel. Woe to Hirschberg was the burden of his prophecy:
war, pestilence, and famine! The tower of the council-house should
fall, and the stream of the Zacken stand still. Honour and reverence
awaited the weaver, for everything came to pass as he had foretold.
The Thirty Years' War brought pestilence and famine; the tower did
fall down; and the Zacken being one of those rivers with an
intermittent flow, its stream was subject to periodical repose.
After frequent ups and downs, you come to the brow of a hill which
overlooks a broad sweep of the Hirschbergerthal, and the little town
of Warmbrunn, chief among Silesian spas--lying cheerfully where the
valley spreads itself out widest towards the mountains. You will feel
tempted to sit down for awhile and gaze on the view--for it has many
pleasing features--touches of the romantic with the pastoral, and the
town itself wearing an unsophisticated look. Seume said of the
Hirschberg Valley--"Seldom finds one a more delightful corner of the
earth; seldom better people."