ADVENTURES AMONG THE HARTZ.
On taking leave of Carl at the gate over the Göttingen road, I felt
tempted to bestow a malediction upon traveling, from its merciless
breaking of all links, as soon as formed. It was painful to think we
should meet no more. The tears started into his eyes, and feeling a mist
gathering over mine, I gave his hand a parting pressure, turned my back
upon Cassel and started up the long mountain, at a desperate rate. On
the summit I passed out of Hesse into Hanover, and began to descend the
remaining six miles. The road went down by many windings, but I
shortened the way considerably by a foot-path through a mossy old
forest. The hills bordering the Weser are covered with wood, through
which I saw the little red-roofed city of Münden, at the bottom. I
stopped there for the night, and next morning walked around the place.
It is one of the old German cities that have not yet felt the effect of
the changing spirit of the age. It is still walled, though the towers
are falling to ruin. The streets are narrow, crooked, and full of ugly
old houses, and to stand in the little square before the public
buildings, one would think himself born in the sixteenth century. Just
below the city the Werra and Fulda unito and form the Weser. The
triangular point has been made into a public walk, and the little
steamboat was lying at anchor near, waiting to start for Bremen.
In the afternoon I got into the omnibus for Göttingen. The ride over the
wild, dreary, monotonous hills was not at all interesting. There were
two other passengers inside, one of whom, a grave, elderly man, took a
great interest in America, but the conversation was principally on his
side, for I had been taken with a fever in Münden. I lay crouched up in
the corner of the vehicle, trying to keep off the chills which
constantly came over me, and wishing only for Göttingen, that I might
obtain medicine and a bed. We reached it at last, and I got out with my
knapsack and walked wearily through half a dozen streets till I saw an
inn. But on entering, I found it so dark and dirty and unfriendly, that
I immediately went out again and hired the first pleasant looking boy I
met, to take me to a good hotel. He conducted me to the first one in the
city. I felt a trepidation of pocket, but my throbbing head plead more
powerfully, so I ordered a comfortable room and a physician. The host,
Herr Wilhelm, sent for Professor Trefurt, of the University, who told me
I had over-exerted myself in walking. He made a second call the next
day, when, as he was retiring, I inquired the amount of his fee. He
begged to be excused and politely bowed himself out. I inquired the
meaning of this of Herr Wilhelm, who said it was customary for
travellers to leave what they chose for the physician, as there was no
regular fee. He added, moreover, that twenty groschen, or about sixty
cents, was sufficient for the two visits!
I stayed in Göttingen two dull, dreary, miserable days, without getting
much better. I took but one short walk through the city, in which I saw
the outsides of a few old churches and got a hard fall on the pavement.
Thinking that the _cause_ of my illness might perhaps become its _cure_,
I resolved to go on rather than remain in the melancholy--in spite of
its black-eyed maidens, melancholy--Göttingen. On the afternoon of the
second day, I took the post to Nordheim, about twelve miles distant. The
Göttingen valley, down which we drove, is green and beautiful, and the
trees seem to have come out all at once. we were not within sight of the
Hartz, but the mountains along the Weser were visible on the left. The
roads were extremely muddy from the late rains, so that I proceeded but
slowly.
A blue range along the horizon told me of the Hartz, as I passed;
although there were some fine side-glimpses through the hills, I did not
see much of them till I reached Osterode, about twelve miles further.
Here the country begins to assume a different aspect. The city lies in a
narrow valley, and as the road goes down a steep hill towards it, one
sees on each side many quarries of gypsum, and in front the gloomy pine
mountains are piled one above another in real Alpine style. But alas!
the city, though it looks exceedingly romantic from above, is one of
the dirtiest I ever saw. I stopped at Herzberg, six miles farther, for
the night. The scenery was very striking; and its effect was much
heightened by a sky full of black clouds, which sent down a hail-storm
as they passed over. The hills are covered with pine, fir and larch. The
latter tree, in its first foliage, is most delicate and beautiful. Every
bough is like a long ostrich plume, and when one of them stands among
the dark pines, it seems so light and airy that the wind might carry it
away. Just opposite Herzberg, the Hartz stands in its gloomy and
mysterious grandeur, and I went to sleep with the pleasant thought that
an hour's walk on the morrow would shut me up in its deep recesses.
The next morning I entered them. The road led up a narrow mountain
valley, down which a stream was rushing--on all sides were magnificent
forests of pine. It was glorious to look down their long aisles, dim and
silent, with a floor of thick green moss. There was just room enough for
the road and the wild stream which wound its way zigzag between the
hills, affording the most beautiful mountain-view along the whole route.
As I ascended, the mountains became rougher and wilder, and in the shady
hollows were still drifts of snow. Enjoying every thing very much, I
walked on without taking notice of the road, and on reaching a wild,
rocky chasm called the "Schlucht," was obliged to turn aside and take a
footpath over a high mountain to Andreasberg, a town built on a summit
two thousand feet above the sea. It is inhabited almost entirely by the
workmen in the mines.
The way from Andreasberg to the Brocken leads along the Rehberger
Graben, which carry water about six miles for the oreworks. After going
through a thick pine wood, I came out on the mountain-side, where rough
crags overhung the way above, and through the tops of the trees I had
glimpses into the gorge below. It was scenery of the wildest character.
Directly opposite rose a mountain wall, dark and stern through the
gloomy sky; far below the little stream of the Oder foamed over the
rocks with a continual roar, and one or two white cloud-wreaths were
curling up from the forests.
I followed the water-ditch around every projection of the mountain,
still ascending higher amid the same wild scenery, till at length I
reached the Oderteich, a great dam, in a kind of valley formed by some
mountain peaks on the side of the Brocken. It has a breastwork of
granite, very firm, and furnishes a continual supply of water for the
works. It began to rain soon, and I took a foot-path which went winding
up through the pine wood. The storm still increased, till everything was
cloud and rain, so I was obliged to stop about five o'clock at
Oderbruch, a toll-house and tavern on the side of the Brocken, on the
boundary between Brunswick and Hanover--the second highest inhabited
house in the Hartz. The Brocken was invisible through the storm and the
weather forboded a difficult ascent. The night was cold, but by a warm
fire I let the winds howl and the rain beat. When I awoke the next
morning, we were in clouds. They were thick on every side, hiding what
little view there was through the openings of the forest. After
breakfast, however, they were somewhat thinner, and I concluded to start
for the Brocken. It is not the usual way for travellers who ascend,
being not only a bad road but difficult to find, as I soon discovered.
The clouds gathered around again after I set out, and I was obliged to
walk in a storm of mingled rain and snow. The snow lay several feet deep
in the forests, and the path was, in many places, quite drifted over.
The white cloud-masses were whirled past by the wind, continually
enveloping me and shutting out every view. During the winter the path
had become, in ninny places, the bed of a mountain torrent, so that I
was obliged sometimes to wade kneedeep in snow, and sometimes to walk
over the wet, spongy moss, crawling under the long, dripping branches of
the stunted pines. After a long time of such dreary travelling, I came
to two rocks called the Stag Horns, standing on a little peak. The
storm, now all snow, blew more violently than ever, and the path became
lost under the deep drifts.
Comforting myself with the assurance that if I could not find it, I
could at least make my way back, I began searching, and after some time,
came upon it again. Here the forest ceased; the way led on large stones
over a marshy ascending plain, but what was above, or on either side, I
could not see. It was solitude of the most awful kind. There was nothing
but the storm, which had already wet me through, and the bleak gray
waste of rocks. It grew sleeper and steeper; I could barely trace the
path by the rocks which were worn, and the snow threatened soon to cover
these. Added to this, although the walking and fresh mountain air had
removed my illness, I was still weak from the effects of it, and the
consequences of a much longer exposure to the storm were greatly to be
feared. I was wondering if the wind increased at the same rate, how much
longer it would be before I should be carried off, when suddenly
something loomed up above me through the storm. A few steps more and I
stood beside the Brocken House, on the very summit of the mountain! The
mariner, who has been floating for days on a wreck at sea, could
scarcely be more rejoiced at a friendly sail, than I was on entering the
low building. Two large Alpine dogs in the passage, as I walked in,
dripping with wet, gave notice to the inmates, and I was soon ushered
into a warm room, where I changed my soaked garments for dry ones, and
sat down by the fire with feelings of comfort not easily imagined. The
old landlord was quite surprised, on hearing the path by which I came,
that I found the way at all. The summit was wrapped in the thickest
cloud, and he gave me no hope for several hours of any prospect at all,
so I sat down and looked over the Stranger's Album.
I saw but two names from the United States--B.F. Atkins, of Boston, and
C.A. Hay, from York, Pa. There were a great many long-winded German
poems--among them, one by Schelling, the philosopher. Some of them spoke
of having seen the "Spectre of the Brocken." I inquired of the landlord
about the phenomenon; he says in winter it is frequently seen, in summer
more seldom. The cause is very simple. It is always seen at sunrise,
when the eastern side of the Brocken is free from clouds, and at the
same time, the mist rises from the valley on the opposite side. The
shadow of every thing on the Brocken is then thrown in grand proportions
upon the mist, and is seen surrounded with a luminous halo. It is
somewhat singular that such a spectacle can be seen upon the Brocken
alone, but this is probably accounted for by the formation of the
mountain, which collects the mist at just such a distance from the
summit as to render the shadow visible.
Soon after dinner the storm subsided and the clouds separated a little.
I could see down through the rifts on the plains of Brunswick, and
sometimes, when they opened a little more, the mountains below us to the
east and the adjoining plains, as far as Magdeburg. It was like looking
on the earth from another planet, or from some point in the air which
had no connection, with it; our station was completely surrounded by
clouds, rolling in great masses around us, now and then giving glimpses
through their openings of the blue plains, dotted with cities and
villages, far below. At one time when they were tolerably well
separated, I ascended the tower, fifty feet high, standing near the
Brocken House. The view on three sides was quite clear, and I can easily
imagine what a magnificent prospect it must be in fine weather. The
Brocken is only about four thousand feet high, nearly the same as the
loftiest peak of the Catskill, but being the highest mountain in
Northern Germany, it commands a more extensive prospect. Imagine a
circle described with a radius of a hundred miles, comprising thirty
cities, two or three hundred villages and one whole mountain district!
We could see Brunswick and Magdeburg, and beyond them the great plain
which extends to the North Sea in one direction and to Berlin in the
other, while directly below us lay the dark mountains of the Hartz, with
little villages in their sequestered valleys. It was but a few moments I
could look on this scene--in an instant the clouds swept together again
and completely hid it. In accordance with a custom of the mountain, one
of the girls made me a "Brocken nosegay," of heather, lichens and moss.
I gave her a few pfennings and stowed it away carefully in a corner of
my knapsack.
I now began descending the east side, by a good road over fields of bare
rock and through large forests of pine. Two or three bare brown peaks
rose opposite with an air of the wildest sublimity, and in many places
through the forest towered lofty crags. This is the way by which Goethe
brings Faust up the Brocken, and the scenery is graphically described in
that part of the poem. At the foot of the mountain is the little village
of Schiercke, the highest in the Hartz. Here I took a narrow path
through the woods, and after following a tediously long road over the
hills, reached Elbingerode, where I spent the night, and left the next
morning for Blankenburg. I happened to take the wrong road, however, and
went through Rubeland, a little village in the valley of the Bode. There
are many iron works here, and two celebrated caves, called "Baumann's
Höhle," and "Biel's Höhle." I kept on through the gray, rocky hills to
Huttenrode, where I inquired the way to the Rosstrappe, but was directed
wrong, and after walking nearly two hours in a heavy rain, arrived at
Ludwigshütte, on the Bode, in one of the wildest and loneliest corners
of the Hartz. I dried my wet clothes at a little inn, ate a dinner of
bread and milk, and learning that I was just as far from the Rosstrappe
as ever, and that the way was impossible to find alone, I hunted up a
guide.
We went over the mountains through a fine old forest, for about two
hours, and came out on the brow of a hill near the end of the Hartz,
with a beautiful view of the country below and around. Passing the
little inn, the path led through thick bushes along the summit, over a
narrow ledge of rocks that seemed to stretch out into the air, for on
either side the foot of the precipice vanished in the depth below.
Arrived at last at the end, I looked around me. What a spectacle! I was
standing on the end of a line of precipice which ran out from the
mountain like a wall for several hundred feet--the hills around rising
up perpendicularly from the gorge below, where the Bode pressed into a
narrow channel foamed its way through. Sharp masses of gray rock rose up
in many places from the main body like pillars, with trees clinging to
the clefts, and although the defile was near seven hundred feet deep,
the summits, in one place, were very near to one another. Near the point
at which I stood, which was secured by a railing, was an impression in
the rock like the hoof of a giant horse, from which the place takes its
name. It is very distinct and perfect, and nearly two feet in length.
I went back to the little inn and sat down to rest and chat awhile with
the talkative landlady. Notwithstanding her horrible Prussian dialect, I
was much amused with the budget of wonders, which she keeps for the
information of travelers. Among other things, she related to me the
legend of the Rosstrappe, which I give in her own words: "A great many
hundred years ago, when there were plenty of giants through the world,
there was a certain beautiful princess, who was very much loved by one
of them. Now, although the parents of this princess were afraid of the
giant, and wanted her to marry him, she herself hated him, because she
was in love with a brave knight. But, you see, the brave knight could do
nothing against the great giant, and so a day was appointed for the
wedding of the princess. When they were married, the giant had a great
feast and he and all his servants got drunk. So the princess mounted his
black horse and rode away over the mountains, till she reached this
valley. She stood on that square rock which you see there opposite to
us, and when she saw her knight on this side, where we are, she danced
for joy, and the rock is called the _Tanzplatz_, to this very day. But
when the giant found she had gone, he followed her as fast as he might;
then a holy bishop, who saw the princess, blessed the feet of her horse,
and she jumped on it across to this side, where his fore feet made two
marks in the rock, though there is only one left now. You should not
laugh at this, for if there were giants then, there must have been very
big horses too, as one can see from the hoofmark, and the valley was
narrower then than it is now. My dear man, who is very old now, (you see
him through the bushes, there, digging,) says it was so when he was a
child, and that the old people living then, told him there were once
four just such hoof-tracks, on the _Tanzplatz_, where the horse stood
before he jumped over. And we cannot doubt the words of the good old
people, for there were many strange things then, we all know, which the
dear Lord does not let happen now. But I must tell you, lieber Herr,
that the giant tried to jump after her and fell away down into the
valley, where they say he lives yet in the shape of a big black dog,
guarding the crown of the princess, which fell off as she was going
over. But this part of the story is perhaps not true, as nobody, that I
ever heard of, has seen either the black dog or the crown!"
After listening to similar gossip for a while, I descended the
mountain-side, a short distance to the Bülowshöhe. This is a rocky shaft
that shoots, upward from the mountain, having from its top a glorious
view through the door which the Bode makes in passing out of the Hartz.
I could see at a great distance the towers of Magdeburg, and further,
the vast plain stretching away like a sea towards Berlin. From Thale,
the village below, where the air was warmer than in the Hartz and the
fruit-trees already in blossom, it was four hours' walk to Halberstadt,
by a most tiresome road over long ranges of hills, all ploughed and
planted, and extending as far as the eye could reach, without a single
fence or hedge. It is pleasant to look over scenes where nature is so
free and unshackled; but the _people_, alas! wear the fetters. The
setting sun, which lighted up the old Brocken and his snowy top, showed
me also Halberstadt, the end of my Hartz journey; but its deceitful
towers fled as I approached, and I was half dead with fatigue on
arriving there.
The ghostly, dark and echoing castle of an inn (the Black Eagle) where I
stopped, was enough to inspire a lonely traveller, like myself, with
unpleasant fancies. It looked heavy and massive enough to have been a
stout baron's stronghold in some former century; the taciturn landlord
and his wife, who, with a solemn servant girl, were the only tenants,
had grown into perfect keeping with its gloomy character. When I groped
my way under the heavy, arched portal into the guests' room--a large,
lofty, cheerless hall--all was dark, and I could barely perceive, by the
little light which came through two deep-set windows, the inmates of the
house, sitting on opposite sides of the room. After some delay, the
hostess brought a light. I entreated her to bring me something
_instantly_ for supper, and in half an hour she placed a mixture on the
table, the like of which I never wish to taste again. She called it
_beer-soup_! I found, on examination, it was _beer_, boiled with meat,
and seasoned strongly with pepper and salt! My hunger disappeared, and
pleading fatigue as an excuse for want of appetite, I left the table.
When I was ready to retire, the landlady, who had been sitting silently
in a dark corner, called the solemn servant girl, who took up a dim
lamp, and bade me follow her to the "sleeping chamber." Taking up my
knapsack and staff, I stumbled down the steps into the arched gateway;
before me was a long, damp, deserted court-yard, across which the girl
took her way. I followed her with some astonishment, imagining where the
sleeping chamber could be, when she stopped at a small, one-story
building, standing alone in the yard. Opening the door with a rusty key,
she led me into a bare room, a few feet square, opening into another,
equally bare, with the exception of a rough bed. "Certainly," said I, "I
am not to sleep here!" "Yes," she answered, "this is the sleeping
chamber," at the same time setting down the light and disappearing. I
examined the place--it smelt mouldy, and the walls were cold and damp;
there had been a window at the head of the bed, but it was walled up,
and that at the foot was also closed to within a few inches of the top.
The bed was course and dirty; and on turning down the ragged covers, I
saw with horror, a dark brown stain near the pillow, like that of blood!
For a moment I hesitated whether to steal out of the inn, and seek
another lodging, late as it was; at last, overcoming my fears, I threw
my clothes into a heap, and lay down, placing my heavy staff at the head
of the bed. Persons passed up and down the courtyard several times, the
light of their lamps streaming through the narrow aperture up against
the ceiling, and I distinctly heard voices, which seemed to be near the
door. Twice did I sit up in bed, breathless, with my hand on the cane,
in the most intense anxiety; but fatigue finally overcame suspicion, and
I sank into a deep sleep, from which I was gladly awakened by daylight.
In reality, there may have been no cause for my fears--I may have
wronged the lonely innkeepers by them; but certainly no place or
circumstances ever seemed to me more appropriate to a deed of robbery or
crime. I left immediately, and when a turn in the street hid the
ill-omened front of the inn, I began to breathe with my usual freedom.