WALK TO SHATZLAR. MAGNIFICENT SCENERY. EXTREME FATIGUE. OUR LANDLORD.
EARLY ASSOCIATIONS AWAKENED BY A SCENE IN THE MARKET-PLACE. REST FOR A
DAY. ASCENT OF SCHNEE-KOPPEE. HALT AT A VILLAGE ON THE SILESIAN SIDE.
All the wonders which I have inadequately described in the preceding
chapter, having been investigated between the hours of nine and twelve,
we made up our minds to dine like gentlemen at Aderspach, and to
proceed that evening as far as Shatzlar, a town at the Bohemian foot of
Schnee-Koppee. We were the more induced to adopt this course, because
Shatzlar was stated to be only four hours' walk from Aderspach, and we
believed ourselves sufficiently strong, not only to accomplish that
over-night, but to undertake the ascent of the mountain himself on the
morrow. The result proved that our calculations had rested on no solid
basis. Instead of a four hours' walk, Shatzlar proved to be rather more
than six hours' distant; and the way being mountainous and rugged, we
came in thoroughly knocked up. I do not recollect that throughout the
whole of our excursion we were, on any other occasion, so indifferent
to the magnificent scenery that surrounded us; and probably the reader
will not be displeased that the case was so, seeing that our
indifference at the moment saves him the labour now of perusing what
might very possibly be felt as a wearisome description of it.
Shatzlar is a large straggling burgh, destitute of manufactures, and
apparently little visited by travellers; though the inn, which is kept
by the burgomaster, can boast of very tolerable accommodations, and a
host and hostess both well disposed to fall in with their guests'
wishes. There is a schloss hard by, inhabited by certain officials,
who, however, exercise no jurisdiction over the town; and a church, not
remarkable for anything, except the good order of its charnel-house.
This, a small building separated by the breadth of the churchyard from
the main edifice, seems to be a place of deposit for all the skulls and
other bones which may be thrown up in digging the graves; and they are
arranged round the walls with as much taste as their ghastly character
will allow.
We felt so tired, and our feet were suffering so much from blisters,
that we resolved to give ourselves a day of total rest in Shatzlar; and
in spite of the ennui attendant on such an arrangement, we adhered to
it with laudable pertinacity. Rising at seven, and breakfasting at
eight in the morning, we whiled away the time till dinner by strolling
up the side of the hill, along which the town is built, and enjoying
the exquisite panorama which, from various points, it opened out upon
us. We visited likewise the fountain of the Bober, a well deep in the
forest, and drank of its waters ere yet they had become polluted by
flowing among the habitations of men. Our guide, the burgomaster's son,
conducted us likewise to a corner of the wood which is set apart for
bird-catching, and where every tree is armed with one or more gins,
skilfully made of horse-hair and attached to the bark. The pencil also
was appealed to, but in vain. This was too extensive, as well as too
glorious a scene, to be copied by one so little skilled in the art as
myself; so, after spoiling two or three leaves in my journal book, I
desisted from the attempt; and we descended to the inn, where the smell
of calf's-flesh in preparation warned us that the hour of dinner was
not far distant. It came in due course, and the meal was discussed
effectually; after which the burgomaster favoured us with his company,
though he steadily refused to partake of the excellent wine which his
own cellar produced. He was a man of some intelligence, and had an
ambition to see his children rise upwards on the hill of life.
Accordingly one of his sons, a delicate youth, is preparing himself for
holy orders; another is studying medicine at the university of Vienna;
and the third, the lad who accompanied us in our morning's ramble, had
served his time with a cotton manufacturer. But the confinement not
agreeing with his delicate constitution, the burgomaster had brought
him home; and he now officiates as a sort of waiter in the hotel, with
the understanding that at his father's decease, or perhaps before it,
he shall succeed to the hotel itself.
In listening to such details one hour was spent. Another passed away in
watching from the window such objects as this most quiet of quiet
Bohemian burghs might produce. And of these there was one which, being
associated with the memory of other days, interested me not a little.
There is a fountain in the middle of the market-place, into which one
stream of fresh water is continually flowing, while another drains off
from it. Hither the women bring their clothes to be washed; not in the
fountain itself, but in their own tubs, which they range round it; and
the proceedings of one of these industrious damsels amused me much. She
filled her tub to the brim, and then kilting her petticoats, set to
work tramping with might and main, precisely as, in years long gone by,
I have seen a Scotch girl do, on the Back-walk at Stirling, or the
Calton Hill in Edinburgh. What a strange thing is association, and how
easily is it called into play by the veriest trifles. The woman's legs
had nothing to boast of in the way of symmetry, but I confess that I
watched them, in their alternate rise and fall, with a degree of
interest such as I have not for many a day bestowed on any other pair
of understandings, whether male or female.
The legs at length disappeared, for the curtain of the petticoats was
dropped, and with it fell all the bright and glowing visions of
boyhood, in which I had been indulging. I felt once more that I was
neither in life's prime, nor a denizen of "bonny Scotland;" so I
listened to certain suggestions which my young companion had for some
time been making, and agreed to accompany him a little way down the
course of the Bober, while he tried to fish. We went accordingly, but
to no purpose. The Bober does not become a trout-stream till long after
it has lost sight of the source from whence it springs, and we had our
walk, with the conversation of the young burgomaster and a friend of
his, a learned baker in the village, as our reward. The historical
researches of the latter gentleman had been very extensive, and he
possessed a laudable zeal to make this known. He was very curious to
know whether Lord Cromwell were yet alive, or the king of England's
head put on again. I did my best to satisfy him on these interesting
topics; but I doubt whether I succeeded; for on my assuring him that
there was no Lord Cromwell, and that the head of William IV. had never
been cut off, he eyed me with a glance of peculiar distrust.
Thus passed a day at Shatzlar,--heavily enough, it must be allowed;
for, ardent as my admiration of Wordsworth's poetry is, I confess that
I have not succeeded in imbibing so much of his philosophy as to feel
as he would doubtless have felt in a similar situation. Both mine and
my companion's overwrought limbs, however, derived no slight advantage
from the halt, and well it was that they did so, for the task which
awaited them on the morrow was a hard one. After repeated consultations
with the burgomaster, which ended invariably, on his part, with an
entreaty that we would not think of an enterprise so Quixotic as
crossing Schnee-Koppee at this early season, and without a guide, we
made up our minds to go in direct opposition to his counsels, and after
gaining the summit, to descend by the other side, and sleep at
Schmiedeberg, or some other town in Prussian Silesia. Just, albeit
sharp and cutting, is the aphorism of Madame de Staël, that there is no
country in the world where the expression, "It is impossible," comes so
frequently into use as in Germany. Propose to a German any undertaking
which he has either never tried, or which might break through his
every-day habits, and he will assure you that the thing is not to be
accomplished. Urge him to increased exertions, or accelerated speed,
and he will tell you that to do more, or move faster, is impracticable.
And as to learning any new method of performing a given task, be it
even the dressing of a dish for dinner, I question whether you could
prevail upon him to attempt that by any influence short of positive
compulsion. Yet in war the Germans are an enterprising people, and
among the arts of peace they can boast, with truth, that some of the
most important discoveries ever effected were effected by their
countrymen. How strange that their domestic habits should be so
thoroughly in contradiction to such qualities as enterprise in war and
ingenuity in the application of mechanics.
Of this strange predilection to create difficulties for themselves and
others, which, beyond all doubt, attaches to the German character, we
were well aware; and took, in consequence, the burgomaster's cautions
at little more than they proved, in effect, to be worth. Some
obstacles, with a good deal of fatigue, we made up our minds to
encounter; but, as the Duke of Wellington said in his speech to the
cadets at Addiscombe,--a speech which I had the good fortune to hear,
and am not likely soon to forget,--nothing great was ever accomplished
without labour; and labour we were content to bestow, and fatigue to
endure, even in the ascent of Schnee-Koppee. Accordingly at six in the
morning, and carrying the heir of the hotel along with us, to point out
the direct path through a forest, which it was necessary to thread, we
sallied forth; and by seven were once more left to our own guidance,
with the steep but grassy side of one of the ramifications of the
mountain under our feet.
I shall never forget, to my dying day, the effect produced upon me by
the first half of this ascent. The day was as bright and beautiful as
ever shone out of heaven. Hot it was, but not intensely so, for the
sun's power was yet trivial; and as the winds were hushed, except when
from time to time a light breeze rustled among the foliage of the
pine-woods, the stillness that prevailed around struck me as something
quite sublime. In proportion as we rose, likewise, above the level of
the valley, every sight and sound appeared to acquire a new charm.
Beneath were wreaths of mist, rolling themselves slowly up the sides of
the opposite mountains. Under their canopy villages and hamlets were
reposing, from the chimneys of which long thin streaks of smoke curled
upwards as if to join the cloud; while here and there a solitary
cottage, a chapel, and even a gilt crucifix, gleamed to peculiar
advantage from its own quiet nook. I have spoken of the silence as
being quite sublime. Not that it was unbroken; for up the mountain's
side came, by fits and starts, the tinkling of the bells, which in this
country are suspended to the necks of the cattle when they are feeding;
intermixed with an occasional whoop, or snatch of a song, or merry
whistle from the cow-herd; while the branches over-head,--for we sat
down in the skirts of a low pine wood,--were crowded with little birds,
whose sweet but not loud notes completed one of the most exquisite
concerts to which, in any part of the world, I have ever listened. And
then the landscape,--what a picture was there. Bold conical hills,
swelling one over another like waves of the sea, overtopped and looked
down upon a succession of valleys, each more striking, both for
richness and beauty, than the first; and forming altogether such a
scene as must be witnessed to be felt, or even understood.
We could not spare much time to repose, even in such a situation as
this; so we quitted our lairs, not without regret, and plodded onwards.
The whole day's journey was, as may be imagined, interesting in the
extreme. Before us was the peak of Schnee-Koppee, sharp, to all
appearance, as the apex of a bee-hive, yet supporting a round tower,
which we understood the burgomaster to have described as a chapel.
Round this peak large fields of snow were lying, but the summit itself
seemed clear. This pleased us exceedingly; indeed, every step which we
took in advance helped to dispel a portion of the gloom in which our
host had endeavoured to envelope the enterprise; for though there was
no path, points of observation could everywhere be taken; and the
woods, of the depths and horrors of which he had spoken so much, all
proved easy of passage. On, therefore, we tramped, nothing doubting,
till, after repeated dips and renewed ascents, each of which opened out
to us fresh glories, some of them almost, but not quite equal, to those
that lay behind, we arrived, about twelve o'clock, at the village of
Kleine Oupa; the most elevated of all the spots on which, in this
country of Bohemia, men have ventured to establish their permanent
dwellings; and raised, I should conceive, little, if at all, short of
four thousand feet above the level of the sea. For round them, in
patches, among the stunted firs, the snow was still lying; even while
the sun beat warmly overhead, and thin crops of rye,--the only grain
fit to be cultivated at such a height from the plain,--seemed advancing
to perfection.
Kleine Oupa is rather a hamlet than a village. It contains, perhaps,
thirty houses, of which one is a parsonage,--for there is a
church,--one a school-house, one a caserne, in which a party of jagers
are quartered, and one which fulfils the two-fold duty of mill and
gasthof. To this latter we bent our steps, and found in its tap-room
rather better than the customary fare, that is to say, good white
bread, as well as eggs and butter. These furnished forth, for hungry
travellers like us, an excellent dinner; at the completion of which our
journey recommenced, not to be delayed again, except for a brief space,
at remote intervals, till we had accomplished the avowed object of our
excursion.
Nobody can have climbed a mountain so high as even the loftiest in the
highlands of Scotland, without observing the effect upon vegetation of
the increasing severity of the climate as you approach the top. The
last forest, worthy of the name, through which we passed this day,
overhung Kleine Oupa; and even the remoter portions of it were stunted
and unhealthy. Next came the ascent of what is called Swartzen-Koppee;
that is, of a long black table-land, overtopping, by a considerable
altitude, the rest of the mountains near, but still far beneath the
level of Schnee-Koppee. Here vegetation entirely ceased. First, there
were some straggling firs, the uppermost branches of which reached to
my middle. Then there was heath in abundance, out of which we scared an
enormous black cock; and finally, there was the bare brown rock,
unclothed even with moss, and lying about in fragments, as if a
thousand sledge-hammers had been employed for a century, in the vain
endeavour to flatten or beat down the mountain. Here, then, we paused
to look round, and had the day been propitious, we should have probably
obtained as fine a view as from the peak of Schnee-Koppee himself. But,
as almost always happens when you have travelled far to ascend a
mountain, the atmosphere had become thick and foggy; so that our vision
was bounded by limits far more narrow than we had flattered ourselves
with finding. Still the panorama was very fine, and we enjoyed it much;
after which, having Schnee-Koppee himself before us, we pushed on.
We had been obliged to pass a barrier or two of snow, in order to reach
Swartzen-Koppee; but the snow was perfectly firm, and we suffered no
inconvenience from it. The valley between Swartzen-Koppee and the peak
beyond was quite clear; neither did a single flake rest upon the
indistinct track, which the feet of travellers has, in the course of
ages, marked up the face of the stony ridge which is called
Schnee-Koppee. We therefore entered upon the task of ascending
cheerfully, and found that there were no real difficulties to overcome.
But we met with a little adventure, if such it deserves to be called,
which appeared at the moment to be curious, and which has not yet lost
all its interest with us. We were mistaken in supposing that we should
be the first of this year's tourists to stand upon the top of
Schnee-Koppee. Other wayfarers had been before us, and we saw them now
descending in such a direction as to ensure our falling in with them
during our upward progress. They proved to be three Dutch gentlemen,
with a guide, who had come direct through Silesia from Schandau, and
were able to tell us, when they discovered who we were, that a few days
previously our friends at the baths were all alive and well. I need
scarcely add that we stopped and chatted together, and finally parted
as if we had been acquaintances of ten years' standing; for your bleak
mountain's brow, like your cabin of an Edinburgh steam-ship, is an
admirable concoctor of mushroom intimacies.
Having parted from our friends, not, however, without receiving from
them some useful hints as to the descent into Silesia, we proceeded on,
till we gained the loftiest peak of all. It is a huge cairn of loose
stones, among which an innkeeper from Warmbrunn has built a tower;
whither in the summer months he conveys food, wine, and beds, for all
of which he, as may be expected, charges enormously. We had a pint of
indifferent Rhine wine from him, which cost us a dollar, and we
purchased a couple of long sticks, for which we paid twenty groschens
more. But we were not induced, by his suggestions that sunrise and
sunset were both exceeding glorious when watched from such a situation,
to spend the night under his roof. On the contrary, after looking about
us only to ascertain that the view, intercepted by the fog, was not to
be compared with what we had seen in the morning, we wished him
farewell; and, beholding at our feet the town of Warmbrunn, we plunged
down towards it.
The ascent had been tolerably fatiguing; the descent was scarcely less
so; and it proved to the full as tedious. The snow lay in extensive
fields, to cross which occasioned a good deal of trouble, and when that
was accomplished, we found ourselves diving through the heart of a
thick forest. A road there certainly was, but whither it would lead us
we could not tell; and though the glimpses which, from time to time, we
obtained of the bold corries that indent the Silesian sides of the
mountains, were uncommonly grand, we became, by degrees, too tired to
enjoy them fully. Vainly, too, did we look about for some one to direct
us aright. Two or three cottages, just under the cone, were the only
haunts of men which we passed in our progress from the top to the
bottom; and the solitary individual who met us,--a youth with a heavy
burden on his back,--seemed to be a stranger. He could not tell us how
to proceed, so we were left to push at a venture towards the point
where we believed that Warmbrunn lay, though our sole guide was the
indistinct remembrance of the observations which we had taken from the
summit of the hill.
It is not worth while to relate how provokingly we missed our way, or
to describe the resolution which urged us at last to pass directly
through the wood. The latter movement proved to be, in one respect, a
judicious one; for it carried us to the plane in a much shorter space
of time than must have been consumed had we persisted in following the
pathway. But it cut us off, for that night, from Warmbrunn; for we
discovered, to our horror, that the place towards which our eyes had
been directed from the moment they were permitted to penetrate the
thick screen of branches, was not Warmbrunn, but a village, six English
miles removed from it. There, however, in such a hotel as it could
furnish, we were glad to pass the night; and if our fare proved
somewhat homely, our beds were clean, and we slept like tops.