Round About the Carpathians

by Andrew F. Crosse

"This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight."

The grey moss which hangs in such abundant festoons from the fir-trees has a most singular effect, almost weird at times. These ancients of the forest, with their long grey beards and hoary tresses, look very solemn indeed in the gloaming.

What unheeded wealth in these majestic trees, which grow but to decay! Enormous trunks lay on every side: some had passed into the rottenness which gives new life; and here fungi of bright and varied hues, grey lichen, and green moss preserved together the contour of the gigantic stem, which, prostrate and decayed now, had once held its head high amongst the lordlings of the forest.

In the last century these woods were tenanted by wild aurochs and the ibex, but both are extinct now in Hungary. Red-deer and the roe are still common enough. "The wild-cat, fox, badger, otter, marten, and other smaller carnivora are pretty numerous." Mr Danford[11] goes on to say that "feathered game is certainly not abundant. There are a good many capercailzie in the quiet pine-woods, pretty high up, but they are only to be got at during the pairing season. Hazel-grouse too are common in the lower woods, but are not easily found unless the call-system be adopted. Black game are scarcely worth mentioning as far as sport is concerned. Partridges scarce, not preserved, and the hooded crows and birds of prey making life rather hard for them." Mr Danford further speaks of the chamois-eagle as "not rare in the higher mountains." The fisher-eagle "generally distributed." The king-eagle also "not rare." The carrion-vulture "common throughout the country," also the red-footed falcon. At one time and another I have myself seen most of these birds in the Carpathians, which form the frontier between Transylvania and Roumania.

Meanwhile I must resume the description of our march, which was a very slow affair. As we ascended, the trees decreased in size. We had long ago left the deciduous foliage behind us; but the pines themselves were smaller, interspersed with what is called "crooked timber," which grows in grotesque dwarf-like forms. The forest at last diminished into mere sparse shrubs, and finally we reached the treeless region, called in German the Alpen, where there is rich pasturage for cattle and sheep during the summer. We were now on tolerably level ground, and I thought we should get a trot out of our wretched horses, but no, not a step faster would they go. I believe we went at the rate of about two miles and a half an hour. We tried everything—I mean F——and I—to get the animals to stretch out over the turf; but they set to kicking vigorously, backing and rearing, so that to avoid giving annoyance to our companions, we were obliged to give in, and let the brutes go their own pace.

We had gone but a very little way on the Alpen before we found ourselves enveloped in a thick mist, added to which the track itself became uncertain. We went on: if the saying "slow but sure" has any truth in it, we ought to have been sure enough. My horse reminded me of the reply of the Somersetshire farmer, who, when he was asked if his horse was steady, answered, "He be so steady that if he were a bit steadier he would not go at all." Notwithstanding that we moved like hay-stacks, and the cavalcade seemed to be treading on one another's heels, yet, ridiculous to say, we got separated from our baggage. Darkness set in, and with it a cold drizzling rain—not an animated storm that braces your nerves, but a quiet soaking rain, the sort of thing that takes the starch out of one's moral nature.

All at once I was aroused from my apathy by a shout from the front calling out to the cavalcade to halt. I must observe a fellow on foot was leading the way in quality of guide. A pretty sort of a guide he turned out to be. He had led us quite wrong, and in fact found all of a sudden that he was on the verge of a precipice!

There was a good deal of unparliamentary language, expressed in tones both loud and deep. It was an act of unwisdom, however, to stop there in a heap on the grassy slope of a precipice, swearing in chorus at the poor devil of a Wallack. I turned my horse up the incline, resolved to try back, hoping to regain the lost track. It was next to impossible to halt, for we had not even got our plaids with us—everything was with the baggage-horses. Of course "some one had blundered." We all knew that! The guide stuck to it to the last that "he had not exactly lost his way." The fellow was incapable of a suggestion, and would have stood there arguing till doomsday if we had not sent him off with a sharp injunction to find some shepherds, and that quickly, who could take us to the rendezvous. Being summer time, there would be many shepherds about in different places on the Alpen, and the Wallack could hardly fail to encounter some herdkeeper before long.

We waited, as agreed, on the same spot nearly an hour, and then we heard a great shouting to the right of us. This was the guide, who I believe must have been born utterly without the organ of locality. He had found some shepherds, he told us subsequently, not long after he had left us, but then the fool of a fellow could not find his way back to us, to the spot where we agreed to wait for him. There was a great deal of shouting before we could bring him to our bearings: the fog muffled the sound, adding to the perplexity.

The shepherds now took us in tow. We had to go back some distance, and then make a sharp descent to the right, which brought us to the rendezvous, and we effected at last a junction with our lost luggage. Arriving at the hut, which had been previously built for us, we were delighted to find a meal already prepared; it was in fact a very elaborate supper, but I think we were all too exhausted to appreciate the details. I know I was very glad to wrap my plaid round me and stretch myself on the floor.