"August 6.—We have been to the country-palace of Laxenburg—a terrible drive in a sirocco, which made both Sheffield and me as ill as a sea-voyage. Laxenburg was the palace of Maria Theresa, and has an English park, only the grounds are full of gothic temples, &c., and an imitation dungeon fortress, with an imitation prisoner in it, who lifts his hands beseechingly and rattles his chains as you approach. Princess Charlotte was to have her first meeting with all the imperial family in the afternoon, and we waited for the public appearance of the royalties after dinner. We saw them emerge from the palace, and then ran down to the lake to see them embark. The imperial party arrived in carriages at the water's edge, and were set down under some old plane-trees, where their barges were ready, with rowers in sailors' dresses. First came the Empress, looking very lovely and charming, bowing her way to her own boat, which was distinguished by its blue cloth linings. Then came the Emperor, running as hard as he could, to be in time to hand her in: then sweet-looking Princess Charlotte, with a radiantly happy and not at all a shy expression; the mother of the Empress; Princess Marguerite; the Queen of Saxony; and the Archduchess Albrecht. All these entered the imperial boat, which was followed by another with three old countesses, and then all the court ladies in other boats. The Emperor and the Archdukes Leopold and Heinrich rowed themselves. There could hardly be a prettier scene—no crowd, no staring, and sunset on the water as the little fleet glided in among the cypress-covered islets. The last I saw of them was one of the princesses seizing hold of the old countesses' boat, and rocking it violently to give them a good fright.
"Throughout our travels we have perpetually fallen in with two solitary ladies. Yesterday one of them said to Duckworth, 'I beg your pardon, perhaps I ought not to ask, but the melancholy gentleman (meaning me) must have had a very severe disappointment; was it recent?—he seems to take on very much. Well, my idea is one must always be crossed three times before love runs smooth.' Duckworth asked where they were going. 'Oh, where is it?' said the younger lady; 'I quite forget the name of the place; something very long, I know.'—'Oh, Constantinople, my dear, that's the name, and then we go to a place they call Smyrna, and then to Algeria; for you see we've been to Rome and Naples, and if you don't mind travelling, it's just the same thing whether you go to one place or another.'"
"Aussee in Styria, August 8.—The last thing Sheffield and I did together was to go to the Capuchin vault, where all the sovereigns of the House of Hapsburg lie in gorgeous sarcophagi and coffins: amongst them Maria Theresa, and the husband by whose grave she came to pray every Friday in this dark vault. In one corner was the little Archduchess Sophia, only dead two months, her coffin heaped still with the white garlands deposited by her father and mother, who—are out of mourning for her.
"After parting with my companions, I went by train to Modling, and drove through the Wienerwald to Heiligenkreutz,[116] a gigantic monastery on the edge of a perfectly desolate moor, but in itself magnificent, with a quadrangle larger than 'Tom Quad' at Oxford. Daylight was waning, and I hastened to get the Sacristan to show me the 'Heilige Partikel,' which is kept in a venerable old leather case, and set in a huge golden cross covered with jewels. There are beautiful cloisters, and several chapels of the fourteenth century, and in one of them a fountain, so large that its sound is that of a waterfall. From Baden I crossed the Simmering pass to Bruck-an-der-Mur. Here all the travellers who descended from the train drew diligence tickets by turns, and as mine was only No. 11, I came in for the rickety board by the driver! What a road it was, in which the heavy wheels alternately sank into quagmires of deep mud, or jolted over the piles of stones which were thrown down to fill them up. The dank marshy plain was covered with driving white fog, from which one could only take refuge in the fumes of bad tobacco around one.
"When at length it was my turn to change, it was into an old car with leathern curtains, and horses so feeble that the passengers were obliged to get out and plod through the thick mud at every incline. I had a German companion, who smoked all night in my face.
"All through the night a succession of these cars was kept up, the company being turned out every two hours in some filthy village street, while another wretched old carriage was searched for and brought out. The taverns at which we stopped were most miserable. In the only one I entered the old landlady came out in her nightgown, and seizing my straw hat from my head, placed it on the top of her own top-knot, exclaiming, 'Schöne Strohhut.' Not till midday did we arrive here, and then found the inn full and the hills shrouded in mist—the 'Mountains of the Dead,' as the surroundings of this lonely lake are called, appalling in their white winding-sheets."
"Salzburg, August 14.—During my first days in the Salzkammergut, I might have been inside a kitchen boiler, so thick and white was the steam. But the landlord at Ischl said it was not likely to clear, and, wearied of waiting and longing to see something, I went off to the Traunsee, where, to my surprise, the mist suddenly gave way, the sun appeared, and in a few minutes the heavy veil rolled back, and the beautiful blue lake and high forest-clad mountains were disclosed as if by magic. In a few minutes after shivering, we were all complaining of heat again, and then luxuriating in the cool breeze as we steamed slowly under the great purple Traunstein. At Gmünden[117] we dined at the little inn, served by ladies in gold helmets, with great silver chains round their necks. I drove on to the fall in an Einspanner. It is a miniature Schaffhausen, and the colour of the water most beautiful. On the following day an old Colonel Woodruffe and his wife took me with them to Hallstadt, where we were rowed by women in crimson petticoats down the lovely lake to the village. The scenery is magnificent—jagged mountains melting into beautiful chestnut woods which reach to the water's edge, and at the end of the lake the little town, with its picturesque wooden houses and beautiful gothic chapel. The population consists of nine hundred Roman Catholics and nine hundred Protestants, who live together most amicably. No vehicle can enter the town, for the streets are narrow gullies, with staircases from one house to another.
"My new friends left me at Hallstadt, and early next morning I was up, and in the forest, to see the Wildbach waterfall, an exquisite walk, through green glades carpeted with cyclamen and columbines, with great masses of moss-grown rock tossed about amongst the trees, and high mountains rising all around. The goats were just getting up and coming out of their sheds, ringing their little bells as they skipped about amongst the rocks, and the flowers were all glistening with dew—no human being moving, except the goatherds directing their flocks up the mountain paths. I reached the waterfall, in its wild amphitheatre of rock, before the sun, and saw the first rolling away of the morning mist, and the clear mountain torrent foaming forth in its place; while far beyond was the great snowy Dachstein.
"At nine, a little boat took me to the Gosauswang at the other end of the lake, and while I was waiting there for an Einspanner, four travellers came up, one of whom—a pleasant-looking clergyman—introduced himself as Mr. Clements, the Rector of Upton St. Leonards, and informed me that his companions were his brother, just returned from Australia, and the two young Akers of Prinknash.
"As soon as they were gone off in their boat, my little carriage came, and I had a glorious drive, up the banks of the torrent Gosau, to open mountain pastures, backed by a magnificent range of bare rocky peaks. There is only a footpath from the 'Schmidt' to the Vorder See, set in the loveliest of forests, and backed by noble rugged peaks and snowy glaciers. The colour of the lake was indescribable, but oftenest like a rainbow seen through a prism—the purple, green, and clear blue melting into each other, and the whole transparent as crystal, showing all the bright stones and pebbles in the immense depths and reflecting all the snow-peaks beyond. When I returned to the inn, the Clements' party had arrived, and finding they were going the same way, I engaged to travel with them to Innsbruck.