A couple of miles beyond Ruhpolding the carriage was abandoned, and the party commenced their expedition on a footway through the Fishbach valley. The vegetation around them was of the richest colouring, the mossy grass under the trees of the deepest green; and wild berberry trees, with their delicate leaves and pendent crimson berries grew luxuriantly in every direction. A variety of beautifully delicate wild-flowers pleased Hamilton’s eye, but he looked on with some impatience, while A. Z. and her husband leisurely gathered and examined some, took others up by the roots, and placed all in a tin box, evidently brought for the purpose. Long and serious too were the discussions about them, which, as Hamilton did not understand, he was glad when, in contrast to this scene of fertility, their way brought them to the immediate base of the mountains, where it ran parallel with the dry bed of a torrent almost deserving the name of river when in spring it rushes from its snowy source, sweeping away heaps of stones and trunks of torn-up trees, which, thrown high on either side, leave the valley between a scene of stony desolation. They continued for a considerable time between the almost perpendicular sides of the mountains, sometimes climbing over colossal masses of stone, at others enjoying the shade of the thick pine-trees or over-hanging rocks, when, on passing an abrupt turn, a foaming waterfall seemed suddenly to prevent all further progress; for, after passing over the very path they were pursuing, it bounded from the rocks, which sometimes arrested, but could not impede its progress, until having half-exhausted itself in spray, it reached a solid bed of stone, and finally disappeared among the dark-green fir-trees of the narrow valley below.
While Hamilton looked in silent admiration down the precipice, A. Z., her husband, and the two guides disappeared in the cavity of the rock behind the waterfall, and seemed greatly to enjoy his surprise when he discovered them sitting under the trees at the other side. While one of the guides unpacked his canvas bag, and laid the contents on the nearest rock, Hamilton joined them, and they remained beside the waterfall more than an hour, enjoying their frugal repast while resting in the shade, and tranquillised almost to laziness by the sound of the rushing waters. Baron Z— was, of course, the first to move.
“Ah, there is a châlet!” exclaimed Hamilton, pointing towards some small wooden buildings on a green hill before them; below which a second waterfall, forming natural cisterns in the rocks, fell in cascades from one to the other. “A châlet at last!”
“We call them Senner huts here,” said A. Z. “When men have the charge of the cattle, they are called Senners; when women, Sennerins. Let us go to where that girl is standing at the door of her hut; she seems an acquaintance of our guide’s. These Sennerins,” she continued, looking attentively at the one who was now about to supply them with cheese and butter—“these Sennerins are the theme of almost all the national poetry and songs here in the mountains.”
“They would not inspire me,” said Hamilton, laughing. “I see nothing very poetical about them, if this one may be taken as a specimen.”
“You do not understand their manners or mode of life,” said Baron Z—. “Their isolated situation and primitive occupations are poetical—these mountains and endless forests are poetical—there is poetry in the sound of the bell, which answers to every movement of the grazing cow—in the tinkling of the little bells, which, like castanets, denote the quicker motions of the goats!”
“True,” said A. Z.; “and you would find that round-faced, thick-legged girl picturesque, if not poetical, could we remain long enough for you to hear her singing to assemble her herd, and see her surrounded by her cows and goats this evening.”
“Shall we not pass the night in one of these sorts of huts?” asked Hamilton.
“Not in a Senner hut,” replied Baron Z—. “It is the woodmen and foresters’ châlet to which we are going; the ground is Austrian, but the woods are Bavarian; and it is through the Klamm that the wood is drifted for the salt-works at Reichenhall.”
“Through the Klamm,” repeated Hamilton, slowly and musingly.