EARLY MORNING OPPOSITE DÜRRENSTEIN
The towers and arches, high on the bare summit of the rock; the half-ruined walls, skirting each projecting spur, and straggling away down the steep, rough declivity, embracing with diverging ramparts and frequent projecting towers the little town on the ledge by the river below, with its castle, its Gothic church edifice, disfigured by utilitarian restoration, and defiled by stores of grain, and confining within the mediæval limits the quaint and crowded jumble of shops and dwellings—the charm of this unique situation, and the vivid memory of the traditions connected with the spot, were stronger even than the wily arguments of the beautiful effects on the river, and the fascinations of the exhilarating, throbbing current that, in spite of paddle, almost swept us past the landing we had chosen. But we conquered both the water and the impulse bred of its restless power, and clambered, broad-chested and full of pride at our victory, up a narrow cañon, with dark, frowning rocks overhead, shale and shingle underfoot, and the refreshing, half-forgotten odors of pine and warm, dry earth in our nostrils. Some distance up the gorge a steep, slippery grass slope extends upward between two rough pine-clad crests to a little depression in the ridge behind the ruin, and to the lower gate of the castle itself. Multicolored butterflies hovered in the sunlight, the grass and rock crevices were gay with flowers, and our botanist gathered, as we went, wild pinks, columbine, and anemone, and panted out to our eager ears the Latin names of scores of mountain plants. Our steps, retarded by these botanical delights, not to say delayed by the unaccustomed exercise, and our lungs expanding with a vigor unknown in the lazy life in the canoes, we were long in reaching the first point from which we could look down upon the wonderful panorama of mountain and river, valley and scattered towns. Our world had indeed been too narrow, our horizon much too low. The giantess of a river from whose tyranny we had just escaped lay like a shining narrow lake below us, its beautiful curves contrasting with the harsh lines of the mountains, which met in an apparently impenetrable wall beyond. From the height at which we stood we could not see its eddies nor hear the hiss of its rapid flow. We were for the moment quite beyond the power of its spell.
The castle ruin bears so many traces of the destruction of successive sieges and consequent restorations that as it now stands it makes an architectural and archæological puzzle which we felt quite unable to struggle with. In general plan it is not unlike other mediæval strongholds, with yard and keep, watch-towers and gates, banquet-hall and chapel, and with extensive outworks intended to protect the little town of Dürrenstein, at once its weakness and its strength. Utterly neglected by the owner, whoever he may be, the perfection of its masonry and the wonderful quality of the mortar have alone prevented it from becoming long since an ugly mass of worthless rubbish. Most of the later constructions have, indeed, fallen down, or have served so long as convenient quarries that they have almost disappeared. We did not find without some difficulty the traces of the grand old stairway that led from the lower enclosure on the town side up into the pile of buildings at the top and the older part of the castle. Scrambling up a moraine of small stones and mortar, an unsightly avalanche, where the noble flight of steps once mounted the ledge, we came to an irregular open space, now roofless, but with doorways almost perfect and well-preserved window penetrations. From this passages lead into towers on the edge of the precipice, and into a small vaulted chapel, where rows of Byzantine saints cover the walls with dim visions of red and yellow, their halos now but circlets of rough holes where jewels were once embedded in the mortar, and their rigid countenances disfigured by the weathering of centuries of storms and frosts that have fought nature’s battle on this bleak and dizzy crag. The northern wall of the open space just alluded to is a solid ledge of rock hewn square and true, and in this wall is an opening like a doorway, but bearing no traces of hinges or of any other contrivance to close it, which leads into a spacious room cut out of the hard stone. If this was the place where Richard Cœur de Lion was confined, not only could no minstrel song ever have reached his ears, but no sound of the world outside the castle less startling than the crash of thunder ever have broken the hateful quiet of this rock dungeon. The summit of the ledge is reached by a narrow stairway, casually twisting and turning as the inequalities of the surface dictated to the builder, and bears traces of a much-worn passageway and of huge floor-beams. This was once enclosed by walls of great height and exceptional solidity. From the ordinary indications of construction it is proper to assume that here was the original building, enlarged and altered a good deal since the twelfth century, but still preserving much of its old shape. Portions of huge towers and jagged edges of apartment walls, where immense pieces were blown out and down into the chasm below when the Swedes destroyed this stronghold in the Thirty Years’ War, now alone remain to give a meagre idea of its grandeur and unique strength. Unapproachable except across the narrow depressed ridge behind the summit, and this entrance defended by overhanging towers and a series of walls, it withstood many sieges, and no doubt harbored many a robber baron whose descendants now enjoy the titles and wealth which throw a dazzling glamour over the methods of their acquisition.
For a long time we enjoyed to the full the view up the defile and down the broad valley where the river, spreading out into a net-work of small streams, disappears in a screen
DÜRRENSTEIN