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.
CHAPTER VIII.
WARMBRUNN. THE OBJECTS AROUND. A DILEMMA. HIRSCHBERG. HOW TRAVELLERS MAY MANAGE WHEN THEIR PURSES GROW LIGHT. PASS FOR RUSSIANS, AND DERIVE GREAT BENEFIT FROM THE ARRANGEMENT. LANG-WASSER. GREIFFENBERG. THE PRUSSIAN LANDWEHR. GOLDEN TRAUM. SCENE IN THE VILLAGE INN. BERNSTADT. HERNHUT. THE HERNHUTERS. SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE IN BOHEMIA. SCHLUKENAU. SCHANDAU.
We rose next morning at our usual hour, five o'clock, and having eaten our breakfast, and paid our bill, set out on the road to Warmbrunn. The latter place, which though nominally a mere village, has about it the air and general appearance of a first-rate country-town, can boast of a handsome schloss in its principal street, the residence of Count Schaff-Koatch. It is distant from Phthedorf, the village where we slept, about an hour and a half's walk, and can furnish excellent quarters at the Black Eagle for travellers, who, not being in a hurry, may desire to investigate the many curious and interesting objects which abound in the neighbourhood. For this province of Silesia is particularly rich in the ruins of old castles, one of which, likewise the property of Count Schaff-Koatch, occupies a very striking position on a projecting rock at the foot of Schnee-Koppee. Before us, however, these, and sundry allurements of a similar description, poured out their sweets in vain. There was no lack of inclination to linger in the vicinity certainly; indeed, it had formed part of our plan to do so; but the diminished weight of our purse led us, while sipping a little wine in the coffee-room of the above-named excellent hotel, to examine into the state of our finances, and we ascertained, to our horror, that we were worth no more than six-and-thirty swanzekers,—that is, eight Prussian dollars,—or, computing by the standard of English money, just one pound, four shillings. Now when it is considered that we were at least a hundred miles from home, that in every sense of the word we were in the land of strangers, acquainted but imperfectly with the language of the people about us, and totally unknown to high or low, it will easily be understood that we did not feel perfectly at ease, whatever course might be adopted, and saw, at once, that to delay our march even for the laudable purpose of inspecting the fine ruin near us, would be an act of madness. When, therefore, the landlord, with the civility of his craft and country, urged us to halt, were it only for a single day, I told him frankly how we were situated, adding, that we had wandered about for a longer period of time than we had allotted for the purpose, and must now hurry home as fast as possible.
Previous to this interesting conversation, and ere the condition of our funds had been fully ascertained, the appearance of a most promising river, which flows beside Warmbrunn, had tempted us to put together our rods; and we were actually preparing, after beds and supper should have been ordered, to set out for a day's fishing. The appearance of the rods created here the same sort of astonishment which had been called forth by them elsewhere; and we of course gratified the natives still more by exhibiting our lines and flies. I observed that mine host had been prodigiously smitten with my rod. He took it up, wielded it in all manner of ways, and pronounced it to be the most perfect thing of the kind that ever was seen; nay, he even questioned me, indirectly, as to the amount of money which would be demanded for such an article in England, and when I told him, pronounced that I had made an excellent bargain. No great while elapsed ere decisive proofs were afforded, that his was no barren admiration. "You are in want of money," said he, "I will buy your rod." I hardly know how I looked when this proposition came forth with all imaginable solemnity, but I made haste to decline it, and he had too much native good breeding to press his suggestion.
He was a civil man, and in offering to purchase my fishing-rod, meant to do me a kindness, while, at the same time, he gratified himself; so I gave him a fly, with which he was greatly delighted; I told him likewise how to use it. But if my unfortunate fly has since come into play, at the end of such a line and such a rod as the keeper of the Black Eagle produced, I am quite sure that it has caught no fish, if, indeed, it be not long ago "fathoms deep" under water. One of Mrs. Finn's red hackles would cut but a sorry figure as an appendage to some six yards of whip-cord, more especially after the said whip-cord should have been fastened, as my friend's was, to the extremity of a hazel wand, as thick and inflexible as the horn of a roebuck.