11th, 12th. Were cloudy and rainy days, but in spite of the weather Sir Humphry has been out shooting the greater part of them, with, however, very little good fortune; and on the 13th, we left Salzburg in the morning, and drove through a long avenue of fine beech-trees to Hallein, passing by the Untersberg, where there are large quarries of white marble, belonging to Bavaria. To the right, the view of the snowy Watzmann, and the nearer and finely wooded mountains was exceedingly striking. Above Hallein two enormous brown rocks rise out of the woods, bearing a very striking resemblance to artificial walls. Hallein is a dirty town, celebrated only for its extensive salt mines. The scenery between it and Golling is fine, but cannot be compared with that beyond Golling. At this latter place we stopped for two or three hours, and whilst Sir Humphry took his dinner, I went to see the Falls of the Schwartzbach, about two miles distant. After crossing the Salza, I came in about half an hour to the first or lower fall, where, in the very midst of dark pines, some of which seemed even to grow out of the falling water, the Schwartzbach, or dark stream, dashes over the rocks, and divides itself into two branches, one of which makes but one single leap to the pool below, whilst the other descends in innumerable small cascatelles, and the black rocks, peeping here and there through the white and curling foam, give a very beautiful effect to this part of the scene. I then ascended with my young guide, a little boy whom I had taken with me from Golling, to the upper fall, of which nothing is visible from below but the rising spray, and the beautiful iris playing upon it. The pathway leads immediately to the front of this fall, which, in point of singularity of situation, is perhaps unrivalled.
At this spot the rocks form a wide and massive arch, on which the tall pines and other trees stand firmly rooted. Beneath this arch, rude blocks are tumbled one upon another in wild confusion, through which the water of the upper fall forces its way to the lower one. Above the arch which nature has thus formed, a slight wooden bridge is built, so that two openings are thus formed, the one above the other, through which the water is seen descending in a broad sheet of foam. Standing at the foot of this cascade, it is first seen gushing forth from the rock amongst the trees immediately above the wooden bridge; between this and the natural arch it again appears, and is for the third time seen below the arch, closing the opening between it and the rocks beneath like a white curtain. The rainbow was seen beautifully shadowing the spray wafted from the fall, which was itself in a dark recess of the mountain, and the sun tipped the tops of the surrounding trees with a brilliant light, whilst now and then a single ray shot through the leaves and fell upon the white fall. It was a scene before which a painter might have sat for hours.
We afterwards went upon the bridge, from whence we had a view of the whole fall, looking down into the basin which receives it. A little footpath leads from the bridge to the spot where the water issues as clear as crystal from the rock, in the same manner as that of the Savitza in Wochain. After taking one or two rapid sketches, I returned with my little guide to Golling, which Sir Humphry soon after left for Werfen, and we turned into the mountains, passing through a magnificent defile where the Salza is quite hemmed in by rocks, through which this foaming river forces its way with irresistible violence.
The Salza in its whole course is a muddy river, which considerably detracts from the beauty of the scene. Towards evening we arrived at Werfen, a small insignificant town with an ancient fort on the hill above it, and passed the night at a tolerable inn.
14th. Rising early this morning and looking from my window before sunrise, I beheld one of the finest scenes imaginable. The distant snowy Watzmann appeared quite near, and was encircled by beautiful rose-coloured clouds, though not so dense as to hide the mountain which glimmered through them, tinged with the same beautiful hue. These clouds, which kept ascending and descending, and now and then breaking and leaving the mountain quite clear, became gradually fainter and fainter, till the sun rose, bringing with him the mists of morning, when the whole scene vanished from my eyes, and this so quickly, that I was almost tempted to fancy it a dream.
At nine o'clock we left Werfen, and crossing the Salza drove on through some very pretty villages to Itan, a little hamlet, where we had to wait a considerable time for horses, the Archduke John having passed through but a few hours before, on his road from the baths of Gastein to Grätz. From Itan we proceeded to Radstadt, and from thence along our former road to Unter-Tauern.
15th. This morning was rainy, but in spite of this I preferred walking up the mountain, to the slow pace at which the carriage ascended with four horses and two oxen. The rain ceased in about an hour, but the distant views, on our former descent so beautiful, were now all veiled in mist and cloud. We passed two very fine falls, one of them a little out of the road, which Sir Humphry got out to see. It is called Prince John's Fall, and is a cascade of from three to four hundred feet high, and is well worth seeing.
On arriving at Auf-dem-Tauern, the little village near the summit of the pass, we found the fields and the greater part of the surrounding Alps, which when we passed the first time were hidden as far as the eye could reach in snow, now richly clad with fine grass and alpine flowers. The road descending to Tweng is formed of white primary marble, mixed with mica-schist. At Tweng we struck into a cross road to Tamsweg, a large village lying in a fine broad valley, in the middle of which runs a branch of the Murr, which we have followed from the very peak of the Tauern. The inn here was very bad. In the evening I went to the village doctor for some medicine for Sir Humphry, who told me that this valley was one of the highest in Austria, the village itself lying three thousand and twenty-two Paris feet above the level of the sea, and that the pass of the Tauern was rather more than two thousand feet higher.
16th. We left Tamsweg this morning, and drove on, over abominable roads, to Murrau, a dirty little town on the Murr. Sir Humphry said he should stay a day here to see if he could shoot some quails, or catch any huchos[D] in the river, and he went out immediately after we arrived, about two o'clock, but found no quails. The Murr forms a very pretty cascade about a mile below the town.
17th. Sir Humphry went this morning to the river and fished for some hours, but in vain. This, added to an exorbitant bill brought in by the host, determined him to proceed, and we left Murrau at four in the afternoon. The scenery of the valley of the Murr is always of the same kind; mountains clad with fine woods diversified with fields and villages, and the river winding through the valley. We passed on our road two old feudal castles, rearing their grey walls out of the wood. At the next station, Neumarkt, we found ourselves on the same road which we had traversed on our way to Carniola. There being no tolerable inn here, we proceeded a post further, to Friesach, and had a very pleasant moonlight drive along the banks of a foaming brook, and through some dark and shady glens.