Full of ruminations on the vicissitudes of human life—the vanity of man’s hopes—and the nothingness of his works—we drove through a highly picturesque valley, at the foot of the last range of the Bohemian mountains, till we suddenly debouched on the silvery Elbe, at the bustling and boating little town of Tetchen. The first object which arrested our attention was a huge pile of white buildings standing on a bold and jutting promontory some seven or eight hundred feet above the right bank of the river, with thrice as many windows in its walls as there were eyes in the head of Argus. Various were our conjectures as to whether the edifice before us was an immense barrack, an overgrown convent, where half the daughters of Bohemia might prepare for another world, or a great factory? Even the oracular authority of the “red-book” could not persuade us that it was a palace. The river at this place is always crowded with boats of all shapes and sizes laden with merchandize—chiefly hewn stone from the rocky banks, and timber from the pine-clad mountains. We had some difficulty in getting the carriage along between a precipice on the left, and the stream on our right, but at length got safely housed in the Josephsbad Hotel—“in one of the most romantic situations which the banks of the river Elbe afford.”—Murray. Here we learnt that the great pile of building was actually the palace or castle of Count Thun, and crossing the ferry we scrambled up through a straggling town to the rear of the castle, and then climbed up a road of rock that led to the chateau, and which was steep enough for goats, though the tracks of wheels, worn in the smooth and precipitous stone, shewed that less agile animals than the ibex had dragged their weary way to the summit. The view from the castle is remarkably picturesque, though rather hemmed in by hills, rocks, and mountains—the winding Elbe soon disappearing in the dark ravines of Saxon Switzerland. Count Thun’s library is, I believe, the great lion of the castle; but as I never could derive much amusement or information from a survey of the backs of books, we returned to our eagle’s nest, the Josephsbad, and slept sound over the murmuring Elbe. There is a chalybeate spring here of some local reputation, and certainly an invalid could not easily select a more romantic spot for the restoration of health than Tetchen.
We embarked in a gondola early in the morning, and immediately entered “Saxon Switzerland,” a tract of country extending from Tetchen to the neighbourhood of Dresden, and perfectly unique in character, bearing little or no resemblance to Switzerland, or to any other country in the world through which I have passed. It has none of the snowy solitudes, the sparkling glaciers, or the majestic altitude of the Alps; but it has a geographical and geological physiognomy, of which there is “nil simile aut secundum” on this globe. The river runs through a gorge, which is, in fact, a gigantic excavation—a huge crevasse—a profound chasm, in the rocky bed of an antediluvian ocean, disclosing glimpses of “the world before the flood,” and letting out some of the “secrets of the prison-house.” Whether this ocean-bed was raised from its dark abyss by the agency of subterranean fire, or was left uncovered by the subsidence of the superincumbent sea, may admit of question; but no doubt can be entertained as to the formation of those rocky walls that now rise a thousand feet high on each side of the stream. They are piled, layer over layer, in strata of different thickness and different density—but all as horizontal as the ocean under which they once lay. They were all, therefore, depositions from the sea, and considering that most of these strata are hard enough to form millstones, imagination is lost in the vain attempt to estimate the countless ages that must have rolled away during the deposition and consolidation of even a single stratum—how many millions of years, then, must it have required to form layer over layer, of this immense crust, at the bottom of the ocean, leaving aside the unknown intervals that must have elapsed between the various deposits!! Again, the elevation of the earth, or the subsidence of the waters, so as to produce the complete denudation of this rocky district, could not but occupy ages of ages. In whatever way this long chain of stratifications took place, it is quite evident that it was long subjected to powerful currents. The layers are all grooved and furrowed horizontally, in the line of the river, and not perpendicularly, as by rains descending along their sides. It is true they are often split perpendicularly and irregularly; but this is quite the work of time and decay—not at all like the horizontal smoothing, the consequence of long-continued watery friction. Some travellers have supposed that the river Elbe has hewn its way through these rocks and formed the huge ravine on the principle—
“Gutta cavat lapidem non vi sed sæpe cadendo.”
But as the very summits of the rock (800 feet high) shew the same proofs of horizontal “wear and tear” as the lowest strata, what must have been the state of the surrounding country, when the Elbe was 800 feet above its present level? It was covered with water, and the grooves in the rocks were the effects of currents, not rivers—in other words, they are diluvial and not fluvial phenomena. But the banks of this stream are not the only places here which exhibit proofs and records of a deluge. The neighbouring country, especially on the right bank, and where no rivers exist, is studded with “fragments of an earlier world,” all bearing the same marks of watery attrition, from their highest to their lowest strata. Although many of these “splinter’d pinnacles,” are columnar in shape, they are tabular in construction—all shewing horizontal strata (where they have not tumbled down), and all evincing a greater wear and tear of the interstitial materials between the layers, than of the layers themselves—another proof of the lateral and not perpendicular action of the waters by which they were worn smooth.
We descended slowly in our gondola, the day being splendidly clear, and the wind blowing fresh against us, which retarded our progress, but favoured our examination of the infinitely varied scenery in this romantic gorge. At Neidergrund, on the left bank, we were stopped by the last Austrian Douane, for examination of passports; and then continued our descent. At this place, however, there is a huge fragment of rock which must have rolled from the adjacent cliff, at some remote period, but which is now perfectly smooth in every part of its surface, from the friction of the floods. In this stone, there is also a polished excavation, with a narrow door, in which, it is said, a pious hermit once resided. Hence its name—“Monchenstein.” It is worth examining while the tardy Douanier is poring over your passport, and filling unmeaning columns in his musty journals.
A league farther on, where the right bank rises like a wall to a stupendous height, and demonstrating the stratifications with peculiar distinctness, we come to a huge pile of buildings, overhung by massive crags of rocks, and forming a douane, police-station, and hotel. Here we encounter the Saxon Custom-house, where our trunks were opened and examined—an operation which was never once performed by Prussian, Bavarian, or Austrian, during our whole journey. And here I must do the Austrians, who are represented as so very austere in their police and douanes, the justice to say that, in no part of their dominions did we ever experience the slightest interruption or inconvenience in respect to passports; nor did they ever ask us for the key of a trunk on entering, travelling through, or quitting their territories.
From this place (Herrnskretchen), excursions are often made, by people who have plenty of time on their hands, to the summit of the “Winterberg,” where a very extensive prospect of Saxon Switzerland and the Bohemian ranges is obtained. The mountain prospect is hardly worth the toil of the mountain journey. Better prospects are obtained from two points to be presently noticed, where the view, though not quite so wide, is infinitely more distinct and striking, and where the points themselves possess the highest degree of interest, which the summit of the Winterberg does not. The Preberchthor, however, a league and a half from Herrnskretchen, is worth seeing. It is a gigantic natural arch of rock, exhibiting well the stratified formation, and looking like the portal of some enchanted castle, being 60 ells (French) in height, the same in breadth, and 30 in depth. The arch itself is 1400 feet and more above the level of the sea. The summit, or key-stone of the arch forms a kind of narrow slanting platform, 30 or 40 feet in length, from which a romantic prospect opens on the view.
The Kuhstall (or cow-house) is another natural arch, where the strata of rock appear to be somewhat bent as they stride over the aperture below. Various other “disjecta membra” of an antediluvian world are scattered about between the Winterberg and Schandau.
We remained but a short time at Schandau; and, after dinner, hired a gondola, where a female rowed manfully against the breeze, assisted by her husband and brother, and in a couple of hours we reached