This is one of the lions of Saxon Switzerland—a kind of jung-frau fortress that has never yielded to shot, shell, or escalade. It is situated on the left bank of the river, near the town of Kœnigstein, from whence we ascended by a long and steep road that required full an hour before we arrived at the gate of this impregnable fortress. The Saxon war minister being governor of Kœnigstein, our passports procured us admission, with an orderly to shew us round. One of the most prominent features of this country is, the projection from its surface of numerous truncated cones of the same kind of stratified rock which compose the banks of the Elbe. They rise almost perpendicularly from plain or hill, to various heights of one hundred to seven or eight hundred feet, with a flat surface on the top, like a sugar-loaf with its upper third cut off. Kœnigstein is one of the largest of these natural forts, and the strongest. It springs from an elevated ground, and is at least fifteen hundred feet above the level of the Elbe that flows at its base. The walls are not columnar, but masses of horizontal strata piled upon one another, precisely like those composing the banks of the river, the highest as well as lowest layers presenting the same horizontal “wear and tear,” produced by the action of long-continued currents of water. The plateau on the summit of this antediluvian citadel occupies a space of two or three acres, which, considering the locality, supports a good deal of vegetation, trees, and fruit. Excavations in the rock serve as bomb-proofs for provisions, ammunition, and military barracks, if assailed. The plateau is encircled by a coronet of cannon and mortars, and in the spaces between the embrasures, immense heaps of stones are piled up, to be hurled on the heads of those who ventured to approach the rocky ramparts of this aerial fortress. Down through the centre of the rock a well is bored to the depth of 1800 feet, and from this source an abundant supply of excellent water is drawn up by a wheel, like a tread-mill, worked, or rather walked, by half a dozen soldiers. In the centre of the plateau there is a circus, where the governor with one of his aide-de-camps was galloping round, for air and exercise.
We made the entire circuit of the ramparts, and from these the most extensive views are taken in every direction, embracing scenery so strange, romantic, and beautiful, that no language can do it justice—nor pencil neither! At its eastern base flows the winding Elbe, and directly opposite, on the other side of the stream, rises Lilienstein, about three miles distant from Kœnigstein, and of a precisely similar shape and composition. A German prince, who was also a Polish king, had the courage and dexterity to scale the Lilienstein, and was so proud of the exploit, that he commemorated it by an inscription near the place of ascent. Napoleon, in one of his German forays, succeeded, with incredible labour and difficulty, to elevate some guns to the summit of this gigantic rock, in order to batter Kœnigstein, but his labour was lost, for the shot fell short of the sister fortress. But Kœnigstein might have laughed at Bonaparte even if his cannon could have swept the houses from the plateau of the Saxon strong-hold. It would have remained as impregnable as ever. The view from this spot takes in the whole or nearly the whole of Saxon Switzerland, and extends to thirty or forty miles in every direction—from the Winterberg to Dresden, the towers of which are plainly visible. All the peculiar rocks in the shape of truncated cones, as well as those masses of pillars and cliffs about the Bastei, are distinctly seen from Kœnigstein. Mr. Russell has the following passage in his work on Germany.
“The striking feature is, that in the bosom of this amphitheatre, a plain of the most varied beauty, huge columnar hills start up at once from the ground, at great distances from each other, overlooking in lonely and solemn grandeur, each its own portion of the domain. They are monuments which the Elbe has left standing to commemorate his triumph over their less hardy kindred. The most remarkable among them are the Lilienstein and Kœnigstein, which tower, nearly in the centre of the plain, to a height of above 1200 feet above the Elbe.”
I have marked a sentence, in italics, because it conveys an erroneous idea. It may be poetical; but it is not philosophical. If the Elbe was the Deluge, or the Deluge was the Elbe, all well. But I think Mr. Russell would hardly contend for this identity. The fact is, that the Deluge wore away the softer parts from around Kœnigstein, Lilienstein, and all the other Steins, ten thousand, or, more likely, ten million of years before the Elbe was born! The diminutive stream of the river merely conducted its rills from the mountains through the bottom of the chasm hollowed out by the mighty currents of an antediluvian ocean.
It required two hours to visit the cloud-capt towers and frowning battlements of this impregnable citadel, whose walls were not built by human hands, but constructed beneath the waters of some mighty deep. The magnificent and singular scenery which everywhere bursts on the astonished eye from the cannon-crown’d crest of Kœnigstein, can never be erased from the memory.
We descended from the fortress to the town, tired, hunger’d, but highly gratified by the excursion. Fickle Fortune is not always profuse of her gifts. The feast of the eye this day was purchased by a fast of the stomach. Notwithstanding the care we had taken to order the “huhn gebraten,” the “schinken,” the “kartoflen,” and other little matters for dinner, all of which were civilly promised, with a hearty “ja wohl mynheer,” into the bargain; yet, to our mortification, up came the infernal or at least the eternal dish—mutton-chops, composed of old meat pounded into a paste, squeezed into a mould, fried with butter, covered with flour, and pierced with the ribs of some “schaf” that might have been slaughtered the preceding year! Remonstrance was vain, and complaint was unavailing. Dish after dish was returned untouched—and dish after dish of the same materials, came back again, in other forms! With a sorrowful heart and an empty stomach, I called to mind the first line of Ovid’s Metamorphoses—
“In nova, fert animus, mutatas dicere formas,
Corpora.”
As a forlorn hope, we requested some cheese; when, lo, after a quarter of an hour’s expectation, in came a wedge exhaling such a complication of all horrible and unutterable odours, that we were glad to launch it out of the window among the pigs—and even they scampered off in all directions at the sight, sound, and smell of this unexpected and apparently unwelcome visitor! Good comes out of evil. This last consummation of our miseries fortunately obliterated our appetites as effectually as a fit of sea-sickness in a gale of wind. The beds were as bad as the board, and the smell of the cheese seemed to have called forth myriads of the most minute, agile, and animated beings, who appeared to leap and skip with joy, over our beds and round our dormitory—but whether in search of the savoury “kase,” or bent on more sanguinary depredations, I will not pretend to decide. This I know, that the frolicksome gambols of these black and saltant imps conduced but very little to sleep, notwithstanding the lightness of our supper. Mr. Murray says that the Inn at Kœnigstein is “tolerable.” It may be so, but the inmates are intolerable! I do not think that Horace spent a worse night in the Pontine fens, when he was assailed, on one side by the “mali culices,” and on the other, by the “ranæ palustres.” We had not the “mali culices,” it is true—but we had far worse customers, the mali pulices!! In fine, it was the “frogs and flies” of Treponti in Italy, versus the “fleas and cheese” of Kœnigstein in Germany. I would pit the latter against the former any Summer’s night of the year!