We repaired to the hotel of the Goldener Löwe, which we find comfortable and good.
LETTER III.
The Traun.—The Gmunden-see.—Ishl.—St. Wolfgang Lake.—Salzburg.
Monday, September 5th.
The train of the railroad started at two in the afternoon for Gmunden: we thus had a few hours to spare. One of our party climbed the heights above Linz, to feast his eyes on the view which had enchanted me the preceding evening. There is no circumstance in travelling, consequent on my narrow means, that I regret so much, as my being obliged to deny myself hiring a carriage when I arrive at a strange town, and the not being able to drive about everywhere, and see everything. I wandered about the town, and stood long on the bridge, drinking in the beauty of the scene, till the soul became full to the brim with the sense of delight. The river is indeed magnificent; with speed, yet with a vastness that renders speed majestic, it hurries on the course assigned to it by the Creator. Never, never had I so much enjoyed the glory of earth. The Danube gives Linz a superiority over a thousand scenes otherwise of equal beauty. Standing on the bridge, above is a narrow pass, hedged in by high sombre rocks, and the river sweeps, darkening as it goes, beneath the gloomy shadows of the precipices; below, it flows in a mighty stream through a valley of wide expanse, till you lose sight of it at the base of distant mountains. I should have liked to have stayed some days at Linz: I grieved also not to be going by steam to Vienna.
Our drive by the railroad to Gmunden was delightful. We had a little carriage to ourselves. Our road lay through a valley watered by a stream, and adorned by woods; it was a sequestered home-felt scene; while the high distant mountains redeemed it from tameness. After the sandy deserts of Prussia, and the burnt-up country round Dresden, the freshness and green of a pastoral valley, the murmur of streams and rivulets, the delightful umbrage of the trees, imparted a sense of peace and amenity that lapped me in Elysium. We changed the train at Lambach, a quiet shady village. We had bargained that we should be allowed to visit the falls of the Traun on our way. It was evening before we reached the spot, and the falls are nearly a mile from the road; we had no guide, but were told we could not miss the way. Our path lay through a wood, and as twilight deepened we sometimes doubted whether we had not gone astray through the gloom of the thicket. You know that a mile of unknown road, with some suspicion hovering in the mind as to whether you are in the right path, becomes at least three, or rather one feels as if it would never end. We came at last to the brink of the precipice above the river, and descended by steps cut in the rock. We thus reached the lower part of the fall. With some difficulty, it being so late, the Miller was found, and meanwhile we clambered to the points of rock from which the cascade is viewed. It was dim twilight, with the moon quietly moving among the summer clouds, and shedding its silver on the waters. The river winding above through a wooded ravine comes to an abrupt rocky descent, over which it falls with foam and spray. The drought had reduced the supply of water; a portion also is carried off for the purpose of traffic—a wooden canal being constructed to allow the salt barges to ascend and descend the Traun without interruption from the cascade. This canal is on an inclined plain, and it would be very delightful to rush down: we could not, as there was no boat; but for six swanzikers (six eightpences) the sluices were shut and the water, blocked up, turned to feed and augment the fall. The evening hour took from the accuracy of our view, but added immeasurably to its charm; the mysterious glittering of the spray beneath the moon; the deep shadows of the rocks and trees; the soft air and dashing waters—here was the reward for infinite fatigue and inconvenience; here we grasped an hour which, when the memory of every discomfort has become almost a pleasure, will endure as one of the sweetest in life. Our carriage all the time was waiting for us by the road-side, so we tore ourselves away. We procured a boy with a lantern to guide us on our return through the wood; and, reaching the road, away we sped along the rails. Our moonlit view, as we went, was pregnant with a sense of placid enjoyment, being picturesque but gentle in its features of wood, village, and glimmering stream; while the dark and gloomy Traunstein rose frowning before our path. We reached Gmunden late, and found a very comfortable inn; it had a court in the middle and an open balcony on the different floors, into which a number of cell-like rooms opened. We had a good supper of fish from the lake, and the comfortable promise of a steam-boat at eleven the next morning; so there was no need for anxiety with regard to early rising.
September 6th.
We fared sumptuously this morning on fish and game; our bill was therefore comparatively high—thirteen florins; it had been the same at Linz. The cost of the railroad to Gmunden, for which we had a carriage for four to ourselves and a place in one of the diligences of the train for my maid, was thirteen florins; we had to pay three extra for our luggage.
But enough of these matters. Now for another scene, which will ever dwell in my memory, coloured by the softest tints, yet sublime—the lake of Gmunden. As the steamer carried us away from the town, which appeared noisy and busy after Bohemia, we might believe that we broke our link with vulgar earth—the waters spread out before us so solitary, so tranquil. The lofty crags of the Traunstein rose on our left—bare, abrupt, and dark—while the sunlight varied its shadows as we moved on; opposite, the lake was bounded by grassy hills, speckled with villages and spires, with here and there a cove, half shut in by precipitous rocks, half accessible through shady thickets, with green sloping sward down to the water’s edge. These bays had a sequestered appearance, as if the foot of man had never desecrated their loneliness. By one of those unexplainable impulses of the mind, which spring up spontaneously and unlooked for, a sense of the beauty of the Greek mythology was awakened in me, more vivid, more real than I had ever before experienced. As the poet[[8]] says, I could, while looking
“On that pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;”