A German full of humor, a rare sort of German, for they are not addicted to the humorous at home or abroad, had joined us in our pedestrian tour to Konigstein; and having just come down the river as we were going up, he gave us the information we asked for of the upper country. He spoke a “leetel English,” and that made his answers more amusing.
“Which is the best hotel for us in Ichandau?” we inquired.
“They is dree hotels, one is so bad as de toder,” said he.
“And what shall we find at Winterberg?”
“Noding but gray sand-stone and sheating strangers.”
With this very unpromising prospect, we waited for the steamer to come along to take us to Ichandau and Winterberg.
Steaming on the Elbe is a very small affair; a narrow boat with a long nose, moves on at the rate of four or five miles an hour, and stops at the end of a plank or two put out from the shore for a wharf. One of these filled with pleasure travellers in the aft and the long bows covered with peasantry, touched at Konigstein, and received us. It was near sunset. We were often in the deep shadows of the mountains, and then through the openings, or as the circuitous river brought us into the day again, the declining sun streamed upon us with exceeding beauty. Tired with the hard day’s work, having mounted the Bastei on one side of the Elbe, and Konigstein on the other, I was glad to lie off upon a bench and enjoy the luxury of this cool delicious hour. Ichandau charmingly dropped down among the mountains, is an old town, but only remarkable as the point from which to set off on exploring expeditions into the interior of Saxon Switzerland. The three hotels were filled with company, who were spending their evening in eating and drinking at small tables on the piazzas, or under the shade trees, a practice of which the Germans are more fond than any other people I have met. We found beds in a great ball-room, with low partitions running between them, so that when the room was needed for dancing, these could be readily removed. I was in want of some refreshments after the fatigues of the day, and when the various drinks that I called for were not to be had, the waiter asked me if I would have “Yahmah Kah rhoom,” which I declined after finding that he meant Jamaica rum. Without any night-cap of the sort, and spite of more noise than would have been agreeable if we had not been so weary, we had a good night of it, and rose with the sun to continue our pilgrimage. A carriage was ready for us, to convey us six miles from Ichandau, through a romantic glen, wide enough to afford beautiful meadows on both sides of a stream, by the side of which a good road was leading us into the mountains. The women were at work making hay, scores of them, and not a man to be seen. The brightest of Cole’s landscapes among the Kaatskill mountains came to my mind as we rode on, and admired the green hill sides; then, as we advanced, gnarled trees stood out upon the rocks, immense piles, jagged, riven, blasted and heaped one upon another in such orderly confusion, that it seemed as if architecture had done its worst to make towers for giants here.
Our ride terminated at Peishll Swarl, where we were surrounded by a troop of men who had horses to let, and in their German tongue, they clamored most importunately for us to engage them. Our friend, the Rev. Dr. K., being of German origin, and better skilled in the language than the rest of us, we left to make the bargain, while we selected the best horses for ourselves with that beautiful selfishness so common to the human species. As we deserved, and as he deserved, we got the worst of the lot, and he was soon mounted on a handsome pony, that easily led the party, the whole day. Now it may be known to some who read this, that Dr. K. is not a very tall divine, but what he lacks of being gigantic in height, he makes up in breadth, so that seated upon this little animal about four feet high, and riding up a steep mountain pass, when seen from before, he looked like a horse with a man’s head, but when we gazed upward at him from behind, we saw a man with a horse’s tail. I had selected a good looking beast, but it had a lady’s saddle to which I objected, as it was “Fur damen,” for women: but the owner promptly met the objection by pulling away the rest, and crying out with a laugh “Fur herren,” for men. Immediately on mounting we struck into the woods, and soon into a narrow pass where the rocks had been cleft asunder just far enough for a path for a single horseman; a hundred steps lead up to the summit of a lofty hill whence a fine view is had of the columnal rocks and numerous peaks of mountains, whose hard names would not be remembered if we were to repeat them. On this height is the famous Kuhstall, or in English Cow-stall, a cave in the rock, to which in the Thirty Years’ war, the peasants in the plains below were in the habit of driving their cattle for safety, and in these all but inaccessible solitudes, the Protestant Christians fled from persecution, and hid themselves as their primitive brethren did, in dens and caves of the earth. One of these recesses, more retired and better sheltered than the rest, had the name of the “Woman’s bed.” Who can tell the sufferings, who can tell the joys that the people of God have known in these high places? No cathedral service could be more sublime than prayer and praise on the mountain tops, and in the grottoes of these rocky heights, where now the weary traveller from a land on the other side of the sea, sits down and recalls the story of those times that “tried men’s souls.” Through a narrow fissure in the rock we ascended to a platform that makes the roof of the Kuhstall. Before us was a valley surrounded by mighty rocks and pine-covered hills, an amphitheatre in which the present population of the earth could stand, and it required but little stretch of the imagination to believe that a strong voice could be heard by the multitude so assembled. My servant led my horse to the edge of the precipice, many hundred feet high, and he planted his feet firmly on the edge, as if he were accustomed to the spot, and there stood for me to enjoy the glorious scene. On this lofty and far away height, some women had a stand for the sale of strawberries and cream, the taste of which did not interfere with the beauties of the prospect, as I sat on my horse eating, and gazing, and making these notes. But we cannot be on the mount always. We crossed the valley, and on the narrow road met parties of German travellers smoking as they trudged along, women and some children, making the tour of the mountains on foot, and in the course of a couple of hours we commenced the ascent of the Great Winterberg, and climbed it to the summit.
Here at the height of one thousand seven hundred feet above the sea we found a good hotel, with every comfort for the entertainment of travellers and a fine lookout from which may be had the grandest sight in Saxon Switzerland. I wrote the names of sixteen noble peaks that stood up around me, with their thick green foliage, the intervening valleys dense with forest, the beautiful Elbe silently circling the base of the mountains, and the pillars of stone rising like sentinels away off in the plains beyond. Our way lay through the thick forest, as we came down to the Prebisch Thor or Gate, a mighty arch, a hundred feet broad, and sixty-five feet high, a wonderful freak of nature, not so lofty as the Natural Bridge of Virginia, but more impressive from the position it occupies, away up in these mountains, more than a thousand feet above the river. It might be the gate of the world! How mean the splendid arches of Conquerors, compared with this which the King of Kings had reared. I exclaimed with reverence as I saw it, “Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in.” A score of visitors were here before us. A row of romantic cottages, clinging like eagles’ nests, to the ledges of the rocks, furnish rest and refreshment to the pilgrims, and we sat down in sight of this stupendous wonder of nature, and dined, while we sought to take in at the same time, an image of it which we should never lose. Underneath the arch ambitious travellers have vied with each other in seeing how high they could inscribe their names, and some have made the records so as to resemble tombstones, rows of which are cut into the solid rock. Visitors from many different lands, have in their several languages left their impressions in the book which is kept here for the purpose, and we added our names and a faint transcript of our feelings to the records of the Prebisch Thor. The descent was by several hundred steps, sometimes of wood, then of stone, and again of earth, which we made on foot, while the horses were led by a longer road around. As we came down into the valley, we met—for we were now in Bohemia, under Austrian rule—numerous beggars with various claims upon our charity. Among them was an old woman who stretched out a pair of naked arms dried to the bone and the color of bronze, her feet and the lower part of her legs, her head and breast were bare, and all so dried and dark, so unlike a woman that it made me sick to look at her. “Can a woman come to that?” I asked myself, as I gave my servant some money for the old crone, and hurried on for fear she would get before me again to thank me. In the stream which comes leaping down from the mountain, were women and children wading, with hooks in their hands to catch the floating bits of wood, and bring them ashore for fuel. The narrow defile through which we passed was picturesque, and the great mountains behind us often called us back to look at the heights where we had stood, and so now looking back, and now plunging on and down, into the regions of human dwellings, by little mills on the leaping stream, and by the side of cottages where some taste appeared in vines and flowers, we arrived at Hirniskretchen, on the Elbe. Here we crossed the river, and by the railroad which comes along on the other side, we reached in a few moments the station at Bodenbach the frontier town of Austria. The train is detained an hour, while the passports, and luggage of all the passengers are examined with that minuteness which is always suffered in small towns more inconveniently than in cities. Some of the ladies’ trunks made such revelations of articles of dress and jewelry, that no protestations of their being designed only for personal use were of any avail. It was impossible in the eyes of these simple officers, that women could need so many gloves, and laces and bracelets, and they were all examined even to the smallest boxes of “bijouterie” which could be found. We had no difficulty whatever, being very slightly loaded with baggage of any sort, especially of that sort which custom houses, those pests of nations, are so apt to challenge. At last we were pronounced all right, and the train set off, through a beautiful country, a massive church standing on one side of the river, a towering castle on the other; now rushing by Aussig, a precipice and gorge of frightful height, where the road hugs the rock into the side of which it is cut, and so through numerous pleasing villages, we are hurried on to the ancient city of Prague.