A July Holiday in Saxony, Bohemia, and Silesia

by Walter White

"Let us see what's the matter," said the landlord; and he lifted off the top story. Immediately there swarmed out thousands of earwigs.

"Huhu! that's not the sort of bees we want. Coobiddy, coobiddy!" And judging from the lusty crow that followed it, chanticleer and his seraglio must have had a satisfactory repast.

But Schneekoppe was yet far off, and there was no time to be lost if I wished to reach that Mont Blanc of German tourists before night. I inclined to leave the rough-beaten track through the valleys for short cuts across the hills, and asked the landlord about a guide. His woodcutter, who was splitting logs close by, knew great part of the way, and was ready to start there and then and carry my knapsack for a florin. He put a piece of coarse brown bread into a bag, which he lashed to one of the straps, and away we went.

"Good-bye!" said the landlord: "a month later and you would have had company enough; for then students come in herds to see the mountains."

We struck at once up a grassy hill on the left, and could soon look down on Rochlitz—houses scattered along either side of a narrow road in a deep valley; and, far in the rear, on Hochstadt, a wee town of great trade. Then we came to a Jägerhaus, and plunged into a pine forest, walking for two or three miles along winding paths, paved with roots, under a solemn shade where, here and there, sunny gleams sought out the richest brown of the tall, straight stems, and the brightest emerald among the patches of damp moss. At times we came to graceful birches scattered among the firs, and their drooping branches and silvery boles looked all the more beautiful amid companions so unbending.

We emerged on a bare, turfy slope, and came presently to a stony ridge on the right—the Grünstein—so named from a large bright green circle of lichen on the broken rocks which first catch your eye. A little farther along the same ridge, and the guide points to a great ring of stones on the slope as Rübezahl's Rose-garden, and the name makes you aware that here is the classic ground of gnomery. You remember the German storybooks read long ago with delight, wonder, or fear: the impish pranks, the tricks played upon knaves, the lumps of gold that rewarded virtue; the marvellous world deep underground, and all the weird romance.

You will perhaps think that imps had a right to be mischievous in such a region. On the left opens a wild, dreary expanse of fells—the coarse brown turf strewn with hassocks of coarser grass, and pale lumps of quartz intermingled, and rushy patches of darker hue showing where the ground is soft and swampy. It has a lifeless aspect, increased by a few scattered bushes of Knieholz that look like firs which have stunted themselves in efforts to grow. Now and then an Alpine lark twitters and flits past, as if impatient to escape from the cheerless scene.

We crossed these fells, guided by an irregular line of posts planted far apart. In places the ground quakes under your foot, and attempts to cut off curves are baffled by treacherous sloughs. On you go for nearly an hour, the view growing wilder, until, in the middle of a spongy meadow, known as the Naworer Wiese, you see a spring bubbling up in a circular basin. It is the source of the Elbe.

Here, 4380 feet above the sea-level, the solitude is complete. Here you may lie on your back looking up at the idle clouds, and enjoy the luxury of silence, for the prattle of the water disturbs it not. You will think it no loss that nothing now remains of monuments which the Archdukes Joseph and Rainer once erected here to commemorate their visit: the lonely scene is better without them. There are monuments not far off more to your mind. Towards the south rises the Krkonosch Berg[G]—sometimes called the Halsträger—and Kesselkoppe towards the west; great purple-shaded slopes of darkest green.

Not often during the summer will you find real solitude, as we did; for the Germans come in throngs and sit around the little pool to quaff the sparkling water, or pour libations of richer liquor. Is not this the birthplace of the Elbe, the river that carries fatness to many a broad league of their fatherland, and merchandise to its marts? Many a merry picnic has Krkonosch witnessed, and many a burst of sentiment. Hither used to come in the holidays—perhaps he comes still—a certain rector of a Silesian school with his scholars; and after their frolics he would teach them that the life of a river was but the symbol of their own life; and then, after each one had jumped across the sprightly rivulet, he bade them remember when in after years they should be students at Wittenberg, how they had once sprung from bank to bank of the mighty stream. The Elbe has, however, two sources: this the most visited. The other is ten miles distant on the southern slope of Schneekoppe. They unite their waters in the Elbgrund.