A stream is formed at once by the copious spring. We followed it down the slope—
"Infant of the weeping hills,
Nursling of the springs and rills"—
to a rocky gulf, where it leaps a hundred feet into the precipitous chasm, and chafes onwards in a succession of cascades far below, gathering strength for its rush through the mountain barrier—the Saxon Highlands—and its long, lazy course through the plains of Northern Germany. Here a little shanty is erected, the tenants of which dam the water, and let it loose for its plunge when tourists arrive who are willing to pay a fee to see Nature improved on. But you may scramble about the rocks and down to the noisy influx of the Pantsche Fall as long as you please, and peep over into the deep gulf, without any payment.
Then up a steep stony acclivity to a higher elevation, another of the great steps or terraces which compose the Bohemian side of the mountains. From the top we should have seen Schneekoppe himself, had he not been hidden by clouds; however, we saw a mass of gray cumulus behind which old Snowhead lurked, and that was something.
Rougher and rougher grows the way: more and more of the big boulders lying as if showered down; and here and there singular piles of rock appear. Some resemble woolsacks heaped one above another, and flattened; some a pilastered wall, all splintered and cracked, sunken at one end; some heathen tombs and imitations of Stonehenge; and some animal forms hewn by rude people in the ancient days with but indifferent success. On one, an experienced guide—which mine was not—will show you the impression of a large hand, and tell you it is Rübezahl's glove.
The path makes many a jerk and twist among the rocks; at times through a dense scrub of Knieholz—a dwarfish kind of fir, crooked as rams'-horns, peculiar to these mountains, and, as travellers tell us, to the Carpathians. To its abundant growth some of the hills owe their dark green garment. Half an hour of such walking brought us in sight of Rübezahl's chancel—walls of rocks split into horizontal layers—and strangely piled, as if by the hands of crazy Cyclopean builders. A fearsome place in olden time; now a shelter to the Schneegrubenhaus, where you will choose to rest and dine before further exploration.
The house stands on the verge of a mighty precipice, from which you have a wide view over the most beautiful and picturesque part of Silesia. It was a glorious sight, miles of hill and dale, forest and meadow stretching far away—yellow and green, and blue and purple—touched here and there by flashing lights where the sun fell on ponds and lakes; villages, seemingly numberless, basking in the warmth of a July sun. The Hirschbergerthal, into which we shall travel ere many days be over, lies outspread beneath as in a map; Warmbrunn, with its baths in the midst, five hours distant, and yet apparently so near that you fancy a musket-shot would break one of the gleaming windows. Although, as some say, there is a want of water, you will still think it a view worth climbing the Riesengebirge to see. "There is only one Silesia!" cried the Great Frederick, when he looked down upon it from the Landeshuter Kamm.
Having feasted your eye with the remote, you will turn to look at the two Schneegruben—greater and lesser snow-gulfs. To the right and left the precipice is split by a frightful chasm a thousand feet deep, between jagged perpendicular cliffs. Looking cautiously over the edge, you scan the gloomy abyss where the sun never shines except for a brief space in the early morn. You see a chaos of fallen blocks and splinters, where the winter's snow, often unmelted by the summer rains, forms miniature glaciers, from one of which the Kochel springs to charm wondering eyes with its fall in the lowlands by Petersdorf. You see how the jutting crags threaten to tumble; how the heaps far below are overgrown by treacherous Knieholz, and form ridges which dam the sullen waters of two or three small lakes. A patch of green, a small meadow, smiles up at you from the lesser gulf; and it surprises you somewhat to be told that a painstaking peasant makes hay there, by stacking the grass on high poles, and carries it in winter when snow enables him to use a sledge.
If sure of foot, you may scramble down the ridge and look at the cliffs from below, and on the way at a remarkable geological phenomenon. In the western declivity the ruddy granite is cut in two by a stratum of basalt, which broadens as you descend, its surface cut up by pale gray veins resembling a network. It is said to be the only instance in Europe of basalt found at such a height, and in such intimate neighbourhood with granite. It is laborious walking at the base, and dangerous where vegetation screens the numerous crevices. However, if you take pleasure in botany, there are rare plants to repay the exploit; and if you care only for the romantic, to have been frowned down upon by the tremendous cliffs will suffice you.