It is incredibly steep, the path making short zigzags, as on the Gemmi, fenced by a low wall. On either side you see nothing but loose slabs of stone, which must have made the ascent well-nigh impossible to unpractised feet, before Count Schaffgotsch constructed the new path at his own cost. A hard pull to finish with. However, in about twenty minutes we come to a level, where the wind blows strong and cold, and something that looks like a house and a circular tower looms through the dusk. The guide steps forward and opens a door, which admits us to a dim passage. He opens another door, and I am dazzled by the lights of a large room, where some forty or fifty guests are sitting at rows of tables eating, drinking, and smoking, while three women with harps sing and play in a corner.
To step from the chill gloom outside into such a scene was a surprise; and after my long day's walk to find a comfortable sofa five thousand feet above the sea, was a solace which I knew how to appreciate.
CHAPTER XXI.
Comforts on the Koppe—Samples of Germany—Provincial Peculiarities—Hilarity—A Couplet worth remembering—Four-bedded Rooms—View from the Summit—Contrast of Scenery—The Summit itself—Guides in Costume—Moderate Charges—Unlucky Farmer—The Descent—Schwarzkoppe—Grenzbäuden—Hungarian Wine—The Way to Adersbach—Forty Years' Experience.
Here, on the top of Schneekoppe, you find the appliances of luxury and elegance as well as of comfort. Many kinds of provisions, good wine, and beer of the best. A bazaar of crystals, carvings, Rübezahl's heads, and mountain-staves. Beds for fifty guests, and Strohlager (straw-lairs) for fifty more, besides music and other amusements, make up a total which satisfies most visitors. Do not, however, expect a room to yourself, for each chamber contains four beds, in one of which you will have to sleep or accept the alternative of straw. I heard no demur to these arrangements: in fact, most of the guests seemed to like throwing off conventionalities of the nether world while up among the clouds. For water—that is, to drink—you pay the price of beer, and with a disadvantage; seeing that, from being kept in beer-casks, its flavour is beery.
The company, though German, is very mixed: specimens of the men and women-kind from many parts of Germany. Here are Breslauers, who will say cha for ja: Berliners, who—cockneys of another sort, give to all their g's the sound of y—converting green into yreen, goose into yoose: gobble into yobble: Bremeners, whose Low Dutch has a twang of the Northumbrian burr; besides Saxons, Hanoverians, Mecklenburgers, and a happy couple, who told me they came from Gera—a principality about the size of Rutlandshire. Flat faces and round faces are the most numerous. The Silesians betray themselves by an angular visage and prominent chin. "Every province in Prussia," says Schulze to Müller, "has its peculiarity, or property, as they call it. Thus, for example, Pomerania is renowned for stubbornness; East Prussia for wit; the Rhineland for uprightness; Posen for mixed humour; the Saxon for softness; the Westphalian for hams and Pumpernickel; and Silesia—for good-nature." And here, on the highest ground in all North Germany, you may any day between Midsummer and Michaelmas bring the humourous philosopher's observations to the test.
Hilarity prevailed: the songstresses sang their best and twanged their strings with nimble fingers, and—came round with a sheet of music. Then a few of the guests migrated into the little chambers which on two sides open from the principal room; then a few more; and I noticed that some stopped to read a label affixed to the wall. I did the same. It bore a couplet:
Wisse nur des Narren Hand
Malt und schreibt auf Tisch und Wand.[H]