Walter White

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]

Three hairy faces lay fast asleep on their pillows in the room to which I was shown. The bodies to which they belonged were covered with coats and wrappers, as well as blanket, for the night was very cold, and the wind blew around the house with an intermittent snarl.

I did not rise with the next morning's sun, but two hours later. By that time the mists had cleared off, or become so thin as not to conceal the landscape, and, on going out among the shivering groups, I saw an open view all round the horizon. The Silesian portion is by far the most attractive. To the south-west the Jeschken catches your eye, and, far beyond, the swelling outline of the Erzgebirge; to the south you see towns and villages in the valley of the Elbe, and in a favourable atmosphere the White Hill of Prague: in like circumstances Breslau can be seen, though forty-five miles distant to the north-east, and GÖrlitz with its hill—Landskrone—almost as far to the north-west, and on rare occasions, it is said, you can see the foremost of the Carpathians.

Not one of the remotest points was visible. I took pleasure in tracing my yesterday's route, in which the Schneegruben is all but hidden by an intervening ridge, and in surveying that which I had now to follow. There, in the direction towards Breslau, lay Schatzlar, and the lonely peak of the Zobten—the navel of Silesia, as old writers call it; and miles away easterly the Heuscheuer, a big hill on the Moravian frontier, which looks down on Adersbach, where we shall sleep to-night, if all go well. You can see a long stretch of the Isergebirge—mountains of the Iser which form part of the range—and deep gulfs, and grim rocky slopes, and pleasant valleys. But it is not the mountain scenery of Switzerland or Tyrol: you miss the awful precipices, the gloomy gorges thundering ever with the roar of waterfalls, the leagues on leagues of crowding hills, cliffs and forests, rushing higher and higher, till they front the storm zone with great white slopes and towering peaks that dazzle your eye when the sun looks at them. Here no snow remains save one "lazy streak" in a hollow of the crags on the heights above the Riesengrund. Imagine Dartmoor heaved up to twice its present elevation, and your idea of the view from Schneekoppe will come but little short of the reality.

The summit itself is a stony level, half covered by the inn, with its appurtenances and the chapel, leaving free space all round for visitors. Its height is 4965 Prussian feet above the sea. The boundary line between Bohemia and Silesia, which follows an irregular course along the range, crosses it. A chapel, dedicated to St. Lawrence, was first erected here by Count Leopold von Schaffgotsch, in 1668-81; but only since 1824 have Koppe-climbers found a house on the top to yield them shelter and entertainment. While walking about to get the view from every side you will not fail to be struck by the numerous guides in peaked hats, with broad band and feather, velveteen jackets heavy with buttons and braid; and not less by their coarse rustic dialect than by their costume. Extremes meet, and you will notice much in common, in sound at least, between this very High Dutch and the Low Dutch from Bremen and Hamburg.

The afternoon is the best time for the view. The shadows then fall to the east, as when I saw it yesterday from the Schneegruben; the sun is behind you, looking aslant into the Silesian vales, searching out whatever they possess of beautiful, and bringing out the lights on towns and villages for leagues around.

I had been told more than once while on the way that the charges on Schneekoppe were "monstrous;" but my supper, bed, and early cup of coffee with rusks, cost not more than one florin fifty kreutzers, service included; a sum by no means unreasonable, especially when you remember that all the provant has to be carried up on men's shoulders.

I have always been favoured with fine weather when among mountains, and here was no exception. The Riesengebirge, are, however, as much visited by fog, rain, and mist, as the mountains of Wales. Tourists come at times even from the shores of the Baltic, and go back disappointed, through prevalence of clouds and stormy weather. I heard of a farmer living not farther off than Schmiedeberg, who had climbed the Koppe thirteen times to look down on his native land, and every time he saw nothing but rain. There came one summer a few weeks of drought; the ground was parched, and fears were entertained for the crops. Thereupon the neighbouring farmers assembled, waited on the persevering mountain-climber, and besought him to go once more up Schneekoppe.

"Up Schneekoppe! for what?"

"If you do but go, look ye, it will be sure to rain, and we shall be so thankful."

Soon after six I started for the descent into Silesia, in company with two young wool-merchants from Breslau. On this side the slope is easy; but, as on the other side, after falling for awhile, the path makes a rise to pass over Schwarzkoppe (Black Head), a hill rough with heather. To this succeeded pleasant fir-woods, then birch and beech, and before eight we came to GrenzbÄuden (frontier-buildings), a place renowned for its hospitality wherever lives a German who has seen the mountains. Three houses offer entertainment; but HÜbner's is the most resorted to. There you find spacious rooms, a billiard-table, a piano, maps on the walls, and a colonnade for those who prefer the open air; and sundry appliances by which weather-bound guests may kill time. But, by common consent, HÜbner's chief claim to consideration is, that Hungarian wine never fails in his cellar.

"Did you taste the Hungarian wine?" is the question asked of all who wander to the Giant Mountains.

The two Breslauers were not less ready for breakfast than myself. We each had a half-bottle of the famous wine, and truly its reputation is not unmerited. If you can imagine liquid amber suffused with sunshine, you will know what its colour is. It looks syrupy, and has the flavour of a sweet Madeira, not, as it appeared to me, provocative of a desire for more. Neither of the Breslauers inclined to try a second half-bottle, notwithstanding their exuberant praises; but one of them, sitting down to the piano, broke out with a

that made the room echo again. Its price is about twenty pence a bottle; but once across the boundary line, and you must pay three shillings. In winter, when snow lies deep, sledge-parties glide hither from Schmideberg to drink Hungarian, have a frolic, and then skim homewards down-hill swift as the wind.

I had a talk with Meinherr HÜbner about the shortest way to Schatzlar. To think of going to Adersbach through Schatzlar was, he assured me, a grand mistake. The road was very hilly, hard to find, and, under the most favourable circumstances, I need not look to walk the distance in less than eighteen hours. My Frankfort map, with all its imperfections, had not yet misled me: it showed the route by Schatzlar to be the shortest, and on that I insisted.

"Take my advice," rejoined HÜbner; "it has forty years' experience to back it. Go down to Hermsdorf, and from thence through Liebau and SchÖmberg. That is the only way possible for you. The other will take you eighteen hours."

The route suggested was that I hoped to follow on leaving Adersbach, and to travel twice over the same ground did not suit my inclination, and it was the longest. Moreover, I wished to keep within the Schmiedeberger Kamm; and forty years' experience to the contrary notwithstanding, I refused to be advised.

I may as well mention at once that by five in the afternoon of the same day I was in Adersbach.