are open, and Monday is generally far advanced before they are deserted. If good humour and coarse merriment are all that people desire, here they are to be found in perfection.
July 24. – Custom condemned us to visit the palace, which glares with looking-glass, gilding, and furbelowed flounces of cut velvet, most sumptuously fringed and spangled. The chapel, though small, is richer than anything Crœsus ever possessed, let them say what they will. Not a corner but shines with gold, diamonds, and scraps of martyrdom studded with jewels. I had the delight of treading amethysts and the richest gems under foot, which, if you recollect, Apuleius4 thinks such supreme felicity. Alas! I was quite unworthy of the honour, and had much rather have trodden the turf of the mountains. Mammon would never have taken his eyes off the pavement; mine soon left the contemplation of it and fixed on St. Peter’s thumb, enshrined with a degree of elegance, and adorned by some malapert enthusiast with several of the most delicate antique cameos I ever beheld; the subjects, Ledas and sleeping Venuses, are a little too pagan, one should think, for an apostle’s finger.
From this precious repository we were conducted through the public garden to a large hall, where part of the Elector’s collection is piled up, till a gallery can be finished for its reception. It was matter of great favour to view, in this state, the pieces that compose it, a very imperfect one too, since some of the best were under operation. But I would not upon any account have missed the sight of Rubens’s Massacre of the Innocents. Such expressive horrors were never yet transferred to canvass. Moloch himself might have gazed at them with pleasure.
After dinner we were led round the churches; and if you are as much tired with reading my voluminous descriptions, as I was with the continual repetition of altars and reliquaries, the Lord have mercy upon you! However, your delivery draws near. The post is going out, and to-morrow we shall begin to mount the cliffs of the Tyrol; but, do not be afraid of any long-winded epistles from their summits: I shall be too well employed in ascending them.
July 25. – The noise of the people thronging to the fair did not allow me to slumber very long in the morning. When I got up, every street was crowded with Jews and mountebanks, holding forth and driving their bargains in all the guttural hoarseness of the Bavarian dialect. Vast quantities of rich merchandise glittered in the shops as we passed to the gates. Heaps of fruit and sweetmeats set half the grandams and infants in the place cackling with felicity.
Mighty glad was I to make my escape; and in about an hour or two, we entered a wild tract of country, not unlike the skirts of a princely park. A little farther on stands a cluster of cottages, where we stopped to give our horses some refreshment, and were pestered with swarms of flies, most probably journeying to Munich fair, there to feast upon sugared tarts and honied gingerbread.
The next post brought us over hill and dale, grove and meadow, to a narrow plain, watered by rivulets and surrounded by cliffs, under which lies scattered the village of Wolfrathshausen, consisting of several remarkably large cottages, built entirely of fir, with strange galleries projecting from them. Nothing can be neater than the carpentry of these complicated edifices, nor more solid than their construction; many of them looked as if they had braved the torrents which fell from the mountains a century ago; and, if one may judge from the hoary appearance of the inhabitants, here are patriarchs coeval with their mansions. Orchards of cherry-trees cover the steeps above the village, which to our certain knowledge produce most admirable fruit.
Having refreshed ourselves with their cooling juice, we struck into a grove of pines, the tallest and most flourishing we had yet beheld. There seemed no end to these forests, except where little irregular spots of herbage, fed by cattle, intervened. Whenever we gained an eminence it was only to discover more ranges of dark wood, variegated with meadows and glittering streams. White clover and a profusion of sweet-scented flowers clothe their banks; above, waves the mountain-ash, glowing with scarlet berries: and beyond, rise hills, rocks and mountains, piled upon one another, and fringed with fir to their topmost acclivities. Perhaps the Norwegian forests alone, equal these in grandeur and extent. Those which cover the Swiss highlands rarely convey such vast ideas. There, the woods climb only half way up their ascents, which then are circumscribed by snows: here no boundaries are set to their progress, and the mountains, from base to summit, display rich unbroken masses of vegetation.
As we were surveying this prospect, a thick cloud, fraught with thunder, obscured the horizon, whilst flashes of lightning startled our horses, whose snorts and stampings resounded through the woods. The impending tempests gave additional gloom to the firs, and we travelled several miles almost in total darkness. One moment the clouds began to fleet, and a faint gleam promised serener intervals, but the next was all blackness and terror; presently a deluge of rain poured down upon the valley, and in a short time the torrents beginning to swell, raged with such violence as to be forded with difficulty. Twilight drew on, just as we had passed the most terrible; then ascending a mountain, whose pines and birches rustled with the storm, we saw a little lake below. A deep azure haze veiled its eastern shore, and lowering vapours concealed the cliffs to the south; but over its western extremities hung a few transparent clouds; the rays of a struggling sunset streamed on the surface of the waters, tingeing the brow of a green promontory with tender pink.
I could not help fixing myself on the banks of the lake for several minutes, till this apparition faded away. Looking round, I shuddered at a craggy mountain, clothed with forests and almost perpendicular, that was absolutely to be surmounted before we could arrive at Walchen-see. No house, not even a shed appearing, we were forced to ascend the peak, and penetrate these awful groves. At length, after some perils but no adventure, we saw lights gleam upon the shore of the Walchen lake, which served to direct us to a cottage, where we passed the night, and were soon lulled to sleep by the fall of distant waters.
LETTER X
Mittenwald. – Mountain chapels. – Saint Anna’s young and fair worshippers. – Road to Inspruck. – Maximilian’s tomb. – Vast range of prospects. – A mountain torrent. – Schönberg.
THE sun rose many hours before me, and when I got up was spangling the surface of the lake, which spreads itself between steeps of wood, crowned by lofty crags and pinnacles. We had an opportunity of contemplating this bold assemblage as we travelled on the banks of the lake, where it forms a bay sheltered by impending forests; the water, tinged by their reflection with a deep cerulean, calm and tranquil. Mountains of pine and beech rising above, close every outlet; and, no village or spire peeping out of the foliage, impress an idea of more than European solitude.
From the shore of Walchen-see, our road led us straight through arching groves, which the axe seems never to have violated, to the summit of a rock covered with daphnes of various species, and worn by the course of torrents into innumerable craggy forms. Beneath, lay extended a chaos of shattered cliffs, with tall pines springing from their crevices, and rapid streams hurrying between their intermingled trunks and branches. As yet, no hut appeared, no mill, no bridge, no trace of human existence.
After a few hours’ journey through the wilderness, we began to discover a wreath of smoke; and presently the cottage from whence it arose, composed of planks, and reared on the very brink of a precipice. Piles of cloven fir were dispersed before the entrance, on a little spot of verdure browsed by goats; near them sat an aged man with hoary whiskers, his white locks tucked under a fur cap. Two or three beautiful children with hair neatly braided, played around him; and a young woman dressed in a short robe and Polish-looking bonnet, peeped out of a wicket window.
I was so much struck with the appearance of this sequestered family, that, crossing a rivulet, I clambered up to their cottage and sought some refreshment. Immediately there was a contention amongst the children, who should be the first to oblige me. A little black-eyed girl succeeded, and brought me an earthen jug full of milk, with crumbled bread, and a platter of strawberries fresh picked from the bank. I reclined in the midst of my smiling hosts, and
Apuleius Met: Lib. 5.
