RIESBECK’s TRAVELS THROUGH GERMANY.
143
on a fading day, faid in a jelling way, “ plhaw, plhaw, it will all come up again at after-noon fervice.”
My companions being defirous to fhew me a very wonderful natural curiofity, we tookour way by Trautenau for this purpofe. About three miles from this city the finedprofpeCt offered itfelf to our eyes that can be conceived.
Near a village, whofe name I have forgotten, we beheld on a fudden a great numberof high towers, feveral of which in many places were in regular rows but moll of themlay difperfed in an extraordinary manner. We walked near a mile as if in a kind oflabyrinth, encompaffed with thefe towers on each fide, and there was no end of myaflonilhment. Mod of thefe are from fixty to feventy feet high, and fome from onehundred to one hundred and fifty. When you view them obliquely their fummits form,a kind of waving line, like the back of a hill, which rifes and finks again. They areall formed of a hard quarry done, and would give Mr. Buffon much food for thought.Nature has for the mod part fhaped them into more or lefs regular fquares; they arecommonly taken for the ikeletons of a hill, through which the water has made its way.This opinion feems to merit attention ; but, if it be a true one, and other hills have alfotheir Ikeletons, it will fhake hard upon Buffon’s fydem ; for he probably confiders themaffes, of which thefe towers confid, as large maffes of done body, chalk and earth,which are jumbled together and have different degrees of hardnefs.
From hence we took our way back to Freiheit, and began to afcend the Reifenge -berge ; this hill, though very famous in Bohemia , is really no more than a mole hill, incomparifon of the Savoyard and Swifs Alps, or even of the Tyrol, Saltzburg, and Stirianhills. We paffed over the famous Snowhead , which is the highed part of thefe moun-tains. Some perfons fay, that it is twenty thoufand feet high ; but I think 1 may ven-ture to affert, that it is not above eight thoufand, for Mount St. Gothard in Switzer-land , is by no means one of the highed of the Alps, and its elevation above the Mediter-ranean is not above thirteen thoufand feet, and yet there is eternal ice and fnow on itsfumniit; whereas here we faw no vedige of ice or fnow, though the fummer is not yetmuch advanced. We were not above three hours in getting to the top on foot. TheprofpeQ: of the great mountains at our feet, and into Bohemia and Silefia, was drikingand magnificent. On the top of the hill there is a plain with a chapel on it, which isvjfited by pious people once a year.
The perfons who live at any didance from thefe hills, look upon it as a kind of won-der when any perfon goes to the top of them, and yet I afcended feveral in other partsor Germany , whofe didance from the bottom is much greater, and whofe elevation abovethe Mediterranean is as great again.
Though I was difappointed in my expectations of a great mountain, by finding onlya hill of a moderate fize, I was extremely pleafed with my journey upon the whole. Wefaw the mod romantic landfcapes it is poffible to imagine, particularly feveral vallies be-low the Schmeekopp, which were wonderfully pifturefque. Molt of the hills are coveredwith wood, and now and then a ragged peak darts up above them. The well wateredplains are extremely well cultivated; and, upon the whole, the inhabitants feem to bein better circumftances than thofe of the level plains of Bohemia .