July 20.—The lake [Konigsee] was as smooth as glass; the mountains — which on one side do not leave a foothold for the chamois, and on the other only an obscure hunter's path, but no habitation for man—rose in grand and picturesque forms around us; now and then a cascade came rushing down the rock to join the still waters below; and twice, graceful islands broke their pure, smooth expanse. After rowing an hour and a quarter we came to a hunting-lodge of the King of Bavaria,1 built on a narrow strip of alluvial earth, which here stretches out into the lake. We landed and had some delicious fish for dinner, called saiblinge, much like our trout. The row back in the shadows of the afternoon, with the music of the Hallein miners before us,2 was delightful, and the approach to the gentle, cultivated valley beyond, dressed in the most brilliant green and lighted by the descending sun, was as beautiful as anything of the sort well can be. July 22.—. . . . After passing Lend we left the Salzach, and, joining the Ache, plunged deeper and deeper into the dark recesses of the mountains. As we rose we came to the Klam-Strasse, a gorge about two miles long, where the Ache has forced for itself so narrow a passage that while it boils and foams two or three hundred feet below, the perpendicular rocks above afford no shelf for the road in many places, except such as is cut into their sides or carried on stone arches and long wooden bridges from one cliff to another. It is said to be the most fearful of all the mountain passes in Central Europe, and I can readily believe it; for, though it is perfectly safe, it is not possible, I apprehend, to go through it without some sensation of insecurity.Until the first of August the travellers lingered in this beautiful country, including the remote valley of Gastein, closing their excursions with a few days at Munich, amidst the results of the
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following description of an excursion from Berchtesgarden to Konigsee and Obersee:—
1 Note by Mr. Ticknor: ‘The King comes here every summer and hunts. Sometimes he hunts chamois, which are then driven down by great numbers of peasants, from the summits of the mountains. The last hunt of this sort was four years ago [1832], and eighty-four chamois were killed. But it is a costly sport,—the forenoon's frolic having been paid for with 12,000 thalers (9,000 dollars),—and the present King of Bavaria is too economical to indulge in it often.’
2 A party of miners out for a frolic, with a band.
Boston, J. R. Osgood and company, 1876.
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