Foreign Parts
The Harz Mountains

Foreign Parts.

The Hartz Mountains.

In the height of summer—now long passed away—the heat, even here in the north of Germany, was so oppressive that we gave up making greater excursions, and contented ourselves in seeking the deep shades of the venerable old oak-groves in the lands along the shores of the Lower Weser, and resolved only to take such short trips in the surrounding districts, as described in our last letter. But on the 7th of September we left our homely quarters to undertake a wider tour: a journey into the Hartz Mountains, a territory so closely connected with the ancient history of the Anglo-Saxon race. By rail we started from Bremen, and after a short stay in the magnificent and interesting old Welf towns Hanover and Brunswick, arrived in the town of Goslar, in whose ancient grey moss and ivy clad walls many long centuries ago, in old and glorious rich times, the Saxon Dukes and the Emperors held court.

In the midst of summer this beautiful, very clean and highly interesting town, which is charmingly situated at the foot of the Hartz Mountains, is actually swarming with visitors from all parts of the globe, but especially from New York, Berlin and London, and in such crowds as to exceed local population threefold. But at present only very few of these fashionable and tender townies move about in these heights—

This is the very ancient device of the brave mountaineer people of the Hartz, and it appears as if this brief heart-felt supplication was granted quite completely, for on the most manifold windings of the pleasure walks, as well as on the local and commercial roads, everywhere, and even on the highest and steepest crags of the mountains, grows the majestic, evergreen and useful Edelweis-Tanne, the noble pine of North Europe, harmoniously intermixed with oak, beech and other forest trees. In strange and fantastic style the roots of these giant pines encircle and grasp the big water-worn granite boulders on the sterile slopes of the great heights, far and near. These pines are here by a system of scientific and thorough practical forestry, cultivated in any place where agriculture and grazing fails to gain results; and through constant growing, local prices for timber and firewood are regulated. At the great number of paper manufactories the fine white pine wood is ground into a flour-like substance, whereof the cheap white paper is made in Germany, and sold over all parts of the civilised globe.

The mining industry and ore smelting works are constantly increasing, and employ in these mountains hundreds of thousands of hands, which certifies to the enormous richness of these parts in ore (Erz); and what the “jolly hearts” (fröhliche Herzen) of the Hartz mountaineer people concerns, it does not make expression in rude and offensive savagery, but shows itself in the contented, happy mien, sturdy bodies, friendly, jolly eyes, and red cheeks of the simple-hearted, clean and diligent men, women and children; and of the latter there are swarms to be seen in the towns, as well as in the country, going to and from school.

The ancient town of Goslar is crowded with very old building relics, preserved with great piety by the populace and authorities since very many centuries. There are fortification towers and walls, palaces of the great, churches and chapels, with tombs of Emperors out of the times of the Crusaders. There is an old Convent, so well preserved that you think you hear the monks yet; and still are these walls so ancient that they have seen the times when the wild, heathen independent Saxons, with their Druidical priests under their Duke Wittekind, were forcibly baptised by the soldiery of Charles the Great (Charlemagne); times when roads scarcely existed, and wild bears and wolves were prowling about in places where at present the bells of peaceably grazing cattle tinkle along the mountain slopes; where the noble stag browses in the forest, and where tourists from all zones walk in comfort and breathe the pure air of this blessed North European highland. Old grim fortification bastions and walls bear witness of heavy times through which old Europe had to penetrate before her sons and daughters—for whom the old homes naturally would at last grow too narrow—could at last shift into the spacious and extensive lands on the opposite side of the globe.

We saw also the Kaiserhans, an old magnificent hall, with grand new fresco pictures; old, old grey chapels, chiselled into the solid rock; old guild mansions and ruined robber knight castles; in fact, so many old relics did we inspect on rainy days that we preferred in a series of pedestrian excursions to explore the many grand sights which the exquisite beauty of the Hartz Mountains afford.

Kah[n—]klee is a highly fashionable sanitorium, and consists of a wreath of quite palace-like villas. As it is situated very high above the sea level, midst pine-clad sunny hills with an abundance of purest sparkling waters, it is in the summer time the resort of a very wealthy public. We looked at these establishments from the outside, and through the costly fences at the ridiculous attempts to grow in these regions tropical plants in the choice flower beds and flower-stands; and went farther on towards the “Auerhahn,” a simple, old-fashioned, but very clean wayside inn, and reached Goslar. Here we felt quite at home during the two weeks residence there, in private quarters. We undertook a great number of similar journeys as the above described, but always on foot; also we undertook to go deep into the bowels of the earth, into the world celebrated

Rammelsberg Mines.

For the payment of 2s 6d each we were furnished with a guide, miners’ suits and lamps; and then downward we went hundreds of feet deep into the interior of the earth, and afterwards on different flats horizontal into endless appearing drives, where on rails in constant succession trucks are run, filled with ore, to places where they are by water power worked lifts brought to the surface. In the smelting works they are compelled by human skill and energy to give up their lovely metals, so long in the darkness of hidden caves concealed in natural crystallisation, and forced into hard copper or lead or gold and silver. Deep under the earth we heard the roaring and splashing of subterranean waters, which are in restless hurry by pumping works removed to prevent the drowning and suffocating of thousands of mining men who work in shifts here by night and day. These mines are very old, and it appears to us that these mountains are excavated in all directions, or at least have been excavated and filled up again by such stone, etc., which are devoid of mineral.

In these Rammelsberg mines copper and tin are found, and we are told that in the smelting works the former yields a certain percentage of gold and the latter silver. In one part of these mines, where a great heat prevailed (in other parts the temperature is very fresh and airy) sulphur and vitriol are gained, which are embedded in extraordinary hard basalt-like stone. The miners are stripped almost naked. Their pickaxes are extra hard, and you see in the dark the sparks fly out from their blows on the flint-like stone. (Sulphur and brimstone; vitriol: naked poor souls; flying sparks; and suffocating heat! May not here, perhaps, be close by the entrance to the “Averno?”)

A special kind of nervous tickling and twitching overcame us, and my little wife in her funny mining dress shuddered and tugged me away. No wonder that in book and newspaper lore antiquity the old hell and devil fables sprang up and were spread about in the human race up to the present days.

These Hartz mines are all under Government control, and the miners work on a kind of share system. They have all piece-work, which is given out in contracts: only the scientifically, technically and commercially trained and answerable officers get fixed salaries.

On the following day we were on tour from Goslar, via Langesheim, Wildemann, and Leuenthal, to Klausthal, and by and bye the fact became clear to us that the centre of the Hartz is a high tableland, which is surrounded by a very wild, rugged circle of gullies and valleys, which all run down from the Brocken Berg, about 12,000 yards high. Klausthal is situated on this high plateau, and as in a wide circle mining and quarrying is carried on to a very great extent there are here, and at the adjoining town of Zellerfeld, the chief offices, high schools, and valuable libraries and museums concerning the mining trade and the science of geology, etc. But on this tableland, from Elbingerode to Rubeland and farther to the east, where agriculture, horticulture and grazing is vigorously carried on, the climate is very rough, and the soil sterile; but still there is not an inch of soil which is neglected by a very hard-working, honest, kind and frugal people.

We found a surprisingly good quarter in the Schutzenhof Hotel at Klausthal; next day inspected the surrounding districts of this interesting mining town about Osterode and Buntenbock, and marched in deep fog early on the following morning from Klausthal, via Zellerfeld, to Altenau, and after a short repast at dinnertime, walked in good weather all down the comfortable roads along the celebrated charming Oker Valley, and reached in the evening our old quarter at Goslar. Mrs. R. has reckoned out that we walked 25 English miles; but she exclaims with pride, “We never saw anywhere such lovely changing scenery, and were quite fascinated by the Ronkerhall waterfall.” And I subscribe to this with all my heart.

The Oker River is not navigable, but by its enormous fall has all along the banks a great power; therefore, it is in many places dammed off and forced to drive a great number of mills and manufactories. The heights on both sides are all planted with pines, which grow to a thickness of 2½ to 3 feet and to enormous height, therefore a very brisk timber trade is carried on, and surprising are the large number of mills which out of the raw simple white pine wood manufacture enormous quantities of paper. On every suitable corner are Kurhouses (sanatoriums) built in grandest style and surrounded by tasteful parks and gardens, and there are pleasure walks, bona-vista towers, etc., in all directions for the hundreds of thousands of people who swarm here during the heat of summer.

The harvesting time of cereals and vegetables falls here much later than in the low lands of north-west Germany. At the present time (September) grain and hay on the Lower Weserland are all secure and dry under the big, long roofs of the thatched farm houses there; but here on the Hartz the hay was just cut and had to lay in fog and rain, and could not get dry enough, and so rotted this year. The sheaves of grain even began to grow out in the stooks. Potatoes are in abundance and in good quality, but by constant night-rain could not be harvested. The same fate had the sugar-beet, which on flat fields northwards, towards Kalberstadt and Magdeburg, is cultivated in enormous quantities by a very thrifty and frugal populace. On the lands of the lower Weser we saw all sorts of turnips, mangelwurzel, and carrots, but no sugar-beet.

We next took railway tickets to Blankenburg, sent our bigger luggage ahead to Thale, and followed on foot. The town of Thale is a highly elegant Kur-place; but there are also a good many honest, clean people, who are willing to rent neat rooms to simple tourists like us. After our hurried establishment and a substantial meal, we slung our “tucker bags” across shoulders and, bergstick in hand, began at once to climb the green hills, farther and farther upwards on the zigzag paths to the Hexem-Tanz-Platz (witches’ dancingplace), where a splendid view from a high, steep, rocky height all over the wide plain mountains and dales stretches out. In front of us stares a wide, grim, rocky cleft; opposite towers up the steep, broad, stony wall, cloud’s-high the Ross-Trappe (horse footprint), and deep down below in the Hexen-Kessel (witches’ cauldron) runs the wild, romantic Bode river.

In grey, ancient times the wide Bode valley westwards must have been an immense lake, fed by the waters flowing down from the Brocken and other mountains. The subterranean waters later on must have forced themselves through the porous rocks, and after centuries of work and pressure washed bigger openings in the rocks, and flowed more freely, first as cascades and waterfalls, into the rivers and streams to the plains northwards. Later on (like on the Rhine at the Binger Loch, on the Danube at Orshowa, at the Eiserne Thor, or iron gate) crevices were formed by the waters in the rocks, and when the overhanging arch with the earth on the surface had tumbled down, a first very narrow gulch was constructed by these natu[ral] powers, over which (as sage or tradition has it) bold, impudent knights and desperate persecuted maidens on horseback forced their steeds to jump. The sage about the Ilsenstein (vide a following paragraph in this letter) appears also to anticipate a similar elementary change of landscape.

The origin of the old sage about dancing of crowds of witches in the Walpurgis night (between last April and 1st May) in these heights, as well as on top of the Brocken Berg, some will explain by the strange formation of shreds of clouds torn and scattered about at the end of winter in these northern mountain regions. Others see in this old sage traditions of grey antiquity of secret meetings of outlawed fanatical druidical priests and their followers at those ancient times when, 1000 years ago, Emperor Karl der Grosse (Charlemagne) forcibly baptized the ancient Saxons. However this may or may not be, at present stands on this height (about 800 feet steep above the bed of the sparkling swift-flowing Bode River) a very fashionable extensive hotel, whereon a letter mailbox is fixed. On a day in the beginning of June last year in this one mailbox alone over 6000 illustrated postcards were deposited by the visiting summer tourists, proof of the very numerous crowds of visitors.

On the following day we walked along the very long craggy Bode thal (or rather gully) with steep granite walls of many hundred feet high, pinnacles, walls, caves, etc., upstream to the village of Ireseburg. Here the landscape looks more like a valley. You see right and left on craggy heights ruins of Robber Knights, and in the forests are enormous flocks of game. Deer, roes, wild boars, hares, pheasants, etc., abound, as the many tracks on the roads and roadsides prove. For our return journey we chose the road along the left bank of the Bode River, and arrived here at the Rosstrappe, opposite the Hexentanzzlatz, also a steep high wall of rocks about 800 feet high, on top of which is also an eminent hotel. On this Rosstrappe, the footprint of a horse’s hoof is embedded as a token that from here the “wicked knight” Bodo persecuted the good, shy maiden Bruinhilde, who, in desperation, jumped her “noble white steed” safely over this precipice, while the wicked Knight’s horse fell in, and both were, of course, smashed to atoms. This footprint is shown to the wondering public by a martial old veteran, who also for 1½d fires off pistol shots, and thereby makes the eight-fold echo in these localities. This old man has, by the forest authorities, a privilege for these jobs, it is said, makes a great deal of money by it. He sells also Ausichts postcards.

As it was our desire to see also the highest point of the Hartz, the celebrated Brocken, we went back to Blankenburg, and hence to Wernigerode, a small, but neat and tidy little old town, with many venerable buildings. It reminded us of the very ancient history of these parts. Wernigerode was once a very strong fortified place, and the wide landscape all round belongs at present still to the Prince of Stollberg-Wernigerode, who on a protruding rock (which is the outrunning point of a long stretching mountain spur) has a very beautiful castle. But any sovereign power, or even any public office, the present Prince has no more. This lays at present (like in the Hanoverian and Brunswick territory) alone in the hands of the Central Imperial Government of Germany and the (by the people elected) Reichstag.

About 15 miles from Wernigerode, in the upper valley of the Bode River, near the small mining town of Rubeland, are two highly interesting limestone caves—the Baumans-Höhle and the Hermans-Höhle. The former is the oldest one, and excels in very spacious temple like, high-arched halls, but is almost entirely without stalactites. Both caves are for visitors of all descriptions, very liberally and comfortably fitted out with dry footpaths, staircases, electric lights and bridges. The Hermans cave is by far the most beautiful of the two, as it has a great expansion by a complicated network of passages full of most remarkable stalactites, so that we had about 1½ hours to walk to see all. The grandest and quite surprising parts were only a short time ago explored under great difficulties, for the public opened Crystal Chambers. Even the grandest jeweller’s shop could not excel, and is left far back in splendour by the pure white adamantine glory of this enormous gigantic nest of stalactites and crystals of all possible forms. You almost imagine you look in the submarine wonders of corals. There are glassy, fine, tiny flowers, mosses, vegetables, arabesques of quite new patterns, and strange harmonious styles built up like out of tenderest snow-feathers. It is really strange, and has no conceivable reason that in the dark interior of our earth should have been hidden away such a world of beauty, which apparently, only through the at present invented electric illumination, gets full acknowledgment! Or do there exist in such caverns in the bowels of the earth senses who, without the (for human eyes necessary) lights, appreciate such sublime beauties? This question arose in my brain, when through a very dark passage we had, like a string of bats, to climb out of this wonderful earth-hole.

At last we arrived again into the warm, bright sunset, and took at once a road to Wernigerode back again, but far off the high way, through fields and high fenced-off game parks, along narrow mountain paths and timber-car tracks, along steep mountain spurs, over the saddles of hills and through dales, via the Forester house of Hunsrücken, up and down hills, for miles through narrow planted, wet, young pines. We came at last in front of a 10 feet high deer-proof fence, enclosing the park of the Wernigeroder castle. Suddenly we were back in the homely, cleanly electricity lighted streets of Wernigerode.

This tour was not through the length (although we walked far more than 30 miles), but more through the rough character of the road, rather laborious, especially as we—of course, without knowing—got in the forbidden territory of the princely game reserve, so that, up to the last, bethought us almost “bushed”; but still, to our great surprise, by our Australian bush instinct, steered quite in the correct direction.

Another beautiful climb we undertook to the Steinerne Renne Waterfall. This is a very deep, steep cliff, from the top of the Brockenberg down, and the view of this was almost paralysing, as just at that time extraordinary heavy rains fell at night time, and the waterfall had become loud and wild. Our path winds upwards through granite boulders of immense and most manifold shape, all water-worn, and in such grotesque way on the high sides of our path (one across the other) from the enormous side of the old Brocken Mount tumbled together. Here lay these moss-overgrown grey monsters, in size from elephants to church towers, grasped in desperate embrace by the roots of giant pine trees, but threatening as if they would just wait for you to step under and crash down. But in this position have they, perhaps, as their thick moss drapery proves, been situated many thousands of years. All stones in this part of the Hartz are a red and dark brown coarse granite, and on these very high parts even this hardy northland pine grows somewhat crippled.

On the following day we shifted quarters again from Wernigerode to Ilsenburg, which is in a farther westerly situated valley towards Goslar, only about three miles from the Brocken Mountain. Always on our journeys have we been very lucky in the finding of suitable comfortable quarters, and also this time we got for a few days a neat, clean, comfortable nest.

After dining, we at once, in a wide zig zag, through pines, brambleberries and blackberries, higher and higher, went up to the enormous height of the celebrated pinnacle, the Ilsenstein (vide Princess Ilse, poem by H. Hine). Our highly interesting zig zag road led to a steep pointed 1000 feet, direct over the main road below, overhanging the granite pinnacle the Ilse stone, at the foot of which the cool sparkling mountain stream, the Ilse Back, flows. Standing on the utmost point of this enormous obelisk, the coolest sceptic would not be able to stand alone, arms akimbo, and look down. He would have to hold fast on to something trustworthy, and this in this enormous height only, a huge 10 feet high iron cross. Fixed here firmly into the granite in the year 1814, in memory of the, by streams of blood, victoriously regained liberty of Germany in the battle of Leipzig. The only safe holdfast for those who venture to put their trembling human pedals on this elevated, narrow, overhanging standing place.

From Ilseburg, we made on the following day a tour to the highly elegant, but also at this late season desolate and empty sanatorium Harzburg, and we went during very clear weather to the Radau Waterfall, and also along a very interesting road upwards towards the Brocken, to the Molkenhans, where in winter the red and black game is fed. Although below the weather was fine, and all around the sky clear, the top of sour old Brocken was covered with an ugly cap of clouds (perhaps snow). We ventured to go upwards as far as the Forester house at Scharfenstein. Here, crossing over a bleak height, where nothing grows but moss on the big, rough, old, granite boulders, such a sudden icy windgust caught us that it almost tumbled us over. We came to the conclusion that, although his sides are most lovely and interesting, the top of old Brockenberg is horrid.

The landscapes in the valleys possess a strange, strengthening, hilarious charm through a light and pure and fresh air, and through the every minute changing friendly views, which repay richly the troubles of the walks.

People who are not well up in walking should not attempt to visit the Hartz Mountains, for the greatest charms represent themselves at points which are scarcely otherwise accessible; on rocky cliffs and in the many narrow footpaths, where horses, and even bicycles, are not allowed to travel along.

The highest point of the Brocken, during our stay at Ilseburg, we preferred not to ascend, however near we were. We visited this high altitude before from Wernigerode; but rain, mixed with snowflakes and an icy hurricane wind, was then, as almost always at this late season, so severe that we, without looking much round in that impenetrable thick mist, returned via Shierke, to less high, but more agreeable regions.

The last day of our sojourn in the fresh, green, homely Hartz, was by far not the worst. We forwarded our heavy luggage per rail ahead, and tramped with our tucker bags and berg sticks early on the next morning, via Harzburg to Goslar. This road leads, in moderate but continuous rise, up to a mighty high range. On the summit above are especially remarkable granite boulders, which are, surely by nature and accident, but so strangely constructed, that it, to the surprised spectator, appears as if they were by unknown giant powers and by human intelligence for direct human-like use so laid down, and the materials are water-worn granite blocks as big as huge towers. Mankind in its smallness (wherever born and how educated makes here no difference) in viewing these sights, stands speechless. Have, then, really Cyclops (vide Homer’s Odyssey) been living here, and been here at work?

Here is the Hexenküche (the witches’ kitchen) a veritable chimney, as if constructed for women of about 50 feet high; also at another spot is the Hümen Grotte (giants’ grotto). A quite flat table, like granite stone, in size of about 25 x 30 feet square, and of immense thickness, is in height of about 25 feet, propped up by surrounding walls and rough pillars, and appears in his entire solid and undivided raw weight as if he was lightly balanced like a butterfly, and forms a secure ceiling to this formidable motto. Furthermore, there is a much more surprising group, the Mausefalle (mouse trap). Here it appears as if a formidable boulder, in size of two big elephants, and flat underneath, actually hangs free in the air; and, in fact, Colossus is only propped securely on one side, while on the opposite side it is held in this situation by two long stout cones in form of sugar loaves put one on top of another. This conformation appears, indeed, like a very clever manufactured mouse-trap, and threatens to collapse at any instant. And still it is surely formed so accidental by elementary powers at times, when our old mother earth “was in her baby dresses,” perhaps before hundreds of millenniums, like the granite walls and pinnacles of the Rosstrappe, Ilse rock, etc., and they stand because they are built out of almost unalterable granite. They are kept standing, while the softer substances around, weak and deceitful, got separated from them. And also for the Ilse rock, for the Rosstrappe, the Lurley rock, the Mouse trap, and for the Gibraltar rock will arrive a time of collapse, for all matter, even the hardest granite, is subject, like all eternal substance, to eternal change.

Under such thoughts and meditations, we arrived at last at the top of Romkerhall Waterfall, and descended under the spray of its waters, which the fresh breeze blew over us as if it was going to baptise us, and we arrived down below at the hotel in the lovely Oker Valley, and went, after a solid repast, slowly to the station, and travelled on the following morning by rail via Goslar, Hildesheim and Hanover, back here to Delmenhurst, and intend, after a few weeks rest, to journey up the Rhine River, where at present the time of the grape season is, and where—also at harvest time—a journey is not too late, however short in these northern latitudes the days grow at present.

H. and F. Rieck.