Austria Author:James Baker Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: early spring, and we dropped down into the narrow defile after a walk from the little town of Herren- skretchen to the village of Johnsdorf. Often since then hav... more »e I pierced into these silent mountain recesses, beautiful at all seasons, but even in autumn never more lovely than on this day of spring, when the sombre pines that sprang from every rock ledge contrasted with the delicate, fresh, young green leaves of the birch; the winter's torrents were still frozen, and hung in crystal light-blue and white cascades over the grey, towering rocks; and these rocks were lit up with great splashes of sulphur-hued lichen, whilst overhead, above the mighty precipitous palisades, was the soft, clear blue sky in brilliant sunshine. Down through the gorge, rushes and hurtles, and foams onward the little river Kamnitz, rushing down rapids and over falls, but all at once it reaches a deeply worn bed, and all is still: and one can take a boat, and in absolute silence float on down the stream until another waterfall is reached, and the boat must be abandoned. A pleasant walk leads on through a gorge that reminds one of the Lyn Valley in Devon, or the Wye and its upper reaches, and yet here there is a vastness, and touches of colour not present in Welsh or Devon scenery. Then again a boat can be taken, and save in dry seasons the rapids of the little Kamnitz can be shot, down to the romantic village of Herrenskretchen on the broad Elbe. This is as it were but a thumb-nail sketch of a marvellously beautiful scene, about which one could paint many pictures; but our vast subject and limited space enforce condensation, and this picture of Edmunds Klamm pleads to the reader to imagine mndreds of such scenes as this in Bohemia, and in ther parts of Austria, where her mountain streams Jarve out a be...« less