The Argosy — page 160: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

146 From Salzburg to Gastein. Other has to draw into a hollow of the rock, blasted out for the purpose. Occasionally you pass under a deep overhanging piece of rock that seems threatening to fall and crush the luckless wayfarer. The sense of the dangerous and ternble is in many places heightened by cracks and fissures, so that portions of stone, big as houses, seem suspended as it were by a mere thread, on the point of snapping. That many enormous pieces have fallen from time to time is testified by the frag- ments that lie at the bottom of the precipice, and by the eternal ruts that mark their path to their final resting place. So grand and fearful was it that it is no figure of speech to say that breath was taken away ; not from fear—in moments of danger or excitement fear finds no place —but from the nature of the scene. At one point was an ancient gate- way and castle, the Klammstein, commanding the pass, built as far back as the eleventh century, and still in perfect preservation. The ascent achieved, the valley of Gastein opened to view. There are three villages of Gastein at some distance from each other. Dorf-Gastein, Hof-Gastein, and lastly Wildbad-Gastein, sometimes shortened to Bad-Gastein ; more commonly called simply Gastein : the Gastein par excellence. Beyond this there is still Bockstein, a corrup- tion of Bock-Gastein ; a small village now utterly insignificant. Here comes what may fairly be called the end of the world, for vehicles of every description having got so far must confess themselves beaten, and for many miles retrace their steps. First, Dorf-Gastein, whence at the far end of the valley the snow mountains towered into sight. But the valley here is so wide; looking all the wider in contrast with the narrow pass just scaled; that you forget the fact of its being a valley. On either hand the mountains are green and fertile, sloping away and resembling a little those gardens on the banks of the Rhine. Beyond Hof-Gastein began the final ascent leading to Gastein, which from a distance looked a small cluster of houses embedded in the mountains : great mountains that closed _in at the head of the valley in every direction but that from which we were travelling. Heart sank and pulse went down as I wondered whence came the wonderful, much- vaunted, fresh, life-giving breezes. “ That is not Gastein,” I asserted to the coachman, on the verge of despair, as if putting the question in the form of a denial would in- fluence the answer. “Ya! ya! Gastein,” responded he, quite as emphatitally, and with a sigh of relief. __... “ But I thought Gastein was at the top of a high mountain ?” ~€J don’t think we have had much down-hill work,” retorted the man comically. ‘‘True, But there are mountains still higher.” ‘And high enough they are,” he answered in the same tone, © **I ECORNICLOOO SS (C(O) in —_)