We had been obliged to pass a barrier or two of snow, in order to reach Swartzen-Koppee; but the snow was perfectly firm, and we suffered no inconvenience from it. The valley between Swartzen-Koppee and the peak beyond was quite clear; neither did a single flake rest upon the indistinct track, which the feet of travellers has, in the course of ages, marked up the face of the stony ridge which is called Schnee-Koppee. We therefore entered upon the task of ascending cheerfully, and found that there were no real difficulties to overcome. But we met with a little adventure, if such it deserves to be called, which appeared at the moment to be curious, and which has not yet lost all its interest with us. We were mistaken in supposing that we should be the first of this year's tourists to stand upon the top of Schnee-Koppee. Other wayfarers had been before us, and we saw them now descending in such a direction as to ensure our falling in with them during our upward progress. They proved to be three Dutch gentlemen, with a guide, who had come direct through Silesia from Schandau, and were able to tell us, when they discovered who we were, that a few days previously our friends at the baths were all alive and well. I need scarcely add that we stopped and chatted together, and finally parted as if we had been acquaintances of ten years' standing; for your bleak mountain's brow, like your cabin of an Edinburgh steam-ship, is an admirable concoctor of mushroom intimacies.
Having parted from our friends, not, however, without receiving from them some useful hints as to the descent into Silesia, we proceeded on, till we gained the loftiest peak of all. It is a huge cairn of loose stones, among which an innkeeper from Warmbrunn has built a tower; whither in the summer months he conveys food, wine, and beds, for all of which he, as may be expected, charges enormously. We had a pint of indifferent Rhine wine from him, which cost us a dollar, and we purchased a couple of long sticks, for which we paid twenty groschens more. But we were not induced, by his suggestions that sunrise and sunset were both exceeding glorious when watched from such a situation, to spend the night under his roof. On the contrary, after looking about us only to ascertain that the view, intercepted by the fog, was not to be compared with what we had seen in the morning, we wished him farewell; and, beholding at our feet the town of Warmbrunn, we plunged down towards it.