Higher And Higher We Climbed, And Grander And Grander Towered The
Frowning Moon-Bathed Mountains Round Us, And Chillier And Chillier
Grew The Air.
For most of the way we crawled along, the horses
tugging us from side to side of the steep
Road; but, wherever our
coachman could vary the monotony of the pace by a stretch-gallop -
as, for instance, down the precipitous descents that occasionally
followed upon some extra long and toilsome ascent - he thoughtfully
did so. At such times the drive became really quite exciting, and
all our weariness was forgotten.
The steeper the descent, the faster, of course, we could go. The
rougher the road, the more anxious the horses seemed to be to get
over it quickly. During the gallop, B. and I enjoyed, in a
condensed form, all the advantages usually derived from crossing the
Channel on a stormy day, riding on a switchback railway, and being
tossed in a blanket - a hard, nobbly blanket, full of nasty corners
and sharp edges. I should never have thought that so many different
sensations could have been obtained from one machine!
About half-way up we passed Ettal, at the entrance to the Valley of
the Ammer. The great white temple, standing, surrounded by its
little village, high up amid the mountain solitudes, is a famous
place of pilgrimage among devout Catholics. Many hundreds of years
ago, one of the early Bavarian kings built here a monastery as a
shrine for a miraculous image of the Virgin that had been sent down
to him from Heaven to help him when, in a foreign land, he had stood
sore in need, encompassed by his enemies.
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