CHAPTER VIII. 



THE UPPER BASIN OF THE ELBE AND THE MOEAVA. 

 (Bohemia, Moravia, and Austrian Silesia.) 



General Aspects, Mountains, a>^d Rivers. 



OHEMIA is usually looked upon as occujDying the very ceutre of 

 Europe. This is not in reality the case, for the geometrical centre 

 of Europe lies farther to the east, and the Alps, which form the 

 main watershed, rise to the south-west. Bohemia, nevertheless, 

 occupies an intermediate position between Northern and Southern, 

 Western and Eastern Europe. Like a huge quadrangular citadel, it advances into 

 the heart of the plains of Northern Germany. Of its four ramparts, the Bohemian 

 Forest and the Sudetes extend from the south-east to the north-west, whilst the 

 Ore Mountains (Erzgebirge), which separate Bohemia from Saxony, and the 

 plateau of Moravia, stretch from the south-west to the north-east. 



The general orographical features of no other country in Europe equal those 

 of Bohemia in simplicity. But when we come to examine these mountains in 

 detail we find that they vary exceedingly in their aspects. The Bohemian Forest 

 is made up of an undulating plateau, a system of parallel ranges, and a cluster 

 of curiously piled-up mountain summits. Only a few localities recall the Alps, 

 for the average height does not quite reach 4,000 feet, and the dome-shaped 

 masses of gneiss and schistose pyramids do not rise to any great height above the 

 valleys. There are, however, a few summits crowned with dykes of white quartz, 

 locally known as " Devil's Walls." The beauty of the Bohemian Forest must be 

 sought for in its "running streams," its blue lakelets, and its magnificent trees. 

 Nowhere else in Germany is the foliage of the beech denser, or the height of the 

 fir or pine more considerable. Only a few of the highest summits pierce the 

 region of forests, and reach into that of pastures. The woodman's axe has com- 

 mitted the usual havoc in these forests, but there exist wide tracts in primeval 

 luxuriance, with trees nearly a couple of hundred feet in height, and they are still 

 the home of the boar and the bison, the latter as well as the beaver being carefully 

 preserved. The wolf has been exterminated, and the last bear was killed in 1856. 

 The southern portion of the Bohemian Forest is undoubtedly more picturesque 



