s,
under the name of "Saxon Switzerland (SACHSISCHE SCHWEITZ)," instead of
"Misnian Highlands (MEISSNISCHE HOCHLAND)," which it used to be called.
A beautiful enough and extremely rugged Country; interesting to the
picturesque mind. Begins rising, in soft Hills, on both sides of the
Elbe, a few miles east of Dresden, as you ascend the River; till it
rises into Hills of wild character, getting ever wilder, and riven into
wondrous chasms and precipices. Extends, say almost twenty miles up
the River, to Tetschen and beyond, in this eastern direction; and with
perhaps ten miles of breadth on each side of the River: area of the
Rock-region, therefore, is perhaps some four hundred square miles. The
Falkenberg (what we should call HAWKSCRAG) northeastward in the Lausitz,
the Schneeberg (SNOW MOUNTAIN), southeastward on the Bohemian border,
are about thirty-five miles apart: these two are both reckoned to be in
it,--its last outposts on that eastern side. But the limits of it are
fixed by custom only, and depend on no natural condition.

We might define it as the Sandstone NECK of the Metal Mountains: a
rather lower block, of Sandstone, intercalated into the Metal-Mountain
range, which otherwise, on both hands, is higher, and of harder rocks.
Southward (as SHOULDER to this sandstone NECK) lies, continuous, broad
and high, the "Metal-Mountain range" specially so called: northward
and northeastward there rise, beyond that Falkenberg, many mountains,
solitary or in groups,--"the Metal Mountains" fading out here into "the
Lausitz Hills," still in fine picturesque fashion, which are Northern
Border to the great Bohemian "Basin of the Elba," after you emerge from
this Sandstone Country.

Saxon Switzerland is not very high anywhere; 2,000 feet is a notable
degree of height: but it is torn and tumbled into stone labyrinths,
chasms and winding rock-walls, as few regions are. Grows pinewood, to
the topmost height; pine-trees far aloft look quietly down upon you,
over sheer precipices, on your intricate path. On the slopes of the
Hills is grass enough; in the intervals are Villages and husbandries,
are corn and milk for the laborious natives,--who depend mainly on
quarrying, and pine-forest work: pines and free-stone, rafts of long
slim pines, and big stone barges, are what one sees upon the River
there. A Note, not very geological, says of it:--

"Elbe sweeps freely through this Country, for ages and aeons past;
curling himself a litt