_21st._ We quitted Feistritz early this morning, and returned by the same beautiful valley through which we had before passed. Sir Humphry caught fish enough upon our way to furnish us with another dinner at Wochain-Villach, and between this village and the lake of Veldes we witnessed a most beautiful atmospheric phenomenon. It commenced with a fine rainbow, which in a few minutes concentrated itself upon one of the finely wooded mountains in the valley, and here displayed the most beautiful prismatic colours possible; at the base blue, then red, then green, never extending beyond the outline of the mountain, and through these colours we could still plainly descry the dark green of the trees. It was on the whole the most splendid kind of rainbow I had ever beheld, and Sir Humphry said he had never seen such an one before. It lasted for about five minutes, then gradually disappeared, and proved the forerunner of a very heavy rain, which began to fall just as we entered Assling.
_22nd._ The morning was exceedingly cloudy, and upon leaving Assling we did not expect to see much of the country before us, but about ten o'clock it cleared up, and afforded us a view of the same kind of beautiful scenery as that below Assling, though growing wilder and more romantic as we ascended the valley. Kronau is a small bourg between Assling and Wurzen, and the glen, at the entrance of which it is situated, seems to be the finest in the whole valley, although the tops of the higher mountains were obscured by huge masses of cloud. We here met many hundreds of pilgrims, of both sexes, travelling in companies; some returning, some going to Mount Lushari, a lofty mountain about six leagues beyond Wurzen, where there is a famous shrine of the Virgin. Those who were returning were all singing hymns of joy at having been absolved from their sins; whilst those who were going walked in silence, many bearing serious and often mournful countenances.
Wurzen is a wretched little village, a collection of a few dozen of wooden huts, situated about two thousand feet above the level of the sea, at the foot of a pass which leads from Carniola into Carinthia, similar to that of the Löbel, but by no means so elevated. The post-house is tolerable, and the view from the windows magnificent, so much so, that Sir Humphry requested me to take a sketch of it for Lady Davy. The master of this inn is so remarkably civil that Sir Humphry has determined to stay for a day or two, and to make an excursion to the source of the Isonzo, which we are told is about twenty miles from Wurzen. In the afternoon Sir Humphry went out to fish, and I to examine the source of the Wurzen-Save, which rises about two miles above the village, and is of a character very different from the Savitza, or source of the Wochain-Save. The river here flows from a large pond, which appears perfectly insulated, lying in the midst of fields, at the end of a dry water-channel coming from one of the lateral vallies. The water in the pond is exceedingly clear, and at the bottom towards the centre, one discovers a number of very large holes, through which the water rises mixed with a great quantity of air, producing a constant ebullition on the surface of the middle of the pond, the water of which is perfectly cold.[C] After leaving the pond, the Wurzen-Save winds through the valley as a beautiful clear mountain stream, passing by Kronau, Assling, and Radmansdorf, where it receives the Wochain-Save, flowing from the lake of Wochain. These united branches are then called the Save, and the river flows on through the valley of the same name to Krainburg; it afterwards passes near Laybach, where it receives the river of that name with many other smaller streams, and rolls on, already a considerable river, through Carniola, passes by Agram, traverses Croatia, and then forms the boundary between Austria and Turkey till it reaches Belgrade, where it mixes its mighty and rapid waters, swollen to a great size by a hundred tributary streams, with those of the Danube, and rolls with it into the Black Sea.
