About the Rose Garden at Saint Eustace, or How I Came to the Back Country
"The praises of the Back Country, its creatures and colors, made by the blessed pilgrim as he lay enchanted with Saint Eustace in the Rose Garden, alone under the blue sky on a white rock, begin."
Miloslav Nevrly
When I first entered the vast maze of gorges around the Křinice River, I felt like a discoverer of new lands, like an Indian in the Amazon rainforest. Water was pouring down from the clouds, and the mud in the Pryskyřičný důl reached above my knees. We had been trudging through the rain like this for several hours. Then suddenly a small cabin appeared behind a rocky promontory. It was dry, warm inside, and embers were still smoldering in the stones the size of two éšus. All I had to do was throw in a few chips and the fire would flare up again. Was it a coincidence or perhaps a reward for a whole day of trudging? I still don't know who left a moment before us that time into the unkind and sad autumn evening, and I'll probably never know. Maybe he wanted to be alone, or he had to run away from people. But we praised him at the time and forgave him all his sins. Maybe he forgave us that raw autumn night too. Today, the cottage is no longer standing and only more and more raindrops sprinkle the deep ravine below the Rose Garden. (…)
About the Backlands – the Kingdom of Sand
"Bohemia may be a kingdom of sandstone cities, but none can match the Jetřichovice Walls in size, wildness, or solitude."
Miloslav Nevrly
The back country, a rocky and lonely landscape near the state border – it is also called Bohemian Switzerland.1The Back Country – in Miloslav Nevrlý's view, this is the abandoned and therefore the most beautiful part of the Elbe Sandstones, an uninhabited corner of the former Niederland (Lower Country), stretching along the state border with Germany roughly from the Jetřichovice Walls to Hřensko. Sand washed into the sea delta eighty million years ago by Mesozoic rivers and compressed into a massive slab of malleable rock. The hinterland is a remote region. Ravines and forests stretch far into the distance. During the day, only the calls of ravens and black woodpeckers carry above them, at night they are illuminated only by the moon. You can wander through them for hours, days, weeks, your feet hurt from the path, you have to step over a fallen tree trunk ten thousand times. You can experience a feeling of solitude in them and listen to the falling grains of sand in complete silence. Deep under the carpets of peat bogs, a path of smoothly worked sandstone blocks leads. Time has swallowed up the wooden monuments. Signs once carved by people into the rocks – hunting trumpets, earl signs, crosses, wolf tablets, lynx and bear stones, inscriptions and dates – remain. There are many strange things hidden in the Back Country. (…)
The Backlands is a remote region. The journey there takes a long time and you have to walk. There are no roads, and cars are not allowed on those in the forests. There is no drinking water, so there are few inns and lodgings. That is why few visitors come, and those who do come have to carry their beds with them and spread them out under the rocky overhangs before nightfall. There are no good, detailed maps of the Backlands. In the gorges, which at first seem countless and undetectable, it is terribly difficult to get lost. Bohemia is a kingdom of sandstone cities, but none can match the Jetřichovice Walls in size, wildness, or loneliness. The Backlands is a remote region. (…) The Backlands is a poor region. Only sand washed into the sea delta eighty million years ago by Mesozoic rivers and compressed into an eight hundred meter high slab of malleable rock. The sea dried up and fifteen million years ago the earth's forces lifted the stone slab several hundred meters higher. And then, for another endless eons, fresh water seeped into ever deeper cracks and equally sweet eternal winds carried away grain of sand one grain at a time, until together they carved the Backland into the shape of ravines that sank into the ancient seabed in seemingly endless numbers. Sandstone is a poor rock, and therefore its children – the plants and forests of the Backland – are also poor. The flowers here are not very colorful and the forests are not rich in species, but on the other hand – from horizon to horizon! The Backland is a poor region. (…) A kingdom of sand, compressed by the sea and the earth's gravity. There is no color that the sand of the Jetřichovice walls cannot have. From black, covered with age, to bright white on broken walls. In between, the yellow and orange of lichens, the red and brown of iron roses, the green of moss primroses. The brownish purple color of damp crevices. Sand everywhere. If you fall asleep on a quiet night under an overhang, you hear sand gently raining down from the face of the walls, as if someone were treading lightly in the night. The sand is pouring into the dry beech leaves. It gnaws at time and eats away at the rocks. (…)
How she accepted me and how the Back Country accepted me
"When the vast expanses of the region accept you, you've won..."
Miloslav Nevrly
When I descended from the rocky promontory above the Snowy Ravine, I plunged into the rocky mazes. I had no map, I got lost a lot, I came to pathless ravines that ended in rock walls, rivers flowed through other ravines and others were completely dry. I found myself in places I would have sworn I had already stood in an hour ago, but I certainly didn’t know it. The Back Country captivated me. The most wonderful moments are those when an unknown region draws you in with a magical force that you can’t escape. A blessed day when you first excitedly touch unknown hair, unknown land. I wandered there for a day, two, a whole week. When I came out of the rocks and forests, I wrote in my diary that the Back Country is a sleeping, poor, remote and romantic region. (…)
When I first arrive in a beautiful and unknown region, I let its vastness affect me for a long time and quietly. I sit, the breeze blows, I observe the region. The distant greenery of forests from horizon to horizon. Or the immense expanses of waving steppe grasses. Endless desert sands. The dazzling, ever-changing levels of lake waters. When the vast expanses of the region accept you, you are won over. Perhaps it is inappropriate to mention it here, but when you are with an unknown landscape for the first time, it is similar – at least it has always seemed that way to me – to when you are with an unknown girl for the first time. The expanses of land – forests, grasses and sands seem to resemble a girl’s hair. With girls, too, it is best to start by conquering their hair. If they accept you, you are won over. Girl’s hair – the seashore. The restless male sea meets the unknown land for the first time here. It is impossible to distinguish where the water ends and the land begins. The earth is not yet afraid of conquering waters, it is still far inland, so the hair involuntarily gives in to caresses, the first touches of a man's fingers disappear in them as easily and seemingly unnoticed as water in coastal sand. The ends of the hair - no man's land. The earth can still allow itself to be caressed without obligation or shame, the sea can still retreat with honor. In the sand and in the hair, two realms meet, two elements that cannot exist without each other - even if they are actually enemies. The sea involuntarily caresses and caresses the earth, it is still possible to flow back into the ocean, but the first decisive touch has already been made. The Back Country admitted me to itself for the first time one autumn day, when I looked at its endless expanses from a rocky promontory high above the Snowy Gorge. A large dog sat quietly next to me, the cold wind rustling through its long fur. It was as if a wolf was sitting high above the Yellowstone Valley. He lowered his head into the dark, yet colorful ravines and inhaled with his nose the same beauty that I took in with my eyes. What was a miracle for me, something ineffable, something that lies beyond sight, was for him a scent, an expectation of something that lies far beyond his sense of smell. (…) But a man, to his detriment, is not satisfied with merely caressing his hair. It is necessary to advance one step, then another, it is necessary to conquer a new country, to rid it of its secrets, of what is most miraculous about it. To know it as thoroughly as possible, to the core. That is why I have already armed myself for the next expedition. With a map, albeit a very bad one, but I have never had a better one. Also with a pencil, a notebook and a systematic desire to discover as much as possible. It is a destructive desire because it never ends, it is never satisfied. (…)
You will remain alone on a lonely hill or what you can experience in the Backcountry
“… if you squint your eyes, or even close one eye, you suddenly feel as if you are floating and… observing the endless forests of the Amazon.”
Miloslav Nevrly
In the dry hinterland you can experience Mediterranean, Greek evenings and nights. Spread out your sleeping bag on the top of the Bird or Hen Stone on a hot, perhaps thirty-degree August evening. When you arrive, a mighty deer may also be standing on the edge of the rocky abyss. At the highest point, with a view of all the forested and rocky sides of the world, it will observe its beautiful land. It will see you and only deep depressions in the sand will remain after it, it will disappear like a ghost among the blueberry bushes, fire extinguishers and rocks. You will remain alone on the lonely hill. The rocky peak is covered with a layer of pine needles, dry deer antlers and crowberries, pine cones. You will sweep your flat rock bed smooth, spread out your sleeping bag and strip naked. The flies and wasps have already gone to sleep, it is quiet. There are no mosquitoes in the hinterland and the ants are merciful. It is getting dark, in the northwest the red sun is hiding behind the horizon. A hot breeze brings the resinous scent of pine trees, you lie sprawled like Apollo and ages pass by. The first stars shine through the thin crowns of the pine trees from the hot air, the ancient Greek night awakens. If a nymph were nearby, then all that would be missing would be the cicadas, those amorous musicians of the southern Peloponnese, and the murmur of the warm, clear sea at the foot of the Bird Stone. Un-European bliss – to fall asleep naked in the warm air on a sleeping bag. (…)
Absorbing floods of eagle ferns, Jetřichovice ferns. They grow everywhere, in the autumn they crack dry underfoot, sometimes high above the head. The old natives said: if you sleep on a bed of firewood, you won't get fleas, those jumping animals don't like firewood. In the second half of October, the firewood resembles the color of beech trees: golden brown, among them blueberries, pillows of red cranberries. At that time, the region has the color of aristocratic grandeur, the rocks are purple, maybe heather, beneath them yellow-leaved birches.
A summer view from a cliff down into the vast forest of fireweed: if you squint your eyes, or even close one eye, you suddenly feel as if you are floating and observing the endless forests of the Amazon from a bird's eye view. A little further away, pillows of white moss rise from the pine trees. Then it seems to you that the backs of sea lions with silky, light green fur are emerging above the sea surface. (…)
All day long, sunny and warm, at the end of September, I lie on a warm rock in front of Poustevna. Then a second and a third. Not much happens. The sun rises in the morning, time passes incredibly quickly, in an instant the sun sets in the Němec River. It's simple: the sun rises, rises, in a moment it sets, the days pass. On the opposite slope, a deer occasionally bellows wearily, it's the end of this year's deer love affairs. The ants at my feet are pushing through the pine needles with incredible loads. One is dragging a moth wing, the other a dry wasp. The ant disappears under the load, as if white moth flags were waving from the ground. The tits begin to flock. I lie for hours without moving, the tits curiously fly up to look at the unusual object. Three coal-sparrows and two wigeons. The old ladies are the bravest, their warning cry sounds like the crack of a whip. Bright bluebirds and a few plump tits. The flock is led by a nimble nuthatch, loud but not very curious: a flock of titmouses is quickly hurrying after it. Wasps are buzzing in the sand, for no apparent reason there are dozens of them in one place, dry, without food or water. I lie on the rock, feeling only a lazy, infinite bliss. It is not hot and not cold, I am not hungry or thirsty. There are no mosquitoes or flies, only the soft autumn drags the Back Country. There is no hurry and no feeling of wasted time. Few thoughts also occur to me. Perhaps only that I do not know where the wasps go to sleep when they suddenly fly away from the cooling rock with the evening. Savages and animals probably move through the world so blissfully and unconsciously, creatures who live in constant freedom and who are not pressed to the ground by the weight of insignificant and futile duties. During such balmy three days, the Back Country penetrates deep into the pilgrim's soul and remains there forever. (…)
At the end of May, the light beech forest above Ponova meadow smells of sunrise. A beautiful awakening, you don't even want to get up. The single-flowered strividka blooms far away and the forest is covered with fragrant marigold, which is protected by law for its trees, but should also be protected for its spring morning scent. There is an enormous amount of time. The sun is already shining on the warm ground, so it is best to lie down in a sleeping bag and prop your feet up high on a massive shiny beech. The air is incredibly warm. The black-headed warbler announces the imminent arrival of summer and the woodcock claps its wings. The wood warbler, the forest alarm clock, builds its round nest and the black-headed bunting sings high in the crowns of the beech trees. The beech forest above Ponova meadow - a beautiful place to wake up. By the stream, which is cutting through beech leaves and dark mud, the first blue mushroom, grows. If you cook it with rice, it will give your breakfast an Asian color and flavor. Down at Ponova Louka, which should be called Pramenná Louka in Czech, a large whiner runs angrily out of the swamp and grunts discontentedly. He doesn't like to run to the forest, he doesn't like it when someone disturbs him in his forest and rocky realm on a May morning. (…)
Why write about landscape at all?
The time has come, and it cannot be postponed any longer, to ask ourselves the fundamental question: why write about landscape at all, why waste time describing something that is obvious to everyone? What is the point of that naive, romanticizing nonsense, that unnecessary and verbose appropriation of an ordinary piece of land (because a book can undoubtedly be written about any region) that one happens to visit? I myself don't actually know why I feel compelled to write such a book, perhaps just so that I don't feel that I have been trudging for weeks and months in vain and aimlessly over mountains and rocks and that nothing lasting will remain after my steps. Perhaps also because in my youth I was raised reading travelogues, in which I was most attracted to descriptions of landscapes. Perhaps because I am sorry that no one describes the disappearing beauty of landscapes, just as the unworthy and sinful Orthodox priest from the old Russian tale of the enchanted pilgrim was sorry that no one prays for suicides, and he took this thankless task upon himself. Perhaps because I feel that this is the only way in which I can try to contribute with my weak forces to making people better and to starting to perceive the beauty around them. I don't know, but it is certain that everything I have ever written in my life has somehow concerned, either directly or indirectly, landscapes and their restless, flowering or stone children, animals, plants and stones. I don't enjoy writing about anything else. Perhaps I should have a landscape carved on my grave, and since that is an impossible thing, it will be enough if Aiolos, the god of the winds, plays his wind harp on it. (…)
It often occurs to me that by writing about landscapes – and the more desolate the landscape, the more beautiful – I am actually likening the thrush to the mistletoe, which loves the mistletoe, from whose pulp the birdcatchers make bird glue. The birdcatcher eats the delicious berry, flies to another forest, the indigestible seed hidden in the berry comes out with its droppings and germinates. New mistletoe grows, the birdcatchers come, brew the glue, smear it on the decoys, the birdcatcher sticks to it and the birdcatchers eat it. This was true centuries ago, the Latin proverb clearly states The thrush itself is evil, it is a bird, the thrush brings its own destruction. It's the same with writing about landscapes. If I write a good book (and rather than write a bad one, none at all), people will want to see the beauties described, and you can't blame them. They will come, fill the landscape with noise, with themselves, perhaps with something worse, the solitude and beauty, the reason why the book was written, will disappear, and I will have to go further into the landscape again. But I don't know the solution, just as the gatekeeper doesn't know it. Perhaps just don't eat the delicious mistletoe, don't write the book. But no one escapes their fate anyway.
Excerpts from the book by Miloslav Nevrly Praises of the Backlands / Elbe Sandstones (Vestri 2002) selected, arranged and supplemented with comments by Jiří Zemánek. "The intended book about Bohemian Switzerland with Karl Stein has not yet been written (and will not be), so at least Praises of the Back Country was created, which was originally intended to be just a preface and a variation of this book. ... The fact that people have started calling that rocky region the Back Country naturally makes me very happy, even though a lot has changed there compared to the times when I used to go there forty years ago." (Miloslav Nevrlý in an interview with Michael Antony – Tony for Tramp magazine(October 28, 2018)