...
From the little pier one passes up the narrow white street, no broader
than a Cologne lane, but clean and bright as is no other street in
Europe, past the cafes with low balconies, and the little shops--into
some there are three or four steps to descend, into others there is an
ascent of a diminutive ladder--till the small square or garden is
reached in front of the Conversation House, a spacious building with a
good ball-room and reading-room, where a kiosque, always in summer full
of the fragrant Heligoland roses, detains the passer-by. Then another
turn or two in the street, and the bottom of the Treppe is
approached--the great staircase which winds upward to the Oberland, in
whose crevices grow masses of foliage, and whose easy ascent need not be
feared by any one, for the steps are broad and low.
The older flight of steps was situated about a hundred paces northward
from the present Treppe. It was cut out of the red crumbling rock, and
at the summit passed through a guard-house. Undoubtedly the present
Treppe should be similarly fortified. It was built by the government in
1834. During the smuggling days, it is said, an Englishman rode up to
the Oberland, and the apparition so shocked an old woman, who had never
seen a horse before, that she fell senseless to the ground.
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