horse and man likewise found. We could then go on at our leisure, independent of the world, of eil-wagens, stell-wagens and postmasters, and our wishes would be carried out in a most satisfactory manner.

We agreed to decide in the morning, but late that night found our gray-coated friend loitering in the court-yard of the hotel, and learned from him that in a measure, the matter had been decided for us; he had agreed, since he had seen us, with a party "going over into Switzerland," and would start with them at six o'clock the following morning. The einspanner was, however, still at our service. Fearing lest we might lose that, even, by the more prompt decision of some other travellers, we closed our bargain at once, and, as the first days' journey for both was the same, we agreed also to be ready at six, and start in company.

I trust I may be pardoned a little geographical lecture just at this point, for in a journey like this, it adds greatly to the interest of the narrative to understand well the localities.

Tyrol is in shape an irregular oblong, about a hundred and fifty miles each way, in its greatest extent, but, in the average, broader than it is long. Its neighbors are, Italy on the south; Switzerland on the west; Bavaria northward, and other Austrian provinces on the east. It consists entirely of mountain chains and the interlying valleys, and is more completely an Alpenland than even Switzerland itself, for the latter, though containing higher summits, sinks to comparatively level country in the northwest and north, and contains also the basin of three great lakes.

Tyrol may appropriately be described as a vast mountain wall, making a crescentshaped barrier which fronts the northwest, between Italy and the German land, and possessing three great bastions, one at either end, and one in the centre. The southwestern is made by the snowy summits of the Ortler group, commanded by the Ortler Spitze, twelve thousand eight hundred and eleven feet in height; the centre is held by the great Oetzthal mountains, whose highest peak is the Wild Spitze, twelve thousand three hundred and eighty-nine feet; while the north eastern corner rises in the colossal

towers of the Gross Glockner (the Great Bell-ringer,) and his companion, the Gross Venediger, twelve thousand four hundred and fifty-four feet, and eleven thousand three hundred and nine feet in height.

North of this great chain, a range of secondary mountains, eight and nine thousand feet high, stretches across the country,through which the Inn finds its way at Kufstein, and which widens out northwardly toward the region of Salzburg. A third chain, in the south east, makes also a parellel line across the country, also of lesser height, commencing south of the Ortler, opening a passage for the. Eisack at Brixen, and widening out southwardly as it stretches east.

Three chief valleys lie from west to east between these ranges. The Inn, that of the river Inn, north of the central group of the main range; the valley of the Adige, curving round the western slopes, and chiefly lying south of this same Oetztal group: and the Pustherthal, lying south of the Gross Glockner, in the far eastern region of Tyrol, and drained by the river Drave. More than fifty lateral valleys, each with its headlong torrent, open into these, and hundreds of bridle paths and foot-paths lead over the mountains across from one valley to another, and out into the adjacent countries.

The

The chief rivers of Tyrol are also three in number, all having a general direction towards the east. The Inn, which rises in Switzerland, comes in through the Engadine at Finstermunz, flows northeast wherever it can find or make a passage, until it comes out into Bavaria, and still with easterly direction, never quite losing its mountains, falls at last into the Danube at Passau. Adige, rising in the high ground, a little south of Finstermunz, takes at first a southerly and south-easterly course, till, passing Bozen, it runs due south as far as the Italian city of Verona; hence, it flows eastwardly again, until with wide delta, it falls at last into the Adriatic. Third, the Drave, which rising deep in the Pusterthal, emerges from Tyrol into Carinthia, then flows far eastward. fed by mountain brooks, till it pours its broad and rapid flood into the Danube, among the dark forests of Hungary.

To the Drave we were destined to remain strangers, but the brave, bright little Inn had

been our comrade from Rosenheim, and the Adige we were to see and follow many days till we should finally part company at Bozen.

Three or four great post-roads lead into Tyrol, from Bavaria, from Switzerland, and from Italy, but the Brenner railway, which cuts the land from north to south nearly through the centre, is the great thoroughfare at the present time. In fifteen hours, the express carries you from Kufstein, the frontier town on the north, through the heart of the mountains, over the Brenner Pass, four thousand feet above the sea, to where the quiet old city of Verona lies in the wide, level Lombard plain.

The Brenner heights are the water-shed of the Black Sea and the Adriatic, and make the division between north and south Tyrol. The Tyrolese of the north are pure German; south of the Brenner, the Italian element is very largely intermingled, but the German blood asserts its superiority, and there are valleys of South Tyrol, especially near Meran, where is to be seen yet the purest type of Saxon mountaineer beauty.

But concerning the inhabitants, I shall later have something more to say; and now, having booked out our route, I very gladly return to my story.

Fancy us then on the morning of the twenty-second of August, at half-past six o'clock, receiving the adieus of the landlord, and the head waiter, also of the stately portier, with the gold band round his cap, as seated in a curiously low wagon, like a child's carriage, with tiny wheels and a little front seat, on which our young driver was perched with his feet hanging over into space, we emerged with slow and stately pace from the archway of the hotel. At the last moment, our landlord, blandly smiling, came up to offer us a little souvenir of his hotel, an envelope containing a card on which was pasted, very neatly pressed, a specimen of the famous mountain flower, the Edelweiss, a kind of immortelle. Imagine if you can the landlord of the Crawford House offering one such a little farewell gift!

We were equipped for the campaign in winter clothing, having happily been wise enough to remember that though it was midsummer, the higher Alps refrigerate exceed

ingly the surrounding country, and we had beside, each of us, a heavy railway rug. In the top of our little carriage, which, being thrown back, was extemporized into a huge pocket, we had a travelling bag apiece. At the conclusion of our journey, we agreed that we had carried exactly what we needed, and all that was necessary, with the exception only of a good supply of coffee and of tea, which must not be Tyrolese; even in Innsbruck, at our excellent hotel, the coffee was incredibly bad, and good tea and coffee both vanish from the list of possibilities directly one has left the railway and gone back among the mountains. Also, another time, I should not neglect to take a small quantity of canned meat, if anything pala. table could be found of that kind, for there are times when you can get absolutely noth ing to eat except the poorest of bread.

I had with me a second travelling-dress of thinner material, and found it useful when we stopped; but for the actual journey no clothing can be too warm. It is very chilly, early and late, and we were glad to be wrapped in our heavy rugs as late as ten o'clock every morning.

The steed upon whose single strength and good will we were to rely for so many consecutive days, was a large, raw-boned, white animal, not yery white, it must be owned. He had a long, lean head and neck, and a way of looking back at us out of the corners of his eyes that had a trifle of malice in it. Our driver was as uncouth as his steed. Shabby he was, from head to foot; with good-natured gray eyes, a mouth whose upper lip was always drawn up, giving him a curiously vacant expression, and a shock of straight, rough, brown hair, off which he pulled his old felt hat, in a manner comical to see, when he came, day after day, to wish us good-morning, and to signify that he was ready to start whenever we were. Beyond this interchange of civilities, for we always responded with extreme affability, having by this time become thoroughly trained to the exuberant south-German politeness, we could never go, for his dialect was so very peculiar that I have sometimes been obliged to meditate half an hour on some sentence of his of three or four simple words, with which really I was perfectly familiar. On the whol

he was not a bad boy. He did not make us unhappy in any way, which he easily might have done; he was not bad-tempered, on the contrary, patient; and, though I can't say I was fond of him, I remember with pleasure how his clear, gray eyes brightened at a certain unlooked-for two florins I gave him at parting, over and above his expected trinkgeld.

Thus composedly settled for one day's drive, and wrapped to the chin in rugs, we trotted quietly through the town, crossed the bridge, and turning to the left, followed along the river, having the mountains close The air was fresh and upon our right. damp, and all day long clouds and sunshine alternated, giving a new and changeful beauty to the lovely valley. We took much satisfaction in the excellence of our road, and it continued the same all through our journey. The post-roads, deep among the mountains, are as wide and smooth and wellrepaired as in the neighborhood of a great city. Naturally they cannot escape occasional ascents, but these are made as easy as possible. Coming down, our driver always applied a brake, and when it was at all steep, he got off and locked a wheel. This was done constantly, where in America we should not have thought of such a precaution; but the reason exists in the way the horse is harnessed. There is no provision whatever for him to hold back, being harnessed as a streetcar horse is with us. Their wagons have a pole, and the horse is put in at the left, so that till we became used to this singular and one-sided arrangement, he had the look of having lost his mate. This is very noticeable all through the German land — the pole for the single horse and however “ practical," as the Germans say, it may be, I do not think it pleasing to the eye.

About two hours out from Innsbruck, a great cliff of gray rock seems, as one approaches, to bar the road. Nearing it, however, we veer a little to the left, then drive under, close beside it, for some distance. This is the famous Martinswand, which has a story to it. On a spring day of 1490, fourteen years earlier, you notice, than the Kufstein siege,-Kaiser Max, our old friend, went out from Innsbruck hunting, as his wont. Far up above on the mountain

was

there, following desperately the desperate flight of a wounded chamois, he lost his foot. ing and fell, and slid far, far down the mountain side, steep and bare, like the roof of a house. Clinging still as he went, with hands and feet breaking his fall as best he might, he suddenly was able to arrest himself, then looked around to find he had reached a little shelf of rock, whence he could neither climb back again, nor by any possibility get down to the road below. His frightened followers, who could not reach him, made their way down and reported the mortal peril of their master. Always of a pious turn of mind, the Tyrolese, abandoning any hope of earthly help, resorted in crowds to the churches in all the neighboring villages. Masses were offered and bells rung, and one can fancy how sweet and strange and sad the far sounds came up to him there on the ledge, clinging for his life, unable to stir, with the steep wall above him, the steep wall below him, the sky wide overhead, and the dear Tyrolese valley lying under. The Emperor must have clung there for hours, when from the neighboring Abbey of Wiltau came the Bishop, with all due solemn order and chanting of priests, to offer to him, in articulo mortis, the last consolations of religion. Pious as was Kaiser Max, I think that fiery young heart of his, not yet five-and-thirty, just entering upon the possession of the Holy Roman Reich, must have been ill content to see himself so tranquilly given up for lost, while even the meanest little chorister stood safe and free upon the ground below there! What did he think about in those hours, did he give up all hope for himself? Of a sudden, far above, came a voice, cheerily crying out, "Hallo, there!" and somebody looked over in all possible surprise, from the top of the crag, and somebody came down, like a chamois, to rescue this unknown fellow mortal in distress, and found — his Em. peror. It was the most skilful hunter of all the neighborhood, who had been out alone for days, following the chase, and knew nothing of what had occurred.

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It is perhaps the only time in history that a Holy and Apostolic Kaiser was addressed in terms so curt. Without doubt, however, it was the most welcome word that ever came to Imperial ears. Faint and dizzy, Maxi