In the towns the bourgeoises dress well, something in the French style, and
it is their custom to salute travellers who pass by kissing their hands to
them. The dress of the female peasantry, however, is unpleasing to the eye
and so uncouth, that it would make the most beautiful women appear homely.
In the first place I will speak of their head dress, of which there are
three different kinds, two of which are as bizarre as can be imagined.
The first sort is a cap of sheepskin, the fleece of which is as white as
snow, and the cap is of conical shape, the base being exceeding large in
proportion to its height, and resembles much the sugar loaves made in
Egypt. The second is a black scull cap, with the three pieces of stiff
black gaze, sticking out like the vanes of a windmill; so that when put
on the head, one vane stands upright from the forehead and the other two
from each ear. The third head dress is a broad straw hat, and I wish they
would stick to this coiffure, and discard the two others. Then the waist of
their dress is as long as
...du pole antarctique an detroit de Davis.[121]
Their petticoats are exceedingly short, scarcely reaching the calf of the
legs, which are enveloped in a pair of flaming red stockings. Who the devil
could invent such an ungraceful dress for a female?
The costume of the men on the contrary is becoming and graceful. It
resembles very much the costume of the Andalusians. The hat is exactly the
same, the crown being small and the rim very broad.
The Tyroleans are a fine gallant race of men and are excellent marksmen.
They were formerly much attached to the House of Austria; but that
attachment is now entirely changed to dislike, from the ingratitude they
have met with, since they have been replaced under that scepter.
The only fault I find in the Tyroleans, is that they are rather too devout
and consequently too much under the influence of the clergy. Yet in their
devotion there is not the smallest tinge of hypocrisy and they are esteemed
a highly moral people.
If you arrive at an inn in the evening, while the family are at prayer,
neither master nor servants will come to wait on you, till prayers are
over; and then you will be served with sufficient alacrity; but the prayers
are rather long.
I believe the priests extort a good deal of money from these good people.
The road thro' the Tyrol was made by the Romans, in the time of Septimus
Severus. An immense number of Crucifixes on the road attest and command the
devotion of the people.
How Kotzebue can call Innspruck a dirty town I am at a loss to conceive. He
must have visited it during very rainy weather; for to me it appears one of
the cleanest and most chearful towns I have ever seen. There are several
very fine buildings, for instance the Jesuits' College, and the Franciscan
monastery; Nothing can be more picturesque than the situation of this city
in the valley of the Inn and its romantic windings. The suburbs are very
extensive and can boast several fine houses. The cupola of the Government
House is gilded, which gives it a splendid appearance. In the Hofkirche
or church of the court there are a number of statues, large as life, in
bronze; among which my guide pointed out to me those of Clovis, Godfrey of
Bouillon, Albert the Wise, Charles V, Philip II of Spain, Rudolph of
Hapsburgh, and to my great astonishment the British King Arthur; there were
twenty-eight statues altogether. But on my return to my inn, I found that
my guide had made a great error respecting King Arthur, and that the said
statue represented Prince Arthur, son of Henry VII, King of England, and
not the old Hero of Romance; and my hostess' book further informed me that
these statues were those of the Kings and Princes belonging to families
connected by descent and blood with Maximilian I. In the same Hofkirche
is a fine monument erected to Maximilian and a statue of bronze of this
Emperor is figured kneeling between four bronze figures representing four
Virtues. In the gardens of the Palace of the Archduke Ferdinand in this
city is a fine equestrian statue which rests entirely on the hind feet of
the horse. From Innspruck there is a water passage by the river Inn all the
way to Vienna, as the Inn flows into the Danube at Passau. The banks of the
Inn are so romantic and picturesque that I would willingly prolong my
sejour at Innspruck, but as I mean to take the journey from Mittenwald to
Munich by the river Isar, I must take advantage of the raft which starts
from that place the day after to-morrow.
MUNICH, 20th July.
I left Innspruck in a chaise de poste on the 16th, and arrived the same
evening at five o'clock at Mittenwald. At a short distance before I arrived
at Mittenwald, I entered the Bavarian territory, which announces itself by
a turnpike gate painted white and blue, the colours and Feldzeichen of
Bavaria. In the Austrian territory the barriers are painted black and
yellow, these being the characteristic colors of Austria.
Mittenwald is a small neat town, offering nothing remarkable but a church
yard or Ruhe-garten (garden of repose) as it is called, where there are a
number of quaint inscriptions on the tombstones. At Mittenwald I had some
trouble about my passport, as it was not vise by a Bavarian authority;
but I explained to the officer that I had never fallen in with any Bavarian
authority since I left Rome, and that, while at Rome, I had no intention of
going thro' Bavaria; that at Milan the Austrian authorities had vise my
passport for Vienna and that I should only pass thro' Munich, without
making a longer stay than one week.
