We Set Out In The Rain, But Had Not Proceeded Far Before We Heard The Sleet Striking Against The Windows Of The Carriage, And Soon Came To Where The Snow Covered The Ground To The Depth Of One Or Two Inches.

Continuing to ascend, we passed out of Italy and entered the Tyrol.

The storm had ceased before we went through the first Tyrolese village, and we could not help being struck with the change in the appearance of the inhabitants - the different costume, the less erect figures, the awkward gait, the lighter complexions, the neatly-kept habitations, and the absence of beggars. As we advanced, the clouds began to roll off from the landscape, disclosing here and there, through openings in their broad skirts as they swept along, glimpses of the profound valleys below us, and of the white sides and summits of mountains in the mid-sky above. At length the sun appeared, and revealed a prospect of such wildness, grandeur, and splendor as I had never before seen. Lofty peaks of the most fantastic shapes, with deep clefts between, sharp needles of rocks, and overhanging crags, infinite in multitude, shot up everywhere around us, glistening in the new-fallen snow, with thin wreaths of mist creeping along their sides. At intervals, swollen torrents, looking at a distance like long trains of foam, came thundering down the mountains, and crossing the road, plunged into the verdant valleys which winded beneath. Beside the highway were fields of young grain, pressed to the ground with the snow; and in the meadows, ranunculuses of the size of roses, large yellow violets, and a thousand other Alpine flowers of the most brilliant hues, were peeping through their white covering. We stopped to breakfast at a place called Landro, a solitary inn, in the midst of this grand scenery, with a little chapel beside it. The water from the dissolving snow was dropping merrily from the roof in a bright June sun. We needed not to be told that we were in Germany, for we saw it plainly enough in the nicely-washed floor of the apartment into which we were shown, in the neat cupboard with the old prayer-book lying upon it, and in the general appearance of housewifery, a quality unknown in Italy; to say nothing of the evidence we had in the beer and tobacco-smoke of the travellers' room, and the guttural dialect and quiet tones of the guests.

From Landro we descended gradually into the beautiful valleys of the Tyrol, leaving the snow behind, though the white peaks of the mountains were continually in sight. At Bruneck, in an inn resplendent with neatness - so at least it seemed to our eyes accustomed to the negligence and dirt of Italian housekeeping - we had the first specimen of a German bed. It is narrow and short, and made so high at the head, by a number of huge square bolsters and pillows, that you rather sit than lie. The principal covering is a bag of down, very properly denominated the upper bed, and between this and the feather-bed below, the traveller is expected to pass the night.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 22 of 206
Words from 10886 to 11414 of 107287