What greatly added to the beauty of the scene at this time was, that the picturesque population were poured out upon their lovely lawns, (for I cannot call them fields,) to make their second crop of hay. The fine soft herb appeared to grow very thick, though very low ; and I certainly think the cows, sheep, and goats of the Tyrol are the most daintily fed flocks and herds in the world.

The care taken for their winter dinners and suppers is another source of the picturesque in these valleys, for the hay is all housed in little wooden chalets, whose projecting roofs, prepared for the rude mountain winds that are to blow over them, by heavy stones placed upon the weather-stained shingles, scattered as they are up and down the pastures, form the prettiest objects imaginable.

The manner of drying the hay, and the corn too, in the rare spots where it is grown, also produces an agreeable diversity in the landscape. Instead of being scattered over the meadows, as with us, it is suspended upon bars arranged one over the other at right angles, through a stake of about six feet high that is stuck in the ground; these, when covered with the fragrant load placed upon them, look like green, altars erected in honour of Pan, and, together with the fanciful groups employed about them, add greatly to the unwonted and interesting aspect of the scene.

This, by the way, is a most excellent method of rapidly drying a crop; and might, I should think, be introduced with great advantage in a climate like that of England, where the produce is more abundant than the sunshine. Many a fine heavy crop of clover might be saved by it.

We passed an hour at Halle, where there are large saline works; but we did not enter them, though very civilly invited to do so by a person evidently in authority whom we met during our walk, for the celebrated salt-mines of Mullein are within reach of Salzbourg, and to these we have determined to go: on the present occasion, therefore, we preferred employing our time in walking about, which, halt where you will in this country, always appears the most agreeable thing you can do.

We reached Schwatz a little after six, and having selected our pretty miniature hotel from among many, and ordered our supper, we walked down to the long bridge that here crosses the impetuous Inn, and enjoyed one of the finest spectacles in nature,— that of a heavy thunder-storm, rolling slowly and solemnly towards us, in the midst of a magnificent landscape.

The mountains, the river, a stern dark- looking castle frowning from a rock above it, a wild ravine winding its way up among the craggy heights, all meeting the eye together, and all growing blacker and more fearfully magnificent with every passing moment, kept us spell-bound and silent with intense admiration and delight, till the flashing lightnings and the heavy rain drove us at length, lingering and reluctant, to the shelter of our little hotel. Not all that I have ever seen of landscape elsewhere has shown me anything so beautiful, to my fancy, as the scenes commanded by the bridges of Innspruck and of Schwatz.

 

Salzbourg, 18th August.

I began this letter in perhaps the loveliest village we have yet seen,—and did so in the hope of beguiling an hour, that, had the rain been a little less violent, would have been passed upon the wondrous bridge of Schwatz, even till the stars afforded the only light by which to see the matchless landscape it commands.—There are few of those I love whom I would not fain lead to follow me through the route that we have traversed from thence to this place.— I have already expressed to you the pleasure which the drive from Innspruck to Schwatz gave me, and have spoken, I believe, in no measured terms of its beauty;—but the Wednesday after was the day of days.

On the 17th we slowly, and often walking despite frequent showers, travelled through a country that assuredly surpasses all I have ever seen or dreamed of, in the exceeding beauty of its romantic wildness. It has not, indeed, the dark Salvator tone of the Hartz scenery, nor yet the towering majesty of the Alps; but it possesses a sort of mixed character of its own that is indescribably beautiful. The mountains among which the road has led us, though most of them crested and spotted with snow, are neither so high nor so bold as those immediately round Innspruck; but the country through whicli we passed on the 17th has a charm without which no mountain scenery is, in my estimation, perfect.

Scarcely a mile of this glorious drive is without a raging roaring torrent, bounding, foaming, thundering, first on one side of the road, and then on the other. The heavy rains which had fallen during the two preceding nights had doubtless augmented these streams very advantageously for their effect in the landscape; and it is hardly possible, I think, to conceive anything superior in picturesque beauty to some of the spots we passed. These lovely scenes are composed for the most part of lofty rocks, deep valleys, dark pine-trees, and a rough rapid stream; but often varied and animated by a chalet, a ruined castle, a rude bridge, or a group of figures in excellent keeping with the objects around.

While now and then a village church, so beautiful in its humble holiness, that it might well become the object of a pilgrimage at which thanks and praise should be offered to Saint Nature, rises above the wooden roofs, and seems to breathe peace and charity upon spots that without it would look savage in their wildness. Lovelier, however, above all the rest, is the marvellous region through which the turbulent Achen rolls, forming as it dashes onward in a succession of magnificent rapids, which recur at intervals for several miles. Caspar Poussin might have painted, but no pen can describe, the wild enchantment of the scenes formed by this river in its capricious course; doubling like a hunted hare, and often, after being quitted with regret, starting forth again, wilder and more glorious than before.

Sometimes it bounds through tangled thickets, sometimes between towering rocks, seemingly parted only to let it pass; then crags arise in its rude path, vainly striving to stay its course, but chafing it into foam and fury; and then again, when bordered for a short space by a little interval of soft turf, or shaded by a delicate aspen, it seems to pause for a moment, as if tamed by their gentleness, and, instead of dashing past them, as is its wont, placidly permits a deep dark pool to serve as a mirror to them.