Lofty peaks of the most fantastic shapes, with deep clefts between, sharp needles of rock, 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, prest 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 stopt 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; to say nothing of the evidence we had in the beer and tobacco-smoke of the travelers’ 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, tho’ the white peaks of the mountains were continually in sight.  At Bruneck, in an inn resplendent with neatness—­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 traveler is expected to pass a night.  An asthmatic patient on a cold winter night might perhaps find such a couch tolerably comfortable, if he could prevent the narrow covering from slipping off on one side or the other.

The next day we were afforded an opportunity of observing more closely the inhabitants of this singular region, by a festival, or holiday of some sort, which brought them into the roads in great numbers, arrayed in their best dresses—­the men in short jackets and small-clothes, with broad gay-colored suspenders over their waistcoats, and leathern belts ornamented with gold or silver leaf—­the women in short petticoats composed of horizontal bands of different colors—­and both sexes, for the most part, wearing broad-brimmed hats with hemispherical crowns, tho’ there was a sugar-loaf variety much affected by the men, adorned with a band of lace and sometimes a knot of flowers.  They are a robust, healthy-looking race, tho’ they have an awkward stoop in the shoulders.  But what struck me most forcibly was the devotional habits of the people.