by insulting those around him, and devouring like a beast, large quantities of food.  When the reckoning was given him, he declared he had already paid, and the waiter denying it, he said, “Stop, I will show you something!” pulled out his passport and pointed to the name—­“Baron von Reitzenstein.”  It availed nothing; he had fallen so low that his title inspired no respect, and when we left the inn they were still endeavoring to get their money and threatening him with a summary proceeding if the demand was not complied with.

Next morning the sky was clear and a glorious day opened before us.  The country became more beautiful as we approached the Danube; the hills were covered with vineyards, just in the tender green of their first leaves, and the rich valleys lay in Sabbath stillness in the warm sunshine.  Sometimes from an eminence we could see far and wide over the garden-like slopes, where little white villages shone among the blossoming fruit-trees.  A chain of blue hills rose in front, which I knew almost instinctively stood by the Danube; when we climbed to the last height and began to descend to the valley, where the river was still hidden by luxuriant groves, I saw far to the southwest, a range of faint, silvery summits, rising through the dim ether like an airy vision.  There was no mistaking those snowy mountains.  My heart bounded with a sudden thrill of rapturous excitement at this first view of the Alps! They were at a great distance, and their outline was almost blended with the blue drapery of air which clothed them.  I gazed till my vision became dim and I could no longer trace their airy lines.  They called up images blended with the grandest events in the world’s history.  I thought of the glorious spirits who have looked upon them and trodden their rugged sides—­of the storms in which they veil their countenances, and the avalanches they hurl thundering to the valleys—­of the voices of great deeds, which have echoed from their crags over the wide earth—­and of the ages which have broken, like the waves of a mighty sea, upon their everlasting summits!

As we descended, the hills and forests shut out this sublime vision, and I looked to the wood-clothed mountains opposite and tried to catch a glimpse of the current that rolled at their feet.  We here entered upon a rich plain, about ten miles in diameter, which lay between a backward sweep of the hills and a curve of the Danube.  It was covered with the richest grain; every thing wore the luxuriance of summer, and we seemed to have changed seasons since leaving the dreary hills of Bohemia.  Continuing over the plain, we had on our left the fields of Wagram and Essling, the scene of two of Napoleon’s blood-bought victories.  The outposts of the Carpathians skirted the horizon—­that great mountain range which stretches through Hungary to the borders of Russia.