brain from puzzling out an improved plan, which, having perfected it in his mind, he boldly carried out.  Instead of two simple iron wires, he employed two double coils, with a single wire in the centre and six feet higher.  He stretched across two other strong parallel wires.  He then contrived a little car with two seats and a cover against sun and rain.  To the benches and the awning he fastened rollers, so that the car was propelled across both above and below.  The weight which it would bear he proved to be fifteen hundredweight, and unfastened from the iron hooks which kept it to the bank, the car ran across in a few seconds with an easy, agreeable motion.  Practice and a close investigation proved it now a perfect success.  All the censures and ridicule were forgotten, and it proves at the present time both convenient and amusing to the gentlemen, ladies and children of the neighborhood.  Hans Jakob willingly conveys them across the river in his flying car.  He will, however, receive no fixed payment.  He constructed it simply for his own use:  were he to make a trade of it, he must either take out a patent, or else make some concessions to government, neither of which he has any inclination to do.

The senner and Moidel listened in astonishment.  They had understood every word.  Although they had never heard of Hans Jakob before, there was a full account of him in the Brixen calendar, an almanac which the senner owned to having had by him for the last eight months—­another noticeable instance how tales and good advice in print are lost upon a people who, hitherto quietly slumbering, find for their hearts and minds enough to do in carrying on their slow agriculture and pattering their prayers.  I believe that popular lecturers conversant with the dialect would be of infinite service in the rural districts of the Tyrol.

The senner, after this entertainment, offered us the hospitality of his hut.  A lordly bowl of intensely rich cream was placed before us in the sleeping-room, with the sole option of lapping like the men of Gideon, seeing we were not sufficiently naturalized for each to carry a horn spoon in her pocket, had not a little tin drinking mug been fortunately remembered.

The next day the young tilemaker Martin, carrying his bundle, arrived at about nine.  He had left the Hof at three that morning, making the whole journey of twenty-four miles on foot without a stop.  Franz therefore seized hold of the frying-pan, and we dined an hour earlier than the usual time of ten.  After coffee, Jakob had to initiate his successor into the various advantages of the several Alpine pastures, to point out the cattle and goat paths, and to introduce Martin to Kohli, Kraunsi, Blasi, Zottel, Nageli and all the other cows, as well as to Tiger, Schweiz and their fellow-oxen.  We set out to accompany them, but the cattle were too far away on distant heights for us to continue long in the scramble.  We therefore sat on a breezy mountain platform watching the athletic young men grow ever smaller, more indistinct, whilst Jakob’s voice was borne to us on the rarefied air as he called lovingly, “Krudeli, Krudeli” to the calves, and “Koess, Koess” to the cows.