We would have hurried on, if we could, without stopping, but we had rashly promised to write our names in the important visitors’ book, besides paying a small bill for wine.  The landlord could not at all perceive why, as meat had to be eaten, any one could object to a preliminary exhibition, especially when the butcher could only make his rounds at stated times, and it was so convenient by the kitchen door.  Indeed, so deadened in delicate perceptions were these people that the landlord observing a rare plant in one of our hands, he actually called the butcher in to tell us its name.  The man, having at that moment ended his first stroke of business, came in red-handed, and proved a botanist.  It was a Woodsia hyperborea—­that was the Latin name—­and was rare in those parts, he said; but the Herrschaft should come earlier for flowers.  July was the month.  Then there was geum, and pale blue-fringed campanulas, and rich lilac asters, yellow violets, the white scented wax-flower, arnica and yellow aconite, both excellent medicines; there were thunder-flowers, and blood-drops, and grass of Parnassus, and hundreds more, all cut down by the scythes.  There were four thousand plants and upward in the Tyrol; only, alas! like the gentians, many species were being perfectly exterminated.

His energy interested us, and his hands were under the table.  Frau Anna expressed great disappointment at the various beautiful gentians, common in Switzerland, being rare in the Tyrol.

“Ladies,” replied the botanist with emphasis, “you know not the reason?  Why, there is hardly a species of gentian which is not torn up by the roots for the making of schnapps.  Schnapps is good when rheumatism works in the bones:  there is then no better lotion; and a thimbleful of cheerfulness in the morning, and another of sleep at night, are what I wish for our wirth, myself and every peasant daily; but why need they pull up all the gentians, which were bits of heaven scattered over the mountain-sides?  I know that their roots are better for schnapps distilling than those of other plants, or even than bilberries or cranberries; but oh for a little moderation, cutting the roots gently! for whilst a bit is left in the ground the plant springs up again.  ‘Poor as a root-grubber’ is the proverb.  I’m glad it is.  For if they were not so wanton, they would not be so poor.  They mostly come from the Zillerthal.  It’s a special trade.  The men climb the mountains as soon as the snow melts.  They build themselves rude huts, and spend the summer searching for and digging up roots.  Now, however, as they have cut their own throats, so to speak, they must climb often to high mountain-ledges, letting themselves down by ropes, to gather fine roots, which they still sometimes find of the thickness of my wrist.  In the late autumn they collect their bundles of dried gentian roots, which they carry to the distilling vats, where the Enzian, so dear to the Tyroler, is made.”