Beside The Inn.

The Pontlatzer Bridge.

The Monument To Tyrolese Heroism.

Hillside Sentinels.

1 See Volume " South Tyrol".

It is not strange that almost every traveler lifts his hat before the birthplace of the author of the best-known and most popular poem in Tyrol, especially since its spirited stanzas are addressed to the Tyrolean Eagle, which figures, always in a deep red color, in so many paintings, coats of arms, and frescos in this land of heroes. Had not its verses been already given in a previous volume of this series, they would be reproduced upon this page. It is, however, worthy of notice that, according to this inscription, the poet was already seventeen years old when the great battle of 1809 was fought so near his home, and there can, therefore, hardly be a doubt that he participated in it.

Two hours' drive from this historic region brought us to the portal of the Lower Engadine, - the sombre gorge of Finstermünz, through one of whose vast mountain walls, which rise in almost vertical height for several thousand feet, the route is carried on by means of "avalanche galleries" hewn and blasted from the cliffs themselves. Below, the Inn raves furiously at the obstacles which check its entrance into the Tyrol; but on the road, four hundred feet above it, at Hoch Finstermiinz, the tumult of its foaming waves is scarcely heard; and there, within a sheltered nook looking directly into Switzerland, stands one of the neatest, best-kept, homelike little inns that I have seen in many a day. It is a place to which, each time I visit it, I make a firm resolve to come again for a week. As yet, unfortunately, I have not been able to accomplish this; but I at least have often spent a night within the dainty hostelry, while - to my great surprise-I have observed that tourists generally halt there merely for a hasty meal.

Hotel At Hoch FinstermÜNZ.

Our drive next day from Finstermünz across the frontier into the Engadine will ever be a treasured memory. The fact that it was only six o'clock in the morning when our faithful Franz awoke the slumbering echoes of the canyon with his cracking whip, and our good horses, shaking musical responses from their bells, set gaily forth upon the road, is not an unimportant one to chronicle, since early driving is essential for the best enjoyment of a carriage tour The most inveterate sluggard - once the first inertia has been overcome - finds many compensations for the sacrifice of his accustomed morning nap, and revels in what seems to him a new-discovered world. So charming is it to behold the last, thin remnants of night's fleecy veils dissolve along the sun-kissed mountain peaks; so stimulating is the air, still fresh from sparkling dew on leaf and flower; so buoyant and exhilarated does one feel, in breathing the crisp ozone of the Alps at dawn ! Yet such a start necessitates a somewhat lengthy nooning in midsummer, - when, even in the Engadine, it is more prudent to be sheltered from the zenithed sun, - and travelers find a wait of two or more hours in the dining room or "parlor" of a wayside inn so tedious, that often-times the golden apples of the morning turn to ashes on their lips at noon. Far better is it, therefore, resolutely to prolong the midday halt, and to engage a room in which one's rest can be enjoyed in privacy, with the bright book or interesting magazine that one will not forget to have conveniently at hand in roll or satchel. Thus fortified, - especially if sleep has smoothed away the least suspicion of fatigue, - when the first hint of evening's coolness is perceptible, and lengthening shadows make the landscape infinitely more attractive than it ever looks in the full solar glare, one steps again into his carriage with all the elasticity inspired by the dawn. This may appear self-evident, and therefore needless counsel. But observation has convinced me that few travelers act thus; so many have I seen who, having thought it "not worth while "to hire a room in which to rest, were sitting discontentedly in dining room or corridor, counting the moments till the earliest instant of departure. Such tourists, starting off again in the still ardent sun, to suffer the annoyances of heat and possibly of persistent flies, which sometimes through the midday hours torment both man and beast, are sure to miss the joy which mountain-driving under the protection of Aurora or of Hesperus is wont to give.