nowdon, to see the sunset and the sunrise. There was
sleeping accommodation on the top: so there is on the top of Snowdon. On
the Scharfberg we had a hay-litter in a wooden shed, and ate goat's
cheese and bread and butter. We saw neither sunset nor sunrise, but had
a night of wind and rain, and came down in the morning through white mist
within a rugged gully ploughed up by the rain, to get a wholesome
breakfast at St. Gilgen on the lake. More I need not say about the
journey than that, on the fifth day after leaving Ebensee, having rested
a little in the very beautiful city of Salzburg, we marched into the town
of Hallein, at the foot of the Durrnberg, the famous salt mountain,
called Tumal by old chroniclers, and known for a salt mountain seven
hundred and thirty years ago.

After a night's rest in the town, we were astir by five o'clock in the
morning, and went forward on our visit to the mines. In the case of the
Durrnberg salt mine, as I have already said, the miner enters at the top
and comes out at the bottom. Our first business, therefore, was to walk
up the mountain, the approach to which is by a long slope of about four
English miles.

We met few miners by the way, and noticed in them few peculiarities of
manners or costume. The national dress about these regions is a sort of
cross between the Swiss Alpine costume and a common peasant dress of the
lowlands. We saw indications of the sugar-loafed hat; jackets were worn
almost by all, with knee-breeches and coloured leggings. The clothing
was always neat and sound, and the clothed bodies looked reasonably
healthy, except that they had all remarkably pale faces. The miners did
not seem bodily to suffer from their occupation.

As we approached the summit of the Durrnberg, the dry brownish limestone
showed its bare front to the morning sun. We entered the offices, partly
contained in the rock, and applied for admission into the dominion of the
gnomes. Our arrival was quite in the nick of time, for we had not to be
kept waiting, as we happened to complete the party of twelve, without
which the guides do not start. It was a Tower of London business; and,
as at the Tower, the demand upon our purses was not very heavy. One
gulden-schein--about tenpence--is the regulated fee. Our full titles
having been duly put down in the register, each of us was furnished with
a miner's costume, and, so habited, off we set.

We started from a point that is called th