omen, all in
broad-brimmed hats and short gray petticoats, carrying long staves, one
of whom held a bead-roll and gave out the prayers, to which the others
made the responses in chorus. They looked at us so solemnly from under
their broad brims, and marched along with so grave and deliberate a
pace, that I could hardly help fancying that the wicked Austrians had
caught a dozen elders of the respectable Society of Friends, and put
them in petticoats to punish them for their heresy. We afterward saw
persons going to the labors of the day, or returning, telling their
rosaries and saying their prayers as they went, as if their devotions
had been their favorite amusement. At regular intervals of about half a
mile, we saw wooden crucifixes erected by the way-side, covered from the
weather with little sheds, bearing the image of the Savior, crowned with
thorns and frightfully dashed with streaks and drops of red paint, to
represent the blood that flowed from his wounds. The outer walls of the
better kind of houses were ornamented with paintings in fresco, and the
subjects of these were mostly sacred, such as the Virgin and Child, the
Crucifixion, and the Ascension. The number of houses of worship was
surprising; I do not mean spacious or stately churches such as we meet
with in Italy, but most commonly little chapels dispersed so as best to
accommodate the population. Of these the smallest neighborhood has one
for the morning devotions of its inhabitants, and even the solitary inn
has its little consecrated building with its miniature spire, for the
convenience of pious wayfarers.

At Sterzing, a little village beautifully situated at the base of the
mountain called the Brenner, and containing, as I should judge, not more
than two or three thousand inhabitants, we counted seven churches and
chapels within the compass of a square mile. The observances of the
Roman Catholic church are nowhere more rigidly complied with than in the
Tyrol. When we stopt at Bruneck on Friday evening, I happened to drop
a word about a little meat for dinner in a conversation with the
spruce-looking landlady, who appeared so shocked that I gave up the
point, on the promise of some excellent and remarkably well-flavored
trout from the stream that flowed through the village--a promise that
was literally fulfilled....

We descended the Brenner on the 28th of June in a snow-storm, the wind
whirling the light flakes in the air as it does with us in winte