of half a
dozen miles. The road continued by the boisterous rapids, hemmed in on
the other hand by woods and threatening mountain-walls. The thunder of
the waters prevented continuous conversation: we therefore admired in
silence the grandeur of the scene and the magnificent glimpses which
slight curves in the road afforded ever and anon of neighboring
mountain-peaks and wooded valleys below.

No carriage of any kind can ascend this road. It would be difficult
indeed for horses; nevertheless, the herds of cattle traverse it
in the journey to and from the Olm, their hoofs being able to find
foothold on the rock. Moidel said that the cattle were so delighted
to go to the Alps for the summer after the winter's confinement in
the stall that they made the journey with a kind of joyful impatience,
going on still more eagerly as they approached the end. "Not so,
however," added Moidel, "with the pigs. I have often sat and cried on
these rocks at their perverse ways when I have had to bring them up.
They would only stand still and grunt while I begged and prayed and
pushed. When they reached the top a new spirit soon seized them: they
were here, there and everywhere--in a week's time leaping like goats,
as if they had taken to wine."

We made the climb slowly, and noon was long passed when we reached
the saw-mills, the first houses in the mountain parish of St. Wolfgang
or Rein. The busy, purring mills stood on the edge of the Sarine at
the extremity of a flat mountain-valley intersected by innumerable
brooks, which, continually overflowing, turn it constantly into a
lake. The grass had been under water a week previously, but was now
sufficiently dry for us to sit and rest. Whilst we were so doing,
Ignaz, our _traeger_, stood before us, his empty basket on his back.

"The barn is swept and garnished in readiness for the Herrschaft, and
their bundles and parcels are arranged there in beautiful order--many
bundles, and far heavier than they looked last night." Ignaz, however,
was of opinion that though the pay was small the gentry meant well
by him, and therefore he had not scrupled to take the food the worthy
farmer's wife had offered him, leaving the Christian soul to be repaid
by the gentlefolks when they came. And, moreover, he had advised the
landlord at Rein that the gentry were passing through, so that they
should not fail to find eatables ready, seeing hunger and weariness
were best consoled by food.

After which com