We left the Hof one August Friday--we were not superstitious--a goodly
company, sufficient to freight the rumbling old stage-wagon which
jolted daily between Bruneck and Taufers, a distance of nine miles. At
this village the sedater portion of the party were to settle down with
books, pencils and drawing-paper until the Alpine visit should have
been paid.

The valley of Taufers, running northward with a grand vista to the
north-west of the vast Zillerthal snow-fields, suggests at a distance
the idea of a stern, joyless district. When in the broader Pusterthal
the sunshine floods upland plain and slope, this important but narrow
tributary valley lies steeped in its gloomy shade, the dark sides of
the Sambock frowning grimly on the opposite shadowy Tesselberg. Great,
therefore, was the surprise of some of the party to find, as we drove
along, instead of melancholy solitude, prosperous villages basking in
sunshine, whilst little children skipped merrily, and men and women
worked amongst the golden stooks as if enjoying the labor of their
hands. Yes, strange to say, effulgent sunshine everywhere on acre
and meadow, and slanting down upon a wayside cottage garden, where
a freshly-painted Christ lay drying between tall sunflowers. This
cottage seemed the only shadow in this unexpectedly bright picture,
for, occupied by a religious image-maker, crucifixes and wooden saints
peeped wholesale out of the windows. Is it a want of sensibility in
these poor Tyrolese peasants which causes them to cling tenaciously to
such frightful material forms of religion, making them give prominence
to every conceivable sign of sacred sorrow and suffering? But the
jolting stage-wagon allowed us no time to analyze this painful,
ever-recurring feature of the Tyrol. When we next looked up we
saw above us, on a wooded crag, a square gray tower, which, once a