stronghold, appears, as if exhausted with old age, to be tottering
into the midst of lesser ruins.

It was Neuhaus, once a fortress of the rigid old barons of Tuvers.
Hugo, the sixth lord, died there in 1309, and in the chapel, which
still stands, mass is said at stated periods for the salvation of his
soul and the souls of his relations. The whole place would undoubtedly
have been given over to the owls and the bats had not two adjacent
springs--one of iron, the other of chalk and alum--been considered, a
quarter of a century since, either as preventives or as cures for
the cholera, then raging. A chalet was therefore planted on the rocks
between the chapel and the castle, and a bath-house opened, which
would probably be still much frequented on account of the beauty of
the situation were the bath-owner only a little more attentive to the
comfort of his humble guests.

The valley, apparently so gloomy, proved not only cheerful, but full
of romance and old-world memories. Other castles there were,
perched gracefully on their crags; and thus, much sooner than we
had anticipated, we found ourselves stopping at the Post in Taufers.
Rather Sand in Taufers, the single appellation being used chiefly for
the parent church, which, with a mortuary chapel and a house for
the "young and sick," stands apart. Sand and Moritz, two prosperous
villages, cluster with this group of buildings at the head of the
valley, gathering like fiefs at the foot of the fine old castle, still
one of the grandest feudal remains in ruin-bestrewn Tyrol. A third
village, Müklen, though quite distinct, lies sufficiently near to
deserve being included in the circle.

The Post, in prospect of the increase of custom occasioned by the