have turned the once beautiful, richly-wooded Dalmatia into a dreary,
barren land. In the Tyrol it is not generally foreigners, but the
natives, who unhesitatingly sweep away woods, which, causing grass and
plants to grow, have enabled human habitations to be erected on spots
that would otherwise be but dreary wildernesses, the battle-fields of
chilling winds and scorching sunshine. The precious timber, which like
refuse they cart into the clumsy yawning craters called stoves, or
else sell out of the country for economy so called, might not only
supply the land for centuries with a proper amount of fuel, either as
wood or charcoal, but bring prosperity to many a sequestered village
if turned into tools and kitchen utensils, whilst still leaving
thousands of trees for export. "The supply has never failed yet," say
the Tyrolese: "why should we replant forests to have to cut them down
again, when the ground, too, is good for grass or corn?" So the axe
lies ruthlessly at the root of every tree, for a heavy reckoning
hereafter to the Tyroler.

With a weighing and balancing over every step which we took worthy
of a diplomatist, we finally stood upon the drawbridge of the castle.
Here the savage customs of the rude days in which it was built
immediately impress the beholder. Traces remain of the ponderous iron
portcullis, heavy wooden bars, arrow-holes, and slits in the masonry
for the pouring of boiling water or oil upon adverse knight or lordly
freebooter. A steep path leads through two great entrance-gates into
the large inner court, which is erected upon the virgin rock. A roof
of old wooden shingles shelters the well, and ancient rotting timber
mingles everywhere with the impervious stone in the massive buildings
of the castle, conveying a sense of weakness and decay in the midst of
the strongest durability.