from his lolling position until the horses or oxen begin to swerve around.
As a usual thing the teamster is filling his pipe, which has a large,
ungainly-looking, porcelain bowl, a long, straight wooden stem, and a
crooked mouth-piece. Almost every Austrian peasant from sixteen years
old upward carries one of these uncomely pipes.

The men here seem to be dull, uninteresting mortals, dressed in tight-
fitting, and yet, somehow, ill-fitting, pantaloons, usually about three
sizes too short, a small apron of blue ducking-an unbecoming garment
that can only be described as a cross between a short jacket and a
waistcoat - and a narrow-rimmed, prosy-looking billycock hat. The peasant
women are the poetry of Austria, as of any other European country, and
in their short red dresses and broad-brimmed, gypsy hats, they look
picturesque and interesting in spite of homely faces and ungraceful
figures. Riding into Lambach this morning, I am about wheeling past a
horse and drag that, careless and Austrian-like, has been left untied
and unwatched in the middle of the street, when the horse suddenly scares,
swerves around just in front of me, and dashes, helter-skelter, down the
street. The horse circles around the market square and finally stops of
his own accord without doing any damage. Runaways, other misfortunes,
it seems, never come singly, and ere I have left Lambach an hour I am
the innocent cause of yet another one; this time it is a large, powerful
work-dog, who becomes excited upon meeting me along the road, and upsets
things in the most lively manner. Small carts pulled by dogs are common
vehicles here and this one is met coming up an incline, the man considerately
giving the animal a lift. A life of drudgery breaks the spirit of these
work-dogs and makes them cowardly and cringing. At my approach this one
howls, and swerves suddenly around with a rush that upsets both man and
cart, topsy-turvy, into the ditch, and the last glimpse of the rumpus
obtained, as I sweep past and down the hill beyond, is the man pawing