67 



The day after our descent from the mountain we made an excursion 

 lip the HoUen Thai, the most magnificent mountain pass I ever saw. 

 Towering precipices of limestone rock rise at various heights on both 

 sides, from among the sloping woods, with hardly room for the road, 

 and the bright rushing stream between them. The rocks themselves 

 are adorned wit^ wood, where earth enough can collect to afford a 

 little nourishment to the roots. Lycopodium helveticum w^as growing 

 on the banks of the river, and Peucedanura verticillare in similar 

 situations, but not yet in flower. We left the principal valley to visit 

 a hollow called the great Hdllen Thai, where some banks of shiver 

 afforded us Arabis vochinensis, Linaria alpina, Lunaria rediviva, An- 

 drosace lactea, Silene alpestris, and several other mountain plants ; 

 and at the Kaiser brunnen we got Betonica alopecurus, a plant 

 which was abundant enough on our next day's walk. These banks 

 of shiver are often very useful to the botanist, bringing down with 

 them many of the plants of the mountain tops, which he thus obtains 

 without the labour of climbing to them, and they here mostly come 

 into flower earlier than in their original position. 



We engaged a carriage to Prein on the next day. The lower part 

 of the hill is slaty, but it afforded us, 1 think, nothing new, but 

 Galium rotundifolium. On the pastures above, and among the 

 bushes of Pinus Pumilio, we gathered Achillea Clavennae, and A. Clu- 

 siana, Potentilla Clusiana, Gentiana acaulis and G. gestivalis, which 

 is probably a var. of G. verna, Arenaria austriaca, Piimula spectabilis 

 and Homogyne discolor. 



On the 29th I walked to the Tiirken Schanze ; I have already 

 given the botanical result. Most of the plants which grow there are 

 early, and I should have done better to have made it one of my first 

 walks about Vienna. On the 30th I walked to the Marxer Linien, 

 which is said to be the station of some rare plants, but I did not find 

 even a locality which I could suppose to be productive. The hack- 

 ney coaches at Vienna have no fixed prices, and the knowing how 

 to bargain with them is a science of itself, in which the people of 

 Vienna are said to be very expert : I have offered two zwanzigers 

 (one shilling and four pence) for a distance less than a mile, and it 

 has been refused. They are generally unwilling to take short fares. 



On the 31st July I left Vienna as I came to it, in the rain, but it 

 afterwards cleared, and we had a pleasant voyage, and the night so 

 warm, that many of the passengers passed it on the deck. Had it been 

 otherwise, I do not know how we should have managed, as the sleep- 

 ing accommodations are very imperfect, and we were over full. At 



