144 



AUSTRIA. 



Au'tria. 



Rivers. 



Woods. 



trust to any map of this country hitherto published, 

 not even to Kinderlin's, who pretends to have drawn 

 his from actual observation and real survey. They 

 are all absurdly wrong and false, and will infallibly 

 mislead any one who depends upon them. The best 

 map is Chauchard's, and yet it is also extremely de- 

 ficient with regard to this rarely frequented, and yet 

 interesting, portion of Germany. 



Besides the Danube, which rolls in great and rapid 

 majesty through the heart of the whole duchy, se- 

 veral other rivers of considerable si/e, and which 

 would be called large in Britain, enrich and adorn 

 the Austrian circle. Of these the principal run from 

 the southward, such as the Traun, the Ens, Ips, Tra- 

 sen, &c. and are studded with rich and flourishing 

 towns or villages on their banks. Wooden bridges 

 are generally used, but they are well contrived, 

 8trongly built, and perfectly safe. Vast quantities 

 of timber are floated down these rivers annually from 

 the higher country forests, for fuel to the inhabitants 

 of the champaign districts. The carriage and pre- 

 paration of this fuel yields employment during win- 

 ter and spring to one fourth of the population. The 

 Austrian rivers vary greatly in colour, not only from 

 one another, according to the nature of the channels 

 in which they run, but also from themselves at dif- 

 ferent seasons of the year. The Danube alone re- 

 tains a yellow colour all the year round. No green 

 can be more lively or beautiful than the waters of the 

 Traun and Ens, until they begin to be affected by 

 the autumnal rains. Near their sources, amidst high 

 mountains, of from six to seven thousand feet above 

 the level of the Danube, their waters are always 

 green, and impregnated with fine particles of schistose 

 and calcareous sand, which are supposed, in those 

 exalted regions, to produce the swellings of the 

 glands of the neck, which are here so common, and 

 in Switzerland, as well as in Austria, are called 

 kropje, in France goitres. We met with some fami- 

 lies in the higher vallies, who observed the constant 

 custom of boiling the water, and allowing it to sub- 

 side and to deposit this sand for many hours before 

 they drank of it. This precaution they allege to 

 be perfectly necessary, and also effectual in prevent- 

 ing the swelling and deformity in question. 



The most common species of wood is the alpine 

 pine, which almost exclusively occupies the sides and 

 elevated slopes of the mountains. This the natives 

 call nadel holz ( needle-xuood), which constitutes a con- 

 siderable portion of their fuel, and of the materials of 

 their bridges. Ash, oak, elm, larch-tree, and most 

 of our common forest trees, grow luxuriantly, and 

 afford a delightful variety to their woodland scenes. 



However striking to a stranger, especially if he 

 goes from our part of the British island, the quantity 

 of wood may be, which he sees in Austria, yet he 

 will every where meet with grievous complaints of 

 its decline, and the most dismal forebodings of the 

 fatal consequences which must follow it. Certain it . 

 is, that the price of wood has risen nearly 80 per 

 cent, during the last six years, even making allowances 

 for the depreciation of the paper currency, and the 



great difference which now subsists between the real A 

 and the nominal value of the circulating medium of ( y~ 

 the country. The same danger from scarcity of fuel, 

 and of wood for other purposes, is apprehended all 

 over the west of Europe ; and we every where hear 

 the same alarming invectives against the improvi- 

 dence of present occupants, and the mismanagement 

 of their rulers. 



The climate varies greatly from the mountainous climate, 

 frontiers of Stiria and Bohemia, to the lower borders 

 of Hungary and the banks of the Danube. In the 

 former, the cold is in winter intense and persevering j 

 storms and rains frequent, violent, and destructive ; 

 the summer is usually short and precarious ; and the 

 hopes of the husbandman are often blasted by frosts 

 and tempests in the autumnal months. The average 

 quantity of rain that falls at the towns of Gmunden 

 and Hallstadt in Upper Austria, which are encom- 

 passed by mountains, and lie on lakes which give 

 them their names, is 38 46 inches, while the quan- 

 tity which falls at Vienna rarely exceeds 28. The 

 medium temperature of springs in the high country is 

 42, that of springs on the Danube 44 46. In 

 these mountainous regions, the winter sets in with 

 considerable severity about the end of October; and 

 the ground is for the most part covered with snow 

 until the middle of March. Partial thaws, indeed, 

 sometimes occur, but they are of short duration, and 

 do more harm than good. Very little can be done in 

 the fields before the latter end of March, when the 

 regular thaw commences, and vegetation is re-esta- 

 blished in beauty and strength. The transitions from 

 cold to heat, and vice versa, arc sometimes very rapid 

 and injurious to the human constitution, as well as to 

 vegetation and to animals; but upon the whole, this 

 fine province cannot be deemed unhealthy or unfa- 

 vourable to longevity. The most frequent instances 

 of advanced old age which we met with, occurred, 

 not as in Norway and Scotland, among the higher 

 regions of the country, but in the deep and sheltered 

 vallies.* Near the salt pans of the provinces, the 

 race of men is slender, pale, emaciated, and feeble in 

 body, as well as to all appearance weak in capacity 

 and intellect. Whether this proceeds from the at- 

 mosphere which they constantly inhale being impreg- 

 nated with impure salts and charcoal, so as to affect 

 their lungs too powerfully, or from the nature of 

 their occupation, which requires their being almost 

 continually wet from head to foot, or from whatso- 

 ever causes it may arise, is much disputed, but the 

 fact is undeniable. The most common diseases in 

 those parts of Austria are pulmonary complaints, 

 typhus and intermitting fevers, colds, rheumatisms, 

 and epidemical distempers brought from Italy and 

 Turkey. Southerly and south-westerly winds are 

 the strongest. These blow from the Stirian, Ca- 

 rinthian, and Tyrolian Alps, over a snowy region of 

 several hundred miles in extent. Northerly winds 

 are the pleasantest, easterly the most piercing and 

 durable. 



On the banks of the Danube, and in the lower 

 country, however, the heat is excessive in the months 



There appeared few iuMances of great longevity between 1796 and 1806, and only three, 3nd these doubtful, of 95, 97, 

 ;;iid 101 year*. 



