APPROACHING THE MOUNTAINS. 9 



As we approach the now near horizon all wears a dif- 

 ferent character. The houses are built otherwise, and 

 have altogether another look than those we passed before ; 

 the roofs project over the sides and are bordered with 

 some simple ornaments j a light wooden balcony is be- 

 fore the windows of the first story, and the walls are of 

 snowy whiteness, and the trelliswork and doors and shut- 

 ters are neatly and even tastefully painted. It looks 

 gay, and green, and cheerful. And on the roofs we now see 

 a bell, which, swinging between its cross-beams, calls 

 home those who are in the fields to dinner or to supper. 

 It is a sign that the wealth of the peasant here consists 

 in pasture-land; and indeed no corn is seen, but the 

 slopes and plain are covered with rich grass and with 

 lowing kine. And then, too, the passers-by ! The green 

 pointed hat, worn alike by both sexes, with its golden 

 tassel and gay flowers on the brim ; the gveyjoppe* and 

 short leathern breeches of the men j the gold-embroi- 

 dered boddice and striped petticoat of the women are 

 now not only more frequent, but are almost exclusively 

 seen ; and if we stop at a village, all that meets the eye 

 tells us at once we are among another race than those we 

 left behind in the flat country. It sounds pleasantly too 

 — gratefully falling on the heart rather than on the ear — 

 that friendly " Grilss di Gott!" (God greet ye!) with 

 which each one salutes you as he enters the inn or place 

 where you may be. There is a heartiness and simplicity, 

 an absence of all conventional formality in the salutation 

 and the manner of it, very characteristic of, and accord- 

 ing well with, a mountain people. And how clean the 

 village looks, how neat and healthy its inhabitants ! They 

 live better and work less hard than the peasantry of the 



* Joppe is the loose short coat worn by the mountaineer of Bavaria, 

 and by the Tyrolese peasantry. 



