130 



CHARACTER AND MANNERS OF THE TYROLESE, 



pieces, and other rustic arms, which they had in their possession. 

 These small bodies, proceeding down their valleys, received con- 

 tinual accessions of strength as they advanced ; and, like the 

 mountain streams, whose course they followed, rolled onward 

 their united force towards the plain. 



There is reason to believe that the chiefs of the conspiracy were 

 well acquainted, for some time previous, with the war which was 

 ' in contemplation between Austria and France. But their knowl- 

 edge could not be generally communicated, both from the risk of 

 entrusting so important a secret to many persons, and from the 

 extraordinary obstacles to the circulation of information which the 

 nature of the country presented. The knowledge of each valley 

 was in a great measure confined to its own little society ; bare 

 rocks, and snowy mountains, forming insuperable barriers to all 

 intercourse with the neighbouring people. The simultaneous in- 

 surrection of the Tyrolese, therefore, must be imputed tj that 

 burst of generous feeling which animated all ranks at that event- 

 ful crisis, and to that noble confidence in each other, which led 

 the inhabitants of every family to take up arms, in the sure belief 

 that all their countrymen had done the same. 



When the peasants from the valleys which connected with the 

 Inn Thai assembled round Inspruck, they exhibited a motley and 

 extraordinary appearance. The young and the old, the rich and 

 the poor, were all crowded together without order, or military 

 equipment of any kind, and dressed in the picturesque and striking 

 manner which is pecuhar to those mountaineers. Most of the 

 peasants had a fowling piece, or rifle ; but in every other species 

 of equipment they were miserably deficient. Cannon, or stores, 

 or horsemen, they had none, and even their swords were hardly 

 such as are suited to modern warfare. Many aged warriors bore 

 the halberds which their forefathers had used in the days when 

 armour was worn by the cavalry, and with which the Swiss had 

 resisted the chivalry of Charles the Bold on the field of Morat. 

 The spears which others carried were the same which had been 

 used in the bloody wars between the Swiss and the Tyrolese, 

 above three hundred years ago, and which had been preserved 

 with religious care by the descendants of the persons who there 

 distinguished themselves. Many did not possess even such arms 

 as these ; but joined their comrades with no other weapons than 

 a scythe, or pruning-hook, or a rusty bayonet. But, though va- 



