134 CHARACTER AND MANNERS OF THE TYROLESE. 



on which the fire of their enemies took effect with unerring pre- 

 cision. In less than ten minutes, the whole column, amounting 

 to nearly 18,000, which had begun this perilous ascent, was pre- 

 cipitated back into the valley, while the whole road which they 

 had occupied, was filled by the dead and the wounded, or choked 

 up with fallen horses and broken wagons, overturned in the hurry 

 of the flight. The Tyrolese pursued them into the beautiful little 

 plain below, and then returned to their station among the preci- 

 pices. 



The French troops renewed the attack with their accustomed 

 gallantry, during the remainder of the forenoon ; but they were 

 never able to sustain the desperate fire which the Tyrolese marks- 

 men kept up from their inaccessible position. At length, tired 

 with fruitless efforts, they drew off their troops, and the peasants 

 imagining that the victory was decided, left their posts in great 

 numbers, in order to hear mass, and return thanksgiving at some 

 neighbouring convents. The defence of the pass was now de- 

 volved to some Austrian battalions, and the French, perceiving 

 the weakness of their opponents, renewed the attack, and after a 

 vigorous opposition, succeeded in establishing themselves on the 

 heights. The peasants, how much soever they were enraged at 

 seeing victory thus snatched from their grasp, were compelled to 

 fall back to the interior of the country ; and Inspruck, with the 

 whole valley of the Inn, was again occupied by the hostile army. 



The Austrians, with a degree of pusillanimity which can never 

 be sufficiently reprobated, now abandoned the country to its mer- 

 ciless conquerors, and the Tyrolese were left to rely entirely on 

 their own resources. The grand army had already destroyed the 

 Austrian army in the plains of Bavaria, and had penetrated to the 

 neighbourhood of Vienna; and the Tyrol had received no warlike 

 supplies of any importance from their flattering allies. In this 

 emergency, however, their own courage did not desert them. 

 Speckbacher and Hofer, their two leaders, retired to their respec- 

 tive valleys on the opposite sides, and roused the peasantry to a 

 continuance of the war by their eloquence and their example. 

 Speckbacher undertook himself to convey the intelligence of the 

 ardour which prevailed in his valleys across the Inn, that was then 

 occupied by the French troops. He set out accordingly, accom- 

 panied by his tried friends George Zoppell and Simon Lechner, 

 and endeavoured to penetrate across that part of the valley which 



