FLYING FOOTSTEPS.
The journey which we now commenced was too rapid to allow of more than the briefest record of its route. The breathlessness of haste, and the number of things to be seen and visited, left no time for writing up on the subjects suggested by the meagre notes of the diary. To the latter, therefore, I am forced to betake myself, piecing its fragmentary statements, where I can do so, from memory.
Tuesday, August 6. Started with vetturino for Innspruck, via Brenner pass. A splendid day's journey. Stopped to dine at a pretty village,—name forgotten,—at whose principal inn a smart, bustling maid-servant in costume, very clean and civil, came to the carriage, helped us to alight, and carried our travelling bags up stairs to a parlor with a stout bed in it, upon which our chief threw himself and slept until the cutlets were ready. This old-fashioned zeal and civility were pleasant to contemplate once more, probably for the last time. For a railroad has been built over the Brenner pass, the which will go into operation next week. Then will these pleasant manners insensibly fade away, with the up-to-time curtness of modern travel. The porter who helps you to carry your hand luggage from the car to the depot will sternly demand his fee for that laborious service. All officials will grow as reticent of doing you the smallest pleasure as if civility were a contraband of war. And it does indeed become so, for the railroad develops the antagonisms of trade. Its flaming sword allows of no wanderings in wayside Paradises. Its steam trumpet shrieks in your ear the lesson that the straight line is the shortest distance between two points. It swallows you at one point and vomits you at another, with extreme risk of your life between. And it vulgarizes every place that it touches. The mixed stir and quiet of the little town become concentrated into fixed crises of excitement. For the postilion's horn and whip, and the pleasant rattling of the coming and going post-chaise, you will have, three or four times in the day, those shrill bars whose infernal symphony is mercifully allowed to proceed no farther; and a cross and steaming crowd; and a cool and supercilious few in the first or second class wart-saal; and then a dull and dead quiet in the little town, as if steam and stir came and went together, and left nothing behind them.
The buxom maid-servant mourned over the impending ruin of the small tavern business, as she showed us the curious arrangements of the old house. It had formerly been a convent of nuns, and was very solidly put together. The back windows commanded a lovely view of the mountains. In the garden we found a pleasant open house, no doubt formerly a place for devout assemblages and meditations, but now chiefly devoted to the consumption of beer.
After dinner we walked to the church near by, and looked at the curious iron crosses and small mural tablets which marked the final resting-place of the village worthies. Their petty offices and cherished distinctions were all preserved here. All of them had received the "holy death sacrament," and had started on the mysterious voyage in good hope. Through this whole extent of country, the crucifixes by the wayside were numerous. Resuming our journey, we reached Mittelwald, a picturesque hamlet, composed of a small church, a stream, a bridge, and a short string of houses. Here we defeated the future machinations of all officers of customs, by causing the two offending dress-patterns, already twice paid for, and treated at length in various printed and written documents, to be cut into breadths, which we hastily managed to sew up, reserving their fuller treatment for the purlieus of civilized life.
Our two days' drive over the mountains was refreshing and most charming. Our vetturino was not less despondent than the maid-servant before alluded to. In our progress we were much in sight of the scarcely completed railroad, whose locomotive and working cars constantly appeared and disappeared before us, plunging into the numerous tunnels that defeat the designs of the mountain fortresses, and mocking our slow progress, as the money-getting train of success and sensation mocks the tedious steps of learning and the painful elaboration of art.
"This is my last journey," said the vetturino; "the railway opens on Monday of next week."
"What will you do thereafter?" I inquired.
"Sell all out, and go to work as I can," he answered; adding, however, "In case you should intend going as far as Munich by carriage, I beg to be honored,"—of which the Yankee rendering would be, "I shouldn't mind putting you through."
This, however, was hardly to be thought of, and at Innspruck we took leave of this honest and polite man, whose species must soon become extinct, whether he survive or no. Here recommenced for us the prosaic chapter of the railroad. Our route, however, for a good part of the way, lay within sight of the mountains. The depots at which we took fiery breath were in the style of Swiss châlets, quite ornamental in themselves, and further graced by vines and flowers. The travellers we encountered were not commonplacely cosmopolite. The young women were often in Tyrolese costume, wearing gilt tassels on their broad, black felt hats. We encountered parties of archers going to attend shooting matches, attired in picturesque uniforms of green and gold. At the depots, too, we encountered a new medium of enlivenment. We were now in a land of beer, and foaming glasses were offered to us in the cars, and at the railway buffets. Mild and cheerful we found this Bavarian beverage,—less verse-inspiring than wine,—and valuable as tending to reduce the number of poets who tease the world by putting all its lessons into rhymes, chimes, and jingles. Whatever we ourselves may have done, it is certain that our companions of both sexes embraced these frequent opportunities of refreshment, and that the color in their cheeks and the tone of their good-natured laughter were heightened by the same. One of these, a young maiden, told us how she had climbed the mountain during four hours of the day before, visiting the huts of the cowherds, who, during summer, pasture their cows high up on the green slopes. The existence of these people she described as hard and solitary in the extreme. The rich butter and cheese they make are all for the market. They themselves eat only what they cannot sell, according to the rule whereby small farmers live and thrive in all lands. The young girl wore in her hat a bunch of the blossom called edelweiss, which she had brought from her lofty wanderings. It is held in great esteem here, and is often offered for sale.
In the afternoon we turned our back upon the mountains. A flat land lay before us, green and well tilled. And long before sunset we saw the spires of Munich, and the lifted arm of the great statue of Bavaria. Our arrival was prosperous, and through the streets of the handsome modern city we attained the quiet of an upper chamber in a hotel filled with Americans.