The library contains an interesting collection of MSS. and early printed books in many languages, and is particularly rich in works illustrative of Tirolean history. In the church are some of Nissl the elder’s wood-carvings, which are always worth attention. The confessionals are adorned with figures of celebrated penitents, by his hand; and other noteworthy works will be found in a series of nine tableaux, showing forth the Passion; also the crucifix over the high altar, and four life-sized carvings. In all these he was assisted by his pupils, Franz Thaler, of Jenbach, who afterwards came to have the charge of the Vienna cabinet of antiquities, and Antony Hüber, the most successful of his school. Perhaps the finest specimen of all is a dead Christ, under the altar, remarkable for the anatomical knowledge displayed. Like many another mountain sanctuary isolated and exposed to the wind, this monastery has more than once been ravaged by fire; in 1868 it was in great part burnt down, and the church-building zeal of Tirol is still being exercised with great energy and open-handedness in building it up again. A festival was held there in October 1870, when five bells from the foundry of Grassmayr of Wilten were set up to command the echoes of the neighbourhood; great pains are now being taken to make the building fireproof.
Close opposite Viecht lies Schwatz;[12] a number of straggling houses, called ‘die lange Gasse,’ on the Viecht side belong to it also; between them there is a bridge, which we will not cross now, but continue a little further along the left bank; this, though less rich in smiling pastures than the right, has many points of interest. The next village to Viecht is Vomp, situated at the entrance of the Vomperthal, the sternest and most barren in scenery or settlements of any valley of Tirol, and characterized by a hardy pedestrian as ‘frightfully solitary, and difficult of access: even the boldest Jägers,’ he adds, ‘seldom pursue their game into it.’ The village church of Vomp once possessed a priceless work of Albert Dürer, an ‘Ancona,’ showing forth in its various compartments the history of the Passion; but it was destroyed in 1809, when the French, under Deroi, set fire to the church in revenge for the havoc the Tirolean sharp-shooters had committed among their ranks. Joseph Arnold (in 1814) did his best to repair the loss, by painting another altar-piece, in which we see a less painful than the usual treatment of the martyrdom of St. Sebastian: the artist has chosen the moment at which the young warrior is being bound to the tree where he is to suffer so bravely. Above the village stands the once splendid castle of Sigmundslust, one of the hunting-seats of Sigismund the Monied (der Münzreiche),[13] now the villa of a private family of Innsbruck, Riccabona by name. Vomp is also the birth-place of Joseph Hell, the wood-carver.
Crossing the Vomperbach, and the fertile plain it waters, you reach Terfens, which earned some renown in the wars of ‘the year nine.’ Outside the village is a little pilgrimage chapel, called Maria-Larch, honoured in memory of a mysterious image of the blessed Virgin, found under a larch fir on the spot, similar to the legend of that at Waldrast.[14]
Passing the ruin of Volandseck, the still inhabited castle of Thierberg (the third of the name we have passed since we entered Tirol) and the village of S. Michael, you come to S. Martin, the parish church of which owes its endowment to a hermit of modern times. There was in the village a convent, deserted, because partly destroyed by fire. In 1638, George Thaler, of Kitzbühel, a man of some means and position, came to live here a life of sanctity: he devoted six hours a-day to prayer, six to sleep, and the rest to manual labour. He maintained a chaplain, and an old servant who waited on him for fifty years. At his death, he left all he possessed to supply the spiritual needs of the hamlet. After leaving S. Martin’s, the scenery grows more pleasing: you enter the Gnadenwald, so called, because its first inhabitants were servants of the earlier princes of Tirol, who pensioned them off with holdings of the surrounding territory. It occupies the lowland bordering the river, which here widens a little, and affords in its recesses a number of the most romantic strolls. Embowered on its border, near the river, stands the village of Baumkirchen, with its outlying offshoot of Fritzens now surpassing it in importance, as it has been chosen for the railway-station. The advance of the iron road has not stamped out the native love for putting prominently forward the external symbols of religion. I one day saw a countryman alight here from the railway, who had been but to Innsbruck to purchase a large and handsome metal cross, to be set up in some prominent point of the village and it was considered a sufficiently important occasion for several neighbours to go out to meet him on his return with it. Again, on the newer houses, probably called into existence by the increased traffic, the old custom of adorning the exterior with frescoes of sacred subjects is well kept up. This is indeed the case on many other parts of the line; but at Fritzens, I was particularly struck with one of unusual merit, both in its execution and its adaptation to the domestic scene it was to sanctify. I would call the attention of any traveller, who has time to stop at Fritzens to see it: the treatment suggests that I should give it the title of ‘the Holy Family at home,’ so completely has the artist realized the lowly life of the earthly parents of the Saviour, and may it not be a comfort to the peasant artizan to see before his eyes the very picture of his daily toil sanctified in its exercise by the hands of Him he so specially reveres?
An analogous incident, which I observed on another occasion, comes back to my memory: it happened, I think, one day at Jenbach. The train stopped to set down a Sister of Charity, who had come to nurse some sick person in the village. The ticket-collector, who was also pointsman, was so much occupied with his deferential bowing to her as he took her ticket, that he had to rush to his points ‘like mad,’ or his reverent feelings might have had serious consequences for the train! So religious indeed is your whole entourage while in Tirol, that I have remarked when travelling through just this part in the winter season, that the very masses of frozen water, arrested by the frost as they rush down the railway cuttings and embankments, assumed in the half-light such forms as Doré might give to prostrate spectres doing penance. The foot-path on to Hall leads through a continuance of the same diversified and well-wooded scenery we have been traversing hitherto; but if time presses, it is well to take the railway for this stage, and make Hall or Innsbruck a starting-point for visiting the intervening places.
Hall is the busiest and most business-like place we have come to yet, and the first whose smoky atmosphere reminds us of home. There is not much to choose between its two inns the ‘Schwarzer Bär’ and the ‘Schwarzer Adler.’ The industry and the smoke of Hall arises from the salt-works, from which Weber also derives its name (from ἁλός, salt; though why it should have been derived from the Greek he does not explain). The first effect which strikes you on arriving, after the smokiness, is the sky-line of its bizarrely-picturesque steeples, among the most bizarre of which is the Münzthurm (the mint-tower), first raised to turn into money the over-flowing silver stores of Sigismund the Monied; and last used to coin the Sandwirthszwänziger, the pieces of honest old Hofer’s brief but triumphant dictatorship. The town has in course of time suffered severely from various calamities: fire, war, pestilence, inundation, and, on one occasion, in 1670, even from earthquake; the church tower was so severely shaken, that the watchman on its parapet was thrown to the ground; the people fled from their houses into the fields, where the Jesuit fathers stood addressing them, in preparation for their last end, which seemed imminent. Loss of life was, however, small; nevertheless, the Offices of the Church were for a long time held in the open air. Notwithstanding all these reverses, the trade in salt, and the advantageous municipal rights granted them in earlier times, have always enabled the people to recover and maintain their prosperity. In the various wars, they have borne their part with signal honour. One of their greatest feats, perhaps, occurred on May 29, 1809. Speckbacher had led his men to a gallant attack on the Bavarians at Volders, blowing up the bridge behind him, and then marched to the relief of Hall; the Bavarians were in possession of the town and bridge, and as they had several pieces of artillery, it was not easy for the patriots to carry it; nevertheless, as their ammunition was failing, and Speckbacher having refused to agree to a truce, because he saw the advantage accruing to him through this deficiency, they destroyed the Hall bridge, as they thought, and retreated homewards under cover of the night. Speckbacher discovered their flight early in the morning, and lost no time in addressing his men on the importance of at once taking possession of their native town: the men were as usual at one with him, and not one shrank from the perilous enterprise of regaining the left bank by such means as the tottering remains of the bridge afforded!
Joseph Speckbacher, who shares with Andreas Hofer the glories of ‘the year nine,’ was a native of Rinn, a village on the opposite bank; but he is honoured with a grave in the Pfarrkirche, at Hall, bearing the following inscription, with the date of his death, 1820:
Im Kampfe wild, doch menschlich;
In Frieden still und den Gesetzen treu;
War er als Krieger, Unterthan und Mensch,