Page:Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843 - Volume 2.djvu/78

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RAMBLES IN GERMANY

comfortable, and the waiter spoke English. I bought a tiny figure of Hofer, carved in wood, to do honour to the “Tyrolean Champion,” who, as Wordsworth well expresses it, was

"Murdered, like one ashore by shipwreck cast,
Murdered without relief.”

We found here the moderate charge of a good inn among these mountains: including what we gave to servants, it was nine florins,

Monday, September 12th.

Our journey continues through a most beautiful part of the Tyrol. The road first lay through a narrow, gloomy pass, closed in by dark majestic cliffs, till we crossed the Eisach, when the valley of the Adige opened on us, with the town of Bolzano—still lingering in Germany we called it Botzen—surmounted by the Castle of Eppan; again, I repeat, differing as these valleys and mountains do one from another, delightedly as the eye dwells on the unimaginable variety of grouping which this picturesque and majestic region presents, words cannot describe it. Our road was cut in the side of a mountain, and wound beneath lofty crags; a narrow plain, with a dashing torrent, the Eisach in the depth, and lofty mountains closing in the valley on either