Page:Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843 - Volume 2.djvu/53



left Salzburg at ten o’clock, on a fine sunny morning. We were about to penetrate the most celebrated passes of the Tyrol,—and the name has magic in it. We wound through the plain of the Salzkammergut, hedged in by lofty mountains, that rise sheer and abrupt from the plain, without any apparent opening by which their recesses may be penetrated. The Tyrol is the most continuously mountainous district in Europe. Switzerland contains plains and lakes—the Tyrol has only defiles and ravines, hedged in closely on all sides by precipice and mountain; while, in the depths, the torrents from the hills unite and form rivers, which turn many a mill-wheel destined for domestic use, besides carrying the riches of the country (salt) down various canals, fed by them, till it reaches the Danube. Once, these streams were laden with the hopes—the fate—of the Tyrolese, and watched with