the old men and women, sitting under the shade of their venerable linden trees, were all apparently happy, and attired in their holiday costumes.

The national dress of the Styrian mountaineers is very picturesque: that of the women consists of full short petticoats, with coloured boddices, tightly laced; their round, rosy arms, uncovered to the elbow, exhibited a chemise white as snow; and their ruddy countenances, although not handsome, yet beaming with good-nature, were shaded with straw hats, lined with green silk, in the arrangement of which there was no slight display of coquetry: these were ornamented with flowers and feathers; the latter, I should think, had previously adorned the tails of their own proud chanticleers. The dress of their lords was still more pleasing to the eye, particularly the hat, which was generally green, with a cockade, ingeniously made. from the plumage of various birds, mixed with the hair of the chamois and the deer, and secured in the centre with gold tinsel: around this were waving a few long feathers, of various colours, in which red predominated green jackets, black chamois leather small-clothes, edged with green leather, striped stockings, and shoes tied with green ribbon, completed the costume of a genuine mountaineer of Styria, except a broad leather belt, curiously embroidered with green silk. I should be inclined to think that green must have been, at some distant period, the national colour, for it prevailed over every other in the dress of both sexes.

VOL. II.

The pipe appears here, as much as in other parts of Germany, to be the natural appendage of a man's mouth, for it was retained even during dancing, as if animation and agility were inhaled with the smoke. From the general aspect of the people, and their villages, I should consider them in easy circumstances; for I did not see a single object of misery, except the Cretins. These unhappy beings are only endowed with sufficient intellect to carry water, or collect brambles in the forest. How unfortunate are all Alpine regions, in being partly peopled with these abortions of creation; still they are not by any means so numerous here as in Switzerland, nor have I seen so many instances of the goître.

In every village through which we passed, I saw a

spot of ground set apart for rifle shooting, in which parties of the youths were practising: they are, like the Tyroleans, capital marksmen. The Styrians are passionately fond of the chase, to which they are accustomed almost from their infancy, and notwithstanding the game laws are severe, yet no species of punishment deters them from pursuing their favourite pastime.

Polenta, a thick porridge, made from Indian corn, is the principal food of the peasants: the flavour is agreeable, were it not that they have the singular custom of mixing it with sand, which I have often seen thrown in while boiling. On mentioning this custom to a medical man, at Gratz, he assured me it was very general, and that the gritty seasoning assisted digestion for the same purpose, they swallow cherrystones: indeed, I observed the latter custom very general in every part of Germany, and, Heaven knows! they require something to digest their cherries, for, during the season, the whole population are eating them from morn till night.

The majority of the Styrians are Roman Catholics; and a stranger, to judge from the number of crucifixes, Madonnas, and saints, on the high roads, villages, and houses, would be led to conclude that all were of this persuasion. It is a marvel that any Protestants remain; for the bigotted Duke of Styria, afterwards Ferdinand II., indulged for years in the chase of Ketzer-Sauen, (heretic boars,) as he was pleased to call them, until the noble game became extinct.

On arriving at Pekau, a few leagues from Gratz, my companion, the miller, drew my attention to a picturesque ruin, and related a horrible tradition connected with it, the fate of the Knight von Sarau, and the beautiful Kunigund von Durrenstein. It appears that the lady having been compelled to accept the hand of a powerful Styrian Graf, found means to escape with her lover, disguised as ballad-singers: they wandered along the banks of the romantic Mur; but the enraged husband was not to be foiled of his vengeance; and after chasing them for some time, the fugitives were discovered at this place, when his revenge was indeed dreadful; for, having ordered a barrel to be lined with spikes, he forced the unhappy lovers into it, and then caused it to be rolled down from the turrets of the castle into the Mur beneath.

Gratz (or Gradetz, the Sclavonic appellation for a mountain fortified,) derives its name from an isolated hill of considerable elevation in the centre of the town, with a citadel; this hill, with the town, was strongly fortified previous to 1809; but the French, who were. determined never to be a second time bombarded from any fortress they had once captured, destroyed the whole of the works. The town is old, and its claims to distinction in point of architectural beauty very meagre ; to which we may add that the streets are narrow, and generally badly paved, except the Jacomini-platz, built by an Italian; and although it is one of the most important towns in the empire, with a population of fifty thousand, yet Gratz does not possess more than one

GRATZ.

229 or two public establishments of sufficient interest to attract the stranger.

The institution I have before described as common to all German towns, and serving as a social point of reunion for the inhabitants, is here called the Johanneum, in compliment to the Arch-Duke John, uncle to the Emperor of Austria; and though he is styled Governor of the Duchy of Styria, yet many pretend he was exiled here by the late emperor his brother, who never forgave him for not arriving earlier to the assistance of the Arch-Duke Charles on the fatal field of Wagram: notwithstanding, he has been to Austria a most unlucky chief, yet his private character, like that of the rest of his family, is excellent; and he is idolized in Styria. His magnificent donations of books and objects of natural history, have considerably enriched the collection of the Styrian capital; and the tourist, as he wanders through the country, will find ample reason to be grateful to him for the mountain roads and paths, by which he is enabled to explore, without difficulty, what were hitherto deemed inaccessible heights.

It is somewhat remarkable, that the splendid abbey, built by the Emperor Ferdinand II., for the Capuchiner monks, and also to commemorate the spot where he had twenty thousand Protestant Bibles burnt by the common hangman, is now a mad-house! being converted to that purpose by the reformer Joseph, who probably thought such an institution best calculated to