George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

[32] and I enjoyed it a good deal, because the original was quite familiar to me.

July 14.—. . . . We had another beautiful day to-day, which we used for another excursion into the mountains, visiting the lake and town of Hallstadt, and the waterfall of Waldbach-Strupp. . . . . It is a more picturesque lake than Gmunden, about four and a half English miles long and one mile wide, surrounded by mountains that are as admirably grouped for effect as can well be imagined, and in which it lies so deeply imbedded that during four months in the year not a ray of the sun falls upon the greater part of it, or upon the village on its border. . . . . We did not stop at the village, except to order a cold dinner to be sent up the mountain, and then followed the course of the mountain torrent as our only guide.

It is hardly possible that a stream can be more beautiful than it is, as it comes rushing and leaping down in every form of torrent and cascade, over rocks covered with the richest moss, and under the shade of venerable beeches and oaks; now of the deep, emerald green, given to it by the glacier from which it springs, and now as white as foam and sunshine can make it. We lounged by its banks for an hour, refreshed in the heat of the day by its cool waters, whose temperature is so low that no fishes can live in them, and then toiled for another half-hour up the precipitous sides of the mountain, until, coming suddenly upon the verge of a gulf, we saw the torrent, fresh from its icy source, bursting its way through the mountain-wall opposite, and falling with tremendous uproar into the abyss nearly a hundred feet below. It was a grand spectacle, and deserves as truly to be called picturesque as anything of the sort I have ever seen. We sat down and enjoyed it at our leisure . . . . . In about two hours our dinner was brought. A kind old woodcutter went down to the torrent and fetched us up some water, which effectually cooled our wine, and we enjoyed a delicious meal, resting on the bank of grass under the shadowing trees, and directly in front of the waterfall. . . . .

At St. Wolfgang, Mr. Ticknor says, ‘In the court of the church we saw something really interesting, a very beautiful and graceful fountain, cast in lead, with admirable designs by Albert Durer, of whose authenticity I did not doubt, both on account of their beauty, and because his initials and the date, 1515, were cast with the work.’

After three days at Salzburg, on whose various beauties, interests, and antiquities Mr. Ticknor dwells at length, we find the