In a romantic and beautiful district of the Southern Tyrol, at no great distance from the town of Botzen, stands the flourishing village of St Ulrich. It is indeed more a small town than a village, and extends itself widely along the right bank of one of those rushing streams that dash through nearly every valley, and are fed by the melting of the snow on the lofty mountain-ranges of the neighbourhood. It contains several good and comfortable inns; and boasts of two churches, one of which is old and small; the other new and large, and handsomely carved and decorated outside, while in the interior, besides some richly painted windows and a good altar-piece, there is a great variety of statues and small figures, all of wood, most of them very delicately carved, and many of them, as well as much of the internal ornamentation of the church, tastefully gilt and coloured. This wood-carving is indeed the staple manufacture of the place, and has raised it to its present condition of evident prosperity. There are no signs of poverty anywhere visible; the people look healthy, happy, well fed and well clad, and their houses roomy and clean. Let us see how this pleasant state of matters has been brought about.

Wood-carving is the chief occupation of many a mountain village both in the Tyrol and in Switzerland; but in no place has it been carried to greater perfection or been entered into more thoroughly by the inhabitants than at St Ulrich. One branch of it indeed, the manufacture of wooden toys, particularly dolls, may be considered almost a speciality of the district; for the little town of St Ulrich is the great storehouse from which the chief toy-traders of Europe, we might almost say of the world, draw those rich and inexhaustible supplies which brighten so many nurseries and gladden the hearts of so many little ones. The art is said to have been introduced into the valley about the beginning of the last century, since which time it has been the principal employment of the inhabitants, male and female, young and old alike; for ancient grandfathers and grandmothers may be seen steadily pursuing the vocation that has been theirs from their earliest years; and as soon as the little boys or girls can be safely trusted with knives, they begin their rude endeavours to carve the form of some animal or toy which is the peculiar line of their family. This is one of the odd things in connection with the trade, that, as a general rule, each family or group of families has its own special department, from which they do not deviate. Some carve, some paint, some gild; the painters often working only in one particular colour; while the carvers constantly stick to the manufacture of one or two, or at the most of half-a-dozen animals, of certain toys or certain portions of toys and dolls, and so on through all the endless ramifications of their Lilliputian industry.

It is a most curious sight to watch them at work. They use no models, and work entirely by rule of thumb; long practice having made them so perfect that they turn out the tiny articles without the slightest hesitation, every one as precisely alike as if they had been cast in a mould. In this way are manufactured the varied collection of animals found in a Noah's Ark. Some families will cut out lions, tigers, camels, and elephants; others, sheep, oxen, and deer; others, chiefly birds; while another group will produce the wonderfully dressed little men and women popularly supposed to represent Noah and his seven human companions. The colouring of these productions is quite another branch of the trade; and while the carving goes on at all times with unabated regularity, the painting of the various articles is only added as they are required; that is, when orders come from the toy-dealers; and this frequently varies according to circumstances; so that the colouring and gilding business is not on the whole so steady and profitable as the carving.

There are several shops and warehouses where the articles thus manufactured are sold; but there are two leading merchants who act as wholesale exporters, buying the carved work either from the people themselves, or from minor agents, who realise a small profit by acting as middlemen. Permission can readily be obtained to visit those establishments; and it is a curious and amusing sight to walk through their vast repositories, and inspect the extraordinary collection of dolls and toys gathered together under one roof. The dolls are in themselves a very wonderful exhibition. There are rooms upon rooms quite filled with them, of every size and style, small and large, painted and unpainted; their size varying from tiny atoms scarcely an inch long, to huge figures of nearly a yard in length, most of them jointed, and the greater part uncoloured, and just as they came from the hands of the carver. They are carefully sorted according to their various sizes; and great shelves and cases in every direction are crammed with them. Some sizes are more popular than others; a very favourite length being about two inches; of this size one of the great doll-merchants of St Ulrich buys thirty thousand every week during the whole year! The makers of this kind can turn out about twenty dozen a day, each skilful worker; the painting being quite an after concern, with which the carvers have nothing to do. Here also are bins filled with wooden animals, also of different sizes and different degrees of excellence; for while some are merely roughly shaped and the production often of very young children, others are carved with very great care and dexterity, and are faithful representations of the creatures they are intended to imitate. All the numerous toys with which we are familiar in the shops, or which we have played with in childhood, here first spring into being. Noah's Arks, empty and full; armies of wooden soldiers on horseback and on foot; farmyards of various dimensions, stored with every article needful for the juvenile agriculturist; dolls' furniture of every shape and pattern; sets of tea-cups and saucers, and all kinds of domestic utensils; little wooden horses, little wooden carts. In short it is toys, toys everywhere; and even with all our experience of the capacity of children for acquiring such possessions, it is really difficult to credit the fact that this enormous manufacture and unceasing distribution go on, like the poet's brook, 'for ever.'

Quitting the premises, the visitor is still pursued by the prevailing occupation. Carts are coming and going, all carrying the one universal load—toys; while at every cottage door are seated some of the inmates, busily engaged with their own special branch of the trade; mothers singing to the children on their knee while they yet deftly carve a cow or a goat; old men and women whittling away, the ground at their feet strewed with the chips and shavings; and quite little boys and girls gravely cutting the portions intrusted to them, and soon acquiring a skill which enables them to add materially to the family gains. The men are usually employed on carving of a higher class, chairs, boxes, brackets, or on the superior quality of toys; as well as on that special branch which has attained very great perfection in St Ulrich, the cutting out and ornamentation of crucifixes, figures of Christ, the Virgin, and the Saints, and of numerous other articles employed for the decoration of churches and sacred buildings.

As we have already said, it is an interesting sight to watch the people at their work. They are very willing to gratify the curiosity of visitors, and will readily communicate all the information in their power regarding their trade and its emoluments. The trees from which the different articles are made are a soft kind of pine, very easily cut and worked. They grow in abundance in the district, and are the main source of its prosperity. But with this prosperity the steady and industrious habits of the people themselves have also much to do. The youngest members of a family begin to work as soon as they are able to do so; and this regular occupation is continued through life till the trembling fingers can no longer hold the carving-tools.

As a rule the inhabitants of St Ulrich are simple and domestic in their tastes; they are fond of flowers, and their little gardens are carefully cultivated, and gay with bright colouring. As yet their isolated position, remote from the track of the ordinary tourist, has preserved them from many of the hurtful follies and vices too often found in more frequented districts, and but few of the villagers have ever passed beyond the bounds of their own secluded valley. And yet this little hamlet has a world-wide reputation. The toys of St Ulrich have delighted generations long passed away; they are to be found in palace, hall, and cottage; in the populous cities and quiet country homes of Europe, in far-distant nurseries of Asia and America; and in all probability they will continue to be poured forth in inexhaustible profusion when this and many a succeeding generation have gone from the whirl and bustle produced by the less innocent toys and amusements of maturity, to that silent land whose shadows are still deeper than those of the dark and majestic pine-trees that close in round the little valley of St Ulrich.