Innspruck, August 31, 1854.

I am very weary, and still feel inclined to write to you. My brain is tired, bewildered with the magnificent landscapes and panoramas on which I have gazed for four days. I went from BÂle to Schaffhausen, where we take the steamer for the Rhine journey. On both sides of the river rise mountains that are enchanting, of far greater beauty than those, so called, bordering the lower Rhine, between Mayence and Cologne, and so much admired by the English. From the Rhine we entered Lake Constance and landed at the town of the same name, where we ate some excellent trout, and heard the zither played by Tyroleans. We then crossed the Lake to Lindau, where a railway train awaited us, and from which we enjoyed a magnificent view of the loveliest forests, lakes, and mountains which the country can show. The railway carried us to Kempton, and by that time we were spent with fatigue, as if we had been for hours in a beautiful gallery of pictures. Instead of resting, however, we left Kempton the same night, and reached Innspruck yesterday, a few minutes before midnight. The country through which we travelled was even more enchanting—no, not that, but more sublime—than that which we had just visited. Our only annoyance was in settling our accounts and in changing horses at every post-house. There were a dozen of these, at least, between Kempton and Innspruck.

As an aid to recover my strength, I am eating delicious woodcock and soups of extraordinary concoction, which one learns to enjoy with the appetite that comes to him so many feet above the level of the sea. The drawback to this journey is my ignorance of the manners and thoughts of the people, and these things would interest me far more than all the scenery. The women of the Tyrol, it seems to me, are treated as they deserve. They are harnessed to carts, and succeed in drawing very heavy loads. I considered them very homely, with enormous feet. The fine ladies whom I met on the railway trains or steamboats are not much better. They wear hats that are a desecration, and sky-blue half-shoes with apple-green gloves. It is such characteristics as these that make up what the natives call their gemÜth, of which they are so vain.

After seeing the works of art which are the product of this country, it seems to me that the quality thereof is fundamentally destitute in imagination. At the same time, they pride themselves upon this very quality, and in their attempt to prove their claim, fall into the most pedantic extravagances. I have just been sight-seeing in the city. Everything there is new, except the tomb of Maximilian. The site of this is admirable. No Parisian costumes here! Everybody I meet is homely, and ordinary in appearance.

One can turn in no direction without seeing a mountain, and what a mountain! To-morrow we are to climb a glacier. The weather is superb, and promises to continue so. In short, I am glad I came. I should like to have you here with me, for I fancy you would find more to entertain you in this place than you do among your sea-lions.

When shall you return to Paris? Write to me at Vienna, and do not lose any time about it. Write a long, affectionate letter.

Wait; here is a flower from the Brenner.