them at 2.30, and ordering
breakfast for a quarter-past three sharp. (I had no idea there were such
times in the morning!)

We were fortunate enough to find our land-lord, a worthy farmer, waiting
for us with a tumble-down conveyance, in appearance something between a
circus-chariot and a bath-chair, drawn by a couple of powerful-looking
horses; and in this, after a spirited skirmish between our driver and a
mob of twenty or so tourists, who pretended to mistake the affair for an
omnibus, and who would have clambered into it and swamped it, we drove
away.

Higher and higher we climbed, and grander and grander towered the
frowning moon-bathed mountains round us, and chillier and chillier grew
the air. For most of the way we crawled along, the horses tugging us
from side to side of the steep road; but, wherever our coachman could
vary the monotony of the pace by a stretch-gallop--as, for instance, down
the precipitous descents that occasionally followed upon some extra long
and toilsome ascent--he thoughtfully did so. At such times the drive
became really quite exciting, and all our weariness was forgotten.

The steeper the descent, the faster, of course, we could go. The rougher
the road, the more anxious the horses seemed to be to get over it
quickly. During the gallop, B. and I enjoyed, in a condensed form, all
the advantages usually derived from crossing the Channel on a stormy day,
riding on a switchback railway, and being tossed in a blanket--a hard,
nobbly blanket, full of nasty corners and sharp edges. I should never
have thought that so many different sensations could have been obtained
from one machine!

About half-way up we passed Ettal, at the entrance to the Valley of the
Ammer. The great white temple, standing, surrounded by its little
village, high up amid the mountain solitudes, is a famous place of
pilgrimage among devout Catholics. Many hundreds of years ago, one of
the early Bavarian kings built here a monastery as a shrine for a
miraculous image of the Virgin that had been sent down to him from Heaven
to help him when, in a foreign land, he had stood sore in need,
encompassed by his enemies. Maybe the stout arms and hearts of his
Bavarian friends were of some service in the crisis also; but the living
helpers were forgotten. The old church and monastery, which latter was a
sort of ancient Chelsea Hospital for decayed knights, was destroyed one
terrible night some hundred and fifty years