t. For they were "stepping westward;" but in order to get to
the Gross-Venediger I must make a detour to the east, through the
Pusterthal, and come up through the valley of the Isel to the great
chain of mountains called the Hohe Tauern.

At the junction of the Isel and the Drau lies the quaint little city of
Lienz, with its two castles--the square, double-towered one in the
town, now transformed into the offices of the municipality, and the
huge mediaeval one on a hill outside, now used as a damp restaurant and
dismal beer-cellar. I lingered at Lienz for a couple of days, in the
ancient hostelry of the Post. The hallways were vaulted like a cloister,
the walls were three feet thick, the kitchen was in the middle of the
house on the second floor, so that I looked into it every time I came
from my room, and ordered dinner direct from the cook. But, so far from
being displeased with these peculiarities, I rather liked the flavour of
them; and then, in addition, the landlady's daughter, who was managing
the house, was a person of most engaging manners, and there was trout
and grayling fishing in a stream near by, and the neighbouring church of
Dolsach contained the beautiful picture of the Holy Family, which Franz
Defregger painted for his native village.

The peasant women of Lienz have one very striking feature in their
dress--a black felt hat with a broad, stiff brim and a high crown,
smaller at the top than at the base. It looks a little like the
traditional head-gear of the Pilgrim Fathers, exaggerated. There is a
solemnity about it which is fatal to feminine beauty.

I went by the post-waggon, with two slow horses and ten passengers,
fifteen miles up the Iselthal, to Windisch-Matrei, a village whose early
history is lost in the mist of antiquity, and whose streets are pervaded
with odours which must have originated at the same time with the
village. One wishes that they also might have shared the fate of its
early history. But it is not fair to expect too much of a small place,
and Windisch-Matrei has certainly a beautiful situation and a good
inn. There I took my guide--a wiry and companionable little man, whose
occupation in the lower world was that of a maker and merchant of
hats--and set out for the Pragerhutte, a shelter on the side of the
Gross-Venediger.

The path led under the walls of the old Castle of Weissenstein, and then
in steep curves up the cliff which blocks the head of the valley, and
along a cu