The impression he first received did not improve as he drew near the Dorf where the old Bauer lived, The country was open and cultivated; but there were few trees: and while one could not exactly call it flat, the surface was merely a waving tract that never rose to the dignity of mountain. The Bauer houses, too, unlike the great wooden edifices of the Southern Tyrol--where three, ay, sometimes four, generations may be found dwelling under one roof--were small, misshapen things, half stone, half wood. No deep shadowing eave along them to relieve the heat of a summer sun;--no trellised vines over the windows and the doorway;--no huge yellow gourds drying on the long galleries, where bright geraniums and prickly aloes stood in a row;--no Jâger either, in his green jacket and gold-tas-selled hat, was there, sharing his breakfast with his dog; the rich spoils of his day’s sport strewed around his feet--the smooth-skinned chamois, or the stag with gnarled horns, or the gorgeously-feathered wild turkey, all so plentiful in the mountain regions. No; here was a land of husbandmen, with ploughs, and harrows, and deep-wheeled carts, driven along by poor-looking, ill-clad peasants, who never sung as they went along, scarce greeted each other as they passed. It was true, the great plains were covered with cattle, but to Fritz’s eyes the prospect had something mournful and sad. It was so still and silent. The cows had no bells beneath their necks like those in the Alpine regions; nor did the herds jodeln to each other, as the Tyrolers do, from cliff to cliff, making the valleys ring to the merry sound. No, it was as still as midnight; not even a bird was there to cheer the solitude with his song.