_19th._ We quitted Ratisbon at nine in the morning, leaving the banks of the Danube to our left, and drove on to Eglofsheim, and from thence generally through or on the borders of a thick and sombre pine forest, through Birkheim to Ergolshausen. The cottages in this part of Bavaria are usually built of trunks of trees, laid horizontally one upon another, like the log-houses of America; and the roofs are covered with shingles, on which are placed large flat stones, to prevent their being blown off. The better ones have generally some picture, the subject of which is taken from the Holy Writings, painted on the front; and at Ratisbon I saw a "David and Goliath," which covered the entire front of a large house three or four stories high. At Ergolshausen we were detained whilst the carriage was mended; this reparation cost eighteen kreuzers, (about sixpence,) and in France, for a similar one, we paid five francs. When all was put to rights we set off for Landshuth, and soon caught a transient glimpse of the snowy Alps, rising out of the distant horizon like clouds into the clouds. The Isar, on which Landshuth is situated, exceeds even the Danube in rapidity, and well may Campbell call it "Isar rolling rapidly." We had hardly entered the inn when we were visited by a heavy thunderstorm, accompanied by tremendous hail. _20th._ Wishing to see something of the town, I took a hasty stroll, early in the morning before we started, through the streets, but found little worth seeing. The cathedral is, externally, a fine old Gothic building, and the principal street is respectable. I was much struck with the head-dress of the women, which seems to vary according to their rank. The peasant girls wear large fur caps, whilst the women of a rather higher class have upon their heads most extraordinary gauze or muslin appendages, in all sorts of shapes, some like helmets, some pointed, and others falling in peaks, but all more or less richly embroidered with gold or silver thread.