The next morning proved fine, and Hamilton felt in better spirits than he had done since he had left home, for he flattered himself he was now about to diverge from the traveller’s beaten path, and had a chance of seeing something new. The rather shabby carriage and sleepy-looking horses had not power to discompose him, and the _voiturier_, with his dark-blue linen blouse and short pipe, overshadowed by a bush of mustache, he thought absolutely picturesque. Most careful he seemed, too, of his horses, for they had scarcely left the suburbs of Munich when he descended from his box to walk up a small acclivity, and Hamilton then began to protest vehemently, but in vain, against the carriage being closed. The coachman continued to walk leisurely on, while he assured his impatient employer that he had purposely so arranged it to prevent his being annoyed by the dust or sun, and that from the open side he could see quite as much as would be agreeable of the flat country through which they were to travel. “Is, then, the country so very ugly?” asked Hamilton, anticipating nothing less than an American prairie. “Flat—very flat; but in the evening we shall have the mountains nearer.” “You seem fond of the mountains!” “I am a Tyrolean, and used to them. Life is not the same thing in these plains,” he answered, cracking his whip, but not touching his horses. “A Tyrolean!” exclaimed Hamilton; “oh, then you can sing your national songs, of course. Do, pray, let me hear one of them.” “What’s the use?” he said, shrugging his shoulders; “there’s no echo for the _jodel_.” “No matter; try it at all events, and you shall have an additional glass of beer at dinner-time.” On the strength of this promise he “lifted up his voice in song,” and shouted out a melody which there was no manner of doubt would have been “by distance made more sweet;” but which, as he leaned on the door of the carriage, and poured the whole force of his stentorian lungs into Hamilton’s face, almost made him vibrate on his seat. “Thank you,” cried Hamilton, hastily, “thank you—that will do. I have long wished to hear a Tyrolean _jodel_, and am sure it must sound very well in the mountains!” “There’s no music like it in the world,” said the man, as he seated himself again on the box; and laying aside his pipe, he continued singing for more than an hour, interrupted only by an occasional “Ho—he—hot!” addressed to his horses.