The church there is a very fair one, and famous for a miracle. In 1384 a certain man, whose name has been preserved there by adequate and unbroken record, refused to content himself on Easter day with the Eucharist as offered to the people, and demanded to receive that which was wont to be given to the priesthood alone. While he had this in his mouth the earth beneath him opened and swallowed him up to the neck, and while he held on for a moment to the corner of the altar the priest withdrew the Host from his mouth. They still exhibit the hole covered with an iron grating, the altar which bears the impress of this man’s fingers, and the Host of a reddish hue like drops of blood. We found there, written in recent Latin, an account how a certain Tiroler, who had swallowed some days before a bit of flesh which stuck in his throat and could neither be swallowed nor vomited, made a vow and repaired to this church, where he was healed forthwith. On quitting this place we found on the high land several nice villages, and after half-an-hour’s descent, we perceived at the foot of the hill a fair hamlet finely placed, and high above it on a cloven and seemingly inaccessible rock, a magnificent castle commanding the road we had come down, which is narrow and cut in the mountain side. The road is scarcely wide enough to let pass a common cart, as in divers other places amongst these mountains, so much so that the carters hereabout are wont to reduce the size of their carts a foot at the least. Beyond this we came upon a valley of great extent through which the Inn flows to join the Danube at Vienna. In Latin it is called Œnus. It is five or six days’ journey by water from Insprug to Vienna. To M. de Montaigne this valley seemed the fairest country he had ever seen, now narrowing itself with the mountains pressing close on it, now spreading out wide on our side of the river--the left--and forming a space meet for cultivation on the very slopes of the mountains, which were not too steep for this, and now expanding on the other bank. Next it would reveal to the eye platforms on two or three different levels, one above the other, and everywhere fair houses of noblemen and churches. And all this in a country shut and walled in on every side by mountains of immeasurable height. On our side of the valley we espied in a rocky place a crucifix, set up where no man could have gone save by being let down by cords from above.[85] They say that the Emperor Maximilian, grandfather of Charles V., lost himself one day while hunting in these mountains; and, as a witness of the danger he escaped, he erected this image, a story which is recorded by a painting in the hall of the Arquebusiers at Augsburg. We arrived that evening, after travelling three leagues, at Insprug.[86] [Illustration: INSBRUCK _Reproduced from Civitates Orbis Terrarum_ _To face p. 158_, vol. i. ] IV TIROL