On the Tuesday morning we resumed our journey, crossing the plain and following the mountain path. At the end of the first league we ascended for an hour a small mountain by an easy road. On the left hand we had a view of divers other mountains, which for the reason that they sloped gently, were covered with villages and churches and for the most part tilled up to the very tops, a pleasing prospect on account of the diversity of the landscape aforesaid. The mountains on the right were somewhat wilder and sparsely peopled. We crossed several brooks and torrents, running in varied course, and on the road we passed several large towns and villages and good inns, at the very base of the mountains. Also on the left hand were two castles and some gentlemen’s dwellings; and, about four leagues from Insprug, on the left side of a very narrow passage, we came upon a bronze tablet, richly engraved, attached to the rock and inscribed thus: “The Emperor Charles V., returning from Spain and Italy,[94] where he had received the Imperial crown; and his brother Ferdinand, King of Hungary and Bohemia, coming from Pannonia, seeking one another after an interval of eight years, met at this spot in the year 1530. Ferdinand commanded this memorial to be placed here.” They are represented embracing one another. A short distance farther on, as we passed beneath a gate which blocked the road, we found written thereon some Latin verses recording the passage of the Emperor aforesaid, and of his stay in this place after his capture of the King of France and of Rome. M. de Montaigne found the scenery of this pass greatly to his taste on account of the diversity of the objects to be seen, and we encountered no inconvenience, except the thickest and most intolerable dust we had ever experienced, which kept with us the whole of our mountain passage. After we had been on the road ten hours, M. de Montaigne affirmed that this journey seemed to him like moonlight travelling.[95] It was always his habit, whether he purposed to halt on the road or not, to let his horses have oats to eat in the morning at the inn before starting. After faring seven leagues, we all arrived fasting late at night at Stertzinguen, a decent little town,[96] belonging to the county of Tirol, with a fine new castle built on the rock above. At table they gave us round loaves, joined one to another, and as everywhere else in Germany, the mustard was liquid, with the taste of white French mustard. Everywhere the vinegar is white. No wine grows in these mountains, but corn enough for the inhabitants, who drink three sorts of good white wine. All these roads are perfectly safe, being much used by merchants, coachmen, and carters. Instead of the cold, which had been instanced as a detriment to this road, we were troubled with intolerable heat. The women of the country wear cloth hats, like our scholars’ caps, with their hair braided and hanging down as in other places. M.