This town, about the size of Libourne, is situated on the river before named, and is somewhat less pleasing than other towns we had visited in Germany, so much so that M. de Montaigne exclaimed that it was evident we were about to cross the German border. The streets are narrow, and there is no fine public place, but we still found fountains, running water, paintings, and glass windows. Wine is so plentiful that they supply the whole of Germany with what it needs, and the bread eaten in these mountains is the best in the world. The church is a very fine one, and possesses amongst other things a wooden organ, which is very high and placed close to the crucifix by the great altar. But the player sits some twelve feet lower, beside the column to which the organ is attached, and the bellows are underground outside the church, about fifteen paces behind the organist. The open space in which this town is situated is only just large enough to contain it, but the mountains to the right hand stand back somewhat, thus giving a little extra ground. From here M. de Montaigne wrote to François Hottoman, whom he had met at Basel, “that albeit he was bound for Italy, he had fared so well in Germany that he quitted it with much regret; that strangers had to suffer the exactions of innkeepers there as elsewhere, but that this abuse would soon right itself, and that the traveller would no longer be at the mercy of guides and interpreters who sold him and shared the profit. In every other respect he had always met with unbounded courtesy and convenience, and was specially struck with the justice and security everywhere prevalent.”[103] We left Bolzan early on Friday morning, and at two leagues’ end we halted for breakfast and to feed our horses at Brounsol.[104] This was a small village standing above the river Eysock which, after bearing us company so far, now mixed itself with the Adisse[105] and flowed therewith to the Adriatic Sea, broad and tranquil, and no longer resembling the brawling and furious torrents of the mountains above. The plain, too, became a little broader as far as Trante,[106] and the hills showed their peaks less prominently. The slopes of these, however, are less fertile than those higher up, and in the valley are some swamps which encroach upon the road in places, but elsewhere the travelling is easy in the bottom of the valley and along the plain. Two leagues after leaving Brounsol we came to a large village where a great crowd was assembled by reason of a fair. Farther on was another well-built village, called Solorne,[107] where the archduke has a small castle on the left of the road, set in a strange position on the point of a rock. Five leagues’ journey took us to Trante, where we arrived in time for bed. [Illustration: TRENT _To face p. 180_, vol. i. ]