Yet Salzburg, through the centre of which flows the silver-hued Salzach, is in a way as beautifully situated and as charming as any of the towns to which it has from time to time been likened. It lies in a delightfully well-watered and fertile plain dotted over with villages, ancient castles, and country seats of the Salzburg nobility, and encircled by wooded hills, which as they open out in a wider sweep to the south become higher and higher until deserving the description of mountains. Here they become a magnificent range of towering limestone peaks, through which are cleft fertile and delightful valleys leading into the neighbouring kingdom of Bavaria. In the valley of the Salzach there is no lack of variety as regards scenery. One has widespread meadows, almost throughout the year starred and gemmed with many coloured and sweet scented flowers, melting away into the woods which clothe the lower slopes of the environing hills, where the sombre hued pines give a darker note of green to the landscape; whilst yet above these in the distance are crags of grey and slate-coloured limestone, and crowning the whole vast snow-fields glistering white at noonday and taking on a tint of delicate rose colour at sundown. In the town itself rise two considerable hills which serve to confer upon it a distinction of its own. One, the Kapuzingerberg, on the eastern side of the river, rises to the height of 800 feet, and the second, on the western side, to a height of nearly 450 feet above the city. It is between these two that the greater part of the old town lies. The steep sides of the Mönchsberg and the Gibraltar-like rock on which the old, grey fortress of Hohen-Salzburg stands are ivy-clad, and in the crevices and fissures wall-flowers, valerian, stone-crop, houseleek, and other flowering and lichen-like plants have taken root, whilst from the greater crevices and ledges wave feathery birches, and the lower slopes are made beautiful and shady by spreading beeches and odorous limes. After several visits to this delightful city, which has an atmosphere entirely its own, and a charm difficult to describe, one is at a loss to set down in what it exactly differs from other similar towns. Part of the attraction it possesses is doubtless owing to its situation amid a stretch of lovely valley, and its romantic and historic past. But there yet remains that elusive quality which may be described as "the personality of the town," in addition to its geographical and historical claims upon one's interest and imagination.