Formerly there was some excuse for an ignorance and neglect which a lack of easy transit, good roads, and railways to near-by points might be held to condone. But at the present time so much has been done to throw open this fascinating mountain district to the traveller, rest-seeker, and artist that the excuse can no longer be urged. Concerning the climate, scenery, people, and accommodation now offered to travellers, much can be said in praise. Indeed, regarding all of these, it would be difficult to say everything one might without running the risk of being accused of partiality or exaggeration. In this portion of Tyrol (as, indeed, may be said also of others) one still meets with hospitality and courtesy at inns and rest-houses which are not chiefly based upon the expectation of personal aggrandisement or monetary reward, just as one still finds quietude wedded to splendid scenery and beautiful prospects not yet exploited. In the Dolomite region, though its popularity is yearly increasing, one can yet happily meet with comfortable hotels, which are not overrun by the type of tourist for whom a good dinner is more than fresh air and scenery, and dress clothes and gorgeous costumes of an evening a _sine quâ non_. In a word, we have found that the Dolomite region is free from many of the disadvantages of Switzerland--that most exploited of European countries, and the one in which nowadays perhaps the least quietude and rest is to be found--and provides a playground for the mere pedestrian as well as a most attractive region for the exercise of the climbing instinct. It must be admitted, however, that in the less frequented passes and valleys one has occasionally to "rough" it in a mild kind of way, and that one needs to be a good and enduring walker to "do" the region on foot. But although some of the inns in the lesser known valleys are yet somewhat primitive, the cooking is usually good, and the beds, though the linen may be coarse, will be found almost without exception spotlessly clean. It may be added that French is of little use in the Dolomites, except in the hotels at the most frequented tourist resorts, such as Toblach, Cortina, Karer See, Bozen, etc., Italian and German being generally spoken--the former almost everywhere in the region; the latter chiefly in the Gader Thal, Grödener Thal, and the district north of the Ampezzo Thal; although in scattered hamlets south of the latter, here and there one finds peasants speaking both. The Dolomite region is most accessible from the Venetian frontier, Bozen, or Bruneck; and the true Dolomite district, which contains all that is most magnificent as regards scenery and attractiveness to the mountaineer and geological student, lies midway between the points we have mentioned, and covers the comparatively small area of some fifty miles by forty miles.