You proceed eastwards from Ischl, down the beautiful valley of the Traun to Eben; see the great store-place for the salt and wood of the district. The logs accompany you, in the river, all the way down; and it is amusing to watch their different ways of floating. Such of them as are not stopped in transit by the hooks of the inhabitants are collected by a boom stretched across the head of the Gmünden Lake, on which you take boat at Eben See. The skipper of the steamer is an Englishman, who has been there for thirty years--a quiet matter-of-fact man, who collects his own tickets, wears no uniform, and has a profound disbelief in the accuracy of the information furnished to tourists in these parts by the natives. Long absence from home has somewhat depressed him, but he lights up for a few moments when he gets on his paddle-box and orders the steam to be put on to charge the boom. But travellers should consult him if they want correct information, and should not trust in “Bradshaw.” The lion of the neighbourhood is the Traun Falls; and a station has been opened on the railway to Lintz to facilitate the seeing of the falls, which station is not even mentioned in the “Bradshaw” for August 1862. This is too bad. I had considerable opportunities of seeing the state of the country in Austria. The people are prosperous and independent to a degree which much astonished me. They are almost all what we should call yeomanry, owning from twenty to two hundred acres of land. Even the labourers, who work for the great proprietors, own their own cottages and an acre or so of land round; in fact, the Teutonic passion for owning land is so strong that, unless a man can acquire some, he manages to emigrate. Since 1848 the communes have stepped into the position of lords of the manors, and own most of the woods and the game. The great proprietors pay them for the right of sporting over their own lands. In faet, whatever may be the case with the higher classes, the people here seem to have it much their own way since 1848. We spent a Sunday afternoon in the palace gardens at Schonbrunn, into which half the populace of Vienna, smoking vile-smelling cigars, seemed to have poured in omnibuses and cabs, which stood before the palace, and on foot. We (the people) occupied the whole of the gardens, and a splendid military band played for our behoof. You reach the gardens by passing under the palace, so that King People was everywhere, and the Kaiser Konig, if he wants retirement, must stay in his private rooms. A report spread that the Emperor and Empress were coming out, whereupon King People, and we amongst them, swept into the lower part of the palace, and right up to a private staircase, at the foot of which an open carriage was standing. A few burly and well-behaved guardsmen remonstrated good-humouredly, but with no effect. There we remained in block, men, women, and children, the pipes and cigars were not extinguished, and the smell was anything but imperial.