Gaddings with a primitive people

Front matter

LEISURE HOUR SERIES

GADDINGS WITH

e *

Preface

" Knowing that Nature never did betray The heart that loved her,"

I VENTURE to express the humble hope that "Gaddings with a Primitive People " will be received by my readers in the spirit in which it is written.

Written out as all Alpine subjects are reputed to be, I would modestly point out that this impeachment only holds good as regards surface matter ; for, to speak of the country I am now describing, not one but many volumes could be compiled, had one the wish to do full justice to all that is strange, quaint, and out-of-the-way, in the " Land in the Mountains."

Let this volume be accepted as a feeble attempt to do this. If it fails, the pen assuredly has caused the failure ; if it succeeds, the subject has wrought success.

A few years more, and the national scenes I have depicted here will be tales of the past. High pressure civilization, and that curse of modern creation, the traveling tourist, are fast dismantling Tyrol of the charm of primitive seclusion no less than of the time-hallowed customs and relics of mediaeval life, that to me have formed its chief attraction.

One point is left, upon which I think it right to offer some explanation, especially to those of my readers whose views respecting the salutary influence of the Roman Catholic Church upon a people, and especially upon the lower ranks viii PREFACE.

of society, differ from those which they will find I betray on one or two occasions.

Let the reader remember throughout this volume, that it is not intolerance or a spirit of antagonism, based on prejudice, that leads me to speak as I do of the disastrous results of the Roman Catholic rule in Tyrol. Nor is it in mere caviling at the ordinances of a creed, when, moved by the sight of an intelligent race chained down by an overbearing and intolerant Church, I perhaps lose sight of the fact that I am myself but an intruder who, to begin with, is bound to respect the ordinances of the people among whom he has chosen to reside. But it is just my long residence that urges me to forget that circumstance ; for not only have I been taught to respect the people for their upright and manly qualities of character, but my sympathy has been enlisted by their unhappy thralldom in the ever-dark dungeon of ignorance. Only a very intimate acquaintance with them will show one to what an extent the two chief blemishes upon the national character — bigotry, and laxity of morals — must be ascribed to the policy pursued by the Roman Curia in this her chief stronghold.

ScHLOSS Matzen, Brixlegg, Tyrol> April, 1878.

Preface To The Second Edition Of Tyrol And The Tyrolese

WHICH BOOK IS INCORPORATED IN THE PRESENT VOLUME.

IN laying the second edition of " Tyrol and the Tyrolese " before the public, it becomes my duty — one of the most pleasant that fall to the lot of an author — to express my sense of gratitude for the kind praise bestowed on my book.

In preparing the second edition, I have taken pains to remedy the errors and misprints that had crept in ; and nothing would be left for me to say, were it not my wish to touch upon a charge brought by my reviev/ers, not against me, but, what is tantamount to it in my eyes, against the people of " the Land in the ]\Iountains."

This race, my critics say, are, according to the account I give of them, a treacherously cruel people. It is naturally difficult to refute a charge of this kind in the face of the ample evidence of the rough and shaggy coat that hides the finer points of the Tyrolese character from the gaze of the stranger. I must beg them, however, to remember that in bringing out the national character as fully as I did, I was mainly prompted by the wish to convey a perfectly truthful picture to my reader's mind. This desire led me, I am afraid, to dwell too long upon the dark sides of the question: roughness and a certain freedom of morals.

X PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

Eye-gouging and biting off one's opponent's fingers, rarely as these casualties occur now-a-days in Tyrol, are undoubtedly cruel and reprehensible expedients in a free fight ; but let me ask my critics, would they call the English a treacherous and cruel people because in England kicking a wife to death, or brutally ill-treating a defenseless man, are daily occurrences ?

The amount of respect shown to the female sex is generally considered to be a true criterion for the nobleness of man's character ; and if this rule is allowed to hold good for nations at large, I have to own. Englishman as I am, that the Tyrolese need not dread a comparison. Whatever be the faults of the stanch old race dwelling in the recesses of the Tyrolese Alps, treacherous or cowardly cruelty certainly does not rank amongst them.

London, July, 1877.

Preface To The First Edition Of Tyrol And The Tyrolese

WHICH BOOK IS INCORPORATED IN THE PRESENT VOLUME.

A CERTAIN value may, I hope, be imparted to this volume by the fact that I have lived for many years in the Tyrol, and being by parentage half an Austrian, and as well acquainted with the German language as with my mother tongue, am therefore more likely to gain a true insight into the lives and characters of the Tyrolese than most writers on the same subject, who have not this advantage.

My love for sport and a sound bodily constitution have gone hand in hand in enabling me to acquire an accurate acquaintance with the rough fashions of this picturesque country ; and as they have brought me across many an odd character lost to the world in some out-of-the-way nook among these little-known mountains and valleys, I have had many adventures, some of which I have endeavored to relate in the following pages.

It seems that some question has been raised relative to the spelling of the word Tyrol. Without wishing to enter more fully into the merits of the controversy, I may mention that Tyrol was up to the beginning of this century, with hardly any exception, spelled with a "y." It is only within the last fifty or sixty years that the letter " i " has supplanted xii PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

it ; and at present we find that the word is generally spelled Tirol. The fact that a number of geographical names have undergone in this half-century precisely the same change as the word Tyrol, and that the "foreign" letter "y" is hardly ever used by Germans, does not render the spelling of the word Tirol less incorrect ; for we must remember throughout this whole question that the derivation of Tyrol is not, as many suppose, from " Terioles," but from " Tyr," a " fortress in the mountains," in which sense vv^e find it in use as early as the ninth century.

I may finally remark that two of the chapters in this volume have appeared in the shape of sketches in " The Alpine Journal."

ScHLOSs Matzen, Brixlegg, Tyrol.

December, 1875.

Contents

PAGB

I. The Schloss, the Landscape, and the People, i

II. The Paradise Play 29

Chapter I. The Sciiloss, The Landscape, And The People

THE table I am writing on is a worm-eaten stmcture of unwieldy shape, adorned with Renaissance carving, and provided with numberless drawers and strange out-ofthe-way secret springs. The chair I occupy is of comfortable but highly antiquated build; its dingy leather cover, studded at the sides with massive embossed nails, once formed part of the primitive furniture in one of the favorite castle shooting-boxes of that enthusiastic royal sportsman of the later Middle Ages, — the Emperor Maximilian I. The very air I breathe is that of bygone centuries. The grim time-worn tower of huge proportions, looming into the room through the broad low window glazed with diamond-shaped panes, was the work of Roman stonemasons. It marked the strong and historically well-known " station " Masciacum, on the high road from barbaric Germany to civilized Italy. In the cloistered courtyard once pranced the barbed steeds of the powerful knights, — von Frundsberg, the martial forefather of a warlike descendant ; the great Condottieri, of the sixteenth century ; and burly Georg von Frundsberg, whose " children," as he loved to term his savage, unruly troopers, the famed and dreaded " Landsknechte," played such a conspicuous role at the sack of Rome. In the deep rock-hewn cellars of amazing depth and size were s-tored the rich vintages of Italy and the East, with which the PvOthschilds of the Middle Ages, the Fugger and Fiegers of Augsburg and Ntirnberg, the successors of the Frundsbergs, entertained their princely guests. The vaulted hall rang with the voices of half a dozen generations of the richest and most notable families of the country. And now what is left of all the glory of bygone centuries, of all the sumptuous fittings-up of this abode of feudal wealth ? Nothing ! The shell of the old casile, it is true, still stands, and the Roman tower, stained with the antique tint of some sixteen or seventeen centuries, has withstood time, no less than the two old bells hanging in a miniature belfry, open on all sides to the keen blast of furious winter gales which at weird hours of the night set them ringing in a dismal fashion, and have served in no little measure to transform the ruin into the reputed haunt of hobgoblins and specters, — a reputation which the paneless windows, the battered roof, and general aspect of utter decay did not tend to remove. Alas ! Time, fierce wars, and a destructive fire have united to convert the once noble castle into a shapeless, burnt-out shell. So have been reduced hundreds of its kindred that were once the mighty strongholds of powerful Tyrolese nobles more famous than the notorious Rhenish knights for their warlike spirit, and for their daring deeds of highwaymanry.

Lost in a deep revery, a stranger once stood, one balmy September evening some four years ago, at a window on the top floor of this building. It evidently had been once an oriel window of noble proportions, and provided in front with a small balcony standing out over a giddy height and overlooking the whole country near. Ruthless hands had wrecked it for the sake of its marble, and had wTenched the solid fluted framework of the same material from the massive masonry. The jagged, irregular orifice which remained in the thick wall served as a frame in picturesque harmony with the lovely landscape rolled out at his feet : in the foregi'ound the silver streak of the swift " Inn ; " at both sides the lofty mountains whose wooded offshoots sweep down to it in undulating lines of rare beauty, each one diffused and rendered distinct by a different autumnal tint, such as one can only see in the High Adps. In the background, a chain of glacier peaks bounds the picture.

The broad Innvalley lying in calm loveliness at his feet conjures up visions of bygone times, when through this very valley, and in two or three others of Tyrol's chief vales, ran the most noted high roads of commerce, connecting the civilized world of Italy with the barbaric north.

This very road, winding along the fertile expanse in pleasing curves, was made nigh upon eighteen hundred years ago for the Roman legions advancing northward slowly but surely. Along it sprang up the strongly fortified stations so well known to the historian as the milestones of civilization. The grim old tower lording over this casde is one of them ; and in the distance are two more, both marking the site of feudal strongholds that centuries later were erected round their base by the serfed villains of the Middle Ages. Following the early caravans of armed traders, came the motley array of Crusaders, and at their heels trooped the turbulent armies of the great Hohenstauffen Emperors, one and all pressing southwards ; the one having for its visionary goal the Holy Shrine, the other, the vast Roman Empire.

Tyrol's grand history aids the imagination, and gives birth to visions as romantic as they are profuse. Its position close to the old Bavarian frontier made it in olden times the constant scene of strife and warfare. Sieges as sanguinary as they were protracted tried the mettle of the warlike old race of Frundsbergers. We hear of one of them, valiant Ulrich, defending Castle Matzin for seven long weeks against a large Bavarian army intent upon reducing the stronghold that barred the way to the rich and ferdle Unter Innthal, their favorite resort foi

4 GADDTNGS WITH A PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

plunder. We see the last of that mighty race, the illstarred Hohenstauff Conradin, in whom were centered his partisan's most ambitious projects, pass under our window, the youthful but proudly dominant commander of that huge army of thousands of chainmailed knights, the noblest that mighty Germany possessed, and all as eager as their juvenile king to wrench the crown of Naples from his traitor uncle. We watch the vast train winding serpent fashion through the sunny vale at our feet, and our eyes rest upon the shm boyish figure of the royal youth, and on that of his former playmate, now friend and banneret knight, Frederic of Frundsberg, the no less youthful owner of our old ruin, then a proud feudal castle. From the very window we now occupy, his doting mother, the noble Lady Ehzabeth, probably waved him her last adieu. Alas ! weary were the hours and days she stood here watching for the return of her much-loved son ; and many more were the suns that rose and set ere she learnt that her boy, like most of his companions in arms, fell for the cause of his royal friend Conradin, whose lamentable end under the executioner's axe, on the market-place at Naples, forms the most tragic episode . in the tragic history of his mighty race.

The last rays of the setting sun were tingeing the far-off glaciers a roseate hue, and the evening bells of two distant churches were blending their melodious sounds, when the lonely stranger whose train of thought we have been following turned away from his lofty point of view, and after traversing suites of empty rooms, dismally gaunt and spectral in the dusk, slowly descended flight upon flight of creaking stairs, and finally stepped out into the cloistered court3^ard. It was surrounded on three sides by lofty buildings, whfle on the fourth loomed the Roman tower. The ground was strewn with the marble fragments — covered by lichen, and embedded in tall grass — of the large well that once had adorned its center. The massive portal of huge beams, iron-plated on the outside, stood open, and through the covered gateway a flood of golden evening light permeated the deep dusk of the

THE SCHLOSS, LANDSCAPE, AxVD PEOPLE. 5

romantic court. A smile of pleasure flits over the wanderer's face ; and when, after some little time, he leaves the picturesque old castle, a resolution seems stamped upon his brow. Before twenty-four hours have elapsed, the venerable pile has changed hands, and a new era dawns for it ; four years have altered its interior aspect, though not its exterior, which has lost none of that look of moldy age so dear to the lover of the old ; the antiquarian taste of its owner has rendered it at least inhabitable ; and glancing up from his writing, and allowing his eyes to rove over the lovely landscape visible through the renovated oriel window, a smile of gratification flits over his face as he recalls to himself the pleasant excitement incidental to this his first trophy of curiosity-hunting in Tyrol.

It may well amaze even those who have been whirled in the train through the t^vo or three chief valleys of Tyrol, to learn that this country, with a population considerably less than half that of Yorkshire, contains five hundred and thirty-seven old castles.

These Tyrolese castles form so picturesque a feature in scenery nearly always grand and striking, that the indulgent reader will excuse my inviting him to visit one of their number ere I lay before him the results of my experience amongst the people. To this end he will kindly accompany me up the steep path leading to the ponderous iron-barred old gate giving entrance to one of the most ancient and historically interesting of Tyrolese castles, — the home of this volume, — and after ascending endless flights of stairs, find himself comfortably seated in an armchair in front of the broad old-fashioned window overlooking the whole of the country near.

Lying at your feet is a goodly stretch of the smiling, exquisitely verdant valley of the Inn, skirted by two parallel rows of noble peaks terminating in the far dis* tance with the glistening glacier world of the Oetz ana Stubai Thaler.

As your eye glances down the giddy height and follows

6 GAD DINGS WITH A PRIMITIVE PRO PIE.

the upward course of the broad swift Inn at your feet, as it Vvdnds Uke a band of silver through green meadows, eight old castles, the remains of what were once feudal strongholds, occupying the eminences of hills, or perched like swallows' nestson the precipitous slopes of the adjacent mountains, become discernible. Interspersed between these hoary relics rise the amazingly slender, needle-shaped spires of three churches, the houses belonging to each village clustering round the sacred edifice. Of the broad-roofed houses, hidden behind groves of apple or nut-trees, httle is to be seen ; and of such as are visible, the greater part are of the velvety-brown timber which is so sunny and pleasing to the eye. Only the blue rings of smoke ^curlilig up in the gloriously-tinted evening sky indicate the presence of human habitations secreted behind bowers of trees. Fancy a dark green background of precipitously rising mountains, covered with somber pine forest, terminating in the gray chffs that form the eminences, thereby bringing the rich vegetation of the verdant valley into close contrast with the sternness of the impending peaks, and you have the type of a peaceful sunny North Tyrolese landscape.

I say North Tyrolese, for Tyrol, divided into halves by the high snow-peaked main chain of the Alps, represents, taken as a whole, two geographically distinct countries. North Tyrol can be identified to all practical purposes with the German cantons of Switzerland, having an Alpine climate, while the South, with its vineyards and its genial air, is akin to fertile Italy. This perfect dissimilarity of Northern to Southern Tyrol renders a cursory glance at the physical appearance of the latter indispensable in order to form a faithful conception of the whole country.

Removing our chair of obsen^ation to a window of any one of the numerous castles of Meran in South Tyrol, we have, though at a distance of scarcely more than seventy-five miles as the crow flies, from our former point of view, a landscape before our eyes as different from the fii^t as it well can be.

THE SCI/LOSS, LANDSCAPE, AND PEOPLE. 7

To the painter's palette supplied with various shades of green and gray sufficient to depict North Tyrolese scenery, we have to add the blue, yellow, and mauve of Italian landscape.

The number of castles in our picture has increased from eight to five and twenty or thirty. The rich verdant pasturages are supplanted either by scrubby brushwood scorched to a somber brown, or by large expanses of vineyards, while the dark green peaceful pine forests have been replaced by the stunted fir of a brownish tint, or by the ashy white dolomite rocks, unrelieved by a single patch of green. In the valleys, again, the simple cherry and apple-tree have given way to the far more variegated and luxurious vegetation of a warmer zone, producing, of course, a greater diversity in colors than is created in the northern parts by the two or three shades of green peculiar to Alpine vegetation.

Gigantic chestnut and nut-trees, ivy-clad ruins, and venerable old castles in a good state of preservation, in the foreground, with gardens and vineyards, surmounted by ashy-toned cliffs, in the background, are the characteristics of South Tyrolese scenery.

If, with regard to the Tyrolese themselves, the experience of many years spent in Tyrol gives me a right to express an opinion varying somevrhat from those of many authors, I must say that I have found the T)Tolese in matters of daily life a highly intelligent, bold, and excessively hard-working people, distinguished, even from the inhabitants of other mountainous countries, by great patriotism and by an innate unquenchable love for their native soil, enhanced by a strangely chivalrous feehng of manly independence. Regarding their warlike spirit, — fostered, to a great extent, by their strong attachment to the Hapsburg dynasty, — we need but refer to the endless wars in which the Tyrolese were involved from the very earhest times down to the present day. In the INliddle Ages the country was hardly ever in a state of peace from external or internal foes. Not only was it surrounded on four sides by dire enemies, the Venetians,

S GADDINGS WITH A PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

Italians, Swiss, and Bavarians ; but the broad Inn and the sunny Adige valley, connected by one of the lowest passes over the Alps, formed the chief high road between civihzed Italy and rough Germany. Not only was this highway, paved by Nature herself, used for commerce, accompanied, however, by a calamitous system of rapacious highwaymanry, but it was also constantly crossed and recrossed by victorious or defeated armies marching to or returning from Italy. Whether these armies were hostile or friendly to the Tyrolese, the results were always disastrous to the highway.

There are, indeed, few countries that have suffered from war and its dire calamities so much as Tyrol ; and though its aifairs occupy but a small space in the history of Europe, yet to the student they afford quite as rich a field for research as the history of many a mighty and powerful kingdom.

Great heroism distinguished the Tyrolese on every occasion, generally indeed bringing them out the victors against odds. Their great power of endurance, superior muscular force, indomitable courage, and a certain love for fighting and hard knocks, have, since the time when the generals of Charles V. and Maximilian recruited their best soldiers from the country, gained them high repute, quite apart from their deadly marksmanship, which even Napoleon's best generals and picked troops could not withstand.

Nothing demonstrates their innate love for their native soil more signally than the fact that, while in other countries a portion of the inhabitants emigrate to more propitious territories, a genuine Tyrolese very rarely indeed leaves his country for good. When their great purpose of hfe, the accumulation of small fortunes, as peddlers, musicians, or in other vocations, is accompHshed, they never fail to return to their home, and, settling down in their native valley, enjoy the well-earned fruits of their industry.

There is something very pleasing in this attachment to tbp home soil, which carries a man steadfastly through difficulties, and incites him to overcome the ups and downs of a wandering Ufe, and lands him at last, after twenty or five and twenty years' toil, in the promised land of his desires. It seems strange to meet in some remote corner of Tyrol men who, in the course of their constant travels, have acquired a certain polish of manners as well as a quite unlooked-for intelligence of thought and aptitude of expression.

To be addressed by one of these traveled T)Tolese, dressed maybe in the very roughest of national costumes, perhaps even without a coat on his back or shoes to his feet, in the North German dialect, or in French or Enghsh, is indeed surprising.

Some of the miCn, particularly those who have traveled in the character of Tyrolese singers, have visited the four quarters of the globe. Many who are known to me have exhibited their musical talents at the courts of all the potentates of Europe, and a few even in New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. One of the latter, Ludwig Rainer,^ owner of a charming hotel on the beautiful shores of the Achensee in Tyrol, related to me once his various adventures while travehng in the United States. He had been there three times. The first time he fell into the hands of scoundrels who rid him of every penny he had put by; from the second trip he returned not much the richer ; and only the third time did he manage to amass the comfortable fortune he is reputed to possess. Another man, now a well-to-do peasant, related to me in capital English, interspersed, however, with copious Yankee slang, how he had once been blown up on a Mississippi steamboat ; while a third, owner of a small inn in the Pusterthal, on my asking him how he had come by his lacerated face, told me that while out bear-shooting in one of the Northern States of America, he had been suddenly attacked by a female bear, and, not having time to draw his knife, he had succeeded in throttling the animal. The man's gigantic build and resolute demeanor was to me the best proof of his veracity.

^ He and his troupe exhibited themselves, I think, on two occasions before our Queen, and several times at the Paris and St. Petersburg courts.

lO GAD DINGS WITH A PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

The traveler who wanders through the Defferegger valley, a remote Alpine glen high up among the mountains, may, in certain months of the year, see a very singular sight.

The annual total emigration of the n.ale population of this valley compels the women to do the work of the men. There is probably not a single man above eighteen or twenty, and below sixty or seventy years of age, in that valley for four of the spring and summer months.

You see women fell trees, drive their heavily-laden carts, till the ground, gather fodder, chop wood ; and if you enter one of the village inns you will see rows of women, their short pipes in their mouths, and elbov/s leaning on the table, drinking their pint of Tyrolese wine after their hard work.

A year or tvv^o ago I happened one Sunday evening to be present when one of the female occupants of the bar-room in the chief inn of St. Jacob — I being the only man present — read to her companions a letter she had received that day from her husband, who at the time of writing was at Salt Lake City, among the Mormons. Though he was only a simple peddler in hosiery, his graphic but inexpressibly quaint description of the city and of the customs of its inhabitants was highly amusing. Very singular and laughable it v/as to v\^atch the effects of this description on the minds of the simiple women, who had never heard of such a thing as the plurality of wives. Such a state of things seemed to them the height of human iniquity. Some thought the Mormons utter barbarians, while others, evidently applying the rule to their own homes, swore they would rather be killed than suffer any female rivals in their houses.

The Defferegger folk collect the necessary means to purchase their stock in trade by raising joint-stock companies. The man who contributes the largest sum of money to one of these modest commercial enterprises is also entitled to the proportionate amount of the net gains. They keep no books, nor have thty any security in hand for the money invested ; mutual confidence, engendered

THE SCHLOSS, LANDSCAPE, AND PEOPLE, il

by a certain esprit de corps, with strict honesty among themselves, is the base upon which these companies are built. In their business transactions with strangers while on their tours, they exhibit a sharpness quite unlooked for, and their simple exterior and dull speech disguise in most cases a very remarkable shrewdness.

Twenty or thirty years ago, a very brisk and remunerative cattle-trade existed between two Tyrolese valleys and Russia. The traders in this business used to drive their droves of twenty or thirty head themselves from Tyrol to Central and Eastern Russia. When they could, they took advantage of a water-course, as, for instance, down the Danube to the Black Sea, thence along the coast by land to Taganrog, and thence either north or north-east. The large fairs at Nishnei Novgorod and Orenburg were visited by them, and very frequently they penetrated far into Asiatic Russia. Their journey thither often occupied eight or nine months, so that one venture entailed an absence from home of eighteen months or two years. The prices which they realized for the highly-prized Tyrolese cattle used for breeding purposes were naturally very high ; 500 ducats per head (about 250/.) was by no means an unusual figure for a beast which they had bought in their native valley for some eight or nine pounds.

The risks from accidents, disease, or natural causes were of course correspondingly high, and some men in one venture lost their all by the muiTain destroying their drove, while others grew rich and prosperous in two or three expeditions of this kind.

Now all this is changed. The Russians are loth to pay fancy prices, and prefer getting their breeding cattle from England at a quarter of the former cost ; but it nevertheless gives us an idea of the intrepidity and commercial intelligence that prompted so highly venturesome and hazardous transactions.

Many a time have I been asked by some middle-aged rustic if I have ever been in Wolgsk, or Uralsk, or Orenburg, or Astrachan, and on my giving him a negative answer