Charles James Lever

Diary and Notes of Horace Templeton, Vol II Charles James Lever

Publisher Marketing: The Ortl'er is the Mont Blanc of the Tyrol, and seen from Nauders, a village on a green, grassy table land, more than four thousand feet above the sea, can well bear comparison with the boldest of the Swiss Alps. Nauders itself, a type of a Tyroler village, is situated in a wild and lonely region; it has all the picturesque elegance and neat detail of which Tyrolers are so lavish in their houses, and, like every other Dorf in this country, has its proud castle standing sentry over it. The Barons of the Naudersberg were men of station in olden times, and exacted a tribute over a tract extending deep into the Engadine; and now, in this great hall, whose chimney would contain the heaviest diligence that ever waddled over the Arlberg, a few Nauders notabilities are squabbling over some mysterious passage in a despatch from Vienna, for it is the high court of the district, while I wait patiently without for some formality of my passport. To judge from their grave expressions and their anxious glances towards me, one would say that I was some dangerous or suspected personage-some one whose dark designs the government had already fathomed, and were bent on thwarting. If they did but know how few are, in all likelihood, the days I have yet to linger on, they would not rob me of one hour of them in this wild mountain.