ARMES DE PRÉCISION.

mechanical skill as this is, than even on the Continent, where seveneighths of the advance of art and science are made to apply to military

matters.

Mr. Terry, of Birmingham, has lately brought out a breech-loading rifle, the plan of which is distinct from Prince's. In the latter, the whole of the barrel moves forward; in Terry's it is fixed, and the admission of the cartridge is effected through an opening at the base of the breech. Mr. Westley Richards has also perfected a breech-loading carbine, which has been tried at Hythe with highly satisfactory results. Great things are also anticipated by Whitworth's rifle, and it will be a matter of surprise to no one who is aequainted with that gentleman's scientific attainments, and with the mechanical appliances he can bring to his aid, if, when his experiments are concluded, he should be enabled to exhibit a rifle capable of beating all its predecessors; as much superior to the old Minié, for example, as Armstrong's gun will be to the weapon' that has accomplished such wonders on the Po," the Ticino, and the Mincio. The most curious question of all connected with ever-progressing improvements in fire-arms is, What will it all end in? General Jacob, whose experience upon these matters was unrivalled, considered that we are even yet far from having reached the greatest range of small arms, while, with respect to heavy ordnance, he says: "Judging from experiments made, as an old artillery officer, as well as a rifleman and a practical mechanic, I am deliberately of opinion that a four-grooved rifled iron gun of a bore of four inches in diameter, weighing not less than twenty-four hundred-weight, could be made to throw shot to a distance of ten miles and more, with force and accuracy." If this surmise should eventually prove well founded-and we cannot but accept with every consideration a statement coming from such a quarter upon a subject on which no one was better qualified to judge-it may be practicable (the distance at which an object is visible on a level horizon being only seven miles), at no distant day, for a fleet to bombard a city, the inhabitants of which may be unable during the operation even to descry their assailants!

It is all these various improvements that destroy possibilities of calculation. In previous struggles there have been mathematical plans laid down, founded on practical experience, by which the chances of a field or a naval engagement, or of a siege, could be estimated; the resources of defence and attack have been regarded as so many fixed quantities constituting a problem to be solved by a particular method within a given number of days, weeks, or months; but, in our days, with a necromantic range of artillery, deadly small arms, a grooved siege train and shells, of which each might be described as a flying inferno, all traditional reliance upon the working of human strategic laws is annihilated. This, too, at a time when we learn that, amidst the labours and sacrifices demanded by one war, the French ministry of marine is engaged with redoubled activity upon maritime armaments for another. same time that the Ocean fleet is being so energetically increased, the At the arsenals of Cherbourg, Brest, and Toulon are, we are told, busy constructing a number of new transports, which shall be able to convey to another point six thousand men each. For whose benefit are all these improvements in transport, gunnery, and strategy intended?

201

OUT OF THE WORLD.

JUST two months back we led our readers for a walk through a portion of the Continent hitherto left unvisited by the ruck of English travellers. With them we invaded the sequestered valleys of Savoy, and showed them what delight a German traveller derived from wandering "Here and There in Sardinia." Fortune has again favoured us most unexpectedly, and we are enabled to make a more secluded tour through a portion of Germany which hardly any Englishman has traversed, and yet which deserves attention fully as much as those well-trodden passes of Switzerland which the Alpine Club has again brought into such prominent notoriety. We allude to the Bregenzer Wald, through which M. Andreas Oppermann wandered only last year, and has described his rambles in a simple volume, which will serve as our guide through the present paper.* But first, a word as to the locality.

The forest of Bregenz is situated on the southern shore of the Lake of Constance, nestling behind the lofty peak of the Lorena, and forms the foreground, as it were, of the Vorarlberg. Although the mountains are far from being the highest in the Tyrol, they attain a very respectable elevation. The Canisflue is above six thousand feet, while the Widderstein, which separates the forest from the valley of the Lech, reaches a height of nearly eight thousand feet. The valley of the Bregenzer Ach forms the centre of the forest: that river rises in the wild ravines near Schröcken, and falls into the Lake of Constance after various strange bendings in the vicinity of Bregenz. It is a fine mountain torrent, and at times produces considerable injury by carrying away masses of rock and uprooting trees. The houses are built after the Swiss fashion, and are remarkable for their cleanliness, while the Bregenzer themselves enjoy a degree of material comfort, which forms a striking contrast to the ordinary peasant life in Germany.

Our author set out on his tour from Lindau, the Bavarian port, and from personal knowledge we can endorse his account of the panorama between that place and Bregenz as one of the most lovely in Germany. More especially is this the case after leaving Bregenz and ascending the Gebhard, where even the unpoetical Mr. Walter White broke out into ecstasies at the view, as teste his "Walk through the Tyrol." M. Oppermann's first halt was at the village of Bregenz, and the following scene at the inn will give an idea of the peasant life in the forest:

Two women were seated at a corner table in the keeping-room. One of them was from twenty-eight to thirty years of age-a tall, nobly-built figure, clad in the Black Forest garb. I cannot describe what a pleasant effect the costume produced upon me, and then the graceful woman, with her antique profile, her lovely light hair woven in a coronet round her graceful head, the pleasant gossip and prattle from the little mouth, round which a merry, almost roguish, laugh continually played,-all this, I confess, pleased me at the first glance. The guests seemed must respected at the inn of Schwarzach, for the finest linen was spread over the table, the best coffee-service was produced, and plenty of fresh

* Aus dem Bregenzer Wald. Von Andreas Oppermann. Breslau: Eduard Treuwendt.

tarts filled the plates. I, too, took my place at the table; the conversation began immediately, and was carried on with such grace and condescension by the forest dame, that I might have fancied myself in the first society, had it not been for the garb, and her own statement that she kept the Crown Inn at Hüttesau. I began jesting with her, and she never wanted an answer, although never growing coarse the answers came like lightning, and I found some difficulty in parrying her wit. On this occasion I learned that the inhabitant of the front forest, in which Hüttesa lies, is proud of his pleasant country, while he looks down on the backwoodsman because he is poorer, and his ground not so well tilled. When we parted, and the first Bregenz woman I had met cordially shook my hand, with an invitation to visit her soon at the Crown, and though the forest might please me better, I should nowhere find a better reception than from her, I fancied myself removed into real German life from the garish world of fashion.

The sun was sinking deeper, the summits of the fruit-laden trees grew more golden-hued, the wind came more coolly over the meadows where the flocks were pasturing, the bells rang out more gladly, and the mountains threw violet shadows further over the golden sunny valley, as our author set out for Alberschwende, the first mountain village. As the bells pealed from the monastery of Bildstein, which glistened from the mountain in the sunset, and the mowers and shepherds, turning towards the sun, muttered their evening prayer, he looked down again into the glorious Rhine valley, and his bosom heaved at the blessings nature had so lavishly bestowed. One step further, and a turn in the road hid the sunny valley. A cooler breeze met the wanderer from the narrow pass he had entered, and the mountain path gradually ascended between the gloomy heights, whose pines quivered in the golden-green light. Still narrower became the road, the tone of the scenery grew deeper, only forest gloom and green dancing water. Here and there houses peeped out from amid the pines, while along the torrent were small huts for grinding stone, where the workmen seemed still busied. Gradually it grew darker; a storm passed across the mountain valley, the fir-trees looked gloomier, and the top of the pass was hidden in grey, spectrallooking cloud masses. Down poured the rain, and our author was glad to take refuge in the nearest house.

During the Thirty Years' War the Swedes were stationed in the Vorderwald; they had separated from the main army, and found themselves very comfortably off in this prosperous country. They ate the peasants' eggs and fowls, took the cream from his milk, killed his oxen and drank his wine, abused his maids and thrashed his boys, so that at the last the Catholic Bregenzer lost all patience. But, as it frequently happens, the men were more patient under oppression and brute violence than the women. The Bregenz maidens could not hit it off at all with the soldiers; they were never partial to that breed, nor are they so now. Hence, when a young Swedish officer dishonoured the daughter of the Landamman, aroused to frenzy by the insult she had suffered, she called together her countrywomen to take terrible revenge. Armed with picks and javelins, they marched at daybreak on the Höllenbach, where the head-quarters of the Swedes were. When the latter suddenly noticed in the fog the white petticoats, they fancied that the Austrian troops were on them, and fled. The women and maidens followed them, and killed them to the last man. The Landamman's

daughter wounded the Swedish officer, and when he lay defenceless at her feet she was suddenly moved by a deep affection for him. She bore him from the field, and both disappeared from that moment. The battlefield is still pointed out, and is called the "red or bloody corner," and in memory of this heroic deed the bells of Andelsbuch and Schwarzenberg are rung every afternoon at two, the hour when the defeat of the Swedes was ended.

The next station was Schwarzenberg, celebrated above all else because the church contains some of the earliest fresco paintings of Angelica Kaufmann, who gained an enormous reputation in England during the last century, and whose pictures we remember during our youth as decorating our National Gallery.

Angelica Kaufmann was the daughter of an artist, whose home was Schwarzenberg, and there he resided until a commission from the bishop drew him to Chur, where he married, and his daughter was born there in 1741. At an early age we find Angelica on the Lake of Como, and the scenery at that lovely spot exercised a decided influence over her future artistic career. Thence she proceeded to Milan, where she studied the old masters, more especially Leonardo da Vinci. In her sixteenth year she lost her mother, and went with her father to Schwarzenberg, where she assisted in decorating the new church. Here, too, she practised fresco painting, which is not usual for a female. Thence she proceeded to the Lake of Constance, Switzerland, the Tyrol, and Upper Italy, and did not revisit her forest home till twenty years later, on her return from England. Her memory is still fragrant there, owing to the abundant charity she displayed towards her poorer countryfolk. Next we find her resident at Florence, and afterwards at Rome, where she visited Winkelmann, and executed a splendid copper-plate portrait of the great German. Before long she proceeded to London, where she produced an extraordinary sensation, but was destined to undergo a bitter trial. She married there an adventurer of the name of Count Horn, who was detected and found to have been already married. He fled the country, and Angelica suffered deeply from the deception, until, in her forty-sixth year, she was induced by her father to marry his old friend, the artist Zucchi. In 1781 she returned to Italy, where she resided tranquilly at Rome till her death in 1807, after suffering a heavy loss of fortune by the revolution. During the last years of her life her house was the meeting place of all the celebrities of the age, and, among others, she made the acquaintance of Goethe, who is supposed to have formed a very warm attachment for her.

On again we wander with our author to the merry village of Au, where he arrived late on a Saturday night, and found it busied in preparing for the festivities of the next day.

In the afternoon a pleasant scene was presented at the village inn, and to those who, like ourselves, have been present at village festivals in Germany, the contrast presented by the Bregenzer Wald is most striking. Here our author found none of that stifling tobacco-smoke, noise, and intoxication which are the components of rustic merriment in Bavaria or Suabenland; on the contrary, all was quiet and clean, and the young girls danced with a grace only to be found in its perfection in the Tyrol. One maiden specially attracted our author's attention by her beauty and

grace, and when she noticed it-for women in that respect are alike all over the world-she whispered a few words to her partner. He led her up straight to the stranger, and begged him to dance with her as often as he liked, if he were fond of that amusement. This example was soon followed by the rest, and he naturally passed a most pleasant evening. There was not a trace of that jealousy so natural on such occasions in Germany, but, on the contrary, all the young fellows strove to do honour to the stranger.

Away to Schoperau, at the extremity of the Bregenzer dell, and a pleasant gossip under a centennial pine-tree, with a party of milkmaidens returning to milk the cows in the cool of the evening. Cheesemaking is the staple trade of the forest, and this cheese is exported all over the world. Like many of the Germans, the Bregenzer foresters are of a roving turn of mind, and they can all make a livelihood by carving. All through the forest the houses are decorated by native artists, and some magnificent specimens of wood-carving may be found, which would command enormous prices in London or Paris. This carving is the general winter occupation of the foresters. While conversing with the girls, accident brought up the name of one Troddel Tony, and the story of his life is so characteristic that we cannot refrain from quoting it.

THE STORY OF TRODDEL TONY.

At the time when the brave Hotz had his head-quarters at Bregenz, in the year '90, the forest, which had long been spared the horrors of war, began to grow very disturbed, the Austrians marched across the mountains, and the French followed them at full speed. Many a cow was stolen from the meadows, many a châlet burnt, and, wherever a longhaired Frenchman came, there was grief and trouble in the house. Many great stranger gentlemen had come to Hotz's head-quarters with their servants. One of these gentlemen went one day to the village of Schnepfau, where the thunder of the cannon had been heard the whole morning from the Rhine valley, and the rain poured down in torrents. Under his cloak he had a child-it was Troddel Tony. The gentleman wished to get rid of the child at any price, and asked the sexton of Schnepfau to take care of it, and bring it up. For this purpose the interest of a capital sum of 1000 florins would be employed, which the great gentleman handed to the sexton, and if the boy lived to come of age, the capital would be laid out in buying land for him; if, however, Tony were to die, or leave no children at his death, the capital would fall to the sexton or his children. Perhaps it was this that induced the sexton to take to the boy, and the great gentleman was never seen again in the forest. Tony (the narrator said) I first learned to know at school, for till then he had not often left the sexton's house. At school he was at first called the "Frenchman," for the boys believed that the strange gentleman who brought him belonged to that country. He was a quiet lad and very timid, he looked at you very sorrowfully with his large black eyes, and his face was always pale. As the other children would not play with him, he always kept away from them, and, at last, it seemed as if he had forgotten how to talk. At last it occurred to one of the boys to call him Troddel Tony,* and the name stuck to him all

* Much the same as our Simple Simon.