C URRENT LITE RAT UR E.
THE LAND IN THE MOUNTAINS.
The Land in the Mountains : being an Account of the Past and Present of Tyrol, its Peoples and Castles. By W. A. Baillie-Groh man. (Simpkin, Marshall, and Co. 12s. 6d. net.)—Mr. Baillie-Grohman, having spent a strenuous youth of big-game hunting and pioneer- ing, has now turned his attention to the history of the land in which he lives. His beautiful home of Castle Matzen in the tinter-Innthal gives him a centre round which he can write the social and political history of Tyrol (to prefix the definite article is as much a blunder as to write "The Scotland"). So in place of winter ascents of the Gross Glockner and expeditions after chamois, with which we have hitherto associated the author's name, we are given elaborate chapters of the doings of the old lords of the valleys, and much interesting topographical information about the old castles which perch on the hill- sides. Tyrol is a land with a long history. Through it the Teutons and the Cimbri invaded Italy, and afterwards Rome made great roads across it, on which the legions thundered past to Germany and Britain. Matzen itself was a Roman fort,—Maxiacum. The outlet to Italy by the Brenner is the oldest and the easiest pass through the main chain of the Alps, and every little wayside town has been the scene of great events. Matzen reappears on the page of history early in the twelfth century. It became the home of the famous family of Frundsberg, one of whom, the heroic George, was the knight who encouraged Luther at the Diet of 1521. Thereafter it went to the Fuggers, the first of the cosmopolitan millionaire houses, and ultimately, by devious ways, it came into the author's family. Mr. Baillie-Grohman's account of his dwelling snakes excellent reading, and the pictures show a most delectable habitation. For the rest, the part which Tyrol played in the affairs of Europe is graphically told. We hear of the famous Pnchess Margaret, "Pocket-mouthed Meg," and her discreditable doings, as also of the Scottish Princess Eleanore, a daughter of James I., who wedded Duke Sigismund in 1448. But the best part of the book is concerned with the buntings of that mighty sportsman, the Emperor Maximilian, whose fame the author has done much to revive. To those whose acquaintance with Tyrol is purely that of the mountaineer the book will reveal a new side of that beautiful country.
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