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RIESBECK’S TRAVELS THROUGH GERMANY. 121
nary food of the’ common citizens. ‘They made me almoft fick only with the fight of
their pafties, tarts, ragouts, &c. ‘Vhey talk of nothing but the kitchen and the cellar ;
and, their attention to the preparation of their dinners only excepted, do not feem many
deorees above orang-outangs. ‘The other luxuries are in proportion. ‘This is the great
mart for all indecent and irreligious books. Hence they are exported into the reft of
the country. You find villages in ‘Tyrol entirely inhabited by ftatuaries; they will, how-
ever, always be ‘more famous for their capons than their learning. You may have a
capon here for 29 creutzers, a pair of fine chickens for 10 or 12, a bottle of very good
wine for 12, and a pound of rye bread forone. Gratz and the fuburbs contain about
thirty thoufand inhabitants.
The country is cultivated to the top of the higheft hills. Though palturage is the
principal bufinefs of the people, the land produces corn enough to nourifh its numerous
inhabitants, or if there is ever the leaft want, they are {upplied from Hungary almoft for
nothing. ‘The flax and hemp, which have been introduced here, as well as in Carin-
thia, are extremely good, and produce very large fums. The mines employ a great
number of people, and as they are worked very cheap an{wer extremely well. Indeed
the whole of the country is favourable to this kind of bufinefs. The hills are covered
with wood, which in general cofts no more than the expence of cutting down and trani-
porting to the place where it is to be ufed in the furnaces. Sometimes too it is floated
by the rivers without any expence of tranfporting at all. The numerous brooks in the
valleys afford opportunities of erecting the furnaces near the pits, fo that every thing
contributes to fave expence. ‘The beit mineral of the country is iron, of which they
make an excellent fteel.
The number of thofe who have the goitre, and the fize of it, is more remarkable in
Stiria than in Carinthia, Ukrania, or the Tyrol. Some think this diforder owing in
art to the fnow and ice water, and in part to the particles of earth and {tone with
which the wells of the country are impregnated. Others will have it, that it arifes from
the cultom of feafoning the meat a great deal, and drinking cold water afterwards. I
beg leave to add a fourth caufe, and leave all to operate together for the produétion of
this phoenomenon. ‘The caufe I mean is the cold, to which all the inhabitants are ex-
pofed. You know that the folar rays, being reflected on all fides by the hills which
encompafs the valleys, occafion an extraordinary heat. I recolleét, as | have been wan-
dering through narrow valleys, to have breathed an air fo glowing, that it feemed to
come from a furnace. Whenever, therefore, there is the leaft motion in the air, the
preflure will make it more fenfibly felt than on higher vales or hills, where it can ex-
pand more; the cold is confequently greater. Now as thefe people commonly go with
their necks and throats bare, whenever there is a cool current, the weak part of the
throat is the firft attacked by the moifture, and the perfpiration there is {topped.
‘It is an obfervation which has been made in Valois, Savoy, and other countries, that
the inhabitants of the lower vallies are more expofed to this evil, than thofe which live
higher up. ‘This, no doubt, muf{t be owing to the more frequent changes of air in the
low grounds, whereas higher up it always continues cool. ‘There are alfo a kind of
ideots in this country, who can hardly fpeak, and are only fit for the labours of the
field. ‘Their number is great, and the neglect with which they are treated, whilft they
are young, may probably have tended to increafe their ftupidity.
All the inhabitants of thefe hills are freemen, who have long fince fhaken off the feu-
dal yoke, under which the greateft part of Europe ftill groans. The marks of their
freedom are very vifible, for, ill as this country has been treated by nature, in com-
parifon with its neighbour Hungary, it is every where much better cultivated, and more
VOL, VI- R populous
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