The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1887, page 189 by Various Authors
<< Return to Title Details & Download190
he second crop. By this means they are enabled to mow the same fields every five or six weeks. The process gives the whole region a smoothness, a mellow splendor of color, such as I never saw elsewhere, not even in England.
A walk of two hours through such scenery brought me out of the Sitter Tobel, and in sight of the little Alpine basin in which lies Appenzell. It was raining slowly and dismally, and the broken, snow-crowned peaks of the Kamor and the Hohe Kasten stood like livid spectres of mountains against the stormy sky. I made haste to reach the compact, picturesque little town, and shelter myself in an inn, where a landlady with rippled golden hair and features like one of Dante Rossetti's women, offered me trout for dinner. Out of the back window I looked for the shattered summits of the Sentis, which rise five thousand feet above the valley, but they were invisible. The vertical walls of the Ebenalp, in which are the grotto and chapel of Wildkirchli, towered over the nearer hills, and I saw with regret that they were still above the snow line. It was impossible to penetrate much farther without better weather; but I decided, while enjoying my trout, to make another trial,--to take the road to Urnäsch, and thence pass westward into the renowned valley of the Toggenburg.
The people of Inner-Rhoden are the most picturesque of the Appenzellers. The men wear a round skull-cap of leather, sometimes brilliantly embroidered, a jacket of coarse drilling, drawn on over the head, and occasionally knee-breeches. Early in May the herdsmen leave their winter homes in the valleys and go with their cattle to the Matten, or lofty mountain pastures. The most intelligent cows, selected as leaders for the herd, march in advance, with enormous bells, sometimes a foot in diameter, suspended to their necks by bands of embroidered leather; then follow the others, and the bull, who, singularly enough, carries the milking-pail, garlanded with flowers, between his horns, brings up the rear. The Alpad