Consistent with this custom is the decency of their funerals, and the decorous state of church yards and tomb-stones. • Nothing can exceed the care with which these are preserved, and nothing but sincere respect for the relation which once subsisted between the deceased and those whom they have left behind them, could prompt the latter to .give so con spicuous an evidence of it.
The common amusements of the Austrians are shooting at a target, playing at ninepins, here, as in Saxony, called kegel•scheiben, billiards, cards, dan cing, (of which they are extravagantly fond,) and musical parties. They have no amusements which, like those of the British, cricket, golf, quoits, and wrestling, can be properly denominated athletic ; nor do even their boys try their courage and strength by these violent, yet useful competitions, with which our youth are early initiated into the struggles and dif ficulties of life. A stranger is much struck with the placid and quiescent aspect of the German boys in general, but still more so with that of the Austrian, who are healthy, well fed, and evidently happy, al though that happiness bears no resemblance with the loud, and sometimes mischievous and tempestuous, mirth of the Britain.
The average Austrian stature of men is 5 feet 7f, inches, and of women 5 feet 3 inches English mea sure; but many instances of great stature occur, especially in the lower and fertile districts of the pro vince. Their dress has nothing particular in it. We found no traces of the characteristic bigotry and immorality with which some persons have, in other Encyclopedias, reproached this faithful and gallant nation : on the contrary, we can, from experience attest, that such reproaches are ill founded and ca lumnious. Englishmen ought•of all other travellers, to be the last to take up and circulate reports inju rious to a country in which they are particularly well received; and it is but bare justice to the Aus trians to say, that, in point of religious toleration, of good order, humanity, honesty, and whatever consti tutes the public and private morality of a people, they are excelled perhaps by none on the continent of Europe.
Few countries are more productive than Austria in proportion to her extent, whether we refer to the animal, the vegetable, or the mineral kingdoms. Her breeds of horses, mules, asses, cattle, sheep, goats, hogs, and of all the common European domesticated animals, as well as of tame and wild fowls, are ac knowledged to be among the best in Germany. In 1793, there were 97,684 horses, and 112,162 head of cattle in Lower Austria, and probably one-third of those numbers in Upper Austria, and that too with out reckoning the cattle destined for tile...shambles of Vienna, which last amount to nearly 80,000 at an average yearly, and 54,000 calves. (See VIENNA.) Much attention has been paid since the reign of Joseph II. to the breed of horses in AUstria, by in troducing English; Mecklenburgh, and the best Turkish stallions, and byencouraging English grooms to settle in the country. Nothing very particular, however, can be said in favour of their management of live stock ; and productive as the province is, they Must long continue to import considerable'quantities from the adjoining provinces of Hungary, Bohemia, and Moravia, in order to meet the constantly increa sing demands of Vienna. The same may he said of the other productions of the province, such as wood, wine, corn, fruit, oil, wool, iron, lime, &c. excepting the article of salt, which Upper Austria produces in quantities, not only adequate to the supply of the province and metropolis, but also sufficient to afford a considerable surplus for exportation..
Austria, when compared with the mass of the con tinental provinces of northern Europe, may fairly be stilcd a well managed and rich agricultural country, On entering it, either from Hungary, on the east, or from Bavaria on the west, we find a striking contrast in its favour. The country is pretty well and regu larly enclosed, especially Upper Austria ; a sort of rotation of white and green crops is observed ; and the raising and harvesting of hay are perfectly well un derstood. Draining is not, indeed, scientifically prac
tised, but embankments against lakes and rivers are very skilfully constructed, and kept. in admirable con dition all over the province. Irrigation is well ma naged, and carried on to a great extent, being found of vast advantage in a country which has abundance of running water, and of which the soil is for the most part rather' light and gravelly than otherwise. The roads are good, and, upon the whole, well ma naged, though not always well engineered when first made, being, as in many parts of England, carried over the summits of hills and eminences that might have easily been avoided; and in some parts of the level country, where land is valuable, too narrow in proportion to the great resort upon them. With re gard to these hills, and all other dangerous or difficult parts of the road, the Austrian police shews great tenderness and humane attention to the people who pass by them. A ticket upon a tall pole, somewhat like a road-index, is placed in a conspicuous station by the road side, with the figure of a man crushed to death painted upon it, over whom a wheel has passed, while he was in the act of fastening a drag chain to his cart or waggon ; intimating, the danger ous consequences of neglecting that precaution till the horses were so pushed by the weight of their draught, that they could not command themselves. A fine to a considerable amount is also named on the same ticket, to be-paid by every driver of a loaded carriage of whatsoever description, who shall not fasten his drag-chain to such carriage at the very place where the ticket is hung up. A reward is of fered to informers ; so that serious accidents, so fre quent in Northern Germany, and other parts of Eu rope, very rarely happen in Austria, even on its steepest roads. The crops commonly cultivated are wheat, (in no very considerable quantities) barley, oats, rye, pease, beans, potatoes, saffron, mustard, hemp, flax, wood, and a few species of grasses, as clovers, vetches, tares, &c. In comparison with Northern Germany, (excepting some parts of Meek lenburgh and Holstein,) the crops are heavy and productive; but if compared with the best matiaged counties of England and Scotland, they arc by no means considerable in proportion to the fertility of the soil. Six bolls, (Linlithgow measure,) or three quarters of wheat, are reckoned a good crop per acre, and four bolls of barley or oats rather exceed the common average. The Austrian peasant is not a tenant, in our sense of the word, but a feuar ; he has his land very cheap, and calculates not upon what a cer tain quantity of seed corn will yield him. Hence he sows very sparingly, perhaps six or seven pecks, or two and a half bushels per acre, and is perfectly content ed if he has six or seven returns from his seed. He ploughs to the depth of two, or at most three inches, and manages his ground precisely as his forefathers did in the days of Charles V., or of Rudolf of Habs burg. A great branch of husbandry in the country eastward of the Ens, and in which the natives excel most of their neighbours, is their wine. Perhaps one-sixth of the arable land of the whole of Lower Austria is occupied by ,vineyards, and these pay at least one-fourth of what we call the landed rent of the province. The wine here made is a white wine of an acid taste, which, when kept for a year or two, is both palatable and wholesome, improves till the age of twenty years, ..nd sells in wholesale from the cellar of the Vienna merchant at eight-pence sterling a bottle. The quantity consumed in Vienna and the province is prodigious, and, together with what is ex ported to the northward, amounted, at an average of ten years preceding 1809, to the sum of ten millions of florins, or £800,000 per annum. The vineyard husbandry is the most laborious of all others, and makes the most attentive and regular farmers ; hence the appearance of steady and systematical industry, which delights the traveller who comes into this pro vince from any of the northern, western, and eastern provinces by which it is surrounded.