Women in Tyrol.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVI, Issue 22, 2 June 1906, Page 61

Women in Tyrol.

Tyrol is one of the few places in Europe which are not well enough known to be overrun with tourists, though it is rapidly becoming popular with the English, who go there for mountaineering.

The scenery is beautiful, and the people are charming, especially in Southern

Tyrol. The women are very handsome, tall and mostly dark, with beautiful hair, and eyes like the Italians, but they are quicker in their movements than the Southern races, and do not grow old so quickly. In the country districts they still wear the native dress, which is like the German peasant costume, but their hats are unique, being small, round, and black—just like a man’s —and which they always take off in church.

They have charming manners, so bright, and with such sweet smiles. They are always ready to talk and to give one lots of information, and. meeting one on the road, will turn back a long distance to point out the way if asked for a direction. Even the tiny children, playing in the road, wish one “ Grussgott,” and offer tiny bunches of wild flowers with no thought of payment such as Swiss children have. All the women work in the fields, and hard work it is; they are very sturdy and independent, and make a success of most things they take up. One old woman, considerably over 60, lived, with only a dog for company, at the top of a pass which was blocked with snow for five months of the year. We were the first people to go across after the road was opened one year, and she was so delighted to see someone with whom she could talk. She asked me for a red poppy out of my hat: it was so long since she had seen a flower growing that an artificial one was a delight to her. The Tyrolese are good linguists. The language of the country is. of course. German, but in the south they have the prettiest Italian patois. Now that English people go there the innkeepers are learning English, and the women especially speak with extraordinary fluency, and are apt to use the funniest slang expressions, thinking that they show their knowledge.

I heard one landlady saying to a staid and dignified English clergyman who was descending from a carriage after a long drive, “ Buck up, buck up; dinner’s ready.”