that he would stand by his fellow countrymen to the last drop of his blood, were it only as chief of the Passeyr men.'

In answer he was proclaimed 'Commanderin-Chief of the Province so long as it pleases God.'

Joachim Haspinger called together a meeting of chiefs at Brixen; Martin Schenk, Peter Kenmater, and the other Capuchin, Peter Mayr, were there, and a letter was read from Andreas Hofer exhorting them to make another effort on behalf of the country. To the country at large he issued a stirring proclamation: Place all your hope in God; we have already done things at which other nations wonder, not by our own strength, but thanks to the evident help which has come to us from above. Virtue makes strong men and changes cowards into heroes. It is not now a question only of saving our fortunesno! it is our holy religion which is threatened with open peril. For it we began the great

work-we must finish it. Doing things by halves is doing nothing! Up! brothers and neighbours, to arms against the enemies of heaven and earth! Let not one delay, and let our only and our last cry be: For God, for the Emperor Franz, conquer or die!'

Then, as in the spring, messages began to pass along the mountain-paths, and letters went to and fro-letters addressed to 'Andre Hofer, where he is,' and receiving replies from 'Andre Hofer, from where I am,' and, however wanting in intelligence General Lefebvre may have found the peasants, you may be sure that these letters reached their destination without much difficulty.

Amongst other messages, one of rather a different kind from the rest was brought to the Sandwirth; it was a summons from the Danziger, bidding him appear at Innsbruck, and the answer must have been unexpected. Hofer returned as his reply that he would come, but that it would be with 10,000 rifle-shooters.

THE campaign opened almost in the same manner as did that of the 11th of April, and it makes one realize the courage and perseverance that was needed thus to begin again from the beginning. Nothing is much more disheartening than the having to go all over again the ground once made our own and then lost.

Andreas Hofer began making his way over the Jaufen Pass; the peasants from the south came up the Eisack Valley, while the French, under Rouyer, set out from Sterzing in search of the enemy. A vanguard of Saxons, under D'Henning, was sent forward, and they swept down the gorge, driving the Tyrolese before

them, as far as the bridge of Laditch. Here the peasants stopped and turned upon their pursuers, and a fearful turning it was. By the advice of Grub, one of their leaders, they burned the bridge and then threw themselves on the Saxons with such fury that they were forced to entrench themselves as best they might in the village of Oberau, and await in fear and anxiety the arrival of Rouyer with the main body; but Rouyer never came.

Still expecting to come up with the enemy, he had marched down the ever narrowing valley till he came to a part where overhanging rocks border the ravine, and the Eisack runs swiftly below. Still no sign or sound of the foe; all is quiet, till, in the narrowest part of the gorge, one voice is heard overhead, 'Is it time?' And the answer is an avalanche of rocks and stones, and rafts of cut trees piled up with masses of stone, sent spinning down on the heads of the advancing French. The Rothbart' Haspinger is up there, and

this is the reception he has prepared for the enemy.

An awful silence follows the crash-a silence as of death, broken only by the rushing sound of the river, and then begins a fusilade from the sharpshooters, which soon drives Rouyer, with the few men left to him, to get back as quickly as he can to Sterzing, leaving the unhappy Saxons to their fate. They fell like mown grass before the Tyrolese, and D'Henning met his death like the brave man he was.

To this day the spot is called the 'Saxon Valley 'a quiet place enough now, only disturbed by the sound of trains rushing swiftly down towards Italy.

Andreas Hofer, after crossing the Jaufen, a less difficult business now than in the halfthawed snows of April, was joined by Spechbacher, and began to make his way by a short cut towards Sterzing.

In the meantime Marshal Lefebvre, having