"I met an American on the boat yesterday," the oracle was saying to his friends, "who was really quite a pleasant fellow. He—ah really was, you know, quite a sensible man. I asked him if they had anything like this in America; and he was obliged to say that they had n't anything like it in his country; they really had n't. He was really quite a sensible fellow; said he was over here to do the European tour, as he called it."

Small, sympathetic laugh from the attentive, wiry, red-faced woman on the oracle's left, and also a chuckle, at the expense of the American, from the thin Englishman on his right, who wore a large white waistcoat, a blue veil on his hat, and a face as red as a live coal.

"Quite an admission, was n't it, from an American? But I think they have changed since the wah, you know."

At the next landing, the smooth and beaming churchman was left by his friends; and he soon retired to the cabin, where I saw him self-sacrificingly denying himself the views on deck, and consoling himself with a substantial lunch and a bottle of English ale.

There is one thing to be said about the English abroad: the variety is almost infinite. The best acquaintances one makes will be English,—people with no nonsense and strong individuality; and one gets no end of entertainment from the other sort. Very different from the clergyman on the boat was the old lady at table-d'hote in one of the hotels on the lake. One would not like to call her a delightfully wicked old woman, like the Baroness Bernstein; but she had her own witty and satirical way of regarding the world. She had lived twenty-five years at Geneva, where people, years ago, coming over the dusty and hot roads of France, used to faint away when they first caught sight of the Alps. Believe they don't do it now. She never did; was past the susceptible age when she first came; was tired of the people. Honest? Why, yes, honest, but very fond of money. Fine Swiss wood-carving? Yes. You'll get very sick of it. It's very nice, but I 'm tired of it. Years ago, I sent some of it home to the folks in England. They thought everything of it; and it was not very nice, either,—a cheap sort. Moral ideas? I don't care for moral ideas: people make such a fuss about them lately (this in reply to her next neighbor, an eccentric, thin man, with bushy hair, shaggy eyebrows, and a high, falsetto voice, who rallied the witty old lady all dinner-time about her lack of moral ideas, and accurately described the thin wine on the table as "water-bewitched"). Why did n't the baroness go back to England, if she was so tired of Switzerland? Well, she was too infirm now; and, besides, she did n't like to trust herself on the railroads. And there were so many new inventions nowadays, of which she read. What was this nitroglycerine, that exploded so dreadfully? No: she thought she should stay where she was.

There is little risk of mistaking the Englishman, with or without his family, who has set out to do Switzerland. He wears a brandy-flask, a field-glass, and a haversack. Whether he has a silk or soft hat, he is certain to wear a veil tied round it. This precaution is adopted when he makes up his mind to come to Switzerland, I think, because he has read that a veil is necessary to protect the eyes from the snow-glare. There is probably not one traveler in a hundred who gets among the ice and snow-fields where he needs a veil or green glasses: but it is well to have it on the hat; it looks adventurous. The veil and the spiked alpenstock are the signs of peril. Everybody—almost everybody—has an alpenstock. It is usually a round pine stick, with an iron spike in one end. That, also, is a sign of peril. We saw a noble young Briton on the steamer the other day, who was got up in the best Alpine manner. He wore a short sack,—in fact, an entire suit of light gray flannel, which closely fitted his lithe form. His shoes were of undressed leather, with large spikes in the soles; and on his white hat he wore a large quantity of gauze, which fell in folds down his neck. I am sorry to say that he had a red face, a shaven chin, and long side-whiskers. He carried a formidable alpenstock; and at the little landing where we first saw him, and afterward on the boat, he leaned on it in a series of the most graceful and daring attitudes that I ever saw the human form assume. Our Oxford student knew the variety, and guessed rightly that he was an army man. He had his face burned at Malta. Had he been over the Gemmi? Or up this or that mountain? asked another English officer. "No, I have not." And it turned out that he had n't been anywhere, and did n't seem likely to do anything but show himself at the frequented valley places. And yet I never saw one whose gallant bearing I so much admired. We saw him afterward at Interlaken, enduring all the hardships of that fashionable place. There was also there another of the same country, got up for the most dangerous Alpine climbing, conspicuous in red woolen stockings that came above his knees. I could not learn that he ever went up anything higher than the top of a diligence.



THE DILIGENCE TO CHAMOUNY

The greatest diligence we have seen, one of the few of the old-fashioned sort, is the one from Geneva to Chamouny. It leaves early in the morning; and there is always a crowd about it to see the mount and start. The great ark stands before the diligence-office, and, for half an hour before the hour of starting, the porters are busy stowing away the baggage, and getting the passengers on board. On top, in the banquette, are seats for eight, besides the postilion and guard; in the coupe, under the postilion's seat and looking upon the horses, seats for three; in the interior, for three; and on top, behind, for six or eight. The baggage is stowed in the capacious bowels of the vehicle. At seven, the six horses are brought out and hitched on, three abreast. We climb up a ladder to the banquette: there is an irascible Frenchman, who gets into the wrong seat; and before he gets right there is a terrible war of words between him and the guard and the porters and the hostlers, everybody joining in with great vivacity; in front of us are three quiet Americans, and a slim Frenchman with a tall hat and one eye-glass. The postilion gets up to his place. Crack, crack, crack, goes the whip; and, amid "sensation" from the crowd, we are off at a rattling pace, the whip cracking all the time like Chinese fireworks. The great passion of the drivers is noise; and they keep the whip going all day. No sooner does a fresh one mount the box than he gives a half-dozen preliminary snaps; to which the horses pay no heed, as they know it is only for the driver's amusement. We go at a good gait, changing horses every six miles, till we reach the Baths of St. Gervais, where we dine, from near which we get our first glimpse of Mont Blanc through clouds,—a section of a dazzlingly white glacier, a very exciting thing to the imagination. Thence we go on in small carriages, over a still excellent but more hilly road, and begin to enter the real mountain wonders; until, at length, real glaciers pouring down out of the clouds nearly to the road meet us, and we enter the narrow Valley of Chamouny, through which we drive to the village in a rain.

Everybody goes to Chamouny, and up the Flegere, and to Montanvert, and over the Mer de Glace; and nearly everybody down the Mauvais Pas to the Chapeau, and so back to the village. It is all easy to do; and yet we saw some French people at the Chapeau who seemed to think they had accomplished the most hazardous thing in the world in coming down the rocks of the Mauvais Pas. There is, as might be expected, a great deal of humbug about the difficulty of getting about in the Alps, and the necessity of guides. Most of the dangers vanish on near approach. The Mer de Glace is inferior to many other glaciers, and is not nearly so fine as the Glacier des Bossons: but it has a reputation, and is easy of access; so people are content to walk over the dirty ice. One sees it to better effect from below, or he must ascend it to the Jardin to know that it has deep crevasses, and is as treacherous as it is grand. And yet no one will be disappointed at the view from Montanvert, of the upper glacier, and the needles of rock and snow which rise beyond.

We met at the Chapeau two jolly young fellows from Charleston, S. C. who had been in the war, on the wrong side. They knew no language but American, and were unable to order a cutlet and an omelet for breakfast. They said they believed they were going over the Tete Noire. They supposed they had four mules waiting for them somewhere, and a guide; but they couldn't understand a word he said, and he couldn't understand them. The day before, they had nearly perished of thirst, because they could n't make their guide comprehend that they wanted water. One of them had slung over his shoulder an Alpine horn, which he blew occasionally, and seemed much to enjoy. All this while we sit on a rock at the foot of the Mauvais Pas, looking out upon the green glacier, which here piles itself up finely, and above to the Aiguilles de Charmoz and the innumerable ice-pinnacles that run up to the clouds, while our muleteer is getting his breakfast. This is his third breakfast this morning.

The day after we reached Chamouny, Monseigneur the bishop arrived there on one of his rare pilgrimages into these wild valleys. Nearly all the way down from Geneva, we had seen signs of his coming, in preparations as for the celebration of a great victory. I did not know at first but the Atlantic cable had been laid; or rather that the decorations were on account of the news of it reaching this region. It was a holiday for all classes; and everybody lent a hand to the preparations. First, the little church where the confirmations were to take place was trimmed within and without; and an arch of green spanned the gateway. At Les Pres, the women were sweeping the road, and the men were setting small evergreen-trees on each side. The peasants were in their best clothes; and in front of their wretched hovels were tables set out with flowers. So cheerful and eager were they about the bishop, that they forgot to beg as we passed: the whole valley was in a fever of expectation. At one hamlet on the mulepath over the Tete Noire, where the bishop was that day expected, and the women were sweeping away all dust and litter from the road, I removed my hat, and gravely thanked them for their thoughtful preparation for our coming. But they only stared a little, as if we were not worthy to be even forerunners of Monseigneur.

I do not care to write here how serious a drawback to the pleasures of this region are its inhabitants. You get the impression that half of them are beggars. The other half are watching for a chance to prey upon you in other ways. I heard of a woman in the Zermatt Valley who refused pay for a glass of milk; but I did not have time to verify the report. Besides the beggars, who may or may not be horrid-looking creatures, there are the grinning Cretins, the old women with skins of parchment and the goitre, and even young children with the loathsome appendage, the most wretched and filthy hovels, and the dirtiest, ugliest people in them. The poor women are the beasts of burden. They often lead, mowing in the hayfield; they carry heavy baskets on their backs; they balance on their heads and carry large washtubs full of water. The more appropriate load of one was a cradle with a baby in it, which seemed not at all to fear falling. When one sees how the women are treated, he does not wonder that there are so many deformed, hideous children. I think the pretty girl has yet to be born in Switzerland.

This is not much about the Alps? Ah, well, the Alps are there. Go read your guide-book, and find out what your emotions are. As I said, everybody goes to Chamouny. Is it not enough to sit at your window, and watch the clouds when they lift from the Mont Blanc range, disclosing splendor after splendor, from the Aiguille de Goute to the Aiguille Verte,—white needles which pierce the air for twelve thousand feet, until, jubilate! the round summit of the monarch himself is visible, and the vast expanse of white snow-fields, the whiteness of which is rather of heaven than of earth, dazzles the eyes, even at so great a distance? Everybody who is patient and waits in the cold and inhospitable-looking valley of the Chamouny long enough, sees Mont Blanc; but every one does not see a sunset of the royal order. The clouds breaking up and clearing, after days of bad weather, showed us height after height, and peak after peak, now wreathing the summits, now settling below or hanging in patches on the sides, and again soaring above, until we had the whole range lying, far and brilliant, in the evening light. The clouds took on gorgeous colors, at length, and soon the snow caught the hue, and whole fields were rosy pink, while uplifted peaks glowed red, as with internal fire. Only Mont Blanc, afar off, remained purely white, in a kind of regal inaccessibility. And, afterward, one star came out over it, and a bright light shone from the hut on the Grand Mulets, a rock in the waste of snow, where a Frenchman was passing the night on his way to the summit.

Shall I describe the passage of the Tete Noire? My friend, it is twenty-four miles, a road somewhat hilly, with splendid views of Mont Blanc in the morning, and of the Bernese Oberland range in the afternoon, when you descend into Martigny,—a hot place in the dusty Rhone Valley, which has a comfortable hotel, with a pleasant garden, in which you sit after dinner and let the mosquitoes eat you.



THE MAN WHO SPEAKS ENGLISH

It was eleven o'clock at night when we reached Sion, a dirty little town at the end of the Rhone Valley Railway, and got into the omnibus for the hotel; and it was also dark and rainy. They speak German in this part of Switzerland, or what is called German. There were two very pleasant Americans, who spoke American, going on in the diligence at half-past five in the morning, on their way over the Simplex. One of them was accustomed to speak good, broad English very distinctly to all races; and he seemed to expect that he must be understood if he repeated his observations in a louder tone, as he always did. I think he would force all this country to speak English in two months. We all desired to secure places in the diligence, which was likely to be full, as is usually the case when a railway discharges itself into a postroad.

We were scarcely in the omnibus, when the gentleman said to the conductor:

"I want two places in the coupe of the diligence in the morning. Can I have them?"

"Yah" replied the good-natured German, who did n't understand a word.

"Two places, diligence, coupe, morning. Is it full?"

"Yah," replied the accommodating fellow. "Hotel man spik English."

I suggested the banquette as desirable, if it could be obtained, and the German was equally willing to give it to us. Descending from the omnibus at the hotel, in a drizzling rain, and amidst a crowd of porters and postilions and runners, the "man who spoke English" immediately presented himself; and upon him the American pounced with a torrent of questions. He was a willing, lively little waiter, with his moony face on the top of his head; and he jumped round in the rain like a parching pea, rolling his head about in the funniest manner.

The American steadied the little man by the collar, and began, "I want to secure two seats in the coupe of the diligence in the. morning."

"Yaas," jumping round, and looking from one to another. "Diligence, coupe, morning."

"I—want—two seats—in—coupe. If I can't get them, two—in —banquette."

"Yaas banquette, coupe,—yaas, diligence."

"Do you understand? Two seats, diligence, Simplon, morning. Will you get them?"

"Oh, yaas! morning, diligence. Yaas, sirr."

"Hang the fellow! Where is the office?" And the gentleman left the spry little waiter bobbing about in the middle of the street, speaking English, but probably comprehending nothing that was said to him. I inquired the way to the office of the conductor: it was closed, but would soon be open, and I waited; and at length the official, a stout Frenchman, appeared, and I secured places in the interior, the only ones to be had to Visp. I had seen a diligence at the door with three places in the coupe, and one perched behind; no banquette. The office is brightly lighted; people are waiting to secure places; there is the usual crowd of loafers, men and women, and the Frenchman sits at his desk. Enter the American.

"I want two places in coupe, in the morning. Or banquette. Two places, diligence." The official waves him off, and says something.

"What does he say?"

"He tells you to sit down on that bench till he is ready."

Soon the Frenchman has run over his big waybills, and turns to us.

"I want two places in the diligence, coupe," etc, etc, says the American.

This remark being lost on the official, I explain to him as well as I can what is wanted, at first,—two places in the coupe.

"One is taken," is his reply.

"The gentleman will take two," I said, having in mind the diligence in the yard, with three places in the coupe.

"One is taken," he repeats.

"Then the gentleman will take the other two."

"One is taken!" he cries, jumping up and smiting the table,—"one is taken, I tell you!"

"How many are there in the coupe?"

"TWO."

"Oh! then the gentleman will take the one remaining in the coupe and the one on top."

So it is arranged. When I come back to the hotel, the Americans are explaining to the lively waiter "who speaks English" that they are to go in the diligence at half-past five, and that they are to be called at half-past four and have breakfast. He knows all about it, —"Diligence, half-past four breakfast, Oh, yaas!" While I have been at the diligence-office, my companions have secured room and gone to them; and I ask the waiter to show m to my room. First, however, I tell him that we three two ladies and myself, who came together, are going in the diligence at half-past five, and want to be called and have breakfast. Did he comprehend?

"Yaas," rolling his face about on the top of his head violently. "You three gentleman want breakfast. What you have?"

I had told him before what we would I have, an now I gave up all hope of keeping our parties separate in his mind; so I said, "Five persons want breakfast at five o'clock. Five persons, five hours. Call all of them at half-past four." And I repeated it, and made him repeat it in English and French. He then insisted on putting me into the room of one of the American gentlemen and then he knocked at the door of a lady, who cried out in indignation at being disturbed; and, finally, I found my room. At the door I reiterated the instructions for the morning; and he cheerfully bade me good-night. But he almost immediately came back, and poked in his head with,—

"Is you go by de diligence?"

"Yes, you stupid."

In the morning one of our party was called at halfpast three, and saved the rest of us from a like fate; and we were not aroused at all, but woke early enough to get down and find the diligence nearly ready, and no breakfast, but "the man who spoke English" as lively as ever. And we had a breakfast brought out, so filthy in all respects that nobody could eat it. Fortunately, there was not time to seriously try; but we paid for it, and departed. The two American gentlemen sat in front of the house, waiting. The lively waiter had called them at half-past three, for the railway train, instead of the diligence; and they had their wretched breakfast early. They will remember the funny adventure with "the man who speaks English," and, no doubt, unite with us in warmly commending the Hotel Lion d'Or at Sion as the nastiest inn in Switzerland.



A WALK TO THE GORNER GRAT

When one leaves the dusty Rhone Valley, and turns southward from Visp, he plunges into the wildest and most savage part of Switzerland, and penetrates the heart of the Alps. The valley is scarcely more than a narrow gorge, with high precipices on either side, through which the turbid and rapid Visp tears along at a furious rate, boiling and leaping in foam over its rocky bed, and nearly as large as the Rhone at the junction. From Visp to St. Nicolaus, twelve miles, there is only a mule-path, but a very good one, winding along on the slope, sometimes high up, and again descending to cross the stream, at first by vineyards and high stone walls, and then on the edges of precipices, but always romantic and wild. It is noon when we set out from Visp, in true pilgrim fashion, and the sun is at first hot; but as we slowly rise up the easy ascent, we get a breeze, and forget the heat in the varied charms of the walk.

Everything for the use of the upper valley and Zermatt, now a place of considerable resort, must be carried by porters, or on horseback; and we pass or meet men and women, sometimes a dozen of them together, laboring along under the long, heavy baskets, broad at the top and coming nearly to a point below, which are universally used here for carrying everything. The tubs for transporting water are of the same sort. There is no level ground, but every foot is cultivated. High up on the sides of the precipices, where it seems impossible for a goat to climb, are vineyards and houses, and even villages, hung on slopes, nearly up to the clouds, and with no visible way of communication with the rest of the world.

In two hours' time we are at Stalden, a village perched upon a rocky promontory, at the junction of the valleys of the Saas and the Visp, with a church and white tower conspicuous from afar. We climb up to the terrace in front of it, on our way into the town. A seedy-looking priest is pacing up and down, taking the fresh breeze, his broad-brimmed, shabby hat held down upon the wall by a big stone. His clothes are worn threadbare; and he looks as thin and poor as a Methodist minister in a stony town at home, on three hundred a year. He politely returns our salutation, and we walk on. Nearly all the priests in this region look wretchedly poor,—as poor as the people. Through crooked, narrow streets, with houses overhanging and thrusting out corners and gables, houses with stables below, and quaint carvings and odd little windows above, the panes of glass hexagons, so that the windows looked like sections of honey-comb,—we found our way to the inn, a many-storied chalet, with stairs on the outside, stone floors in the upper passages, and no end of queer rooms; built right in the midst of other houses as odd, decorated with German-text carving, from the windows of which the occupants could look in upon us, if they had cared to do so; but they did not. They seem little interested in anything; and no wonder, with their hard fight with Nature. Below is a wine-shop, with a little side booth, in which some German travelers sit drinking their wine, and sputtering away in harsh gutturals. The inn is very neat inside, and we are well served. Stalden is high; but away above it on the opposite side is a village on the steep slope, with a slender white spire that rivals some of the snowy needles. Stalden is high, but the hill on which it stands is rich in grass. The secret of the fertile meadows is the most thorough irrigation. Water is carried along the banks from the river, and distributed by numerous sluiceways below; and above, the little mountain streams are brought where they are needed by artificial channels. Old men and women in the fields were constantly changing the direction of the currents. All the inhabitants appeared to be porters: women were transporting on their backs baskets full of soil; hay was being backed to the stables; burden-bearers were coming and going upon the road: we were told that there are only three horses in the place. There is a pleasant girl who brings us luncheon at the inn; but the inhabitants for the most part are as hideous as those we see all day: some have hardly the shape of human beings, and they all live in the most filthy manner in the dirtiest habitations. A chalet is a sweet thing when you buy a little model of it at home.

After we leave Stalden, the walk becomes more picturesque, the precipices are higher, the gorges deeper. It required some engineering to carry the footpath round the mountain buttresses and over the ravines. Soon the village of Emd appears on the right,—a very considerable collection of brown houses, and a shining white church-spire, above woods and precipices and apparently unscalable heights, on a green spot which seems painted on the precipices; with nothing visible to keep the whole from sliding down, down, into the gorge of the Visp. Switzerland may not have so much population to the square mile as some countries; but she has a population to some of her square miles that would astonish some parts of the earth's surface elsewhere. Farther on we saw a faint, zigzag footpath, that we conjectured led to Emd; but it might lead up to heaven. All day we had been solicited for charity by squalid little children, who kiss their nasty little paws at us, and ask for centimes. The children of Emd, however, did not trouble us. It must be a serious affair if they ever roll out of bed.

Late in the afternoon thunder began to tumble about the hills, and clouds snatched away from our sight the snow-peaks at the end of the valley; and at length the rain fell on those who had just arrived and on the unjust. We took refuge from the hardest of it in a lonely chalet high up on the hillside, where a roughly dressed, frowzy Swiss, who spoke bad German, and said he was a schoolmaster, gave us a bench in the shed of his schoolroom. He had only two pupils in attendance, and I did not get a very favorable impression of this high school. Its master quite overcame us with thanks when we gave him a few centimes on leaving. It still rained, and we arrived in St. Nicolaus quite damp.

There is a decent road from St. Nicolaus to Zermatt, over which go wagons without springs. The scenery is constantly grander as we ascend. The day is not wholly clear; but high on our right are the vast snow-fields of the Weishorn, and out of the very clouds near it seems to pour the Bies Glacier. In front are the splendid Briethorn, with its white, round summit; the black Riffelhorn; the sharp peak of the little Matterhorn; and at last the giant Matterhorn itself rising before us, the most finished and impressive single mountain in Switzerland. Not so high as Mont Blanc by a thousand feet, it appears immense in its isolated position and its slender aspiration. It is a huge pillar of rock, with sharply cut edges, rising to a defined point, dusted with snow, so that the rock is only here and there revealed. To ascend it seems as impossible as to go up the Column of Luxor; and one can believe that the gentlemen who first attempted it in 1864, and lost their lives, did fall four thousand feet before their bodies rested on the glacier below.

We did not stay at Zermatt, but pushed on for the hotel on the top of the Riffelberg,—a very stiff and tiresome climb of about three hours, an unending pull up a stony footpath. Within an hour of the top, and when the white hotel is in sight above the zigzag on the breast of the precipice, we reach a green and widespread Alp where hundreds of cows are feeding, watched by two forlorn women,—the "milkmaids all forlorn" of poetry. At the rude chalets we stop, and get draughts of rich, sweet cream. As we wind up the slope, the tinkling of multitudinous bells from the herd comes to us, which is also in the domain of poetry. All the way up we have found wild flowers in the greatest profusion; and the higher we ascend, the more exquisite is their color and the more perfect their form. There are pansies; gentians of a deeper blue than flower ever was before; forget-me-nots, a pink variety among them; violets, the Alpine rose and the Alpine violet; delicate pink flowers of moss; harebells; and quantities for which we know no names, more exquisite in shape and color than the choicest products of the greenhouse. Large slopes are covered with them,—a brilliant show to the eye, and most pleasantly beguiling the way of its tediousness. As high as I ascended, I still found some of these delicate flowers, the pink moss growing in profusion amongst the rocks of the GornerGrat, and close to the snowdrifts.

The inn on the Riffelberg is nearly eight thousand feet high, almost two thousand feet above the hut on Mount Washington; yet it is not so cold and desolate as the latter. Grass grows and flowers bloom on its smooth upland, and behind it and in front of it are the snow-peaks. That evening we essayed the Gorner-Grat, a rocky ledge nearly ten thousand feet above the level of the sea; but after a climb of an hour and a half, and a good view of Monte Rosa and the glaciers and peaks of that range, we were prevented from reaching the summit, and driven back by a sharp storm of hail and rain. The next morning I started for the GornerGrat again, at four o'clock. The Matterhorn lifted its huge bulk sharply against the sky, except where fleecy clouds lightly draped it and fantastically blew about it. As I ascended, and turned to look at it, its beautifully cut peak had caught the first ray of the sun, and burned with a rosy glow. Some great clouds drifted high in the air: the summits of the Breithorn, the Lyscamm, and their companions, lay cold and white; but the snow down their sides had a tinge of pink. When I stood upon the summit of the Gorner-Grat, the two prominent silver peaks of Monte Rosa were just touched with the sun, and its great snow-fields were visible to the glacier at its base. The Gorner-Grat is a rounded ridge of rock, entirely encirled by glaciers and snow-peaks. The panorama from it is unexcelled in Switzerland.

Returning down the rocky steep, I descried, solitary in that great waste of rock and snow, the form of a lady whom I supposed I had left sleeping at the inn, overcome with the fatigue of yesterday's tramp. Lured on by the apparently short distance to the backbone of the ridge, she had climbed the rocks a mile or more above the hotel, and come to meet me. She also had seen the great peaks lift themselves out of the gray dawn, and Monte Rosa catch the first rays. We stood awhile together to see how jocund day ran hither and thither along the mountain-tops, until the light was all abroad, and then silently turned downward, as one goes from a mount of devotion.



THE BATHS OF LEUK

In order to make the pass of the Gemmi, it is necessary to go through the Baths of Leuk. The ascent from the Rhone bridge at Susten is full of interest, affording fine views of the valley, which is better to look at than to travel through, and bringing you almost immediately to the old town of Leuk, a queer, old, towered place, perched on a precipice, with the oddest inn, and a notice posted up to the effect, that any one who drives through its steep streets faster than a walk will be fined five francs. I paid nothing extra for a fast walk. The road, which is one of the best in the country, is a wonderful piece of engineering, spanning streams, cut in rock, rounding precipices, following the wild valley of the Dala by many a winding and zigzag.

The Baths of Leuk, or Loeche-les-Bains, or Leukerbad, is a little village at the very head of the valley, over four thousand feet above the sea, and overhung by the perpendicular walls of the Gemmi, which rise on all sides, except the south, on an average of two thousand feet above it. There is a nest of brown houses, clustered together like bee-hives, into which the few inhabitants creep to hibernate in the long winters, and several shops, grand hotels, and bathing-houses open for the season. Innumerable springs issue out of this green, sloping meadow among the mountains, some of them icy cold, but over twenty of them hot, and seasoned with a great many disagreeable sulphates, carbonates, and oxides, and varying in temperature from ninety-five to one hundred and twenty-three degrees Fahrenheit. Italians, French, and Swiss resort here in great numbers to take the baths, which are supposed to be very efficacious for rheumatism and cutaneous affections. Doubtless many of them do up their bathing for the year while here; and they may need no more after scalding and soaking in this water for a couple of months.

Before we reached the hotel, we turned aside into one of the bath-houses. We stood inhaling a sickly steam in a large, close hall, which was wholly occupied by a huge vat, across which low partitions, with bridges, ran, dividing it into four compartments. When we entered, we were assailed with yells in many languages, and howls in the common tongue, as if all the fiends of the pit had broken loose. We took off our hats in obedience to the demand; but the clamor did not wholly subside, and was mingled with singing and horrible laughter. Floating about in each vat, we at first saw twenty or thirty human heads. The women could be distinguished from the men by the manner of dressing the hair. Each wore a loose woolen gown. Each had a little table floating before him or her, which he or she pushed about at pleasure. One wore a hideous mask; another kept diving in the opaque pool and coming up to blow, like the hippopotamus in the Zoological Gardens; some were taking a lunch from their tables, others playing chess; some sitting on the benches round the edges, with only heads out of water, as doleful as owls, while others roamed about, engaged in the game of spattering with their comrades, and sang and shouted at the top of their voices. The people in this bath were said to be second class; but they looked as well and behaved better than those of the first class, whom we saw in the establishment at our hotel afterward.

It may be a valuable scientific fact, that the water in these vats, in which people of all sexes, all diseases, and all nations spend so many hours of the twenty-four, is changed once a day. The temperature at which the bath is given is ninety-eight. The water is let in at night, and allowed to cool. At five in the morning, the bathers enter it, and remain until ten o'clock,—five hours, having breakfast served to them on the floating tables, "as they sail, as they sail." They then have a respite till two, and go in till five. Eight hours in hot water! Nothing can be more disgusting than the sight of these baths. Gustave Dore must have learned here how to make those ghostly pictures of the lost floating about in the Stygian pools, in his illustrations of the Inferno; and the rocks and cavernous precipices may have enabled him to complete the picture. On what principle cures are effected in these filthy vats, I could not learn. I have a theory, that, where so many diseases meet and mingle in one swashing fluid, they neutralize each other. It may be that the action is that happily explained by one of the Hibernian bathmen in an American water-cure establishment. "You see, sir," said he, "that the shock of the water unites with the electricity of the system, and explodes the disease." I should think that the shock to one's feeling of decency and cleanliness, at these baths, would explode any disease in Europe. But, whatever the result may be, I am not sorry to see so many French and Italians soak themselves once a year.

Out of the bath these people seem to enjoy life. There is a long promenade, shaded and picturesque, which they take at evening, sometimes as far as the Ladders, eight of which are fastened, in a shackling manner, to the perpendicular rocks,—a high and somewhat dangerous ascent to the village of Albinen, but undertaken constantly by peasants with baskets on their backs. It is in winter the only mode Leukerbad has of communicating with the world; and in summer it is the only way of reaching Albinen, except by a long journey down the Dala and up another valley and height. The bathers were certainly very lively and social at table-d'hote, where we had the pleasure of meeting some hundred of them, dressed. It was presumed that the baths were the subject of the entertaining conversation; for I read in a charming little work which sets forth the delights of Leuk, that La poussee forms the staple of most of the talk. La poussee, or, as this book poetically calls it, "that daughter of the waters of Loeche," "that eruption of which we have already spoken, and which proves the action of the baths upon the skin,"—becomes the object, and often the end, of all conversation. And it gives specimens of this pleasant converse, as:

"Comment va votre poussee?"

"Avez-vous la poussee?"

"Je suis en pleine poussee"

"Ma poussee s'est fort bien passee!"

Indeed says this entertaining tract, sans poussee, one would not be able to hold, at table or in the salon, with a neighbor of either sex, the least conversation. Further, it is by grace a la poussee that one arrives at those intimacies which are the characteristics of the baths. Blessed, then, be La poussee, which renders possible such a high society and such select and entertaining conversation! Long may the bathers of Leuk live to soak and converse! In the morning, when we departed for the ascent of the Gemmi, we passed one of the bathing-houses. I fancied that a hot steam issued out of the crevices; from within came a discord of singing and caterwauling; and, as a door swung open, I saw that the heads floating about on the turbid tide were eating breakfast from the swimming tables.



OVER THE GEMMI

I spent some time, the evening before, studying the face of the cliff we were to ascend, to discover the path; but I could only trace its zigzag beginning. When we came to the base of the rock, we found a way cut, a narrow path, most of the distance hewn out of the rock, winding upward along the face of the precipice. The view, as one rises, is of the break-neck description. The way is really safe enough, even on mule-back, ascending; but one would be foolhardy to ride down. We met a lady on the summit who was about to be carried down on a chair; and she seemed quite to like the mode of conveyance: she had harnessed her husband in temporarily for one of the bearers, which made it still more jolly for her. When we started, a cloud of mist hung over the edge of the rocks. As we rose, it descended to meet us, and sunk below, hiding the valley and its houses, which had looked like Swiss toys from our height. When we reached the summit, the mist came boiling up after us, rising like a thick wall to the sky, and hiding all that great mountain range, the Vallais Alps, from which we had come, and which we hoped to see from this point. Fortunately, there were no clouds on the other side, and we looked down into a magnificent rocky basin, encircled by broken and overtopping crags and snow-fields, at the bottom of which was a green lake. It is one of the wildest of scenes.

An hour from the summit, we came to a green Alp, where a herd of cows were feeding; and in the midst of it were three or four dirty chalets, where pigs, chickens, cattle, and animals constructed very much like human beings, lived; yet I have nothing to say against these chalets, for we had excellent cream there. We had, on the way down, fine views of the snowy Altels, the Rinderhorn, the Finster-Aarhorn, a deep valley which enormous precipices guard, but which avalanches nevertheless invade, and, farther on, of the Blumlisalp, with its summit of crystalline whiteness. The descent to Kandersteg is very rapid, and in a rain slippery. This village is a resort for artists for its splendid views of the range we had crossed: it stands at the gate of the mountains. From there to the Lake of Thun is a delightful drive,—a rich country, with handsome cottages and a charming landscape, even if the pyramidal Niesen did not lift up its seven thousand feet on the edge of the lake. So, through a smiling land, and in the sunshine after the rain, we come to Spiez, and find ourselves at a little hotel on the slope, overlooking town and lake and mountains.

Spiez is not large: indeed, its few houses are nearly all picturesquely grouped upon a narrow rib of land which is thrust into the lake on purpose to make the loveliest picture in the world. There is the old castle, with its many slim spires and its square-peaked roofed tower; the slender-steepled church; a fringe of old houses below on the lake, one overhanging towards the point; and the promontory, finished by a willo drooping to the water. Beyond, in hazy light, over the lucid green of the lake, are mountains whose masses of rock seem soft and sculptured. To the right, at the foot of the lake, tower the great snowy mountains, the cone of the Schreckhorn, the square top of the Eiger, the Jungfrau, just showing over the hills, and the Blumlisalp rising into heaven clear and silvery.

What can one do in such a spot, but swim in the lake, lie on the shore, and watch the passing steamers and the changing light on the mountains? Down at the wharf, when the small boats put off for the steamer, one can well entertain himself. The small boat is an enormous thing, after all, and propelled by two long, heavy sweeps, one of which is pulled, and the other pushed. The laboring oar is, of course, pulled by a woman; while her husband stands up in the stern of the boat, and gently dips the other in a gallant fashion. There is a boy there, whom I cannot make out,—a short, square boy, with tasseled skull-cap, and a face that never changes its expression, and never has any expression to change; he may be older than these hills; he looks old enough to be his own father: and there is a girl, his counterpart, who might be, judging her age by her face, the mother of both of them. These solemn old-young people are quite busy doing nothing about the wharf, and appear to be afflicted with an undue sense of the responsibility of life. There is a beer-garden here, where several sober couples sit seriously drinking their beer. There are some horrid old women, with the parchment skin and the disagreeable necks. Alone, in a window of the castle, sits a lady at her work, who might be the countess; only, I am sorry, there is no countess, nothing but a frau, in that old feudal dwelling. And there is a foreigner, thinking how queer it all is. And while he sits there, the melodious bell in the church-tower rings its evening song.



BAVARIA.

AMERICAN IMPATIENCE

We left Switzerland, as we entered it, in a rain,—a kind of double baptism that may have been necessary, and was certainly not too heavy a price to pay for the privileges of the wonderful country. The wind blew freshly, and swept a shower over the deck of the little steamboat, on board of which we stepped from the shabby little pier and town of Romanshorn. After the other Swiss lakes, Constance is tame, except at the southern end, beyond which rise the Appenzell range and the wooded peaks of the Bavarian hills. Through the dash of rain, and under the promise of a magnificent rainbow,—rainbows don't mean anything in Switzerland, and have no office as weather-prophets, except to assure you, that, as it rains to-day, so it will rain tomorrow,—we skirted the lower bend of the lake,—and at twilight sailed into the little harbor of Lindau, through the narrow entrance between the piers, on one of which is a small lighthouse, and on the other sits upright a gigantic stone lion, —a fine enough figure of a Bavarian lion, but with a comical, wide-awake, and expectant expression of countenance, as if he might bark right out at any minute, and become a dog. Yet in the moonlight, shortly afterward, the lion looked very grand and stately, as he sat regarding the softly plashing waves, and the high, drifting clouds, and the old Roman tower by the bridge which connects the Island of Lindau with the mainland, and thinking perhaps, if stone lions ever do think, of the time when Roman galleys sailed on Lake Constance, and when Lindau was an imperial town with a thriving trade.

On board the little steamer was an American, accompanied by two ladies, and traveling, I thought, for their gratification, who was very anxious to get on faster than he was able to do,—though why any one should desire to go fast in Europe I do not know. One easily falls into the habit of the country, to take things easily, to go when the slow German fates will, and not to worry one's self beforehand about times and connections. But the American was in a fever of impatience, desirous, if possible, to get on that night. I knew he was from the Land of the Free by a phrase I heard him use in the cars: he said, "I'll bet a dollar." Yet I must flatter myself that Americans do not always thus betray themselves. I happened, on the Isle of Wight, to hear a bland landlord "blow up" his glib-tongued son because the latter had not driven a stiffer bargain with us for the hire of a carriage round the island.

"Didn't you know they were Americans?" asks the irate father. "I knew it at once."

"No," replies young hopeful: "they didn't say GUESS once."

And straightway the fawning-innkeeper returns to us, professing, with his butter-lips, the greatest admiration of all Americans, and the intensest anxiety to serve them, and all for pure good-will. The English are even more bloodthirsty at sight of a travelere than the Swiss, and twice as obsequious. But to return to our American. He had all the railway timetables that he could procure; and he was busily studying them, with the design of "getting on." I heard him say to his companions, as he ransacked his pockets, that he was a mass of hotel-bills and timetables. He confided to me afterward, that his wife and her friend had got it into their heads that they must go both to Vienna and Berlin. Was Berlin much out of the way in going from Vienna to Paris? He said they told him it was n't. At any rate, he must get round at such a date: he had no time to spare. Then, besides the slowness of getting on, there were the trunks. He lost a trunk in Switzerland, and consumed a whole day in looking it up. While the steamboat lay at the wharf at Rorschach, two stout porters came on board, and shouldered his baggage to take it ashore. To his remonstrances in English they paid no heed; and it was some time before they could be made to understand that the trunks were to go on to Lindau. "There," said he, "I should have lost my trunks. Nobody understands what I tell them: I can't get any information." Especially was he unable to get any information as to how to "get on." I confess that the restless American almost put me into a fidget, and revived the American desire to "get on," to take the fast trains, make all the connections,—in short, in the handsome language of the great West, to "put her through." When I last saw our traveler, he was getting his luggage through the custom-house, still undecided whether to push on that night at eleven o'clock. But I forgot all about him and his hurry when, shortly after, we sat at the table-d'hote at the hotel, and the sedate Germans lit their cigars, some of them before they had finished eating, and sat smoking as if there were plenty of leisure for everything in this world.



A CITY OF COLOR

After a slow ride, of nearly eight hours, in what, in Germany, is called an express train, through a rain and clouds that hid from our view the Tyrol and the Swabian mountains, over a rolling, pleasant country, past pretty little railway station-houses, covered with vines, gay with flowers in the windows, and surrounded with beds of flowers, past switchmen in flaming scarlet jackets, who stand at the switches and raise the hand to the temple, and keep it there, in a military salute, as we go by, we come into old Augsburg, whose Confession is not so fresh in our minds as it ought to be. Portions of the ancient wall remain, and many of the towers; and there are archways, picturesquely opening from street to street, under several of which we drive on our way to the Three Moors, a stately hostelry and one of the oldest in Germany.

It stood here in the year 1500; and the room is still shown, unchanged since then, in which the rich Count Fugger entertained Charles V. The chambers are nearly all immense. That in which we are lodged is large enough for Queen Victoria; indeed, I am glad to say that her sleeping-room at St. Cloud was not half so spacious. One feels either like a count, or very lonesome, to sit down in a lofty chamber, say thirty-five feet square, with little furniture, and historical and tragical life-size figures staring at one from the wall-paper. One fears that they may come down in the deep night, and stand at the bedside,—those narrow, canopied beds there in the distance, like the marble couches in the cathedral. It must be a fearful thing to be a royal person, and dwell in a palace, with resounding rooms and naked, waxed, inlaid floors. At the Three Moors one sees a visitors' book, begun in 1800, which contains the names of many noble and great people, as well as poets and doctors and titled ladies, and much sentimental writing in French. It is my impression, from an inspection of the book, that we are the first untitled visitors.

The traveler cannot but like Augsburg at once, for its quaint houses, colored so diversely and yet harmoniously. Remains of its former brilliancy yet exist in the frescoes on the outside of the buildings, some of which are still bright in color, though partially defaced. Those on the House of Fugger have been restored, and are very brave pictures. These frescoes give great animation and life to the appearance of a street, and I am glad to see a taste for them reviving. Augsburg must have been very gay with them two and three hundred years ago, when, also, it was the home of beautiful women of the middle class, who married princes. We went to see the house in which lived the beautiful Agnes Bernauer, daughter of a barber, who married Duke Albert III. of Bavaria. The house was nought, as old Samuel Pepys would say, only a high stone building, in a block of such; but it is enough to make a house attractive for centuries if a pretty woman once looks out of its latticed windows, as I have no doubt Agnes often did when the duke and his retinue rode by in clanking armor.

But there is no lack of reminders of old times. The cathedral, which was begun before the Christian era could express its age with four figures, has two fine portals, with quaint carving, and bronze doors of very old work, whereon the story of Eve and the serpent is literally given,—a representation of great theological, if of small artistic value. And there is the old clock and watch tower, which for eight hundred years has enabled the Augsburgers to keep the time of day and to look out over the plain for the approach of an enemy. The city is full of fine bronze fountains some of them of very elaborate design, and adding a convenience and a beauty to the town which American cities wholly want. In one quarter of the town is the Fuggerei, a little city by itself, surrounded by its own wall, the gates of which are shut at night, with narrow streets and neat little houses. It was built by Hans Jacob Fugger the Rich, as long ago as 1519, and is still inhabited by indigent Roman-Catholic families, according to the intention of its founder. In the windows were lovely flowers. I saw in the street several of those mysterious, short, old women,—so old and yet so little, all body and hardly any legs, who appear to have grown down into the ground with advancing years.

It happened to be a rainy day, and cold, on the 30th of July, when we left Augsburg; and the flat fields through which we passed were uninviting under the gray light. Large flocks of geese were feeding on the windy plains, tended by boys and women, who are the living fences of this country. I no longer wonder at the number of feather-beds at the inns, under which we are apparently expected to sleep even in the warmest nights. Shepherds with the regulation crooks also were watching herds of sheep. Here and there a cluster of red-roofed houses were huddled together into a village, and in all directions rose tapering spires. Especially we marked the steeple of Blenheim, where Jack Churchill won the name for his magnificent country-seat, early in the eighteenth century. All this plain where the silly geese feed has been marched over and fought over by armies time and again. We effect the passage of, the Danube without difficulty, and on to Harburg, a little town of little red houses, inhabited principally by Jews, huddled under a rocky ridge, upon the summit of which is a picturesque medieval castle, with many towers and turrets, in as perfect preservation as when feudal flags floated over it. And so on, slowly, with long stops at many stations, to give opportunity, I suppose, for the honest passengers to take in supplies of beer and sausages, to Nuremberg.



A CITY LIVING ON THE PAST

Nuremberg, or Nurnberg, was built, I believe, about the beginning of time. At least, in an old black-letter history of the city which I have seen, illustrated with powerful wood-cuts, the first representation is that of the creation of the world, which is immediately followed by another of Nuremberg. No one who visits it is likely to dispute its antiquity. "Nobody ever goes to Nuremberg but Americans," said a cynical British officer at Chamouny; "but they always go there. I never saw an American who had n't been or was not going to Nuremberg." Well, I suppose they wish to see the oldest-looking, and, next to a true Briton on his travels, the oddest thing on the Continent. The city lives in the past still, and on its memories, keeping its old walls and moat entire, and nearly fourscore wall-towers, in stern array. But grass grows in the moat, fruit trees thrive there, and vines clamber on the walls. One wanders about in the queer streets with the feeling of being transported back to the Middle Ages; but it is difficult to reproduce the impression on paper. Who can describe the narrow and intricate ways; the odd houses with many little gables; great roofs breaking out from eaves to ridgepole, with dozens of dormer-windows; hanging balconies of stone, carved and figure-beset, ornamented and frescoed fronts; the archways, leading into queer courts and alleys, and out again into broad streets; the towers and fantastic steeples; and the many old bridges, with obelisks and memorials of triumphal entries of conquerors and princes?

The city, as I said, lives upon the memory of what it has been, and trades upon relics of its former fame. What it would have been without Albrecht Durer, and Adam Kraft the stone-mason, and Peter Vischer the bronze-worker, and Viet Stoss who carved in wood, and Hans Sachs the shoemaker and poet-minstrel, it is difficult to say. Their statues are set up in the streets; their works still live in the churches and city buildings,—pictures, and groups in stone and wood; and their statues, in all sorts of carving, are reproduced, big and little, in all the shop-windows, for sale. So, literally, the city is full of the memory of them; and the business of the city, aside from its manufactory of endless, curious toys, seems to consist in reproducing them and their immortal works to sell to strangers.

Other cities project new things, and grow with a modern impetus: Nuremberg lives in the past, and traffics on its ancient reputation. Of course, we went to see the houses where these old worthies lived, and the works of art they have left behind them,—things seen and described by everybody. The stone carving about the church portals and on side buttresses is inexpressibly quaint and naive. The subjects are sacred; and with the sacred is mingled the comic, here as at Augsburg, where over one portal of the cathedral, with saints and angels, monkeys climb and gibber. A favorite subject is that of our Lord praying in the Garden, while the apostles, who could not watch one hour, are sleeping in various attitudes of stony comicality. All the stone-cutters seem to have tried their chisels on this group, and there are dozens of them. The wise and foolish virgins also stand at the church doors in time-stained stone,—the one with a perked-up air of conscious virtue, and the other with a penitent dejection that seems to merit better treatment. Over the great portal of St. Lawrence—a magnificent structure, with lofty twin spires and glorious rosewindow is carved "The Last Judgment." Underneath, the dead are climbing out of their stone coffins; above sits the Judge, with the attending angels. On the right hand go away the stiff, prim saints, in flowing robes, and with palms and harps, up steps into heaven, through a narrow door which St. Peter opens for them; while on the left depart the wicked, with wry faces and distorted forms, down into the stone flames, towards which the Devil is dragging them by their stony hair.

The interior of the Church of St. Lawrence is richer than any other I remember, with its magnificent pillars of dark red stone, rising and foliating out to form the roof; its splendid windows of stained glass, glowing with sacred story; a high gallery of stone entirely round the choir, and beautiful statuary on every column. Here, too, is the famous Sacrament House of honest old Adam Kraft, the most exquisite thing I ever saw in stone. The color is light gray; and it rises beside one of the dark, massive pillars, sixty-four feet, growing to a point, which then strikes the arch of the roof, and there curls up like a vine to avoid it. The base is supported by the kneeling figures of Adam Kraft and two fellow-workmen, who labored on it for four years. Above is the Last Supper, Christ blessing little children, and other beautiful tableaux in stone. The Gothic spire grows up and around these, now and then throwing out graceful tendrils, like a vine, and seeming to be rather a living plant than inanimate stone. The faithful artist evidently had this feeling for it; for, as it grew under his hands, he found that it would strike the roof, or he must sacrifice something of its graceful proportion. So his loving and daring genius suggested the happy design of letting it grow to its curving, graceful completeness.

He who travels by a German railway needs patience and a full haversack. Time is of no value. The rate of speed of the trains is so slow, that one sometimes has a desire to get out and walk, and the stoppages at the stations seem eternal; but then we must remember that it is a long distance to the bottom of a great mug of beer. We left Lindau on one of the usual trains at half-past five in the morning, and reached Augsburg at one o'clock in the afternoon: the distance cannot be more than a hundred miles. That is quicker than by diligence, and one has leisure to see the country as he jogs along. There is nothing more sedate than a German train in motion; nothing can stand so dead still as a German train at a station. But there are express trains.

We were on one from Augsburg to Nuremberg, and I think must have run twenty miles an hour. The fare on the express trains is one fifth higher than on the others. The cars are all comfortable; and the officials, who wear a good deal of uniform, are much more civil and obliging than officials in a country where they do not wear uniforms. So, not swiftly, but safely and in good-humor, we rode to the capital of Bavaria.



OUTSIDE ASPECTS OF MUNICH

I saw yesterday, on the 31st of August, in the English Garden, dead leaves whirling down to the ground, a too evident sign that the summer weather is going. Indeed, it has been sour, chilly weather for a week now, raining a little every day, and with a very autumn feeling in the air. The nightly concerts in the beer-gardens must have shivering listeners, if the bands do not, as many of them do, play within doors. The line of droschke drivers, in front of the post-office colonnade, hide the red facings of their coats under long overcoats, and stand in cold expectancy beside their blanketed horses, which must need twice the quantity of black-bread in this chilly air; for the horses here eat bread, like people. I see the drivers every day slicing up the black loaves, and feeding them, taking now and then a mouthful themselves, wetting it down with a pull from the mug of beer that stands within reach. And lastly (I am still speaking of the weather), the gay military officers come abroad in long cloaks, to some extent concealing their manly forms and smart uniforms, which I am sure they would not do, except under the pressure of necessity.

Yet I think this raw weather is not to continue. It is only a rough visit from the Tyrol, which will give place to kinder influences. We came up here from hot Switzerland at the end of July, expecting to find Munich a furnace. It will be dreadful in Munich everybody said. So we left Luzerne, where it was warm, not daring to stay till the expected rival sun, Victoria of England, should make the heat overpowering. But the first week of August in Munich it was delicious weather,—clear, sparkling, bracing air, with no chill in it and no languor in it, just as you would say it ought to be on a high, gravelly plain, seventeen hundred feet above the sea. Then came a week of what the Muncheners call hot weather, with the thermometer up to eighty degrees Fahrenheit, and the white wide streets and gray buildings in a glare of light; since then, weather of the most uncertain sort.

Munich needs the sunlight. Not that it cannot better spare it than grimy London; for its prevailing color is light gray, and its many-tinted and frescoed fronts go far to relieve the most cheerless day. Yet Munich attempts to be an architectural reproduction of classic times; and, in order to achieve any success in this direction, it is necessary to have the blue heavens and golden sunshine of Greece. The old portion of the city has some remains of the Gothic, and abounds in archways and rambling alleys, that suddenly become broad streets and then again contract to the width of an alderman, and portions of the old wall and city gates; old feudal towers stand in the market-place, and faded frescoes on old clock-faces and over archways speak of other days of splendor.

But the Munich of to-day is as if built to order,—raised in a day by the command of one man. It was the old King Ludwig I., whose flower-wreathed bust stands in these days in the vestibule of the Glyptothek, in token of his recent death, who gave the impulse for all this, though some of the best buildings and streets in the city have been completed by his successors. The new city is laid out on a magnificent scale of distances, with wide streets, fine, open squares, plenty of room for gardens, both public and private; and the art buildings and art monuments are well distributed; in fact, many a stately building stands in such isolation that it seems to ask every passer what it was put there for. Then, again, some of the new adornments lack fitness of location or purpose. At the end of the broad, monotonous Ludwig Strasse, and yet not at the end, for the road runs straight on into the flat country between rows of slender trees, stands the Siegesthor, or Gate of Victory, an imitation of the Constantine arch at Rome. It is surmounted by a splendid group in bronze, by Schwanthaler, Bavaria in her war-chariot, drawn by four lions; and it is in itself, both in its proportions and its numerous sculptural figures and bas-reliefs, a fine recognition of the valor "of the Bavarian army," to whom it is erected. Yet it is so dwarfed by its situation, that it seems to have been placed in the middle of the street as an obstruction. A walk runs on each side of it. The Propylaeum, another magnificent gateway, thrown across the handsome Brienner Strasse, beyond the Glyptothek, is an imitation of that on the Acropolis at Athens. It has fine Doric columns on the outside, and Ionic within, and the pediment groups are bas-reliefs, by Schwanthaler, representing scenes in modern Greek history. The passageways for carriages are through the side arches; and thus the "sidewalk" runs into the center of the street, and foot-passers must twice cross the carriage-drive in going through the gate. Such things as these give one the feeling that art has been forced beyond use in Munich; and it is increased when one wanders through the new churches, palaces, galleries, and finds frescoes so prodigally crowded out of the way, and only occasionally opened rooms so overloaded with them, and not always of the best, as to sacrifice all effect, and leave one with the sense that some demon of unrest has driven painters and sculptors and plasterers, night and day, to adorn the city at a stroke; at least, to cover it with paint and bedeck it with marbles, and to do it at once, leaving nothing for the sweet growth and blossoming of time.

You see, it is easy to grumble, and especially in a cheerful, open, light, and smiling city, crammed with works Of art, ancient and modern, its architecture a study of all styles, and its foaming beer, said by antiquarians to be a good deal better than the mead drunk in Odin's halls, only seven and a half kreuzers the quart. Munich has so much, that it, of course, contains much that can be criticised. The long, wide Ludwig Strasse is a street of palaces,—a street built up by the old king, and regarded by him with great pride. But all the buildings are in the Romanesque style,—a repetition of one another to a monotonous degree: only at the lower end are there any shops or shop-windows, and a more dreary promenade need not be imagined. It has neither shade nor fountains; and on a hot day you can see how the sun would pour into it, and blind the passers. But few ever walk there at any time. A street that leads nowhere, and has no gay windows, does not attract. Toward the lower end, in the Odeon Platz, is the equestrian statue of Ludwig, a royally commanding figure, with a page on either side. The street is closed (so that it flows off on either side into streets of handsome shops) by the Feldherrnhalle, Hall of the Generals, an imitation of the beautiful Loggia dei Lanzi, at Florence, that as yet contains only two statues, which seem lost in it. Here at noon, with parade of infantry, comes a military band to play for half an hour; and there are always plenty of idlers to listen to them. In the high arcade a colony of doves is domesticated; and I like to watch them circling about and wheeling round the spires of the over-decorated Theatine church opposite, and perching on the heads of the statues on the facade.

The royal palace, near by, is a huddle of buildings and courts, that I think nobody can describe or understand, built at different times and in imitation of many styles. The front, toward the Hof Garden, a grassless square of small trees, with open arcades on two sides for shops, and partially decorated with frescoes of landscapes and historical subjects, is "a building of festive halls," a facade eight hundred feet long, in the revived Italian style, and with a fine Ionic porch. The color is the royal, dirty yellow.

On the Max Joseph Platz, which has a bronze statue of King Max, a seated figure, and some elaborate bas-reliefs, is another front of the palace, the Konigsbau, an imitation, not fully carried out, of the Pitti Palace, at Florence. Between these is the old Residenz, adorned with fountain groups and statues in bronze. On another side are the church and theater of the Residenz. The interior of this court chapel is dazzling in appearance: the pillars are, I think, imitation of variegated marble; the sides are imitation of the same; the vaulting is covered with rich frescoes on gold ground. The whole effect is rich, but it is not at all sacred. Indeed, there is no church in Munich, except the old cathedral, the Frauenkirche, with its high Gothic arches, stained windows, and dusty old carvings, that gives one at all the sort of feeling that it is supposed a church should give. The court chapel interior is boastingly said to resemble St. Mark's, in Venice.

You see how far imitation of the classic and Italian is carried here in Munich; so, as I said, the buildings need the southern sunlight. Fortunately, they get the right quality much of the time. The Glyptothek, a Grecian structure of one story, erected to hold the treasures of classic sculpture that King Ludwig collected, has a beautiful Ionic porch and pediment. On the outside are niches filled with statues. In the pure sunshine and under a deep blue sky, its white marble glows with an almost ethereal beauty. Opposite stands another successful imitation of the Grecian style of architecture,—a building with a Corinthian porch, also of white marble. These, with the Propylaeum, before mentioned, come out wonderfully against a blue sky. A few squares distant is the Pinakothek, with its treasures of old pictures, and beyond it the New Pinakothek, containing works of modern artists. Its exterior is decorated with frescoes, from designs by Kaulbach: these certainly appear best in a sparkling light; though I am bound to say that no light can make very much of them.

Yet Munich is not all imitation. Its finest street, the Maximilian, built by the late king of that name, is of a novel and wholly modern style of architecture, not an imitation, though it may remind some of the new portions of Paris. It runs for three quarters of a mile, beginning with the postoffice and its colonnades, with frescoes on one side, and the Hof Theater, with its pediment frescoes, the largest opera-house in Germany, I believe; with stately buildings adorned with statues, and elegant shops, down to the swift-flowing Isar, which is spanned by a handsome bridge; or rather by two bridges, for the Isar is partly turned from its bed above, and made to turn wheels, and drive machinery. At the lower end the street expands into a handsome platz, with young shade trees, plats of grass, and gay beds of flowers. I look out on it as I write; and I see across the Isar the college building begun by Maximilian for the education of government officers; and I see that it is still unfinished, indeed, a staring mass of brick, with unsightly scaffolding and gaping windows. Money was left to complete it; but the young king, who does not care for architecture, keeps only a mason or two on the brick-work, and an artist on the exterior frescoes. At this rate, the Cologne Cathedral will be finished and decay before this is built. On either side of it, on the elevated bank of the river, stretch beautiful grounds, with green lawns, fine trees, and well-kept walks.

Not to mention the English Garden, in speaking of the outside aspects of the city, would be a great oversight. It was laid out originally by the munificent American, Count Rumford, and is called English, I suppose, because it is not in the artificial Continental style. Paris has nothing to compare with it for natural beauty,—Paris, which cannot let a tree grow, but must clip it down to suit French taste. It is a noble park four miles in length, and perhaps a quarter of that in width,—a park of splendid old trees, grand, sweeping avenues, open glades of free-growing grass, with delicious, shady walks, charming drives and rivers of water. For the Isar is trained to flow through it in two rapid streams, under bridges and over rapids, and by willow-hung banks. There is not wanting even a lake; and there is, I am sorry to say, a temple on a mound, quite in the classic style, from which one can see the sun set behind the many spires of Munich. At the Chinese Tower two military bands play every Saturday evening in the summer; and thither the carriages drive, and the promenaders assemble there, between five and six o'clock; and while the bands play, the Germans drink beer, and smoke cigars, and the fashionably attired young men walk round and round the, circle, and the smart young soldiers exhibit their handsome uniforms, and stride about with clanking swords.

We felicitated ourselves that we should have no lack of music when we came to Munich. I think we have not; though the opera has only just begun, and it is the vacation of the Conservatoire. There are first the military bands: there is continually a parade somewhere, and the streets are full of military music, and finely executed too. Then of beer-gardens there is literally no end, and there are nightly concerts in them. There are two brothers Hunn, each with his band, who, like the ancient Huns, have taken the city; and its gardens are given over to their unending waltzes, polkas, and opera medleys. Then there is the church music on Sundays and holidays, which is largely of a military character; at least, has the aid of drums and trumpets, and the whole band of brass. For the first few days of our stay here we had rooms near the Maximilian Platz and the Karl's Thor. I think there was some sort of a yearly fair in progress, for the great platz was filled with temporary booths: a circus had set itself up there, and there were innumerable side-shows and lottery-stands; and I believe that each little shanty and puppet-show had its band or fraction of a band, for there was never heard such a tooting and blowing and scraping, such a pounding and dinning and slang-whanging, since the day of stopping work on the Tower of Babel. The circus band confined itself mostly to one tune; and as it went all day long, and late into the night, we got to know it quite well; at least, the bass notes of it, for the lighter tones came to us indistinctly. You know that blurt, blurt, thump, thump, dissolute sort of caravan tune. That was it.

The English Cafe was not far off, and there the Hunns and others also made night melodious. The whole air was one throb and thrump. The only refuge from it was to go into one of the gardens, and give yourself over to one band. And so it was possible to have delightful music, and see the honest Germans drink beer, and gossip in friendly fellowship and with occasional hilarity. But music we had, early and late. We expected quiet in our present quarters. The first morning, at six o'clock, we were startled by the resonant notes of a military band, that set the echoes flying between the houses, and a regiment of cavalry went clanking down the street. But that is a not unwelcome morning serenade and reveille. Not so agreeable is the young man next door, who gives hilarious concerts to his friends, and sings and bangs his piano all day Sunday; nor the screaming young woman opposite. Yet it is something to be in an atmosphere of music.



THE MILITARY LIFE OF MUNICH

This morning I was awakened early by the strains of a military band. It was a clear, sparkling morning, the air full of life, and yet the sun showing its warm, southern side. As the mounted musicians went by, the square was quite filled with the clang of drum and trumpet, which became fainter and fainter, and at length was lost on the ear beyond the Isar, but preserved the perfection of time and the precision of execution for which the military bands of the city are remarkable. After the band came a brave array of officers in bright uniform, upon horses that pranced and curveted in the sunshine; and the regiment of cavalry followed, rank on rank of splendidly mounted men, who ride as if born to the saddle. The clatter of hoofs on the pavement, the jangle of bit and saber, the occasional word of command, the onward sweep of the well-trained cavalcade, continued for a long time, as if the lovely morning had brought all the cavalry in the city out of barracks. But this is an almost daily sight in Munich. One regiment after another goes over the river to the drill-ground. In the hot mornings I used quite to pity the troopers who rode away in the glare in scorching brazen helmets and breastplates. But only a portion of the regiments dress in that absurd manner. The most wear a simple uniform, and look very soldierly. The horses are almost invariably fine animals, and I have not seen such riders in Europe. Indeed, everybody in Munich who rides at all rides well. Either most of the horsemen have served in the cavalry, or horsemanship, that noble art "to witch the world," is in high repute here.

Speaking of soldiers, Munich is full of them. There are huge caserns in every part of the city, crowded with troops. This little kingdom of Bavaria has a hundred and twenty thousand troops of the line. Every man is obliged to serve in the army continuously three years; and every man between the ages of twenty-one and forty-five must go with his regiment into camp or barrack several weeks in each year, no matter if the harvest rots in the field, or the customers desert the uncared-for shop. The service takes three of the best years of a young man's life. Most of the soldiers in Munich are young one meets hundreds of mere boys in the uniform of officers. I think every seventh man you meet is a soldier. There must be between fifteen and twenty thousand troops quartered in the city now. The young officers are everywhere, lounging in the cafes, smoking and sipping coffee, on all the public promenades, in the gardens, the theaters, the churches. And most of them are fine-looking fellows, good figures in elegantly fitting and tasteful uniforms; but they do like to show their handsome forms and hear their sword-scabbards rattle on the pavement as they stride by. The beer-gardens are full of the common soldiers, who empty no end of quart mugs in alternate pulls from the same earthen jug, with the utmost jollity and good fellowship. On the street, salutes between officers and men are perpetual, punctiliously given and returned,—the hand raised to the temple, and held there for a second. A young gallant, lounging down the Theatiner or the Maximilian Strasse, in his shining and snug uniform, white kids, and polished boots, with jangling spurs and the long sword clanking on the walk, raising his hand ever and anon in condescending salute to a lower in rank, or with affable grace to an equal, is a sight worth beholding, and for which one cannot be too grateful. We have not all been created with the natural shape for soldiers, but we have eyes given us that we may behold them.

Bavaria fought, you know, on the wrong side at Sadowa; but the result of the war left her in confederation with Prussia. The company is getting to be very distasteful, for Austria is at present more liberal than Prussia. Under Prussia one must either be a soldier or a slave, the democrats of Munich say. Bavaria has the most liberal constitution in Germany, except that of Wurtemberg, and the people are jealous of any curtailment of liberty. It seems odd that anybody should look to the house of Hapsburg for liberality. The attitude of Prussia compels all the little states to keep up armies, which eat up their substance, and burden the people with taxes. This is the more to be regretted now, when Bavaria is undergoing a peaceful revolution, and throwing off the trammels of galling customs in other respects.



THE EMANCIPATION OF MUNICH

The 1st of September saw go into complete effect the laws enacted in 1867, which have inaugurated the greatest changes in business and social life, and mark an era in the progress of the people worthy of fetes and commemorative bronzes. We heard the other night at the opera-house "William Tell" unmutilated. For many years this liberty-breathing opera was not permitted to be given in Bavaria, except with all the life of it cut out. It was first presented entire by order of young King Ludwig, who, they say, was induced to command its unmutilated reproduction at the solicitation of Richard Wagner, who used to be, and very likely is now, a "Red," and was banished from Saxony in 1848 for fighting on the people's side of a barricade in Dresden. It is the fashion to say of the young king, that he pays no heed to the business of the kingdom. You hear that the handsome boy cares only for music and horseback exercise: he plays much on the violin, and rides away into the forest attended by only one groom, and is gone for days together. He has composed an opera, which has not yet been put on the stage. People, when they speak of him, tap their foreheads with one finger. But I don't believe it. The same liberality that induced him, years ago, to restore "William Tell" to the stage has characterized the government under him ever since.

Formerly no one could engage in any trade or business in Bavaria without previous examination before, and permission from, a magistrate. If a boy wished to be a baker, for instance, he had first to serve four years of apprenticeship. If then he wished to set up business for himself, he must get permission, after passing an examination. This permission could rarely be obtained; for the magistrate usually decided that there were already as many bakers as the town needed. His only other resource was to buy out an existing business, and this usually costs a good deal. When he petitioned for the privilege of starting a bakery, all the bakers protested. And he could not even buy out a stand, and carry it on, without strict examination as to qualifications. This was the case in every trade. And to make matters worse, a master workman could not employ a journeyman out of his shop; so that, if a journeyman could not get a regular situation, he had no work. Then there were endless restrictions upon the manufacture and sale of articles: one person could make only one article, or one portion of an article; one might manufacture shoes for women, but not for men; he might make an article in the shop and sell it, but could not sell it if any one else made it outside, or vice versa.

Nearly all this mass of useless restriction on trades and business, which palsied all effort in Bavaria, is removed. Persons are free to enter into any business they like. The system of apprenticeship continues, but so modified as not to be oppressive; and all trades are left to regulate themselves by natural competition. Already Munich has felt the benefit of the removal of these restrictions, which for nearly a year has been anticipated, in a growth of population and increased business.

But the social change is still more important. The restrictions upon marriage were a serious injury to the state. If Hans wished to marry, and felt himself adequate to the burdens and responsibilities of the double state, and the honest fraulein was quite willing to undertake its trials and risks with him, it was not at all enough that in the moonlighted beergarden, while the band played, and they peeled the stinging radish, and ate the Switzer cheese, and drank from one mug, she allowed his arm to steal around her stout waist. All this love and fitness went for nothing in the eyes of the magistrate, who referred the application for permission to marry to his associate advisers, and they inquired into the applicant's circumstances; and if, in their opinion, he was not worth enough money to support a wife properly, permission was refused for him to try. The consequence was late marriages, and fewer than there ought to be, and other ill results. Now the matrimonial gates are lifted high, and the young man has not to ask permission of any snuffy old magistrate to marry. I do not hear that the consent of the maidens is more difficult to obtain than formerly.

No city of its size is more prolific of pictures than Munich. I do not know how all its artists manage to live, but many of them count upon the American public. I hear everywhere that the Americans like this, and do not like that; and I am sorry to say that some artists, who have done better things, paint professedly to suit Americans, and not to express their own conceptions of beauty. There is one who is now quite devoted to dashing off rather lamp-blacky moonlights, because, he says, the Americans fancy that sort of thing. I see one of his smirchy pictures hanging in a shop window, awaiting the advent of the citizen of the United States. I trust that no word of mine will injure the sale of the moonlights. There are some excellent figure-painters here, and one can still buy good modern pictures for reasonable prices.



FASHION IN THE STREETS

Was there ever elsewhere such a blue, transparent sky as this here in Munich? At noon, looking up to it from the street, above the gray houses, the color and depth are marvelous. It makes a background for the Grecian art buildings and gateways, that would cheat a risen Athenian who should see it into the belief that he was restored to his beautiful city. The color holds, too, toward sundown, and seems to be poured, like something solid, into the streets of the city.

You should see then the Maximilian Strasse, when the light floods the platz where Maximilian in bronze sits in his chair, illuminates the frescoes on the pediments of the Hof Theater, brightens the Pompeian red under the colonnade of the post-office, and streams down the gay thoroughfare to the trees and statues in front of the National Museum, and into the gold-dusted atmosphere beyond the Isar. The street is filled with promenaders: strangers who saunter along with the red book in one hand,—a man and his wife, the woman dragged reluctantly past the windows of fancy articles, which are "so cheap," the man breaking his neck to look up at the buildings, especially at the comical heads and figures in stone that stretch out from the little oriel-windows in the highest story of the Four Seasons Hotel, and look down upon the moving throng; Munich bucks in coats of velvet, swinging light canes, and smoking cigars through long and elaborately carved meerschaum holders; Munich ladies in dresses of that inconvenient length that neither sweeps the pavement nor clears it; peasants from the Tyrol, the men in black, tight breeches, that button from the knee to the ankle, short jackets and vests set thickly with round silver buttons, and conical hats with feathers, and the women in short quilted and quilled petticoats, of barrel-like roundness from the broad hips down, short waists ornamented with chains and barbarous brooches of white metal, with the oddest head-gear of gold and silver heirlooms; students with little red or green embroidered brimless caps, with the ribbon across the breast, a folded shawl thrown over one shoulder, and the inevitable switch-cane; porters in red caps, with a coil of twine about the waist; young fellows from Bohemia, with green coats, or coats trimmed with green, and green felt hats with a stiff feather stuck in the side; and soldiers by the hundreds, of all ranks and organizations; common fellows in blue, staring in at the shop windows, officers in resplendent uniforms, clanking their swords as they swagger past. Now and then, an elegant equipage dashes by,—perhaps the four horses of the handsome young king, with mounted postilions and outriders, or a liveried carriage of somebody born with a von before his name. As the twilight comes on, the shutters of the shop windows are put up. It is time to go to the opera, for the curtain rises at half-past six, or to the beer-gardens, where delicious music marks, but does not interrupt, the flow of excellent beer.

Or you may if you choose, and I advise you to do it, walk at the same hour in the English Garden, which is but a step from the arcades of the Hof Garden,—but a step to the entrance, whence you may wander for miles and miles in the most enchanting scenery. Art has not been allowed here to spoil nature. The trees, which are of magnificent size, are left to grow naturally;—the Isar, which is turned into it, flows in more than one stream with its mountain impetuosity; the lake is gracefully indented and overhung with trees, and presents ever-changing aspects of loveliness as you walk along its banks; there are open, sunny meadows, in which single giant trees or splendid groups of them stand, and walks without end winding under leafy Gothic arches. You know already that Munich owes this fine park to the foresight and liberality of an American Tory, Benjamin Thompson (Count Rumford), born in Rumford, Vt., who also relieved Munich of beggars.

I have spoken of the number of soldiers in Munich. For six weeks the Landwehr, or militia, has been in camp in various parts of Bavaria. There was a grand review of them the other day on the Field of Mars, by the king, and many of them have now gone home. They strike an unmilitary man as a very efficient body of troops. So far as I could see, they were armed with breech-loading rifles. There is a treaty by which Bavaria agreed to assimilate her military organization to that of Prussia. It is thus that Bismarck is continually getting ready. But if the Landwehr is gone, there are yet remaining troops enough of the line. Their chief use, so far as it concerns me, is to make pageants in the streets, and to send their bands to play at noon in the public squares. Every day, when the sun shines down upon the mounted statue of Ludwig I., in front of the Odeon, a band plays in an open Loggia, and there is always a crowd of idlers in the square to hear it. Everybody has leisure for that sort of thing here in Europe; and one can easily learn how to be idle and let the world wag. They have found out here what is disbelieved in America,—that the world will continue to turn over once in about twenty-four hours (they are not accurate as to the time) without their aid. To return to our soldiers. The cavalry most impresses me; the men are so finely mounted, and they ride royally. In these sparkling mornings, when the regiments clatter past, with swelling music and shining armor, riding away to I know not what adventure and glory, I confess that I long to follow them. I have long had this desire; and the other morning, determining to satisfy it, I seized my hat and went after the prancing procession. I am sorry I did. For, after trudging after it through street after street, the fine horsemen all rode through an arched gateway, and disappeared in barracks, to my great disgust; and the troopers dismounted, and led their steeds into stables.