The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner — Volume 2Warner, Charles Dudley
General
The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner — Volume 2
Warner, Charles Dudley
Europe -- Description and travel
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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