Once more we are in sight of the familiar snow-clads and ice-fields; the
glaciers are in sight in every direction; there are the mountain peaks,
the names all terminating with "horn." Our old friend, the Schneehorn,
shoots his peak ten thousand feet into the air, and the Surettahorn
lifts its mass of ice nine thousand three hundred feet high into the
clear sunlight, and we are again amid the grand Alpine scenery I have so
often described. Now we begin our descent, zigzag, as usual, through
wild mountain scenery, till at last we whirl through a long gallery,
and, with a salute of whip-snappings, enter the village of Splügen;
through this, and out again into another grand Alpine landscape, taking
in a view of the peaks of the Zapporthorn and Einshorn, each over nine
thousand feet high, and away off in the distance, the chalets of a Swiss
village, perched in among the mountains. Down we go, at full trot,
through the beautiful Roffla Ravine, picturesque in the twilight, with
its rocky walls, and its rattling cascades of the River Rhine dashing
over the rocky bed. There is one place where there is barely room for
the Rhine and the road to pass through the rocky gateway of the pass.
The scenery is wild, but at the same time there were trees, with
luxuriant foliage, that were pleasant to the eye; beautiful larches,
black spruces, and other trees of that kind, softened the rough aspect
of the mountains.
We were not sorry to draw rein at dusk at the village of Andeer, where
we had only a tolerable lodging, and a very bad breakfast; after which
we were once more on the road, and soon reached the valley of six
streams, which glide down the mountains, on either side, to the green
valley below, with its pretty farm-houses and green pastures. Soon after
leaving this, we enter upon the celebrated Via Mala.
This narrow pass seems like a great cleft, cut by a giant's knife, into
a huge loaf; the pathway through it, until 1822, was only four feet
wide. The carriage-road and the river now seem as if squeezed into the
gap, that might at any moment snap together and crush them. Huge
perpendicular rocky walls rise to the height of fifteen hundred feet on
either side; the River Rhine runs through the gorge three hundred feet
below the road, which crosses and recrosses it three or four times by
means of bridges; the great walls of rock, in some places, seem almost
to meet above, and shut out the full light of day, the space is so
narrow; for the river forces its way through a cleft, only fifteen feet
wide between the rock, and at one place there is a gallery, two hundred
feet long, cut through the solid rock. Although the river is three
hundred feet below the road, yet the cleft between the mountain is so
narrow that spring freshets will raise it a hundred feet or more. A
woman, who, at the highest bridge, drops stones down to the tide below,
for tourists to count ten before they strike the water, points out a
mark upon one of the bridges, noting a remarkable rise of the river in
1834, when it came up nearly two hundred and fifty feet, to the arch of
this bridge, and then solicits a few sous for her services.
This wild, dark, and gloomy gorge, with its huge overhanging curtains of
solid rock, the pathway clinging to its sides, the roaring torrent under
foot, arched bridges crossing its chasms, and tunnels piercing its
granite barricades, is literally a pathway wrenched through the
mountain's everlasting wall. It cannot fail to make a profound
impression by its gloomy grandeur and wild beauty, especially at one
point, where the eye can sweep away through the gorge, as if looking
through a vast rocky tube, and rest upon green, sunny slopes, and
pleasant, smiling scenery beyond.
We reach the pleasant village of Thusis, where the river Nolla flows
into the Rhine; and there is, from the bridge that spans it, a beautiful
view of the valley in a ring of mountains and an old castle, the oldest
in Switzerland, perched on a crag, high above the river. Here, at the
Hotel Adler, rest and an excellent lunch were both obtained, after which
the whip cracked good by, and we rattled on, through villages, and now
and then over arched bridges, and past picturesque water-wheels, or
little Roman Catholic churches, till at last we come to one great bridge
of a single arch, crossing the Rhine near Reicehnau--a bridge eighty
feet above the river, and two hundred and thirty-seven feet long. We
pass the pretty village of Ems, and next reach Coire, where our carriage
journey ends, the driver is paid, and we enjoy the novelty of half an
hour's ride by rail to Ragatz.
Here, while enjoying a rest at sunset, we had from the hotel balcony a
glorious view of a long line of mountains, and a huge, flat wall of
rock, upon which the setting sun strikes after streaming between two
great mountains, and makes it look like a huge sheet of light
bronze--one of those novel had indescribable effects that you see only
in the Alps.
The great wonder here, and, in fact, one of the greatest wonders of
Switzerland, is the Tamina Gorge and Pfaffers Baths, which next morning
we rode to see. A drive of two miles, through a wild, romantic
gorge,--the road, a part of the distance, hewn out of the solid
ledge, and the river tearing along over its jagged bed of rocks
below,--brought us to the hotel of the bath establishment (or, rather,
it is the hotel and bath establishment combined), excellently kept and
managed, and planted here between two great walls of rock on either
side, six hundred feet high. The water is conveyed down to it from the
hot springs in the gorge, about a quarter of a mile above, in pipes.
Leaving the hotel, we ascend on foot up through this wonderful crack in
the mountains. It is a cleft, ranging in width from twenty to forty
feet, the pathway a plank walk, five feet wide, affixed by staples to
one side of the solid rock.
These walls of rock rise to the height of four or five hundred feet
above the path, and, at some points, actually meet together overhead,
while the narrow strip, or aperture, for most of the way, lets in light
only sufficient to render visible a huge, black, awful chasm, the sides
shiny, and dripping with moisture, and a torrent roaring, fifty feet
beneath our path, waking a hundred strange echoes. This wild and
wondrous passage is "into the bowels of the land" a distance of eighteen
hundred and twenty feet; and sometimes the passage brings us to where
the action of the waters has hollowed out a huge, rocky dome, and the
foaming river whirls round in a great, black pool, as if gathering
strength for a fresh rush from its rocky prison.
As we gradually approach the upper end of this wild gorge, and leave
these weird chambers behind, we come to a point where clouds of steam
are issuing from a cavern--a cave within a cavern--apparently the very
pit of Acheron itself. Into this steaming grotto we penetrate. It is a
vaulted cave, ninety feet in length; a great natural steam-bath. Our
visages were damp with perspiration, which started from every pore, as
we stood at the brink of the hot spring, which was clear as crystal,
scentless, and at a temperature of one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. One
does not wish to remain in this cavern any length of time, unless fully
prepared for a vapor bath; consequently, we were soon outside, in the
outer cavern or gorge again. The pipes conveying the waters from the
springs to the bath-house and hotel run along the side of the rocky
wall, next the plank pathway. We retrace our steps back through this
wondrous gorge, with its tall, rocky walls hundreds of feet above our
heads, and its foaming torrent leaping beneath us; pass again beneath
the granite dome, pass little weird grottos, and, through the narrow
cleft; look away up to the strip of sky, shining like a band of blue
satin ribbon over the gap, and finally emerge once more upon the open
road, where our carriage is waiting. We returned over the romantic road
that brought us to this great wonder of the Alpine region.
From Ragatz we took train _en route_ for Schaffhausen, via Sargans and
Wallenstadt, passing the beautiful Serenbach Waterfall, and along the
shore of the Lake of Wallenstadt, or Wallenstadt See,--as they call it
here,--and which we had flitting and momentary glances of, through the
openings at the sides of the nine tunnels which the railroad train
thundered through. But the landscape views all along this portion of the
route of lake, mountains, waterfalls, valleys, and villages, formed one
continuous charming picture.
Our hotel,--the Schweizerhof,--at the Falls of Schaffhausen, is
admirably situated for a view of these falls, which, however, will
disappoint the American who has seen Niagara, and hears it stated (which
I think is incorrect) that these are the finest falls in Europe. The
actual fall of water is not above sixty feet, and appears at first to be
even less than this, and it looks more like a series of huge rapids than
a waterfall; indeed, reminding one of the rapids above Niagara, though
the descent is, of course, more abrupt. Right in the centre of the
falls, dividing them into three parts, are two small but high islands of
crag, accessible only by boats, and said to be very safely and easily
reached by the boatmen in attendance at the shore, who were ready to
take us to the middle island and to the old chateau on the opposite
side, which is the best point of view, for the usual fee.
We entered the boat, which was soon in the midst of the stream, and
began a series of regular approaches to the rock, propelled by the
muscular arms of the boatmen; but in the midst of these boiling surges,
lashing about us in every direction, and spattering us with their angry
spray, as the rowers took advantage of certain eddies and currents, the
appearance of the surroundings was decidedly dangerous, and it was with
a long-drawn breath of relief that we heard the keel of the boat grate
on the pebbles at the little landing at the foot of the central island.
This was a tall mass of rock, and we climbed from point to point, by a
not very difficult ascent, till we reached the summit, some fifty feet
above the boiling flood--a very favorable point of view, from whence the
clouds of silvery spray and the war of waters could be seen, and also a
very fine view of the rapids and river above, which is about three
hundred and fifty feet wide at this point. One of these rocks has a
complete natural arch, ten or fifteen feet high, worn through it by the
furious waters which leap, lash, and tumble about at the base of our
rocky citadel.
Descending, we took to the boat again, and started for the opposite
landing. Taking advantage of the current, the boatmen pushed out into
the swiftest part of it, and were swept with frightful velocity, in half
a dozen seconds of time, over a space which, to accomplish on our
approach, required nearly fifteen minutes. A few dexterous whirls, some
steady pulling, and we were landed at the foot of the ascent to the
Castle of Laufen, picturesquely situated on a wooded height above us,
and a fine point of view. We ascended the path, and enjoyed the prospect
from the balcony of the castle, and then looked at it through the
stained glass windows of a summer-house on the grounds, and finally
descended to a wooden gallery which is built out directly over the
foaming abyss, and so near the rushing water that you may plunge your
hand into the seething mass of waves. India-rubber overcoats are a
necessity for this excursion, which are provided by the owners of the
place, and included in the fee of admission.
The sensation of being in the midst of a great waterfall, and yet safe,
is about as correct a one, I should judge, as can be had, when you stand
at the end of this protecting gallery in the shower of spray, the great
body of water rushing towards the point as if to overwhelm you, while
you now and then receive a liberal dash of a huge wave, and the thunder
of the waters and rush of the torrent drown all other sounds, and render
conversation impracticable. We enjoyed this defying of the torrent, the
foam, rush and war of the waters, and the brilliant little rainbows
which the sunlight formed in the clouds of spray, and then descended to
the landing, to be rowed back to the opposite shore.
This boat-passage to the central rock is said to be perfectly safe, but
it certainly has not that appearance, and it is one that a person at all
inclined to be timid would not care to repeat. It has just that hint of
the dangerous which gives the excursion a zest which a little peril
seldom fails to produce. Timid though you may be, you cannot help
feeling exhilarated by the roaring of the waters and the quick dash of
the spray all around you; and the exultant emotion which you experience
when you jump on shore, and witness, from a safe stand-point, the
"perils you have passed," fully compensates for the moment of suspense,
when it seemed as though one misstroke of the boatmen would have dashed
you into eternity.
We left Schaffhausen at nine A. M. for Munich, had two hours and a half
on Lake Constance, passed Augsburg, and at half past nine reached
Munich.
"Wave, Munich, all thy banners wave,
And charge with all thy chivalry"--
Munich, with its magnificent art collections, its picture and sculpture
galleries, its thousand artists; Munich, with its bronze statues, the
home of Schwanthaler, the city of broad streets, the capital of Bavaria,
and the city that makes the best beer in all Europe.
The great hotel, "The Four Seasons," was filled with guests, but good
rooms were obtained at the Baierischer Hof, on the Promenaden Platz; and
our comfortable quarters were welcome indeed, after eleven hours' rapid
journeying. The last portion of the way approaching Munich was dull
enough, as it was over a broad, flat plain, with scarcely any trees, and
the signs of life were confined to an occasional lonely shepherd, with
his dog, guarding a flock. In fact, Munich is built in the middle of a
great plain, which is flat and uninteresting, and the city itself is not
considered healthy for Americans or English to reside in any length of
time. It is, however, one of the European cities that have grown in size
very rapidly the last thirty years, and the newer parts, built out into
the plain, away from the old city, waiting for the gap between to fill
up, remind the American traveller of cities in his native land.
The first sights of all others in Munich to which the tourist turns his
attention, are the art collections. The Glyptothek is the gallery of
sculpture, and the Pinacothek the picture gallery; and the admission to
these superb and priceless collections is free to all. The buildings
stand opposite to each other; and, as we find how much this city owes to
old King Louis for its position as a seat of the fine arts; how many
beautiful buildings, statues, galleries, public edifices, and streets,
were built by his order; and, still further, that the expenses of the
Glyptothek and other collections were paid for from his own privy
purse,--we feel inclined to look with a lenient eye upon the old
monarch's regard for pretty women, and the Lola Montez scandal.
The Pinacothek is a magnificent building, shaped like the letter I, and
is divided off into nine splendid halls, devoted to different schools of
art. Opening off or out of these halls are twenty-three smaller rooms,
or cabinets, for the smaller pictures of each school. Thus there are
three great halls devoted to the Italian school of art, two to the Dutch
school, two to the German, one to the French and Spanish, and a great
central hall to Rubens. In these great halls the larger pictures are
hung, and the light, which comes from the roof, is well and artistically
managed for displaying their beauties. In the cabinets are the ordinary
sized and smaller paintings. But what a wealth of art! There are nearly
fifteen hundred elegant paintings, hundreds of them by some of the most
celebrated artists that ever lived, and nearly all of them works that
you want time to study and admire.
The American who has been shown an occasional old dingy head or
blackened landscape, half obliterated by age, in his own country, and
told it is a rare treasure,--one of the old masters,--and who, as many
do, comes to the conclusion that the old masters did not put what he
should call finish into their works, will have all impressions of that
nature removed by his visit to this priceless collection. Here he will
see pictures that startle even the casual observer by their wondrous
faithfulness to nature; pictures upon which the hand of the artist is
visible in the minutest detail, the coloring and finish of which betray
the most laborious application, and which excite from him who may have
been silent over expressions of admiration at pictures at home which
were not his ideals of excellence,--silent, perhaps, from fearing that
he might be incorrect in judgment,--the honest assertion, that here is
his ideal of the artistic, and convince him that a picture cleanly
finished in all its details, fresh in color, sharp, distinct, and well
defined, can be artistic; and that even the best of the old masters, if
their works can be taken as an indication, thought so, too.
There is a good deal of humbug in the popular admiration of muddy,
indistinct old daubs, half defaced by age; and the visitor here, in
inspecting some of these wondrous creations, where the artist, in groups
of angels and cherubs, puts exquisite features to faces the size of
one's thumb nail, and grace into those ten times that size in the same
work, ascertains that a picture, to be really beautiful, must be
completely and artistically finished.
It would be useless, in these limits, to attempt a detailed description
of this world-renowned collection, to which two or three visits are but
an aggravation to the lover of art. Tourists generally "do" it in one
hasty visit, like many other sights, simply to say they have been there.
My note-book and catalogues are crammed with sentences of admiration
and marginal notes; but a few extracts will give the reader who has not
been abroad an idea of the interest of this gallery. First, there were
two great halls and six or eight ante-rooms devoted to the German school
of art. Here we saw numerous pictures by Albert Dürer--a Knight in
Armor, St. Peter and St. John, the Birth of Christ, &c.; a number by
Holbein, the elder and younger; Wohlgemuth, some strikingly effective
pictures from the life of Christ; Quentin Matsys' well-known picture of
the Misers; Mabeuse's noble picture of the archangel Michael; Dietrich's
splendid sea scenes; Van Eyck's Adoration of the Magi, Annunciation, and
Presentation in the Temple--pictures of wonderful execution, the faces
finished exquisitely, and the minutest details executed in a manner to
command admiration; Albert Dürer's Mater Dolorosa; the head of an old
woman and man, the most wonderful pictures of the kind I ever saw,
painted by Balthasar Denner, and every wrinkle, hair, speck, pore of the
skin, depicted with such wonderful and microscopic exactness as to
render it an impossibility to tell it from a living person at three feet
distance.
The third and fifth halls are filled with paintings of the Dutch school
by the pupils of Rubens and other artists, and the nine cabinets, or
smaller halls opening out of them, with pictures by various Flemish and
Dutch masters. Here were Teniers' elegantly finished and admirable
pictures of Boors Smoking, Boors at Cards; Ostade's Boors Quarrelling
and Boors Merry-making; Gerard Dow's Mountebank at the Fair, Wouvermans'
Stag Hunt, Vandyke's Susanna and the Elders, Rembrandt's magnificent
Descent from the Cross, &c., besides many other Rembrandts, Teniers,
Ostades, and Van der Werfs, any one of which was a study, a plethora, a
wilderness of beauty.
The fourth apartment, or central hall, is devoted entirely to the works
of Rubens, and contains nearly a hundred of the great master's pictures.
There was his Christ on the Cross, a most terribly real picture, that
made one almost shudder to look upon; the Fall of the Angels, a
remarkable and wondrous work of art; the Massacre of the Innocents, the
Sabine Women, the Last Judgment, Triumph of Religion, Rubens and his
Wife in a Garden, the Lion Hunt, &c. But just think of one room in a
gallery with a hundred of Rubens's best works surrounding you; it is
useless to attempt description. The ante-room, containing the best
pictures, to my mind, was that filled with Van der Werf's paintings,
which were marvellously clear and sharp in their execution, and finished
with exquisite skill. Here were the Magdalen in a Grotto, Rest on the
Flight into Egypt, Ecce Homo--all pictures of superb coloring never seen
in any modern work of art; Abraham sending forth Hagar and Ishmael;
portrait of the wife of the Elector John William; these two paintings
were finished equal to engravings. In Jesus disputing with the Doctors
in the Temple, the faces of the disputants are wondrous studies,
exhibiting various emotions, and the figure of Christ, a beautiful boy,
has the look of Heaven in every lineament of his face. Many other
perfectly finished pictures that hold one entranced with their wondrous
beauty are in this room.
Now we come to the sixth hall, containing the Spanish and French
schools; and here are those pictures of Murillo's with which we are all
so familiar from engravings, viz., the Beggar Boys eating Melons and
Grapes, Boys playing Dice, Beggar Boys, &c.; Nicolas Poussin's pictures,
&c.
The seventh and eighth great halls contain other paintings of the same
schools of art; among them Carlo Dolce, Tintoretto, Domenichino, and
Correggio. So also does the ninth apartment, formerly the private
cabinet of the king, in which there are beautiful works from the pencil
of Leonardo da Vinci, Andrea del Sarto, Giorgione, and Raphael. We come
from this gallery of art literally surfeited, fatigued with long gazing,
walking, pausing, looking, wondering, and admiring, and realize over
again what an exhausting work is continuous sight-seeing.
Besides the art collections which have already been described, we
visited the new Pinacothek, containing ten halls and fourteen cabinets
for the exhibition of modern paintings, among which we saw Kaulbach's
Destruction of Jerusalem, a magnificent picture, familiar from the print
that has been made of it; Wilkie's capital painting of the Reading of
the Will; the Deluge, by Charles Schorn, a Dusseldorf artist; Peasant's
Wedding, an excellent picture by Maurice Muller; Frederic Bischof's
First Snow; Battle of Custozza, by Adam; Two Boys buying their first
Cigars, by H. Rhomberg, a Munich artist, &c. There were nearly three
hundred pictures in this collection, which was first opened to the
public in 1853.
The Glyptothek, or Hall of Sculpture, is another priceless collection of
art. The exterior is handsomely adorned with statues, and the interior,
which consists of twelve halls, and each devoted to different branches
of art, is admirably planned and appropriately decorated.
In the hall known as the Æginetan, which is devoted to marbles
discovered in the Island of Ægina, we saw a splendid group of marble
figures, fourteen in number, which have been set up exactly in the
position they formerly occupied on the Grecian temple they adorned,
being carefully put together, and such parts as were broken carefully
restored by Thorwaldsen, giving one some idea of the beauty of the
sculpture of the ancient Greeks, and showing the actual figures in all
their spirited grace and action, which has never been excelled by modern
sculptors.
There were Hercules and Telamon fighting the Trojans, and the struggle
of the Greeks and Trojans over the body of Patroclus, as described by
Homer, the warriors with helmet, shield, and javelin, in the most
spirited attitudes--specimens of the wondrous skill of the ancient
sculptors, and the reality of those outline engravings, by Flaxman and
others, of statues and sculpture, which adorn the illustrated books of
Greek and Roman history. In the Hall of Apollo, among many other fine
works, were a superb Bacchus, found at Athens, with a crown of vine
leaves most exquisitely cut, a beautiful Ceres, and a grand and majestic
statue of Minerva.
The Hall of Bacchus, however, contains the gem of the whole collection,
and, in fact, the most wonderful and life-like statue I ever looked
upon--the celebrated Barberini Faun, a colossal figure of a Satyr, half
sitting, half reclining, as if in a deep sleep after a carouse. The
attitude is so perfect, the appearance of relaxation of the muscles and
limbs so thoroughly true to nature, and the very atmosphere of complete
languor and repose so pervades the countenance and whole body of the
figure, that the spectator almost forgets it is but senseless stone
before him in half expectancy of the breast heaving to the breathings of
the sleeper, which seems all that is lacking to make it a living
reality; and yet this wondrous work is from an unknown hand. The
catalogues and guide-books claim it is from the chisel of Praxiteles;
but that is only surmise. On account of its excellence they doubtless
think it ought to be; but it was dug out of the ditch of the Castle of
St. Angelo, where it was supposed to have been hurled from the walls in
the year 537. In this hall is also a magnificently executed figure of
Silenus, Bacchus and Panther.
In the Hall of Heroes are some splendid figures; Jason binding on his
Sandal; Nero as a gladiator, a fine head, with the brow and curls of a
Hercules; the Victorious Gladiator, Alexander the Great, &c. In the hall
of modern sculpture were Canova's beautiful figures of Paris and Venus;
Adonis, by Thorwaldsen; Love and the Muse, by Eberhardt; and others,
giving the visitor an opportunity of comparing ancient with modern art.
The great bronze statue of Bavaria, just outside the city, is a huge
figure of sixty feet in height, standing upon a pedestal thirty feet
high. It represents a female with a sword in her right hand, while the
left raises on high the wreath of victory. At her side sits the lion of
Bavaria. By the staircase inside we ascended to the head of the bronze
giant, which we found would comfortably accommodate eight or nine
persons; and from a window in its curling locks we had a fine view of
Munich and the surrounding country. This great statue was modelled by
Schwanthaler, and cast by F. Miller at the royal foundery of Munich,
where so many bronze figures for this country have been cast; and having
for that reason a desire to see it, we drove thither. On sending our
cards in, with a message that we were a party of Americans, we were
immediately waited upon by the superintendent, who, with the greatest
courtesy, showed us over the entire establishment, where were bronze
giants in every process of manufacture, from the mass of liquid metal to
the shapely figure under the artistic files of the finishers.
We were shown here the Hall of the Colossi, in which were the plaster
models of all the works that have been executed at the foundery. Here,
among others, we saw the cast of the statue of Henry Clay, made for New
Orleans, those of Beethoven for Boston Music Hall, and Horace Mann for
Boston State House grounds, Colonel Benton for St. Louis, and the
figures of Jefferson, Mason, Henry, Nelson, Lewis, and Marshall, which
adorn the Washington Monument at Richmond, Va.; also the model of the
triumphal car, drawn by lions, which adorns the arch at one end of the
fine street (Ludwigstrasse) named after King Louis. The lions were
giants ten feet high, and a cast of the hand of the great figure of
Bavaria was six or seven feet long and two feet thick, suggesting that a
box on the ear from such a palm would undoubtedly be a "stunner." From
here we naturally went to the studio of the great sculptor Schwanthaler,
where we were courteously received by his son, and were interested in
the processes of sculpture, which we saw in all its phases under the
workmen's hands.
Many of the streets of Munich are broad and beautiful, and the squares
adorned with statues. A bronze obelisk in the Karolinenplatz, nearly a
hundred feet high, formed from captured cannon, is erected in memory of
the Bavarians who fell in the army of Bonaparte during the Russian
campaign; and statues of King Louis and Schiller are in the Odeon Platz;
while in another square is another statue, formed from captured cannon,
of Maximilian I., surrounded by four other statues of distinguished
Bavarians.
The new palace which we visited was rich in elegant pictures, beautiful
frescoes, and works of art. In one series of rooms were great paintings
illustrating the history of Bavaria. Some of the rooms containing them
bore the names of Hall of Marriage, Hall of Treachery, Hall of Revenge,
&c., the scenes in these apartments being those historical events in
which these characteristics were prominent. Schwanthaler and Kaulbach's
pencils have contributed liberally to the decoration of many of the
rooms, particularly the Throne Room, which contains the illustrations of
a German poem, painted by Kaulbach, and another room with thirty or
forty illustrations of Goethe's works, by the same artist.
The Hall of Frederick Barbarossa contains fine large paintings of scenes
in his life, including his battle and victory in the third crusade. Then
we have the Hall of Charlemagne, with great pictures of his battle
scenes, and the Hall of Beauties, which contains a series of portraits
of beautiful women of Bavaria, painted by order of the late king,
without regard to rank or station; so that here the peasant girl jostles
the banker's daughter, and the duchess finds herself face to face with
the child of a cobbler--the stamp of beauty being the signet that
admitted each to this collection, which, in truth, does honor to the
king's judgment.
The great Throne Room is a magnificent apartment, one hundred and eight
feet long and seventy-five wide. At the upper end of the throne, and on
either side between the tall marble Corinthian pillars with gold
capitals, stand twelve colossal statues in gilt bronze. The statues,
which are ten feet high, were designed by Schwanthaler, and represent
the different princes of the house of Bavaria, beginning with Otho,
1253, and ending with Charles XII., 1798. The figures are very finely
executed, and in the costumes and weapons show the progress of
civilization. This room is, in truth, a royal one, and is as fit to hold
a royal reception in as one could wish. In fact, as we look round
through Munich, capital of the little kingdom of Bavaria, with its less
than five million souls, we get the impression that it has art, wealth,
galleries, libraries, &c., enough for the capital of an empire of five
times its size.
Munich makes beer that is celebrated for its quality, and the quantity
drank here is something fabulous. I am confident it is a necessity at
all the gardens where the musical performances are given; and apropos,
the superb music which one may listen to here for a mere trifle is
astonishing. I visited one of these gardens, where Gung'l's band of
about forty performers played a splendid programme--twelve compositions
of Strauss, Wagner, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Gung'l. But those
Strauss and Gung'l waltzes and galops--they were given with a precision
and spirit that were positively electrical. One could almost hear the
dancers' feet slip to the luxurious murmuring of the waltz, or catch the
gusts of air that whirled from the rush of the rattling galop. Admission
to this concert was eight cents, and order what you choose--a glass of
beer for four or five cents, or a bottle of wine at from twenty cents to
two dollars.
One of the monuments which old King Louis, or Ludwig, as they call him
here, leaves behind him is the Basilica of St. Boniface, built to
commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the king's marriage--the
finest church in Munich, and built in imitation of a Roman basilica of
the sixth century. The interior presents a superb sight, the roof being
supported by sixty-four splendid columns of gray marble, making a nave
and four aisles. The view through the length of these aisles, amid the
forest of pillars for a distance of two hundred and eighty-five feet,
and up to the roof, which is eighty feet from the pavement, and
represents the firmament studded with golden stars, is inexpressibly
beautiful. The magnificent frescoes on the walls, perfections in the
art, by Henry Hess and his students, and the splendid pictures
illustrating the progress of Christianity in Germany, and scenes in the
life of St. Boniface, heighten the effect. The church was finished in
1850, and has all the beauty and freshness of modern workmanship upon an
ancient model. It is certainly one of the most elegant and artistical of
ecclesiastical interiors. The sarcophagus of King Louis and of his
queen, Therese, is in this church, and beneath it a crypt for the
interment of the Benedictine monks, who are in some way or other
attached to the church.
In the great cathedral--a huge brick building three hundred and twenty
feet in length, with its windows sixty-seven feet high, filled with the
rich stained glass of the fifteenth century--we saw the monument of the
Emperor Louis, erected in 1622, upheld upon the shoulders of four
stalwart knights, armed _cap-à-pie_, in bronze, the size of life.
The public library of Munich is another storehouse of treasures. It is a
huge three-story building, with a superb staircase and magnificent
architectural interior, and contains eight hundred and fifty thousand
books, and twenty-two thousand manuscripts, besides coins and literary
curiosities of priceless value, such as block-books, printed anterior to
1500, manuscripts of the New Testament, in the seventh and eighth
centuries, the code of laws given by Alaric to the West Goths in 506,
Luther's Bible, containing his own and Melanchthon's portraits, and
other rarities of like interest. This library is the second largest in
existence, being exceeded in extent only by that of Paris.
But the reader will tire of Munich and its art treasures, if we do not;
so we will bid them a reluctant adieu, and take train for Salzburg. This
was an eight hours' ride, and of no particular note, except that at
every crossing on the railroad, and at intervals on the line, we saw
switch-tenders, or station-masters, who were in the red uniform of the
railroad company, and stood upright in military position, with hand
raised to the cap in salute, as the train whizzed past them. Arrived at
Salzburg, we went to the fine Hotel de l'Europe, where, among other
excellences of the Austrian cuisine, we had Austrian bread, the best in
the world, such as, once tasted, makes the eater ever long for it, and
establish it in his mind as the standard by which the quality of all
others is regulated.
The city is on the River Salza, and in quite a picturesque situation, at
the foot of the great Alpine heights, with a semicircle of mountains
about it. The plain, or valley, about the city is rich in beautiful
gardens, orchards, groves, and country houses, the dark-wooded heights
and slopes of the mountains forming the framework of the picture, and in
the centre Salzburg Castle perched upon its high rock, reminding one
very much, from its appearance and position, of Edinburgh Castle.
We have driven round the dull old town, seen the house where Mozart was
born, and his statue by Schwanthaler in one of the squares, and bought
elegantly-painted china covers for the tops of beer mugs--drinkers at
the bier halles having their special mugs, and recognizing them by the
design upon the cover. Some of the beer flagons and tankards exposed for
sale here were very beautiful and elaborate, and got up with much
artistic taste.
One of the most delightful rides we ever took was over the romantic road
from Salzburg out to the Chateau of Hellbrunn, for the whole distance of
nearly three miles was one continuous arch of splendid elms, shading the
broad, smooth, level road. The view of the town, and the old castle in
the centre, with the background of grand Alpine walls, which we had
constantly before us, and from many different points of observation, was
very picturesque and beautiful.
The gardens of the chateau are celebrated for containing the most
wonderful and curious of water-works. The grounds are beautifully laid
out, and at every turn we met new surprises. There was, of course, every
variety of ordinary fountain, dolphins and nymphs spouting, &c., and
besides these many curious contrivances for the fluid. There were two
beautiful pictures painted on copper, before which was apparently a
sheet of glass; but it was only a broad, thin, falling, transparent,
aqueous curtain. A beautiful bouquet of flowers was enclosed in a
complete hemisphere of falling water, as pure and unbroken as a glass
globe, with scarcely a perceptible motion in its swift current. Two
turtles, directly opposite each other, five feet apart, seemed to hold a
glass cord, the size of a man's finger between them, in their mouths.
Touching the transparent cord with a cane, we interrupted a swift
stream, and the liquid spattered in every direction. The cane was
withdrawn, the stream immediately reunited, and the turtles again held
their apparently motionless crystal cord as before. We came to automaton
old men grinding their scythes at a grindstone, millers at work at their
mill, all running by water power; entered a wondrous grotto, where
Neptune in his car drawn by sea-horses swam around, the horses and
dolphins spouting liquid streams from their mouths, and birds piping
their liquid notes from the wall, all moved by water power.
In another beautiful grotto a whirling fountain lifted a handsome golden
crown eight feet into the air, and kept it suspended amid a shower of
sparkling drops. Taking a position at the rear of a dark cavern, and
looking out towards the little arched entrance, the water was let on in
fine mist, and the arched doorway was as rich as the gates of Paradise
in wreathed rainbows. Two huge stags guarded another cavern, streams
issuing from their mouths and every point of their huge antlers. Hunters
were on galloping steeds, and blew torrents from their horns, or were
enveloped in the floods that spouted from their spear-heads. Luxurious
seats invited the tired pedestrian to repose, when, on seating himself,
he was ringed in with a circle of miniature water-spouts, rendering dry
egress apparently impossible. Finally we came to a place where two huge
doors were thrown open, displaying a space about twelve feet high and
eight or ten wide, in which was the complete representation in miniature
of the square in a city.
There were cathedral, palace, dwelling-house, and artisans' shops, all
faithfully represented; and in the streets, the shops and the houses
which were open to view, were over one hundred automaton figures of men,
women, and children, all moved by water power, and giving life to the
scene before you. There were masons hoisting stone and building a house,
coopers and tinkers clattering away in their shops, butchers killing and
cutting up, cobblers pegging away in their little stalls, wood-sawyers,
blacksmiths beating with a regular clink-clank-clink upon their anvils,
artisans in their shops; also all the usual street scenes of a city.
Here was a man with a dancing bear, surrounded by a curious crowd; there
a shrewish old woman shaking her head, gesticulating, and scolding at
her tipsy husband; children playing in the street; ladies, looking from
windows of houses, returned the courtly salutes of gallants who passed
by in the streets with graceful bow or wave of the hand; loaded teams
passed by; people went in and out of houses; Turks, priests, Jews, and
courtiers passed along in the most natural manner, and finally came a
whole regiment of soldiers, marching across the square; at last, the
notes of the organ were heard in the cathedral, and into its broad
portal filed priests and people, and the scene closed. The size of these
automatons was from six to eight inches; they were very well executed;
and the whole scene, with the cathedral, square, streets, and throng of
moving figures, seemed a sort of realization of Gulliver's experiences
in Lilliput. This place is the property of the king, and no fee is
charged for viewing it and its many wonders; nevertheless, the
custodian, who had so kindly and faithfully exhibited them to our party,
was extremely gratified at the magnificent fee of thirty cents, and took
leave of us with a profusion of bows and polite expressions.
Our visit to the old castle was also an interesting one. From its
battlements we looked directly down upon the town, and, afar off, on a
beautiful landscape of fields, winding river, and distant mountain.
Within the walls we saw the grand apartments of the old bishops, and the
remains of the torture chamber, fragments of the rack, and other hellish
inventions of cruel ingenuity which they used to apply to their victims.
Following the advice of a friend, we telegraphed on in advance to the
Hotel Archduke Charles, at Vienna, that we were coming, and to secure
rooms. An eight hours' ride by rail brought us to the capital of the
Austrian dominions, and I had scarce stepped from the railway carriage
ere a well-dressed, gentlemanly-looking individual, in dress coat, dark
pants and vest, gloves, spotless shirt-front, and immaculate neck-tie,
called me by name, and in perfectly correct English inquired if the
luggage of the party was upon the train, and was to be taken to the
hotel. I looked at him inquiringly, and assented.
"I am attached to the hotel, sir, and have received your despatch
(exhibiting it). If you will please to step into this carriage we have
in waiting for you, after pointing out your trunks, I will follow you
with them."
We were amazed, and began to wonder whether or not the fellow might not
be a clever English impostor, who had obtained our telegraphic despatch
with a view of getting our luggage into his hands, and running away with
it. Our doubts were, however, soon settled by a young Prussian lady of
the party, who conversed with him in his native tongue, and found that
he was a sort of chief clerk, or managing man, for the proprietors of
the hotel, and was equally at home in the German, French, or English
languages. We therefore committed our _impedimenta_ to his charge, were
escorted by him to the carriage, when, as he helped us in, tumbled and
travel-stained as we were, and passed in the travelling-pouches and
shawls, and stood in his spotless linen and polished boots, raising his
French hat, as if he had just stepped from a ball-room or the opera,--I
could not help feeling a little awkward at presuming to permit so
gentlemanly-appearing a personage to perform a menial act; but our
reflections were cut short by his rapid directions to the driver in his
own tongue. The coach-door was clapped to, and we were soon whirling
through the brilliantly-lighted streets on our way to the hotel.
Vienna appears to be a city that is having immense additions made to it;
in fact, to have recently taken a fresh start in new and spacious
squares, wide streets, and new buildings. The different portions of it
are known as the old and new cities. The new city streets are open,
wide, and airy, with broad and handsome sidewalks; the streets of the
old are narrow and crooked, with no sidewalk or curbstone. Our
hotel--the Archduke Charles--is situated on a street scarcely wide
enough for two vehicles to pass, and the noise (for it is always
crowded) that comes up between the tall buildings is almost unbearable
in warm weather, when open casements are a necessity. Talk of the
crooked streets of Boston! Why, some of the corkscrew passages of the
old city of Vienna will wind up an expert Bostonian into a most
inexplicable tangle.
The large, new streets, however, will, in time, rival the Boulevards in
beauty and attractiveness. Great blocks of buildings are built on the
Parisian model, elegant restaurants and stores, with plate glass
windows, rich displays of goods, and a profusion of gas-jets, give quite
a Paris air to the scene; in fact, the improvements in the way of new
buildings and new streets, not only here but in Munich and other cities,
seem to be after the Paris, or Haussman model. The tourist can hardly
help thinking that Louis Napoleon made his influence to be felt in more
ways than one, and has taught the monarchs of some of these sleepy old
empires a good lesson in widening, enlarging, and beautifying their
capitals, making them attractive to visit and pleasant to live in, and
to realize that it is money in their purses, or those of their
subjects,--which is much the same,--to render their cities inviting to
the hosts of travellers who traverse the continent, and to induce them
to remain and spend money, or come again and spend more.
To _bona fide_ tourists there are now very few restrictions.
Custom-house examinations are a mere form; passports, except in the
intolerant Roman States, are never called for, and admissions to
galleries, palaces, or collections, which require tickets from
government officials, are granted to foreigners without restraint. One
of our first sight-seeing excursions took us to the Imperial Library--a
magnificent collection of books and manuscripts, commenced in the
thirteenth century, and which now contains nearly three hundred thousand
books, and over sixteen thousand manuscripts, including many rare
literary curiosities, among which we saw Charlemagne's psalm book; a
roll of hieroglyphics on skin, sent by Cortes from Mexico to the King
of Spain; Tasso's own manuscript of Jerusalem Delivered; the Latin Bible
of 1462, on parchment; elegant illuminated manuscripts and parchment
volumes, whose exquisite penmanship and still brilliant colors make it
hard to believe that the hands that laboriously fashioned them, in shady
cloister and convent cell, have crumbled into undistinguishable dust
hundreds of years ago.
One of the most magnificent collections of royal jewelry we have ever
looked upon we saw at the Imperial Treasury, or Jewel House. Here were
necklaces of diamonds as big as filberts, and of a brilliancy that
others pale before; a bow-knot as large as a half sheet of commercial
note-paper, that blazed like fire with clear, pure diamonds; great
crowns; conquerors' wreaths in emeralds and diamonds; royal orders and
decorations; magnificent chains and collars belonging to the dresses
of various orders worn by the emperor. But it was not only the
sparkling collection of gems of purest ray serene that attracted our
attention--the curious historic relics that are preserved here are of
great value and interest. Think of standing and looking upon the
coronation robe, crown, and sceptre of the stout old Charlemagne
himself; the great diamond worn by Charles the Bold; the robes and crown
worn by Napoleon at his coronation at Milan; an elegant crucifix, with
the wondrous carving and chasing of that renowned artificer, Benvenuto
Cellini; a collection of curious watches of olden times, the "Nuremburg
eggs" that we have so often read of. Besides the huge falchion of
Charlemagne, we were shown the sword of Maximilian I., that of Francis
I. of France, the scimeter that was once wielded by Tamerlane, and the
celebrated iron crown of Lombardy.
I cannot begin to enumerate the stories of relics connected with the
history of Austria; the wealth of cut and uncut jewels which we were
hurried through by the thick-headed, stupid guide, who recited a
description he had learned by rote in the most monotonous manner; who
was utterly unable to answer the simplest question, and only went from
one object to another that was in his programme of performance,
commencing with his everlasting "_Dies is der_," and going on with a
monotonous enumeration of facts, running his words and sentences
together, like a state official repeating a formula. I ought not to omit
mentioning that they have several sacred relics here, some of which
cannot fail to excite a smile, and others such as tourists always expect
to find in every collection. Among the first is what is said to be part
of the table-cloth used at the Last Supper! The visitor is not expected
to inquire if table-cloths were used in those days, or he might be
answered, "Of course they were; else how came this piece here?" The
piece of the true cross is here, of course, for no well-regulated
collection of relics or cathedral is complete without it; while the
tooth of St. John the Baptist and leg bone of St. Anne may cause some
unbelieving Thomases to wonder how long these mortuary relics can be
kept preserved from the crumbling touch of time.
I had no idea what an intensely curious exhibition a cabinet of minerals
could be, till I stood within the great building containing the
collection here, which is in a series of apartments in all as long as
Quincy Market, in Boston, and most admirably arranged and classified. It
seemed as if the whole world had been ransacked for specimens in every
nook and corner, from the frozen regions of the poles to the coral caves
of the tropics; from the surface to the centre; and that geology might
be studied here by illustration, and metallurgy and mineralogy
thoroughly learned from specimens, so numerous are they, and so
perfectly are the different varieties and branches arranged.
Here are marbles from every part of the world, even Greenland; copper
from the slave-worked mines of Siberia, and the prolific pits of the
Lake Superior country, in fragments, dust, ingots, and masses; coal
bearing the familiar names of our American mines, those of the great
English pits, and specimens from China, Japan, Bohemia, and New Zealand;
gold in all its curious shapes, as found in rock that showed not its
glitter, and in the smooth nuggets from California and Australia; the
less precious, but not less useful iron, from every part of the globe;
diamonds from Brazil; agates; malachite from the Ural Mountains;
crystals from the Alps; amethysts, rubies, and uncut gems, plucked
from streams or rocky prisons; silver ore from the mines of Potosi;
solid lead from Great Britain, Spain, and America; tin, cinnabar,
platina--till it seemed that every known metal, ore, rock, mineral, or
gem, from every quarter of the world, had its representative specimen in
this priceless collection.
Among the remarkable curiosities of the museum were the largest opal in
the world,--as large as a man's fist, and weighing seventeen
ounces,--too big for the breastpin of the most ambitious American
expressman or negro minstrel; a great rock crystal, as big as a man's
leg; a great bed or mass of crystals, four and a half feet in diameter;
elegant specimens of uncut gems and diamond crystals; a large collection
of aerolites, or meteoric stones, which have fallen in various parts of
the world. Among the most curious of these is one mass looking like
melted rock, weighing over five hundred pounds. Then there are curious
fossil remains, bird tracks, and ferns, in stone, and various other
interesting illustrations of geology. A very costly wonder is a
beautiful bouquet of flowers, made entirely of precious stones, for the
Empress Maria Theresa,--the colors of leaves, buds, and petals all being
preserved by different-colored gems,--a sparkling but scentless nosegay.
This superb collection is one of the wonders of Vienna, and must afford
an admirable opportunity to students and others engaged in the study of
mineralogy, &c., numbers of whom we saw in different departments, as we
passed through, making notes and examinations.
A museum where one having any taste for antiquities may positively
luxuriate, is the Ambras Museum of ancient arms and armor, a real,
authenticated historical collection,--armor that had actually been worn
and fought in by men whose names figure in history hundreds of years
ago. How the antiquary will thank the old Archduke Ferdinand, who made
this collection in 1560, expressly for the purpose of interesting future
ages, and left his own autographic manuscripts (still preserved),
authenticating them beyond a doubt.
Three large rooms of six in the museum are devoted to the collection of
arms and armor. Here were the helmet of Francis I., of France, that may
have been worn in his battle with his warlike opponent, the German
emperor, Charles V., or at his meeting with Henry VIII. on the Field of
the Cloth of Gold; the complete armor, for man and horse, of the Emperor
Maximilian; the armor of Charles V.; that of Philip II.,--armor that he
may have ridden in, side by side with his English wife, Bloody Mary; the
dinted armor of that fierce warrior, Don John of Austria, that may have
shielded its owner in many a deadly encounter; a magnificent steel suit,
fluted with gold, belonging to the Archbishop of Salzburg; the
handsomely-wrought steel armor of Maurice, Elector of Saxony; a whole
room full of armor suits and weapons used at tournaments during the
middle ages; the elegant suit of Alexander Farnese, of Parma, made in
1592, of great beauty of workmanship, and which would put our artificers
of the present day to their best skill to rival. Here are the battle-axe
of Montezuma, emperor of Mexico; the horse-tail standards captured from
the Turks, and elegant swords and weapons of Italian warriors, rich in
ornament and chasing. Of these interesting memorials of ancient
chivalry, there are nearly one hundred and fifty suits of armor,
weapons, &c.--historical mementos of the manners of the middle ages.