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.