We left the little village where we were quartered for the night and took a foot path which led across the country to the field of Hohenlinden, about six miles distant. The name had been familiar to me from childhood, and my love for Campbell, with the recollection of the school-exhibitions where "On Linden when the sun was low" had been so often declaimed, induced me to make the excursion to it. We traversed a large forest, belonging to the King of Bavaria, and came out on a plain covered with grain fields and bounded on the right by a semi-circle of low hills. Over the fields, about two miles distant, a tall, minaret-like spire rose from a small cluster of houses, and this was Hohenlinden! To tell the truth, I had been expecting something more. The "hills of blood-stained snow" are very small hills indeed, and the "Isar, rolling rapidly," is several miles off; it was the spot, however, and we recited Campbell's poem, of course, and brought away a few wild flowers as memorials. There is no monument or any other token of the battle, and the people seem to endeavor to forget the scene of Moreau's victory and their defeat.
From a hill twelve miles off we had our first view of the spires of Munich, looking like distant ships over the sea-like plain. They kept in sight till we arrived at eight o'clock in the evening, after a walk of more than thirty miles. We crossed the rapid Isar on three bridges, entered the magnificent Isar Gate, and were soon comfortably quartered in the heart of Munich.
Entering the city without knowing a single soul within it, we made within a few minutes an agreeable acquaintance. After we passed the Isar Gate, we began looking for a decent inn, for the day's walk was very fatiguing. Presently a young man, who had been watching us for some time, came up and said, if we would allow him, he would conduct us to a good lodging-place. Finding we were strangers, he expressed the greatest regret that he had not time to go with us every day around the city. Our surprise and delight at the splendor of Munich, he said, would more than repay him for the trouble. In his anxiety to show us something, he took us some distance out of the way, (although it was growing dark and we were very tired,) to see the Palace and the Theatre, with its front of rich frescoes.
END OF PART I. —
VIEWS A-FOOT;
OR
EUROPE SEEN WITH KNAPSACK AND STAFF.
By J. Bayard Taylor.
WITH A PREFACE BY N.P. WILLIS.
"Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way,
And merrily hent the stile-a;
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a."
Winter's Tale.