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.

And yet one never loses a walk here in Munich.  I found myself that morning by the Isar Thor, a restored medieval city gate.  The gate is double, with flanking octagonal towers, inclosing a quadrangle.  Upon the inner wall is a fresco of “The Crucifixion.”  Over the outer front is a representation, in fresco painting, of the triumphal entry into the city of the Emperor Louis of Bavaria after the battle of Ampfing.  On one side of the gate is a portrait of the Virgin, on gold ground, and on the other a very passable one of the late Dr. Hawes of Hartford, with a Pope’s hat on.  Walking on, I came to another arched gateway and clock-tower; near it an old church, with a high wall adjoining, whereon is a fresco of cattle led to slaughter, showing that I am in the vicinity of the Victual Market; and I enter it through a narrow, crooked alley.  There is nothing there but an assemblage of shabby booths and fruit-stands, and an ancient stone tower in ruins and overgrown with ivy.

Leaving this, I came out to the Marian Platz, where stands the column, with the statue of the Virgin and Child, set up by Maximilian I. in 1638 to celebrate the victory in the battle which established the Catholic supremacy in Bavaria.  It is a favorite praying-place for the lower classes.  Yesterday was a fete day, and the base of the column and half its height are lost in a mass of flowers and evergreens.  In front is erected an altar with a broad, carpeted platform; and a strip of the platz before it is inclosed with a railing, within which are praying-benches.  The sun shines down hot; but there are several poor