Views A-foot; Or, Europe Seen with Knapsack and Staff by Bayard Taylor

Author:Bayard Taylor [Taylor, Bayard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, World
ISBN: 9789354505133
Google: eGxkzgEACAAJ
Publisher: Alpha Editions
Published: 2021-04-06T03:01:24+00:00

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CHAPTER XXVII. — THROUGH WURTEMBERG TO HEIDELBERG.

We left Munich in the morning train for Augsburg. Between the two cities extends a vast unbroken plain, exceedingly barren and monotonous. Here and there is a little scrubby woodland, and sometimes we passed over a muddy stream which came down from the Alps. The land is not more than half-cultivated, and the villages are small and poor. We saw many of the peasants at their stations, in their gay Sunday dresses; the women wore short gowns with laced boddices, of gay colors, and little caps on the top of their heads, with streamers of ribbons three feet long. After two hours' ride, we saw the tall towers of Augsburg, and alighted on the outside of the wall. The deep moat which surrounds the city, is all grown over with velvet turf, the towers and bastions are empty and desolate, and we passed unchallenged under the gloomy archway. Immediately on entering the city, signs of its ancient splendor are apparent. The houses are old, many of them with quaint, elaborately carved ornaments, and often covered with fresco paintings. These generally represent some scene from the Bible history, encircled with arabesque borders, and pious maxims in illuminated scrolls. We went into the old Rathhaus, whose golden hall still speaks of the days of Augsburg's pride. I saw in the basement a bronze eagle, weighing sixteen tons, with an inscription on the pedestal stating that it was cast in 1606, and formerly stood on the top of an old public building, since torn down. In front of the Rathhaus is a fine bronze fountain, with a number of figures of angels and tritons.

The same afternoon, we left Augsburg for Ulm. Long, low ranges of hills, running from the Danube, stretched far across the country, and between them lay many rich, green valleys. We passed, occasionally, large villages, perhaps as old as the times of the crusaders, and looking quite pastoral and romantic from the outside; but we were always glad when we had gone through them and into the clean country again. The afternoon of the second day we came in sight of the fertile plain of the Danube; far, far to the right lay the field of Blenheim, where Marlborough and the Prince Eugene conquered the united French and Bavarian forces and decided the war of the Spanish succession.

We determined to reach Ulm the same evening, although a heavy storm was raging along the distant hills of Wurtemberg. The dark mass of the mighty Cathedral rose in the distance through the twilight, a perfect mountain in comparison with the little houses clustered around its base. We reached New Ulm, finally, and passed over the heavy wooden bridge into Wurtemberg, unchallenged for passport or baggage. I thought I could feel a difference in the atmosphere when I reached the other side—it breathed of the freer spirit that ruled through the land. The Danube is here a little muddy stream, hardly as large as my

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