NOTES OF EUROPEAN TRAVEL. BY THE EDITOR. Of all the rivers of Europe I think the Elbe has the best right to complain of neglect, for while the Rhine and the Danube continue to bear onward to the sea the garlands of poesy and while the "blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone" still elicits the finest compliments of the tourists, we hear little of the beauties of the Elbe and are familiar with few of the legends that belong to its romantic crags. It was therefore with a charming surprise that, as dreamy, delicious Dresden was fading away behind me, I found myself in the charming region of Saxon Switzerland, with the Elbe on the left hand flowing beneath precipices of startling ruggedness and grandeur. Softly, musically, brightly glides the stream along, now bending around an abrupt mountain that rises many hundred feet into the air, now kissing the verdant marge where children are disporting on the grass-presently flashing with the measured dip of oars as a boat is seen upon the surface and again giving back the clear blue outline of a pile of mountains beyond-was it any wonder we leaned out of the car window to catch every view of its windings, as the eagle circled over the pinnacles of the Lilienstein, unaffrighted whom you are to become better acquainted anon, though it had been carefully gotten up for the faction a flask of Herr Johann Maria Farina's co- to declare that that flask of cologne could no in his airy elevation by the scream of the locomotive or the puff of the Dampfschiff! We were. to tell the truth, in no good humor with more enter the Austrian dominions than M. Louis ourselves for whirling at the rate of thirty miles an hour through a region so wildly and freshly beautiful, which we might never see again, and where we might reasonably expect to encounter the fair Undine of the pretty foot and the languishing eye, the cruellest of coquettes and the most bewildering of syrens that ever lived in the water or out of it. But with trunks billeted for Prague, with passports en régle for Austria, there was no help for us. So away, away we swept past the virgin fortress of the Königstein, lifting itself twelve hundred feet perpendicularly above our heads, where once upon a time there leaped into the river a Saxon maiden to escape the fate Kossuth himself that the very idea of such a thing was preposterous and that the attempt to introduce it would most probably involve our whole party in serious difficulties. After a while, however, upon conference with several of his brother officers, with many twirlings of a tawny, ropy moustache, he yielded the point and produced a formidable document, which looked like nothing so much as a map of Hungary in a state of revolution, and the only comprehensible portion of which, besides the eagle with two heads at the top, was the sum of 3 Florins which I was to pay as duty upon the essence. This amount grudgingly handed over, we were permitted to take our seat again in the train and in three hours thereafter, we reached Prague. which threatened the heroine of Ivanhoe, and where now you see the sentinel on the bastion, a mere Tom Pouce against the sky, going his Prague is a storied city, with great memories rounds-away past many bright little villages of Huss and Ziska and of many sieges and bomand under other lofty masses of mountain throw-bardments, and has been so often knocked to ing a dark shadow across the river-until the pieces, indeed, that it is wonderful the Bohemitrain stopped at the Austrian frontier, where above the door of the station house, there sits an ominous and ungainly looking creature with ans had the spirit to keep up the capital. Yet it looks very peaceful and sleepy, with the river Moldau rolling between its antiquated edifices, and many fine old towers dozing in the sunlight | 12. A description of my personal appearance as if they had never known the bursting of a and style of beauty. shell or flamed in the glare of a conflagration. To this was added a subpoena to appear next It is impressed upon my memory by a very bad morning at 10 o'clock at the police office to andinner that was furnished at the station house, swer such further questions as it might occur to and by a hotly-contested engagement between the the authorities to propound. Austrians and our little alliance of three Ameri I was commenting with my friends upon the can travellers, about the trunks and the passports, flattering degree of interest that was taken in us in which the whole ground we had gained at the by the Viennese police, as shown in this last frontier had to be fought over, including the co-document when I discovered several dirty looking logne-water, but in which I escaped having to militaires engaged in unstrapping our trunks, and pay for the flask a second time, by dint of flourturning round was again asked for my keys. ishing the map of revolutionized Hungary under This time, however, Farina gave me no annoythe very moustaches of our foes. We left the ance, and had it not been for some little prejucity three hours after entering it, on our way to dice that the officers conceived to R- 's letter Vienna, with a sort of feeling, whether created of credit which they insisted upon taking from by indigestion or not is uncertain, that as we him, causing a temporary delay, we might have were now fairly in the power of the eagle of Aus-been at the hotel in fifteen minutes after entering tria, we might as well place ourselves directly the gates. between his two beaks as soon as possible. And this we should do, of course, upon arriving at the seat of government. I have thought it worth while to give this long but veracious narrative of our passport experience because it serves to show how perfectly conWe passed the night in the cars, which, being scious Austria is of her own weakness and of the constructed like those of the American railways, absolute necessity of protecting herself against proved that there were some things in common internal disorder by the employment of every posbetween Austria and the United States, and the sible agency of despotism. The traveller will "sentinel stars" were just breaking up "their have occasion to observe that in direct proportion watch in the sky" when we caught sight of the with the rigor of despotic rule in European counsentinels at the gates of Vienna. Five miles be- tries is the degree of trouble he will have about fore reaching the barrier, an officer came through his passport, and there is also an exact ratio bethe train gathering up the passports once more, tween the dangers of domestic dissension and and gave each one of the passengers a printed the difficulties that are thrown in the way of tracircular upon returning which to the office of the velling. Where people are free to move about, chief of police, it was stated, the passports would to mingle among themselves and to communicate be sent back. As soon as the grey light of the with those of neighboring States, they are very morning would admit of my ascertaining the pur- apt to take up liberal ideas and to desire freedom port of the circular, I found it to contain a polite of speech and action as well. And where the request on the part of the highest municipal functionary, under the auspices of the national bird, that I would communicate immediately to him the following facts 1. My name. 2. My birth place. 3. My residence. 4. The place I last came from. 5. The place I was next going to. 6. My profession. 7. My age. current of foreign travel is unchecked through a country, visitors from other lands where liberty obtains, may introduce inconvenient and heretical notions of the rights of the people. Thus it is the policy of the Emperor of Austria to restrict travel as much as possible, both foreign and domestic, through his fragmentary and heterogeneous dominions. It is melancholy to think how the chains of slavery have bound together in one unnatural and overgrown empire people who have no sentiment of union, no tie of sympathy, and how the ills of an ever-present and invinci 8. My condition, whether married, single or a ble maladminstration afflict alike the broken-spir widower. 9. The length of time I desired to stay in Vi enna. ited native of Hungary and the dejected Milanese. We had a companion in the train from Dresden who resided at Pesth of which he spoke 10. The names of any friends I might have with a touching regret for its past splendour and a there. 11. My lodgings. manly sorrow over its present condition. We were looking at a large castellated edifice which occupied the summit of a mountain overhanging from gendarmes and other tribulations to recal the Elbe, and conjecturing what it might be, when paladins and crusaders and Charlemagne and observing our curiosity he told us it was a prison Napoleon le Grand and the thousand associations for political offenders, adding, with a half smile, which encircle the proud city of the august mon"You have no such thing as imprisonment for archs of Austria. political offences in America.” "True," said I, "but we have slavery." “Ah, sir,” he replied, "in Hungary we are all slaves," and the same sad thing may be said of the whole population of the Austrian empire, whether speaking the soft, rich language of Lombardy or the tongue made classic by Schiller, or yet expressing their ideas in a dialect, of which the grammar is little studied, commingling the Teutonic and oriental elements in sounds uncouth to Western ears, It is idle, I know, to speculate upon the hopes of liberty for the enslaved millions of Europe, yet one cannot repress a feeling of sadness as he thinks of the misguided and fitful efforts of the Hungarian, the Lombard, the Venetian, to throw off the galling yoke of the oppressor only to have it the more securely fastened to their necks, nor can he altogether dismiss the hope that even now the grand process of freedom for mankind may be evolving, and that those higher intelligences Who watch like God the rolling hours I had not finished my ablutions at the Hotel Munsch when there stepped into my room the civillest-spoken gentleman it was ever my fortune in a manner that instantly placed all objection to to encounter, who, apologizing for the intrusion it out of the question, begged, in perfectly good English, to inquire whether we should not need the services of a companion in making the rounds of Vienna, adding, that in order to protect trayellers against the importunities of the valets-deplace, he had been retained by the proprietor of the Hotel to accompany any of his guests that should desire such guidance. There was an ele gance about the fellow that was altogether prepossessing, and my resolution to having nothing more to do with local guides vanished in a moment, Indeed it seemed to me I had perhaps interested benevolence, and that it would be the never experienced before such an instance of dis cruellest injustice to confound him with the disagreeable and implacable class we had determined to avoid. So by consent of all parties, his offer was accepted, and when we set out to view the city, it was under his lead. I wish I could set Max, for it was by that name alone that we knew him, properly before the reader, but such a task is quite beyond my pow may see the luminous dawn appearing in the march of the years which shall lead in liberty and happiness to bless all who yet suffer under oppression and struggle with despair. To any man who has not lost the capaeity of ers of delineation. His character was many-sided, sensations," the first view of a memorable city as the Germans say. So pleasant, so well-inis one of the most agreeable moments of his life, formed, so deferential, so ready, so accomplished, Who ever forgets his absorption into the great a subject there was not elsewhere in the Austrian world of London and the feeling that came over empire, and then his bel air! It was difficult to him upon realizing that he was in truth surrounded believe that he really belonged to the Hotel by the memorials of England's greatness through Munsch-he seemed rather like some eccentric a long line of centuries-that the vast dome loom- nobleman in disguise who had taken to the busiing in the sea of fog was that of St. Paul's-that ness pour s'amuser, as the Calif used to go about the Tower lay but a short distance beyond with incog for his diversion. And then his nationaliits knights in armor and its executioner's block ty, what a problematical thing was that? He from which fell the heads of great men in history-spoke English better-much better than Lørd that the streets stretching away from him on ev- Palmerston, yet he declared it had been an acery hand, as it were into infinity, were the haunts quisition of his later years, and his volubility in of Shakspeare and Raleigh and Goldsmith? More German cast no discredit on the statement that mysterious if less sympathetic, is the interestin- he was Austrian by birth. As for travelling, spired by cities farther out of the range of ordi- what he had not seen upon this round globe of nary observation. Thus I scarcely think that ours was hardly worth seeing-Monsieur Hue you, Bob, will ever forget our first glimpse of the and Madame Pfeiffer (his own townswoman) begorgeous towers of Vienna and our rattling drive tween them had "done" fewer places than Max through the Prater Strasse and across the bridge from Cathay to the Coal Hole he was thoroughof Ferdinand, with the tall spire of St. Stephen's ly posted up, and his conversation ran over with lifting towards heaven its sculptured saints and the most brilliant reminiscences of his journey. griffins, alwaysin view. and our thoughts withdrawn ings. Many of the great men of the world he knew from personal intercourse-with Louis Na- | recommend a pipe-maker, simply that he might poleon he had frequently taken oysters in the be assured we were not cheated in our purchases. Bowery, and he was able to impart information R, I fancy, will often recal, as the wreaths that threw new light on the character of the Czar of smoke rise upwards from his exquisite cigarNicholas. I make no doubt that when the Con- holder (for which he paid two prices) the kind gress of Vienna was in session some months sub-interest Max manifested in his choice of it. sequent to our visit there, Lord John Russell who Such was our Viennese valet-de-place and I am made the Hotel Munsch his head-quarters, found sincerely sorry I was not able to make a sketch in Max an old and valued acquaintance with of his fair exterior for the embellishment of these whom he often smoked a cigar and talked over the Four Points in perfect unreserve. pages. It is perhaps proper to add that we did afterwards hear a very different account of his anMax's political history, with which he favored tecedents from a gentleman who professed to us, not at all obtrusively, but now and then by know all about him, but of course I do not beThe story ran that way of illustration, was by no means uneventful. lieve a word of the scandal. Combining an ardent thirst for liberty with a love he was a discharged English footman and a spy of adventure, he took up arms in 1848, with the of the Austrian police, who lived upon what he revolutionists, and held a high position among could get out of foreigners visiting the capital, them when the Imperial armies laid seige to the and a certain liberal commission from the Viencity. When the illusive hopes of overthrowing na salesmen upon such articles as he could inthe monarchy had vanished and Austria subsided duce these foreigners to buy. The fact that he once more into the quiet of despotic rule, he charged us a thumping sum for his services upon had escaped the hands of the police and found settlement lent some color to these allegations, and -'s advice to any it necessary to reside some time in London. The I shrewdly suspect that Rinfluence of friends fully in the confidence of the Ministry had at last prevailed to obtain permission for him to return, and so he was again in est. Vienna. There was a depth of pathos in his The topography of Vienna is peculiar and the mournful recitation of the events of those unquiet map of it resembles a cobweb more than anydays which demanded equal sympathy and re-thing else to which it can be compared. The spect. friend going to the Hotel Munsch, with regard to Max, would be Hunc tu Romane caveto, hic niger central portion, comprising the original city, is In the lighter walks of knowledge, of all the surrounded by a broad promenade which was forViennese, Max was facile princeps. His taste in merly the defensive wall, and outside this is a music was faultless, and he criticised the German circumference of park of considerable extent, composers with wonderful discrimination of their planted with trees and presenting a beautiful surmerits. He knew perfectly well the capacity and face of green-sward, called the Glacis. Yet beacoustics of every opera-house in Europe and could yond the Glacis in every direction is a thickly indicate the exact spot where the performance populated mass of houses bounded by the ramcould be heard to the best advantage. Thus he part, and immediately adjoining is the open counwas good enough to secure a loge for us to wit- try. Thus between the suburbs and the old city ness a representation of the Prophete for the sum there is a rus in urbe, affording a delightful resort of twenty florins when we could have found seats for the inhabitants in summer and contributing in the orchestra stalls for six, and added to the ob- very much to the salubrity of the capital. Both ligation by giving us his company upon the occa-quarters of Vienna, as far as I saw, are remarksion. In the matter of opera glasses he was en-able for the cleanliness of the streets and the tirely au fait, and had he studied optics under comfortable appearance of the houses. Frauenhofer he could not been a better judge of The stranger is struck, in his first stroll up one lenses. In proof of this he selected a lorgnette of the thoroughfares, with the signs above the for D at a celebrated manufacturer's, and shops which usually set forth a pictorial reprewas sorry that D did not agree with him as sentation, executed with more or less of artistic to its excellence, as he would certainly regret not skill, of the work that is done within. Some are having taken it to the end of his life. But if exceedingly droll and all are surmounted by the there was one thing he understood better than double-headed eagle who presides alike over every another, it was the aesthetics of pipes. He had branch of Viennese industry. Is it a drinking made pipes a specialité, and as Vienna is world- saloon, one cannot become versed (i. e. upset, famous for the richness and beauty of its meer- using the word in its literal signification) in the schaums, he begged that we would allow him to "profound philosophy of beer" except by pass ing under his dusky pinions; is it a tailor's es- residence of some months in that city-a much tablishment, the bird is a device of all others longer time than we should have desired to remost appropriate to the schneiderean art by rea-main, even had our Aufenthaltsschein or permit of son of the number and length of his bills; is it sojourn been unlimited. We visited but one, that the room of a maker of plaster casts, we are not of the Belvidere, contained in a handsome palace surprised to see a fowl, even more grim and at a short distance within the outer wall. It is ghastly than poor Poe's raven, perched upon a extremely rich in the German and Flemish schools bust of Pallas just above the workman's door. of art, and Albert Durer may be seen there to The most imposing object in Vienna is unques- great advantage. Two heads of an old man and tionably the cathedral of St. Stephen's. The an old woman by Denner are wonderful paintlapse of seven centuries has blackened its exte- ings, and no one who has seen them can ever for rior and worn away in many places the tracery get the minuteness and fidelity with which the work of its windows and turrets-saints and artist has given every wrinkle and hair-it is as martyrs, niched high in air, along the line of its if the old couple were looking at you, and you do lofty tower, manifest very plainly the almost ante- not think of their being canvass at all. I sup diluvian length of years to which their worships pose this ought to be the highest possible comhave attained-yet the cathedral stands in the mendation that could be bestowed upon them and fulness of perfect beauty, another of those elo- that they must therefore be considered works of quent appeals to the imagination which the genius, yet somehow I was not affected by them church of Rome has made in ages gone by, and at all-one of Titian's stately ladies or of Muwhich still fill the soul of Catholic and Protes-rillo's ragged rascals has afforded me ten times tant with strange solemnity and awe. The spire, the gratification. Some of the modern pictures rising four hundred and fifty feet from the ground, pleased me exceedingly, one of which, in an upis neither so graceful as that of Antwerp nor so per chamber, representing the gaming table at delicate as that of Strasbourg, yet wrought with Baden, was to the life, and I could fancy that the wonderful dexterity into numberless pinnacles, it artist had lost a considerable sum upon his favodelights the eye with an infinite variety of ever rite color before he sat down to execute it. But pleasing forms, and so catches and tangles the the Belvidere Gallery, seen after that of Dresden, sunlight in the intricacies of its decoration that is not calculated to create much enthusiasm in one might fancy the beams lingering there long the visiter, and the best picture I saw there was after the glow of evening had faded from the sky. the view of Vienna from the terrace outside, in We ascended the spire to a point within a very which the light and shade were admirably adfew feet of the top from which we obtained a justed, the grouping altogether beyond criticism, splendid view. We occupied, perhaps, at the and the foreground most agreeably managed, moment the exact centre of the spider's web to with the old Moresco church of St. Carlo Borwhich Vienna has been likened, and from us, on romes raising its minarets to the left. all sides, radiated the streets of the city to the Glacis, which girdling the inner town as beautifully as the ocean bounded the buckler of Achilles, contrasted effectively with the domes and towers beyond its verdant range. Close beneath us swept the Danube's restless current, and in the far away horizon lay the plains of Wagram and Essling. It was such a day as Campbell describes in his pretty verses to the pretty countess The morning after our arrival in the city there was a very magnificent review of 25,000 of the Austrian army under Gen. Hess, conducted on the Glacis by the Emperor in person, attended by the Duke of Nassau. We saw it from the Paradise Garden, overlooking the Parade Ground at an elevation of a hundred and fifty feet. There was a large body of cavalry, a regiment of light artillery, another of the Tyrolese rifles in their picturesque peaked hats and green coats, and the rest, amounting perhaps to 18,000 men, were of the infantry made up of Germans, Italians, Croats, &c., &c. For three hours the glittering I confess it was some drawback upon the enjoy-show proceeded, and with the sun glancing from ment of the panorama, in looking dizzily down the burnished muskets, with banners streaming upon the body of the cathedral, to see the bicipi- to the wind, and with all the pomp and circumtous eagle worked in colored slates upon the roof. There seemed really no escaping that bird, Over Aspern's field of glory Noontide's purple haze was cast; And the hills of Turkish story Teemed with visions of the past. stance of military parade carefully observed, it was a sight not soon to be forgotten. The uniThere are not less than seventy picture galle- form of the Austrian army is of a dazzling white ries in Vienna, to visit which would require a relieved by facings of various colors, in which |