a very moonstruck action. But if these poor
men had only eyes to see these things, they
would not be so much to be pitied.

I have spoken of our rambles in the
neighbourhood. One such I will describe;
it was in the autumn. As we were at work
in the studio we all at once bethought
ourselves of the beautiful sunshine out of doors,
and away we went for a walk, the sun shining
brilliantly, and the fresh, free wind roaring
through the trees.

Crossing first the great Royal woodyard,
we came to the banks of the Isar, which are
very beautiful. The Isar is a broad stream,
which, when swollen with rain, rushes on
white and muddy; at other times, it flows on
smoothly among long stretches of gravelly,
shoal-like portions of a shingly beach; the
banks are at times very high, rising cliff-like
above the river. Our side of the river bank,
however, was not particularly elevated, but
beautified by avenues planted along it.
Imagine a sort of terrace, skirted on either hand,
by lofty trees, sometimes poplars, sometimes
elms, whilst sloping down to the shingly river's
marge are copses of willow and underwood,
and, on the other side of the avenue, pleasant
meadows, lying calmly between you and the
skirts of the English Garden. Swiftly flowing
branches of the Isar rush merrily through the
meadows, and turn mills, and give life and
activity to this otherwise solitary and quiet
scene.

The trees had almost lost their leaves, but
the broad sunshine brought out all the lovely
detail of their stems and branches, and made
us think that these avenues were now more
beautiful than in summer. Long quivering
shadows fell across the path, the wind rushed
joyously through their branches, and the
sunlight fell sparkling upon some figure
approaching up the narrow avenue; now, a peasant
girl, wheeling before her an old-fashioned
barrow, piled up with branches or dead
leaves, her white sleeves and red boddice
telling as a bright focus of colour in the grey
landscape; or, perhaps it was some grave old
professor, in a long, dark, blue cloak, which
gave him a still more solemn air.

On, and still on, we walked, until the
avenue became still wilder, the meadows
more solitary, and the thickets between us
and the river still a thicker tangle of underwood
and creepers. Clematis hung in rich
festoons from the trees of the avenues, and
here and there was a barberry bush, with its
yellow leaves yet unshed; or the slender
branches of the wild cherry covered with
brilliant scarlet leaves. All at once the most lovely
landscape lay before us. The grey avenue
lessened and lessened in a beautiful
perspective, till the light at the farther end
shone out like an azure star. This avenue
was on the left hand of the picture; the rest
of the composition was a broad stretch of
river, blue as the bluest heaven, with long,
white, desolate shoals in tongues, and
promontories running into it; in the middle
distance a group of rafts and men busily at
work on the shoals giving life and a most
picturesque animation to the scene; the
farther river-bank curved round in a bold
sweep over hung with a dense mass of grey
trees, on which the sun shone till they looked
quite hoary in the blaze of light; and a still
further, and more distant, sweep of riverbank
crowned with a white-washed church,
the red-tiled roof and tower of which told
brightly against a warm grey sky, united the
two portions of the picture, the river and the
avenue, by the most harmonious line of
composition imaginable. And, as if to complete
the picturesque effect, behold a long, long
flight of birds stretching across the sky!

We stood in perfect admiration and
astonishment at the artistic power of Nature.

Arrived at the end of the avenue we found
that the river-bed widened out, and assumed
almost a sea-shore character with its shingly
shoals. On one hand was a wild sort of
mainland with low brushwood, and numbers
of young birch trees rising up here and there,
their delicate leaves yellow as gold, and
trembling like aspens. On a mound above
the river-bank we noticed a queer little straw
hut, and beyond it a long array of what at
first appeared black coffins, mounted on cars.
What could they possibly be? we questioned
from ourselves. And there, in that desolate
solitude, stood a soldier as sentinel. Could
they be cannon? No. We walked up to
them and then came to the conclusion that
they were boats intended to form a bridge
of boats.

Across this moorland we now walked, at
times up to the knees in long grass of a coarse
jungle-like character, and very soon found
ourselves close to a busy manufactory of some
kind. A wooden bridge closed by heavy
gates led over a rushing branch of the Isar;
long, low ranges of workshops, black and
noisy, and busy-looking as if in England,
were there, and tall chimneys vomiting
black smoke, and there was a roar and a
rattle, very much out of character with the
quiet moor and this primitive Germany.
Smutty artisans were passing rapidly to and
fro; we looked into a black, busy workshop
where blazed numbers of furnaces; there was
a roar of bellows, a clank of hammers, a blaze
of myriads of sparks struck from glowing
masses of iron, and a crowd of black,
hardworking mechanics worthy of England. All
was black; there were heaps of iron everywhere,
and the stream rushed, and tumbled,
and boiled with an unwonted energy.

This was the steam-engine manufactory.

In the court-yard, behind the row of workshops,
stood the house of the overlooker, with
its luxuriant vine overhanging its whitewashed
walls and its green shutters, as quiet
and primitive as any German heart could
desire. What a busy little world this seemed
in the midst of that moorland solitude!