of the black-and-white marble floor. He described such old, old fig-trees and vines, such orange groves and hedges of aloes, such solitary convents, such a primitive peasantry, such hot noontides, such views of Corsica, such stretches of sea and sky; he called up so vividly before my imagination the little island of Monte Christo, and the rock out in the sea which Napoleon visited daily, standing solitarily upon it, gazing towards France, as he is so commonly represented in pictures, that I felt at once transported into Elba, and forgot we were wending our way towards Munich! All at once, however, Signor L. interrupted his narrative by exclaiming, "Ah, no! not even in my own beautiful Italian have I ever been able to express what I feel most strongly-no, I cannot describe this wild, wondrous sea as it breaks over the rocks!" And with this exclamation his beautiful descriptions ceased, for, looking round us, we perceived that Baron von H. had long before escaped out of Elba, and was posting away far ahead of us, and that a black thunder-cloud was rapidly coming up behind us. Baron von H., and Marie, had hastened on to order coffee at a way-side Wirthshaus, which we reached just in time to escape the storm.

Whilst the rain descended, we amused ourselves with watching a group of regular German Handwerks-burschen playing at nine-pins under a shed. Every now and then a long-haired and velvet-coated student, with a great length of pipe in his hand, came to the door to inspect the state of the weather, the game of nine-pins, or the visitors. I had not seen such a genuine set of Burschen since we left Heidelberg. Here in Munich, the students seem lost among the other inhabitants.

Fortunately the storm soon cleared off, and at length I reached home, but very tired and very muddy from the wet roads. Before parting, we all agreed, that having en

joyed our April excursion so much, we would certainly, when May arrived, celebrate her advent by another excursion,-perhaps go to Starnberg for a day, and make a trip with the little steamer upon the lake-the new little steamer which everybody talked about, and which would be launched in May.

CHAPTER IV.

THE MODEL PRISON OF BAVARIA, AND THE MODEL WORKS OF SIGNOR S

April 28th.-I have just returned from a visit to the Zucht-Haus in the Au, the Model Prison of Bavaria. As yet I feel my curiosity anything but satisfied. I must obtain some official Reports regarding this wonderful prison, that I may understand the working of the system, and facts connected with it, more thoroughly than I could from conversation with the gentleman who went through the wards with us, intelligent and most obliging though he

was.

The prison is a large building, situated in the Au Suburb, not far from the lovely Au Church. It has, outwardly, no appearance of being a prison; has windows of various picturesque forms, gazing in great abundance out of its yellow and white-washed walls. It is a cheerful-looking place, in fact, and if it stood among trees would look very like a château. But on entering the vaulted and whitewashed hall, with long vistas of white-washed passages leading from it, with a soldier standing at the door, and here and there other soldiers in the distance, something of a prison-feeling sank upon me.

Having been politely received in his little bureau by the Director of the Prison,-an extraordinary man, from all accounts, and famed throughout Europe for his management of this prison, and for various works which he has written on prison discipline,-we were conducted through

the establishment by a grave, intelligent little man, the Haus-Meister. All the people we met in the passages, whether prisoners or not, had an intense gravity impressed on their countenances.

The first room we entered was filled with men employed in spinning. This is the first employment given to the prisoners on their entrance, and when their capability for learning has been ascertained during this spinning-period, it is decided to what trade they shall be henceforth devoted. A long row of men of all ages, in coarse, grey jackets and trousers, some with chains round their waists, which were attached to their ankles, sat down the middle of the room, busily spinning from their tall distaffs. Along the bare walls were rows of wholesome-looking beds, with coarse but white sheets neatly turned over their quilts; rows of tin cans were seen to hang in one corner of the room against boards nailed to the walls. A large crucifix was placed conspicuously upon another wall; the windows were large and cheerful; the room was cheerful. But that row of distorted, uncouth, malformed, and but partially developed heads; those white, sallow countenances; those eyes glancing furtively towards you, or sunk in a stupor upon the unceasing slender threads drawn from the distaffs by manly fingers; those heavy chains, and the perfect silence, save of the wheel and the little treddle, were not cheerful. It was the first time I had ever been in a prison, or looked upon any great criminals; at least, knowing them to be such. The first sensation, therefore, was very strange here were men guilty of enormous crimes, men who had murdered in diabolical ways, at liberty as it' seemed. There was no unlocking and locking of doors; you saw there men moving about as though they were ordinary workmen. The unusual occupation of spinning for men did strike you, it is true; the ill-formed faces struck you, and the chains, when you caught sight of

them; but you had to remind yourself that on each of these souls lay the weight of some fearful crime.

One man passed out in his grey jacket, and with the chain round his waist. "He," said the gentleman with us, as we walked down the gallery, "is one of the men who murdered a priest two years ago; he is confined here for life."

"But how," asked I, 66 can you trust that man to go about unattended?-how is it that these doors are all unlocked and unbarred ?-what is to prevent their escaping? The walls are not high in the court-yard-all seems open; excepting for a few soldiers there appears no obstacle to their escape. Do none make their escape?"

"Now and then," replied he, "but very rarely. This is a prison; and, of course, where is the man who would not escape if he could? But they are always overtaken; we have blood-hounds trained for the purpose. Such cases are very rare."

We saw room after room filled with prisoners: now they were making shoes; now they were tailoring; now weaving table-linen; now cloth :-now we went into a dye-house; now into a carpenter's shop. All were silently, busily at work; all had the same grave look; all, with but two, or at the most three exceptions, had countenances of the most coarse description. There were youths, and old men, and middle-aged men, but all worked apparently at perfect freedom, often with wide-open doors, often in the open court-yard.

It was a startling thing to see murderers wielding hammers, and sawing with saws, and cutting with sharp-edged tools, when you remembered they were murderers, and how some tyrant passion had once aroused the fiend within them, though now again he seemed laid to rest by years of quiet toil.

Our guide informed us, that very rarely did any dis