cach successful candidate in the boat-race received his prize the musicians might trumpet forth his triumph. A man with a white cockade on his coat read aloud the names of the successful boatmen, and from a crowd of weather-beaten men standing at the opposite end of the room, one by one, with bashful mien and delighted faces, they approached and received the prizes and decorations. Of course much of the company from the garden crowded into the room to see this spectacle.

Thankful indeed was I when Marie and I, leaving the gentlemen to enjoy their cigars, emerged from the room, stifling with its mingled fumes of tobacco and dinner, into the fresh evening air. Without all was animation: people were arriving for the ball; people were laughing, chatting, and drinking, of course that eternal beer and coffee.

Evening was sinking calmly over the lovely landscape, and Baron H., and his two friends, joining us, we strolled down towards the lake. All looked so exquisitely beautiful in the sunset light, that again we said, "Suppose we take a boat?" The mountain peaks glowed with tints of rose and lilac, the pearly sky was flecked with crimson and brilliant orange on one hand rose the moon, whilst on the other the sun sank behind the sloping shore, which was now turned to a dull olive-green in the approaching twilight. Moon and sunset-clouds were reflected in the peaceful waters; now one star came forth in the translucent heavens, now another, just above the darkening mountains, and seeming to rest upon a jagged peak. Silence sank dreamily over all things. The delicious hush alone was broken by the gentle plash of the oars, and the singing of my companions they sang several of Mendelssohn's Volks Lieder. A fire suddenly bursting forth on the shore, its ruddy flame reflected in the lake's mirror reminded us of the illumination, and we hastened our return. Doubtless from

:

the lake itself would have been the most effective spot from which to have viewed the bonfires and fireworks, but we thought of damp, of fogs, and of consumptions, and prudently returned to terra firma, where, as we set foot, we were greeted by a loud chorus of frogs, which far outcroaked the sounds of merriment proceeding from the little town. Lights shone forth from the hotel windows, telling of the merry doings within. Crowds filled the streets, crowds filled the garden of the inn where we had dined the Pavilion in the garden, which contained the ball-room, was like a huge lantern. We looked in. The ball had not commenced, but the supper had; ladies, not in ball-room costume, but without their bonnets, and some wearing flowers in their hair, and gentlemen who, doubtless, had smartened themselves up a little after the fatigues and dust of the day, were seated at long tables, in a kind of gallery, in front of the ball-room. I had been curious to know the class of people who remained for the dancing, and to see what a rural ball of this description was like. And now, although the dancing had not commenced, I was quite satisfied, and could picture the waltzes, polkas, and cotillions, which would be danced in the still empty ballroom, of which we caught a glimpse through the open door, all gay with its blue, scarlet, and white festoons of drapery, supported by gilt anchors.

Report of cannon told that the fireworks were about to commence, and people hastened out into the meadows. towards the lake. Uprose a rocket like a long fiery serpent, and fell into a shower of lilac stars over the water. Another, and another, rose! Then suddenly the monastic looking Town-hall, standing upon its hill, gleamed out magically through the soft gloom of the May night, illumined with a warm rose colour, now with a pale yellow green, as though it were built of tinted light. And the

little church across the lake, crowning the hill above Lione, gleamed forth a pale spectral sea-green, as if replying to the Starnberg signal. And villas, churches, and villages exchanged their spectral greetings across the lake, whose placid mirror ever reflected them. From the shores shot up, in rapid succession, long, red tongues of flame, like wild sacrificial fires burning upon pagan altars: the flames rising steadily on the unruffled waters, whilst smoke curled in white volumes ruddily illumined by the fires. Above all shone the quiet broad moon, smiling down through the May night, and reflecting her calm face in a rivulet which murmured through the meadows. The moonlight gleamed like frosted silver upon the ripple of the streamlet and upon the long grass which, in places, grew in the stream, and was carried along by it, just covered with the waters. All else was a transparent, murmuring gloom; whilst, with the most marvellous delicacy, sharp black shadows were cast across the frosted silver from the sprays of foliage and long grasses growing upon the bank. This little bit of Nature's illumination was the most magical and beautiful of all the illuminations of this lovely May Festival.

In the midst of these illuminations, divine and human, the steamer, hung with lamps and garlands, was once more to sail forth upon the lake. But this we did not stay to witness, for now we mounted into our omnibus, very happy but very weary, and jolted back to Munich; the moon shining down among the old pine trees in the Royal Park, and showing us, not only the trees and the long procession of royal carriages, with six horses each and postilions and fiery-lamps rushing past us, but groups also of deer feeding quietly by the road-side. doe-the ghost of a doe it heard the noise of wheels dark glades of the wood.

At one spot I saw a milk-white might have been-and as she she fled, like a spirit, into the About two in the morning we

found ourselves returning to our homes through the deserted moonlit streets of Munich, the houses in the Dult Platz looking as if built out of a gigantic box of Dutch toys, with their closed, sleeping windows, and their stiff rows of clipped acacia-trees rising up before them.

CHAPTER VII.

FUNERAL OF THE DUCHESS OF LEUCHTENBERG. THE SENDLING BATTLE AND OLD MUNICH.

May 18th. That poor old Duchess, who looked so magnificent at the Landwehr Ball in her satin and jewels, with her hat sparkling with diamonds and her cheeks brilliant with rouge, and whom this spring I have constantly seen driving out of her handsome palace in her handsome coach, is dead! She died after a very short illness. Every one is relating beautiful things about her. She was King Ludwig's sister, and widow of Eugene Beauharnais, and was related to a number of crowned heads and grandees; and was the possessor of the celebrated Leuchtenberg collection of paintings.

To-day the poor old corpse, as it lay in state, has been visited by all Munich-by all the bourgeoisie at least. I observed a crowd before the gates of the Leuchtenberg Palace, and stopped to see what was going on. Presently the huge gates opened, the crowd made a rush, and half of the people were received within the gateway. I found myself in the foremost rank of the remaining half of the crowd, and closely pressed up against the re-closed gates. There we waited a full hour, and the crowd was a detestable crowd. There did not seem a particle of awe or reverence for the spectacle they were about to witness. I stood squeezed up against the bronze gates, fearfully expecting to be precipitated head-foremost by the crowd