That City, Too, Looked As If In A
State Of Siege, So Numerous Were The Soldiery, Though The Vine-Covered
Hills, Among Which It Is Situated, Could Have Given Them A Better
Occupation.
The railway, beyond Stuttgart, wound through a deep valley and
ended at Geisslingen, an ancient Swabian town, in a gorge of the
mountains, with tall old houses, not one of which, I might safely affirm,
has been built within the last two hundred years.
From this place to Ulm,
on the Danube, the road was fairly lined with soldiers, walking or resting
by the wayside, or closely packed in the peasants' wagons, which they had
hired to carry them short distances. At Ulm we were obliged to content
ourselves with straitened accommodations, the hotels being occupied by the
gentry in epaulettes.
I hoped to see fewer of this class at the capital of Bavaria, but it was
not so; they were everywhere placed in sight as if to keep the people in
awe. "These fellows," said a German to me, "are always too numerous, but
in ordinary times they are kept in the capitals and barracks, and the
nuisance is out of sight. Now, however, the occasion is supposed to make
their presence necessary in the midst of the people, and they swarm
everywhere." Another, it was our host of the Goldener Hirsch, said to my
friend, "I think I shall emigrate to America, I am tired of living under
the bayonet."
I was in Munich when the news arrived of the surrender of the Hungarian
troops under Goergey, and the fall of the Hungarian republic.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 382 of 396
Words from 103416 to 103684
of 107287
