Foreign Parts
Munich, Bavaria

Foreign Parts.

Munich (Germany), Bavaria, Feb., 1900.

As my husband is suffering from a severe attack of influenza and disinclined to write, it devolves upon me to send the usual budget of writing to your valuable paper.

We left Schweinfurt on December 4, 1899, for Nuremberg, which is one of the most picturesque, old fashioned cities of Germany, and therefore much visited by tourists. The strong old fortification walls, towers, drawbridges and gates are kept with great care, and not allowed to be pulled down or to go to ruin, as in the cities of Vienna, Cologne, Bremen, and many others. The small and large houses of historical renown also are religiously kept exactly in the state they were in ancient times. Nuremberg is one of the very ancient commercial towns of the middle ages, which, like Venice, Augsburg, and many other towns, got enormously wealthy through the Levant trade (overland through Asia Minor, Arabia to Persia, India and China.) Nuremberg was during the dreadful 30 years fanatic war, which turned the thriving old Germany into a desert, a very strongly fortified town, was never conquered by the fanatic and murderous hordes, and therefore within its venerable walls and grim old watch towers are still remaining old relics of art and industry, highly interesting, illustrating the life of ancient Europe. The most funny old relic is the little “Bratwurst Glocklein,” where Albrecht Durer, Germany’s celebrated painter of the 5th century, with many other distinguished men in the middle ages, and of later times, used to dine together in the evenings. This very ancient but simple little restaurant consists of a skillion house of three little rooms, encroaching on the street and built up against an old church. Its walls and ceiling are only about 8ft. high, and there are two little dining rooms and a kitchen. The dining room walls are completely lined with old and new portraits, pictures, funny sketches, photos and monograms of crowned heads and celebrities in Art, Literature, etc. I noticed photos and writings of Queen Marguerite of Italy and Princess Stephania of Austria, Carmen Sylva, and many others of celebrated men and women of our day, which must be very valuable with the craze for relic collecting of the present day. There are also goblets, glasses, mugs, plates, and china of very antique design on shelves and walls. We sat and partook also of Bratwurst bread and beer, and wondered and speculated as to the many thousands who had sat on these old carved benches, and eaten there during the last 300 or 400 years; but all the old towns of Germany are full of these ancient and interesting historical reminisences, particularly to people born in the new worlds, America and Australia. In Nuremberg we visited also the “Burg Feste,” the palace of the old Rulers of these parts. This strongly built castle, with wonderfully thick walls, small rooms, and windows, would be considered a dismal place of residence now, and is only inhabited by caretakers, for in it is kept a splendid collection of carved and ornamented old furniture, tapestry, paintings, musical instruments of every kind, bric-a-brac, and what are of great utility in this cruelly cold country, enormous pottery-brick stoves; these in many designs are always to be seen and admired in all museums and collections. One old oak tree in the court-yard of Bury Feste is said to be over 1000 years old, but for the last three years it has not greened. In one corner of the Castle is a five-cornered tower, built a thousand years ago by the ancient Romans, formerly a prison with rough dark wooden stairs; but now it contains, like the Tower of London, a collection of all the most frightful instruments of torture, viz., the rack, thumb screws, stocks, spurs, pincers, knives, an instrument for breaking on the wheel, and the most terrible is called the siserne young frau, or iron maiden, in which criminals were squeezed to death in a standing iron case the shape of a woman. When the door closed, iron spikes entered the eyes, breast, and body of the person to be put to death. Here were also many pictures of wizards, witches, and good and bad people who had suffered death, both deserving and undeserving, at those dark ages; but these horrible things made us quite melancholy, and we were glad to get out of such a place into the sunshine with our party, and went next to look at the well in the courtyard 1000ft deep. 100ft from the water are tunnels leading to the underground prisons. By these tunnels the prisoners went to fetch their water; the well had a roof over it, so the unfortunate prisoners should never see the light of day. We saw a picture of the last witch, who was burned in Nuremberg in 1738, which showed a most beautiful and clever-looking young woman.

The “Germanisches Museum” which we also visited, is one of the oldest in Germany, and has so many rare, curious, and beautiful things in it that we could not see them all in a week; but with our guide managed to visit and see the most interesting articles, of which were most admired magnificent old stained windows of soft, blending colors in flowers and pictures, covered oaken furniture of every description, porcelain, serves and Dresden china, bric-a-brac, sculpture paintings, Jobelin tapestry, etc., gold and silver antique ornaments, etc.

We enjoyed most of all walking about the old city looking at the funny little and grand old-fashioned houses and shops, and the busy working world in the streets; also, we admired the pretty Peguity [?River] flowing through the town, the parks, and the old fortification walls, towers, and wide ditches of old Nuremberg. The constantly increasing population outside the old walls have the usual amount of chimney stacks, factories, immense houses, broad streets, and parks, like all the later laid-out modern cities everywhere, not only in Germany, but all over the world.

On 7th December, 1889 [recte 1899], we left Nuremberg for Munich, and en route I saw the first snow falling. It looked so beautifully pure, clean and white as the flakes fell like feathers, or floated in the air; but as the train rattled along and the flakes became thicker, it reminded me of the clouds of swift flying locusts sometimes (unfortunately) to be seen in the northern plains of South Australia. But the snow does no damage here, and is gladly welcomed by the farmers, as the wheat is now nearly 3 or 4 inches out of the ground, and is protected against frosts by the snow. There we saw hops cultivated in great quantities. We crossed the river Danube again, which is here not so broad as at the city of Vienna. In four hours we reached Munich, and stepped out of the railway station into a snowstorm, which was a wonderfully funny and pretty picture for me. The snow looks like salt, only is much lighter; it easily shakes off one’s clothes and does not make one wet, therefore is much to be preferred to rain. We set off at once to find warm, comfortable quarters, as my husband prognosticated severe weather coming. But for two people rooms are rather difficult to find here, as all the lodgings were to be let “to sober single gentlemen.” Ladies appear to be here rather a drug in the market. In the end we were obliged to take an unfurnished room, rent furniture, and in a few hours, with the help of good old friends, we found ourselves on the second evening in our snug warm quarters, with a good stock of wood and coal; and not a bit too soon, as next morning the double windows of our room were so encrusted with ice flowers and ice ferns that we could not see through the glass for 14 days, and the temperature reached so low as 20 deg. Reaumar, that is very many deg. Fah. below freezing point. In a couple of days the parks and open grounds had several feet of snow covering them. The leafless trees and house tops, gates, walls, etc., were laden with snow. The trees, especially the pines, looked wonderfully lovely, and I seemed never to tire of the white winter snow scenery, and think it one of the prettiest sights to be seen. All day long, when it snows, men and women are employed shovelling the snow off the pavement, and some carting it away in drays; sometimes it is piled 4 to 6ft. on the pavement side. Here the children amuse themselves snowballing, and, after frost, skating, and drawing each other in little sledges, which they seem to enjoy very much. For the first time I saw skating on the ice. There the ladies look extremely graceful, and the gentlemen do wonderful skating on short curved skates; but we could not stay long to see them, for, in spite of being wrapped in wool and fur from head to foot, the intense cold pierced everything, and we walked briskly along the banks of the Isar River to keep ourselves warm. The poor sparrows, pigeons, and many other small birds search in vain for food on the roads and streets, but are kindly fed by the good people; also, shelters are erected for them in parks and gardens by the authorities. After snow and frost almost all the traffic is by sleighs or sledges, some of the private sleighs, also cab sleighs, are most gorgeously ornamented, with plenty of furs inside, and with bells on the horses, and vehicles make a pretty sight and noise as they travel quickly and easily along the ways. It is very cold travelling so fast in the air, but the people all have such rosy cheeks, which in pretty young girls look beautiful.

F. Rieck.

Munich, Bavaria (Germany), 10th March, 1900.

Munich is a grand and well-built city. Some magnificent public buildings were erected by Kings Ludwig I. and Maximilian II., viz., the Ludwig street, laid out by King Ludwig I.; also “Maximilian Place” and street, built by Maximilian II., the latter containing the noble Parliament House buildings, the Museum, and across the Isar bridge the University and Gallery of the “Maximilianeum.” Other notable places are the Franen Church, with two enormously high steeples looking, with their round copulas, exactly like the large liter mugs and pewter covers of the far-famed Bavariena beer. The very old church and dome of St. Peter; the substantially-built King’s residence, with elegant garden, with a sheltered walk around it; the handsome newly-built ethnological museum, now almost completed; the old and new Princekothek and Glyptothek, large buildings full of pictures of the old and new masters, in paintings and sculpture; the victory monument of the Franco-German war, built in a garden and park on the high bank of the Isar River; the “Bavaria” monument, which is so large that five people can sit in the head of the gigantic bronze figure. This “Bavaria” monument is surrounded by massive granite, open hall on large stone pillars, and shelter many sculptured figures. There are many more noble masses of architecture which remind us of Berlin; but while Berlin is called the Sparta of Germany, Munich can be called the Athens of same, as here are to be found more schools, colleges for artists of all branches, and universities than in any other city. Especially are artists most liberally treated by the Government of Bavaria and encouraged to stay here, and everywhere but in society we meet a lot of painters (male and female, rich and poor), and here we see the choicest oil paintings and sculptures of new and old schools in the very numerous private and public museums.

We spent a right and genuine German Christmas here in Munich, and truly, it was a really happy time. It was beautifully fine weather, not too cold, and no wind or rain. For two or three days previous there were everywhere exhibited large and small pine Christmas trees for sale, ranging from 3 to 10 feet in height, and it was an interesting sight to see little boys and girls, young men and women, old ladies and gentlemen, widows and widowers of all classes carrying home these pretty trees for the Xmas festival. There was, in all the many streets, such a crowd hurrying to and fro from the town, with faces full of all they had to buy, especially toys and things for the children. Germany is the children’s paradise for toys; every instrument and machine possible is made in toy form, and animals and dolls galore, especially in chocolate.

We spent our Christmas Eve amongst the children of our friends. When the tree was lighted it was a brilliant sight, and the joyous happiness and delight of the children was a pleasure to see, as each had his or her most wished for presents, and with grateful hearts thanked God and their dear parents for the blessing of Christmas.

On Xmas Day, instead of the “Roast beef of old England,” we had venison and goose, custards, jellies and ices. The beginning of 1900 was ushered in with much gaiety and festivity; immense crowds filled the halls, concerts, balls, dinners, and streets and breweries, and the usual city din of singing, bell-ringing, cannon firing, etc., etc. We went to a grand club dinner which, with feasting, speeches, toasting, singing and dancing, lasted till 4 o’clock in the morning.

The Munichites are a very friendly, jolly and good people, and fond of festivity. With the beginning of January began the Schaffler or Cooper’s dance, which particular dance is only performed once in seven years. It came into vogue after the terrible plague of 1548, and has been danced every seven years since then. It consists of a good band of music, 26 dancers carrying half circle wreaths of green pine twigs, and two fools or harlequins; all, of course, men in a special dress of red coats and caps, white waistcoats, stockings and black trousers to the knees, and the fools are dressed like clowns. The dance is mostly in polka and march time, and looks very pretty. They dance first before royal houses, afterwards at the lesser royalties, and then before any house when paid (about £15 for one to two hours performance). They danced many times every day, besides marching from place to place from the first of January till the carnival at the end of February.

In our present times—quite unlike in times of old—the masses of the whole people are the employers, because they are the consumers, and are also the sovereign power of the world. Therefore, he or they who succeed in giving a real boon to humanity reap the benefit from this powerful modern sovereign. The enormous quantities of beer and all sorts of necessities of life used in this very town are not only of excellent quality, but very low in price, and this is the reason, together with the fact that from this central place (Munich) the most agreeable and interesting trips in the Alps, northern parts of Italy, etc., can be made, that a great number of tourists and sightseers from all parts of the globe are not only passing through here, but staying entirely and spending their money economically and in a pleasant, agreeable manner here. I must confess that it sounds incredible, but is nevertheless true, that during the great corst in the carnival time (25th, 26th and 27th February), the miles long and broad streets were all so thickly thronged with people that moving about was almost impossible. After we had, from several good places of observation, seen the procession of hundreds of decorated carriages, caravans, waggons, riders and pedestrians, one and all occupants of which were in fancy costume and masks, and pelted by comfetti and lassooed by brilliant coloured paper ribands, we squeezed ourselves out and thought, as the people seemed to be all outside, we might go in one of the many hundreds of restaurants, breweries, or beer-halls, to refresh ourselves, but we found every one of the many spacious restaurant localities packed full of beer-consuming populace of all ages and sexes, and social and national spheres, so that during this most gay and festive carnival time Munich can just be compared with an over-stocked beehive going to swarm.

By such popular patronization, not only beer-brewers, but all workers, as butchers, bakers, waiters, gardeners, farmers, graziers, dealers, and that all business people work very cheerfully, very late and very hard and utmost cheap, is not to be wondered at, and appears quite natural; also it is a striking fact that, in spite of three days festival and fun and frolic, and rivers of beer consumed, the whole populace, in public places as everywhere, are as civil and honest and decent, that never the slightest of the very disagreeable sights of shanties in the bush, as well as in the cities of Australia, met our eyes, and that is the truth and the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

H. and F. Rieck.