avily through an atmosphere of densest smoke, dimming the
lights and turning all into an indefinite and uniform brown color,--this
may indeed be a picture of Elysium to some minds, but to ours it is not.
I never found a vacant seat there, nor felt a desire to occupy one, had
there been such. Stone mugs of double the size of the common glasses are
used, perhaps to save servants' labor in drawing, which is no small
matter, as a barrel of beer lasts not more than ten minutes at the
height of the drinking-time of the evening.

None of the drinking-places in the city are filled until evening. In the
afternoon many take their walks into the suburbs, and turn aside where a
glass may be had. On all holidays the whole city is adrift, much of it
in the surrounding country, and most of this drift lodges against the
suburban beer-houses. In summer evenings there are frequent
entertainments, some provided by the government,--as one every Saturday
evening from six to seven o'clock, from May to November, a mile from the
city, in the English Garden, where sometimes two thousand persons may be
in attendance, to hear the royal bands play. It is presumed that there
will always be a considerable number among these who will not be able to
stand it an hour without beer, and a beneficent provision is made for
such,--seats and tables for at least five hundred persons being there
provided, and often filled, so that some must drink standing.

The regularity with which the men of Munich bring themselves around to
the same place at about the same time of day, especially if that place
is a beer-house, is remarkable,--indeed, amusing. A gentleman residing
in Berlin, where this everlasting beer-drinking does not prevail,
mentioned to me, as one of the most ludicrous occurrences of his life,
an invitation which he once received to visit a Munich professor whose
acquaintance he had made in Berlin. The professor told him, that, in
case he should arrive in Munich after a certain hour of the day, he must
go directly to the Court Brewery, and would find him there. We do
indeed regard this as the consummation of the ridiculous; but to this
bachelor professor it was the most natural thing in the world. He might
change his lodgings half a dozen times in a year, and so might not be
readily found; but the Court Brewery would remain from generation to
generation, and while he lived he expected regularly to appear there,
and there, of course, was the only place w