f
eight hundred feet; in the middle is a portico of ten Ionic columns.
Instead of supporting a triangular facade, each pillar stands separate
and bears a marble statue from the chisel of Schwanthaler.

The interior of the building does not disappoint the promise of the
outside. It is open every afternoon, in the absence of the king, for the
inspection of visitors. We went early to the waiting-hall, where several
travelers were already assembled, and at four o'clock were admitted into
the newer part of the palace, containing the throne-hall, ball-room,
etc. On entering the first hall, designed for the lackeys and royal
servants, we were all obliged to thrust our feet into cloth slippers to
walk over the polished mosaic floor. The walls are of scagliola marble
and the ceilings ornamented brilliantly in fresco. The second hall, also
for servants, gives tokens of increasing splendors in the richer
decorations of the walls and the more elaborate mosaic of the floor. We
next entered the audience chamber, in which the court-marshal receives
the guests. The ceiling is of arabesque sculpture profusely painted and
gilded....

Finally we entered the Hall of the Throne. Here the encaustic decoration
so plentifully employed in the other rooms is dropt, and an effect even
more brilliant obtained by the united use of marble and gold. Picture a
long hall with a floor of polished marble, on each side twelve columns
of white marble with gilded capitals, between which stand colossal
statues of gold. At the other end is the throne of gold and crimson,
with gorgeous hangings of crimson velvet. The twelve statues in the hall
are called the "Wittelsbach Ancestors" and represent renowned members of
the house of Wittelsbach from which the present family of Bavaria is
descended. They were cast in bronze by Stiglmaier after the models of
Schwanthaler, and then completely covered with a coating of gold; so
that they resemble solid golden statues. The value of the precious metal
on each one is about three thousand dollars, as they are nine feet in
height. We visited yesterday morning the Glyptothek, the finest
collection of ancient sculpture except that in the British Museum I have
yet seen, and perhaps elsewhere unsurpassed north of the Alps. The
building, which was finished by Klenze in 1830, has an Ionic portico of
white marble, with a group of allegorical figures representing Sculpture
and the kindred arts. On each side of the portico there ar