smoke cigars, and
the fashionably attired young men walk round and round the, circle,
and the smart young soldiers exhibit their handsome uniforms, and
stride about with clanking swords.

We felicitated ourselves that we should have no lack of music when we
came to Munich. I think we have not; though the opera has only just
begun, and it is the vacation of the Conservatoire. There are first
the military bands: there is continually a parade somewhere, and the
streets are full of military music, and finely executed too. Then of
beer-gardens there is literally no end, and there are nightly
concerts in them. There are two brothers Hunn, each with his band,
who, like the ancient Huns, have taken the city; and its gardens are
given over to their unending waltzes, polkas, and opera medleys.
Then there is the church music on Sundays and holidays, which is
largely of a military character; at least, has the aid of drums and
trumpets, and the whole band of brass. For the first few days of our
stay here we had rooms near the Maximilian Platz and the Karl's Thor.
I think there was some sort of a yearly fair in progress, for the
great platz was filled with temporary booths: a circus had set itself
up there, and there were innumerable side-shows and lottery-stands;
and I believe that each little shanty and puppet-show had its band or
fraction of a band, for there was never heard such a tooting and
blowing and scraping, such a pounding and dinning and slang-whanging,
since the day of stopping work on the Tower of Babel. The circus
band confined itself mostly to one tune; and as it went all day long,
and late into the night, we got to know it quite well; at least, the
bass notes of it, for the lighter tones came to us indistinctly. You
know that blurt, blurt, thump, thump, dissolute sort of caravan tune.
That was it.

The English Cafe was not far off, and there the Hunns and others also
made night melodious. The whole air was one throb and thrump. The
only refuge from it was to go into one of the gardens, and give
yourself over to one band. And so it was possible to have delightful
music, and see the honest Germans drink beer, and gossip in friendly
fellowship and with occasional hilarity. But music we had, early and
late. We expected quiet in our present quarters. The first morning,
at six o'clock, we were startled by the resonant notes of a military
band, that set the echoes flying between the houses, and a regiment
of cavalry wen