DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62134#0206
198
AN ART-STUDENT IN MUNICH.
and crossing the rustic bridge, which spans a second branch
of the Isar flowing through the Garden, I beheld approach-
ing the bridge over which I leaned a small raft, formed of
a few huge pine-tree stems, come rushing along with the
current. The water dashed over the little raft, swilkering
between the mighty stems, and drenching the great leathern
boots of the men who guided the raft. And what a calling
of cheery voices there wras I what a brushing past of over-
hanging trees and shrubs ! what a clever management of
the long, rude helm !
And a fresh raft was seen to shoot forth from behind a
bend in the little river’s bankj and there was more shout-
ing, and more clever steering •, and then, gliding beneath
the bridge, upon which I stood, the two rafts danced
merrily along towards a second and still more picturesque
rustic bridge farther down the stream, and above which
soared a whirling crowd of my favourite gulls. And again
came a third raft—and another, and another !
Doubtless these huge pine-trees, felled among the Alpine
solitudes, were now departing, after their winter’s sojourn
in the Royal Munich Wood-yard, on their long voyage to
Vienna—or, it might be, even farther ; perhaps they would
float onward and onward—the rafts joining together as the
stream ever widened, till they approached Turkey.
Baron H., I recollect, once described to me an excursion
which some students he knew had made to Vienna on a
raft. In description, at all events, it sounded very delight-
ful. The floating so dreamily along the solemn Danube-
the peculiar life among the raftsmen—the pausing for the
night with the raft at old-world villages upon the banks-
villages far away from the beaten path of ordinary travellers
—the glimpses of a quaint, fresh, peasant life, opening out
before you in the talk of the raftsmen and of the villagers
-—all this, I well remember, most pleasantly affected my
AN ART-STUDENT IN MUNICH.
and crossing the rustic bridge, which spans a second branch
of the Isar flowing through the Garden, I beheld approach-
ing the bridge over which I leaned a small raft, formed of
a few huge pine-tree stems, come rushing along with the
current. The water dashed over the little raft, swilkering
between the mighty stems, and drenching the great leathern
boots of the men who guided the raft. And what a calling
of cheery voices there wras I what a brushing past of over-
hanging trees and shrubs ! what a clever management of
the long, rude helm !
And a fresh raft was seen to shoot forth from behind a
bend in the little river’s bankj and there was more shout-
ing, and more clever steering •, and then, gliding beneath
the bridge, upon which I stood, the two rafts danced
merrily along towards a second and still more picturesque
rustic bridge farther down the stream, and above which
soared a whirling crowd of my favourite gulls. And again
came a third raft—and another, and another !
Doubtless these huge pine-trees, felled among the Alpine
solitudes, were now departing, after their winter’s sojourn
in the Royal Munich Wood-yard, on their long voyage to
Vienna—or, it might be, even farther ; perhaps they would
float onward and onward—the rafts joining together as the
stream ever widened, till they approached Turkey.
Baron H., I recollect, once described to me an excursion
which some students he knew had made to Vienna on a
raft. In description, at all events, it sounded very delight-
ful. The floating so dreamily along the solemn Danube-
the peculiar life among the raftsmen—the pausing for the
night with the raft at old-world villages upon the banks-
villages far away from the beaten path of ordinary travellers
—the glimpses of a quaint, fresh, peasant life, opening out
before you in the talk of the raftsmen and of the villagers
-—all this, I well remember, most pleasantly affected my