232 FIRST JOURNEY IN EUROPE. [1839, 



that I could appreciate the beauty of its situation, and 

 I felt a momentary regret that I had not stayed a day 

 longer and visited Berchtesgaden. These fine moun- 

 tains and those of the Tyrol (the more western portion 

 of the same chain) were in full view during the whole 

 journey, filling the southern horizon, while we jour- 

 neyed through a rather level country ; for the whole 

 of Bavaria south of the Danube is a great plain, 

 stretching from that river to these mountains that 

 skirt its southern border. It is an inclined plain, 

 since Munich, though in a perfectly flat region, is 

 about sixteen hundred feet above the level of the sea. 

 We crossed the frontier in an hour after we started, 

 where our baggage was slightly and very civilly ex- 

 amined, and our passports vised by the Bavarian 

 police. We passed two pretty lakes, but no place of 

 interest except Wasserburg, situated in a picturesque 

 dell on the river Inn. For companions I had a Dane, 

 who spoke a little English surprisingly well, and was 

 very agreeable ; a German, who spoke a little French ; 

 and a Frenchman, who had come up the Danube from 

 Constantinople, and who tired us all with the continual 

 clack of his very disagreeable voice. I took up my 

 abode at the Schwarzer Adler, a very comfortable 

 and quite cheap hotel ; slept pretty well ; rose early 

 this morning to take a look at the town, which 

 within these last twenty years has become a mag- 

 nificent capital ; saw many of the public buildings, 

 that is, their exterior, churches, and squares ; went 

 to the office of the police and obtained the required 

 permission de sejour ; and then went to the Royal 

 Cabinet to find Martius, for whom I had three letters 

 of introduction. He is a small man, not so tall as I, 

 quite thin, but rather good-looking, apparently fifty 



