Page:Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home (Volume 1).djvu/165

162 Bohemian glass, and of the stag-horn jimcracks so curious; cured by the peasants; even Monsieur Jugel's bookshop was deserted. The English are, for the most part, the buyers, and they do not buy on Sunday. We went into the Kur-Saal Garden, which at this hour is alive with people, hundreds meeting at their little tables in the gravelled area between the hall and a pretty artificial lake, smoking, sipping coffee, wine, end Seltzer-water, and eating ices. A band of capital musicians were playing. We had some discussions whether we should go into the Kur-Saal, and finally, determining to see as much as we womankind can of what characterises the piece, we altered. The Kur-Saal (cure-hall) belongs to the duke, and its spacious apartments are devoted to banqueting, dancing, and gambling. The grand saloon is a spacious apartment with rows of marble pillars, and behind them niches with statues, alternating with mirrors. It was an odd scene for us of Puritan blood and breeding to witness. A circular gambling-table in the midst of the apartment was surrounded with people five or six deep, some players but more spectators. The game was, I believe, roulette. It was most curious to see with what a cool, imperturbable manner these Germans laid down their gold, and won or lost, as the case might be, on the instant. There were not only old and practised gamblers, but young men, and people apparently of all conditions, and among them women, ladies. These are a small minority, seldom, as I am told, more than half a dozen among a hundred men.