LETTERS FROM A CONTINENTAL TOURIST. 597 



water but in water no very comfortable prospect niais vogue la 

 galere. These annoyances are but trifles, if you keep your temper, 

 and recollect the good advice of the old and homely song : 



" A light heart and thin pair of breeches 

 Will go through the world with brave boys." 



Sept. 18. 



DESCENDED the Rhine. The day was wet and dull, and the banks 

 of the river flat and uninteresting. Nothing could by possibility be 

 more insipid. The only moving objects that met the eye were pot- 

 bellied Dutch barges, with their sails puffed out like the square flaps 

 of a burgomaster's coat in a high wind, displaying like him too a round 

 stern behind of no ordinary dimensions. 



On entering the territories of the king of Holland at Lobeth, we 

 were detained for some time, while the papers and passports were 

 being examined, a period which I shrewdly suspect was not a little 

 extended in order to include the consumption of sundry pipes of 

 tobacco and drams ofScheidam. Many of the passengers, myself 

 among the rest, landed and peered about the neighbourhood, which 

 turned out to be a swamp. But the miasmatic vapours do not 

 appear to be unwholesome, for a healthier, rosier-cheeked set of 

 villagers I never beheld. Two of a party of women (young and 

 old) who had assembled to gaze on the strangers, would have passed 

 for handsome in England, which is more than I can say of any pea- 

 sants I have seen in France, Savoy, Switzerland, or Germany. It is 

 true it was Sunday, and as they were dressed in their best, they 

 might have looked better than on ordinary occasions. But clear red 

 and white, round plump limbs, laughing eyes, and pouting lips re- 

 quire but little ornament to make them agreeable. 



At Nimwegen we put up at the hotel des Pays Bas, where every 

 thing was as scrupulously clean as might have been expected from 

 Dutch neatness. But the supper was such an one as few English 

 dogs would have swallowed, except on the persuasion of excessive 

 hunger. Nota bene it was not less expensive than elsewhere. 

 Two Prussian officers who were bound for Amsterdam, and had left 

 Coblentz at the same time as ourselves, here quitted us, and as I am 

 aot likely to meet with any man of their class, I shall take the present 

 opportunity of paying what I consider a just tribute to the merits of 

 the only men I have met with on the continent, who are, in my opinion, 

 of unexceptionable manners and aspect. Their appearance is highly 

 favourable to them, so that you might almost suppose them picked 

 men for their form or stature. So far from carrying into society the 

 brusque habits of a militia, as might be expected under a military 

 government, and as is actually the case in France, they invariably, 

 as far as I could myself observe, or learn by enquiry, endeavour to 

 promote a quiet sociability and good feeling in those with whom, for 

 the time being, they are associated. The very reverse of rude or 

 dogmatic, they are neither forward nor retiring, neither talkative 

 nor taciturn, equally free from the vain-glorious presumption of 

 their Gallic neighbours, and the exquisite exclusiveness of our dandy 

 guardsmen. In Prussia, for every grade an officer is obliged to pass 



MM. No. 6. 2U 



