xnii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



he rejoined his regiment with the reputation of being a keen and diligent soldier ; hut his active 

 habits, and his desire to observe men and manners, were for ever impelling him to foreign travel, 

 and he obtained long leave as soon as he could to make an extensive tour in the East. 

 In the autumn of 1S51 he left England for the Continent, and in a diary which is now before 

 me there is a vivid description of railway and passport annoyances at the time, that ought to 

 make the modern traveller thank his stars that he belongs to a later generation, even though he 

 has to put up with " personally conducted " tourist gangs. In the journey from Cologne to 

 Hanover there were in those days five changes of carriages. "We stopped every ten minutes on 

 an average, and halted five minutes at each place." At Lcipsig he visited his old friend Pastor 



N 's family. " His delight was extreme when he recognized me. I found Gertrude, a fine 



girl of 22, very pretty ; the other two girls as nice as ever. I will not," he says, " describe 

 my feelings at the sight of so many dear scenes again. It was the best pleasure I had in life. 

 For fourteen years I had looked forward to it. In two days it was tasted ; and now anticipation 

 has changed places with memory. Went off to see ' the soldier's grave ' on the banks of the 

 Pleisse. The Cross is gone; garlands no longer adorn it. She is dead. The soldier was 

 killed in the great battle. A foreigner and a stranger, he had won the love of a young German 

 girl. For years she watched by his grave, kept it neat and covered it with garlands and 

 flowers. In the daytime no one was ever seen near it ; yet in the morning there were the 

 flowers fresh and fair on the mound. Poor girl ! Winter and summer, every night she watched 

 till she died. In a few years more the grave will be effaced, and nothing will remain to record 

 the undying love of this nameless maiden. Many a time have I, as a boy, ridden by that gmve and 

 seen her figure all in white hovering near it." Is not that a charming little sketch \ From 

 Leipsig he went to Dresden, Prague, Brunn, Vienna, and down the Danube to Pesth, noting 

 diligently all that was worthy of attention on the way, and not indiff'erent to the political and 

 military aspect of the scene through which he passed, or uninfluenced in his comments by the 

 efiect of the tremendous revolutionary wave that had just swept over Europe. The repressive 

 measures, the crowded prisons, the system of espionage and police control which were in full 

 force and vigour excited his indignation and disgust, and he prophecies that if these things are 

 not altered " the Austrian Empire will be broken \\\^. It cannot possibly last as it is." It is 

 startling to read the words in which he records the general estimate of Gorgy, Klapka, and 

 Kossuth at the time, and to compare the contemporary impression of their conduct and character 

 among the people with whom he associated with that which generally prevails now-a-days. 



From Pesth he proceeded to Semlin and Belgrade ; and on 31st October he set out from 

 the latter place for Constantinople on horseback, suflering much on the way (as all who have ever 

 made the same jouniey must have done) from insect persecution and evil accommodation at the 



