OCTOBER 69 



having first greased them well inside with melted butter. 

 Stand them in a warm place till the paste has risen to the 

 very top. Put them in a rather slow oven for twenty- 

 five to thirty minutes. When well coloured, but not brown, 

 turn them out and pour rum punch over them, taking 

 care not to sodden them. 



I had occasion at the end of this month last year 

 (1897) to go to Germany to the neighbourhood of Frank- 

 fort. The journey, about twenty-five hours from London, 

 is wonderfully easy. My friends said : ' What ! go all 

 that way for ten days ? ' But in fact it means far less 

 time and money than did a journey to Devonshire, or 

 even the Isle of Wight, to our grandmothers. I had 

 never seen the Ehine before in late autumn. The late 

 vintage was just over, and the vines and the earth seemed 

 one even brown, diversified at times with yellow leaves 

 hanging thinly on the poplars, and the low oak brush- 

 wood bronze and gold against the sky. It seems bathos 

 to say so, but the Bhine runs so due north and south that 

 it reminded me of my winter walks in Sloane Street. The 

 sun was always in one's eyes in the middle of the day, and 

 behind the hills morning and evening ; and the fogs hung 

 about the river as they do between the houses in the 

 street. How entirely the Ehine of Turner and Byron 

 has ceased to be ! All the beautiful, picturesque boats, 

 barges, rafts, etc., with white or tan sails, that trailed 

 their long reflections in the broad river, representing the 

 commercial industries of the people, which had been 

 growing from the commencement of history all this has 

 completely disappeared. On the Main I saw one or two 

 of the old-fashioned large rafts, not towed by steamers, 

 but punted by the graceful little black figures ceaselessly 

 labouring up and down a small portion of the raft and 

 pushing it with long poles. On the Ehine everything 



