92 STRAY -AW AYS 



of her the way, she found that their destinations coin- 

 cided, and together they traversed the town. My 

 cousin says that the Frdulein was most sympathetic, 

 and gave her much delightful information about the 

 cholera; but, from hints that she let fall as to the 

 speed at which the transit was made, it seems probable 

 that the stout Frdulein returned to her family 

 in much the condition, mental and physical, of a 

 horse who has been spirited out of his stable and 

 ridden all night by a witch. 



II 



Of Altona no impressions remain but of a sunny 

 morning, a dirty waiter, of coffee and rolls eaten with 

 an unquiet eye on the station clock opposite, and a 

 secret anxiety as to whether the coffee had been 

 made with Elbe water, and, in the moment of de- 

 parture, of the red cap, yellow beard, and congratu- 

 latory grin of the official to whom I had clung with 

 the most limpet tenacity in last night's desperation, 

 and on whom I had lavished enough execrable German 

 to have supplied a Hamburg comic paper with jokes 

 for a month. Then followed the swarthy plains of 

 Northern Germany, the huge and dowdy wilderness 

 of Schleswig-Holstein, and hourly the atmosphere 

 seemed cooler, the sun's rays whiter. Schleswig- 

 Holstein is not the subject that one selects before all 

 others in talking to Danes, but indeed in any com- 

 pany I should find my own grave as cheerful a subject 

 for conversation as those dire leagues of ugliness. 

 That Germany should by force of arms have snatched 

 it from Denmark, and that the Danes should roman- 

 tically repine the theft to this hour, may be compre- 

 hended by the light of the saying that a man is never 



