208 FIRST JOURNEY IN EUROPE. [1839, 



would educate them in this peripatetic way. But now 

 to bed. 



Thursday evening, May 16. . . . We are to start 

 at nine o'clock. The rain is over, but it is still cloudy. 

 I have been for some days in Austrian dominions, but 

 I wish to be in Austria itself. It cleared up a little 

 just at sunset, and gave, me from the deck of the ves- 

 sel, a most beautiful view of the town and harbor, with 

 hundreds of gondolas gliding swiftly through the 

 water in every direction. . . . 



Tkiest, Saturday evening, May 18, 1839. 



As misfortunes never come single, I found this morn- 

 ing that our places were not secured in the mail-coach 

 for Monday. The feUow who was to arrange the 

 business found, after getting our passports in order, 

 that there was only one place left, and supposing that 

 we were certainly to go together, did not secure that. 

 It was immediately arranged between us that I was to 

 have the place, but on arriving at the office I had the 

 mortification to find it already taken. For an hour or 

 so we made various plans, negotiated with a vetturino, 

 but were stopped by the information we received, that 

 they would be five days on the road to Gratz, from 

 where to Vienna it would require at least two days 

 more by the same kind of conveyance, or twenty-seven 

 hours in the mail-coach if we could get a place in it. 

 We found that the quickest way left for us was to 

 take places for Tuesday by the mail, and go on Mon- 

 day by a private conveyance to Adelsberg, as we had 

 intended, where we shall have a day longer than we 

 desire ; and these places we were fortunate enough to 

 secure. So I cannot expect to reach Vienna before 

 Friday morning of next week ! I had hoped to reach 

 that place by the twentieth. 



