CHARLES WATERT0N, ESQ. lvil 



At Freyburg, where we passed a couple of 

 days, the climate was truly delicious ; and as 

 the vintage had only just commenced on the 

 day of our arrival there, all was joy, festivity, 

 and mirth. There was a German waiter at the 

 hotel, of extraordinary talent for acquiring 

 languages ; he said, he had never been in 

 England, nor much amongst Englishmen, but 

 that he had written a description in English 

 poetry of their own cathedral. On saying this, 

 he offered me a little pamphlet, containing an 

 excellent engraving of that superb edifice, by 

 way of frontispiece. As I looked over the 

 pages, I found in their contents, matter much 

 superior to any thing that I could have ex- 

 pected from the pen of a German waiter at an 

 inn. Having complimented him on the suc- 

 cessful study of a language, by no means of 

 easy acquisition even to a native, I paid him 

 the price which he had asked for his work, and 

 I put it in my portmanteau, for future inves- 

 tigation ; but it now lies in the wreck of the 

 Pollux, at the bottom of the Mediterranean 

 Sea. 



I had expected to have a sight of some of 

 our rarer European birds in my passage across 



