, and have gained the position of an
employer of labor, before he dare assume still higher responsibilities;
but the system has also great evils.

During my employment of one calendar month and ten days in Berlin, I
received thirty-four dollars in wages, or five pounds two shillings. Of
expenses, to the trade Guild, were paid tenpence; for a silk hat, four
shillings and twopence; a visit to Potsdam cost three shillings and
tenpence, including railway fare; and the fee for viewing the King's
Palace in Berlin was tenpence. One shilling and twopence were lost in
_agio_, in exchanging my small remaining stock of Prussian dollars into
Austrian gold. I may mention, that the binding of an 18mo. volume in
boards, covered in paper, cost one groschen, eight pfennige, or, as
nearly as it can be calculated, twopence in English money.

As we were upon the point of departure, there arrived in Berlin an old
friend whom we had known in Hamburg, a silversmith of Vienna, accompanied
by two other silversmiths, natives of Lubeck, all bound to the same goal.
We made common cause at once. We started by rail for Leipsic; Alcibiade
provided with a purse of no less than eighty dollars, or twelve pounds
sterling, his savings in Berlin, while my own stock, with all my sparing
and scraping, scarcely amounted to two pounds.

The length of the railway between Berlin and Leipsic is between eighty
and a hundred miles. From Leipsic, where we stayed only one night,
sleeping at the herberge, and supping off roasted pigeons, we had, in
round numbers, about four hundred miles before us.

Having narrated the chief incidents of this journey under other heads, I
will only mention isolated points there omitted, and sum up its general
results. Leipsic was our real starting-point for the tramp, and our
first haven the Saxon capital Dresden. We took the road through
Altenburg, thus diverging considerably from the common route, in order to
visit the silver mines of Freiberg, and ramble through the romantic
scenery of the Plaunischen Grund. We passed through Saxon Altenburg,
Zwickau, Lichtenstein, Chemnitz, Oderan, Freiberg, Tharant, and Wildsruf,
and arrived in the evening of the fifth day at Dresden. We had in
reality no business near Zwickau, but were seduced out of our direct
route by the offer of a cheap ride in an open waggon, and were thus led
to a secluded village, where our couch of rest was among the beer puddles
on the table of the village ta