boys, who were chosen, went about the city with cockades
fastened on their hats, shouting and singing, many of them quite
intoxicated. I could not help pitying them because of the dismal,
mechanical life they are doomed to follow. Many were rough, ignorant
peasants, to whom nearly any kind of life would be agreeable; but there
were some whose countenances spoke otherwise, and I thought
involuntarily, that their drunken gaiety was only affected to conceal
their real feelings with regard to the lot which had fallen upon them.

We are gradually becoming accustomed to the German style of living,
which is very different from our own. Their cookery is new to us, but
is, nevertheless, good. We have every day a different kind of soup, so I
have supposed they keep a regular list of three hundred and sixty-five,
one for every day in the year! Then we have potatoes "done up" in oil
and vinegar, veal flavored with orange peel, barley pudding, and all
sorts of pancakes, boiled artichokes, and always rye bread, in loaves a
yard long! Nevertheless, we thrive on such diet, and I have rarely
enjoyed more sound and refreshing sleep than in their narrow and
coffin-like beds, uncomfortable as they seem. Many of the German customs
are amusing. We never see oxen working here, but always cows, sometimes
a single one in a cart, and sometimes two fastened together by a yoke
across their horns. The women labor constantly in the fields; from our
window we can hear the nut-brown maidens singing their cheerful songs
among the vineyards on the mountain side. Their costume, too, is odd
enough. Below the light-fitting vest they wear such a number of short
skirts, one above another, that it reminds one of an animated hogshead,
with a head and shoulders starting out from the top. I have heard it
gravely asserted that the wealth of a German damsel may be known by
counting the number of her "kirtles." An acquaintance of mine remarked,
that it would be an excellent costume for falling down a precipice!

We have just returned from a second visit to Frankfort, where the great
annual fair filled the streets with noise and bustle. On our way back,
we stopped at the village of Zwingenberg, which lies at the foot of the
Melibochus, for the purpose of visiting some of the scenery of the
Odenwald. Passing the night at the inn there, we slept with one bed
under and two above, and started early in the morning to climb up the
side of the Melibochus. After a long walk