ed
as petrifactions. In no city are excited people wanting who are
tormented by apparitions; the clergy still continue to pray for these
poor people; but not only physicians and literary laymen, but also
clever citizens, maintain that such kinds of devils are expelled by
medicine and fasting, and not by prayer, as they are only produced by
the morbid fancies of hypochondria.

Among the daily events is the interesting arrival and departure of the
mail-coach. About this time all the promenaders like to move into the
vicinity of the post-office. The usual land-post is a very slow, clumsy
means of conveyance; its snail pace was notorious even fifty years
later. Of made roads there are as yet none in Germany; soon after the
Seven Years' War the first _chaussees_ were formed,--still very bad.
Whoever wishes to travel comfortably takes the extra post; for greater
economy, care is taken that all the places shall be occupied, and in
the local papers which have existed for some little time in most of the
larger cities, a travelling companion is sometimes advertised for. For
long journeys, private carriages are bought, which are sold again at
the end of the journey. The badness of the roads gives the postmaster
the right to put four horses to a light carriage, and it is a privilege
to the traveller if the Government will give him a licence to take only
two horses extra post. He who is not sufficiently wealthy for this,
looks out for a return carriage, and these opportunities are announced
several days beforehand. If there is much intercourse between two
places, besides the ordinary post and the more speedy mail, a licensed
stagecoach goes on specified days. These more especially facilitate the
personal intercourse of the lower orders. In 1750 there was one from
Dresden to Berlin every fortnight; to Altenburg, Chemnitz, Freiberg,
and Zwickau, once a week; to Bautzen and Goerlitz, the number of
passengers was not sufficiently certain for the coachman to be able to
go on a specified day; the green and the red passage-boats went between
Dresden and Meissen, each once a week. Even with the best drivers,
travelling was very slow. Five German miles a day, at the rate of a
mile in two hours, seems to have been the usual rate of travelling. A
distance of twenty miles could not be accomplished by a carriage under
three days, and generally four were necessary. When, in the July of the
year which is here described, Klopstock travelled with Gl