r, the draught horses seem to be good,--slow,
doubtless, and alike defective in the shoulder and hind-quarters, but
strong, without being, like the Flemish breed, so heavy as to oppress
themselves. The riding horses, and especially those taken up for the
service of the cavalry, struck me as being, in proportion, far
inferior. They are either all legs, which they do not seem to use
either with dexterity or elegance, or mere punches. In like manner, the
cattle, to the eye of one accustomed to the sleek coats and
well-covered ribs of our Lincolnshire or Durham breeds, present a very
sorry appearance. Each particular bone in each particular brute's
carcase sticks up in melancholy distinctness, and in point of size the
animals themselves are mere dwarfs. I have seen a man ploughing with a
couple of heifers, positively neither taller nor stouter than a pair of
Lincolnshire calves of three weeks old.

From such materials it would be vain to expect that good beef can be
manufactured; indeed, the Germans have no notion of pampering
themselves with good beef. Their system is, not to fatten the beast,
and then kill him; but to work him as long as he is fit for work, and
then to kill him lest he should become an incumbrance. Neither can
their sheep boast much of the symmetry of their proportions, or of the
high flavour of their flesh when it comes to table. The wool, as
everybody knows, is, indeed, excellent; but the mutton is but sorry
food, at least to an Englishman. As I stated some time ago, however,
the English traveller need not distress himself too much on this
account. He is very rarely troubled with the offer of mutton, inasmuch
as calf's-flesh seems to be not only at hand all the year round, but to
supply the place of every other species of animal food.

We parted from our civil bouerman about four o'clock, at the summit of
a hill, whence he was enabled to point out to us, both the direction of
the ground on which Schlukenau stood, and the course of the path which
it would be necessary to follow in order to reach it. His instructions
were communicated with so much accuracy, that we never deviated an inch
from the right way; and so came in about seven, to just such a town as
our experience of other agricultural stadts and burghs had led us to
expect. At the Golden Stag we fixed our head quarters,--a large inn,
and apparently well frequented,--where we spent the night, without
either accident or adventure befalling of whic