ong in this case
to think of crying, like Israel of old in the wilderness, after having
left the abundance of Egypt, "Who shall give us flesh to eat?"--they
attempt rather to allay the gnawings at their stomachs by potations of
beer, and the appetite grows by what it feeds on.

It is plausibly maintained that the climate of this particular locality
creates an actual necessity for the use of this beverage. Often, during
the earlier part of my residence there, I was besought by friends, with
manifestation of deepest concern, to use beer instead of water, with the
remark that the climate made this a necessary measure of security
against the prevalent typhus and typhoid fevers: a conviction which
seems to be deeply seated in the minds of the people.

Aside from all this, there is an almost total want of the pleasant
beverages used in our families. Tea is as good as unknown in Old
Bavaria, its use being confined to those who have been in England, or
have learned it of the English, and not one woman in twenty thousand can
prepare it. Let the word _tea_ be erased from our vocabulary, and from
our minds all the cheerful associations which it awakens, and there
passes from our hearts none can tell how much of that which we most
fondly cherish there,--the family of both sexes, and occasionally some
neighbors and friends, seated around the table,--the gently stimulating
narcotic diffusing a charm over the whole social being, and
communicating itself to the vocal machinery. Fanatical reformers have
proclaimed its injurious effects; and it may have such; but they are a
thousand times compensated by its value as a bond of union to the
elements of the domestic circle. The tea-table has been the butt of many
a jest and sarcasm, as a fountain of gossip and slander. This may be
true; but the security it furnishes against the dissipation of the
elements of the social circle outweighs thousands of such trifles, and
we half suspect that this objection was originated, and is mischievously
propagated, by those who are already developing a love for other
beverages. If Cowper, with the "sofa" assigned as his subject, could
sing so beautifully of all things social and domestic, what might he
not have done with the tea-table--the rallying-point of social life to
so many who never had a sofa--for his theme?

From the general use of coffee in the cities and large towns of Germany,
we have inferred its general use by the peasantry; but even this i