faces, and comical squat dogs, kept the villages partly alive. We
observed one young urchin sitting on a stone opposite a dog, and he and
the dog took alternate bites off a platter-shaped cake, big enough to
require both his hands to hold it. Whether the dog ever snapped more
than his share was matter of speculation to us. It was an education for
him in good manners, and when we were sitting at dinner we wished our
companions had enjoyed it. They fed with their heads in their plates,
splashed and clattered jaws, without paying us any hospitable attention
whatever, so that we had the dish of Lazarus. They were perfectly kind,
notwithstanding, and allowed a portion of my great map of Germany to lie
spread over their knees in the diligence, whilst Temple and I pored along
the lines of the rivers. One would thrust his square-nailed finger to
the name of a city and pronounce it; one gave us lessons in the
expression of the vowels, with the softening of three of them, which
seemed like a regulation drill movement for taking an egg into the mouth,
and showing repentance of the act. 'Sarkeld,' we exclaimed mutually, and
they made a galloping motion of their hands, pointing beyond the hills.
Sarkeld was to the right, Sarkeld to the left, as the road wound on.
Sarkeld was straight in front of us when the conductor, according to
directions he had received, requested us to alight and push through this
endless fir-forest up a hilly branch road, and away his hand galloped
beyond it, coming to a deep place, and then to grapes, then to a tip-toe
station, and under it lay Sarkeld. The pantomime was not bad. We waved
our hand to the diligence, and set out cheerfully, with our bags at our
backs, entering a gorge in the fir-covered hills before sunset, after
starting the proposition--Does the sun himself look foreign in a foreign
country?

'Yes, he does,' said Temple; and so I thought, but denied it, for by the
sun's favour I hoped to see my father that night, and hail Apollo