with all their cleverness, were left to dry in the mud)--into the toils,
we filled all the tubs, and pots, and pans, and vessels of all kinds and
descriptions, with the fat, honest looking Dutchmen, the carp and tench,
who really submitted to their captivity with all the resignation of most
ancient and quiet fish, scarcely indicating any sense of its irksomeness,
except by a lumbering sluggish flap of their broad heavy tails.

A transaction of this kind could not take place amongst a group of young
folk without shouts of laughter, and it was not until we had caught the
whole of the fish in the pond, and placed them in safety, that I had
leisure to look about me. The city lay about four miles distant from us.
The whole country about Hamburgh is level, except the right bank below it
of the noble river on which it stands, the Elbe. The house where I was
domiciled stood on nearly the highest point of this bank, which gradually
sloped down into a swampy hollow, nearly level with the river. It then
rose again gently until the swell was crowned with the beautiful town of
Altona, and immediately beyond appeared the ramparts and tall spires of
the noble city itself.

The morning had been thick and foggy, but as the sun rose, the white mist
that had floated over the whole country, gradually concentrated and
settled down into the hollow between us and Hamburgh, covering it with an
impervious veil, which even extended into the city itself, filling the
lower part of it with a dense white bank of fog, which rose so high that
the spires alone, with one or two of the most lofty buildings, appeared a
bove the rolling sea of white fleece--like vapour, as if it had been a
model of the stronghold, in place of the reality, packed in white wool, so
distinct did it appear, diminished as it was in the distance. On the
tallest spire of the place, which was now sparkling in the early sunbeams,
the French flag, the pestilent tricolor, that waved sluggishly in the