people had died of hunger here also. He told us that their vicar,
his reverence Johannes Lampius, had had his house burnt down by the
Imperialists, and was lying in a hovel near the church. I sent him
my greeting, desiring that he would soon come to visit me (which the
fellow promised he would take care to deliver to him), for the reverend
Johannes is a pious and learned man, and has also composed sundry Latin
_Chronosticha_ on these wretched times, in _metrum heroicum_, which, I
must say, please me greatly. When we had crossed the ferry we went in at
Sehms his house, on the Castle Green, who keeps an ale-house; he told us
that the pestilence had not yet altogether ceased in the town; whereat I
was much afraid, more especially as he described to us so many other
horrors and miseries of these fearful times, both here and in other
places, _e.g._ of the great famine in the island of Ruegen, where a
number of people had grown as black as Moors from hunger; a wondrous
thing if it be true, and one might almost gather therefrom how the first
blackamoors came about. But be that as it may. _Summa_. When Master
Sehms had told us all the news he had heard, and we had thus learnt,
to our great comfort, that the Lord had not visited us only in these
times of heavy need, I called him aside into a chamber and asked him
whether I could not here find means to get money for a piece of amber
which my daughter had found by the sea. At first he said "No"; but then
recollecting, he began, "Stay, let me see, at Nicolas Graeke's, the inn
at the castle, there are two great Dutch merchants--Dieterich von
Pehnen and Jacob Kiekebusch--who are come to buy pitch and boards,
_item_ timber for ships and beams; perchance they may like to cheapen
your amber too; but you had better go up to the castle yourself, for I
do not know for certain whether they still are there." This I did,
although I had not yet eaten anything in the man's house, seeing that I
wanted to know first what sort of bargain I might make, and to save the
farthings belonging to the church until then. So I went into the