this year, I resolved to buy me a couple of horses forthwith, and to sow
my field again; for although it was now late in the year, I thought that
the most merciful God might bless the crop with increase if it seemed
good to him.

Neither did I feel much care with respect to food for them, inasmuch as
there was a great plenty of hay in the neighbourhood, seeing that all the
cattle had been killed or driven away (as related above). I therefore made
up my mind to go in God's name with my new ploughman to Guetzkow, whither a
great many Mecklenburg horses were brought to the fair, seeing that times
were not yet so bad there as with us. Meanwhile I went a few more times up
the Streckelberg with my daughter at night, and by moonlight, but found
very little; so that we began to think our luck had come to an end, when,
on the third night, we broke off some pieces of amber bigger even than
those the two Dutchmen had bought. These I resolved to send to my wife's
brother, Martin Behring, at Hamburg, seeing that the schipper Wulff of
Wolgast intends, as I am told, to sail thither this very autumn, with
pitch and wood for shipbuilding. I accordingly packed it all up in a
strong chest, which I carried with me to Wolgast when I started with my
man on my journey to Guetzkow. Of this journey I will only relate thus
much, that there were plenty of horses and very few buyers in the market.
Wherefore I bought a pair of fine black horses for twenty florins apiece;
_item_, a cart for five florins; _item_, twenty-five bushels of rye, which
also came from Mecklenburg, at one florin the bushel, whereas it is hardly
to be had now at Wolgast for love or money, and costs three florins or
more the bushel. I might therefore have made a good bargain in rye at
Guetzkow if it had become my office, and had I not, moreover, been afraid
lest the robbers, who swarm in these evil times, should take away my corn,
and ill-use and perchance murder me into the bargain, as has happened to
sundry people already. For, at this time especially, such robberies were