need be said. Rhine-wine and Bavarian beer are accepted liquids, and need no bush. But whilst upon the subject I may mention an institution, well worthy of emulation, in the little drinking-booths which, planted at regular intervals along the hot and dusty thoroughfares, offer you such welcome refreshment in the shape of sparkling waters, effervescing lemonade, and soda and seltzer-water, for a penny the glass, with any kind of fruit-syrup you choose added to the reviving and sparkling draught. It may be objected that in London such obstructive edifices would seriously impede the traffic and cause a block upon the pavement, and that shop-rent is too dear to admit of mineral water, ginger-beer, lemonade, and raspberry vinegar being sold at a penny a glass. That may be so; but the boon of these little temples of refreshment, where the weary wayfarer deposits his modest coin and receives a long cool draught in return that sends him on his way rejoicing, is not to be overlooked or denied. Very excellent and quite worthy its poetic name, is the fragrant Maitrank that one gets in the "merry mouth;" and not to be forgotten in the enumeration of dainty drinks is the imposing Bowle, for which nectar a vessel has been specially created and consecrated, and without which no convivial meeting or dancing-party would be held complete.
In many parts of Germany tea is looked upon as medicine. "Is, then, the gracious lady ill?" is no uncommon question, if by chance an irresistible longing should overtake you for the "cheering cup." It is only to be had good in Russian houses; but even here not always quite according to English taste. Some take lemon instead of milk with it; others substitute red wine; the tea is often scented; and I remember once having a pound of tea sent me which I was told cost three pounds sterling, having come overland, and been bought by the kind donor at the fair of Nishni-Novgorod, of which I will only say, that a little Vanilla boiled in hay would have pleased me quite as well.
Fruit, as we see it in Covent Garden, or in the shop-windows of Paris, is unknown in Germany. Perhaps the nearest approach to the superexcellence of which I speak may be found in the Hamburg market, but then the fruit is imported. Oranges, in the interior, cost twopence and threepence each, and even then are small, and of a very inferior quality. Gardening is a science very little understood; the outlay of manure, labour, time, and so on, which is necessary to produce anything like perfection in trees, plants, or vegetables, would be looked upon as thriftless waste. The pears, apples, plums, and cherries grow almost wild. To dig about them and rake them, to produce varieties, and to improve by selection of earths and manures the standard stocks, seems an almost unnecessary trouble, since you can pull up the old tree when it is exhausted, and plant another in a different spot. Quantity, not quality, is what you want; and certainly if quality were presented to you at the fraction of a farthing more than its rival quantity, you would, on merely conscientious grounds alone, reject the former for the latter.
If ever the happy time should come (and I doubt it, short of the millennium) when our cooks will permit the young ladies of the household to learn how to prepare the food that they seem paid to spoil, I hope a Median and a Persian law may be passed at the same time to prevent these fair creatures from carrying the history of their culinary prowess and exploits beyond the dinner-table. Let a stand be made against the persistent talk of food that poisons any attempt at conversation where two or three German housewives are gathered together. The unction with which greasy details are discussed; the comparisons (specially odious, it seems to me, in post-prandial hours of repletion) of goose-grease dripping with bacon fat; the wearisome enumeration of mysteries connected with this dumpling, that sauce, or the other pickle, are a burthen to the flesh and a weariness to the spirit of any mere outsider grievous to be borne. Some of my best German friends were angry with me because I did not want to eat my cake and have it too. "We are not ruminating animals," I said, trying to make my feeble stand against this eternal talk of food; "and I don't care to chew the cud of culinary memories." But such an intellectual protest went down before the serried ranks of my opponents. Like the Civis Romanus sum of the old Romans, "I am a German Hausfrau" is the last pæan of pride which these patient spouses know; and what wonder if they resent your unwilling homage, and think scorn of a temper that is contented to leave the discussion of dinner to the table or the kitchen?
"Sir," said old Samuel Johnson, "give
