Page:Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home (Volume 1).djvu/184

Rh street. Here the public coaches arrive, and hence take their departure; and here the travellers and their luggage are taken up and discharged. I will describe the scene to you precisely as I just saw it. Besides the diligence for Sewalback, in which our friends were going, and towards which the luggage of various passengers was converging, while that which exceeded the authorized weight was passing through the postoffice window out of the hands of the weighmaster, there were private carriages arriving and departing. Some of these were elegant, and the horses curveting and prancing right royally so that I fancied they must be carrying German princes, or Englishmen, who are princes all over Europe.

My friend's postillion, with his yellow and black Nassau livery, his official band round his arm, his leather boots cut to a peak in front and extending some inches above his knee, his immense yellow tassel bobbing over his shoulder, was blowing his note of preparation from the trumpet he carries at his side. Fat Germans stood at the windows of the different stories of the hotel, smoking and talking to women as fat as they. There were other Germans, mustachoed and imperturbable, coolly awaiting the moment of departure, meandering about among the carriages and barrows, with their pipes