Page:Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home (Volume 1).djvu/190

Rh. Along the narrow road between the garden and the river there are peasant-girls going homeward with baskets of fresh-mown grass on their heads, followed by peasants in their dark blouses, with their sickles swung over their shoulders. Little boats are gliding to and fro, guided, and, as their ringing voices tell you, enjoyed by children. But here is mine host to tell us the esels are ready—the four asses we have ordered to take us to Marksburg.

all "riding privileges," that on a donkey is the least. You are set on to something half cushion, half saddle, that neither has itself nor imparts rest. Though there is a semicircular rampart erected, to guard you from the accident of "high vaulting ambition," it seems inevitable that you must fall on one side or the other. There is a shingle strapped to the saddle for the right foot, and a stirrup for the left; fortunate are you if you can extricate your feet from both. A merry procession we had of it, however, up the winding road to Marksburg. The Braubach donkeys have not had much custom of late, I fancy, for we ran a race, fairly distancing our donkey-drivers, who seemed much amused with our way of proceeding. The fellow who was spokesman demanded, as I thought, an exorbitant price, and I appealed to one of his comrades, who decided that half he asked was quite enough. I mention this with pleasure, because it is the only thing of the sort we have had to complain of since