Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/72

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NOTES AND QUERIES, m s. xn. J.Y M, MHO.

'down stream. a Busino, the chaplain to the Venetian Embassy to England, travelled down the Rhine in 1617 on a kind of raft which was no doubt intended to be broken up at the end of the voyage. The planks were so frail and lightly put together that Busino found the reflection. " This is all the fence between us and death," not a little disquieting b a condition of mind which any reader who has found himself on board one of the huge timber rafts which, in times of peace at least, still float lazily down the Rhine can readily appreciate.

In Germany and Austria one could travel -all over the country by coach c Augsburg seems to have been the chief carrying centre. Thence to Venice a coach ran once a week. There was also a weekly coach to Munich, and between Augsburg and Nurem- berg a coach ran daily. d From Vienna to Prague coaches went in the summer in six days, in the winter in eight. 6 A stage coach ran from, Magdeburg to Hamburg, and Ed. Browne covered the distance in four days in 1669. f A stage coach also ran from Vienna to Venice.^ The coaches (or " Roll- "wagen," as they were called) carried usually ix passengers, but some of them held eight, "carrying two in the boot at the sides. They were provided with hoops covered with xiloth or leather, which could be closed in bad weather, and lowered when the weather was warm. h There is not much evidence as to the rates charged, but the cost of coach liire seems to have depended to some extent upon whether your coachman travelled "*' maulfrei " (mouth -free) or had to feed "himself. 1 It was advisable to frequent only the best inns if the traveller wished to avoid the frauds and injuries of knaves. j In the better-class inns in Germany the traveller could sleep between feather beds,

a Rafts were also in use on other rivers. Reresby travelled down the Isar to Munich on a raft made of fir trees, and so arrived a day sooner than the horses which went by .land (' Travels,' 1904, 96). Montaigne's secretary brought the luggage by raft from Roverido to Verona (' Travels,' 1580-81, ed. Waters, 1903, i. 193).

b Quarterly Review, No. 102 (1857), 403 (< A Venetian Embassy to the Court of King James I.' ).

c Ed. Browne's"' Travels ' (1687), 220.

d Moryson, 'Itinerary' (1908), i. 440. Reresby, 201.
 * Travels ' (1904), 100. Bates, ' Touring in 1600,'

e Ed. Browne's ' Travels ' (1687), 160.

f Id., 175.

Id., 73.

h Moryson, ' Itinerary ' (1908), iii. 465.

1 Id., L 171.

J Id., iii. 388.

but in the common inns he had to sleep on straw, or in cold weather as near to the stove as he could get. a Stoves were such a necessary part of the furniture that the words "stove" and "room" became synonymous, and in the " stove," or room where the stove was placed, the common people ate, drank, and slept. As the windows were seldom opened, the smell of meat and cabbage a favourite dish then as now. and possibly a kind of seventeenth-century sauerkraut- was likely to be unpleasant. b As soon as the traveller was between his feather beds, however, with the top one properly adjusted, his troubles were over. These feather beds were light and warm, and no doubt resembled the modern Federkissen, which some present- day travellers have found a difficulty in adapting to their persons. The linen is generally spoken of as clean. The bed- rooms were provided with square tables, and a basin and cloth by the wall. c They were low and usually panelled, and in Montaigne's time curtains were often hung up beside the beds in order to prevent the walls being soiled by the spitting of the guests/ 1 The windows were hung with lace curtains. 6 In Mory son's time the usual charge for a meal in Germany was from 8d. to Is. A bed cost 2d., and board and lodging for a week worked out at about 6s. 8d. f Later travellers, unfortunately, do not give us sufficient information to enable us to judge whether the prices were as reasonable throughout the seventeenth century, but except in the larger towns the inns are often spoken of as dirty and dear, and the habits of one's fellow -guests fre- quently left much to be desired.^ Nor were the hosts themselves pleasantly dis- posed. If a guest complained of his lodg- ing, he was told in a surly tone to get him to another inn, and Simplicissimus was in- formed that innkeepers were so called because they tried to keep in both with God and the Devil. h MALCOLM LETTS.

(To be concluded.)

a Ed. Browne, ' Travels ' (1687), 155.

b Id., 178.

c Id., 87.

d Montaigne's 'Travels' (1903), i. 131, 170 : on beds see id., i. 107, 188; Coryat, 'Crudities' 1905), ii. 106. On linen see Montaigne, i. 117 ; but compare Reresby, 'Travels ' (1904), 122.

e Montaigne, 'Travels,' ii. 50.

f ' Itinerary ' (1908), i. 5, 25, 68, &c.

P Reresby, ' Travels ' (1904), 122.

h Burton, ' Anatomy of Melancholy ' (ed. Shilleto), i. 26; Grimmelshausen, ' Siniplicis- ^' (Eng. trans.), 1912, 157.