Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/69

 128. 1. JAN, 22, 1916. J

NOTES AND QUERIES.

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There was much to occupy them. Above Spires they were interested to watch the fishermen with their long nets, and the fowlers at work with nets and snares, using tame ducks as decoys. 'The great river thronged with all manner of craft, the vine- covered banks, the thickly planted towns and villages, and the picturesque castles made a great impression on the travellers. True, their delight was marred at times by the. melancholy spectacle of gibbets and wheels set up along the riverside,* but on the whole they were in raptures. Here and there they were stopped. At some of the towns tribute was collected ; at others the travellers were graciously dismissed. From Mainz a visit was paid to Frankfurt, but on the return journey they found one of the villages through which they had to pass closed for the night. Although they could get in, the man with the keys could not be found to let them out again, and they were obliged to spend the night under the most distressing, and indeed " infamous," con- ditions. His Excellency did not choose to sup, and it would seem as if the whole party were obliged to fast, in company with their chief, until the next day, when they laid in a good supply of victuals and proceeded.

At Cologne the Ambassador received a salute of musketry, and here orders were given for a fresh boat to be provided to take the place of the " rickety manger " in which they had travelled from Strassburg. For a commodious covered boat 70 crowns was demanded, but finally the figure was reduced to 40. This proved to be a long vessel covered with raw hides, shaped like a cylinder with tapering extremities, and resembling the " long oval butter-pats of Venice." It was fitted with square sails without reefs, with a triangular jib, ancl was handled by the sailors so skilfully, that they caused it to make headway even in "the eye of the wind." Cologne was left on Sept. 30, and Busino cannot omit to notice the excellent fare at the Inn of the Holy Ghost. Supper

the Rhine ten years earlier, noted the corpses of malefactors hanging upon gibbets by the riverside or stretched upon wheels. Bizoni and his fellow-travellers found the Rhine journey altogether a less pleasurable affair. The country was infested by bands of lawless soldiers, who did not always distinguish between friend and foe. Suspicious - looking boats were lurking among the islands, and the travellers were much relieved to be joined by three Flemish gentlemen armed with arquebusses. Rodocanachi, ' Aventuresd'un grand Seigneur Ttalien a travers 1'Europe.' Paris, 1809, pp. 90-91.
 * Another traveller, Bizoni, who passed down

included salmon trout and lampreys, and' the wines were excellently delicate and rare. The hostess was most attentive, and her skilP and good management were duly acknow- ledged by the Ambassador, who, following the usual custom in such cases, presented her with his coat of arms before leaving. This was no doubt emblazoned upon wood and put up outside the inn to commemorate the Ambassador's visit.

The travellers were now on the borders of the Netherlands, and after the exac- tions of the Rhine Customs officials they were relieved to know that they were soon to be within the territory of an allied state. On the frontier, for the first time in their lives, they drank: beer. The national beverage indeed' was already universal in Germany, but it was not equal to the beer of the Netherlands,, where it was brewed in large quantities. The experiment was not altogether a success,, and Busino records that he took it like medicine " ore rotundo," without moistening his lips. At- Arnhem, where they arrived on Oct. 2, they slept at an inn kept by an apothecary, " entering the house through the shop, which emitted the sweetest possible scent." The rooms were paved with hand- some tiles covered with white sand ; the walls, as was customary throughout the country, were hung with curtains, pictures, and looking-glasses, and fitted with small cabinets surmounted with jars; and stoves now gave way to fireplaces. From Arnhem his Excellency set out for Amsterdam in an open cart drawn by three horses harnessed: abreast, in which he reclined upon a bench, stuffed with straw. This luckless vehicle jolted the Ambassador and his chaplain sky-high. The driver, as was usual in Holland, stopped every few hours to water and bait the horses, and one can almost catch a note of envy in Busino's remark that the servants and the luggage had proceeded by water. At Utrecht they gave up the cart, and waiting at the inn for the passage boat, which was to carry them to Amsterdam, they " found people smoking tobacco and making such an intolerable stench that his Excellency had not the courage to enter."

This was Busino's first introduction to the habit of smoking, but later, on his arrival in London, he found tobacco already a point of good- fellowship, and gives a detailed de cription of the " hollow instrument a span, long, called a pipe,"* by means of which.


 * C.S.P. (Venetian), 1617-19, p. 101.