Page:Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843 - Volume 1.djvu/296

 as two or three separate huts, where sorry accommodation may be obtained. This state of things is reformed. On the highest pinnacle of the mountain is a very good country inn, such as may remind the traveller of those found in North Wales. The host was very civil, and we had to put his civility to the test. I had put a quantity of thaler notes in my writing-desk, and this had gone with our luggage; by a miscalculation, I had not brought enough of the dirty paper for our excursion, and the less that I had expected to pay for our carriage at Prague. But the fellow who drove us insisted on the money, twelve thalers, before he left us at Schandau; two more we had to give him to take us to the foot of the hill of the Grosse Winterberg; and this had entirely drained us. The master of the inn readily agreed to pass us on to the host at Tätchen, who again would trust us till we reached Arbesau, and were possessed of our dear thalers. It is impossible to express the sense of littleness that comes over one when, in travelling, one has no money at all. Gulliver, in the palm of the hand of the Brobdignagian reaper, could not have felt smaller, till we received our host’s ready consent to trust us.

We ought to have left this eagle’s nest on a rock at seven, or, at latest, at nine o’clock. But loitering was the order of the day; and I resolved to give way