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166 candid in their conversation, genuine in their sympathies, and wishing well to all, while they desired to enjoy themselves in their own way. I had much pleasure in sketching a plan of tour which the young lady wished to make in India in the following year.

Next to the Americans the Germans were numerically the strongest of our party. Germans have of late developed somewhat suddenly a rage for travelling, and I have met them in large numbers everywhere in the continent. Self-assertion, too, of a somewhat boisterous description is sometimes imputed to them, and I have heard many Englishmen complain that the Franco-Prussian War has spoilt the Germans, and they have grown bumptuous and self-asserting since! Englishmen of all people, however, have the least reason for bringing this charge, as it is identically the same charge that was brought against them two or three generations ago, when they were a great continental power. And if the Germans, having now secured for themselves the first place among the military nations of Europe, are sometimes prone to self-assertion, the failing is natural.

However that may be, the little colony of Germans on board our steamer certainly signalized themselves by their loud joyness and "obstreperous hilarity!" The saloon rang with their voices at dinner time, and it was amusing to contrast their lively conversation and gesticulations with the quiet talk of phlegmatic Englishmen! And sometimes at evening the sound of German songs, sung in chorus by all who could join, startled the echoes