Before he has remained 2 days in the place (the period of time is different in different countries), he is required, under penalty of a fine, to send, or take in person to the Police Office (Polizei Direction) the ticket which he received at the gate; and if he intends remaining any time on the spot, he will, upon showing it, receive a permission of residence (Aufenthalts Shein-permission de séjour), for a certain period, at the expiration of which it will be renewed, if required.

When he has made up his mind to quit the place, his passport will be returned to him. It must then be visé: first, by the police; next by his own minister (if there be any resident English minister); and lastly, by the ambassadors of the countries to which he is going, and through which he may pass. The arrangement of the passport should be attended to a day or two before the traveller's departure, as the necessary signatures are often not to be got in a single day.

As a general rule, never pass out of one state into another without having the signature of the minister of the state you are about to enter upon your passport. On leaving a great capital to pass through the dominions of several sovereigns, the passport should be signed by the ministers of all these sovereigns resident at the capital.

EVER

Attention to the passport is particularly necessary when the traveller intends to enter ITALY, or any part of the AUSTRIAN DOMINIONS. It connot be too often repeated, to impress it on the traveller's mind, that WITHOUT THE SIGNATURE OF SOME AUSTRIAN AMBASSADOR, OR MINISTER, NO ONE IS ALLOWED, ON ANY CONDITION, TO CROSS THE AUSTRIAN FRONTIER. The instances of delay, vexation, and trouble which annually occur to persons who, from ignorance of this, proceed to the frontier, and are there stopped, are innumerable.

29. INNS.

Great care has been taken in this work to furnish the traveller with the names of the best inns throughout Germany and the North of Europe, derived principally from personal experience, or that of friends, and trusting as little as possible to the usual recommendations of Guide Books, unless they were ascertained to be well founded. As it is the first information which a traveller requires on reaching a place, the names of the inns in all instances stand first.

German Innkeepers are, on the whole, of a higher class, and hold a superior position in their respective towns, to that occupied by persons of a similar calling in England. In N. Germany they are often men of considerable wealth and well connected. They usually preside at their own tables-d'hôte, entering familiarly into conversation with their guests. It is rarely necessary to make a bargain beforehand with a German landlord, a precaution almost indispensable in Holland, Italy, and Switzerland,

1

When, however, a traveller intends to take up his residence for several weeks, or even 6 or 8 days, in a hotel, it is a good plan, as well as customary, to come to an agreement with the landlord, who, under these circumstances, is usually willing to make an abatement of one-third from his usual charges. It is also a common practice to purchase a dozen or twenty tickets for the table-d'hôte, which, when taken in such a number, are charged at a lower rate. The apartments are classed as to price, according to the stories on which they are situated, the size and the look-out- the highest and those turned to the back being least expensive.

These prices do not apply to Austria and Southern Germany. countries refer to HANDBOOK FOR SOUTH GERMANY.

18 kr.

For those

Average expenses of living for a party of 6, not including wine, in Nassau, Würtemberg, and Baden :

.. This is a very moderate calculation, and the sum will be exceeded if the travellers indulge in a private saloon.

"Persons who travel for pleasure must expect to pay liberally, and any attempt on their part to make close bargains will generally fail: there is a sort of ordinary charge, which the traveller soon finds out, and, with common tact and judgment, he may manage to visit most parts of the Continent without being éntangled in annoying squabbles; but should a bill contain items of an unreasonably high price, instead of pointing them out to the waiter, and clamorously insisting on an immediate reduction, he should go himself to the master's room, and speak to him when no servants are by a remonstrance founded on reason, and politely made, will then generally have its effect: this mode cannot be too strongly recommended."-S. Travellers intending to set out early in the morning, should cause their bills to be made out and delivered to them over night, that they may examine the items at leisure; but they should not pay them until the moment of starting. It is indispensable to prevent fraud, to examine inn-bills, and to understand them before paying them; he who neglects this offers a premium to dishonesty, and will scarcely escape being cheated.

Servants in German inns can exact no fee; the head waiter (Oberkellner) usually receives 5 silver groschen, or 18 kr. per diem; the boots (Hausknecht), 2 silver groschen. The English have introduced this custom of feeing servants into continental inns, and something more is expected of them, especially as they often give much more trouble to the servants than the natives.

"The English are often accused of meanness to the servants at hotels. This frequently arises, not from want of generosity on their part, but from the rascality of couriers, or of the servants themselves, in appropriating the fees meant for the establishment. The best way to obviate this would be for the innkeepers to make a specific charge; or, failing in this, the traveller should write down on the bill the sum which he allots for the servants. See page 240. Tables-d'Hôte. - The usual hour for dining is 1 o'clock; in the North of Germany it is as late as 2 or 3; in the South it is even as early as 12. table-d'hôte is frequented by both ladies and gentlemen, and especially at the Watering-places, by persons of the highest ranks, from Grand Dukes and Princes, downwards. The stranger will find much more general urbanity than in a similarly mixed assemblage in England; the topics and news of the day are

The

discussed without restraint; and if the traveller be anxious to gain general or local information, he will frequently succeed at the table-d'hôte; and should his visit to a town or place be somewhat rapid, perhaps he will have no other source to go to. Added to this, the best dinner is always to be had at the table-d'hôte. It answers the landlord's purpose to provide sumptuously, en gros, for a large company, and he therefore discourages dining in private. They who prefer taking their meals alone at a later hour of the day, will probably dine on the refuse of the table-d'hôte, and pay double price for an inferior dinner and a bottle of the same wine which at the public table passed for vin ordinaire. In fact, it disconcerts the system of a German household (and in Germany every thing is done systematically) to dress a dinner, or even a mutton-chop, out of the usual hours; and when masters and waiters put themselves out of the way to comply with the foreign habits of English travellers, an extra price is regarded by many as hardly a sufficient compensation.

German innkeepers, however, are beginning now to be better accustomed to Englishmen's habits of dining late; and in the hotels of many of the larger towns, such as Frankfurt, Coblentz, Baden, Wiesbaden, &c., there is a second tabled'hôte at 4 or 5 o'clock, to accommodate the English: but not many years ago (and even at the present in the remoter parts of Germany), if a traveller happened to reach an inn after the hour of table-d'hôte, he stood a very poor chance of getting anything to eat at all.

Those who intend to dine at the table-d'hôte in a frequented inn at a full season should desire the waiter to keep their places. The guests are usually seated according to priority of arrival, the last comers being placed at the foot of the table.

Supper, which, owing to the early hour of dinner, is a usual meal in Germany, is ordered from the Carte (Speise-Carte).

Travellers on the Rhine during May should inquire for Maitrink, a spiced wine, or cup flavoured with some aromatic herb, peculiar to this part of the country; it sheds its flowers at the end of May. It used to be said to be best made at the small inn at Rolandseck.

Few German inns afford what in England would be termed sitting-rooms; even the best apartments, on the lower floor, though furnished elegantly as a parlour, serve as bed-rooms, and contain one or more beds. The price of a room depends upon the number of beds in it, but the double-bedded rooms are invariably superior to those with only one bed. The partitions dividing the rooms of German inns are often very thin, and the rooms usually open into each other; the tenant should, therefore, remember that what he says and does is liable to be overheard.

30. GERMAN BEDS.

One of the first complaints of an Englishman on arriving in Germany will be directed against the beds. It is therefore as well to make him aware beforehand of the full extent of misery to which he will be subjected on this score. A German bed is made only for one; it may be compared to an open wooden box, often hardly wide enough to turn in, and rarely long enough for any man of moderate stature to lie down in. The pillows encroach nearly half-way down, and form such an angle with the bed that it is scarcely possible to lie at full length, or assume any other than a half sitting posture. Curtains are almost always wanting. The place of blankets is sometimes supplied by a light puffy feather-bed, which is likely to be kicked off, and forsake in his utmost need the sleeper, who, on awaking in cold weather, finds himself frozen: should it remain in its position in warm weather, the opposite alternative is that of suffocation beneath it. Mr. Coleridge has recorded his abhorrence of a German bed,

declaring "he would rather carry his blanket about him like a wild Indian, than submit to this abominable custom. The Germans themselves say that they use the feather-bed merely to cover their feet in cold weather.

The stranger who appreciates this nuisance to its full extent is recommended to ask the chamber-maid for a counterpane (bett-decke), instead of the usual federbett.

31. VALETS-DE-PLACE; OR, LOHNBEDIENTER.

It has been the custom of many travellers who have published tours to speak very contemptuously of the class of guides who go by the name of valets-deplace, though it may fairly be suspected that they owe much of the best part of their books to that despised caste. The fact is, that when a traveller arrives for the first time at a spot which he is desirous of seeing thoroughly, and at the same time does not intend to remain long in it, a valet-de-place is indispensable, unless he has friends who will perform the part of ciceroni for him. There are always a certain number of persons experienced in the duties of a guide attached to every inn; and if the traveller, instead of engaging a person nominated by the landlord, for the sake of sparing a franc or two, put his trust in the boys who may accost him in the streets, he runs the risk of falling into bad hands, or of finding himself in situations in which it will be neither agreeable nor creditable to be placed.

The utility of a valet-de-place consists in his knowledge of the hours at which each church, picture gallery, palace, or other sight, is open, or visible; how to procure tickets of admission, and where to find the keepers of them, which spares the traveller much time in running about in search of them, and, if he have a spare hour, furnishes the means of spending it advantageously. The valet-deplace will also know the residences of all the ambassadors, and the mode of obtaining passports, and will undertake to have them properly visé. Nothing is so annoying as to have to traverse the streets of a large town in search of ministers and consuls, and, on arriving, perhaps to find you have come at the wrong time, or at least to be compelled to dance attendance for hours. It is far preferable to promise your valet-de-place a franc or two, if he secure the proper signatures within a fixed time.

At the same time, it is necessary to put the traveller on his guard against the tricks of a valet-de-place. For his own advantage, and the interest of the innkeeper his patron, he will often endeavour to detain the traveller, by framing excuses- that collections are not open that the passport office is closed, or --the minister out of town. It is better to state beforehand to the man what objects you desire to see, and how much time you can devote to seeing them; to ascertain from him at once at what hours different sights are thrown open to the public, and to make him arrange the order of proceeding accordingly. With respect to passports, it may be borne in mind that the hours of attendance at police-offices are, with very few exceptions, so regulated as never to detain persons who are anxious to proceed; and if the valet-de-place maintains there is any impediment, the best way to settle the matter is by calling in the landlord, or, if that will not do, by going in person to the police office.

The fee paid to a valet-de-place varies in different parts of Germany; and it will be found particularised in the description of almost all the great cities. It is not always necessary to engage him for the whole day: he may be hired by the hour, and paid accordingly.

Travellers are warned on no account to take a valet-de-place with them into a shop where they wish to make purchases, since it is an acknowledged practice of the valet-de-place to demand of the tradesman a fee of 5 per cent. on the sum laid out by the stranger whom he conducts, and this is, of course, added to the

price paid by the purchaser. Another practice, in towns where palaces or churches are exhibited by fixed attendants, is for the valet-de-place to name a larger sum than is necessary as the fee to be paid to the attendant, part of which he receives back himself: unless the traveller ascertains that the fee named is fixed by tariff or usage, it is usually advisable to disregard altogether the sum mentioned by

him.

32. GERMAN CUSTOM-HOUSE LEAGUE, ZOLL-VEREIN. — COINAGE.

Down to 1833 almost every state in Germany had its own tariff and system of duties, and the traveller was subjected to the inconvenience of custom-house visitations on the frontier of each state, however insignificant; while the vexatious impediments thrown in the way of trade were enormous. Some states, situated in the interior of the Continent, were compelled to pay 10 or 12 different transit duties for every article they imported or exported.

An Association called Zoll-Verein (Toll Union), headed by Prussia, is now formed for the furtherance of trade by consolidating the different states of Germany, and uniting them under one system of customs. The members of this league have agreed to adopt the same scale of duties-to abolish all intermediate custom-houses, and to divide the profits among the states of the Union proportionately to the population of each. In consequence of this, many of the restraints which impeded the communication from one part of Germany to the other have been removed. The conforming states are, Prussia, the head of the league, Bavaria, Saxony, Würtemberg, Baden, Brunswick, Hesse-Darmstadt, Cassel, Nassau, Frankfurt, the Duchies of Saxony, and Principalities of Anhalt, Those which have, up to the present time, held back from this commercial confederation are, Hanover, Oldenburg, Mecklenburg, Holstein, and the Hanse Towns, which have formed a minor league of their own. Thus the traveller who has crossed the outer line is freed from the vexations of the Douanier in every part of Central Germany, and may proceed without interruption from Belgium to the frontier of Russia, and from Tyrol to the Baltic, a distance of 700 or 800 miles: and a small transit duty enables goods to pass all the states of the Union. Austria still follows the ancient regulations in all the states belonging to her.

This Confederation made the first step towards producing a political nationality in Germany. Another object effected by the League is, unity in the currency. A money convention was entered into by the States forming the Union in 1837, who agreed on a new basis of valuation under the term Sud Deutsche Währung (S. D. W.), at the rate of 241 gulden to the mare of fine silver, the marc of fine silver weighing 233 grammes 1000

855

The term "Vier-und-zwanzig-gulden-Fuss" implies that the marc of fine silver is coined into 24 gulden or florins. The florins coined by the Customs Union are nearly of this rate, differing only 2 per cent.; 1 fl. 197d., making the par of exchange with London 1203 fl, S. D. W.-10. According to the 24 gulden Fuss, 118 fl. = 10/.

1 marc of fine silver=14 Pruss. dollars=24 fl. of S. Germany =20 fl. of Austria 60 lire Austriache. Thaler 13 florin. Florin thaler.

Bavaria, Würtemberg, Baden, Frankfurt, and Saxony have issued coins at this rate piece of 2 thalers 3 florins, or of the marc. It bears on one side the

head of the sovereign, on the other the words "Vereins Münze."

1 Centner of the zollverein 50 French kilogrammes=110 lbs. avoirdupois. The ton of 4 scheffels 6 Imp. bushels, nearly 1 per cent. more.