Bonn, September 18, 1846.

I have been for six days in this beautiful land—not of Bonn, I mean, but of Rhenish Prussia—where civilisation is very advanced, except in the matter of beds, which are always four feet long, while the sheets are only three. I am leading a German life, that is, I rise at five o’clock and go to bed at nine, after having eaten four meals. So far, this sort of life agrees with me very well, and it is not a bad thing to do nothing but open my mouth and bat my eyes. The German women have become horribly ugly since my last visit.

Here is a sketch of the prettiest hat I have seen; it was while on a steamboat going between TrÈves and Coblenz; the surroundings are not shown in the illustration, which I give on the next page. It is a capote, around which is draped a piece of plaid stuff, falling over the edge, and one corner of which is looped up on the left side of the hat by means of a small green, white, and red rosette. The capote is black, the German lady very fair, with feet like those in the drawing.

N. B.—The drawing is made to the scale of a centimÈtre for a mÈtre. I wish you would introduce these hats. You would make them fashionable.

Speaking of monuments, I have seen none that I cared for; the German architects seem to me worse than ours. The MÜnster at Bonn has been looted, and the Abbey of Laahr painted a colour calculated to make one gnash his teeth. The scenery on the Moselle is much overdrawn. In reality it is not remarkable. Since passing the Tmolus I have seen nothing to stir my sense of the beautiful. My admiration extends no farther than its shade trees, and the way in which cookery is understood; in this land the all-important business is zu speisen. After having dined at one o’clock, all good people have tea and cake at four, then at six they take a roll with sliced tongue, out in the garden; this enables them to exist until eight o’clock, when they go to the hÔtel for supper. What becomes of the women during this time I can not imagine; what is certain is that from eight until ten o’clock not a man is at home. Every one goes to his favourite hÔtel to drink, eat, and smoke. The explanation is found, I fancy, in the feet of the women and the excellence of the Rhine wine.

I suppose you will be in Paris in a few days. When I see the woods along the Rhine and the Moselle still green, I picture to myself those of our climate as bare as broomsticks. This, unfortunately, is only too probable. It is as you wished it. Good-bye. I regret that I did not ask you to write to me at Cologne, but it is now too late.