Sunday at Warsaw. Poland is distinguished above the other nations of Europe as a land of religious toleration. So late as the latter part of the tenth century, the religion of Poland was a gross idolatry; and, mingled with the rites of their own country, they worshipped, under other names, Jupiter, Pluto, Mars, Venus, Diana, and others of the pagan deities. During the reign of Mieczylaus I. of the Piast dynasty, the monks introduced Christianity. The prince himself was proof against the monks, but received from woman's lips the principles of the Christian religion. Enamoured of Dombrowska, the daughter of the Duke of Bohemia, a country which had then lately embraced Christianity, who refused to accept his suit unless he was baptized, Mieczylaus sacrificed the superstitions and prejudices of his fathers on the altar of love. But the religion which he embraced for the sake of Dombrowska he afterward propagated for its own; became an ardent champion of the cross; broke down with his own hands the idols of his country; built Christian churches on the ruins of pagan temples; and, in the ardour of his new faith, issued an edict that, when any portion of the Gospel was read, the hearers should half draw their swords to testify their readiness to defend its truth.

In the reign of the "famous" John Sobieski, the annals of Poland, till that time free from this disgrace, were stained by one of the most atrocious acts of barbarity recorded in the history of religious persecution. A Lithuanian nobleman, a religious and benevolent man, but sufficiently intelligent to ridicule some of the current superstitions, and very rich, on account of a note made in the margin of a book, written by a stupid German, was tried for atheism by a council of bigoted Catholic bishops, and found guilty, not only of "having denied the existence of a God, but the doctrine of the Trinity and the Divine maternity of the Virgin Mary." Zaluski, one of the villains concerned in the torment, writes, "The convict was led to the scaffold, where the executioner, with a red-hot iron, tore his tongue and his mouth, with which he had been cruel toward God; then they burned his hands, instruments of the abominable production, at a slow fire. The sacrilegious paper was thrown into the flame; himself last; that monster of the age, that deicide, was cast into the flames of expiation, if such a crime could be atoned."

In seventeen hundred and twenty-six the Jesuits, making a public procession with the Host in the streets of Thorn, the young scholars of the order insisted that some Lutheran children should kneel; and on their refusal a scuffle ensued between the Jesuits and townspeople, most of whom were Lutherans, in which the enraged townspeople broke open the Jesuits' college, profaned all the objects of worship, and, among others an image of the Virgin. The Catholics of Poland, assembled in the diet, almost infuriated with fanatic zeal, condemned to death the magistrates of Thorn for not exercising their authority. Seven of the principal citizens were also condemned to death; many were imprisoned or banished; three persons, accused of throwing the Virgin's image into the fire, lost their right arms, and the whole city was deprived of the freedom of public worship.

This was the last act of religious persecution in Poland; but even yet the spirit of the reformation has made but little progress, and the great bulk of the people are still groping in the darkness of Catholicism. On every public road and in all the streets of Warsaw stand crosses, sometimes thirty feet high, with a figure of the Saviour large as life, sometimes adorned with flowers and sometimes covered with rags.

As in all Catholic cities, a Sunday in Warsaw is a fÊte day. I passed the morning in strolling through the churches, which are very numerous, and some of them, particularly the Cathedral Church of St. John and that of the Holy Cross, of colossal dimensions. The scene was the same as in the Catholic churches in Italy; at every door crowds were entering and passing out, nobles, peasants, shopmen, drosky boys, and beggars; the highborn lady descended from her carriage, dipped her fingers in the same consecrated water, and kneeled on the same pavement side by side with the beggar; alike equal in God's house, and outside the door again an immeasurable distance between them.

At twelve o'clock, by appointment, I met my travelling companion and another of his friends in the Jardin de Saxe, the principal public garden in Warsaw. It stands in the very heart of the city, in the rear of the Palais de Saxe, built by the Elector of Saxony when called to the throne of Poland. It is enclosed all around by high brick walls, screened by shrubs, and vines, and trees rising above, so as to exclude the view of the houses facing it. It is handsomely laid out with lawns and gravel-walks, and adorned with trees; and as the grounds are exceedingly rural and picturesque, and the high walls and trees completely shut out the view of all surrounding objects, I could hardly realize that I was in the centre of a populous city. It was then the fashionable hour for promenade, and all the Élite of Warsaw society was there. I had heard of this Sunday promenade, and, after making one or two turns on the principal walk, I remarked to my companions that I was disappointed in not seeing, as I had expected, a collection of the highborn and aristocratic Poles; but they told me that, changed as Warsaw was in every particular, in nothing was this change more manifest than in the character of this favourite resort. From boyhood, one of them had been in the habit of walking there regularly on the same day and at the same hour; and he told me that, before the revolution, it had always been thronged by a gay and brilliant collection of the nobility of Warsaw; and he enumerated several families whose names were identified with the history of Poland, who were in the habit of being there at a certain time, as regularly as the trees which then shaded our walk; but since the revolution these families were broken up and dispersed, and their principal members dead or in exile, or else lived retired, too proud in their fallen state to exhibit themselves in public places, where they were liable to be insulted by the presence of their Russian conquerors; and I could well appreciate the feeling which kept them away, for Russian officers, with their rattling swords and nodding plumes, and carrying themselves with a proud and lordly air, were the most conspicuous persons present. I had noticed one party, a dark, pale, and interesting-looking man, with an elegant lady and several children and servants, as possessing, altogether, a singularly melancholy and aristocratic appearance; but the interest I was disposed to take in them was speedily dispelled by hearing that he was a baptized Jew, a money broker, who had accumulated a fortune by taking advantage of the necessities of the distressed nobles. Indeed, next to the Russian officers, the baptized Jews were the most prominent persons on the promenade. These persons form a peculiar class in Warsaw, occupying a position between the Israelites and Christians, and amalgamating with neither. Many of them are rich, well educated, and accomplished, and possess great elegance of appearance and manner. They hate most cordially their unregenerated brethren, and it is unnecessary to say that this hate is abundantly reciprocated. It was with a feeling of painful interest that I strolled through this once favourite resort of the nobility of Warsaw; and my companions added to this melancholy feeling by talking in a low tone, almost in whispers, and telling me that now the promenade was always triste and dull; and in going out they led me through a private walk, where an old noble, unable to tear himself from a place consecrated by the recollections of his whole life, still continued to take his daily walk apart from the crowd, wearing out the evening of his days in bitter reflections on the fallen condition of his kindred and country.

We dined, as usual, at a restaurant, where at one table was a party of Swiss, here, as at Moscow, exercising that talent, skill, and industry which they exhibit all over the world, and consoling themselves for the privations of exile with the hope of one day being able to return to their native mountains, never to leave them again.

After dinner we took an open carriage, and at the barrier entered one of the numerous avenues of the Ujazdow, leading to Belvidere, the country residence of the late Grand-duke Constantine. The avenue is divided by rows of old and stately trees, terminating in a large circular octagon, from which branch off eight other avenues, each at a short distance crossed by others, and forming a sort of labyrinth, said to be one of the finest drives and promenades in Europe, and on Sundays the rendezvous of nearly the entire population of Warsaw. It was a beautiful afternoon, and the throng of carriages, and horsemen, and thousands of pedestrians, and the sun, occasionally obscured and then breaking through the thick foliage, darkening and again lighting up the vista through the trees, gave a beauty to the landscape, and a variety and animation to the scene, that I had not yet found in Warsaw. Passing the Belvidere Palace, my companions described the manner in which the students had made their attack upon it, and pointed out the window by which Constantine escaped. Turning from one of the splendid avenues of the Ujazdow, we crossed a stone bridge, on which stands the equestrian statue of John Sobieski, his horse rearing over the body of a prostrate Turk; it was erected to him as the saviour of Christendom after he had driven the Turks from the walls of Vienna. Beyond this we entered the grounds and park of Lazienki, formerly the country residence of Stanislaus Augustus, situated in a most delightful spot on the banks of the Vistula.

The royal villa stands in the midst of an extensive park of stately old trees, and the walks lead to a succession of delightful and romantic spots, adorned with appropriate and tasteful buildings. Among them, on an island reached by crossing a rustic bridge, are a winter and a summer theatre, the latter constructed so as to resemble, in a great measure, an ancient amphitheatre in ruins; in it performances used formerly to take place in the open air. I am not given to dreaming, and there was enough in the scenes passing under my eyes to employ my thoughts; but, as I wandered through the beautiful walks, and crossed romantic bridges, composed of the trunks and bended branches of trees, I could not help recurring to the hand that had planned these beauties, the good King Stanislaus.

hurled Stanislaus from his throne; and as I stood under the portico of his palace, I could but remember that its royal builder had fled from it in disguise, become a prisoner to the Turks, and died an exile in a foreign land.

From here we rode to the chateau of Villanow, another and one of the most interesting of the residences of the kings of Poland, constructed by John Sobieski and perhaps the only royal structure in Europe which, like some of the great edifices of Egypt and Rome, was erected by prisoners taken in war, being constructed entirely by the hands of Turkish captives. It was the favourite residence of Sobieski, where he passed most of his time when not in arms, and where he closed his days. Until lately, the chamber and bed on which he died might still be seen. The grounds extend for a great distance along the banks of the Vistula, and many of the noble trees which now shade the walks were planted by Sobieski's own hands. The reign of Sobieski is the most splendid era in the history of Poland. The great statue I had just passed presented him as the conqueror of the Turks, the deliverer of Christendom, the redoubtable warrior, riding over the body of a prostrate Mussulman; and every stone in the palace is a memorial of his warlike triumphs; but if its inner chambers could tell the scenes of which they had been the witness, loud and far as the trumpet of glory has sounded his name, no man would envy John Sobieski. The last time he unsheathed his sword, in bitterness of heart he said, "It will be easier to get the better of the enemies I am in quest of than my own sons." He returned broken with vexation and shattered with wounds, more than sixty years old, and two thirds of his life spent in the tented field; his queen drove his friends from his side, destroyed that domestic peace which he valued above all things, and filled the palace with her plots and intrigues. He had promised to Zaluski an office which the queen wished to give to another. "My friend," said the dying monarch, "you know the rights of marriage, and you know if I can resist the prayers of the queen; it depends, then, on you that I live tranquil or that I be constantly miserable. She has already promised to another this vacant office, and if I do not consent to it I am obliged to fly my house. I know not where I shall go to die in peace. You pity me; you will not expose me to public ridicule." Old and infirm, with gray hairs and withered laurels, a prey to lingering disease, the deathbed of the dying warrior was disturbed by a noise worse than the din of battle; and before the breath had left him, an intriguing wife and unnatural children were wrangling over his body for the possession of his crown. A disgraceful struggle was continued a short time after his death. One by one his children died, and there is not now any living of the name of Sobieski.

The next day I visited the field of Vola, celebrated as the place of election of the Kings of Poland. It is about five miles from Warsaw, and was formerly surrounded by a ditch with three gates, one for great Poland, one for little Poland, and one for Lithuania. In the middle were two enclosures, one of an oblong shape, surrounded by a kind of rampart or ditch, in the centre of which was erected, at the time of election, a vast temporary building of wood, covered at the top and open at the sides, which was called the zopa, and occupied by the senate; and the other of a circular shape, called the kola, in which the nuncios assembled in the open air. The nobles, from a hundred and fifty thousand to two hundred thousand in number, encamped on the plain in separate bodies under the banners of their respective palatinates, with their principal officers in front on horseback. The primate, having declared the names of the candidates, kneeled down and chanted a hymn; and then, mounting on horseback, went round the plain and collected the votes, the nobles not voting individually, but each palatinate in a body. It was necessary that the election should be unanimous, and a single nobleman peremptorily stopped the election of Ladislaus VII. Being asked what objection he had to him, he answered, "None at all; but I will not suffer him to be king." After being by some means brought over, he gave the king as the reason for his opposition, "I had a mind to see whether our liberty was still in being or not. I am satisfied that it is, and your majesty shall not have a better subject than myself." If the palatinates agreed, the primate asked again, and yet a third time if all were satisfied; and, after a general approbation, three times proclaimed the king; and the grand marshal of the crown repeated the proclamation three times at the gates of the camp. It was the exercise of this high privilege of electing their own king which created and sustained the lofty bearing of the Polish nobles, inducing the proud boast which, in a moment of extremity, an intrepid band made to their king, "What hast thou to fear with twenty thousand lances? If the sky should fall, we would keep it up with their points." But, unhappily, although the exercise of this privilege was confined only to the nobles, the election of a king often exhibited a worse picture than all the evils of universal suffrage with us. The throne was open to the whole world; the nobles were split into contending factions; foreign gold found its way among them, and sometimes they deliberated under the bayonets of foreign troops. Warsaw and its environs were a scene of violence and confusion, and sometimes the field of Vola was stained with blood. Still no man can ride over that plain without recurring to the glorious hour when Sobieski, covered with laurels won in fighting the battles of his country, amid the roar of cannon and the loud acclamations of the senate, the nobles, and the army, was hailed the chosen king of a free people.

I had enough of travelling post, and was looking out for some quiet conveyance to Cracow. A Jew applied to me, and I went with him to look at his carriage, which I found at a sort of "Bull's-head" stopping-place, an enormous vehicle without either bottom or top, being a species of framework like our hay-wagons, filled with straw to prevent goods and passengers from spilling out. He showed me a couple of rough-looking fellows, who would be my compagnons de voyage, and who said that we could all three lie very comfortably in the bottom of the vehicle. Their appearance did not add to the recommendation of the wagon; nevertheless, if I had understood the language and been strong enough for the rough work, I should perhaps have taken that conveyance, as, besides the probable incidents of the journey, it would give me more insight into the character of the people than a year's residence in the capital. Returning to my hotel, I found that a Polish officer had left his address, with a request for me to call upon him. I went, and found a man of about forty, middle sized, pale and emaciated, wounded and an invalid, wearing the Polish revolutionary uniform. It was the only instance in which I had seen this dress. After the revolution it had been absolutely proscribed; but the country being completely subdued, and the government in this particular case not caring to exercise any unnecessary harshness, he was permitted to wear it unmolested. It was, however, almost in mockery that he still wore the garb of a soldier; for if Poland had again burst her chains, and the unsheathed sword were put in his hands, he could not have struck a blow to help her. Unfortunately, he could not speak French, or, rather, I may say fortunately, for in consequence of this I saw his lady, a pensive, melancholy, and deeply-interesting woman, dressed in black, in mourning for two gallant brothers who died in battle under the walls of Warsaw.

Their business with me was of a most commonplace nature. They had lately returned from a visit to some friends at Cracow, in a calÊche hired at the frontier; and hearing from the peasant who drove them that a stranger was looking for a conveyance to that place, out of good-will to him desired to recommend him to me. The lady had hardly finished a sort of apologizing commencement before I had resolved to assent to almost anything she proposed; and when she stated the whole case, it was so exactly what I wanted, that I expressed myself under great obligations for the favour done me. I suggested, however, my doubts as to the propriety of undertaking the journey alone, without any interpreter; but, after a few words with the major, she replied that she would give full directions to the peasant as to the route. As the carriage could not go beyond the frontier, her husband would give me a letter to the commissaire at Michoof, who spoke French, and also to the postmaster; and, finally, she would herself make out for me a vocabulary of the words likely to be most necessary, so as to enable me to ask for bread, milk, eggs, &c.; and with this, and the Polish for "how much," I would get along without any difficulty. While she was writing, another officer came in, old and infirm, and also dressed in the Polish uniform. She rose from the table, met him almost at the door, kissed him affectionately, led him to a seat, and barely mentioning him to me as "mon beau pÈre," resumed her work. While she was writing I watched attentively the whole three, and the expression of face with which the two officers regarded her was unspeakably interesting. They were probably unconscious of it, and perhaps it was only my fancy, but if the transient lighting of their sunken eyes meant anything, it meant that they who sat there in the garb and equipment of soldiers, who had stood in all the pride and vigour of manhood on bloody battle-fields, now looked to a feeble and lovely woman as their only staff and support in life. I would have told them how deeply I sympathized in the misfortunes of their suffering country, but their sadness seemed too deep and sacred. I knew that I could strike a responsive chord by telling them that I was an American, but I would not open their still bleeding wounds; at parting, however, I told them that I should remember in my own country and to their countrymen the kindness shown me here; and as soon as I mentioned that I was an American, the lady asked me the fate of her unhappy countrymen who had been landed as exiles on our shores, and I felt proud in telling them that they had found among our citizens that sympathy which brave men in misfortune deserve, and that our government had made a provision in land for the exiled compatriots of Kosciusko. She inquired particularly about the details of their occupation, and expressed the fear that their habits of life, most of them having been brought up as soldiers, unfitted them for usefulness among us. I did not then know how prophetic were her forebodings, and was saved the necessity of telling her, what I afterward read in a newspaper, that an unhappy portion of that band of exiles, discontented with their mode of life, in attempting to cross the Rocky Mountains were cut to pieces by a party of Indians. Under the pressure of their immediate misfortunes they had not heard the fate of the exiles, and a ray of satisfaction played for a moment over their melancholy features in hearing that they had met with friends in America; and they told me to say to the Poles wherever I found them, that they need never again turn their eyes toward home. She added that the time had been when she and her friends would have extended the hand of welcome to a stranger in Poland; that, when a child, she had heard her father and brothers talk of liberty and the pressure of a foreign yoke, but, living in affluence, surrounded by friends and connexions, she could not sympathize with them, and thought it a feeling existing only in men, which women could not know; but actual occurrences had opened her eyes; her family had been crushed to the earth, her friends imprisoned, killed, or driven into exile, and yet, she added, turning to her husband and father, she ought not to mourn, for those dearest to her on earth were spared. But I could read in her face, as she bent her eyes upon their pallid features, that she felt they were spared only for a season.

Reluctantly I bade them farewell. A servant waited to go with me and show me the calÊche, but I told him it was not worth while. I was in no humour for examining the spokes of carriage-wheels; and, if I had been obliged to ride on the tongue, I believe I should have taken it. I went to my hotel, and told my friend of my interview with the major and his lady. He knew them by reputation, and confirmed and strengthened all the interest I took in them, adding that both father and son had been among the first to take up arms during the revolution, and at its unhappy termination were so beloved by the people of Warsaw that, in their wounded and crippled state, the Russian government had not proceeded to extremities with them.

I spent my last evening in Warsaw with my Pole and several of his friends at a herbata, that is, a sort of confectioner's shop, like a cafÉ in the south of Europe, where, as in Russia, tea is the popular drink. The next morning, as usual, my passport was not ready. My valet had been for it several times, and could not get it. I had been myself to the police-office, and waited until dark, when I was directed to call the next morning. I went at a little after eight, but I will not obtrude upon the reader the details of my vexation, nor the amiable feelings that passed my mind in waiting till twelve o'clock in a large anteroom. In my after wanderings I sometimes sat down upon a stump or on the sands of the desert, and meditated upon my folly in undergoing all manner of hardships when I might be sitting quietly at home; but when I thought of passports in Russia and Poland, I shook myself with the freedom of a son of the desert, and with the thought that I could turn my dromedary's head which way I pleased, other difficulties seemed light. Ancient philosophers extolled uniformity as a great virtue in a young man's character; and, if so, I was entitled to the highest praise, for in the matter of arranging my passport I was always in a passion. I do not know a single exception to the contrary. And if there was one thing more vexatious than another, it was in the case at Warsaw, where, after having been bandied from office to office, I received my passport, still requiring the signature of the governor, and walked up to the palace, nursing my indignation, and expecting an accumulation, I was ushered in by guards and soldiers, and at once disarmed of all animosity by the politeness and civility of the principal officers of government. I was almost sorry to be obliged to withhold my intended malediction. I hurried back to my hotel. My friend, with three or four of his Warsaw acquaintances, was waiting to see the last of me; my calÊche was at the door, and I was already late for a start. I took my seat and bade them farewell. I promised to write to him on my arrival in Paris, and to continue a correspondence on my return home. Most unfortunately, I lost his address. He lived in some town in Poland, near the frontiers of Prussia, and probably at this moment thinks of me unkindly for my apparent neglect. Possibly we may meet again, though probably never; but if we do, though it do not happen till our heads are gray, we will have a rich fund of satisfaction in the recollections of our long journey to Warsaw.

I was again setting out alone. My guide or conducteur was a Polish peasant. Without having seen him, I had calculated upon making ordinary human intelligence, to some extent, a medium of communication; but I found that I had been too soaring in my ideas of the divinity of human nature. When I returned to the hotel I found him lying on the sidewalk asleep; a servant kicked him up and pointed me out as his master for the journey. He ran up and kissed my hand, and, before I was aware of his intention, stooped down and repeated the same salutation on my boot. An American, perhaps, more than any other, scorns the idea of man's debasing himself to his fellow-man; and so powerful was this feeling in me, that before I went abroad I almost despised a white man whom I saw engaged in a menial office. I had outlived this feeling; but when I saw a tall, strong, athletic white man kneel down and kiss my foot, I could almost have spurned him from me. His whole dress was a long shirt coming down to his feet, supported by a broad leathern belt eight inches wide, which he used as a pocket, and a low, broad-brimmed hat, turned up all round, particularly at the sides, and not unlike the headgear of the Lebanon Shakers.

Before putting myself out of the reach of aid, I held a conversation with him through an interpreter. The lady of the major had made out a chart for me, specifying each day's journey, which he promised to observe, and added that he would be my slave if I would give him plenty to drink. With such a companion, then, I may say most emphatically that I was again setting out alone; but my calÊche was even better than the Polish officer represented it, abundantly provided with pockets for provisions, books, &c., and altogether so much more comfortable than anything I was used to, that I threw myself back in it with a feeling of great satisfaction. I rolled for the last time through the streets of Warsaw; looked out upon the busy throng; and though, in the perfectly indifferent air with which they turned to me, I felt how small a space I occupied in the world, I lighted my pipe and smoked in their faces, and, with a perfect feeling of independence toward all the world, at one o'clock I arrived at the barrier.

Here I found, to my great vexation, that I was an object of special consideration to the Emperor of Russia. A soldier came out for my passport, with which he went inside the guardhouse, and in a few minutes returned with the paper in his hands to ask me some question. I could not answer him. He talked at me a little while, and again went within doors. After sitting for a few moments, vexed at the detention, but congratulating myself that if there was any irregularity it had been discovered before I had advanced far on my journey, I dismounted and went inside, where, after detaining me long enough to make me feel very uncomfortable, they endorsed the visÉ and let me go. I again lighted my pipe, and in the mildness and beauty of the day, the comfort of my calÊche, and the docility and accommodating spirit of my peasant, forgot my past, and even the chance of future difficulties. There was nothing particularly attractive in the road; the country was generally fertile, though tame and uninteresting. Late in the afternoon we stopped at a little town, of which I cannot make out the name. Like all the other towns on this side of Warsaw, in the centre was a square, with a range of wooden houses built all around fronting on the square, and the inhabitants were principally Jews. My peasant took off his horses and fed them in the square, and I went into a little kukernia, much cleaner and better than the town promised, where I had a cup of coffee and a roll of bread, and then strolled around the town, which, at this moment, presented a singular spectacle. The women and children were driving into the square herds of cows from the pasture-grounds in the unenclosed plains around; and, when all were brought in, each proprietor picked out his own cow and drove her home, and in a few moments opposite almost every house stood the family cow, with a woman or child milking her. After this the cows strolled back into the square to sleep till morning.

A little before dark we started, and, after a fine moonlight ride, at about ten o'clock drove into a sort of caravanserai, being simply a large shed or covered place for wagons and horses, with a room partitioned off in one corner for eating and sleeping. There were, perhaps, fifteen or twenty wagons under the shed, and their wagoners were all assembled in this room, some standing up and eating off a board stretched along the wall, some drinking, some smoking, and some already asleep on the floor. In one corner was a party of Jews, with the contents of a purse emptied before them, which they were dividing into separate parcels. The place was kept by a Jew, who, with his wife, or some woman belonging to the establishment, old and weatherbeaten, was running about serving and apparently quarrelling with all the wagoners. She seemed particularly disposed to quarrel with me, I believe because I could not talk to her, this being, in her eyes, an unpardonable sin. I could understand, however, that she wanted to prepare me a supper; but my appetite was not tempted by what I saw around me, and I lighted my pipe and smoked. I believe she afterward saw something in me which made her like me better; for while the wagoners were strewing themselves about the floor for sleep, she went out, and returning with a tolerably clean sheaf of straw under each arm, called me to her, and shaking them out in the middle of the floor, pointed me to my bed. My pipe was ended, and putting my carpet-bag under my head, I lay down upon the straw; and the old woman climbed up to a sort of platform in one corner, where, a moment after, I saw her sitting up with her arms above her head, with the utmost nonchalance changing her innermost garment.

I was almost asleep, when I noticed a strapping big man, muffled up to the eyes, standing at my feet and looking in my face. I raised my head, and he walked round, keeping his eyes fixed upon me, and went away. Shortly after he returned, and again walking round, stopped and addressed me, "Spreechen sie Deutsch?" I answered by asking him if he could speak French; and not being able, he went away. He returned again, and again walked round as before, looking steadily in my face. I rose on my elbow, and followed him with my eyes till I had turned completely round with him, when he stopped as if satisfied with his observations, and in his broadest vernacular opened bluntly, "Hadn't we better speak English?" I need not say that I entirely agreed with him. I sprang up, and catching his hand, asked him what possessed him to begin upon me in Dutch; he replied by asking why I had answered in French, adding that his stout English figure ought to have made me know better; and after mutual good-natured recriminations, we kicked my straw bed about the floor, and agreed to make a night of it. He was the proprietor of a large iron manufactory, distant about three days' journey, and was then on his way to Warsaw. He went out to his carriage, and one of his servants produced a stock of provisions like the larder of a well-furnished hotel; and as I had gone to bed supperless, he seemed a good, stout, broad-shouldered guardian angel sent to comfort me. We sat on the back seat of the carriage, making a table of the front; and when we had finished, and the fragments were cleared away, we stretched our legs on the table, lighted our pipes, and talked till we fell asleep on each other's shoulder. Notwithstanding our intimacy so far, we should not have known each other by daylight, and at break of day we went outside to examine each other. It was, however, perhaps hardly worth while to retain a recollection of features; for, unless by some such accident as that which brought us together, we never shall meet again. We wrote our names in each other's pocketbook as a memorial of our meeting, and at the same moment started on our opposite roads.