Page:Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843 - Volume 1.djvu/35

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AND ITALY
11



LETTER II.

Journey to Metz.—A Day spent at Metz.—Proceed to Treves.—Enter Prussia.—Treves.—Voyage down the Moselle.—Slow Steam-boat up the Rhine to Mayence.—Railroad to Frankfort.
Thursday 25th June.

We left Paris on the 25th of June, at six in the evening, and were thirty-seven hours reaching Metz, a distance of about two hundred miles, stopping only for half an hour at a time, and that only twice during the one day we were on the road. I suffered excessive fatigue during the two nights of this journey, partly on account of a cough I caught at Paris; but my health was not in the slightest degree hurt. The weather was very fine; the country we passed through was beautiful, abundant in corn and vines, then in midsummer luxuriance. There was a portion of those dull vast plains, so usual in France; but for the most part the country was varied into hill and dale, arable and forest land. The season setting in so genially in early spring, joined to the refreshing rains which have since succeeded, have caused rich promise of abundance to