These postillions acknowledge no obligation to travellers, who usually give double what can be demanded, and seem to consider them only as so many bales of goods, which they are under a contract with the post-master to deliver at a certain place and within a certain time. Knowing, that their slowness, if there is no addition to their _trinkgeld_, is of itself sufficient to compel some gratuity, they do not depart from the German luxury of incivility, and frequently return no answer, when they are questioned, as to distance, or desired to call the servant of an inn, or to quit the worst part of a road. When you tell them, that they shall have a good _drinkhealth_ for speed, they reply, "Yaw, yaw;" and, after that, think it unnecessary to reply to any enquiry till they ask you for the money at the end of a stage. They are all provided with tobacco boxes and combustible bark, on which they stop to strike with a flint and steel, immediately after leaving their town; in the hottest day and on the most dusty road, they will begin to smoke, though every whiff flies into the faces of the passengers behind; and it must be some very positive interference, that prevents them from continuing it. As long as there are horses not engaged at any post-house, the people are bound to supply travellers, within half an hour after their arrival; but all the German Princes and many of their Ministers are permitted to engage the whole stock on the road they intend to pass; and it frequently happens, that individuals may be detained a day, or even two, by such an order, if there should be no voiturier to furnish them with others. At Cologne and Bonn, when we were first there, all the horses were ordered for the Emperor, who passed through, however, with only one carriage, accompanied by an Aide-de-camp and followed by two servants, on horseback. It happens also frequently, that a sudden throng of private travellers has employed the whole stock of the post-masters; and the present emigrations from Liege and Juliers, we were assured, had filled the roads so much, that we might be frequently detained in small towns, and should find even the best overwhelmed with crowds of fugitives. During a stay of five days at Mentz, we often wandered amidst the ruins of the late siege, especially on the site of the Favorita, from whence the majestic Rhine is seen rolling from one chain of mountains to another. Near this spot, and not less fortunately situated, stood a Carthusian convent, known in English history for having been the head-quarters of George the Second, in the year 1743, soon after the battle of Dettingen. The apartments, used by this monarch, were preserved in the state, in which he left them, till a short time before the late siege, when the whole building was demolished, so that scarcely a trace of it now remains.