All of which I duly answered in writing, except the last interrogatory but one, namely, “where are you going?” under which I peevishly wrote, “to sleep,” consolidated into one word, in large close letters. To an Englishman unaccustomed to such examinations, which after all are little more than formal, although every innkeeper by law is obliged to make such report of every traveller on his arrival, they are very liable to excite an inverted blessing upon the heads of those who trouble him in this manner. Wesel is an abominable dunghill, very strongly fortified. In the course of my perambulations through the town, the objects which I met with were infinitely more offensive to the sense of smelling than gratifying to that of seeing, and doubly disgusting from the contrast of exquisite cleanliness which the country I had just quitted, exhibited. This part of Westphalia is very flat, barren, sandy, and dreary, presenting little more than thin patches of buckwheat. The roads are very heavy, and with an exception to an oratory in a little grove, and three wooden effigies as large as life, representing the crucifixion, not one enlivening or interesting object presented itself. I mention the following travelling anecdote by way of caution to my reader, should he select this route. At Dinslaken, one of the post towns between Wesel and Dusseldorf, the post-master told me that two horses would not be sufficient in such roads for the carriage, and declared his determination, that unless I took three, I should have none. If I had submitted to this imposition here, I must have done so throughout; I was therefore obliged to compound with this extortioner in office, by paying half of a third horse, which sum went into his pocket, and pursued my route with a couple, who conducted me in very good style to the next post town. In every part of Germany the postmasters are appointed by, and are under the control of the reigning prince of Turn and Saxis, the hereditary director and post-master general of the roads in that part of Europe. My driver stopped to give his horses some wretched hard bread, used by the peasantry in Westphalia, composed of straw and oats, called _bonpournikel_ from the following circumstance. Many years since a Frenchman, travelling in this country, called for bread for himself, and upon this sort being presented, he exclaimed, _C’est bon pour Nikel_ (the name of his horse); upon which the old woman who had brought it in ran about the village in a great pet relating the story.