It was far from pleasant to have to turn out once more into the deluge, but we were encouraged to take our fate philosophically by considering the still worse fate of others. In the tap-room of the “Post” the guests slept on chairs enveloped in a thick steam redolent of tobacco, beer, and smoking lamps and the still more pungent odour of damp clothes and leather. In a hollow near the station we saw the watchfire of a large camp half quenched by the rain--Saxon countrymen of ours, if we were rightly informed. While wading our way back to the train we caught the gleam of the helmets and arms of a Prussian battalion which stood in the pouring rain opposite the railway hotel. Thoroughly drenched and not a little tired, we at length found shelter in a waggon, where Deichmann cleared a corner of the floor on which we too could lie, and found a few handfuls of straw to serve us as a pillow. My other two companions were not so fortunate. They had to manage as best they could on the top of boxes and packages with the postmen and transport soldiers. It was evident that the poor Professor, who had grown very quiet, was considerably affected by these hardships. About 1 o’clock the train set itself slowly in motion. By daybreak, after several stoppages, we reached the outskirts of a small town with a beautiful old church. A mill lay in the valley through which we could also see the windings of the road that led to Saarbrücken. We were told that this town was only two or three miles off, so that we were near our journey’s end. Our locomotive, however, seemed to be quite out of breath, and as the headquarters might at any moment leave Saarbrücken and cross the frontier, where we could get no railway transport and in all probability no other means of conveyance, our impatience and anxiety increased, and our tempers were not improved by a clouded sky and drizzling rain. Having waited in vain nearly two hours for the train to start, Deichmann again came to our rescue. After a short disappearance he returned with a miller who had arranged to carry us to the town in his own trap. The prudent fellow, however, made Deichmann promise that the soldiers should not take his horses from him. During the drive the miller told us that the Prussians were understood to have already pushed on their outposts as far as the neighbourhood of Metz. Between 9 and 10 o’clock we reached Sanct Johann, a suburb of Saarbrücken, where we noticed very few signs of the French cannonade a few days ago, although it otherwise presented a lively and varied picture of war times. A huddled and confused mass of canteen carts, baggage waggons, soldiers on horse and foot, and ambulance attendants with their red crosses, &c., filled the streets. Some Hessian dragoon and artillery regiments marched through, the cavalrymen singing, “_Morgenroth leuchtest mir zum fruehen Tod!_” (Dawn, thou lightest me to an early grave).