Nevertheless,--as the Spaniards say--_Hay gustos que merecen palos_;[12] and many will perchance think that _mine_ is in that predicament, a settled order of things being more to their fancy:--_par exemple_, the five mile an hour clattering _en poste_ over a French _pavé_--all conversation drowned in the horrible noise made by the heavy horses' heavy tramp, or the yet more abominable clacking of their monkey jacketed driver's whips.--Then the certain comforts of a _grand Hotel meublé_!--the spacious whitewashed room, adorned with prints of Arcola, Jena, and Friedland! (which I have always thought would look much better if worked in the pattern of a carpet): the classically canopied bed!--that certainly would not be less comfortable, if a foot or two longer.--Others again may be found who would give up the charm of uncertainty, for the fixed pleasure of sitting behind the pipes and "_sacraments_" of German postboys, listening to the discordant notes of their bugles, and looking forward to the sudorific enjoyments (stoves and duvets) of the _Gasthof_, and the dyspeptic delights (grease and _sauerkraut_) of its _Speisesaal_!--Some even--but these I trust are few--may like to listen to the melodiously rounded oaths of an Italian _vetturino_, addressed to his attenuated horses in all the purity of the _Lingua Toscana_; by dint of which, and an unceasing accompaniment of merciless _sferzatone_, he provokes the wretched animals into a jog-trot, that, with _rinfresco_ and _rinforzo_, kills the whole day and them by inches, to get over a distance of forty or fifty miles.