A quarter of an hour later, while I was having tea, the waiter ran to me, saying, “Your black friend has taken off most of his clothes on the river bank: will you please speak to him?” Going outside, I saw the Indian kneeling on a prayer-carpet on the sand, divested of all his clothing except a loin-cloth. I said, “What are you doing? Put your clothes on; you must not kneel here naked.” He looked reproachfully at me, and said, “Kneel down too; it is the hour of evening prayer;” and then it dawned on me that he thought I was a Mussulman. After dinner, I paid my bill and the missionary’s, and walked away at daybreak, fearing I might be saddled with his company for an indefinite period. Two days later, I went from Dresden to see the battlefield of Bautzen, and having noticed there was apparently a station 8 or 9 miles from the town close to the scene of action, I asked for a ticket to the place, Forstchen. The booking clerk said, repeating the name two or three times, “Do you really want to go there?” And on my replying in the affirmative, he went out on to the platform, and said to the guard, “This gentleman wants to go to Forstchen;” and the guard looked me over as if I were demented. Before the train started, he repeated the question, “You really want to go to Forstchen?” And at the next station before arriving at my destination, he came to the carriage door and said, “Give me your ticket; there is no one there to take it.” The station consisted of a long platform, and when the train passed on I felt as if I were on a desert island. Walking southward towards the battlefield, I came on a group of children, who screaming fled. One of them was lame, and him I caught, and with chocolates and coppers soon made him sufficiently at home to talk; and the other children, who had stopped to see what became of their companion, now came back. I sent one of them to call his father, who was at work; and the man, about five-and-forty years of age, proved to be an excellent guide. He had lived with his father, who was present at the battle as a spectator, and had practically worked on the battlefield all his life, and told me the name of every natural feature. From Dresden I went to Munich, Prague, and thence into Switzerland to see my friend Delissert. I joined his party, and have never had so good accommodation at such moderate terms. One of the elder boys generally walked ahead, and made a bargain. In order to ascend the Righi, we started from an unfrequented village--indeed, we were never on beaten tracks. Every room I slept in was scrupulously clean, and the cheapness may be understood from my bill at one place, which for a supper, with two meat courses and second course, half a bottle of wine, bed, with a roll and coffee next morning, was five francs. I acquired some colloquial proficiency in German, and then returned to Camberley.