The landlord of the inn, after congratulating me on my safe arrival, implored me not to attempt to pass the river Weser at Stolzenau, which is the straight road to Hanover, but rather to go round ten miles by Minden, where there is a bridge across it. He showed me a letter he had just received from there, which said that the Weser was swollen to a prodigious size; that twenty-two dead bodies had been taken up at the bridge, floating on the water; that the danger of passing in a boat was extreme, and the inundation beyond any ever remembered. This induced me, though reluctantly, to take his advice as the safest, or at least the most certain in every point of view. About one o'clock in the afternoon I left Osnabrück, and arrived at Boomele, which is fifteen miles distant, at six. The road was, if possible, yet worse than all I had hitherto seen or passed, but of a different kind, in some measure. There were no dangerous waters or rivers; but such numbers of stones, and of so prodigious a size, that it appeared astonishing in the highest degree that the carriage was not totally demolished by them. I started at eight for Diepenau, which is twenty English miles, but did not arrive there till half-past five the next morning. I had here occasion for all my courage to support me. The postmaster obliged me to take six horses, and they were indeed most necessary. The country was all covered with water like a lake; and I passed through a horse-pond, where I expected every instant to be overset, and in which the horses were almost up to their shoulders. At length we came to two vast hollows, not less than four-and-twenty feet deep, and in which a great quantity of water had collected. Here I got out, as did my servant. The postilions carried us on their shoulders through it, the carriage followed, but I never expected to see it come out, at least, without being broken to pieces. It did get through, notwithstanding, to my astonishment; yet, at many other places I dreaded every instant to be overturned at the hazard of my life. Still, I proceeded, encouraged by the moon, which shone very brightly, and was indeed my protectress amid so many and so repeated dangers. Yet the continued anxiety of mind which prevented me from closing my eyes, and the violent exercise of the body in such horrid roads--if roads they could with propriety be called--at length wearied and fatigued me beyond belief. I wished to be at the end of my journey. I wished I had never undertaken it; I almost lost that animating principle, that enthusiasm and hope, which had borne me up and made me with joy devote myself to every untoward accident. In a word, I felt that I could brave death, but not mental and corporeal agitation unusually continued. But what could I do? I had passed the Rubicon.