We started, and soon found out that the power of the engines was quite disproportionate to the object in view. The Rhine now assumed a more desolate character. For miles and miles not a village nor even a solitary town to be seen; the Hartz mountains forming a blue opaque mass in the distance; the stream rapidly passing through narrow and deep channels, leaving one half of the bed of the river dry. At times we passed very dangerous straits, where the waters boiled and eddied over reefs of rocks, and were often obliged to force our way by keeping within a foot of steep and muddy banks, where trees torn up, and hanging by the roots, proved how violent must be the current when the river is increased by the melting of the mountain snow. Our progress was, as it may be imagined, most tedious; at no time did we advance above a mile and a half per hour; sometimes we did not gain a hundred yards in the same time, and occasionally we were swept back by the current, and had to lose still more ground, while they increased the power of the engine at the risk of explosion. The consequence was, that when the day closed, the conducteur gave his opinion, that instead of being at Strasburg by eleven or twelve o'clock the next day, we should not arrive till four or five o'clock: we anchored within a yard of the bank, and prepared to pass the night how we could. Our party consisted of seven, with two nurses. The other party consisted of four grown-up females, one male, four boys, an East African negro, and a _cowskin_; the latter was a very important personage, and made a great noise during the passage. The gentleman was apparently one of those who denominate themselves eclectic: he paid very little attention to what was going on; a peaceable sort of man, whose very physiognomy said "any thing for a quiet life:" one of the ladies was his wife, and two others, virgins of some standing, apparently his sisters; the other lady, a bilious-looking sort of personage, and happy in being the mother of four very fine boys, as great pickles as ever lived; these she kept in order with the assistance of the negro and the cowskin, the use of the latter occasioning such evident marks of astonishment and horror to _our_ little ones, as not to be at all satisfactory to the lady in question, who appeared not averse, had she dared, to have given them a taste of it. The youngest and the youngest but one of the boys were the two sufferers; the youngest had a regular dozen administered every half hour. The two eldest were more particularly under the care of the negro, who used his fists, I presume because they wore corduroys, and, as Hood says, did not care for "cut behind." We had not been in the vessel two minutes before there was a _breeze_. I heard the negro expostulating as follows:--"You very foolish boy, what you mean? who ever heard of putting new cloth cap into water to catch fish?" This was the first offence. I must say that the coercion used did not appear to