Dogs are muzzled in Hamburg all the week, but on Sundays they are left at liberty to bite whom they please. They are taxed, and appear to be esteemed; but the cats are sad and unappreciated. Recognizing in me a friend, they cast melancholy glances at me, saying in their feline language, to which long use has given me the key: "These Philistines, busy with their money-getting, despise us; and yet our eyes are as yellow as their louis d'or. Stupid men that they are, they believe us good for nothing but to catch rats; we, the wise, the meditative, the independent, who have slept upon the prophet's sleeve, and lulled his ear with the whir of our mysterious wheel! Pass your hand over our backs full of electric sparkles--we allow you this liberty, and say to Charles Baudelaire that he must write a fine sonnet, deploring our woes." As the Lübeck boat was not to leave until the morrow, I went to Wilkin's to get my supper. This famous establishment occupies a low-ceiled basement, which is divided into cabinets ornamented with more show than taste. Oysters, turtle-soup, a truffled filet, and a bottle of Veuve Cliquot iced, composed my simple bill of fare. The place was filled, after the Hamburg fashion, with edibles of all sorts; things early and things out of season, dainties not yet in existence or having long ceased to exist, for the common crowd. In the kitchen they showed us, in great tanks, huge sea-turtles which lifted their scaly heads above the water, resembling snakes caught between two platters. Their little horny eyes looked with uneasiness at the light which was held near them, and their flippers, like oars of some disabled galley, vaguely moved up and down, as seeking some impossible escape. I trust that the personnel of the exhibition changes occasionally. In the morning I went for my breakfast to an English restaurant, a sort of pavilion of glass, whence I had a magnificent panoramic view. The river spread out majestically through a forest of vessels with tall masts, of every build and tonnage. Steam-tugs were beating the water, towing sailing-vessels out to sea; others, moving about freely, made their way hither and thither, with that precision which makes a steam-boat seem like a conscious being, endowed by a will of its own, and served by sentient organs. From the elevation the Elbe is seen, spreading broadly like all great rivers as they near the sea. Its waters, sure of arriving at last, are in no haste; placid as a lake, they flow with an almost invisible motion. The low opposite shore was covered with verdure, and dotted with red houses half-effaced by the smoke from the chimneys. A golden bar of sunshine shot across the plain; it was grand, luminous, superb.