Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad, Vol. 2 (of 3): With Tales and Miscellanies Now First CollectedJameson, Mrs. (Anna)
History
Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad, Vol. 2 (of 3): With Tales and Miscellanies Now First Collected
Jameson, Mrs. (Anna)
Germany -- Description and travel
The German postilions form a very numerous and distinct class; they wear
a half-military costume--a laced or embroidered jacket, across which
is invariably slung the bugle-horn, with its parti-coloured cord and
tassels: huge jack-boots, and a smart glazed hat, not unfrequently
surmounted with a feather (as in Hesse Cassel and Saxe Weimer) complete
their appearance. They are in the direct service and pay of the
government; they must have an excellent character for fidelity and good
conduct before they are engaged, and the slightest failing in duty
or punctuality, subjects them to severe punishment; thus they enjoy
some degree of respectability as a body, and Marschner thought it not
unworthy of his talents to compose a fine piece of music, which he
called The Postilion's "Morgen-lied," or morning song. I found them
generally a good-humoured, honest set of men; obliging, but not servile
or cringing; they are not allowed to smoke without the express leave
of the traveller, nor to stop or delay on the road on any pretence
whatever. In short, though the burley German postilions do not present
the neat compact turn-out of an English post-boy, nor the horses any
thing like the speed of "Newman's greys," or the Brighton Age, and
though the traveller must now and then submit to arbitrary laws and
individual inconvenience; still the travelling regulations all over
Germany, more especially in Prussia, are so precise, so admirable,
and so strictly enforced, that no where could an unprotected female
journey with more complete comfort and security. This I have proved by
experience, after having tried every different mode of conveyance in
Prussia, Bavaria, Baden, Saxony, and Hesse. My road expenses, for myself
and an attendant, seldom exceeded a Napoleon a-day.
III.
MEMORANDA AT DRESDEN.[25]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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