ssengers in the other
vessels. To crown all, another family with children (of whom more
hereafter) had taken their passage. The steward told us, that never
expecting so many people on board going up to Strasburg, he was totally
unprepared; and so it eventually appeared.

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 evide