here, I seemed
to go into the Middle Ages. We landed from the Rhine steamer in the
night, finding the streets deserted even by the police, and dimly
lighted by oil lamps hung across them at wide intervals, and I
wandered a long time at random with my valise in hand, searching for a
hotel, and not meeting a living person to ask guidance of. I blundered
at length on a little inn in whose drinking-room still burned a light,
and in which I found a night's lodging. Such a primitive state of
civilization was to me, fresh from Paris and Brussels, romantic. At
Berlin I made the acquaintance of Varnhagen von Ense, through a letter
of introduction from Frau Schmidt, my republican refugee friend of
London. He treated me with great consideration, and promised me a
winter of brilliant social life if I would stay at Berlin. The chief
inducement offered was the acquaintance of Humboldt, then absent from
the city. Of Varnhagen von Ense I retain the most delightful memory.
I found him courteous, genial, and hospitable, with a large-minded
outlook on politics and a great interest in America. I saw also the
new museum, with Kaulbach at work on his frescoes, and, going by
Dresden, reached Prague, where I began my political reports to
Kossuth.

Arriving at Vienna, I was beforehand with the famous police, which I
found not to merit its reputation for sharpness, and went at once,
after establishing myself at the hotel, and before my name was
reported to the authorities and a spy put on me, to the address of a
republican, known to Kossuth, and to whom I was directed to apply for
the identification of some Hungarian resident in the city on whom
Kossuth could depend to reestablish communication with the Viennese
malcontents, broken by a misadventure of his former agent. This
adventure Kossuth recounted to me, I suppose to keep up my courage in
the perilous business he was sending me on. One of his agents had
been sent on a round tour with instructions for certain officers or
soldiers, and, having been detected in communication with the barracks
and arrested, a memorandum book was found on him in which, amongst
many addresses of persons to whom he had no mission, those to which
he was directed were interspersed. All were arrested, among them the
Vienna agent, who, ignorant of the reason of his arrest, suspecting
treachery, and fearing the disclosures that might be extorted from him
by torture, rolled himself in his bedclothes and set fire to the