trains or express boats.

Arrived here to find it raining in torrents. Everybody said it hadn't
rained for two months before. Glad to hear this, but didn't keep us dry.
Rain only just commenced; all the shops and doorways thronged with
people, in full summer costume; not an umbrella among twenty; forgotten
what rain was like; now forcibly reminded of its peculiarities. With
intermission of one full day, and occasional hours, been raining ever
since. If it must rain, Homburg as good a place to be in as most public
haunts; lies within narrow compass; soil rapidly absorbent; if it rains
in torrents at ten o'clock, and sun afterwards comes out, roadways dry
by noon. Then there is the Kurhaus always open; palatial building, not
to be outdone in size and beauty by Casino at Monte Carlo; but sound of
roulette tablets silent. The "game is made" for ever; _on ne va plus_.
Sometimes, on wet afternoons, there is found in the lofty, and otherwise
cool room, one or two elderly gentlemen, who play doleful game of
_ecarte_, poor shivering ghosts of departed gamesters. Gambling played
out, but there remain the magnificent halls. The Ball-room still used,
the music on the Terrace still listened to, the banqueting-hall still
crowded, and the gardens still glowing with roses, and shaded by
lindens. Only disappointed gamesters who call the place Bad Homburgs;
even with the rain, it is not so bad after all.

By the way, talking of nature of soil, a dog I met here drawing
milk-cart, told me curious story. Homburg resorted to by invalids of
both sexes and all conditions; take the waters inside and out; but my
friend told me of another cure not less remarkable. Soil of Homburg
composed of Fuller's-earth, warranted to absorb superfluous grease from
cloth substances. Obese Englishman hearing this on arrival, asked why
this quality should be confined to application to cloth? if
Fuller's-earth took superfluous fat from piece of cloth, why not from
body of stout Englishman? Decided to solve question; dug hole in
back-garden; lay in it for twenty minutes with loose soil shovelled over
him up to chin; repeated bath on alternate days for three weeks; end of
first week hole too roomy; end of second week had to be further filled
in; end of third week his clothes no use to him; had to lie in bed for
three days whilst re-fitted. Went home quite a slim person.

Prince of WALES still here when I arrived. Been the lifes and souls of
the party for nearly t