ide a sufficient quantity of
earth and preserve it fresh in a pot of clay; and when you have used a
piece so long that it begins to grow dry, put it again into the pot, and
take out some fresh earth.[404]

Berchtold's suggestions for comfort are even more elaborate. One should
carry everywhere:

"A bottle of vinegar, de quatre voleurs.
Ditto best French Brandy.
Ditto spirit of Salmiac, against fits.
Ditto Hoffman's Drops."

At inns it is advisable to air the room by throwing a little strong
vinegar upon a red hot shovel, and to bring your bed-clothes with you.
As a guard against robbers it is advisable to have your servant sleep in
the same room with you, keep a wax candle burning all night, and look
into the chests and behind the bed before retiring. Pocket door-bolts in
the form of a cross are easily obtainable; if not, put the tables and
chair against the door.

There is something fussy about such a traveller, though robbers
undoubtedly were to be feared, even in the eighteenth century,[405] and
though inns were undoubtedly dirty. A repugnance to dirt and discomfort
is justifiable enough, but there is something especially peevish in the
tone of many Georgian travellers. Sam Sharp's _Letters from Italy_
breathe only sorrow, disillusion and indignation. Italian beds and
vermin, Italian post-boys and their sorry nags are too frequently the
theme of his discourse. He even assures us that the young gentlemen whom
he had always pictured as highly delighted by the Grand Tour are in
reality very homesick for England. They are weary of the interminable
drives and interminable conversazioni of Italy and long for the
fox-hunting of Great Britain.[406] Fielding's account of his voyage to
Lisbon contains too much about his wife's toothache and his own
dropsy.[407] Smollett, like Fielding, was a sick man at the time of his
travels, and we can excuse his rage at the unswept floors, old rotten
tables, crazy chairs and beds so disgusting that he generally wrapped
himself in a great-coat and lay upon four chairs with a leathern
portmanteau for a pillow; but we cannot admire a man who is embittered
by the fact that he cannot get milk to put in his tea, and is
continually thrusting his head out of the window to curse at the
post-boys, or pulling out his post-book to read to an inn-yard with
savage vociferation the article which orders that the traveller who
comes first shall be first served.[408]

This is a degen