to me as I entered
Clausthal. In this pretty little mountain town, which the traveler does
not behold until he stands directly before it, I arrived just as the
clock was striking twelve and the children came tumbling merrily out of
school. The little rogues, nearly all red-cheeked, blue-eyed,
flaxen-haired, sprang and shouted and awoke in me melancholy and
cheerful memories--how I once myself, as a little boy, sat all the
forenoon long in a gloomy Catholic cloister school in Duesseldorf,
without so much as daring to stand up, enduring meanwhile a terrible
amount of Latin, whipping, and geography, and how I too hurrahed and
rejoiced, beyond all measure when the old Franciscan clock at last
struck twelve. The children saw by my knapsack that I was a stranger,
and greeted me in the most hospitable manner. One of the boys told me
that they had just had a lesson in religion, and showed me the Royal
Hanoverian Catechism, from which they were questioned on Christianity.
This little book was very badly printed, so that I greatly feared that
the doctrines of faith made thereby but an unpleasant blotting-paper
sort of impression upon the children's minds. I was also shocked at
observing that the multiplication table--which surely seriously
contradicts the Holy Trinity--was printed on the last page of the
catechism, as it at once occurred to me that by this means the minds of
the children might, even in their earliest years, be led to the most
sinful skepticism. We Prussians are more intelligent, and, in our zeal
for converting those heathen who are familiar with arithmetic, take good
care not to print the multiplication table in the back of the catechism.

I dined at The Crown, at Clausthal. My repast consisted of spring-green
parsley-soup, violet-blue cabbage, a pile of roast veal, which resembled
Chimborazo in miniature, and a sort of smoked herring, called
"Bueckings," from the inventor, William Buecking, who died in 1447, and
who, on account of the invention, was so greatly honored by Charles V.
that the great monarch in 1556 made a journey from Middleburg to
Bievlied in Zealand for the express purpose of visiting the grave of the
great man. How exquisitely such dishes taste when we are familiar with
their historical associations!

* * * * *

In the silver refinery, as has so frequently happened in life, I could
get no glimpse of the precious metal. In the mint I succeeded better,
and saw how