while the German meile is as long as
about four and a half English miles.

But this, however, is a minor inconvenience; for our 'Continental
Bradshaw' gives most of the measurements in English miles. Not so in
respect to the current coinage abroad. Although there was a 'railway
congress' held a few years ago, to determine on a plan for
facilitating the intercourse between country and country, yet this
plan did not go so far as to assimilate the moneys of the different
states; the tourist speedily discovers that this is the case, and he
becomes perplexed with a multiplicity of cares. So long as he is in
France or Belgium, the _franc_ (9-1/2d.), with its multiples and
submultiples, are easily managed; but when he gets beyond the Rhine,
his troubles begin. If in Holland, he has to manage with the _guilder_
(1s. 8d.) and its fractional parts in _cents_. If in the neighbourhood
of Hamburg, he has to pay by means of the _mark_ (14-1/2d.), and
certain strange-looking _schillings_ or _skillings_, of which sixteen
equal one mark. Going south and east into Prussia, he finds the ruling
coin to be the _thaler_ (3s.), divisible into thirty _groschen_. and
each of these into twelve _pfennige_; but if he be hovering in
the frontiers of Prussia and Saxony, he will find that the
_neu-groschen_ of the latter country is worth a little more than the
_silber-groschen_ of the former, and that there is some difficulty in
getting rid of either in the country of the other. Getting further
south, to the regions belonging to or adjoining Austria, he will find
his thalers and groschen no longer welcome; he has to attend to the
_florin_ (2s.), and its divisions into sixty _kreutzers_. If he
travels north-east, to the few miles of railway yet existing in
Poland, he will have to pay in _rubles_ (3s. 3d.) and _kopecks_, which
rank at 100 to the ruble. On the little Zurich and Baden Railway, the
only one yet in Switzerland, our traveller meets again with his old
acquaintance the _franc_; but this is worth 14-1/2d., instead of
9-1/2d., and, moreover, it is divided into ten _batzen_, each of which
is worth ten _rappen_. If he crosses the Alps to Austrian Italy, he
finds that his fare is reckoned in Austrian _lire_ (about 8d.) In many
cases, the different states take money from _through_ passengers in
the coin of either country; but the traveller who makes frequent
stoppages, soon finds the embarrassment of the different moneys. A
railway has lately been