only a slight German flavor. A week of the
experiment was quite enough. I do not mean to say that the viands served
us were not good, only that we could not make up our minds to eat them.
The Germans eat a great deal of meat; and we were obliged to take meat
when we preferred vegetables. Now, when a deep dish is set before you
wherein are chunks of pork reposing on stewed potatoes, and another
wherein a fathomless depth of sauerkraut supports coils of boiled
sausage, which, considering that you are a mortal and responsible being,
and have a stomach, will you choose? Herein Munich, nearly all the bread
is filled with anise or caraway seed; it is possible to get, however,
the best wheat bread we have eaten in Europe, and we usually have it;
but one must maintain a constant vigilance against the inroads of the
fragrant seeds. Imagine, then, our despair, when one day the potato,
the one vegetable we had always eaten with perfect confidence, appeared
stewed with caraway seeds. This was too much for American human nature,
constituted as it is. Yet the dish that finally sent us back to our
ordinary and excellent way of living is one for which I have no name.
It may have been compounded at different times, have been the result of
many tastes or distastes: but there was, after all, a unity in it
that marked it as the composition of one master artist; there was
an unspeakable harmony in all its flavors and apparently ununitable
substances. It looked like a terrapin soup, but it was not. Every dive
of the spoon into its dark liquid brought up a different object,--a junk
of unmistakable pork, meat of the color of roast hare, what seemed to be
the neck of a goose, something in strings that resembled the rags of a
silk dress, shreds of cabbage, and what I am quite willing to take my
oath was a bit of Astrachan fur. If Professor Liebig wishes to add to
his reputation, he could do so by analyzing this dish, and publishing
the result to the world.

And, while we are speaking of eating, it may be inferred that the
Germans are good eaters; and although they do not begin early, seldom
taking much more than a cup of coffee before noon, they make it up
by very substantial dinners and suppers. To say nothing of the
extraordinary dishes of meats which the restaurants serve at night, the
black bread and odorous cheese and beer which the men take on board
in the course of an evening would soon wear out a cast-iron stomach in
America; and yet I