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12

DOMESTIC MANNEES OE HIE TBUSSIANS.

pillow-case filled (for the sake of lightness as well as warmth)with feathers. In the houses of the well-to-do, the underside

of the upper bed has sometimes a Square of white linentacked to it, and this is changed at intervals that are longeror shorter than a month, according to the habits and refine-ment of the family. In remote villages, however, you find,even at the best inns, that the before-mentioned rüde attemptat a white sheet has not yet reached the heart of Germany,and that you are expected to turn in (after Heaven knowswhom) between beds that are covered with chintz of sodark a colour that you can teil at a glance the stuff has beenchosen with the view of " not showing the dirt," At one ofthe principal towns in the Westerwald we ourselves wereconducted to a bedstead furnished with these sanie black sheets,and the family of the innkeeper thought us proud out of allreason on our shuddering at the prospect of having to buryour body in so filthy-looking a resting-place, and consideredus insanely fastidious when we persisted on having a couple ofclean table-cloths as Substitutes for bed-linen.

Then this same feather-bed positively cooks you like apotato by steam; and when you grow restless in the vapour-bath produced by the sudorific tendency of the eider-down, thehuge puffy squab is sure to roll on to the fioor and leaveyou to shiver and dream that you have joined the Arcticexpedition, and that Albert Smith is desirous of showing youat Egyptian Hall as a gentleman who has been dug out of theice in a State of complete preservation.

But if the beds punish you by night, the Prnssian stovesdo the like by day. Every one is familiär with the horrors ofa wiriter in the Crimea, but we do verily believe we wouldrather have dwelt in the camp outside Sebastopol, and havesuffered all the agony of Russian frost, than have lived as we