l'OULTÜY AND FISH.

51

sucking-pigs [Spanferkel) may bo had for twenty gros (twoShillings) in town, and for half that sum in the country. Pork,however, is a dish seldom seen on a German table, the greaterportion of the swine-flesh being made into Schinken (ham),("for that gives more," say the Bauers,) and the rest convertedinto Wurst (sausages).

Of poulterers there are none in Coblenz, though it is thesite of a royal "Residenz" —the fowls and pigeons being takento the market alive in sacks, and the housewives either standingby wbile their necks are twisted, or eise carrying the flutteringbirds home by their legs, and playing the executioners them-selves. Chickens cost from 6d. to ls. each (according tosize), and pigeons about Id. the pair, though it must not beimagined that for this price the birds are anything liko ourown in quality, it being the custom of the Rhinelanders tofatten no animal for food. Indeed, the people teil you it willnot pay to prcpare any living thing for the table.

The fish is all freshwater; for at the rate of Preussischlocomotion, where the quiekest conveyance is the " Schnell-post" (or, to speak more correctly in these fast days, the snail-post), of course it would be madness to expect that suchdelicacies as turbots and soles should be brought up to Rhine-land from the sea. Of the freshwater kind, the St. Goarsalmon (caught under the Lurlei rocks) is peculiarly fine,though rather scarce and dear, costing as much as 20 gros(2s. English) per Ib. The " May-fish," as it is termed in Ger-many—or " the chad," as it is denominated by us—is, how-ever, sufficiently abundant to be had at the rate of 5 gros(&d.) each, even though they be as large as ordinarysalmon. This fish is purchased principally by the poorerclasses—the rieh generally despising it, not becauso it is bad-flavoured, but on aecount of its being brought to marketdead; whereas the carp, tench, pike, &c, come alive in tanks.

e 2