The Italians are very handsome, and have jet black hair, dark roguish eyes, and fine figures. The dress of the lower orders is even prettier than the pretty Spanish costume. The men wear high-crowned hats, such as you may sometimes have seen on the organ-grinders in the streets of London, velveteen jackets, gaiters, and open shirt-collars, loosely fastened by a silk ribbon; while the women have short scarlet petticoats, and jackets of a darker colour, with exceedingly short sleeves, tied with bright ribbon, and their long black hair decorated with coloured bows of ribbon, and confined by a silk lace net, which falls partly over their shoulders. Instead of sending thieves to prison in Italy, they are sent on board the galleys, a large kind of rowing vessels, where they are chained to the decks, and obliged to endure every species of hardship.
What a number of things the Germans have contributed! Bracelets, articles of straw, beautiful household furniture, toys, wire, and many other manufactures. Here is a splendid tray of polished amber, with a little carriage, made according to a proper model, and a large chandelier of amber, capable of holding several thousand lights. There is a beautiful cabinet made of a collection of pieces of unpolished amber, intended to show the different kinds of that mineral, its various forms, its peculiarities, and its varieties. Here is a bedstead, worth it is said ten thousand pounds; and the most elegant furniture ever seen. And here is a piece of white silk embroidered with portraits of our Queen and the Prince of Wales, done in a thin kind of thread, called "hair thread."
You know a good deal about Germany itself, I dare say, already; but I must tell you something about the Germans themselves. They are grave and thoughtful, but highly romantic and full of enthusiasm. Their love for their country is most remarkable. All classes in Germany are well-educated, and many painters, poets, and musicians, have been born among them. The art of printing was first practiced in that country, and at present the number of books printed there is immense; while every year a book-fair is held at the city of Leipzig. The produce and manufactures of Germany are exceedingly numerous, and you see they are of great variety, such as clocks, watches, woollens, linens, toys, wines, ornamental work in iron and steel, worsteds, and silks. In the public walks and gardens, on Sundays, the people assemble in great crowds, dressed out in their holiday clothes, while ladies and gentlemen walk about without the least restraint among the working people.
The chase is a favourite amusement with the nobles and gentlemen, and is a sport in which they are lustily joined by the peasantry. The immense forests with which the country abounds gives shelter to wild boars, wolves, and many other ferocious animals. On grand occasions there is held what is called a battue, when a number of deer are driven into an enclourse, and shot at by the sportsmen. The habits of the peasants are extremely simple, but the people are industrious and ingenious. The villages and cottages are neat and comfortable. The peasants make many pretty toys and ornaments, and bring provisions to market from a great distance, in light roomy wheel-barrows, made for the purpose. The German people are in general fair, with blue eyes, flaxen hair, and full figures; but they do not wear any very peculiar dress.
In models of ships, in rosewood furniture, in silver embroidery, and silver cups,—besides linens, calicoes, and glass beautifully painted for windows; many contributions have been sent in by the Dutch. There are also soft thick blankets with scarlet borders, which make one warm merely to look at them.
The Dutch people are industrious, and cleanly. The women are the most active and nicest house-wives in the world; they scour and brighten, and rub not only the furniture and inside of their houses, but the outside as well; the houses in Holland, by-the-bye, look like painted baby-houses, and are roofed with glossy delft tiles, and the rooms are lined with smooth square tiles of delft, and the floors paved with marble. The people are never idle in Holland, but are always working at a great variety of manufactures, among which are leather, woollen, and linen articles,—also, paper, wax, starch, pottery, and tiles. Large quantities of gin are likewise made, and this liquor is in England called "Hollands" for that reason. Carts are not much used by the Dutch; their goods are carried on sledges, very light waggons, and boats. The reason of this is, that they are afraid lest the wheels of vehicles should injure the foundations of their cities, which are generally built on piles of huge trees, driven like stakes into the bog beneath. The common people are very humane to their cattle; they rub down the cows and oxen, and keep them as clean and sleek as our English horses. Canals run through the principal streets, and in winter they are frozen over for two or three months, when the whole country is like a fair; booths are erected upon the ice, with fires in them. The country people skate to market, with milk and vegetables; and every kind of sport is seen on the frozen canals. Sledges fly from one street to another, gaily decorated, and numberless skaters glide about with astonishing swiftness and dexterity. No people skate so well as the Dutch.
