"My dear Cos,—This afternoon I expect to be at Blenheim, and so at the farthest limits of my battle-fields. I spoke of not going to the Alps, in consideration of the depressing of our neighbours the Pentlands; but being so close to them, I can't resist a step farther, and then the Pentlands are not so very ill used, for they are put much on a level with the Grampians. At the beginning of next week I expect to be moving homewards, and I still think, as I wrote to mamma, the last place to catch me at, before taking to the water, is Antwerp.
"This is a very fishy place, not of the Danube rolling majestically not many yards from where I am writing, but of the sea. The inn I am in is called the Krebs or Crab, round the corner is the Crawfish, and somewhere else the Shrimps.
"I wonder what you are now all doing in the Belvidere,[20] and what projects you are all making for the summer, and whether you have ripe strawberries, and there is good promise of cherries and apples; and so, with kind love to all, adieu from your affectionate papa, J.H. Burton."
"Deggendorf, Bayerischer Wald,
1st July 1879.
"My dear Love,—I had a misgiving that I had given a false prospect of reaching me at Regensburg, so I came round that way again, and was rewarded by yours of the 24th, and Willy's of what he calls the 22d July.
"I did not pursue the plan I spoke of to Cos, of getting a peep of the Alps, my investigations cutting off the time assigned to it. But I have gone into a siding here to see the much-boasted, and, it would seem, newly discovered touring ground of the Wald.
"I have got through my work now, but I can still find some in the neighbourhood of Antwerp,—so that is my point, and there I shall hope for letters.
When I last went to Blenheim, some five years ago, the railway only reached a point some fifteen miles from it, and I could not get back to my inn until its opening at five o'clock. Now there is train all the way. It must be supported by agricultural produce. Such wealth of fertility I never saw. I think, standing at any point in the great haugh of the Danube, I could see as much grain as all Scotland could produce. This had a curious social influence, causing me some hardships.
"The towns are all conglomerates of farm-steadings. The country was of old so cursed by war, that a steading in the fields was a lost affair. The old habit still rules, and in a town the size, say, of Linlithgow, there is not a shop or an inn except the store, whence the farmers draw their oceans of beer in great jugs, or sometimes meet to quaff it on the premises. I had to bribe the owner of such an establishment to give me brown bread and cheese; hard living of this kind, however, suits my constitution. Luckily, in consideration, I suppose, of there being no refuge for belated travellers, the station-master had a nice clean bedroom, which he was entitled to let.