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 ought to remember the deadly pie and the corroding whisky of my native land.  The restaurant life of the people is, of course, different from their home life, and perhaps an evening entertainment here is no more formidable than one in America, but it is different.  Let me give you the outlines of a supper to which we were invited the other night:  it certainly cannot hurt you to read about it.  We sat down at eight.  There were first courses of three sorts of cold meat, accompanied with two sorts of salad; the one, a composite, with a potato basis, of all imaginable things that are eaten.  Beer and bread were unlimited.  There was then roast hare, with some supporting dish, followed by jellies of various sorts, and ornamented plates of something that seemed unable to decide whether it would be jelly or cream; and then came assorted cake and the white wine of the Rhine and the red of Hungary.  We were then surprised with a dish of fried eels, with a sauce.  Then came cheese; and, to crown all, enormous, triumphal-looking loaves of cake, works of art in appearance, and delicious to the taste.  We sat at the table till twelve o’clock; but