Once, we made a river voyage in a huge tub of a boat along the weedy banks of the Spree, under the command of a female captain—a jolly matron, weighing I am afraid to guess how many stone. I am told it was a very plebeian piece of business, but we were very happy notwithstanding. We had a Tafel-lieder party on board, with a due proportion of guitars, and they played and sang all the way to Treptow and back again. Once arrived at our destination, we sat upon the grass, and watched the merry groups around, or sauntered along the margin of the stream, sipping occasionally very inconsiderable quantities of feeble cordials; and when the evening drew near, we re-embarked, and, under the safe conduct of our female commodore—who was skilled in the difficult navigation of the shallow river—returned soberly home. The environs of Berlin are of no great beauty, the city being built on a sandy plain, with the single eminence of the Kreutzberg, from which it can be viewed with advantage; but in and about the city there are beautiful gardens, private and of royal foundation, and these are invariably open to the public. One happy Sunday afternoon we spent in Charlottenburg, the pleasure-palace of the king; and one other in the noble botanical gardens in the city; while on a fine day the avenue of lime trees, Unter-den-Linden, in its crowd of promenaders, and social groups at the refreshment tables, presented an animated, and, to my mind, a recreative and humanising spectacle. Music was everywhere; and in the theatres, in the display of pyrotechnic eccentricities, or perhaps in ballooning—but that was English—the evening was variously spent. There may be dance-houses and other abominations in Berlin, as in Hamburg, but I never heard of them, and if they existed, more was the pity. For my own part, I was happy in enjoying the moderate pleasures of life in company with the majority of my fellow-workmen, who, I must again say, and insist upon, were not at work, but at rest, on the Sunday. It is true that here, as elsewhere, tailors and boot-makers (master-men) were content to take measures, and receive orders from the workmen, for very little other opportunity presented itself for such necessary service.