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182 LETTERS ON SWEDEN,
LETTER XXIII.
I MIGHT have spared myself the disagreeable feelings
I experienced the first night of my arrival at Hamburg,
leaving the open air to be shut up in noise and dirt,
had I gone immediately to Altona, where a lodging
had been prepared for me by a gentleman from whom
I received many civilities during my journey. I
wished to have travelled in company with him from
Copenhagen, because I found him intelligent and
friendly, but business obliged him to hurry forward,
and I wrote to him on the subject of accommodations
as soon as I was informed of the difficulties I might
have to encounter to house myself and brat.
It is but a short and pleasant walk from Hamburg
to Altona, under the shade of several rows of trees,
and this walk is the more agreeable after quitting the
rough pavement of either place.
Hamburg is an ill, close-built town, swarming with
inhabitants, and, from what I could learn, like all the
other free towns, governed in a manner which bears
hard on the poor, whilst narrowing the minds of the
rich ;
the character of the man is lost in the Hamburger.
Always afraid of the encroachments of their Danish
neighbours, that is, anxiously apprehensive of their
sharing the golden harvest of commerce with them, or
taking a little of the trade oil’ their hands though they
have more than they know what to do with they are
ever on the watch, till their very eyes lose all expres-
sion, excepting the prying glance of suspicion.
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