In this I bathed,
and was much refreshed, and afterwards, with fresh alacrity,
continued my journey.
I had now got over the common, and was once more in a country rich
and well cultivated beyond all conception. This continued to be the
case as far as Slough, which is twenty miles and a half from London,
on the way to Oxford, and from which to the left there is a road
leading to Windsor, whose high white castle I have already seen at a
distance.
I made no stay here, but went directly to the right, along a very
pleasant high road, between meadows and green hedges, towards
Windsor, where I arrived about noon.
It strikes a foreigner as something particular and unusual when, on
passing through these fine English towns, he observed one of those
circumstances by which the towns in Germany are distinguished from
the villages - no walls, no gates, no sentries, nor garrisons. No
stern examiner comes here to search and inspect us or our baggage;
no imperious guard here demands a sight of our passports; perfectly
free and unmolested, we here walk through villages and towns as
unconcerned as we should through a house of our own.
Just before I got to Windsor I passed Eton College, one of the first
public schools in England, and perhaps in the world. I have before
observed that there are in England fewer of these great schools than
one might expect.
