office. It was a long search and a difficult one, as
everything was in the utmost confusion. At last
we found our old friend the postmaster, wandering
about disconsolately in a village some two miles
inland, looking after quarters for the Royal post-
office. Half his mails, he told us, had been burnt
in the destruction of the town post-office ; and
though he had been asking for a new office since
daybreak, he could find absolutely nothing to
serve even as a temporary shelter. Where the
post-office was to be in f iiture' he knew no more
than ourselves. Happily, he had a bundle of
English newspapers, which he had put apart for
us ; and I read there the general expectations of
a pacific solution expressed in leading articles
written a week ago, with the smoke of Sonderborg
full in view as a comment on the impossibility of
prophesying.
April 6.
