First glimpse of the Rhine.--Cologne and the Cathedral.--"Shosef in ter red coat."--St. Ursula and the eleven thousand virgins.--Up the Rhine to Bonn.--The German students.--Rolandseck.--A search for a resting-place.--Our Dutch friend and his Malays.--The story of Hildegund.--A quiet Sabbath.--Our Dutch friend's reply.--Coblentz.--The bridge of boats.--Ehrenbreitstein, over the river.--A scorching day upon the Rhine.--Romance under difficulties.--Mayence.--Frankfort.--Heidelberg.--The ruined castle.--Baden-Baden.--A glimpse at the gambling.--The new, and the old "Schloss."--The Black Forest.--Strasbourg.--The mountains.
WE had made a sweep through Belgium and Holland, intending to return by way of the Rhine and Switzerland. Accordingly, in leaving Amsterdam, we struck across the country to Arnhem, where we found a pleasant hotel near the station, outside of the town. Here we spent the night in order to break the monotony of the ride to Cologne. After climbing stairs to gain our room, wide, but so perpendicular that we were really afraid to descend by them, we had, from a rickety, upper piazza, our first glimpse of the Rhine, winding through flat, green meadows, with hardly more than a suggestion of hills in the distance. There is nothing of interest to detain one at Arnhem. The guide-book informed us that it was the scene of Sir Philip Sidney's death; but no one in the hotel seemed ever to have heard of that gentle knight--_sans peur et sans reproche_.
We reached Cologne at noon the next day. The road makes a _détour_ through the plain, so that, for some time before gaining it, we could see the city nestling under the wings of the great cathedral. How can I tell you anything about it? If I say that it is five times the length of any church you know, and that the towers, when completed, are to be the same height as the length, will my words bring to you any conception of its size? If I say that it was partially built a couple of centuries before the discovery of America; that it was worked upon for three hundred years, and then suffered to remain untouched until recently; that the architect who planned it has been forgotten for centuries, so that the idea embodied in its form is like some beautiful old tradition, whose origin is unknown,--will this give you any idea of its age? The new part, seen from our hotel, was so white and beautiful, that, when we had passed around to the farther side, it was like waking from a sleep of a thousand years. The blackened, broken Gothic front told its own story of age and decay. Ah, the interminable dusky length of its interior, when we had crept within the doors! It was a very world in itself, full of voices, and echoes, and shadows of its own. We followed the guide over the rough stone floor, giving no heed to the tiresome details that fell in broken words and monotonous tones from his lips. I recall nothing now but the fact (!) that behind the choir lie buried, in all their magnificence, the Three Wise Men of the East. As we came down one of the shadowy aisles, we paused before a fine, old, stained window. Our guide immediately became prolix again. "Dis," he said, pointing to one of the figures upon the glass, "is Shosef, in ter red coat; and dis is Shon ter Baptised; and dis, ter Holy Ghos' in ter form off a duff."