3 
In Butch Territory. 
4. We hurriedly made our way through the pleasant plains of Got- 
tingen, of romantic Munden, and of Fulda, until, later in the evening 
we got to Cassel with its thickly-foliaged mountain-range and monu- 
ments falling to decay: we left again before daybreak, in order to push 
on to Frankfort. Envious night hid Marburg from our view, dusky morn 
enveloped Giessen in a mist: only Frankfort welcomed us in the bright 
morning sunshine, but my brother found Professor Riippel away. After 
a short visit to Heinrich Meidinger (known by his work: “Travels 
through Great Britain and Ireland”), we hurried on at noon to the 
Railway Station with the object of reaching Mayence the same day. It 
was on this short stretch that our own journey, hardly commenced, 
might easily have come to an abrupt ending, because owing to the care- 
lessness of the driver, the engine together with some carriages ran off 
the rails. A momentary shock fortunately proved the only reside of 
an accident threatening such dire possibilities, and the waters of Father 
Rhine, as they rolled along in all their majesty, soon made us forget 
all about it. The moments that I spent absorbed in silent contempla- 
tion on the Rhine bridge at sunset will never be effaced from my mem- 
ory, for although the stream has been lauded thousands of times, all the 
poetic and prose descriptions still leave something to be described, and 
its praises can never be exhausted. I felt this forcibly, when 
on the following morning, as the steamer cleft its way through the 
bluish green waters, we passed the vine-covered mountains with their 
proud castles, the genial valleys and smiling villages, towns and cities, 
while the Rhinelanders returning home from taking the oath of alle- 
giance in Berlin sang in joyous chorus the old “Am Rhein, am Rhein,” 
until finally the number of our happy fellow-travellers decreased at at- 
mest every stage, and Düsseldorf, where we spent the night, lay before us 
in the distant plain. 
5. The buildings that smiled at us strangers so pleasantly from the 
banks, together with their pretty little gardens surrounded by green 
fences and natty stone pavements in front of the dwellings, — in short, 
Ihe reputed and distinctive cleanliness and tidiness of the Dirtch vil- 
lages with their red-shingled roofs, and their many weather-cocks on 
the ridge-tops, would have indicated clearly enough that we had crossed 
into Dutch territory even if the Customs Office had not already notified 
me of it. What I had imagined the interior of a Dutch household to 
be, judging from its outside, was completely confirmed when we arriv- 
ed in the evening at Nymwegen and spent the night in one of the Hotels 
there. Rotterdam on the other hand has quite lost its outward sem- 
blance of a Dutch city, the reason for which may very well be that as 
an important port it cannot remain true to its national traits. Consid- 
erable rain, that continued all day still further added to the dirt in the 
narrow and angular alley-ways. 
6. I was not a little astonished however when upon looking out of 
the window of our room I saw a number of enormous masts rising in 
the centre of the city above the pointed gables and lofty roofs. On 
going out, I noticed that all the wider streets were intersected by huge 
canals, in which the biggest merchantmen, lying here and there, at an- 
chor, were either being loaded, or else had already taken up their win- 
