y mounting a dozen more steps,
far above the pavement of the nave. They are most peculiarly disposed,
and are again a Renaissance interpolation which might well have been
omitted.

In this dimly lighted cathedral, as well as in many other churches of
Germany, you may at times hear that hymn known as "Ratisbon," the words
of which begin:

"_Jesus meine Zuversicht
Lebt, und ich soll mit ihm leben._"

There is a legend--or it may be a true tale--connecting these verses
with a German soldier who died at the fateful battle of Jena.

Fleeing from the French, he had fallen into the waters of the Saale.
Recovering himself, he crawled out, only to find his pursuers on the
bank, their firearms levelled at his head. His first thought was to
thank God for his safety from the flood, and, kneeling, he played upon
his bugle the familiar air to which the hymn, "_Jesus meine
Zuversicht_," is sung. Deeply moved, his pursuers dropped their guns,
but, just as the last notes of the tune were dying away, another
detachment came up, and one of its members fired a shot which ended the
life of the devout Prussian.

There is heard here also a legend, of the time of the Crusades,
concerning the Siebengebergen,--the Seven Mountains,--which lie just
back of Bonn.

Stimulated by religious fervour, the overlord of a castle perched upon
one of the Seven Mountains, enlisted in the army of the Crusaders, and
fought gallantly in the very forefront of those who sought to plant the
Cross upon the walls of the Holy City. After a prolonged absence, he
returned to find that a rival had won the love of his lady, who, to
escape his wrath, had fled to a convent.

The usurper of affections escaped, but the injured husband met near
Godesberg, in his old age, a youth in whom he thought he recognized the
likeness of his wife. Questioning the boy, he visited the sin of the
mother upon the child, and slew him on the highroad, on the spot where
the Hoch Kreuz now stands,--a monument which tradition says was erected
to warn weak wives and faithless friends.

Drachenfels, whose fame to English ears has mostly been made by Byron's
verses, lies not far south of Bonn. Byron's "peasant girls with deep
blue eyes" are mostly engaged in husbandry to-day, instead of poetically
and leisurely gathering "early flowers."

"The castled crag of Drachenfels
Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine,"

and is still one of the tourist sights of the Rhine, and as