elated of the inventor of it, that in despair of
finding any sufficiently great, he was walking one day by the river,
sketching with his stick upon the sand, when he finally hit upon one
which pleased him so much that he exclaimed: "This shall be the plan!"
"I will show you a better one than that!" said a voice suddenly behind
him, and a certain black gentleman who figures in all German legends
stood by him, and pulled from his pocket a roll containing the present
plan of the Cathedral. The architect, amazed at its grandeur, asked an
explanation of every part. As he knew his soul was to be the price of
it, he occupied himself while the devil was explaining, in committing
its proportions carefully to memory. Having done this, he remarked that
it did not please him and he would not take it. The devil, seeing
through the cheat, exclaimed in his rage: "You may build your Cathedral
according to this plan, but you shall never finish it!" This prediction
seems likely to be verified, for though it was commenced in 1248, and
built for 250 years, only the choir and nave and one tower to half its
original height, are finished.

We visited the chapel of the eleven thousand virgins, the walls of which
are full of curious grated cells, containing their bones, and then
threaded the narrow streets of Cologne, which are quite dirty enough to
justify Coleridge's lines:

"The river Rhine, it is well known
Doth wash the city of Cologne;
But tell me nymphs, what power divine
Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine!"

CHAPTER VIII.

THE RHINE TO HEIDELBERG.

HEIDELBERG, August 30. Here at last! and a most glorious place it is.
This is our first morning in our new rooms, and the sun streams warmly
in the eastern windows, as I write, while the old castle rises through
the blue vapor on the side of the Kaiser-stuhl. The Neckar rushes on
below; and the Odenwald, before, me, rejoices with its vineyards in the
morning light. The bells of the old chapel near us are sounding most
musically, and a confused sound of voices and the rolling of vehicles
comes up from the street. It is a place to live in!

I must go back five or six days and take up the record of our
journeyings at Bonn. We had been looking over Murray's infallible
"Handbook," and observed that he recommended the "Star" hotel in that
city, as "the most moderate in its prices of any on the Rhine;" so when
the train from Cologne arrived and we were surrounded,