,000 volumes) and a museum rich in Roman antiquities. The Muenster (or
Cathedral) dates from the 12th and 13th centuries. In the Muensterplatz
stands a fine bronze statue of Beethoven, a celebrated German musician,
who was born in the Bonngasse, No. 515. This statue faces south, (as do
most of the statues that I have seen in Europe, except when the
surroundings are unfavorable). One side of the pedestal contains the
following inscription:

LUDWIG
VAN
BEETHOVEN
Geb. zu Bonn MDCCLXX.

The other three sides contain base reliefs representing muses playing upon
musical instruments.

Half a mile above the Poppelsdorfer Schloss rises the Kreuzberg (400 feet
high) crowned with a white church. This contains the "Holy Steps" 28 in
number, which must only be ascended on the knees, and are in imitation of
the Scala Sancta at the Lateran in Rome, piously believed to be the
identical steps of the Praetorium ascended by the Savior when he appeared
before Pilate.

The view from the tower of this church is one of the most beautiful on the
Rhine. After enjoying the scenery a while, with a party of ladies and
gentlemen whose society I had joined in the church below, we came down,
and I took a rustic seat on an eminence and surveyed the beauties of the
landscape more at leisure. The most beautiful part of the Rhine is from
Bonn to Mayence, and this view from the Kreuzberg constituted for me a
fine initiation into the charming scenery that fell to my portion to enjoy
the coming three days. Large sections of the country here are entirely
without fences, there being no hedge-fences even, and the landscape
checkered by the different fresh colors of the various crops, spreads out
like a beautiful carpet of green, red, yellow, gray, and a dozen other
tints and shakes, all mixed up, or like a pavement rich in mosaics. We had
also gone into the cellar of the church to see the skeletons and bodies of
26 _Servitten_ lying about in boxes or coffins set in rows upon the
ground. These, it is said, built the church in 1627. The bodies of several
of them seem to have petrified more or less perfectly, but the rest of
them are mere skeletons, and present an anatomical display that reminded
me of what I had seen in St. Ursula, in Cologne, as above described. This
cellar is perfectly dark and is entered by a trap-door in the form of a
heavy stone, which an attendant removes by means of a crow-bar. The steps
leading down are narrow and the pas