mark the
horns of the old crescent, the _Spalen Thor_ shows where it had its
greatest depth, midway between the other two.

A straight line running due north-east from this Spalen-Thor would cross
the big square of the Fish-market (_Fischmarktplatz_) pretty nearly as
the uncovered stream of the Birsig, or "Little Birs," did before the
quaint little bridge, which then united the two halves of the Fischmarkt,
was absorbed in the paving over of stream and square before Holbein's
day. This same straight line would of itself draw the "Old Bridge"
(_Alte Bruecke_) with approximate exactness, the even then ancient bridge
which centred the star of Klein-Basel to its crescent. And in the
Historical Museum, where the Barefooted Friars worshipped then, we may
still see the grotesque piece of clockwork, the wooden "Stammering King"
(_Laellenkoenig_), that for centuries used hourly to roll great eyes and
stick out its tongue a foot long across the river from the Gross-Basel
end of the bridge. It is often said that this monster was set up as a
public token of the hatred which the triumphant Protestantism of the
south bank felt for the stubborn Catholicism of Klein-Basel. But the
thing was a famous ancient joke before party feeling turned it into a
gibe.

Bonifacius Amerbach's home, the "Emperor's Seat" (_Kaiserstuhl_, now 23,
Rheingasse), was in Klein-Basel. Johann Amerbach had bought it, near to
his beloved friends, the Carthusians. In 1520 the good old man had slept
for six years in the cloisters of the monastery; where to-day the
children of the Orphan Asylum play above his grave.

But all the conditions of Holbein's daily life would lead him to prefer
Basel proper, and to choose the quarter in which he bought a home eight
years later. This was then the western quarter of Gross-Basel, along the
river-face of which ran the high southern and western bank of the Rhine,
the _Rheinhalde_, now _St. Johann Vorstadt_. About where the present
_Blumenrain_ ends stood the arch, or _Schwibbogen_. Further on still
stood the "Gate of the Cross" (_Kreuzthor_), by the House of the Brothers
of St. Anthony, the ancient _Kloesterli_ of Basel. Before the Commandery
of St. John got themselves included within the city wall the Kreuzthor
was its western gate. The whole district of _ze Crueze_, so called
because its boundaries were crosses before towers replaced them, has
however become absorbed in the St. Johann Vorstadt, while the Kreuzthor
has dis