and knowing the difficulty of
the task, I thanked him, but was compelled to refuse. On our
arrival at Liege, we were told that a messenger from the governor
had been to inquire for us, and I began to bethink me of my
sins,--however,--it proved Mr. Bull-and-book-baked had come [by
dilligence] to Liege (sixty-three miles) and got the governor to
give him notice, by means of my passport, when we came. Of course I
sat,--the likeness--like all other pictures you have seen of my
chameleon face--has a vastly live-like look,--the compliment is
none the less, and, provided the artist does not mean to serve me
up as a specimen of American wild beasts, I shall thank him for it.
To be followed twelve posts by a first-rate artist, who is in favor
with the King, is so unusual, that I probed him a little. I found
him well skilled in his art,--his gusto for natural subjects,
strong,--and his favorite among all my books is "The Prairie,"
which you know is filled with wild beasts. Here the secret is
out.--He sent me a beautiful pencil sketch of a Belgian hind as a
memorial of our achievement.

[Illustration: EUGENE-JOSEPH VERBOECKHOVEN.]

Cooper and his family spent some days drinking the waters at Spa, with
best effects for Mrs. Cooper--not over-strong since the Paris days. They
left its grass of "ghostly green" when the "dog-star raged with all its
fury," and "came on old Aix-la-Chapelle, well-cloaked and carriage
windows closed." In compliment to the republic of letters the postman
called on Cooper here, and like tribute was also paid two posts farther
on, where he was asked if he "was the man who wrote books!" That day was
well spent when they reached the terrace above the Rhine and got their
first view of the towers of Cologne. In "fine, lofty rooms" overlooking
a garden, they here enjoyed a night's rest, a breakfast, and then a
pilgrimage to "the unfinished cathedral, that wonder of Gothic
architecture." A visit was paid to the house in which Rubens was born,
it is said, and the very room which sheltered the last moments of Mary
of Medicis, wife of Henry IV and mother of Louis XIII of France. Cooper
thought it "a better sort of burgher home," and saw it as "a public
house."

[Illustration: RUBENS' COLOGNE HOME.]

Again on the wing, they passed the student-town of Bonn, Rhine ruins of
charming legend on the near and far banks of the river, until