here in this city the growth of relic worship. But the most
successful achievement was the collection of the bones of St. Ursula and
the eleven thousand virgins, and their preservation in the church on the
very spot where they suffered martyrdom. There is probably not so large
a collection of the bones of virgins elsewhere in the world; and I am
sorry to read that Professor Owen has thought proper to see and say that
many of them are the bones of lower orders of animals. They are built
into the walls of the church, arranged about the choir, interred in
stone coffins, laid under the pavements; and their skulls grin at you
everywhere. In the chapel the bones are tastefully built into the wall
and overhead, like rustic wood-work; and the skulls stand in rows, some
with silver masks, like the jars on the shelves of an apothecary's shop.
It is a cheerful place. On the little altar is the very skull of
the saint herself, and that of Conan, her lover, who made the holy
pilgrimage to Rome with her and her virgins, and also was slain by the
Huns at Cologne. There is a picture of the eleven thousand disembarking
from one boat on the Rhine, which is as wonderful as the trooping of
hundreds of spirits out of a conjurer's bottle. The right arm of St.
Ursula is preserved here: the left is at Bruges. I am gradually getting
the hang of this excellent but somewhat scattered woman, and bringing
her together in my mind. Her body, I believe, lies behind the altar
in this same church. She must have been a lovely character, if Hans
Memling's portrait of her is a faithful one. I was glad to see here one
of the jars from the marriage-supper in Cana. We can identify it by a
piece which is broken out; and the piece is in Notre Dame in Paris.
It has been in this church five hundred years. The sacristan, a very
intelligent person, with a shaven crown and his hair cut straight across
his forehead, who showed us the church, gave us much useful information
about bones, teeth, and the remains of the garments that the virgins
wore; and I could not tell from his face how much he expected us to
believe. I asked the little fussy old guide of an English party who had
joined us, how much he believed of the story. He was a Protestant, and
replied, still anxious to keep up the credit of his city, "Tousands is
too many; some hundreds maybe; tousands is too many."

A GLIMPSE OF THE RHINE

You have seen the Rhine in pictures; you have read its legends. You