e as old as the walls of the church (which
may be of the fourteenth century), which they pretend to say it is.

The first view of the interior of this cathedral, seen even at the most
favorable moment--which is from about three till five o'clock--is far
from prepossessing. Indeed, after what I had seen at Rouen, Paris,
Strassburg, Ulm, and Munich, it was a palpable disappointment. In the
first place, there seems to be no grand leading feature of simplicity;
add to which, darkness reigns everywhere. You look up, and discern no
roof--not so much from its extreme height, as from the absolute want of
windows. Everything not only looks dreary, but is dingy and black--from
the mere dirt and dust which seem to have covered the great pillars of
the nave--and especially the figures and ornaments upon it--for the last
four centuries. This is the more to be regretted, as the larger pillars
are highly ornamented; having human figures, of the size of life,
beneath sharply pointed canopies, running up the shafts. The extreme
length of the cathedral is 342 feet of Vienna measurement. The extreme
width, between the tower and its opposite extremity--or the
transepts--is 222 feet.

There are comparatively few chapels; only four--but many Bethstuehle or
Prie-Dieus. Of the former, the chapels of Savoy and St. Eloy are the
chief; but the large sacristy is more extensive than either. On my first
entrance, while attentively examining the choir, I noticed--what was
really a very provoking, but probably not a very uncommon sight--a maid
servant deliberately using a long broom in sweeping the pavement of the
high altar, at the moment when several very respectable people, of both
sexes, were kneeling upon the steps, occupied in prayer. But the
devotion of the people is incessant--all the day long--and in all parts
of the cathedral.

Meanwhile, service is going on in all parts of the cathedral. They are
singing here; they are praying there; and they are preaching in a third
place. But during the whole time, I never heard one single note of the
organ. I remember only the other Sunday morning--walking out beneath one
of the brightest blue skies that ever shone upon man--and entering the
cathedral about nine o'clock. A preacher was in the principal pulpit;
while a tolerably numerous congregation was gathered around him. He
preached, of course, in the German language, and used much action. As he
became more and more animated, he necessarily became w