he scenery is very attractive; and we would
have liked to stay over a day, but the steamer for Ruhrort was ready to
start, and we had only time to get our tickets and go on board. We found
a neat, comfortable boat, and met pleasant society. The Rhine here is
bounded by flat shores, and has no points of interest, and affords no
promise of what it is so soon to be. We entered Prussia at Lobith, and
had a very thorough examination of our trunks by officers who came on
board. At Wesel--a town, I think, of some twelve thousand inhabitants,
and having a very strong fortress--we stopped half an hour, and a crowd
came round the boat. Rapin, who wrote the History of England, lived here
while engaged in the task. How singular it is that all the histories of
England, of any note, have been written by men not born in England! They
have been French, Scotch, Irish, &c. We reached Ruhrort in the
afternoon, and left the boat. This is the great central depot where the
coal of the Ruhr is deposited. Here we crossed in a ferry boat, rode a
mile or two in an omnibus, and then took the cars for Cologne, after
waiting some hour or two, in consequence of a delay--the first we have
met with on any railroad on the continent. It was dark when we passed
through Dusseldorf; and we felt sorry not to stay here and see the
water-color drawings that remain in this collection, once so famous; but
we were told at Paris that the best of the drawings and pictures have
gone to Munich. In the cars we met a gentleman and his lady who were
evidently Americans. We entered into conversation, and found they were
from Nashville, Tennessee. They bad been travelling very extensively in
Europe, and had been through Egypt, crossed the desert, and visited
Syria and the Holy City. I quite respected a lady, Charley, who had
travelled hundreds of miles upon a camel. The journey had been very
beneficial to her health. We reached Cologne at about ten o'clock, after
crossing over a bridge of boats fourteen hundred feet long, and went to
the Hotel Holland, on the banks of the river, and found it a very good
house, with a grand view of the Rhine; and the chambers are as good as
can be desired. Few places are more fruitful in the reminiscences which
they furnish than this old city. Cologne has a Roman origin, and was
settled by a colony sent by Nero and his mother, who was born here, in
her father's camp, during the war. It still retains the walls of its
early fortifications, bu