nks of the Thames between Richmond and Twickenham, where so many "city
men" have lovely retired homes; but Frankfort has its Kew Gardens also,
where tropical flora, tree-ferns and palms, in immense conservatories,
make perpetual summer, while the Zoological Garden and the bands that
play there are another point of attraction. Still, I think one more
willingly seeks the older parts--the Ashtree Gate, with its machicolated
tower and turrets, the only remnants of the fortifications; the old
cemetery, where Goethe's mother is buried; and the old bridge over the
Main, with the statue of Charlemagne bearing the globe of empire in his
hand, which an innocent countryman from the neighboring village of
Sachsenhausen mistook for the man who invented the _Aeppelwei_, a
favorite drink of Frankfort. This bridge has another curiosity--a gilt
cock on an iron rod, commemorating the usual legend of the "first living
thing" sent across to cheat the devil, who had extorted such a promise
from the architect. But although the ancient remains are attractive, we
must not forget the Bethmann Museum, with its treasure of Dannecker's
_Ariadne_, and the Staedel Art Institute, both the legacies of
public-spirited merchants to their native town; the Bourse, where a
business hardly second to any in London is done; and the memory of so
many great minds of modern times--Boerne, Brentano, Bettina von Arnim,
Feurbach, Savigny, Schlossen, etc. The Roman remains at Oberuerzel in the
neighborhood ought to have a chapter to themselves, forming as they do a
miniature Pompeii, but the Rhine and its best scenery calls us away from
its great tributary, and we already begin to feel the witchery which a
popular poet has expressed in these lines, supposed to be a warning from
a father to a wandering son:

To the Rhine, to the Rhine! go not to the Rhine! My son, I counsel thee well;
For there life is too sweet and too fine, and every breath is a spell.

The nixie calls to thee out of the flood; and if thou her smiles shouldst see,
And the Lorelei, with her pale cold lips, then 'tis all over with thee:

For bewitched and delighted, yet seized with fear,
Thy home is forgotten and mourners weep here.

[Illustration: JOHN WOLFGANG GOETHE.]

[Illustration: GOETHE'S BIRTHPLACE.]

This is the Rheingau, the most beautiful valley of rocks and bed of
rapids which occurs during the whole course of the river--the region
most crowded with legends and cast