n of the Bible. The Nibelungen-Lied and the poems of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries were all in Middle-High German
(Mittel-Hoch Deutsch).

I remember being told as a boy, when standing on the terrace of Windsor
Castle, that in a straight line due east of us there was no such
corresponding an elevation until the Ural Mountains were reached, on
the boundary between Europe and Asia. This will give some idea of the
extreme flatness of Northern Europe, for the terrace at Windsor can
hardly be called a commanding eminence.

I am sorry to say that for over forty years I have quite lost sight of
Vieweg. My connection with quinine, too, has been usually quite
involuntary. I have had two very serious bouts of malarial fever, one
in South America, the other in the West Indies, and on both occasions I
owed my life to quinine. Whilst taking this bitter, if beneficent drug,
I sometimes wondered whether it had been prepared under the auspices of
the friend of my youth. So ignorant am I of the quinine world, that I
do not know whether the firm of Buchler & Vieweg still exists. One
thing I do know: Vieweg must be now sixty-three years old, should he be
still alive, and I am convinced that he remains an upright and
honourable gentleman. I would also venture a surmise that business
competitors find it very hard to overreach him, and that he has escaped
the garrulous tendencies of old age.

One of the curses of German towns is the prevalence of malicious and
venomous gossip. This is almost entirely due to that pestilent
institution the "Coffee Circle," or Kaffee Klatsch, that standing
feature of German provincial life. Amongst the bourgeoisie, the ladies
form associations, and meet once a week in turn at each others' houses.
They bring their work with them, and sit for two hours, eating sweet
cakes, drinking coffee, and tearing every reputation in the towns to
tatters. All males are jealously excluded from these gatherings. Mrs.
Spiegelberg was a pretty, fluffy little English woman, without one
ounce of malice in her composition. She had lived long enough in
Germany, though, to know that she would not be welcomed at her "Coffee
Circle" unless she brought her budget of pungent gossip with her, so
she collected it in the usual way. The instant the cook returned from
market, Mrs. Spiegelberg would rush into the kitchen with a breathless,
"Na, Minna, was gibt's neues?" or "Now, Minna, what is the news?"
Minna, the cook, knowing what w