ed a wide reach of country towards the east. This was the
region that lies around the ancient capital of Charlemagne, and is now a
part of what M. de Pradt has described "as a facade thrown before
Europe," or the modern and disjointed kingdom of Prussia. We reached the
frontier on the height of land, where, everything proving to be _en
regle_, we met with no obstruction or delay.

While crossing the swell of land just mentioned, the wind changed with a
suddenness that we are apt to think American, but which occurs more
frequently in this hemisphere, or rather in this part of it, than in our
own. The peculiarity of the American climate is its exaggeration rather
than its fickleness; its passages from extreme heat to extreme cold,
more than the frequency of its lesser transitions. One never thinks of
an umbrella in America, with a cloudless sky; whereas, during the spring
months in particular, there is no security against rain an hour at a
time, near the western coast of Europe, more especially north of the Bay
of Biscay. On the present occasion, we passed in a few minutes from the
oven to the ice-house, and were travelling with cloaks about us, and
closed windows, long before we reached Aix-la-Chapelle, at which ancient
town we arrived about six. Unlike Spa, where we had the choice among a
hundred furnished houses, Aix was so crowded that we got narrow
lodgings, with great difficulty, in a second-rate hotel.

As a matter of course, although it was going over old ground with most
of us, we could do no less than look at the sights. The environs of Aix,
though exceedingly pretty, and well ornamented by country-houses, are
less beautiful than those of Liege. Although Charlemagne has been buried
near a thousand years, and there is no longer an Emperor of Germany, or
a King of the Romans, Aix-la-Chapelle is still a town of more than
30,000 inhabitants. It is a crowded and not a particularly neat place,
though material improvements are making, and we have been more pleased
with it this year than we were last. The town-house is a very ancient
structure, one of its towers being supposed to have been built by the
Romans, and it is celebrated as having been the place of meeting of two
European congresses; that of 1748, and that of our own times. It has a
gallery of portraits of the different ambassadors, a big-wigged if a not
big-witted set.

The cathedral, though imperfect, is a noble and a curious monument: the
choir is modern,