nts.
Here we were at Cologne, in Prussia, with the wide world before us,
uncertain whither to proceed. It was soon decided, however, that a first
duty was to look again at the unfinished cathedral, that wonder of
Gothic architecture; to make a pilgrimage to the house in which Rubens
was born; to pay a visit to the eleven thousand virgins, and to buy some
Cologne water: after which it would be time enough to determine where we
should sleep.

The first visit was to the bones. These relics are let into the walls of
the church that contains them, and are visible through a sort of
pigeon-holes which are glazed. There is one chapel in particular, that
is altogether decorated with the bones arranged in this manner, the
effect being very much like that of an apothecary's shop. Some of the
virgins are honoured with hollow wooden or silver busts, lids in the
tops of which being opened, the true skull is seen within. These relics
are not as formidable, therefore, as one would be apt to infer the bones
of eleven thousand virgins might be, the grinning portion of the skulls
being uniformly veiled for propriety's sake. I thought it a miracle in
itself to behold the bones of all these virgins, but, as if they were
insufficient, the cicerone very coolly pointed out to us the jar that
had held the water which was converted into wine by the Saviour at the
marriage of Cana! It was Asiatic in form, and may have held both water
and wine in its day.

The cathedral is an extraordinary structure. Five hundred years have
gone by, and there it is less than half finished. One of the towers is
not forty feet high, while the other may be two hundred. The crane,
which is renewed from time to time, though a stone has not been raised
in years, is on the latter. The choir, or rather the end chapel that
usually stands in rear of the choir, is perfect, and a most beautiful
thing it is. The long narrow windows, that are near a hundred feet in
height, are exquisitely painted, creating the peculiar cathedral
atmosphere, that ingenious invention of some poet to render solemn
architecture imaginative and glorious. We could not dispense with
looking at the skulls of the Magi, which are kept in an exceedingly rich
reliquary or shrine. They are all three crowned, as well as being masked
like the virgins. There is much jewellery, though the crowns had a
strong glow of tinsel about them, instead of the mild lustre of the true
things. Rubens, as you know, was of