n of nuns escorting a coffin to the chapel.
His page soon brought him the intelligence that his lady was dead. He
ordered his horse to be saddled immediately, and hastened to Spain,
where, in a battle with the Moors, he was killed."

"Then these are the Drachenfels, on our right," said Grace.

"They are 'The Castled Crags of Drachenfels,' as Byron sings. From the
top of this precipice, Cologne, twenty miles distant, can be seen."

"And that large town is Bonn," said Paul.

"Yes; the electors of Cologne--not the city, but the
electorate--formerly resided here. The vast palace built for them in
1730, which is nearly a quarter of a mile long, is now used by the
University of Bonn, where Prince Albert, Queen Consort, of England, was
a student. The city has about twenty thousand inhabitants, and is a
very beautiful place. When I was here, six years ago, I went out about
a mile and a half to a church, on the top of the Kreuzberg. It formerly
belonged to a convent; and in a chapel behind the high altar are
exhibited what are called the Sacred Stairs, which led up to Pilate's
judgment hall. No one is allowed to ascend them except upon his knees,
and the stains of blood falling from the wounds caused by the Saviour's
crown of thorns are pointed out. Those believe who can and will. There
is a vault under the church, reached by a trap-door in the floor,
which, by some remarkable property, has preserved undecayed the bodies
of twenty-five monks. They lie in open coffins, clothed in cassocks and
cowls. They are dried up, and look like mummies. Some of them were
buried there four hundred years ago."

"What a horrible sight!" exclaimed the sensitive Grace.

"I did not see anything very horrible about it," replied the doctor,
with a smile; "but I am a surgeon by profession. In Italy and Sicily
there are many such exhibitions of the dead."

Below Bonn the banks of the river are level, or gently undulating,
reminding the traveller of the Delaware above Philadelphia. The scenery
is pleasant, but rather tame after the experience of the Drachenfels.
At five o'clock the steamer reached Cologne, and passing under the
great iron bridge, and through the bridge of boats, made her landing at
the quay. The Grand Hotel Royal, in which accommodations had been
engaged for the tourists, is situated on the bank of the river, and
many of the party had rooms which overlooked the noble stream. There is
no pleasanter occupation for a tired person th