We reached Cologne at noon the next day. The road makes a _détour_ through the plain, so that, for some time before gaining it, we could see the city nestling under the wings of the great cathedral. How can I tell you anything about it? If I say that it is five times the length of any church you know, and that the towers, when completed, are to be the same height as the length, will my words bring to you any conception of its size? If I say that it was partially built a couple of centuries before the discovery of America; that it was worked upon for three hundred years, and then suffered to remain untouched until recently; that the architect who planned it has been forgotten for centuries, so that the idea embodied in its form is like some beautiful old tradition, whose origin is unknown,--will this give you any idea of its age? The new part, seen from our hotel, was so white and beautiful, that, when we had passed around to the farther side, it was like waking from a sleep of a thousand years. The blackened, broken Gothic front told its own story of age and decay. Ah, the interminable dusky length of its interior, when we had crept within the doors! It was a very world in itself, full of voices, and echoes, and shadows of its own. We followed the guide over the rough stone floor, giving no heed to the tiresome details that fell in broken words and monotonous tones from his lips. I recall nothing now but the fact (!) that behind the choir lie buried, in all their magnificence, the Three Wise Men of the East. As we came down one of the shadowy aisles, we paused before a fine, old, stained window. Our guide immediately became prolix again. "Dis," he said, pointing to one of the figures upon the glass, "is Shosef, in ter red coat; and dis is Shon ter Baptised; and dis, ter Holy Ghos' in ter form off a duff." When the old woman at the door offered pictures of the cathedral, he assured us that they were quite correct, having been taken "from _nature_, _outzide_ and _inzide_." You must see the old Roman remains of towers and crumbling walls, sniff the vile odors of the streets, which have become proverbial, and be sprinkled with cologne--then your duty to the city is done. But almost everybody visits the Church of St. Ursula, which is lined with the skulls of that unfortunate young woman and her eleven thousand virgin followers.