The story is, that she was an English princess, who lived--nobody knows at what remote period of antiquity. For some reason equally obscure, she started with her lover and eleven thousand maidens to make a pilgrimage to Rome. Fancy this lover undertaking a continental tour with eleven thousand and one young women under his care! Even modern travel presents no analogy to the case. "And they staid over night at my aunt's," droned the sleepy guide, who was telling the story. The girls looked at each other. "Good gracious! what unbounded hospitality!" whispered one. "At his _aunt's_!" exclaimed a second, somewhat puzzled by the anachronism. "Don't interrupt," said a third interested listener; "he means _Mayence_;" and he proceeded with the narrative. They accomplished their pilgrimage in safety; but, upon their return, were "fetched up py ter parparians," as the guide expressed it, which means, in English, that they were murdered, here at Cologne. If you doubt the story, behold the skulls! We turned suddenly upon the guide. "Do _you_ believe this?" "I mus; sinz I tells it to you," was his enigmatical reply, dropping his eyes. The scenery along the Rhine from Cologne, for twenty miles, is uninteresting; just now, too, the weather was uncomfortably hot, and we were glad to leave the steamer for a few hours at Bonn. Upon the balcony of a hotel, looking out upon the river, we found a score of young men in bright-colored caps--students from the university here. When dinner was announced, they crowded in and filled the table, at which the ladies of our party were the only ones present. Such a noisy, loud-talking set as they were! When each one had dined, he coolly leaned back in his chair, and lighted his pipe! Before we had finished our almonds and raisins the room was quite beclouded. Then they adjourned with pipe and wine-glass to the balcony again, where we left them when we went out to see the town. The university was formerly a palace, the guide-book had told us; but all our childish conceptions of palaces had been rudely destroyed before now, so that we were not surprised to find it without any especial beauty of architecture--only a pile of brown stone, three quarters of a mile long. I think we had left all the students drinking wine upon the balcony, for we saw none here,--though we went through the library, museum, and various halls,--except one party outside, who stared unblushingly at the girls remaining in the carriage.