play of silver radiance, to my no small surprise, I beheld a precipice immediately beneath my feet. The chasm was deep and awful; something like the entrance to a grot discovered itself below, and if I had not already been disappointed on the score of the fount, I won’t answer but that I should have flung myself adventurously down, and tried whether I might not have seen such wonders as appeared to Bradamante, when cast by Pinnabel, rather impolitely, into Merlin’s cave. But no propitious light beaming from the cavity, I concluded times were changed; and searching about me, found at last a shelving steep, which it was just possible to descend without goat’s heels, and that’s all. In my way home, I passed the redoute, and seeing a vast glare of lustres in its apartments, I ran upstairs and found the gamblers all eager in storming the Pharaoh Bank: a young Englishman of distinction seemed the most likely to raise the siege, which increased every instant in turbulence; but not feeling the least inclination to protract or to shorten its fate, I left the knights to their adventures, and returned ingloriously to my inn. [Picture: The canal, Ghent, and Aix la Chapelle Cathedral] All languages are chattering at the Table d’Hôte, and all sorts of business transacted under my very windows. The racket and perfume of this place make me resolve to get out of it to-morrow; as that is the case, you won’t hear from me till I reach Munich. Adieu! May we meet in our dreams by the fountain of Merlin, and from thence take our flight with Astolpho to the moon; for I shrewdly suspect the best part of our senses are bottled up there; and then, you know, it will be a delightful novelty to wake up with a clear understanding. “Indeed, Sir, no Monsieur _comme il faut_, ever left Spa in such dudgeon before, unless jilted by a Polish princess, or stripped by an itinerant Count! You have neither breakfasted at the Vauxhall, nor attended the Spectacle, nor tasted the waters. Had you but taken one sip, your ill-humour would have all trickled away, and you would have felt both your heels and your elbows quite alive in the evening.”—Granted; but pray tell your postillions to drive off as fast as their horses will carry them. Away we went to Aix-la-Chapelle about ten at night, and saw the mouldering turrets of that once illustrious capital by the help of a candle and lantern. An old woman asked our names (for not a single soldier appeared); and traversing a number of superannuated streets without perceiving the least trace of Charlemagne or his Paladins, we procured comfortable though not magnificent apartments, and slept most unheroically sound, till it was time to set forward for Dusseldorf.