It was very hot on that summer day, I was tired in body and mind, and it was only slowly, and with difficulty, that I could ascend the course of the brook, forcing my way through the thick and often nearly impassable bushes by the help of my alpenstock, which I carried with, me, as I often climbed the mountains in my wanderings. I could willingly have stretched myself drowsily on the soft inviting moss; but I resisted the inclination, and determined to press through and up to the goal I had set myself: the source of the stream. In half an hour the slope was reached; the height is called by the people, "the Pagan mound." Along the latter part of the way I had noticed a striking increase in the number and size of the fragments of stone; among them also were red and gray marble, like that which had been quarried in the neighbourhood for unnumbered centuries; and it was, as I had imagined, close under the crown of the hill the stream trickled out of the ground. It appeared to have been once surrounded by masonry; this was in part still perceptible, carefully polished clear gray marble enclosed it here and there in a handsome setting, and round about lay scattered numerous tiles. My heart beat quickly, not only in consequence of the arduous climb, but also, I confess it, in hopeful expectation, I was yet very young. Suppose if to-day and here, Mercury, the Roman, or Wotan, the German god of wishes and discovery, should give into my hand the long-desired memorial of the Romans of Juvavum; the name "Pagan mound" gave undoubted evidence of the Roman occupation--for the Roman road is here called the "Pagan road"--added to this, the source of the spring, the traces of the marble setting, the many tiles--then the sun's rays, just before setting, fell across the brushwood and shone directly on the tile-slab lying before me. Cement! I picked it up and tested it; it was without doubt that Roman cement which, becoming hard as stone during the lapse of centuries, so marks out the buildings of eternal Rome, I turned the piece over; there, O joy! was burnt in the undoubted motto of the Twenty-second Legion: _Primigenia pia fidelis!_ And as I bend down, highly pleased, to try the next brick, a yet stronger sunbeam falls on a piece of peculiar light-gray stone. It is marble, I see now, and on the surface there are three Roman letters distinctly visible: "hic...." There the stone was broken; but close to it, the broken edge of a similar piece of gray stone projected from the moss and ivy. Does the continuation of the inscription lie here buried under a covering of moss and turf? I pulled at the stone, but it was too heavy, either from the load of earth or from its own size. After some useless efforts, I found that I must clear off the layers of turf and moss before the marble would entrust me with its secret. Had it one to narrate? Certainly! I held the commencement in my hand: "Hic," "here"--_what_ had here taken place, or was here attested?