The banquet was held in the music-hall, where General Grant was given a seat immediately fronting the scene just described. The conservatory and hall were brilliantly illuminated, the tables were resplendent with silver and floral decorations, and upon the walls of the banquet-chamber the emblems of the great Republic and the great Empire were suggestively displayed side by side. Ladies were admitted to the galleries, but gentlemen only were seated at the tables, and among the guests were many of the most prominent bankers and merchants of Germany, including capitalists who had been the first in Europe to invest in the war-loans offered by our government. The dinner lasted three hours. Between the courses various toasts were drunk, a venerable burgher of Frankfort proposing the health of General Grant, to which the general responded in a brief, sensible, and somewhat humorous speech, which was exceedingly well received. Nothing could have been more appropriate, modest, and fitting. Outside the building the scene was scarcely less animated or interesting than within. By the aid of colored lights and other pyrotechnic contrivances the garden was made brilliant and gay as an Arabian Nights dream. The air was perfumed with the aroma of flowers and moistened by the delirious play of fountains. Thousands of people, elegantly dressed, were seated on the out-door terraces, enjoying the fireworks and music, and in the promenades other thousands were moving, producing a kaleidoscopic combination of motion and color. For some time after the banquet General Grant sat upon the veranda of the music-hall, conversing with friends and observing this novel scene. His presence excited no rude curiosity or boisterous enthusiasm, but was none the less honored by more subdued and decorous demonstrations of respect. The next day General Grant drove to Homburg, fifteen miles, and thence four miles farther to Saalburg, the site of an ancient Roman fortification on the Taunus Mountains. It was one of a series of defensive stations covering the frontier of the Roman empire and extending from the Rhine to the Danube. The exhumations at this fortified camp, first attempted within a recent period, have disclosed the most completely preserved Roman castramentation yet found in Germany. The castellum is a rectangle, four hundred and sixty-five by seven hundred and four feet, and is surrounded by two deep ditches and by high parapets. Within this enclosure the prætorium, or residence of the commandant, one hundred and thirty-two by one hundred and fifty-three feet, has been distinctly traced by its stone foundations. Stones marked with Roman characters yet remain in their places, designating the camps of the different legions. This fort is mentioned by Tacitus, and was one of the principal bulwarks of the Roman conquest in Germany against the tribes which hovered along its northern frontier.