In the month of April, 1914, I was in Germany, with two days to spare. I had long been haunted by the wish once more to see Coblenz, the happy hunting-ground of sixty years ago. How could a veteran better wind up a holiday than by fulfilling that desire? We put up at the old hotel, “Zum Riesen”—the Giant—a _caravanserai_ that I knew well as long ago as my first visit in 1851. Not that we ever lodged there, for my father preferred the “Bellevue,” out of affection for old M. Hoche, the proprietor, who had been a famous cook in Paris. Those were the days when the table d’hôte acted up to its name, and the host in person sat at the head of the table as Lord of the Feast; every now and then, as some special dish was being handed round, M. Hoche would get up from his seat and come to my father, saying, “Mangez de ça, Monsieur, j’y ai mis la main”—and what a cunning hand it was! and how cheap was the excellent dinner served at one o’clock—fifteen groschen (1s. 6d.) if you came at haphazard, ten groschen if you were _abonné_—supper was _à la carte_. These were the prices of the best hotels on the Rhine, and they must have been just, for dear old M. Hoche and his wife waxed fat upon them, and having lived in great content, died leaving a fortune. The table d’hôte at which the good old grey, snuffy generals and colonels and _Herren Geheimräte_ dined in state is a thing of the past. The old “Bellevue” has been pulled down and has been replaced by a gigantic new “Bellevue”—whose Pharaoh knew not Joseph—Coblenz has grown out of all recollection, and prices have followed suit. Here and there I found some old parts of the town almost untouched, and the view from the bridge over the Moselle is a relic of the past, with its church spires and old-fashioned, rickety houses, roofed with brown tiles, weather-stained like the grey walls and shutters, as picturesque as age and just a modicum of dirt and shabbiness can make them. Here the character of the old German town reveals itself, and when we take our stand in front of the Giant Hotel and look out upon the Rhine, the bridge of boats opening to make way for some passing timber-raft—itself its own cargo from the depths of the far-away Black Forest—when we look at the grim Ehrenbreitstein with its batteries frowning threats from its rocky heights—then we forget all modern improvements and artistic misfortunes, and are once more in the old Rhineland. On the evening of our arrival, after dark the riverside was gaily thronged with people drinking in the cool evening air after the heat of a day as hot as summer. The stream was brilliant with the reflection of electric lights, but across the water on the awe-striking fortress there was just one lamp to be seen peering out of the gloom of the black battlements like a watchful eye—a strange and weird effect, befitting the castle of an ogre—a silent BEWARE! THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON’S FUNERAL