_There is one portion of the book, however, (a very small one, some twenty pages of letter-press) which may require some apology. The course of the Rhine leads to most of the German Spas, and is therefore traversed annually by multitudes of invalids as well as tourists. Every castle and promontory on its banks has its legend, and these traditions contribute to fix the picture of the locality in the mind’s eye, by association, for ever afterwards. In one of my excursions, some years ago, it struck me that these legends were ~designed~, originally, each to convey some moral precept—at all events, I became convinced that they were ~capable~ of being ~moralized~. Under this impression, I condensed the principal traditionary tales that have their ~locale~ in sight of the voyager, and deduced what I considered to be the moral or useful precepts which they concealed under a wild and improbable fiction. If I have failed in this attempt, the intention, at least, was good. Throughout the whole volume, my object has been to compress into small space much useful information for invalid or tourist, and, on all occasions, to start subjects for meditation or reflection, well knowing, from long experience, that such occupations of the mind on a journey, are eminently conducive both to pleasure and health._ _In the principal or professional portion of the work, I have endeavoured to collect all the information in my power, and, in the exercise of my judgment, to sift the grain from the chaff, thus to steer clear of the extremes of exaggeration and scepticism. There has been too much of the ~former~ abroad, and too much of the ~latter~ at home. Holding myself perfectly free from all obligation to subserve local interests on one side of the channel, or foster national prejudices on the other, I have spoken my mind, with equal fearlessness and, I hope, impartiality._ _The typography of this volume will prove that, although I must plead guilty to the charge of “making a book,” it has not been constructed on the approved principles of “BOOK MAKING.” By certain mechanical processes well known “in the trade,” this slender tome might have been easily expanded into two or even three goodly, or at least costly octavos, without the expenditure of a single additional line, word, or thought. But, bearing in mind the old Greek maxim that “a great book is a great evil,” I was determined that, should my lucubrations come under this head at all, the evil as well as the book should be on a small scale. Spa-going invalids have evils enough, God knows, to carry on their shoulders, without the addition, of a “MEGA BIBLION” in their wallets._