If, thanks to the action of one man, the military annals of Ulm are thus in part inglorious, it has the distinction of remarkable association with one of the oldest of the arts of peace. It was here that the “Meistersänger” lingered longest, “preserving without text and without notes the traditional love of their craft.” It is true that the Meistersänger lacked on the whole the freshness and fascination of their forerunners the “Minnesänger,” but their story forms an interesting chapter in the history of the literature of their land, though a German historian of German literature has sneered at them as “chiefly burghers of towns ... prudent though uninspired votaries of the Muse,” and has declared that in their work “the real soul of Poetry was wanting.” It is, however, interesting to know that for nearly five centuries there were burghers to keep the idea of poetry alive if no more, and to know that here in Ulm there remained in 1830 a dozen of the Meistersänger. Nine years later there were but four, and they in 1839 formally made over their insignia and other guild property to a modern singing society. The last formal meeting of the Meistersänger had taken place in 1770. Ancient Ulm was on the left bank of the Danube--the old city wall along the river front affords a pleasant walk--but now it may be said to include Neu Ulm on the right bank; indeed for military purposes the two were some years ago made one, though the old town is in Würtemburg and the new one in Bavaria. It was at Elchingen, just below Ulm, that Marshal Ney won the victory that caused General Mack to surrender the city and gained for the victor, Napoleon’s _brave des braves_, the grand eagle of the Legion of Honour and the title of Duke of Elchingen. Beyond the scene of the battle of October 14, 1805, the river traverses for many miles the extensive marshlands of Donaumoos and Donauriet, closely neighboured by the railway. About fifteen miles below Ulm, picturesquely situated on the right bank on a hill overlooking the extensive Donaumoos on the further side, is Gunzburg, on the site of the old Roman station of Guntia. This place should be additionally interesting to English visitors as having long possessed a nunnery, founded here, it is supposed after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, by an English woman named Maria Ward. Lauingen and Dillingen are small, attractive old towns. The first was the birthplace of Albertus Magnus--a celebrated scholar whom we shall meet again on our downward journey along the river--of whom a bronze statue is to be seen in the market place.