Among all that the city has to show the visitor, the ancient Gothic cathedral--the many striking features of which call for a guide-book’s help and cannot be touched upon in this gossiping chronicle--stands out most prominently. “Long before reaching Ulm the old cathedral, with its massive but unfinished towers, attracts the attention of the traveller as seen from the road, and the first view of the dark rolling Danube which is obtained before reaching Ulm, is at first sight a grand and imposing object”--thus, in dubious English, wrote a traveller arriving from Augsburg some years ago. Since that was written, the beautiful great tower on the western side with its wonderful sculptured doorway, and wealth of figures has been completed in accordance with the fifteenth century design left by the last of the original architects. This work of completion occupied thirteen years (1877-1890) and now the tower, 528 feet in height, has the distinction of being one of the loftiest in the world--thirteen feet higher than that of Cologne cathedral and twenty-seven feet lower than the Washington Monument. From the tower is to be had an extensive view, said to take in the historic battleground of Blenheim, past which the Danube flows some thirty miles away. Writing seventy years ago, a visitor declared that if the tower could be completed, it would be one of the finest in Europe, and such it is now acknowledged to be. The cathedral itself is the second largest in the German Empire, being exceeded only by that at Cologne, and it is supposed to be capable of containing as many as thirty thousand persons. As is fitting in a place regarded as of great military importance, Ulm figures in the annals of war. It was hence that the Elector of Bavaria set out for the famous battlefield of Blenheim some distance down the river, and it was here that the Austrian General Mack shut himself up with a force of over thirty thousand men to stay Napoleon’s rapid advance on Vienna in 1805. Despite the importance of Ulm, despite the formidable army he had with him--with ample provisions and ammunition--Mack surrendered the town almost without striking a blow; “yet somehow he was suffered to escape the punishment of which he was thought to be richly deserving.”