"Dresden, however, detained me longer than I had expected. It was in August that I reached it: there were not many people in town, but I was delighted with the Gallery, with the picturesque sweep of the river, and with the green shade and good music of the Grosser Garten. There were several charming drives, too, in the neighbourhood; and as for the beer, it was really a revelation to a man who had never known anything less heavy and solid than Allsopp's pale ale. "I had put up at the Hotel de Saxe, a broadsided old building on one side of a large irregular 'platz,' called, I believe, the Neumarkt. My landlord, who was a young gentleman of great personal attractions, interested himself a good deal about my amusements; and one day he happened to ask me whether I had visited a region known as Saxon Switzerland. This, it appeared, was a mountainous district some twenty miles up the Elbe, in which was solved the problem of putting the greatest amount of romantic picturesqueness into the smallest possible compass. It was a land of savage rocks, wild precipices, and profound gorges, conveniently grouped within the limits of a good day's tramp. It comprised all the sublime and startling features of your Yellowstone Valley in California with an area about equal to the summit of one of the table bluffs in that region. "I packed my valise for a sojourn of two or three days among these pocket Alps, put my diamonds in that secure inner pocket, and took a droschkey for the railway station. The trip to Schandau (the principal village of Saxon Switzerland) can also be made by steamer; but after discussing the pros and cons of rival routes with my host of the hotel the evening previous, I had decided to go by rail, which provides nearly half as much pretty scenery as the river road, and takes up less than a fourth as much time. I alighted at the station door somewhat late, and having given my trunk in charge to a porter, was hurrying to get my ticket, when my attention was caught by a young lady, who was standing on the platform in an attitude that bespoke suspense and anxiety. Her veil was down, but from the slender elegance of her figure and the harmonious perfection of her costume, I could not doubt that her face was beautiful. Evidently she was not a German; had she been a thought less tastefully dressed, I should have said she was an English girl; as it was, she might be either an Austrian or an American. Even then, I rather inclined to the latter hypothesis.