To-day I got rather a curiosity—_Lieder und Balladen von Robert Burns_, translated by one Silbergleit, and not so ill done either. Armed with which, I had a swim in the Main, and then bread and cheese and Bavarian beer in a sort of café, or at least the German substitute for a café; but what a falling off after the heavenly forenoons in Brussels! I have bought a meerschaum out of local sentiment, and am now very low and nervous about the bargain, having paid dearer than I should in England, and got a worse article, if I can form a judgment. Do write some more, somebody. To-morrow I expect I shall go into lodgings, as this hotel work makes the money disappear like butter in a furnace.—Meanwhile believe me, ever your affectionate son, R. L. STEVENSON. TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON _Hotel Landsberg_, _Thursday_, 1_st_ _August_ 1872. . . . YESTERDAY I walked to Eckenheim, a village a little way out of Frankfurt, and turned into the alehouse. In the room, which was just such as it would have been in Scotland, were the landlady, two neighbours, and an old peasant eating raw sausage at the far end. I soon got into conversation; and was astonished when the landlady, having asked whether I were an Englishman, and received an answer in the affirmative, proceeded to inquire further whether I were not also a Scotchman. It turned out that a Scotch doctor—a professor—a poet—who wrote books—_gross wie das_—had come nearly every day out of Frankfurt to the _Eckenheimer Wirthschaft_, and had left behind him a most savoury memory in the hearts of all its customers. One man ran out to find his name for me, and returned with the news that it was _Cobie_ (Scobie, I suspect); and during his absence the rest were pouring into my ears the fame and acquirements of my countryman. He was, in some undecipherable manner, connected with the Queen of England and one of the Princesses. He had been in Turkey, and had there married a wife of immense wealth. They could find apparently no measure adequate to express the size of his books. In one way or another, he had amassed a princely fortune, and had apparently only one sorrow, his daughter to wit, who had absconded into a _kloster_, with a considerable slice of the mother’s _geld_. I told them we had no klosters in Scotland, with a certain feeling of superiority. No more had they, I was told—‘_Hier ist unser Kloster_!’ and the speaker motioned with both arms round the taproom. Although the first torrent was exhausted, yet the Doctor came up again in all sorts of ways, and with or without occasion, throughout the whole interview; as, for example, when one man, taking his pipe out of his mouth and shaking his head, remarked _àpropos_ of nothing and with almost defiant conviction, ‘_Er war ein feiner Mann_, _der Herr Doctor_,’ and was answered by another with ‘_Yaw_, _yaw_, _und trank immer rothen Wein_.’