Among the towns of the Empire Augsburg was easily first; its finest street was the finest street in Europe, with roofs of copper; Nuremburg ran it close in many ways but had nothing to show in comparison with that one street. The cause of Augsburg's preëminence was its being the home of the Fuggers, the greatest financiers of Europe, but with their decline one function of the town that meant much in the way of attracting wayfarers, that of being the General-Post-Office for correspondence between Italy and Central Europe, passed to Frankfurt. The frequency of the use of stone as house-building material in these towns of Upper Germany and the show of burnished pewter and brass that was the pride of each inhabitant of standing, who let his huge hall-door lie open all day to exhibit it, were details which the Average Tourist would not overlook if he was observing as he ought where the wealth and security prevailed that were valuable in an ally. Thus did Strassburg fix itself in De Rohan's recollections. Democracy, to him, was a barely credible superstition; yet nowhere was he more courteously treated, nowhere did he see completer preparations against a long siege, nor any better arsenal, a model of cleanliness, orderliness, and efficiency. Neither was it lost on him that amongst all their collection of cannon there was not one for siege purposes; their aim was defence, not offence. As little to be ignored as the others was Ulm. A feature of the age was the development of the methods of water-supply in towns; Ulm was the centre for this industry; even Augsburg's water-supply had been planned there. And it was equally the leader in woodwork. Similar characteristics would be found repeated on a somewhat less striking scale among the Hansa towns, with Lübeck ranking first in pleasantness by general consent. A specially charming feature lay in the number of swans swimming in the moats, though no Englishman so much as mentions them; doubtless because the one town that excelled it in this respect was London. Going east, the various capitals would provide each its own object-lesson, and, collectively, would illustrate the absence of avarice among German rulers as contrasted with the princes of Italy. Saxony formed the only exception and Dresden showed it. In spite of it being the last big town that Hentzner visited, its armoury aroused more enthusiasm in him than anything except the gardens of Naples and the all-sufficiency of Milan; and Moryson confirms this, adding also that the stable was the finest he had seen, with its 136 horses, all foreigners (the German horses had another stable to themselves), each with a glazed window and a green curtain in front of his nose, a red cloth, an iron rack, a copper manger, a brass shower-bath, and a separate cupboard for his trappings.