At Cologne the Rhine is still untroubled by any sense of the doom which awaits it. The river takes a wide bend as it approaches the town, a lucky chance which is admirable from the aesthetic point of view. The traffic is very considerable. Huge barges bearing coal, iron, and all manner of merchandise are dragged up stream by powerful tugs. At night the view from the banks is mysterious and beautiful. A great net of twinkling lights cast over town and quays is reflected a hundredfold in the dark waters. Lights from the barges, anchored alongside the banks after the day’s work, twinkle back in reply to the messages from the shore. Everything seems astir, as though town and river were moved by some dim half-earthly emotion. When morning comes it will reveal that many of these fairy lights only mark the presence of factories and workshops. But night with her indigo mantle has given another and more mysterious turn to the scene. The massive Hohenzollern bridge which spans the river exactly opposite the Dom is a typical expression of the spirit of modern Germany--strong, powerful, practical. It is a fine bridge, and I have so much to say in criticism of German taste that I am glad for once in a way to note the entire success with which they have handled an architectural problem concerned with the carrying, at one and the same time, of railway lines, trams, and passenger traffic. Especially fine is the bridge at night, when it hangs like a chain of light across the river; trams and trains passing like swift-moving constellations among the firmament of the illuminated spans and pillars. The awkward mass of the Dom lies in close proximity to the bridge, but they do not interfere with one another.