the background the
lapidation of the condemned."

("Lapidation" is good; it is much more elegant than "stoning.")

"St. Rochus sitting in a landscape with an angel who looks at his
plague-sore, whilst the dog the bread in his mouth attents him."

"Spring. The Goddess Flora, sitting. Behind her a fertile valley
perfused by a river."

"A beautiful bouquet animated by May-bugs, etc."

"A warrior in armor with a gypseous pipe in his hand leans against a
table and blows the smoke far away of himself."

"A Dutch landscape along a navigable river which perfuses it till to the
background."

"Some peasants singing in a cottage. A woman lets drink a child out of a
cup."

"St. John's head as a boy--painted in fresco on a brick." (Meaning a
tile.)

"A young man of the Riccio family, his hair cut off right at the end,
dressed in black with the same cap. Attributed to Raphael, but the
signation is false."

"The Virgin holding the Infant. It is very painted in the manner of
Sassoferrato."

"A Larder with greens and dead game animated by a cook-maid and two
kitchen-boys."

However, the English of this catalogue is at least as happy as that
which distinguishes an inscription upon a certain picture in Rome--to
wit:

"Revelations-View. St. John in Patterson's Island."

But meanwhile the raft is moving on.

CHAPTER XVII

[Why Germans Wear Spectacles]

A mile or two above Eberbach we saw a peculiar ruin projecting above the
foliage which clothed the peak of a high and very steep hill. This ruin
consisted of merely a couple of crumbling masses of masonry which bore
a rude resemblance to human faces; they leaned forward and touched
foreheads, and had the look of being absorbed in conversation. This
ruin had nothing very imposing or picturesque about it, and there was no
great deal of it, yet it was called the "Spectacular Ruin."

LEGEND OF THE "SPECTACULAR RUIN" The captain of the raft, who was as
full of history as he could stick, said that in the Middle Ages a most
prodigious fire-breathing dragon used to live in that region, and made
more trouble than a tax-collector. He was as long as a railway-train,
and had the customary impenetrable green scales all over him. His breath
bred pestilence and conflagration, and his appetite bred famine. He ate
men and cattle impartially, and was exceedingly unpopular. The German
emperor of that day made the usual offer: he would grant to the
destroyer of the dragon, any o