one great striped horn sticking out of his nose like a
boltsprit. If there are many wood-worms in Germany, I shall come home.
The most courageous men in the world must be entomologists. I had rather
be a lion-tamer.

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 cafe, or at least the German substitute for a cafe;
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, 1st 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 t