impossible that conscious intelligent beings could behave thus, but
the fact that they do, helps us to believe other strange truths recorded
in history, without which, no correct conception of man's former depraved
condition can be formed at this advanced day. For example, few seem to
appreciate the part played by the Catholic Church with her images,
shrines, sacred relics, paid magnificent temples, in taming and civilizing
man, because they do not know who and what he was when the light of
intelligence first began to direct his footsteps, and he had not yet
learned to control his selfish nature which had hitherto been guided by an
instinct worth a hundred times more than intelligence without morality or
religion. We make a sad mistake yet in the nineteenth century, in
cultivating the intellect and leaving morality so much out of the
question. We see some of the fruits already in the corruption which
prevails alike in all circles without regard to party or sect. I will
recur to this again in speaking of the influence of the church, when I
come to describe the magnificent churches of Italy.

On the second afternoon that I spent at Cologne there had been a shower,
and from sunset till dusk I beheld one of the grandest atmospheric
phenomena that I had ever witnessed. From a window of Mlueler's Hotel
(facing the _Dom-Platz_) I was looking over the Cathedral at the western
sky, as the sun throw its colored light through the small drops of rain
still descending, and thus colored both the green foliage of the trees and
the grand edifice before me, presenting a scene of such enchanting beauty
as would afford almost a sufficient excuse for one to go into raptures, or
sink down in a fit of ecstatic delight.

I may add that before leaving Cologne, I saw among the many dog-teams used
in distributing produce over the city, a span whose disproportion I shall
never forget; there was a dog hitched to one side of the shaft and a woman
took hold of the other side and assisted him in pulling the load!

Bonn.

On Friday morning, August 13th, I left Cologne and went by rail to Bonn,
21 miles further up the Rhine. It is the seat of the Freidrich Wilhelm
University, and contains about 26,000 inhabitants. The Poppelsdorfer
Allee, an excellent quadruple avenue of fine horse-chestnuts, three
quarters of a mile long, is the principal promenade of the town. At the
end of it stands the Schloss containing the University, with a library
(200