that hid from our
view the Tyrol and the Swabian mountains, over a rolling, pleasant
country, past pretty little railway station-houses, covered with
vines, gay with flowers in the windows, and surrounded with beds of
flowers, past switchmen in flaming scarlet jackets, who stand at the
switches and raise the hand to the temple, and keep it there, in a
military salute, as we go by, we come into old Augsburg, whose
Confession is not so fresh in our minds as it ought to be. Portions
of the ancient wall remain, and many of the towers; and there are
archways, picturesquely opening from street to street, under several
of which we drive on our way to the Three Moors, a stately hostelry
and one of the oldest in Germany.

It stood here in the year 1500; and the room is still shown,
unchanged since then, in which the rich Count Fugger entertained
Charles V. The chambers are nearly all immense. That in which we
are lodged is large enough for Queen Victoria; indeed, I am glad to
say that her sleeping-room at St. Cloud was not half so spacious.
One feels either like a count, or very lonesome, to sit down in a
lofty chamber, say thirty-five feet square, with little furniture,
and historical and tragical life-size figures staring at one from the
wall-paper. One fears that they may come down in the deep night, and
stand at the bedside,--those narrow, canopied beds there in the
distance, like the marble couches in the cathedral. It must be a
fearful thing to be a royal person, and dwell in a palace, with
resounding rooms and naked, waxed, inlaid floors. At the Three Moors
one sees a visitors' book, begun in 1800, which contains the names of
many noble and great people, as well as poets and doctors and titled
ladies, and much sentimental writing in French. It is my impression,
from an inspection of the book, that we are the first untitled
visitors.

The traveler cannot but like Augsburg at once, for its quaint houses,
colored so diversely and yet harmoniously. Remains of its former
brilliancy yet exist in the frescoes on the outside of the buildings,
some of which are still bright in color, though partially defaced.
Those on the House of Fugger have been restored, and are very brave
pictures. These frescoes give great animation and life to the
appearance of a street, and I am glad to see a taste for them
reviving. Augsburg must have been very gay with them two and three
hundred years ago, when, also, it was the home of beautiful wome