eful figure for the wandering invalid tourist to
meet,--who acts as undertaker for this ducal city, and marshals the
last melancholy procession. I well remember my first meeting with this
ominous functionary. It was an early autumnal morning; so early, that
the long formal perspective of the allee, and the decorous, smooth
vanishing-lines of cream-and-gray fronted houses, were unrelieved by a
single human figure. Suddenly a tall black spectre, as theatrical and
as unreal as the painted scenic distance, turned the corner from a
cross-street, and moved slowly towards me. A long black cloak, falling
from its shoulders to its feet, floated out on either side like sable
wings; a cocked hat trimmed with crape, and surmounted by a hearse-like
feather, covered a passionless face; and its eyes, looking neither left
nor right, were fixed fatefully upon some distant goal. Stranger as I
was to this Continental ceremonial figure, there was no mistaking his
functions as the grim messenger, knocking "with equal foot" on every
door; and, indeed, so perfectly did he act and look his role, that there
was nothing ludicrous in the extraordinary spectacle. Facial expression
and dignity of bearing were perfect; the whole man seemed saturated with
the accepted sentiment of his office. Recalling the half-confused
and half-conscious ostentatious hypocrisy of the American sexton, the
shameless absurdities of the English mutes and mourners, I could not
help feeling, that, if it were demanded that Grief and Fate should be
personified, it were better that it should be well done. And it is
one observation of my Spion, that this sincerity and belief is the
characteristic of all Continental functionaries.

It is possible that my Spion has shown me little that is really
characteristic of the people, and the few observations I have made I
offer only as an illustration of the impressions made upon two-thirds of
American strangers in the larger towns of Germany. Assimilation goes on
more rapidly than we are led to imagine. As I have seen my friend Karl,
fresh and awkward in his first uniform, lounging later down the allee
with the blase listlessness of a full-blown militaire, so I have seen
American and English residents gradually lose their peculiarities, and
melt and merge into the general mass. Returning to my Spion after
a flying trip through Belgium and France, as I look down the long
perspective of the Strasse, I am conscious of recalling the same st