gotten the season the next day, but for the bare trees and swell. ing Main, as I threaded my way through the hundreds of people who thronged its banks. It was that soft warmth that comes with the first spring days, relaxing the body and casting a dreamy hue over the mind. I leaned over the bridge in the full enjoyment of it, and listening to the roaring of the water under the arches, forgot every thing else for a time. It was amusing to walk up and down the pier and look at the countenances passing by, while the phantasy was ever ready, weaving a tale for all. My favorite Tyrolese were there, and I saw a Greek leaning over the stone balustrade, wearing the red cap and white frock, and with the long dark hair and fiery eye of the Orient. I could not but wonder, as he looked at the dim hills of the Odenwald, along the eastern horizon, whether they called up in his mind the purple isles of his native Archipelago.

The general character of a nation is plainly stamped on the countenances of its people. One who notices the faces in the streets, can soon distinguish, by the glance he gives in going by, the Englishman or the Frenchman from the German, and the Christian from the Jew. Not less striking is the difference of expression between the Germans themselves; and in places where all classes of people are drawn together, it is interesting to observe how accurately these distinctions are drawn. The boys have generally handsome, intelligent faces, and like all boys, they are full of life and spirit, for they know nothing of the laws by which their country is chained down, and would not care for them, if they did. But with the exception of the students, who talk, at least, of Liberty and Right, the young men lose this spirit and at last settle down into the calm, cautious, lethargic citizen. One distinguishes an Englishman and I should think an American, also, in this respect, very easily; the former, moreover, by a certain cold stateliness and reserve. There is something, however, about a Jew, whether English or German, which marks him from all others. However different their faces, there

is a family character which runs through the whole of them. It lays principally in their high cheek-bones, prominent nose and thin, compressed lips; which, especially in elderly men, gives a peculiar miserly expression that is unmistakeable.

RISE OF THE WATER.

101

I regret to say, one looks almost in vain, in Germany, for a handsome female countenance. Here and there, perhaps, is a woman with regular features, but that intellectual expression, which gives such a charm to the most common face, is wanting. I have seen more beautiful women in one night, in a public assembly in America, than during the seven months I have been on the Continent. Some of the young Jewesses, in Frankfort, are considered handsome, but their features soon become too strongly marked. In a public walk the number of positively ugly faces is really astonishing.

About ten o'clock that night, I heard a noise of persons running in the street, and going to the Römerberg, found the water had risen, all at once, much higher, and was still rapidly increasing. People were setting up torches and lengthening the rafts, which had been already formed. The lower part of the city was a real Venice—the streets were full of boats and people could even row about in their own houses; though it was not quite so bad as the flood in Georgia, where they went up stairs to bed in boats! I went to the bridge. Persons were calling around "The water! the water! it rises continually!" The river rushed through the arches, foaming and dashing with a noise like thunder, and the red light of the torches along the shore cast a flickering glare on the troubled waves. It was then twenty-one feet above its usual level. Men were busy all around, carrying boats and ladders to the places most threatened, or emptying cellars into which it was penetrating. The sudden swelling was occasioned by the coming down of the floods from the mountains of Spessart.

Part of the upper quay cracked next morning and threatened to fall in, and one of the projecting piers of the bridge sunk away from the main body three or four inches. In Sachsenhausen the desolation occasioned by the flood is absolutely frightful; several houses have fallen into total ruin. All business was stopped for the day; the Exchange was even shut up. As the city depends almost entirely on pumps for its supply of water, and these were filled with the flood, we have been drinking the muddy current of the Main ever since. The damage to goods is very great. The fair was stopped at once, and the loss in this respect

alone, must be several millions of florins.

The water began to fall on the 1st, and has now sunk about ten feet, so that most of the houses are again released, though in a bad condition.

Yesterday afternoon, as I was sitting in my room, writing, I heard all at once an explosion like a cannon in the street, followed by loud and continued screams. Looking out the window, I saw the people rushing by with goods in their arms, some wringing their hands and crying, others running in all directions. Imagining that it was nothing less than the tumbling down of one of the old houses, we ran down and saw a store a few doors distant in flames. The windows were bursting and flying out, and the mingled mass of smoke and red flame reached half way across the street. We learned afterwards it was occasioned by the explosion of a jar of naphtha, which instantly enveloped the whole room in fire, the people barely escaping in time. The persons who had booths near were standing still in despair, while the flames were beginning to touch their property. A few butchers who first came up, did almost everything. A fire engine arrived soon, but it was ten minutes before it began to play, and by that time the flames were coming out of the upper stories. Then the supply of water soon failed, and though another engine came up shortly after, it was sometime before it could be put in order, so that by the time they got fairly to work, the fire had made its way nearly through the house. The water was first brought in barrels drawn by horses, till some officer came and opened the fire plug. The police were busy at work seizing those who came by and setting them to work; and as the alarm had drawn a great many together, they at last began to effect something. All the military are obliged to be out, and the officers appeared eager to use their authority while they could, for every one was ordering and commanding, till all was a scene of perfect confusion and uproar. I could not help laughing heartily, so ludicrous did the scene appear. There were little, miserable engines, not much bigger than a hand-cart, and looking as if they had not been used for half a century, the horses running backwards and forwards, dragging barrels which were emptied into tubs, after which the water was finally dipped up in buckets, and emptied into the engines! These machines can only play

into the second or third story, after which the hose was taken up in the houses on the opposite side of the street, and made to play across. After four hours the fire was overcome, the house being thoroughly burnt out; it happened to have double fire walls, which prevented those adjoining from catching easily.

CHAPTER XV,

THE DEAD AND THE DEAF-MENDELSSOHN THE COMPOSER.

It is now a luxury to breathe. These spring days are the perfection of delightful weather. Imagine the delicious temperature of our Indian summer joined to the life and freshness of spring, add to this a sky of the purest azure, and a breeze filled with the odor of violets, the most exquisite of all perfumes-and you have some idea of it. The meadows are beginning to bloom, and I have already heard the larks singing high up in the sky. Those sacred birds, the storks, have returned and taken possession of their old nests on the chimney-tops; they are sometimes seen walking about in the fields, with a very grave and serious air, as if conscious of the estimation in which they are held. Everybody is out in the open air; the woods, although they still look wintry, are filled with people, and the boatmen on the Main are busy ferrying gay parties across. The spring has been so long in coming, that all are determined to enjoy it well, while it lasts.

We visited the cemetery a few days ago. The dead-house, where corpses are placed in the hope of resuscitation, is an appendage to cemeteries found only in Germany. We were shown into a narrow chamber, on each side of which were six cells, into which one could distinctly see, by means of a large plate of glass. In each of these is a bier for the body, directly above which hangs a cord, having on the end ten thimbles, which are put upon the fingers of the corpse, so that the slightest motion strikes a bell in the watchman's room. Lamps are lighted at night, and in winter the rooms are warmed. In the watchman's chamber

stands a clock with a dial-plate of twenty-four hours, and opposite every hour is a little plate, which can only be moved two minutes before it strikes. If then the watchman has slept or neglected his duty at that time, he cannot move it afterwards, and