causerie with proprietor or customer, generally puzzled over my presence and sometimes suspicious. Had I told them the real truth, which was that I was there in order to see what manner of people they were, and for no other reason-that I was not a novelist or an artist, but only a disinterested observer of life, they would have exploded with laughter. What a fool I must be to imagine that shrewd people like them could be taken in with so bald a fiction!

I made tours of the Boulevards, which took some time, as I sat in many cafés, sampled many vintages, and consumed endless mazagrans and amers. On Sundays I went to the Louvre, where I often ran across clerical schoolmasters from the suburbs with groups of youngsters to whom they were endeavouring to expound the works of art, sometimes in a rather artless manner.

It was, I think, Frédéric le Play who suggested, and it was Patrick Geddes who elaborated into a schematic whole, the theory of the topography of Paris by which Paris is seen to be a complex of ronds-points or places of rendezvous for hunters in a forest. In short, that Paris is a forest city. The Louvre-or Wolf's Grove in which wolves could always be hunted and found-has near it the principal rond-point, and all the others are connected with it by radial avenues. It is true that the plan here suggested is the plan of the roads in the forests round Paris. The forest round St. Cloud exhibits the plan precisely. What importance is to be attached to original impulse towards such a plan and what importance to the obvious military advantages, whether for defence against external attack or internal revolution, would be hard to determine. Very likely both were equally important. The original rond-point plan would have been abandoned if it had not been convenient to continue on military grounds.

The buildings of the exposition were by no means so fine or sc interesting as architectural experiments as those of the exposition of 1889 (which I did not see) or of 1900, of which later I shall give some account. I was, however, much interested in the chemical section, of which I made a careful study. Germany exhibited many chemical products, and I determined to go to Germany in order to make inquiry into what was going on in that connection as well as to see the Rhine. I went from Paris to Strassburg, where I climbed the cathedral spire. The delicate tracery in the upper part of it is quite fine, and the view of the surrounding flat country excellent. From Strassburg I went to Mülhausen to see chemical works, and on the same errand to Frankfurt-on-the-Main. In both of these places I found the beginnings of the chemical industries which were soon to assume

such large proportions. I did not derive a great deal of detailed information, indeed it was not my purpose to seek it. I only wanted to gather in a general sense what was the nature and extent of the movement. I met a number of the leading people in the industry, and I was struck by the fact that almost none of those whom I met were young men nearly all of them were men of highly mature years. It struck me at the time that many of them must have left other employments in commerce or finance to go into the chemical trade. It appeared to me that for their apparent size the businesses were somewhat overloaded with non-technical directors.1

One of the works which I visited was that of Meister Lucius and Bruning at Hoechst, a suburb of Frankfurt-on-the-Main. It was a small affair then. Within a few years it had expanded greatly and acquired a wide celebrity. I went to Wiesbaden, where it occurred to me that I might call upon Fresenius, the chemist. Strangely enough, although he had extensive fame outside Germany, I experienced difficulty in discovering where he lived. I found his house, but unfortunately he was away from home. Wiesbaden was at that time a favourite resort of the English people, who went there for the cure. There was a kursaal and gardens and the usual appurtenances of such a place.

Frankfurt was just beginning to transform itself. A part of the Judengasse had just been pulled down, but the old Rothschild house was still standing as well as other houses of the same period. I went to Worms because of its historical interest, to Mannheim and to Heidelberg, where I saw the castle and its tuns, and the fine view of the Neckar from its terraces. On the opposite bank of the Neckar is the inn where the Heidelberg students went to fight their duels. From Heidelberg I went to Mainz. Apart from its monuments and historical associations, Mainz was interesting to me because it was the home of my friend Henry Ettling, the master drummer. Ettling was a merchant in wines-the light wines of the Rhine-and he plied his trade in England in happier times before the German megalomania. Wine gave him a living; but his real métier was that of a musician. He was by common consent of those who knew the greatest drummer of his age. Everywhere he was in demand, and he used to play the big drum at every big concert in Europe. He beat his drum for the mere joy of it.

I was unable to account for this phenomenon at the time. Not for years afterwards did its real significance dawn upon me. The youths in the scientific departments in the universities and technical colleges were being exploited by the financiers, who were represented by the directors whom I saw. By means of this co-operation of financial power and scientific intelligence the huge structure of German business was built up.

Ettling was besides a first-rate amateur conjurer. One evening at my house, after playing some classical pieces on the piano, he asked for a large clothes-brush, and with this implement he executed some astonishing jeux d'esprit. Then the brush disappeared before our eyes. It was found later in some remote part of the room. He was especially skilful in palming coins. His art lay in extraordinary rapidity of movement. Placing a coin in his open palm, he was able, by a motion too quick for the eye to follow, to throw it into his hair, of which he had more than abundance-a trick I never saw any professional conjurer attempt. He told me of two tricks he played upon professionals. One of them was played upon one of the "Doblers" or "Hermanns," i.e. one of the men to whom some well-known conjurer sold the use of his name. This man was performing in a provincial town somewhere in Europe. Ettling happened to be there, and attended the performance. A confederate of the man on the stage sat down beside Ettling and clumsily inserted into the pocket of one of the audience a coloured handkerchief, obviously in preparation for a trick. Ettling immediately abstracted the handkerchief, and put it in his own pocket. When the trick came on the handkerchief could not be found. Ettling left it at the box-office with a note advising the performer to be more careful in choosing his confederates. The other occasion was when Ettling attended the performance of a conjurer who did a trick that Ettling could not follow. The conjurer happened to be staying in the same hotel as Ettling, and Ettling invited him to a game at billiards. Before the game began, Ettling complimented him upon his performance and offered him half a sovereign for an explanation of the trick he could not follow. The conjurer told him how the trick was done, and Ettling produced the half-sovereign. When the game was over Ettling said, "By the way, did I pay you for that trick?" "Yes," said the conjurer. "Are you sure?" "Yes, of course, you put a half-sovereign into my hand." "No doubt," said Ettling, "but I also took it out again. Here it is."

As the steamer approached Cologne, the lofty spires of the cathedral made their appearance. At that time the south spire was enveloped in scaffolding, for it was not yet finished. It was destined to be completed ere long, for the last stone of the south spire was put in position in August 1880, two years after I saw it. Apart from its great size and the height of its spires, the cathedral of Cologne is not remarkable. Although the design is old and although it is a fair example of Gothic architecture, it has been largely built in recent times. Considered as

a work of art, it cannot be compared with either the cathedral of Rheims, which the Germans have wantonly destroyed, or the cathedral of Amiens, which ran risk of destruction at their hands.

At Cologne I sat down in the Dom Hof at a table where a young priest was already seated. He courteously asked me to share his wine. I found that he came from Glasgow and was leaving Cologne that day. So was I, and we travelled together so far as Aix-la-Chapelle. This friendly young cleric became, many years later, Dr. MacGuire, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Glasgow.

At Aix-la-Chapelle, as the French called it when it was theirs, or Aachen as the Germans call it, I saw some chemical works and people of no great importance, and went to the basilica to see the simple stone in the pavement upon which are inscribed the magic words Carlo Magno. It was here that at nine o'clock in the morning of the 28th of January, 814, Charlemagne died. There were legends that he was buried sitting upon his throne, with his crown upon his head and his sceptre in his hands, as if some day he might be expected to resume sway over his wide empire; but the hard historical fact is that he was placed recumbent in a coffin like ordinary mortals. Yet Charlemagne was not an ordinary mortal. When his coffin was opened in 1861, measurement of his skeleton showed that he stood six feet four inches, nearly a head taller than a tall man of his or of our own time.

PART III.-Rotterdam, THE RHINE, THE MOSELLE, ITALY AND SWITZERLAND, 1881

In the summer of 1881 I sailed from Leith, as the guest of a captain of a cargo steamer, with a friend who was on his way to Brussels. After a somewhat stormy passage we drew up at the Boompjes in Rotterdam. Seven years had wrought great changes. The bridge over the Maas Diep had been finished, a great clearance of ancient houses and streets had been made, and there was a new railway station in the heart of the city. There were signs of commercial activity everywhere. Rotterdam had been profiting by the trade movement in Germany, and particularly by that of the lower valley of the Rhine. We did not delay in Rotterdam, but soon made our way to Antwerp. There seven years had wrought even greater changes. The reconstruction of the quays and docks had begun in 1877 and was proceeding. The effect upon the shipping trade of Antwerp of the growth of

German commerce was obvious, and not less so the effect of the growth of Belgian industry. The manufacture of light iron beams for the construction of buildings had been rapidly developed, and the skill and ingenuity applied to this industry gave Belgium for a time a practical monopoly in light girders. The British iron manufacturers had devoted themselves to the production of the heavier iron products, and their machinery was specially adapted to this work. Up till 1873 they had been overwhelmed with orders, and they had not yet turned their attention to other forms of demand. Moreover, the iron ores of Luxemburg, which formed three-fourths of the ores manipulated in the Belgian furnaces, were specially suited for light iron manufactures. Thus during a period of trade depression throughout the world Belgian iron manufacture increased rapidly because the Belgian product met the demand for structural material. This material was required for the building of industrial and other dwellings under the conditions indicated in a previous chapter. In 1881 Belgium exported heavily to Holland, Great Britain, the French Colonies, and even to the United States, whose great iron development had not yet begun.

In Brussels also the years had wrought changes. The process of widening the main avenues and rebuilding was going on apace.

From Brussels I went to Cologne, and from there up the Rhine to Coblenz. From Coblenz I had intended to sail up the Moselle, but it was not possible. The summer was unusually hot, and the river had sunk to a tiny stream. Nevertheless, the scenery as viewed from the railway is very picturesque. There is indeed no more beautiful valley in western Europe than the narrow valley, almost a gorge in places, through which the Moselle flows to the Rhine. At Treves I found the magnificent Roman villa which had comparatively recently been fully exposed.

From Treves I went to Luxemburg, whose position on an abrupt ridge rising out of a valley approaching it on all sides renders it one of the most picturesque of cities; and from Luxemburg I went on to Metz. I took the opportunity of walking round the outskirts of this celebrated fortress, and of looking with the eye of an amateur upon the system of forts by which it was surrounded. From Metz I went direct to Basle, and so found myself in Switzerland. I spent a short time in Geneva, where I went to see the point where the white waters of the Arve loaded with the mud of the glaciers join the blue waters of the Rhone, filtered as they are by passing through the great basin of Lake Leman, and amused myself by putting a sheet of paper between the rivers at their juncture, so precise is the line of demarcation.