capital of the German Empire, it has no lack of interesting historical
recollections, and, notwithstanding it is fast becoming modernized, one
is everywhere reminded of the past. The cathedral, old as the days of
Peter the Hermit, the grotesque street of the Jews, the many quaint,
antiquated dwellings and the moldering watch-towers on the hills around,
give it a more interesting character than any German city I have yet
seen. The house we dwell in, on the Markt Platz, is more than two
hundred years old; directly opposite is a great castellated building
gloomy with the weight of six centuries, and a few steps to the left
brings me to the square of the Römerberg, where the emperors were
crowned, in a corner of which is a curiously ornamented house formerly
the residence of Luther. There are legends innumerable connected with
all these buildings, and even yet discoveries are frequently made in old
houses of secret chambers and staircases. When you add to all this the
German love of ghost-stories, and, indeed, their general belief in
spirits, the lover of romance could not desire a more agreeable
residence.

Within the walls the greater part of Frankfort is built in the old
German style, the houses six or seven stories high and every story
projecting out over the other; so that those living in the upper part
can nearly shake hands out of the windows. At the corners figures of men
are often seen holding up the story above on their shoulders and making
horrible faces at the weight. When I state that in all these narrow
streets, which constitute the greater part of the city, there are no
sidewalks, the windows of the lower stories have iron gratings extending
a foot or so into the street, which is only wide enough for one cart to
pass along, you can have some idea of the facility of walking through
them, to say nothing of the piles of wood and market-women with baskets
of vegetables which one is continuously stumbling over. Even in the