RATISBON[A]

BY THOMAS FROGNALL DIBDIN


It was dark when we entered Ratisbon, and, having been recommended to
the Hotel of the Agneau Blanc, we drove thither, and alighted--close to
the very banks of the Danube--and heard the roar of its rapid stream,
turning several mills, close, as it were, to our very ears. The master
of the hotel, whose name is Cramer, and who talked French very readily,
received us with peculiar courtesy; and, on demanding the best situated
room in the house, we were conducted on the second floor, to a chamber
which had been occupied, only two or three days before, by the Emperor
of Austria himself, on his way to Aix-la-Chapelle. The next morning was
a morning of wonder to us. Our sitting-room, which was a very lantern,
from the number of windows, gave us a view of the rushing stream of the
Danube, of a portion of the bridge over it, of some beautifully
undulating and vine-covered hills, in the distance, on the opposite
side--and, lower down the stream, of the town walls and water-mills, of
which latter we had heard the stunning sounds on our arrival. The whole
had a singularly novel and pleasing appearance.

The Town Hall was large and imposing; but the Cathedral, surrounded by
booths--it being fair-time--was, of course, the great object of my
attention. In short, I saw enough within an hour to convince me that I
was visiting a large, curious, and well-peopled town; replete with
antiquities, and including several of the time of the Romans, to whom it
was necessarily a very important station. Ratisbon is said to contain a
population of about 20,000 souls.[B]