this marvellous country, covered with forests, where the picturesque
charm of the middle ages abounds, though in ruins, we are able to
conceive the German genius, its reverie, its mysticism.

The stay of the two friends at Bonn had the double purpose of science
and pleasure. The grand hospital of the Gallo-Batavian army and of
Augereau's division was established in the very palace of the Elector.
These assistant-surgeons of recent date went there to see old
comrades, to present their letters of recommendation to their medical
chiefs, and to familiarize themselves with the first aspects of their
profession. There, as elsewhere, they got rid of a few prejudices to
which we cling so fondly in favor of the beauties of our native land.
Surprised by the aspect of the columns of marble which adorn the
Electoral Palace, they went about admiring the grandiose effects of
German architecture, and finding everywhere new treasures both modern
and antique.

From time to time the highways along which the two friends rode at
leisure on their way to Andernach, led them over the crest of some
granite hill that was higher than the rest. Thence, through a clearing
of the forest or cleft in the rocky barrier, they caught sudden
glimpses of the Rhine framed in stone or festooned with vigorous
vegetation. The valleys, the forest paths, the trees exhaled that
autumnal odor which induced to reverie; the wooded summits were
beginning to gild and to take on the warm brown tones significant of
age; the leaves were falling, but the skies were still azure and the
dry roads lay like yellow lines along the landscape, just then
illuminated by the oblique rays of the setting sun. At a mile and a
half from Andernach the two friends walked their horses in silence, as
if no war were devastating this beautiful land, while they followed a