through a hot road where wild flowers grew in great variety, to the
quaint village of Rudesheim, with its queer streets and ancient
ruins. Is it possible that we can have too many ruins? "Oh dear!"
exclaimed the jung-frau as we sailed along the last day, "if there
is n't another castle!"




HEIDELBERG

If you come to Heidelberg, you will never want to go away. To arrive
here is to come into a peaceful state of rest and content. The great
hills out of which the Neckar flows, infold the town in a sweet
security; and yet there is no sense of imprisonment, for the view is
always wide open to the great plains where the Neckar goes to join
the Rhine, and where the Rhine runs for many a league through a rich
and smiling land. One could settle down here to study, without a
desire to go farther, nor any wish to change the dingy, shabby old
buildings of the university for anything newer and smarter. What the
students can find to fight their little duels about I cannot see; but
fight they do, as many a scarred cheek attests. The students give
life to the town. They go about in little caps of red, green, and
blue, many of them embroidered in gold, and stuck so far on the
forehead that they require an elastic, like that worn by ladies,
under the back hair, to keep them on; and they are also distinguished
by colored ribbons across the breast. The majority of them are
well-behaved young gentlemen, who carry switch-canes, and try to keep
near the fashions, like students at home. Some like to swagger about
in their little skull-caps, and now and then one is attended by a