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26 the characters were so unlike any hitherto drawn in fiction, save by Fielding and Smollett; and their tales were disfigured by grossnesses.

We were at Cologne when occurred one of the last, if not the last exhibition of the Ship of Isis drawn through the streets with flags flying and the crew waving torches. Tacitus mentions the drawing about of the Ship of Isis by the Suevi, and the custom continued after the Teutons became Christian. In 1133 a ship was built in a wood near Cornelismünster, by the Guild of the Weavers, and placed upon wheels, and drawn, first to Maestricht, where it was furnished with mast and sails, and then was taken to Tongern, and travelled throughout the land, everywhere welcomed with enthusiasm. City gates were thrown open to receive it, and whoever was allowed to touch the ship had to pay for the privilege by giving up to the Weavers the rings and other jewellery he wore on his person; for presumably some supernatural virtue went out of the ship.

As the street—the Hochstrasse—from a window in which we saw the ship pass, is narrow, and there was risk, in the rocking of the vessel, of the yards breaking the windows, and of the sparks and drops of blazing tar from the torches blinding those who were lookers on, I should not be surprised if I saw the very last of these exhibitions, the Prussian Government having at last forbidden this ship-drawing through towns.

We were too late on this occasion to see the mighty rafts of pines from the Black Forest sweeping down the Rhine, but I have seen them since. Alas, they are to be seen no more ! Railways have put an end to them, so far as their travelling down to Holland, though some on a smaller scale may be seen as far down as Coblenz, bringing timber to some of the towns on the river above where the stream plunges into the picturesque ravine from Bingerbrlick to Konigswinter. The last raft that descended the whole way from the Kinsig Thai was in 1891, and it was adorned with green boughs, like a harvest waggon carrying to the stack the last load of corn. Count Wolfgang of Fiirstenberg, who died in 1509, founded the Guild of the Raftsmen, or Floaters as they called themselves. In 1504, the Emperor Maximilian I allowed him to take two hundred pines, trim them of their branches, form them into two