travellers, and it was pleasant indeed to receive so fine a testimonial to the beauties of my birth place.

   We had a most interesting conversation, and I was not a little moved, as I observed that these foreigners who had travelled over half the world, and had seen the grandeur of Switzerland and the charms of Italy, should have such an unaffected admiration for our grand old river. I am rather sorry for those who neglect the Rhine. "Aren't Lohengrin and Siegfried, immortalised by the great Master of Bayreuth, also heroic figures in your Rhine legends?" remarked the young Anglo-American enthusiastically. It was the first time I had seriously thought of this. I was indeed touched, and my thoughts travelled back to the days of "long, long ago" when as a little chap in my native Bonn, I had first listened with interest to the charming voices of the golden-haired daughters of old Albion who came in large numbers to reside in the famous Beethoven-town.

   As I separated from my friends at the foot of the Drachenfels I gave them a small present to keep as a memento of the Rhine and one of its poets.

    I

   n the region where the Rhine has its source there towered in ancient times a green Alp. This Alp belonged to an honest peasant, and along with a neat little house in the valley below formed his only possession.

   The man died suddenly and was deeply mourned by his wife and child. Some days after an unexpected visitor was announced to the widow. He was a man who had much pastureland up in that region, but for a long time his one desire had been to possess the Alp of his neighbour now deceased, as by it his property would be rounded off to his satisfaction.

   Quickly making his resolution he declared to the dismayed woman that the Alp belonged to him: her husband had secretly pledged it to him in return for a loan, after the bad harvest of the previous year. When the widow angrily accused him of being a liar the man produced a promissory note, spread it out, and with a hard laugh showed her his statement was confirmed in black and white. The distressed woman burst into tears and declared it was impossible that her late husband should have made a secret transaction of such a nature.

   The Alp was the sole inheritance of their son, and never would she willingly surrender it.

   "I will pay you compensation for the renunciation of your claim, although nothing obliges me to do 

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