ELEVEN THOUSAND VIRGINS.
Time was when Cologne, founded by the Ubii, when Agrippa compelled them to migrate from the right to the left bank of the Rhine, was a power in that land. At the end of the fifteenth century she was the wealthiest and most influential city in Germany: Not only was it great in commerce, but it was the center of German art, both in architecture and painting, as may be seen yet by the elegant buildings, designed and erected in those olden days, that are yet standing, and in the pictures of that age that are still preserved.
Cologne’s great troubles were internal dissensions, which finally led to the banishment of the Protestants in 1608. It was due more than to any other one cause, to these discords that caused the city to gradually decline in power as early as the middle of the sixteenth century. Later on she lost nearly all her importance and continued in a state of lethargy until the Prussians obtained control in 1815, since which time her trade and commerce have been steadily improving, making her to-day one of the chiefest commercial cities in Germany.
In the old church of St. Ursula are the alleged bones of eleven thousand virgins. The legend is that this sainted woman, a Scotch princess, was returning from a pilgrimage to Rome with eleven thousand virgins in her train, and they were set upon by the barbarous Huns and all slain. There can be no doubt as to the truth of the legend (if you want to believe it), for you are shown, through gratings, bones enough to stock a cemetery.
I have no opinion about it. Possibly St. Ursula was skillful enough to corner that number of virgins; but would the Huns have slain them all? That makes us pause. It was a great many years ago, and I am glad the legend has it (for I wish to believe all the legends I can) that the virgins came from a country far distant from Cologne. Could a saint, be she ever so devout, find that number in Cologne now? It is not for me to say. Possibly they are all gone on pilgrimages. Let us take the legend down at one gulp, and forget the fact that among these bones are the remains of any number of males, and likewise any number of animals.
In this same church you are shown one of the identical jars in which water was miraculously turned into wine at the marriage in Cana, and various other relics, such as the teeth of saints, and cheerful things of that nature, in which I really could take no especial interest. After the eleven thousand skeletons of virgins, anything else in the way of relics seemed tame. If they had saved the teeth of eleven thousand saints, it would have been something like; but isolated teeth, single teeth at that, make too small a show. The teeth were doubtless genuine, but there were too few of them.
Cologne is probably the best known city in Europe. Leaving out the wonderful cathedral, and the bones of the virgins and the history that clings to it, giving it a musty and ancient flavor, it is the place where cologne water was invented, and where is the American school-girl who does not know all about that? She may know nothing about the cathedral, but she knows all about that especial perfume. A man named Farina invented it several generations ago, and every male child born since in the families of perfumers has been christened Farina. There are at least fifty places where the “original” is sold. Here you get the genuine, and though you shall have it much better in any little drug store, in any Western village in America, you buy a flask of it in Cologne, at one of the originals. It is the thing to do. Our party all supplied themselves, though I noticed that the most of them threw the flasks away, from the train on the way to Brussels. It was genuine, but cologne by any other name would smell as sweet.
Home! There are other countries to see, but, first, home. Three thousand miles away lies a land fairer than any yet visited, a country more pleasing. We are glad that our time is expended, for we go home! Six months of absence is quite enough, and the thought of returning makes the blood course quicker in one’s veins. And yet never was time more profitably spent than in these rambles through strange countries, for the experience put us in condition to appreciate our own. An American has no idea how good America is, till he sees Europe. He does not know how good a government he has, till he lives for a time under others. It requires a glimpse of oppressed Ireland or king-ridden Prussia, to make one properly appreciate a Republic. We have no palaces, but we have no soldiers. We have no cathedrals, but we have no paupers. We have no ruins, and shall never have, for under our system the ephemeral structures of to-day will be replaced to-morrow with what will be eternal. Every American should go abroad once at least, that he may, with sufficient fervor, thank the fates that cast his lines in pleasant places. And so, glad that we have been abroad, but much gladder to get back, we turn our faces westward. Our exile is ended.
THE END.