A Tour in Catholic Teutonia, Part III [pp. 11-22]

A TOUR IN CA THOLIC TE UTONIA.
our road homewards, was the minster, now in Protestant hands.
It is a noble, rounded-arched edifice, dating from IoIo, though
almost all the existing structure is of the twelfth century. It
contains the tomb of the Empress Anne, the wife of Rudolf of
Hapsburg. On the south side of the cathedral are very interesting cloisters, forming several quadrangles and leading to a terrace
at the east end of the minster, whence a magnificent view of the
river and country round, including the Black Forest, can be obtained. We found Basel a large, busy, but, to us, uninteresting
city. The only men we noticed there who wore what are called
"chimney-pot" hats were, strange to say, the chimney-sweeps;
and all the members of that fraternity bore such appropriate
head-gear. We elected to go direct to London, and determined,
the next time the journey should be performed by us, that we
would go direct from Berne to Charing Cross; for a "through"
first-class carriage and coup6 can be got for the whole distance
from Berne, though "wagon-lits" stop at and start from Basel.
WVe left in the evening, and, on crossing the French frontier,
found that all our hand-packages had to be examined (in spite
of our having through first-class tickets), an inconvenience to
which we had not been subjected on entering in either Belgium,
Germany, Austria, or Switzerland. When morning dawned at
half-past four on the morning of September I6 we found ourselves at Laon, and, after lunching at Calais, we said Deo gratias
on arriving at Charing Cross at a quarter to six, after having
successfully accomplished an excursion to which we had looked
forward for more than a quarter of a century.
[April,
22