Friday, October 6th 1854 ~ Frankfurt, Germany

Frankfurt's "Jewish Quarter," or Judengasse in 1868.

Hotel de Russie ~ I forgot to mention that the grape harvest was being gathered in as we ascended the river yesterday. Peasants, men and women, were to be seen toiling up and down the hills, with baskets of the ripe fruit upon their heads. We left Mayence this morning. It is only about an hours ride from here. Before leaving we took a walk about the city and concluded that there was not much to be seen there. It has no surrounding high land and therefore no fine scenery. We took a walk some distance beyond its gates to a garden, on the banks of the river farther up, and obtained from there a fair view of the city besides seeing some forest trees changing color, to remind us of the scenery in our own native land. Mayence is strongly fortified by a succession of small forts, so small as and so placed among the trees that one scarcely notices them. Murray calls it one of the most important fortresses of Germany on the side of France. It suffered greatly during the 30 years war. This afternoon we took a guide from our hotel, here in Frankfort, and walked to see the celebrated Ariadni (a woman seated on a lion) and were delighted with it beyond measure. The models one sees of this in all our shop windows at home give a very good idea of it but fail to convey the exquisite “feeling” of the original, fail to impress as this. It is the prosperity of a private gentleman here, who has a building appropriated entirely to its use in his grounds. One of its beauties consists in the marble being still fresh pure and white. The statuary we have generally seen has been yellow or brown with age. Leaving the Ariadni we dismissed our guide, took a carriage and drove to see the house in which Martin Luther was born and from which the Protestant religion and the bible went out to all the worlds. We saw the house in which Goethe was born and his monument (a colossal sitting figure in marble) finely done. It was still crowned with garlands of oak leaves placed there on his last birth day. We drove through the “jews quarter” the worst in Europe. It is the vilest, darkest, dirtiest street I ever saw, without sidewalks, without the light of heaven almost, and crowded with tumble down houses. Here they were formerly shut up every night, but now they may live where they please. Frankfort has very extensive parks but is not a handsome city, cannot compare with Brussels. In the public library we saw the wooden shoes etc. Luther wore, a copy of the first edition of the bible printed in Latin and some other rare books.