92

COLOGNE.

saints, you observe tliat the name of the individual is workedin pearls upon the red velvet respirator-like mouth-piece.

The heads of all the tinsel busts (and there are upwardsof a hundred of them here) you now find to be "practicable,"as tliey say in theatrical language, and to be each stoi'ed withthe same gbastly treasures.

Next your attention is drawn, with no littlc pride, to thefact that the Spaces above the cabinets are stacked high withbones reaching to the ceiling; and as you look up the sides ofthe chamber, the walls at the top seem positiv ely ribbed overwith line after line of human remains, so that they look likethe rustic-work of some Swiss cottage; while along the frontof theseyou can decipher the inscription, " Säncta Uksula oraPeonobis" —embroidered, as itwere, in bones around the room.

Moreover, down the centre of the Chamber there extendsa long glass case (such as you see covering minerals at amuseum), and within this are treasured the most preciousrelics of the place. Here is one skull encircled by a crown ofgreat value; there another, which has the name worked inprecious stones; and there a jaw-bone in a golden case, withthe still perfeet teetli exposed to view, so that you may beassured of its being, as asserted, that of the young bride-groom of the principal lady-saint; another, too, has a sharpincision (a sabre wound) in the skull, with a portion of thebone broken away; while again another has tufts of hair stillclinging to the cranium. For as these are adapted to give thespectators a stronger spasm of horror than the rest, the placeof special honour seems to be reserved for them.

Such constitute the larger relics of the principal case; butamong them lie little glass tubes filled with wool, one con-taining a couple of sprigs, that you are reverently assuredformed part of the rod with which the Saviour was scourged,and the other enclosing a thorn, which the sacristan bows his