“The Virgin holding the Infant.  It is very painted in the manner of Sassoferrato.”

“A Larder with greens and dead game animated by a cook-maid and two kitchen-boys.”

However, the English of this catalogue is at least as happy as that which distinguishes an inscription upon a certain picture in Rome—­to wit: 

“Revelations-View.  St. John in Patterson’s Island.”

But meanwhile the raft is moving on.

CHAPTER XVII [Why Germans Wear Spectacles]

A mile or two above Eberbach we saw a peculiar ruin projecting above the foliage which clothed the peak of a high and very steep hill.  This ruin consisted of merely a couple of crumbling masses of masonry which bore a rude resemblance to human faces; they leaned forward and touched foreheads, and had the look of being absorbed in conversation.  This ruin had nothing very imposing or picturesque about it, and there was no great deal of it, yet it was called the “Spectacular Ruin.”

Legend of the “Spectacular ruin”

The captain of the raft, who was as full of history as he could stick, said that in the Middle Ages a most prodigious fire-breathing dragon used to live in that region, and made more trouble than a tax-collector.  He was as long as a railway-train, and had the customary impenetrable green scales all over him.  His breath bred pestilence and conflagration, and his appetite bred famine.  He ate men and cattle impartially, and was exceedingly unpopular.  The German emperor of that day made the usual offer:  he would grant to the destroyer of the dragon, any one solitary thing he might ask for; for he had a surplusage of daughters, and it was customary for dragon-killers to take a daughter for pay.

So the most renowned knights came from the four corners of the earth and retired down the dragon’s throat one after the other.  A panic arose and spread.  Heroes grew cautious.  The procession ceased.  The dragon became more destructive than ever.  The people lost all hope of succor, and fled to the mountains for refuge.

At last Sir Wissenschaft, a poor and obscure knight, out of a far country, arrived to do battle with the monster.  A pitiable object he was, with his armor hanging in rags about him, and his strange-shaped knapsack strapped upon his back.  Everybody turned up their noses at him, and some openly jeered him.  But he was calm.  He simply inquired if the emperor’s offer was still in force.  The emperor said it was—­but charitably advised him to go and hunt hares and not endanger so precious a life as his in an attempt which had brought death to so many of the world’s most illustrious heroes.