The next day General Grant drove to Homburg, fifteen miles, and thence four miles farther to Saalburg, the site of an ancient Roman fortification on the Taunus Mountains.  It was one of a series of defensive stations covering the frontier of the Roman empire and extending from the Rhine to the Danube.  The exhumations at this fortified camp, first attempted within a recent period, have disclosed the most completely preserved Roman castramentation yet found in Germany.  The castellum is a rectangle, four hundred and sixty-five by seven hundred and four feet, and is surrounded by two deep ditches and by high parapets.  Within this enclosure the praetorium, or residence of the commandant, one hundred and thirty-two by one hundred and fifty-three feet, has been distinctly traced by its stone foundations.  Stones marked with Roman characters yet remain in their places, designating the camps of the different legions.  This fort is mentioned by Tacitus, and was one of the principal bulwarks of the Roman conquest in Germany against the tribes which hovered along its northern frontier.

The excavations were still in progress at the time of General Grant’s visit, and on that very occasion some interesting relics were unearthed.  Mrs. Grant was presented with a ring and some pieces of ancient pottery which were removed in her presence from the places where they had lain embedded in the earth for the last eighteen hundred years.

Near the fort was discovered, a few years ago, the cemetery where the ashes of the deceased Romans of the garrison were interred.  Some of the graves which had never before been disturbed were opened in General Grant’s presence, in order that he might see with his own eyes what they contained and in what manner their contents were deposited.  From each grave a small urn was taken, containing the ashes of one cremated human body, and upon the mouth of the urn was found, in each instance, a Roman obolus, which had been deposited there to pay the ferriage of the soul of the departed over the Stygian river.  General Grant was presented with some of these coins as mementos of his visit.

Upon his return to Homburg the ensuing evening, the general was banqueted by a party of Americans, and a splendid illumination of the Kurgarten was given in his honor.  The next day he returned to Frankfort, and the next departed by rail for Heidelberg and Switzerland.

ALFRED E. LEE.

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TURTLING ON THE OUTER REEF.

“What’s that astern, Sandy?” The old darky, who had been gently soothed into slumber by the friction of the main sheet that served as a pillow, raised his grizzly head, gave one look in the direction indicated, and sprang to his feet, shouting wildly, “On deck der! man yo’ wedder fo’ an’ main, lee clew garnets an’ buntlines, topsail halyards an’ down-hauls, jib down-haul, let go an’ haul!” his voice fairly rising in a shriek that, with the rattling of the jib as it came down, might have been heard a mile away.