ABSTRACT
In the late autumn of 1844 the travellers reached Cologne, the ancient city renowned alike for its dirt and smells, its famous Cathedral and its autumn street carnival. Horne, so enamoured of English fairs, was eager to attend the carnival, a 'gorgeous and peculiar exhibition of national fancies, both of the poetical and grotesque'. Never having lost his childish delight in such entertainment he entered into this with characteristic exuberance, and on an intensely cold morning stood in a frost-covered street to watch the procession of heroes and charioted goddesses shivering in their tinsel costumes. In the afternoon he sat with the revellers at a public dinner in a tall dunce's cap trimmed with bells and became rather drunk, yet not so drunk that he could not notice that here was no drunkenness such as one saw in England.
