General Grant lingered for some time at this place, and from the promontory on which the chapel stands gazed with deep interest over the far-reaching historic scenes of the Rhine valley.

Next morning the general and his party arrived at Frankfort, where they were met by the reception-committee.  Accompanied by this committee, the party visited the ancient Roemer, within whose venerable walls for many centuries the German emperors were chosen; then the quaint and venerated mansion in which Goethe was born; then the old cathedral, wherein a score or more of German potentates were crowned; and then, in succession, the poet Boerne’s birthplace, the Judengasse, the original home of the Rothschilds, the Ariadneum (named from Daennecker’s marble group of Ariadne and the lioness), the Art Museum, the Goethe and Schiller monuments, and the beautiful sylvan resort for popular recreation, known as “The Wald.”  General Grant visited also, by invitation, some of the great wine-cellars of Frankfort, and was conducted through the immense crypts of Henninger’s brewery, which is one of the largest establishments of the kind on the Continent.  As he was about to leave Henninger’s, he was requested to write his name in the visitors’ register.  The record was divided into spaces entitled, respectively, “name,” “residence,” and “occupation.”  General Grant promptly put down his name and place of residence, but when he came to the “occupation” column he hesitated.  “What shall I write here?” he inquired:  “loafer?”

This remark was made in jest, and yet not without a certain sadness of tone and manner.  Undoubtedly, General Grant felt keenly the irksomeness of having nothing particular to do.  After the immense strain which had been put upon him for twelve successive years, it was not easy for him to reconcile himself, in the prime of his manhood and the full maturity of his powers, to being a mere spectator of the affairs of men.  Activity had become a second nature to him, and idleness was simply intolerable.  With much leisure on his hands, he first sought rest and recreation, and then occupation.  However unfortunately his business undertakings resulted, they were, after all, but the outcome of a natural and laudable desire to be usefully employed.

The banquet given to General Grant by the citizens and resident Americans of Frankfort was a superb affair.  It took place in the Palmengarten, which is, above any other object, the pride of the charming old “City of the Main.”  When the Duke of Nassau, an active sympathizer with the beaten party in the Austro-Prussian war, lost his dominions and quitted his chateau at Biebrich, the Frankforters availed themselves of the opportunity to buy the famous collection of plants in his winter-garden, comprising about thirty thousand rare and costly specimens.  The joint-stock company by which this purchase was made received from the city a donation of twenty acres of land, and added thereto, from its own funds, ten acres more.