Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Round the evening meal of juicy mutton we were talking freely and carelessly when suddenly we heard a low, hoarse voice: "Sayn Good evening!" We turned around from the brazier to the door and saw a medium height, very heavy set Mongol in deerskin overcoat and cap with side flaps and the long, wide tying strings of the same material.
It occupied one entire floor of a square tower, with windows facing the four points of the compass, and from this height she could view the Rhine up to the stern old Castle of Marksburg, and down past Coblentz to her own realm of Sayn, where it bordered the river, although the stronghold from which she ruled this domain was hidden by the hills ending in Ehrenbreitstein.
Not far from Coblenz, and past the island of Nonnenwerth, is the old tenth-century castle of Sayn, which stood until the Thirty Years' War, and below it, quiet, comfortable, large, but unpretending, lies the new house of the family of Sayn-Wittgenstein, built in 1848, where, during a stay at Ems, we paid a visit of two days.
But in vain, for I shall never sit on the Holy Throne of the highest priest in Lhasa nor reach that which has come down from Jenghiz Khan to the Head of our yellow Faith. I am no monk. I am a warrior and avenger." He jumped smartly into the saddle, whipped his horse and whirled away, flinging out as he left the common Mongolian phrase of adieu: "Sayn! Sayn-bayna!"
He sat there imperturbable, refusing the beseechment of her eyes, and thus forced her to repeat her question, though to him it took another form. "My Lord, who is to be the next Emperor?" "Countess von Sayn, I fear that in modifying my opening address to accord with the comprehension of a girl but recently emerged from convent life, I have led you into an error.
Thereupon, for the welfare of his soul, he built the Abbey of Sayn, and provided for the monks therein.
"With extreme reluctance," continued the devout nobleman, "I gave my assent to this unwelcome proposal, providing only that it should receive the sanction of the Abbot and brethren of the Monastery of Sayn, hoping by a life of continuous rectitude to annul, in some measure at least, the evil works of Henry III.; and that holy sanction I now request, trusting if given it may remove any doubts regarding the righteousness of my promise."
Later, he became spiritual and temporal adviser to that great prelate, the Archbishop of Cologne, and the Archbishop, being guardian of the Countess von Sayn, sent Father Ambrose to the castle of his ancestor to look after the affairs of Sayn, both religious and material.
And here was quiet and greenery, and one mucked about as the desire took one, without a soul to see, and here was no wailing of "Sayn," no folding of remnants, no voice to shout, "Hoopdriver, forward!" And once he almost ran over something wonderful, a little, low, red beast with a yellowish tail, that went rushing across the road before him.
"I think it safer," he said, "to journey inland over the hills. The robbers on the Rhine have been so long bereft of the natural prey that one or other of them may forget I am Father Ambrose, a poor monk, remembering me only as Henry of the rich House of Sayn, and therefore hold me for ransom.
Word Of The Day