“Mit ein-und-fünfzig fängt es an
Nach tausend Kommst das nächste;
Und, kennst Du wohl Dein alphabet
So findest Du das letzte.”

This may be roughly Englished as follows:—

“First one-and-fifty [LI], then the next
A thousand is just past [N];
And, if you know your alphabet,
At once you find the last [Z].”

It is rarely indeed that the entries made in visitors’ books—shrines in which inky offerings to the belly-gods are mostly inscribed—are quite as happy as this.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] “The Lay of the Nibelungs.” Metrically translated from the old German text by Alice Horton, and edited by Edward Bell, M.A., 1898.

[7] Planché journeyed down the Danube in 1827; three years later the first of his “monstrous anachronisms” was plying on it!