Down the Rhine by Oliver Optic

As the students were crossing the bridge to Mayence, they obtained a full view of one of the great rafts of timber which float down the Rhine, and of which Professor Mapps had spoken to them at Dort, in Holland. However, it was much smaller than those of which they had heard, and they hoped to see another. The students were not disposed to "do" Mayence, being too impatient to witness the glories of the Rhine. But most of them, from a sense of duty rather than from an interest in the place, visited the principal attractions of the city.

"Mayence is the French name of the town," said the professor of geography and history, as the students collected in the railroad station, previous to the tramp. "The German name is Mainz, which is pronounced Mynts -- y like long i. If you pronounce it in any other way, a German will not know what you mean. It was an old Roman town. A fortress was established here to keep back the barbarians. It was formerly a larger and more important city than at present, having now a population of only forty thousand.