Views A-foot; Or, Europe Seen with Knapsack and Staff. Taylor Bayard

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СКАЧАТЬ in German, has kindly consented to our dining with his family for the sake of practice in speaking. We have taken several long walks with them along the banks of the Neckar, but I should be puzzled to repeat any of the conversations that took place. The language, however, is fast growing more familiar, since women are the principal teachers.

      Opposite my window rises the Heiligenberg, on the other side of the Neckar. The lower part of it is rich with vineyards, and many cottages stand embosomed in shrubbery among them. Sometimes we see groups of maidens standing under the grape arbors, and every morning the peasant women go toiling up the steep paths with baskets on their heads, to labor among the vines. On the Neckar below us, the fishermen glide about in their boats, sink their square nets fastened to a long pole, and haul them up with the glittering fish, of which the stream is full. I often lean out of the window late at night, when the mountains above are wrapped in dusky obscurity, and listen to the low, musical ripple of the river. It tells to my excited fancy a knightly legend of the old German time. Then comes the bell, rung for closing the inns, breaking the spell with its deep clang, which vibrates far away on the night air, till it has roused all the echoes of the Odenwald. I then shut the window, turn into the narrow box which the Germans call a bed, and in a few minutes am wandering in America. Half way up the Heiligenberg runs a beautiful walk, dividing the vineyards from the forest above. This is called the Philosopher's Way, because it was the favorite ramble of the old Professors of the University. It can be reached by a toilsome, winding path among the vines, called the Snake-way, and when one has ascended to it he is well rewarded by the lovely view. In the evening, when the sun has got behind the mountain, it is delightful to sit on the stone steps and watch the golden light creeping up the side of the Kaiser-stuhl, till at last twilight begins to darken in the valley and a mantle of mist gathers above the Neckar.

      We ascended the mountain a few days ago. There is a path which leads up through the forest, but we took the shortest way, directly up the side, though it was at an angle of nearly fifty degrees. It was hard enough work, scrambling through the thick broom and heather, and over stumps and stones. In one of the stone-heaps I dislodged a large orange-colored salamander, seven or eight inches long. They are sometimes found on these mountains, as well as a very large kind of lizard, called the eidechse, which the Germans say is perfectly harmless, and if one whistles or plays a pipe, will come and play around him. The view from the top reminded me of that from Catskill Mountain House, but is on a smaller scale. The mountains stretch off sideways, confining the view to but half the horizon, and in the middle of the picture the Hudson is well represented by the lengthened windings of the "abounding Rhine." Nestled at the base below us, was the little village of Handschuhheim, one of the oldest in this part of Germany. The castle of its former lords has nearly all fallen down, but the massive solidity of the walls which yet stand, proves its antiquity. A few years ago, a part of the outer walls which was remarked to have a hollow sound, was taken down, when there fell from a deep niche built therein, a skeleton, clad in a suit of the old German armor. We followed a road through the woods to the peak on which stand the ruins of St. Michael's chapel, which was built in the tenth century and inhabited for a long time by a sect of white monks. There is now but a single tower remaining, and all around is grown over with tall bushes and weeds. It had a wild and romantic look, and I sat on a rock and sketched at it, till it grew dark, when we got down the mountain the best way we could.

      We lately visited the great University Library. You walk through one hall after another, filled with books of all kinds, from the monkish manuscript of the middle ages, to the most elegant print of the present day. There is something to me more impressive in a library like this than a solemn Cathedral. I think involuntarily of the hundreds of mighty spirits who speak from these three hundred thousand volumes—of the toils and privations with which genius has ever struggled, and of his glorious reward. As in a church, one feels as it were, the presence of God; not because the place has been hallowed by his worship, but because all around stand the inspirations of his spirit, breathed through the mind of genius, to men. And if the mortal remains of saints and heroes do not repose within its walls, the great and good of the whole earth are there, speaking their counsels to the searcher for truth, with voices whose last reverberation will die away only when the globe falls into ruin.

      A few nights ago there was a wedding of peasants across the river. In order to celebrate it particularly, the guests went to the house where it was given, by torchlight. The night was quite dark, and the bright red torches glowed on the surface of the Neckar, as the two couriers galloped along the banks to the bridegroom's house. Here, after much shouting and confusion, the procession was arranged, the two riders started back again with their torches, and the wagons containing the guests followed after with their flickering lights glancing on the water, till they disappeared around the foot of the mountain. The choosing of Conscripts also took place lately. The law requires one person out of every hundred to become a soldier, and this, in the city of Heidelberg, amounts to nearly 150. It was a sad spectacle. The young men, or rather boys, who were chosen, went about the city with cockades fastened on their hats, shouting and singing, many of them quite intoxicated. I could not help pitying them because of the dismal, mechanical life they are doomed to follow. Many were rough, ignorant peasants, to whom nearly any kind of life would be agreeable; but there were some whose countenances spoke otherwise, and I thought involuntarily, that their drunken gaiety was only affected to conceal their real feelings with regard to the lot which had fallen upon them.

      We are gradually becoming accustomed to the German style of living, which is very different from our own. Their cookery is new to us, but is, nevertheless, good. We have every day a different kind of soup, so I have supposed they keep a regular list of three hundred and sixty-five, one for every day in the year! Then we have potatoes "done up" in oil and vinegar, veal flavored with orange peel, barley pudding, and all sorts of pancakes, boiled artichokes, and always rye bread, in loaves a yard long! Nevertheless, we thrive on such diet, and I have rarely enjoyed more sound and refreshing sleep than in their narrow and coffin-like beds, uncomfortable as they seem. Many of the German customs are amusing. We never see oxen working here, but always cows, sometimes a single one in a cart, and sometimes two fastened together by a yoke across their horns. The women labor constantly in the fields; from our window we can hear the nut-brown maidens singing their cheerful songs among the vineyards on the mountain side. Their costume, too, is odd enough. Below the light-fitting vest they wear such a number of short skirts, one above another, that it reminds one of an animated hogshead, with a head and shoulders starting out from the top. I have heard it gravely asserted that the wealth of a German damsel may be known by counting the number of her "kirtles." An acquaintance of mine remarked, that it would be an excellent costume for falling down a precipice!

      We have just returned from a second visit to Frankfort, where the great annual fair filled the streets with noise and bustle. On our way back, we stopped at the village of Zwingenberg, which lies at the foot of the Melibochus, for the purpose of visiting some of the scenery of the Odenwald. Passing the night at the inn there, we slept with one bed under and two above, and started early in the morning to climb up the side of the Melibochus. After a long walk through the forests, which were beginning to change their summer foliage for a brighter garment, we reached the summit and ascended the stone tower which stands upon it. This view gives one a better idea of the Odenwald, than that from the Kaiser-stuhl at Heidelberg. In the soft autumn atmosphere it looked even more beautiful. After an hour in that heaven of uplifted thought, into which we step from the mountain-top, our minds went with the path downward to earth, and we descended the eastern side into the wild region which contains the Felsenmeer, or Sea of Rocks.

      We met on the way a student from Fulda—a fine specimen of that free-spirited class, and a man whose smothered aspiration was betrayed in the flashing of his eye, as he spoke of the present painful and oppressed condition of Germany. We talked so busily together that without noticing the path, which had been bringing us on, up hill and down, through forest and over rock, we came at last to a halt in a valley among the mountains. Making inquiries there, we found we had gone wrong, and must ascend by a different path the mountain we had just come down. Near the summit of this, in a wild pine wood, was the Felsenmeer—a great collection of rocks heaped together like pebbles on the sea shore, and worn СКАЧАТЬ