forests and lonely meadows in the lap of the Odenwald. My mind is filled
with images of the romantic German scenery, whose real beauty is
beginning to displace the imaginary picture which I had painted with the
enthusiastic words of Howitt. I seem to stand now upon the Kaiserstuhl,
which rises above Heidelberg, with that magnificent landscape around me
from the Black Forest and Strassburg to Mainz, and from the Vosges in
France to the hills of Spessart in Bavaria.

What a glorious panorama! and not less rich in associations than in its
natural beauty. Below me had moved the barbarian hordes of old, the
triumphant followers of Arminius and the cohorts of Rome, and later full
many a warlike host bearing the banners of the red cross to the Holy
Land, many a knight returning with his vassals from the field to lay at
the feet of his lady-love the scarf he had worn in a hundred battles and
claim the reward of his constancy and devotion. But brighter spirits had
also toiled below. That plain had witnessed the presence of Luther, and
a host who strove with him. There had also trodden the master-spirits of
German song--the giant twain with their scarcely less harmonious
brethren. They, too, had gathered inspiration from those scenes--more
fervent worship of Nature and a deeper love for their beautiful
fatherland....

Then there is the Wolfsbrunnen, which one reaches by a beautiful walk up
the bank of the Neckar to a quiet dell in the side of the mountain.
Through this the roads lead up by rustic mills always in motion, and
orchards laden with ripening fruit, to the commencement of the forest,
where a quaint stone fountain stands, commemorating the abode of a
sorceress of the olden time who was torn in pieces by a wolf. There is a
handsome rustic inn here, where every Sunday afternoon a band plays in
the portico, while hundreds of people are scattered around in the cool
shadow of the trees or feeding the splendid trout in the basin formed by
a little stream. They generally return to the city by another walk,
leading along the mountain-side to the eastern terrace of the castle,
where they have fine views of the great Rhine plain, terminated by the
Alsatian hills stretching along the western horizon like the long
crested swells on the ocean. We can even see these from the windows of
our room on the bank of the Neckar, and I often look with interest on
one sharp peak, for on its side stands the castle of Trifels, where
Coeur de Lio