en a castle, that stood beetling on a crag, immediately above
the road, caught my eye. The building, unlike most of its sister
edifices, appeared to be in good order; smoke actually arose from a
beacon-grate that thrust itself out from an advanced tower, which was
nearly in a perpendicular line above us, and the glazed windows and
other appliances denoted a perfect and actual residence. As usual, the
postilion was questioned. I understood him to say that the place was
called the Ritterstein, but the name is of little moment. It was a
castle of the middle ages, a real hold of the Rhine, which had been
purchased by a brother of the King of Prussia, who is now the governor
of the Rhenish provinces. This prince had caused the building to be
restored, rigidly adhering to the ancient style of architecture, and to
be furnished according to the usages of the middle ages, and baronial
comfort; what was more, if the prince were not in his hold, as probably
would prove not to be the case, strangers were permitted to visit it!
Here was an unexpected pleasure, and we hastened to alight, admiring the
governor of Rhenish provinces, his taste, and his liberality, with all
our hearts.

If you remember the satisfaction with which we visited the little
hunting-tower of the poor Prince de Conde in 1827, a building whose
chief merit was its outward form and the fact that it had been built by
the Queen Blanche, you can form some notion of the zeal with which we
toiled up the steep ascent, on the present occasion. The path was good,
tasteful, and sinuous; but the buildings stood on crags that were almost
perpendicular on three of their sides, and at an elevation of near, or
perhaps quite, two hundred feet above the road.

We were greeted, on reaching the gate, not by a warder, but by the growl
and bark of a ferocious mastiff, who would have been more in keeping at
his post near a henroost, than at the portal of a princely castle. One
"half-groom, half-seneschal," and who was withal a little drunk,
however, soon came forth to receive us, and, after an exhortation to the
dog in a Dutch that was not quite as sonorous as the growl of the
animal, he very civilly offered to do the honours of the place.

We entered by a small drawbridge, but the buildings stand so near the
brow of an impending rock, as to induce me to think this bridge has
been made for effect, rather than to renew the original design. A good
deal of the old wall remains, especial