ly in the towers, which are mostly
round, and all that has been done with the exterior, has been to fill
the gaps, and to re-attach the balconies and the external staircases,
which are of iron. I can no more give you a clear idea of the irregular
form of this edifice with the pen, than you would obtain of the
intricate tracery of Gothic architecture, having never seen a Gothic
edifice, or studied a treatise on the style, by the same means. You will
understand the difficulty when you are told that this castle is built on
crags, whose broken summits are its foundations, and give it its form.
The court is narrow and inconvenient, carriages never approaching it,
but several pretty little terraces in front answer most of the purposes
of courts, and command lovely glimpses of the Rhine, in both directions.
These terraces, like the towers and walls, were placed just where there
was room, and the total absence of regularity forms one of the charms of
the place.

In the interior, the ancient arrangement has been studiously respected.
The furniture is more than imitation, for we were told that much of it
had been taken from the royal collections of Berlin. By royal, you are
not to suppose, however, that there are any attempts at royal state, but
merely that the old castles of the barons and counts, whose diminutive
territories have contributed to rear the modern state of Prussia, have
been ransacked for this end.

The Ritter Saal, or Knight's Hall, though not large, is a curious room;
indeed it is the only one in the entire edifice that can be called a
good room, at all. The fire-place is huge,--so much so, that I walked
into it with ease, and altogether in the ancient style. There is a good
deal of curious armour hung up in this room, and it has many other
quaint and rare objects. The chandelier was a circle formed by uniting
buck's horns, which were fitted with lamps. There was almost too much
good taste about this for feudal times, and I suspect it of being one of
our modern embellishments; a material picture of the past, like a poem
by Scott. There may have been some anachronisms in the furniture, but we
all use furniture of different ages, when we are not reduced to the
fidgety condition of mere gentility.

In one corner of the Bitter Saal there stood an ancient vessel to hold
water, and beneath it was a porcelain trough to catch the drippings. The
water was obtained by turning a cock. The chairs, tables, settees, &c.
wer