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embarrassment. They saluted me with great cordiality, apologizing for the amplitude of dress which obliged me to shift my seat. I was a little disappointed, however, to find that they spoke the broadest patois, which properly requires the peasant costume to make it attractive. The distance between their speech and their dress was too great. "Gelt, Hans, 's geht a bissel barsch 'uf?" said one of them to the postillion-which is as if an American girl should say to the stage-driver, "Look here, you Jack, it's a sort o' goin' up-hill, ain't it?"

FRANCONIAN PEASANT-WOMAN.

The valley now became quite narrow, and presently I saw, by the huge masses of gray rock and the shattered tower of Neideck, that we were approaching Streitberg. This place is the portal of the Franconian Switzerland. Situated at the last turn of the Wiesent valley-or rather at the corner where it ceased to be a gorge and becomes a valley-the village nestles at the base of a group of huge, splintered, werhanging rocks, among which still hang the ruins of its feudal castle. Opposite, on the very summit of a similar group, is the ruin of Niedeck. The names of the two places (the "Mount of Quarrel" and the "Corner of Envy") give us the clew to their history. Streitberg, no doubt, was at one time a very Ebal, or Mount of Cursing-nor, to judge from the invalid who accompanied us thither to try the whey-cure, can it yet have entirely lost its char

acter. At the cure-house (as the Germans call it) there were some fifty similar individualssallow, peevish, irritable, unhappy persons, in whose faces one could see vinegar as well as whey. They sat croaking to each other in the balmy evening, or contemplated with rueful faces the lovely view down the valley.

I succeeded in procuring a bath by inscribing my name, residence, and the precise hour of bathing, in a book for the inspection of the physician. I trust he was edified by the perusal. Then, returning to the inn, I ordered a supper of trout, which are here cheap and good. They are kept in tanks, and, if you choose, you may pick out any fish you may prefer. A tap on the nose is supposed to kill them, after which the gall-bladder is removed, and they are thrown into boiling water. In Germany, trout are never eaten otherwise. The color fades in the process, but the flavor of the fish is fully retained. A slice of lemon, bread, butter, and a glass of Rhenish wine, are considered to be necessary harmonics.

I took a good night's sleep before commencing my walking-cure. Then, leaving my travelingbag to follow with the diligence, I set out encumbered only with an umbrella-cane, a sketchbook, and a leather pouch, containing guidebook, map, note-book, and colors. Somewhat doubtful as to the result, but courageous, I began a slow, steady march up the valley. Many years had passed since I had undertaken a journey on foot, and as I recalled old experiences and old feelings, I realized that, although no sense of enjoyment was blunted, the fascinating wonderment of youth, which clothed every object in a magical atmosphere, was gone forever. My perception of Beauty seemed colder, because it was more intelligent, more discriminating. But Gain and Loss, in the scale of life, alternately kick the beam.

The dew lay thick on the meadows, and the peasants were every where at work shaking out the hay, so that the air was sweet with grassodors. Above me, on either side, the immense gray horns and towers of rock rose out of the steep fir-woods, clearly, yet not too sharply defined against the warm blue of the sky. The Wiesent, swift and beryl-green, winding in many curves through the hay-fields, made a cheerful music in his bed. In an hour I reached the picturesque village of Muggendorf, near which is Rosenmüller's Cave, celebrated for its stalactitic formations. I have little fancy for subterranean travels, and after having seen the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky and the grottoes of Crete, I felt no inclination to visit more than one of the Franconian caverns. After resting half an hour, and refreshing myself with a glass of water and the conversation of a company of ladies who alighted at the little tavern, I started again, still feeling tolerably brisk.

The valley now contracted to a wild gorge, with almost perpendicular walls of rock, and a narrow strip of meadow in its bed. In a distance of five miles I passed two fine old mills,

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turning the corner I found myself in the village of Tüchersfeld, and in view of a multitude of women who were bleaching linen.

which were the only evidences of life and habita- | character; and it was well that I did so, for on tion. Suddenly, on turning a rocky corner, the castle of Gössweinstein appeared before me, as if hung in the sky. The picture was so striking that, in spite of the intense heat, I stopped to sketch it. On reaching a mill at the foot of the mountain I found there was no bridge over the stream, which I should have crossed some distance back. I was sufficiently tired, however, to be glad of a good excuse for not scaling the height. Presently I reached a little village in a nook where the gorge splits into three prongs, through two of which wild trout-streams come down to join the Wiesent. The meadows were covered with pieces of coarse linen in the process of bleaching. Here there was a tavern and a huge linden-tree, and after my walk of ten miles I considered myself entitled to shade and beer. It occurred to me, also, that I might lighten the journey by taking the landlady's son to carry my coat, sketch-book, etc. This proved to be a good idea.

I know of few surprises in scenery equal to this. I was looking up the glen, supposing that my way lay straight on, when three steps more, and I found myself in a deep triangular basin, out of which rose three immense jagged masses of rock, like pyramids in ruin, with houses clinging, in giddy recklessness, to their sides! On a saddle between two of them stands the Herrensitz, or residence of the proprietary family. A majestic linden, centuries old, grows at the base, and high over its crown tower the weather-beaten spires of rock, with a blasted pine on the summit. The picture is grotesque in its character, which is an unusual feature in scenery. One who comes up the glen is so unprepared for it that it flashes upon him as if a curtain had been suddenly lifted.

Here I rested in the shade until the mid-day The main road here left the valley, which heat was over. A Jew and a young Bavarian really became next to impracticable. We took lieutenant kept me company, and the latter ena foot-path up the stream, through a wild glen tertained me with descriptions of various execuhalf-filled with immense fragments that had tions which he had seen. We left at the same tumbled from the rocky walls on either side. time, they for Bayreuth and I for the little town The close heat was like that of an oven, and, as of Pottenstein, at the head of the gorge, five the solitude was complete, I gradually loaded miles further. By this time, I confess, the my guide with one article of dress after another, journey had become a toil. I dragged myself until my costume resembled that of a Highland-along rather than walked, and when a stout boy er, except that the kilt was white. Finally, seeing some hay-makers at a point where the glen made a sharp turn, I resumed my original

of twelve begged for a kreutzer, I bribed him for twelve to accompany and assist me. His dialect was of the broadest, and I could sooner have

understood a lecture on the Absolute Reason than his simple peasant gossip. His tongue was a very scissors for clipping off he ends of words. The pronoun "ich" he changed into "a," and very often used the third person of the verb instead of the first. I managed, however, to learn that the landlord in Tüchersfeld was "fearfully rich:" all the hay in the glen (perhaps ten tons) belonged to him. I had already suspected as much, for the landlord took pains to tell us about a wedding trip he had just made to the old monastery of Banz, a day's journey distant. "It cost me as much as forty florins," said he, "but then we traveled second-class. To my thinking it's not half so pleasant as thirdclass, but then I wanted to be noble for once."

For an hour and a half we walked through a deep, winding glen, where there

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was barely a little room here and there for a hay | Tüchersfeld, but it is less sudden and surprising. or barley field. On the right hand were tall forests of fir and pine; on the left, abrupt stony hills, capped with huge irregular bastions of Jura limestone. Gradually the rocks appear on the right and push away the woods; the stream is squeezed between a double row of Cyclopean walls, which assume the wildest and most fantastic shapes, and finally threaten to lock together and cut off the path. These wonderful walls are three or four hundred feet in height not only perpendicular, but actually overhanging in many places.

It is wonderfully picturesque-the houses are so jammed in, here and there, among the huge shapeless limestone monoliths, and the bits of meadow and garden have such a greenness and brightness contrasted with the chaos which incloses them I found my way to the post-inn, and straightway dropped into one of the awkward carved wooden chairs (the pattern of five centuries ago) in the guests' room, with a feeling of infinite gratitude. The landlord brought me a mug of beer, with black bread and a handful of salt on a plate. I remembered the types of hospitality in the Orient, and partook of the hallowed symbols Then came consecutive ablutions of cold water and brandy; after which I felt sufficiently refreshed to order trout for supper. But whatever of interest the little town may have contained, nothing could tempt me to walk another step that day.

As I was shuffling along, quite exhausted, I caught a glimpse of two naked youngsters in a shaded eddy of the stream. They plunged about with so much enjoyment that I was strongly tempted to join them: so I stepped down to the hank, and called out, "Is the water cold?" Whoop! away they went, out of the water and under a thick bush, leaving only four legs visible. Presently these also disappeared, and had it not been for two tow shirts, more brown than white, lying on the grass, I might have supposed that I had surprised a pair of Nixies.

In the morning I engaged a man as guide and sack-bearer, and set out by 6 o'clock for Rabenstein (the Raven-rock) and its famous cavern. We first climbed out of the chasm of Pottenstein, which was filled with a hot, silvery mist, The approach to Pottenstein resembles that to and struck northward over high, rolling land,

from which we could now and then look down | scent, but at the bottom we found a mill which

into the gorges of the Püttlach and Eschbach. There was not a breath of air stirring, and even at that early hour the heat was intense. I would have stopped occasionally to rest, but the guide pushed ahead, saying: "We must get on before the day is hot." The country was bald and monotonous, but the prospect of reaching Rabenstein in two hours enabled me to hold out. Finally the little foot-path we had been following turned into a wood, whence, after a hundred paces, it suddenly emerged upon the brink of a deep, rocky basin, resembling the crater of a volcano. It was about four hundred feet deep, with a narrow split at either end, through which the Eschbach stream entered and departed. The walls were composed of enormous overhanging masses of rock, which rested on natural arches or regular jambs, like those of Egyptian gateways, while the bed was of the greenest turf, with a slip of the blue sky mirrored in the centre, as if one were looking upon a lower heaven through a crack in the earth. Opposite, on the very outer edge of the rock, sat the castle of Rabenstein, and the houses of the village behind it seemed to be crowding on toward the brink, as if anxious which should be first to look down. Into this basin led the path-a toilsome de

BOOK NEAR RABENSTEIN.

was also a tavern, and bathed our tongues in some cool but very bitter and disagreeable beer. "Sophia's Cave," the finest grotto in the Franconian Switzerland, is a little further up the gorge; and the haymakers near the mill, on. seeing me, shouted up to the cave-keeper in the village over their heads to get his torches ready. The rocks on either side exhibit the most wild and wonderful forms. In one place a fragment, shaped very much like a doll, but from 80 to 100 feet in height, has slipped down from above, and fallen out, resting only its head against the perpendicular wall. On approaching the cave, the rocky wall on which the castle of Rabenstein stands projects far over its base, and a little white chapel sits on the summit. The entrance is a very broad, low arch, resting on natural pillars.

You first penetrate for a hundred feet or more by a spacious vaulted avenue: then the rock contracts, and a narrow passage, closed by double doors, leads to the subterranean halls. Here you find yourself near the top of an immense chamber, hung with stalactites and tinkling with the sound of water dropping from their points. A wooden staircase, protected by an iron railing, leads around the sides to the bottom, giving views of some curious formations-waterfalls, statues, a papal tiara, the intestines of cattleand the blunt pillars of the stalagmites, growing up by hundreds from every corner or shelf of rock.

The most remarkable feature of the cave, however-as of all the Franconian grottoes-is the abundance of fossil remains in every part of it. The attention of geologists was first directed to these extraordinary deposits by the naturalist Rosenmüller, who explored and described them; but they were afterward better known through the writings of Cuvier and Humboldt. Here, imbedded in the incrusted stone, lie the skulls of bears and hyenas, the antlers of deer, elk, and antelopes, and the jaw-bones of mammoths. You find them in the farthest recesses of the cave, and the rock seems to be actually a conglomerate of them. Yet no entire skeleton of any animal, I was informed, has been found. Under the visible layers are other deeper layers of the same remains. How were all these beasts assembled here? What overwhelming fear or necessity drove together the lion and the stag, the antelope and the hyena? and what convulsion, hundreds of centuries ago, buried them so deep? There is some grand mystery of Creation hidden in this sparry sepulchre of pre-adamite beasts.

We passed on into the second and third chambers, where the stalactites assume other and more unusual forms, such as curtains, chandeliers, falling fringes of lily-leaves, and embroidered drapery, all of which are thin, transparent, snowy-white, and give forth a clear, bell-like tone when struck. The cave is curious and beautiful rather than grand. The guide informed me that I had penetrated 2000 feet from

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the entrance, but this I could not believe. Eight | where could be found smoother gravel, greener hundred feet would be nearer the mark. On turf, brighter flowers, or a more artistic disposireturning, the first effect of the daylight on the tion of trees, fountains, statues, and flower-beds. outer arches of the cavern transmuted them into Presently we reached a stately Italian palace of golden glass, and the wild landscape of the gorge yellow stone, with a level, blossomy terrace in was covered with a layer of crystal fire so daz- front, overhanging a deep valley, which seemed zling that I could scarcely look upon it. to have been brought bodily from Switzerland. In the bottom was a lake, bordered by the greenest meadows; the opposite hill was wooded with dark firs, and every house which could be seen was Swiss in its form. Two men were on the terrace, looking over the heavy stone balustrade -one of them a very stout, strong figure, with a massive gray beard. "Ah," said my companion, "there is the Duke himself!" His Highness, seeing us, returned our salutes very politely, and then slid behind a bush. "He always does that," said the Bayreuther, "when strangers come: he goes away lest they should be embarrassed, and not see as much as they wish." This is really the extreme of politeness. The Duke's wife was the Princess Marie d'Orleans, that gifted daughter of Louis Philippe, whose statue of Joan of Arc is in the Versailles Gallery. She died, however, not in consequence of excessive devotion to her art, as is often stated, but from a cold contracted after her first confinement. Duke Alexander has never married again.

By this time it was 10 o'clock, and the heat increasing every moment: it was 90° in the shade. An hour's walk over a bare, roasting upland brought me to the Wiesent valley and the town of Waischenfeld, which I reached in a state of complete exhaustion. Here, however, there was an omnibus to Bayreuth. My guide and baggage-bearer was an old fellow of sixty, who had waited upon me the evening before in Pottenstein, and besides had fallen in the street and broken his pipe while going to the baker's for my breakfast: so I gave him a florin and a half (60 cents). But I was hardly prepared for the outburst which followed: "Thank you, and Heaven reward you, and God return it to you, and Our Dear Lady take care of you! Oh, but I will pray ever so many paternosters for you, until you reach home again. Oh, that you may get back safely! Oh, that you may have long life! Oh, that you may be rich! Oh, that you may keep your health! Oh, that I might go on with you, and never stop! But you're a noble lordship! It isn't me that likes vulgar people: I won't have nothing to do with 'em: it's the fine, splendid gentleman like yourself that it does me good to be with!" With that he took my hand, and, bending over, kissed me just under the right eye before I knew what he was after. He then left; and when I came to pay my bill I found that he had ordered dinner and beer at my expense!

I waited at Waischenfeld until late in the afternoon, and then took the post for Bayreuth. The upper valley of the Wiesent exhibits some remarkable rock-forms; but they become less and less frequent, the valley widens, and finally, at the village of Blankenstein, the characteristics of the Franconian Switzerland, in this direction, disappear. The soil, however, is much richer, and the crops were wonderfully luxuriant. We passed a solitary chapel by the road-side, renowned as a place of pilgrimage. "The people call it die Kábel," said my fellow-passenger, a Bayreuther. "If you were to say Kapelle [chapel], they wouldn't know what you meant." The votive offerings placed there are immediately stolen; the altar-ornaments are stolen; even the bell is stolen from the tower.

The Phantasie struck me as being one of the most exquisite specimens of landscape gardening in Germany. It is an illustration of what may be accomplished by simply assisting nature-by following her suggestions rather than forcing her to assume a new character.

As we approached Bayreuth my friend said: "Now I will try and show you the grave of Jean Paul (Richter)." But the foliage in the cemetery was too thick, and I only thought I saw the top of a black marble tombstone. "I remember him very well," he continued. "When I was a boy I often saw him on his way to Frau Rollwenzel's. He wore a wide coat, and always

had a bottle of wine in his pocket. One hand
he held behind him, and carried a stick in the
other. Sometimes he would stop and take a
drink of wine. I remember his funeral, which
took place by torch-light. He was a most beau-
tiful corpse! His widow gave me one of his
vests, a white one, with embroidery upon it, and
I was fool enough to let it go out of my hands;
I shall never forgive myself for that.
nobody in Bayreuth thought he was a great man."
And this was said of Jean Paul, the greatest
German humorist! There is a melancholy moral
in the remark.

But then,

At last the Fichtelgebirge (Fir-Mountains) the central chain of Franconia-came in sight, Bayreuth is a stately town for its size (the and the road began to descend toward the val- population is some 18,000); the streets are ley of Bayreuth. My fellow-passenger proposed broad, the houses large and massive; but over that we should alight at the commencement of a all there is an air of departed grandeur like park called the Phantasie, belonging to Duke Ferrara, Ravenna, and the other deserted ItalAlexander of Würtemberg, and he would con- ian capitals. In the former century it had an duct me through to the other end, where the ostentatious court-its Margraves, no doubt, conomnibus would wait for us. We entered a charm-sidered themselves Grands Monarques in miniaing park, every foot of which betrayed the most ture, and surrounded themselves with pompous exquisite taste and the most tender care. No- ceremonial-but all this is over. Now and then

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