University of Virginia Library

INTRODUCTION.

Contrary to a long-established usage, a summer had been
passed within the walls of a large town; but, the moment of
liberation arrived, the bird does not quit its cage with greater
pleasure, than that with which post-horses were commanded.
We were four in a light travelling calêche, which strong Norman
cattle transported merrily towards their native province.
For a time we quitted Paris, the queen of modern cities, with
its tumults and its order; its palaces and its lanes; its elegance
and its filth; its restless inhabitants and its stationary
politicians; its theories and its practices; its riches and its
poverty; its gay and its sorrowful; its rentiers and its patriots;
its young liberals and its old illiberals; its three estates and
its equality; its delicacy of speech and its strength of conduct;
its government of the people and its people of no government;
its bayonets and its moral force; its science and its
ignorance; its amusements and its revolutions; its resistance
that goes backward, and its movement that stands still; its
milliners, its philosophers, its opera-dancers, its poets, its
fiddlers, its bankers, and its cooks. Although so long enthralled
within the barriers, it was not easy to quit Paris, entirely
without regret—Paris, which every stranger censures
and every stranger seeks; which moralists abhor and imitate;
which causes the heads of the old to shake, and the hearts of
the young to beat;—Paris, the centre of so much that is excellent,
and of so much that cannot be named!

That night we laid our heads on rustic pillows, far from the
French capital. The succeeding day we snuffed the air of the
sea. Passing through Artois and French Flanders, on the
fifth morning we entered the new kingdom of Belgium, by the
historical and respectable towns of Douaï, and Tournaï, and

Ath. At every step we met the flag which flutters over the
pavilion of the Thuileries, and recognized the confident air
and swinging gait of French soldiers. They had just been
employed in propping the crumbling throne of the house of
Saxe. To us they seemed as much at home as when they
lounged on the Quai d'Orsay.

There was still abundant evidence visible at Brussels, of
the fierce nature of the struggle that had expelled the Dutch.
Forty-six shells were sticking in the side of a single building
of no great size, while ninety-three grape-shot were buried in
one of its pilasters! In our own rooms, too, there were fearful
signs of war. The mirrors were in fragments, the walls broken
by langrage, the wood-work of the beds was pierced by shot,
and the furniture was marked by rude encounters. The trees
of the park were mutilated in a thousand places, and one of
the little Cupids, that we had left laughing above the principal
gate three years before, was now maimed and melancholy,
whilst its companion had altogether taken flight on the wings
of a cannon-ball. Though dwelling in the very centre of so
many hostile vestiges, we happily escaped the sight of human
blood; for we understood from the obliging Swiss who presides
over the hotel, that his cellars, at all times in repute, were in
more than usual request during the siege. From so much
proof we were left to infer, that the Belgians had made stout
battle for their emancipation, one sign at least that they merited
to be free.

Our road lay by Louvain, Thirlemont, Liège, Aix-la-Chapelle,
and Juliers, to the Rhine. The former of these towns
had been the scene of a contest between the hostile armies,
the preceding week. As the Dutch had been accused of unusual
excesses in their advance, we looked out for the signs.
How many of these marks had been already obliterated, we
could not well ascertain; but those which were still visible
gave us reason to think that the invaders did not merit all the
opprobrium they had received. Each hour, as life advances,
am I made to see how capricious and vulgar is the immortality
conferred by a newspaper!

It would be injustice to the ancient Bishopric of Liège to
pass its beautiful scenery without a comment. The country

possesses nearly every requisite for the milder and more rural
sort of landscape;—isolated and innumerable farm-houses,
herds in the fields, living hedges, a waving surface, and a verdure
to rival the emerald. By a happy accident, the road runs
for miles on an elevated ridge, enabling the traveller to enjoy
these beauties at his ease.

At Aix-la-Chapelle we bathed, visited the relics, saw the
scene of so many coronations of emperors of more or less renown,
sat in the chair of Charlemagne, and went our way.

The Rhine was an old acquaintance. A few years earlier,
I had stood upon the sands, at Katwyck, and watched its periodical
flow into the North Sea, by means of sluices made in
the short reign of the good King Louis, and, the same summer,
I had bestrode it, a brawling brook, on the icy side of St.
Gothard. We had come now to look at its beauties in its
most beautiful part, and to compare them, so far as native partiality
might permit, with the well-established claims of our
own Hudson.

Quitting Cologne, its exquisite but incomplete cathedral,
with the crane that has been poised on its unfinished towers
five hundred years, its recollections of Rubens and his royal
patroness, we travelled up the stream so leisurely as to examine
all that offered, and yet so fast as to avoid the hazard of satiety.
Here we met Prussian soldiers, preparing, by mimic service,
for the more serious duties of their calling. Lancers were
galloping, in bodies, across the open fields; videttes were posted,
the cocked pistol in hand, at every hay-stack; while
couriers rode, under the spur, from point to point, as if the
great strife, which is so menacingly preparing, and which
sooner or later must come, had actually commenced. As
Europe is now a camp, these hackneyed sights scarce drew a
look aside. We were in quest of the interest which nature, in
her happier humors, bestows.

There were ruined eastles, by scores; gray fortresses;
abbeys, some deserted and others yet tenanted; villages and
towns; the seven mountains; cliffs and vineyards. At every
step we felt how intimate is the association between the
poetry of Nature and that of art; between the hill-side with
its falling turret, and the moral feeling that lends them interest.

Here was an island, of no particular excellence, but the walls
of a convent of the middle ages crumbled on its surface. There
was a naked rock, destitute of grandeur, and wanting in those
tints which milder climates bestow, but a baronial hold tottered
on its apex. Here Cæsar led his legions to the stream, and
there Napoleon threw his corps d'armée on the hostile bank;
this monument was to Hoche, and from that terrace the great
Adolphus directed his battalions. Time is wanting to mellow
the view of our own historical sites; for the sympathy that can
be accumulated only by the general consent of mankind, has
not yet clothed them with the indefinable colors of distance
and convention.

In the mood likely to be created by a flood of such recollections,
we pursued our way along the southern margin of
this great artery of central Europe. We wondered at the
vastness of the Rheinfels, admired the rare jewel of the ruined
church at Baccarach, and marvelled at the giddy precipice
on which a prince of Prussia even now dwells, in the eagle-like
grandeur and security of the olden time. On reaching
Mayence, the evening of the second day, we deliberately and,
as we hoped, impartially compared what had just been seen,
with that which is so well and so affectionately remembered.

I had been familiar with the Hudson from childhood. The
great thoroughfare of all who journey from the interior of the
state towards the sea, necessity had early made me acquainted
with its windings, its promontories, its islands, its cities, and
its villages. Even its hidden channels had been professionally
examined, and time was when there did not stand an unknown
seat on its banks, or a hamlet that had not been visited. Here
then was the force of deep impressions to oppose to the influence
of objects still visible.

To me it is quite apparent that the Rhine, while it frequently
possesses more of any particular species of scenery, within a
given number of miles, than the Hudson, has none of so great
excellence. It wants the variety, the noble beauty, and the
broad grandeur of the American stream. The latter, within
the distance universally admitted to contain the finest parts
of the Rhine, is both a large and a small river; it has its bays,
its narrow passages among the meadows, its frowning gorges,

and its reaches resembling Italian lakes; whereas the most
that can be said of its European competitor, is that all these
wonderful peculiarities are feebly imitated. Ten degrees of a
lower latitude supply richer tints, brighter transitions of light
and shadow, and more glorious changees of the atmosphere, to
embellish the beauties of our western clime. In islands, too,
the advantage is with the Hudson, for, while those of the
Rhine are the most numerous, those of the former stream are
bolder, better placed, and, in every natural feature, of more
account.

When the comparison between these celebrated rivers is extended
to their artificial accessories, the result becomes more
doubtful. The buildings of the older towns and villages of
Europe seem grouped especially for effect, as seen in the distant
view, though security was in truth the cause, while the
spacious, cleanly, and cheerful villages of America must commonly
be entered, to be appreciated. In the other hemisphere,
the maze of roofs, the church-towers, the irregular faces of
wall, and frequently the castle rising to a pinnacle in the rear,
give a town the appearance of some vast and antiquated pile
devoted to a single object. Perhaps the boroughs of the Rhine
have less of this picturesque, or landscape effect, than the
villages of France and Italy, for the Germans regard space
more than their neighbors, but still are they less commonplace
than the smiling and thriving little marts that crowd the borders
of the Hudson. To this advantage must be added that
which is derived from the countless ruins, and a crowd of
recollections. Here, the superiority of the artificial auxiliaries
of the Rhine ceases, and those of her rival come into the ascendant.
In modern abodes, in villas, and even in seats, those
of princes alone excepted, the banks of the Hudson have
scarcely an equal in any region. There are finer and nobler
edifices on the Brenta, and in other favored spots, certainly,
but I know no stream that has so many that please and attract
the eye. As applied to moving objects, an important feature
in this comparison, the Hudson has perhaps no rival, in any
river that can pretend to a picturesque character. In numbers,
in variety of rig, in beauty of form, in swiftness and dexterity
of handling, and in general grace and movement, this extraordinary

passage ranks amongst the first of the world. The
yards of tall ships swing among the rocks and forests of the
highlands, while sloop, schooner, and bright canopied steam-boat,
yacht, periagua, and canoe are seen in countless numbers, decking
its waters. There is one more eloquent point of difference
that should not be neglected. Drawings and engravings of
the Rhine lend their usual advantages, softening, and frequently
rendering beautiful, objects of no striking attractions when
seen as they exist; while every similar attempt to represent
the Hudson, at once strikes the eye as unworthy of its original.

Nature is fruitful of fine effects in every region, and it is a
mistake not to enjoy her gifts, as we move through life, on account
of some fancied superiority in this, or that, quarter of the
world. We left the Rhine, therefore, with regret, for, in its
way, a lovelier stream can scarce be found.

At Mayence we crossed to the right bank of the river, and
passing by the Duchies of Nassau and Darmstadt, entered that
of Baden, at Heidelberg. Here we sat upon the Tun, examined
the castle, and strolled in the alleys of the remarkable
garden. Thence we proceeded to Manheim, turning our faces,
once more, towards the French capital. The illness of one of
the party compelled us to remain a few hours in the latter
city, which presented little for reflection, unless it were that
this, like one or two other towns we had lately seen, served
to convince us, that the symmetry and regularity which render
large cities magnificent, cause those that are small to appear
mean.

It was a bright autumnal day when we returned to the left
bank of the Rhine, on the way to Paris. The wishes of the
invalid had taken the appearance of strength, and we hoped to
penetrate the mountains which bound the Palatinate on its
south-western side, and to reach Kaiserslautern, on the great
Napoleon road, before the hour of rest. The main object had
been accomplished, and, as with all who have effected their
purpose, the principal desire was to be at home. A few posts
convinced us that repose was still necessary to the invalid.
This conviction, unhappily as I then believed, came too late,
for we had already crossed the plain of the Palatinate, and
were drawing near to the chain of mountains just mentioned,

which are a branch of the Vosges, and are known in the
country as the Haart. We had made no calculations for such
an event, and former experience had caused us to distrust the
inns of this isolated portion of the kingdom of Bavaria. I was
just bitterly regretting our precipitation, when the church-tower
of Duerckheim peered above the vineyards; for, on
getting nearer to the base of the hills, the land became slightly
undulating, and the vine abundant. As we approached, the
village or borough promised little, but we had the word of the
postilion that the post-house was an inn fit for a king; and as to
the wine, he could give no higher eulogium than a flourish of
the whip, an eloquent expression of pleasure for a German of
his class. We debated the question of proceeding, or of
stopping, in a good deal of doubt, to the moment when the
carriage drew up before the sign of the Ox. A substantial
looking burgher came forth to receive us. There was the
pledge of good cheer in the ample development of his person,
which was not badly typified by the sign, and the hale hearty
character of his hospitality removed all suspicion of the hour
of reckoning. If he who travels much is a gainer in knowledge
of mankind, he is sure to be a loser in the charities that
sweeten life. Constant intercourse with men who are in the
habit of seeing strange faces, who only dispose of their services
to those that are likely never to need them again, and
who, of necessity, are removed from most of the responsibilities
and affinities of a more permanent intercourse, exhibits the
selfishness of our nature in its least attractive form. Policy
may suggest a specious blandishment of air, to conceal the
ordinary design on the pocket of the stranger; but it is in the
nature of things that the design should exist. The passion of
gain, like all other passions, increases with indulgence; and
thus do we find those who dwell on beaten roads more rapacious
than those in whom the desire is latent, for want of
use.

Our host of Duerckheim offered a pledge, in his honest
countenance, independent air, and frank manner, of his also
being above the usual mercenary schemes of another portion
of the craft, who, dwelling in places of little resort, endeavor
to take their revenge of fortune, by showing that they look

upon every post-carriage as an especial God-send. He had a
garden, too, into which he invited us to enter, while the horses
were changing, in a way that showed he was simply desirous
of being benevolent, and that he cared little whether we staid
an hour or a week. In short, his manner was of an artless,
kind, natural, and winning character, that strongly reminded us
of home, and which at once established an agreeable confidence
that is of an invaluable moral effect. Though too experienced
blindly to confide in national characteristics, we
liked, too, his appearance of German faith, and more than all
were we pleased with the German neatness and comfort, of
which there were abundance, unalloyed by the swaggering
pretension that neutralizes the same qualities among people
more artificial. The house was not a beer-drinking, smoking
caravanserai, like many hotels in that quarter of the world,
but it had detached pavilions in the gardens, in which the
wearied traveller might, in sooth, take his rest. With such
inducements before our eyes, we determined to remain, and we
were not long in instructing the honest burgher to that effect.
The decision was received with great civility, and, unlike the
immortal Falstaff, I began to see the prospects of taking “mine
ease in mine inn” without having a pocket picked.

The carriage was soon housed, and the baggage in the
chambers. Notwithstanding the people of the house spoke
confidently, but with sufficient modesty, of the state of the
larder, it wanted several hours, agreeably to our habits, to the
time of dinner, though we had enjoyed frequent opportunities
of remarking that in Germany a meal is never unseasonable.
Disregarding hints, which appeared more suggested by humanity
than the love of gain, our usual hour for eating was
named, and, by way of changing the subject, I asked,—

“Did I not see some ruins, on the adjoining mountain, as
we entered the village?”

“We call Duerckheim a city, mein Herr,” rejoined our host
of the Ox; “though none of the largest, the time has been
when it was a capital!”

Here the worthy burgher munched his pipe and chuckled,
for he was a man that had heard of such places as London, and

Paris, and Pekin, and Naples, and St. Petersburg, or, haply,
of the Federal City itself.

“A capital!—it was the abode of one of the smaller Princes,
I suppose; of what family was your sovereign, pray?”

“You are right, mein Herr. Duerckheim, before the French
revolution, was a residence (for so the political capitals are called
in Germany), and it belonged to the princes of Leiningen,
who had a palace on the other side of the city (the place may
be about half as large as Hudson, or Schenectady), which was
burnt in the war. After the late wars, the sovereign was mediatisé,
receiving an indemnity in estates on the other side of
the Rhine.”

As this term of médiatisé has no direct synonyme in English,
it may be well to explain its signification. Germany, as well
as most of Europe, was formerly divided into a countless number
of petty sovereignties, based on the principle of feudal
power. As accident, or talent, or alliances, or treachery advanced
the interests of the stronger of these princes, their
weaker neighbors began to disappear altogether, or to take
new and subordinate stations in the social scale. In this manner
has France been gradually composed of its original, but
comparatively insignificant kingdom, buttressed, as it now is,
by Brittany, and Burgundy, and Navarre, and Dauphiny, and
Provence, and Normandy, with many other states; and, in like
manner has England been formed of the Heptarchy. The confederative
system of Germany has continued more or less of
this feudal organization to our own times. The formation of
the empires of Austria and Prussia has, however, swallowed up
many of these principalities, and the changes produced by the
policy of Napoleon gave the death-blow, without distinction, to
all in the immediate vicinity of the Rhine. Of the latter
number were the Princes of Leiningen, whose possessions were
originally included in the French republic, then in the empire,
and have since passed under the sway of the King of Bavaria,
who, as the legitimate heir of the neighboring Duchy of Deux
Ponts, had a nucleus of sufficient magnitude in this portion of
Germany, to induce the congress of Vienna to add to his dominions;
their object being to erect a barrier against the future

aggrandizement of France. As the dispossessed sovereigns
are permitted to retain their conventional rank, supplying
wives and husbands, at need, to the reigning branches of the
different princely families, the term médiatisé has been aptly
enough applied to their situation.

“The young prince was here, no later than last week,” continued
our host of the Ox; “he lodged in that pavilion, where
he passed several days. You know that he is a son of the
Duchess of Kent, and half-brother to the young princess who
is likely, one day, to be queen of England.”

“Has he estates here, or is he still, in any way, connected
with your government?”

“All they have given him is in money, or on the other side
of the Rhine. He went to see the ruins of the old castle; for
he had a natural curiosity to look at a place which his ancestors
had built.”

“It was the ruins of the castle of Leiningen, then, that I
saw on the mountain, as we entered the town?”

“No, mein Herr. You saw the ruins of the Abbey of Limburg;
those of Hartenburg, for so the castle was called, lie
farther back among the hills.”

“What! a ruined abbey, and a ruined castle, too!—Here is
sufficient occupation for the rest of the day. An abbey and a
castle!”

“And the Heidenmauer, and the Teufelstein.”

“How! a Pagan's wall, and a Devil's stone!—You are rich
in curiosities!”

The host continued to smoke on philosophically.

“Have you a guide who can take me, by the shortest way,
to these places?”

“Any child can do that.”

“But one who can speak French is desirable—for my German
is far from being classical.”

The worthy inn-keeper nodded his head.

“Here is one Christian Kinzel,” he rejoined, after a moment
of thought, “a tailor who has not much custom, and who has
lived a little in France; he may serve your turn.”

I suggested that a tailor might find it healthful to stretch his
knee-joints.

The host of the Ox was amused with the conceit, and he
fairly removed the pipe, in order to laugh at his ease. His
mirth was hearty, like that of a man without guile.

The affair was soon arranged. A messenger was sent for
Christian Kinzel, and taking my little male travelling companion
by the hand, I went leisurely ahead, expecting the appearance
of the guide. But, as the reader will have much to
do with the place about to be described, it may be desirable that
he should possess an accurate knowledge of its locality.

Duerckheim lies in that part of Bavaria, which is commonly
called the circle of the Rhine. The king, of the country
named, may have less than half a million of subjects in this
detached part of his territories, which extends in one course
from the river to Rhenish Prussia, and in the other from Darmstadt
to France. It requires a day of hard posting to traverse
this province in any direction, from which it would appear
that its surface is about equal to two-thirds of that of Connecticut.
A line of mountains, resembling the smaller spurs of
the Alleghanies, and which are known by different local names,
but which are a branch of the Vosges, passes nearly through
the centre of the district, in a north and south course. These
mountains cease abruptly on their eastern side, leaving between
them and the river, a vast level surface, of that description
which is called “flats,” or “bottom land” in America. This
plain, part of the ancient Palatinate, extends equally on the
other side of the Rhine, terminating as abruptly on the eastern
as on the western border. In an air line, the distance between
Heidelberg and Duerckheim, which lie opposite to each other
on the two lateral extremities of the plain, may a little exceed
twenty miles, the Rhine running equi-distant from both.
There is a plausible theory, which says that the plain of the
Palatinate was formerly a lake, receiving the waters of the
Rhine, and of course discharging them by some inferior outlet,
until time, or a convulsion of the earth, broke through the barrier
of the mountains at Bingen, draining off the waters, and
leaving the fertile bottom described. Irregular sand-hills were
visible, as we approached Duerckheim, which may go to confirm
this supposition, for the prevalence of northerly winds
might easily have cast more of these light particles on the

south-western than on the opposite shore. By adding that the
eastern face of the mountains, or that next to the plain, is sufficiently
broken and irregular to be beautiful, while it is always
distinctly marked and definite, enough has been said to enable
us to proceed with intelligence.

It would appear that one of the passes that has communicated,
from time immemorial, between the Rhine and the
country west of the Vosges, issues on the plain through the
gorge near Duerckheim. By following the windings of the
valleys, the post-road penetrates, by an easy ascent, to the
highest ridge, and following the water-courses that run into the
Moselle, descends nearly as gradually into the Duchy of Deux
Ponts, on the other side of the chain. The possession of this
pass, therefore, in the ages of lawlessness and violence, was,
in itself, a title to distinction and power; since all who journeyed
by it, lay in person and effects more or less at the mercy
of the occupant.

On quitting the town, my little companion and myself immediately
entered the gorge. The pass itself was narrow,
but a valley soon opened to the width of a mile, out of which
issued two or three passages, besides that by which we had
entered, though only one of them preserved its character for
any distance. The capacity of this valley, or basin, as it must
have been when the Palatinate was a lake, is much curtailed
by an insulated mountain, whose base, covering a fourth of the
area, stands in its very centre, and which doubtless was an
island when the valley was a secluded bay. The summit of
this mountain or island-hill is level, of an irregularly oval form,
and contains some six or eight acres of land. Here stand the
ruins of Limburg, the immediate object of our visit.

The ascent was exceedingly rapid, and of several hundred
feet; reddish free-stone appeared everywhere through the
scanty soil, the sun beat powerfully on the rocks; and I was
beginning to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of proceeding,
when the tailor approached, with the zeal of new-born
courage.

“Voici Christian Kinzel!” exclaimed—, to whom novelty
was always an incentive, and who, in his young life, had
eagerly mounted Alp and Apennine, Jura and Calabrian hill,

tower, monument, and dome, or whatever else served to raise
him in the air; “Allons,—grimpons!”

We scrambled up the hill-side, and, winding among terraces
on which the vine and vegetables were growing, soon reached
the natural platform. There was a noble view from the summit,
but it would be premature to describe it here. The whole
surface of the hill furnished evidence of the former extent of
the Abbey, a wall having encircled the entire place; but the
principal edifices had been built, and still remained, near the
longitudinal centre, on the very margin of the eastern precipice.
Enough was standing to prove the ancient magnificence
of the structure. Unlike most of the ruins which border the
Rhine, the masonry was of a workmanlike kind, the walls being
not only massive, but composed of the sand-stone just mentioned
neatly hewn, for immense strata of the material exist
in all this region. I traced the chapel, still in tolerable preservation,
the refectory, that never-failing solacer of monastic seclusion,
several edifices apparently appropriated to the dormitories,
and some vestiges of the cloisters. There is also a
giddy tower, of an ecclesiastical form, that sufficiently serves
to give a character to the ruins. It was closed, to prevent
idlers from incurring foolish risks by mounting the crazy steps;
but its having formerly been appropriated to the consecrated
bells, was not at all doubtful. There is also a noble arch near,
with several of its disjointed stones menacing the head of him
who ventures beneath.

Turning from the ruin, I cast a look at the surrounding valley.
Nothing could have been softer or more lovely than the
near view. That sort of necessity, which induces us to cherish
any stinted gift, had led the inhabitants to turn every foot of
the bottom land to the best account. No Swiss Alp could
have been more closely shaved than the meadows at my feet,
and a good deal had been made of two or three rivulets that
meandered among them. The dam of a rustic mill threw back
the water into a miniature lake, and some zealous admirer of
Neptune had established a beer-house on its banks, which was
dignified with the sign of the “Anchor!” But the principal
object in the interior or upland view, was the ruins of a castle,
that occupied a natural terrace, or rather the projection of a

rock, against the side of one of the nearest mountains. The
road passed immediately beneath its walls, a short arrow-flight
from the battlements, the position having evidently been chosen
as the one best adapted to command the ordinary route of the
traveller. I wanted no explanation from the guide to know
that this was the castle of Hartenburg. It was still more
massive than the remains of the Abbey, built of the same material,
and seemingly in different centuries; for while one part
was irregular and rude, like most of the structures of the
middle ages, there were salient towers filled with embrasures,
for the use of artillery. One of their guns, well elevated, might
possibly have thrown its shot on the platform of the Abbey-hill,
but with little danger even to the ruined walls.

After studying the different objects in this novel and charming
scene, for an hour, I demanded of the guide some account
of the Pagan's Wall and of the Devil's Stone. Both were on
the mountain that lay on the other side of the ambitious little
lake, a long musket-shot from the Abbey. It was even possible
to see a portion of the former, from our present stand; and the
confused account of the tailor only excited a desire to see more.
We had not come on this excursion without a fit supply of
road-books and maps. One of the former was accidentally in
my pocket, though so little had we expected anything extraordinary
on this unfrequented road, that as yet it had not been
opened. On consulting its pages now, I was agreeably disappointed
in finding that Duerckheim and its antiquities had not
been thought unworthy of the traveller's especial attention.
The Pagan's Wall was there stated to be the spot in which
Attila passed the winter before crossing the Rhine, in his celebrated
inroad against the capital of the civilized world, though
its origin was referred to his enemies themselves. In short, it
was believed to be the remains of a Roman camp, one of those
advanced works of the empire, by which the Barbarians were
held in check, and of which the Hun had casually and prudently
availed himself, in his progress south. The Devil's Stone
was described as a natural rock, in the vicinity of the encampment,
on which the Pagans had offered sacrifices. Of course
the liberated limbs of the guide were put in requisition, to conduct

us to a spot that contained curiosities so worthy of even
his exertions.

As we descended the mountain of Limburg, Christian Kinzel
lighted the way, by relating the opinions of the country, concerning
the places we had seen and were about to see. It
would appear by this legend, that when the pious monks
were planning their monastery, a compact was made with the
Devil to quarry the stones necessary for so extensive a work,
and to transport them up the steep acclivity. The inducement
held forth to the evil spirit, for undertaking a work of
this nature, was the pretence of erecting a tavern, in which,
doubtless, undue quantities of Rhenish wine were to be quaffed,
cheating human reason, and leaving the undefended soul
more exposed to the usual assaults of temptation. It would
seem, by the legends of the Rhine, that the monks often succeeded
in outwitting the arch foe in this sort of compact, though
perhaps never with more signal success than in the bargain in
question. Completely deceived by the artifices of the men of
God, the father of sin lent himself to the project with so much
zeal, that the Abbey and its appendages were completed in a
time incredibly short; a circumstance that his employers took
good care to turn to account, after their own fashion, by ascribing
it to a miracle of purer emanation. By all accounts
the deception was so well managed, that notwithstanding his
proverbial cunning, the Devil never knew the true destination
of the edifice until the Abbey-bell actually rang for prayers.
Then, indeed, his indignation knew no bounds, and he proceeded
forthwith to the rock in question, with the fell intent of
bringing it into the air above the chapel, and, by its fall, of immolating
the monks and their altar together, to his vengeance.
But the stone was too firmly rooted to be displaced even by the
Devil; and he was finally compelled, by the prayers of the
devotees, who were now, after their own fashion of fighting,
fairly in the field, to abandon this portion of the country in
shame and disgrace. The curious are shown certain marks on
the rock, which go to prove the violent efforts of Satan, on this
occasion, and among others the prints of his form, left by seating
himself on the stone, fatigued by useless exertions. The
more ingenious even trace, in a sort of groove, evidence of the

position of his tail, during the time the baffled spirit was chewing
the cud of chagrin on his hard stool.

We were at the foot of the second mountain when Christian
Kinzel ended this explanation.

“And such is your Deurckheim tradition concerning the
Devil's Stone?” I remarked, measuring the ascent with the
sight.

“Such is what is said in the country, mein Herr,” returned
the tailor; “but there are people, hereabouts, who do not believe
it.”

My little travelling companion laughed, and his eyes danced
with expectation.

“Allons, grimpons!” he cried again—“Allons voir ce Teufelstein!”

In a suitable time we were in the camp. It lay on an advanced
spur of the mountain, a sort of salient bastion made by
nature, and was completely protected on every side, but that
at which it was joined to the mass, by declivities so steep as to
be even descended with some pain. There was the ruin of a
circular wall, half a league in extent, the stones lying in a
confused pile around the whole exterior, and many vestiges of
foundations and intersecting walls within. The whole area
was covered with a young growth of dark and melancholy
cedars. On the face exposed to the adjoining mountain, there
had evidently been the additional protection of a ditch.

The Teufelstein was a thousand feet from the camp. It is
a weather-worn rock, that shows its bare head from a high
point in the more advanced ranges of the hills. I took a seat
on its most elevated pinnacle, and for a moment the pain of
the ascent was forgotten.

The plain of the Palatinate, far as eye could reach, lay in
the view. Here and there the Rhine and the Neckar glittered,
like sheets of silver, among the verdure of the fields, and
tower of city and of town, of Manheim, Spires, and Worms,
of nameless villages, and of German residences, were as
plenty in the scene, as tombs upon the Appian Way. A dozen
gray ruins clung against the sides of the mountains of Baden
and Darmstadt, while the castle of Heidelberg was visible, in
its romantic glen, sombre, courtly, and magnificent. The landscape

was German, and in its artificial parts slightly Gothic;
it wanted the warm glow, the capricious outlines, and seductive
beauty of Italy, and the grandeur of the Swiss valleys and
glaciers; but it was the perfection of fertility and industry,
embellished by a crowd of useful objects.

It was easy for one thus placed, to fancy himself surrounded
by so many eloquent memorials of the progress of civilization,
of the infirmities and constitution, of the growth and ambition
of the human mind. The rock recalled the age of furious
superstition and debased ignorance—the time when the country
lay in forest, over which the hunter ranged at will, contending
with the beast for the mastery of his savage domain. Still the
noble creature bore the image of God, and occasionally some
master mind pierced the shades, catching glimpses of that
eternal truth which pervades Nature. Then followed the
Roman, with his gods of plausible attributes, his ingenious and
specious philosophy, his accumulated and borrowed art, his
concerted and overwhelming action, his love of magnificence,
so grand in its effects, but so sordid and unjust in its means,
and last, the most impressive of all, that beacon-like ambition
which wrecked his hopes on the sea of its vastness, with the
evidence of the falsity of his system as furnished in his fall.
The memorial before me showed the means by which he gained
and lost his power. The Barbarian had been taught, in
the bitter school of experience, to regain his rights, and in the
excitement of the moment, it was not difficult to imagine the
Huns pouring into the camp, and calculating their chances of
success, by the vestiges they found of the ingenuity and resources
of their foes.

The confusion of misty images that succeeded was an apt
emblem of the next age. Out of this obscurity, after the long
and glorious reign of Charlemagne, arose the baronial castle,
with feudal violence and its progeny of wrongs. Then came
the abbey, an excrescence of that mild and suffering religion,
which had appeared on earth, like a ray of the sun, eclipsing
the factitious brilliancy of a scene from which natural light
had been excluded for a substitute of a meretricious and deceptive
quality. Here arose the long and selfish strife, between
antagonist principles, that has not yet ceased. The

struggle was between the power of knowledge and that of
physical force. The former, neither pure nor perfect, descended
to subterfuge and deceit; while the latter vacillated between
the dread of unknown causes, and the love of domination.
Monk and baron came in collision; this secretly distrusting
the faith he professed, and that trembling at the consequences
of the blow which his own sword had given; the fruits
of too much knowledge in one, and of too little in the other,
while both were the prey of those incessant and unwearied
enemies of the race, the greedy passions.

A laugh from the child drew my attention to the foot of the
rock. He and Christian Kinzel had just settled, to their mutual
satisfaction, the precise position that had been occupied by the
Devil's tail. A more suitable emblem of his country than that
boy, could not have been found on the whole of its wide surface.
As secondary to the predominant English or Saxon stock, the
blood of France, Sweden, and Holland ran, in nearly equal
currents, in his veins. He had not far to seek, to find among
his ancestors the peaceful companion of Penn, the Huguenot,
the Cavalier, the Presbyterian, the follower of Luther and of
Calvin. Chance had even deepened the resemblance; for, a
wanderer from infancy, he now blended languages in merry
comments on his recent discovery. The train of thought that
his appearance suggested was natural. It embraced the long
and mysterious concealment of so vast a portion of the earth
as America, from the acquaintance of civilized man; its discovery
and settlement; the manner in which violence and persecution,
civil wars, oppression and injustice, had thrown men
of all nations upon its shores; the effects of this collision of
customs and opinions, unenthralled by habits and laws of selfish
origin; the religious and civil liberty that followed; the novel
but irrefutable principle on which its government was based;
the silent working of its example in the two hemispheres, one
of which had already imitated the institutions that the other
was struggling to approach, and all the immense results that
were dependent on this inscrutable and grand movement of
Providence. I know not indeed but my thoughts might have
approached the sublime, had not Christian Kinzel interrupted
them, by pointing out the spot where the Devil had kicked the
stone, in his anger.

Descending from the perch, we took the path to Deurckheim.
As we came down the mountain, the tailor had many
philosophical remarks to make, that were chiefly elicited by
the forlorn condition of one who had much toil and little food.
In his view of things, labor was too cheap, and wine and potatoes
were too dear. To what depth he might have pushed
reflections bottomed on principles so natural, it is impossible to
say, had not the boy started some doubts concerning the reputed
length of the Devil's tail. He had visited the Jardin
des Plantes at Paris, seen the kangaroos in the Zoological
Garden in London, and was familiar with the inhabitants of a
variety of caravans encountered at Rome, Naples, Dresden,
and other capitals; with the bears of Berne he had actually
been on the familiar terms of a friendly visiting acquaintance.
Having also some vague ideas of the analogies of things, he
could not recall any beast so amply provided with such an
elongation of the dorsal bone, as was to be inferred from
Christian Kinzel's gutter in the Teufelstein. During the discussion
of this knotty point, we reached the inn.

The host of the Ox had deceived us in nothing. The viands
were excellent, and abundant to prodigality. The bottle of old
Deurckheimer might well have passed for Johannisberger, or
for that still more delicious liquor, Steinberger, at London or
New-York; and the simple and sincere civility with which
every thing was served, gave a zest to all.

It would have been selfish to recruit nature, without
thought of the tailor, after so many hours of violent exercise
in the keen air of the mountains. He too had his cup and his
viands, and when both were invigorated by these natural
means, we held a conference, to which the worthy post-master
was admitted.

The following pages are the offspring of the convocation
held in the parlor of the Ox. Should any musty German antiquary
discover some immaterial anachronism, a name misplaced
in the order of events, or a monk called prematurely
from purgatory, he is invited to wreak his just indignation on
Christian Kinzel, whose body and soul may St. Benedict of
Limburg protect, for evermore, against all critics.