JOURNEY ON FOOT FROM FRANKFORT TO CASSEL.
The day for leaving Frankfort came at last, and I bade adieu to the
gloomy, antique, but still quaint and pleasant city. I felt like leaving
a second home, so much had the memories of many delightful hours spent
there attached me to it: I shall long retain the recollection of its
dark old streets, its massive, devil-haunted bridge and the ponderous
cathedral, telling of the times of the Crusaders. I toiled up the long
hill on the road to Friedberg, and from the tower at the top took a last
look at the distant city, with a heart heavier than the knapsack whose
unaccustomed weight rested uneasily on my shoulders. Being
alone--starting out into the wide world, where us yet I know no one,--I
felt much deeper what it was to find friends in a strange land. But such
is the wanderer's lot.
We had determined on making the complete tour of Germany on foot, and in
order to vary it somewhat, my friend and I proposed taking different
routes from Frankfort to Leipsic. He choose a circuitous course, by way
of Nuremberg and the Thuringian forests; while I, whose fancy had been
running wild with Goethe's witches, preferred looking on the gloom and
grandeur of the rugged Hartz. We both left Frankfort on the 23d of
April, each bearing a letter of introduction to the same person in
Leipsic, where we agreed to meet in fourteen days. As we were obliged to
travel as cheaply as possible, I started with but seventynine florins,
(a florin is forty cents American) well knowing that if I took more, I
should, in all probability, spend proportionally more also. Thus, armed
with my passport, properly _visèd_, a knapsack weighing fifteen pounds
and a cane from the Kentucky Mammoth Cave, I began my lonely walk
through Northern Germany. The warm weather of the week before had
brought out the foliage of the willows and other early trees--violets
and cowslips were springing up in the meadows. Keeping along the foot of
the Taunus, I passed over great, broad hills, which were brown with the
spring ploughing, and by sunset reached Friedberg--a, largo city, on the
summit of a hill. The next morning, after sketching its old, baronial
castle, I crossed the meadows to Nauheim, to see the salt springs there.
They are fifteen in number; the water, which is very warm, rushes up
with such force as to leap several feet above the earth. The buildings
made for evaporation are nearly two miles in length; a walk along the
top gives a delightful view of the surrounding valleys. After reaching
the _chaussée_ again, I was hailed by a wandering journeyman, or
_handwerker_, as they are called, who wanted company. As I had concluded
to accept all offers of this kind, we trudged along together very
pleasantly, He was from Holstein, on the borders of Denmark and was just
returning home, after an absence of six years, having escaped from
Switzerland after the late battle of Luzerne, which he had witnessed. He
had his knapsack and tools fastened on two wheels, which he drew after
him quite conveniently. I could not help laughing at the adroit manner
in which he begged his way along, through every village. He would ask me
to go on and wait for him at the other end; after a few minutes he
followed, with a handful of small copper money, which he said he had
_fought for_,--the handworker's term for _begged._
We passed over long ranges of hills, with an occasional view of the
Vogelsgebirge, or Bird's Mountains, far to the cast. I knew at length,
by the pointed summits of the hills, that we were approaching Giessen
and the valley of the Lahn. Finally, two sharp peaks appeared in the
distance, each crowned with a picturesque fortress, while the spires of
Giessen rose from the valley below. Parting from my companion, I passed
through the city without stopping, for it was the time of the university
vacation, and Dr. Liebeg, the world-renowned chemist, whom I desired to
see, was absent.
Crossing a hill or two, I came down into the valley of the Lahn, which
flows through meadows of the brightest green, with redroofed cottages
nestled among gardens and orchards upon its banks. The women here wear
a remarkable costume, consisting of a red boddice with white sleeves,
and a dozen skirts, one above another, reaching only to the knees. I
slept again at a little village among the hills, and started early for
Marburg. The meadows were of the purest emerald, through which the
stream wound its way, with even borders, covered to the water's edge
with grass so smooth and velvety, that a fairy might have danced along
on it for miles without stumbling over an uneven tuft. This valley is
one of the finest districts in Germany. I thought, as I saw the peaceful
inhabitants at work in their fields, I had most probably, on the
battle-field of Brandywine, walked over the bones of some of their
ancestors, whom a despotic prince had torn from their happy homes, to
die in a distant land, fighting against the cause of freedom.
I now entered directly into the heart of Hesse Cassel. The country
resembled a collection of hills thrown together in confusion--sometimes
a wide plain left between them, sometimes a clustre of wooded peaks, and
here and there a single pointed summit rising above the rest. The
vallies were green as ever, the hill-sides freshly ploughed and the
forests beginning to be colored by the tender foliage of the larch and
birch. I walked two or three hours at a "stretch," and then, when I
could find a dry, shady bank, I would rest for half an hour and finish
some hastily sketched landscape, or lay at full length, with my head on
my knapsack, and peruse the countenances of those passing by. The
observation which every traveller excites, soon ceases to be
embarrassing. It was at first extremely unpleasant; but I am now so
hardened, that the strange, magnetic influence of the human eye, which
we cannot avoid feeling, passes by me as harmlessly as if turned aside
by invisible mail.
During the day several showers came by, but as none of them penetrated
further than my blouse, I kept on, and reached about sunset a little
village in the valley. I chose a small inn, which had an air of neatness
about it, and on going in, the tidy landlady's "be you welcome," as she
brought a pair of slippers for my swollen feet, made me feel quite at
home. After being furnished with eggs, milk, butter and bread, for
supper, which I ate while listening to an animated discussion between
the village schoolmaster and some farmers, I was ushered into a clean,
sanded bedroom, and soon forgot all fatigue. For this, with breakfast in
the morning, the bill was six and a half groschen--about sixteen cents!
Tin air was freshened by the rain and I journeyed over the hills at a
rapid rate. Stopping for dinner at the large village of Wabern, a boy at
the inn asked me if I was going to America? I said no, I came from
there. He then asked me many silly questions, after which he ran out and
told the people of the village. When I set out again, the children
pointed at me and cried: "see there! he is from America!" and the men
took off their hats and bowed!
The sky was stormy, which added to the gloom of the hills around, though
some of the distant ranges lay in mingled light and shade--the softest
alternation of purple and brown. There were many isolated, rocky hills,
two of which interested me, through their attendant legends. One is said
to have been the scene of a battle between the Romans and Germans,
where, after a long conflict the rock opened and swallowed up the
former. The other, which is crowned with a rocky wall, so like a ruined
fortress, as at a distance to be universally mistaken for one, tradition
says is the death-place of Charlemagne, who still walks around its
summit every night, clad in complete armor. On ascending a hill late in
the afternoon, I saw at a great distance the statue of Hercules, which
stands on the Wilhelmshöhe, near Cassel. Night set in with a dreary
rain, and I stopped at an inn about five miles short of the city. While
tea was preparing a company of students came in and asked for a separate
room. Seeing I was alone, they invited me up with them. They seemed much
interested in America, and leaving the table gradually, formed a ring
around me, where I had enough to do to talk with them all at once. When
the omnibus came along, the most of them went with it to Cassel; but
five remained and persuaded me to set out with them on foot. They
insisted on carrying my knapsack the whole way, through the rain and
darkness, and when I had passed the city gate with them, unchallenged,
conducted me to the comfortable hotel, "_Zur Krone_."
It is a pleasant thing to wake up in the morning in a strange city.
Every thing is new; you walk around it for the first time in the full
enjoyment of the novelty, or the not less agreeable feeling of surprise,
if it is different from your anticipations. Two of my friends of the
previous night called for me in the morning, to show me around the city,
and the first impression, made in such agreeable company, prepossessed
me very favorably. I shall not, however, take up time in describing its
many sights, particularly the Frederick's Platz, where the statue of
Frederick the Second, who sold ten thousand of his subjects to England,
has been re-erected, after having lain for years in a stable where it
was thrown by the French.
I was much interested in young Carl K----, one of my new acquaintances.
His generous and unceasing kindness first won my esteem, and I found on
nearer acquaintance, the qualities of his mind equal those of his heart.
I saw many beautiful poems of his which were of remarkable merit,
considering his youth, and thought I could read in his dark, dreamy eye,
the unconscious presentiment of a power he does not yet possess. He
seemed as one I had known for years.
He, with a brother student, accompanied me in the afternoon, to
Wilhelmshöhe, the summer residence of the Prince, on the side of a range
of mountains three miles west of the city. The road leads in a direct
line to the summit of the mountain, which is thirteen hundred feet in
height, surmounted by a great structure, called the Giant's Castle, on
the summit of which is a pyramid ninety-six feet high, supporting a
statue of Hercules, copied after the Farnese, and thirty-one feet in
height. By a gradual ascent through beautiful woods, we reached the
princely residence, a magnificent mansion standing on a natural terrace
of the mountain. Near it is a little theatre built by Jerome Buonaparte,
in which he himself used to play. We looked into the green house in
passing, where the floral splendor of every zone was combined. There
were lofty halls, with glass roofs, where the orange grew to a great
tree, and one could sit in myrtle bowers, with the brilliant bloom of
the tropics around him. It was the only thing there I was guilty of
coveting.
The greatest curiosity is the water-works, which are perhaps unequalled
in the world. The Giant's Castle on the summit contains an immense tank
in which water is kept for the purpose; but unfortunately, at the time
I was there, the pipes, which had been frozen through the winter, were
not in condition to play. From the summit an inclined plane of masonry
descends the mountain nine hundred feet, broken every one hundred and
fifty feet by perpendicular descents. These are the Cascades, down which
the water first rushes from the tank. After being again collected in a
great basin at the bottom, it passes into an aqueduct, built like a
Roman ruin, and goes over beautiful arches through the forest, where it
falls in one sheet down a deep precipice. When it has descended several
other beautiful falls, made in exact imitation of nature, it is finally
collected and forms the great fountain, which rises twelve inches in
diameter from the middle of a lake to the height of one hundred and
ninety feet! We descended by lovely walks through the forest to the
Löwenburg, built as the ruin of a knightly castle, and fitted out in
every respect to correspond with descriptions of a fortress in the olden
time, with moat, drawbridge, chapel and garden of pyramidal trees.
Farther below, are a few small houses, inhabited by the descendants of
the Hessians who fell in America, supported here at the Prince's
expense!