One of the loneliest hours I felt in two years of absence from my country, was on an afternoon in April, after leaving the gate of Cassel, in Northern Germany. There I had parted from Carl K——, a young student, whom I had met for the first time two days before, on entering the city. We met, strangers though we were, and ignorant of each other’s name or condition, like old acquaintances who had been long separated; an invisible link seemed at once to attach us in friendship and confidence. He was a boy of seventeen, but already a poet, possessing a nature full of enthusiasm and the sorrowful inspiration of song. His heart beat with all true and tender impulses, and in its yet unfathomed depths there was a capacity for boundless passion. In those two days we were constantly together; we climbed the slopes of the WilhelmshÖhe, fragrant with early cowslips; we wandered among the giant ruins of the Katzenberg; we sat in the rich library, poring over the old illuminated pages of the Song of Hildebrand. When the time of parting came, it was a struggle for both of us, and as we gave the last warm pressure of hands at the gate of Cassel, his dark, mournful eyes were full of tears, and I turned away with a mist gathering over my own. I climbed the long hill which was to shut out all sight of the valley, with a feeling amounting to bitterness, heightened by the languid and feverish sensations of approaching illness.

The hazy sunshine shone warmly on the bare, bleak fields beside the road, and as the day wore away, my spirits sank down, down, into a bottomless gulf of despondency. The coolness of the woods into which the road finally led as it descended the hills of the Weser, made me shiver, though my veins were parched with heat. I threw myself down on the grass, and looked up into the gray sky, that I might lose the feeling of loneliness in its vast and sympathizing presence. This is always an encouraging contemplation, and I was aided by it in the present instance. I made out to reach the city of MÜnden before dark, and slept as I best could, a disturbed, unrefreshing sleep.

The next day, feeling unable to walk, I took the eilwagen to GÖttingen, where I remained two days, and in spite of medicine and a physician, grew no better. It rained continually, and shut up in my chamber with no company but my own thoughts, which were by no means entertaining companions, I looked back with regret to the home-like comforts of Frankfort and Heidelberg. Sickness is synonymous with impatience in my vocabulary, and after two days’ trial of repose, I determined to continue my journey, trusting to the influences of scenery and exercise. Accordingly I took the eilwagen to Nordheim, twenty miles nearer the Hartz, as it was raining heavily. In the capacious and cushioned vehicle, traveling was tolerable enough and I reached Nordheim at nightfall in better spirits.

In the damp, gloomy inn, after the stage rolled off, my fever returned. I went to bed, and lay awake for hours, listening to the rain beating on the windows and the monotonous wail of the wind down the valley. The rest of the night must have been passed either in the wildest dreaming, or in a waking fever bordering on delirium. My head throbbed painfully, and imaginary voices seemed calling me from a distance. Strange figures walked through the room and stood long, looking out the window. Some were familiar faces—faces of friends far away—and some that I knew not, spoke to me, or talked with each other till my brain was confused with the noises, and toward morning I slept.

The next day the sky was dark, without rain. I was weak, though no worse, and set out on foot, aided by a stout staff, toward the Hartz. In spite of the labor of plodding along the muddy roads, I was refreshed by the cool damp atmosphere and inspired by the scenery, which grew wilder and lonelier as I advanced. Spring, although late for Germany, had already covered the forests with their first light green foliage, and the meadows were luxuriant with grass and flowers. Whenever I grew weary, there was always a bank of moss somewhere under the pine-trees which the rain had not reached, and like Uhland with his apple-tree, I greeted the pine as my landlord, who, if he could spread me no board from his juicy larder, at least kept for me his best arm-chair, and with the thatch of his roof protected me from the frequent showers.

So passed the day, with no incident except the challenge of a gend’arme, who could read no part of my passport but the name “America,” in honor of which he made a stiff military salute and wished a pleasant journey. In the old, decaying village of Osterode, sunk deep among gypsum quarries in the valley of the Oder, I made a dinner of milk and black bread, and as it was late in the afternoon, pushed on to reach Herzberg, at the entrance of the Hartz. As the black and gusty sky deepened into night, I was joined by a traveling handwerker, who made the way shorter by his cheery conversation, half talk and half singing. We stopped at a little one-story inn, called, even in that unknown corner of the world, the “London House.” The peasants employed by the landlord, who was rich in possessing several acres of barren meadow land, had just collected for supper, and we sat down with them at the table. An immense wooden bowl, filled with steaming potatoes, was placed in the middle, and a choppin of beer set before each one. They used neither knife, fork nor plate, but took the potatoes in their fingers, and salted them from another dish with the same convenient appliances. I was civilized enough to ask for a plate and to call for tea instead of beer, at which these stout men and maidens were greatly amused. There was considerable doubt at first whether the last article could be had, but the frau, after some search, produced a package of the kind called Russian tea, which is brought overland to Russia through Tartary, and retains the delicate aroma of the shrub in a much greater degree than that which reaches us by a long sea-voyage from Canton. At least, it seemed to me, in my exhausted state, nothing short of nectar, and after some talk with the good people of the inn, who, enjoying only the merest necessities of life gave me a new lesson in the requisites of happiness, I went to bed in the loft and slept till my companion, the handwerker, awoke me at breakfast-time.

Our roads, unfortunately, were different. He was bound to Alexisbad on the southern edge of the Hartz, while I was for a visit to His Phantomship, the Spectre of the Brocken. So we parted, with mutual wishes of good luck, and I plunged into the grand mountain defile in front of Herzberg, my knapsack heavier by a loaf of bread. Thenceforward my way was solitude itself. The steeps on either side were clothed to the summit with woods of black pine, with here and there a single larch, of a pale and misty green, like the ghost of a tree. The brawling river ran over cold black rocks, and even where the hills left a little eddy of meadow between them, the winter floods swept it bare and prevented the peasant from planting his scanty harvest. The only houses were those of the woodmen and mountain herdsmen—the only sounds of human life the stroke of axes among the pines and the shout of men and boys driving their cattle up to the cleared places, which were already covered with thick grass. Snow-drifts still lay in the clefts of the rocks and under the boughs of trees which had been felled. Over this stern and lonely region was a dark and lowering sky and the only things that were truly bright and joyous were the crimson pinks that grew by the wayside.

I overtook a herdsman with his two boys driving their cows and goats up the valley, and we walked some time in company. With a frank curiosity he asked me why I traveled alone in the Hartz. It was too early, he said, to climb the Brocken, and then nobody went there without company. People said there were still spirits and witches among the hills, and I might easily lose the path and wander about till after night-fall, when I would be in their power. The boys listened to his warnings with perfect belief in their faces. I asked them if they had ever seen those witches, “No,” they answered, but they had never been further than Andreasberg; yet the miners had told them of kobolds who guard the veins of ore and smothered them to death when they came too near their dwellings. The old herdsman said he had climbed the Brocken many years before, in the summer time, and added, “but we took good care to come down again before night.” I promised him to be careful about the road and not to be belated when the witches were abroad, but he still seemed unwilling that I should go alone. “Here are the cattle to take care of,” said he, “but Ernest and Gottlieb could do that; if it were not for the wood I must cut, I would go with you myself the whole way.” If my purse had been a little heavier, I would have paid him for the lost work, and taken him along. This I could not do, and when he reached the path which led to his pasturage, I shook hands with him and repeated my promises. “I hope you may be lucky,” was the last he said, “but I wish I could go along.”

Still climbing beside the stream, the road finally grew rough and narrow, hemmed by mountains too high and bleak as yet for pasture. I reached a pass where it was completely covered by an overhanging rock, and sat down to compare the directions of my guide-book with the appearances around me. I had come to the conclusion that I was in the wrong path, when two or three miners came under the other end of the rock. They confirmed my suspicions, but told me they were going to Andreasburg by a path over the mountain on our right and if I followed them I should gain what I had lost. This was a fortunate chance; I shouldered my knapsack and took the path, which was so steep and narrow that we climbed single file through the woods. It was half an hour before we reached the summit and I felt like sinking to the earth from fatigue, for my guides were strong-winded and athletic and went steadily forward, without taking breath. I kept pace with them in the descent, and learned from them something of their under-ground life and the extent and productiveness of the mines. This part of the Hartz is very rich in minerals, the mines producing gold, silver, lead, copper and iron. Some of them have been worked seven or eight centuries, and the deep shafts extend more than two thousand feet under the earth’s surface. The great mine at Andreasberg, called the Sampson, is said to be twenty three hundred feet deep, and the town is inhabited entirely by the workmen. I have since regretted that I did not spend a day there in visiting these remarkable subterranean works.

The town is built near the summit of the mountain and commands a singularly wild and dreary view over that part of the Hartz district. Bleak hills, on which the snow still lay in patches, rose on every side, and the valleys they enclosed looked dim and gloomy in the distance. The Brocken was before me, but its top, fifteen miles off, was covered with clouds. I pushed on, hoping to reach it before night, but while I was tracing the course of the canal which carries water from the dammed mountain springs to the mines, the air grew dense and damp, and a wreath of cloud, trailing like a scarf along the cliffs far below me, portended that night and storm were coming together. When I reached the dam, on the side of the Brocken, it began to rain dismally. The wind whistled through the long dead grass and soughed in the wet pines with a monotonous sound. No sign of house or human being was visible, but I kept on till twilight, when I reached a large solitary building standing by the road. It was inhabited by some forest superintendent or other functionary, and is the second highest dwelling in the Hartz. As the office of landlord was also included in the occupant’s duties, I determined at once to spend the night there. The only residents were the landlord and his wife, two servants and a young man of polished manners, yet of quiet and reserved appearance, who seemed to be living there as much for the solitude of the place as any other cause. After supper he was more communicative, and by drawings and descriptions gave me a very good idea of the remaining eight miles to the summit of the Brocken, which I was to try alone on the morrow. All night the winds howled around the house as if all the witches were abroad. It was the second of May, the night after their yearly conclave.

I have related elsewhere my ascent through snow-drifts and snow-clouds—up rocky ravines and over mountain marshes—till I reached the Brocken House drowned with rain, a most woful-looking traveler. After drying beside a stove like a furnace, and a dinner which sent the blood warm and tingling through my limbs, I put the Brocken-nosegay of moss and lichens in my knapsack and passing the witches’ cauldron, took the path for Schierke. It led down the southern side of the mountain, and the Brocken host (Herr Nese, who for fifty years past has introduced his Spectre to poets, peasants, philosophers and princes) showed me a pile of rocks just under the summit, where a few weeks before, his dogs had found a handwerker buried in a snow-drift and on the point of perishing. A half-hour’s walk brought me below the region of snow, but not that of rain, for the clouds were gathered over the mountains to the right. As I reached the first forests they rolled up black and swift and the drops began to fall hard and heavily. Observing a little thicket of scrubby pines, I lay down on the ground and crawled under it, where I coiled myself up in the close and fragrant covert, just as the floodgates were opened. A perfect deluge succeeded; the trees roared and battled in the wind; the gullies on either side were full of foaming water and the air was nearly as dark as night. But scarcely a drop found its way through my shelter. I lay there warm and snug in the midst of a wild and dreary storm, and never shall I forget my exquisite sense of happiness while it lasted.

Just before sunset I came out upon a slope of rich green pasture where several boys were tending a flock of cattle. The sky was then partially clear but cold, and as I was anxious to reach a village before dark, I left the road to ask them my nearest way. One question succeeded another, and having told them to what country I belonged, I must needs stay with them awhile and tell them about it. We sat on a rock and talked until the shadow of the opposite mountain fell over us, when I left them. They had friends in America, and one of them thought he might visit them when he grew older.

They delayed me so long that the foot-path I had taken, through a deep and rocky hollow, was very gloomy, and in the dim light, almost fearful. Vast masses of rock clung to the side of the mountain,

over and through the crevices were twisted the bony roots of the pines, and down in the chasms I heard the foaming of the swollen streams. This is the path by which Faust and Mephistopheles ascended the Brocken, and the storm which heralded my descent into it reminded me of Goethe’s description:

I thought of this ghostly passage and remembered the caution given me by the old herdsman. But no wrinkled hag, coursing on her he-goat the haunted paths of the Brocken interrupted my progress, and the cheerful lights of Elbingerode soon glimmered through the wood.

The next day I set out for the Rosstrappe, but again went astray and came to a village on the river Bode, deep down under steep mountains and the abode of miners. The people told me of two noted caves within half an hour’s walk, but the rain had again set in, and I hastened forward toward the Rosstrappe, the greatest wonder of the Hartz. The scenery was no longer so lonely and exciting in its character. Open, upland plains, with occasional forests, skirted the road, and the men and women at work in their scanty fields and gardens saluted me with many a shout of laughter as I trudged along through the wood. Roads branched off in all directions from the main one, and left to my own judgment as to the proper course, I continued on till I reached the river, and saw a little hamlet on its banks. At the only inn—a hut with two rooms—an old grandam told me I had missed the way. The Rosstrappe was two hours distant, and I could not find it without a guide. The men were all away in the woods, but a neighbor of hers would go with me if I would give her a few groschen. To this I willingly consented, and the kind old woman dried my blouse carefully by the fire and brought me a dinner of bread and milk.

After dinner the neighbor made her appearance, with a large empty basket and announced herself ready to start. My landlady rolled up in a paper a large slice of bread and thrust it into my pocket, charging me two groschen (6 cents) for my dinner. I was about to shoulder my knapsack, when my guide asked for it, saying she had brought her basket on purpose for it. I hesitated at first; the thought of walking unencumbered, with a woman carrying my baggage seemed unchivalric, to say the least. I made a rapid comparison between my weakness and fatigue and the distance still to be traversed, and decided by placing the knapsack in her basket and assisting her to lift it upon her head. Off we went, under a clear sky, for the first time since I entered the Hartz. Through fine open forests and along precipices overhanging the Bode—past the hunting-grounds of the Dukes of Brunswick and across dells fragrant with spring flowers—so we walked, for nearly two hours, till the cottage-inn of the Rosstrappe was visible through a vista of trees. Here I took the knapsack and dismissed my guide with a ten-groschen-piece, which I had been told was the usual fee. It was evidently much more than she expected.

After I had seen the Rosstrappe, and hung over the fearful chasm where the Bode thunders and foams seven hundred feet below, not forgetting to note the marvelous giant hoof-mark in the rock, I went back to the inn. The landlady gave me the whole story of the Rosstrappe while she brought and uncorked a bottle of birkensaft or birch sap, for which the Hartz is celebrated. This beverage, which is made in no other part of the world, consists of the sap of the birch tree, sweetened and suffered to ferment slightly. It is of a bright pink color and delicious taste. I had the table brought to the door, where I could see the savage defile below, while the landlady seated herself opposite with her knitting and gave her tongue full play. Such a tongue! the words came in an everlasting stream, and the faster she talked the harder she knit; so that one yarn kept pace with the other, and my visit increased the growth of her stocking considerably.

“There was once a pack of wild students here,” said she, among the other marvelous stories she related; “though all students are wild enough, as is quite natural; but these fellows (I remember every one of them) made a terrible noise all afternoon, with their songs and their wine-bottles, and what not. They climbed down the rocks to the Bode and up again, and I must needs tell them the story of the Rosstrappe twice over. When night came they were still here under the trees, drinking, and as it began to rain and they were not able to find their way, the dear Lord knows, what was to be done but keep them? We have no rooms for so many here, you see; so I told them to take this chamber where we are sitting and sleep as they best might. But no sleep had I nor my good man; there was nothing but singing and yelling the whole night. About midnight there was a terrible rap on my door. ‘Himmel!’ I cried, ‘what is the matter?’ and I started up in great fright. ‘O mein Gott!’ said one of the students, ‘there are wolves at the door.’ Now there never was a wolf near the house, but I feared it might be a spirit, or something as frightful, so I put on my gown as quick as I could and lit my lamp, for they had overturned theirs in their fright. When I came into the room I found them all in one corner, looking very wild and pale. ‘There are no wolves here,’ said I. Just then a night-owl among the trees began to hoot. ‘There it is, there it is again!’ they cried, but I laughed, although I was very angry, to be called up for an owl. ‘Go to sleep, you fools!’ I said to them, ‘do you not know better than to be frightened by a hoo-hoo!’ The next morning they were very much ashamed, as they truly might be, for I tell about their fright to every body who comes here.”

At the Rosstrappe, I had reached the eastern extremity of the Hartz, and after I descended the mountain my way was enlivened by bloomy orchards and springing grain. At sunset I was so far out in the plain of the Elbe that I could see the snowy top of the Brocken, free from clouds. This was my last view of the bleak and spectral mountain. After a night of terror at Halberstadt, (an account of which the reader will find in my narrative of travel,) I took the cars for Leipsic, which I reached the next night, and where I found a companion waiting for me. So ended my Lonely Week of Travel in Northern Germany.

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BY MRS. HARRIET S. HANDY.

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FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF THE LATE

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WALTER HERRIES, ESQ.

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I don’t think I ever really loved but once; fancies I have had, and fond ones, too; but now when the cold, gray twilight of age is dimming the visions of the past, memory still recalls, with wonderful power, one bright face from the fair picture gallery of my early loves—the face of Edla Fane, the schoolmaster’s daughter. Beautiful she was not, and yet I loved her, as I learned too late. She seemed to bind me by some spell of witchery that I could not withstand, and yet against which I rebelled, because it appealed not to my outer senses. I understand it now; she bound me by the might of a lofty, spiritual love; and I blindly cast aside that gem of countless price to grasp the dross of earth.

High-toned, and pure-minded, tender, and confiding as a child, yet with a sweet womanly pride, and withal a dash of quiet humor, Edla Fane kept me vacillating near her for a many months. At one time feeling as though I could fall at her feet and worship her, at another fearing I had expressed too much, and withdrawing in cold reserve.

One evening a cold mood came over me; I feared I had committed myself in my ardent protestations to Edla, and now spoke with the calmness of friendship or platonic affection. She listened with a slight curve of her expressive lip, and assented to my proposal of affectionate friendship so readily, that my self-love was aroused, and with characteristic variableness my feelings gained immediate force again. But Edla remained unmoved. The next day I received the following lines in a blank envelope.

Provoking! thus to have my own words turned against me, at the close of these unexpected verses. I saw Edla frequently after this; but my evanescent vows, were never after tolerated even for a moment, and thus, when too late, her prophecy was fulfilled—I loved her. But Edla Fane is now a happy wife and mother, and I—a Bachelor.

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BY WILLIAM H. C. HOSMER.

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[SEE ENGRAVING.]

We present our readers with an engraving of the birth-place of the celebrated American painter, Benjamin West, from an original drawing made by Mr. Croome, in the year 1845. The house is situated in the township of Springfield, Pennsylvania, about four miles north of Chester, on a considerable farm belonging to Mr. Peter Stewart. It will be perceived that the house is in rather a dilapidated condition, one of the posts of the portico being deficient. The house is substantially built of brick, and, at the time of its erection, must have been considered rather an elegant country residence; but its antiquity and state of decay will probably prevent any future attempt to put it in repair. The spot, however, will always be interesting to Americans, from its having been the scene of West’s childhood, to which are referred those delightful and well known anecdotes, of his early life, which display the dawnings of that brilliant genius which was destined to astonish the world by its achievements in the graphic art.

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BY M. E. THROPP.

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A STORY OF THE COWPENS.

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BY CHARLES J. PETERSON.

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[SEE ENGRAVING.]