In the Teutoburger Forest

NO part of Germany is so monotonous and unlovely as that plain which the receding waves of the North Sea left behind them. The stranger who lands at Bremen or Hamburg enters upon a dead, sandy level, where fields of lean and starveling cereals interchange with heathery moorlands and woods of dwarfish pine. Each squat, ugly farm-house looks as lonely as if there were no others in sight; the villages are collections of similar houses, huddled around a church-tower so thick and massive that it seems to be the lookout of a fortress. The patient industry of the people is here manifested in its plainest and sturdiest forms, and one cannot look for the external embellishments of life, where life itselt is so much of an achievement.

As we advance southward the scenery slowly improves. The soil deepens and the trees rise ; the purple heather clings only to the occasional sandy ridges, between which greenest meadows gladden our eyes. Groves of oak make their appearance ; brooks wind and sparkle among alder thickets ; the low undulations swell into broad, gently rounded hills, and at last there is a wavy blue line along the horizon. If you are travelling from Hanover to Minden, some one will point out a notch, or gap, in that rising mountain outline, and tell you that it is the Porta Westphalica, — the gateway by which the river Weser issues from the Teutoburger Forest.

I had already explored nearly every nook of Middle Germany, from the Hartz to the Odenwald ; yet this—the storied ground of the race — was still an unknown region. Although so accessible, especially from the celebrated watering-place of Pyrmont, whence any of its many points of interest may be reached in a day’s drive, I found little about it in the guide-books, and less in books of travel. Yet here, one may say, is the starting-point of German history. Hermann and Wittekind are the two great representatives of the race, in its struggles against Roman and Christian civilization ; and the fact that it adopted both the one and the other, and through them developed into its later eminence, does not lessen the value of those names. Indeed, the power of resistance measures the power of acceptance and assimilation.

It was harvest-time as I sped by rail towards Minden along the northern base of the mountains. Weeks of drouth and heat had forced the fields into premature ripeness, and the lush green meadows were already waiting for the aftermath. About Bückeburg the rye-fields were full of reapers, in an almost extinct costume, — the men in heavy fur caps, loose white over-shirts, and boots reaching to the knee ; the women with black head-dress, bodice, and bright scarlet petticoat. These tints of white, scarlet, and black shone splendidly among the sheaves, and the pictures I saw made me keenly regret that progress has rendered mankind so commonplace in costume. When I first tramped through Germany, in 1845, every province had its distinctive dress, and the stamp of the country people was impressed upon the landscapes of their homes ; but now a great levelling wave has swept over the country, washing out all these picturesque characteristics, and leaving the universal modern common-place in their stead. If the latter were graceful, or cheap, or practically convenient, we might accept the change ; but it is none of these. Fashion has at last combined ugliness and discomfort in our clothing, and the human race is satisfied.

Soon after leaving Minden the road bends sharply southwards, and enters the Porta Westphalica, — a break in the Weser Mountains which is abrupt and lofty enough to possess a certain grandeur. The eastern bank rises from the water in a broken, rocky wall to the height of near five hundred feet; the western slants sufficiently to allow foothold for trees, and its summit is two hundred feet higher. The latter is called “ Wittekind’s Mount,” from a tradition that the famous Saxon king once had a fortress upon it. Somewhere in the valley which lies within this Westphalian Gate is the scene of the last battle between Hermann and Germanicus. Although the field of action of both those leaders extended over the greater part of Northern Germany, the chief events which decided their fortunes took place within the narrow circle of these mountains.

I passed through Oeynhausen,—a bright, cheerful watering-place, named after the enterprising baron who drove an Artesian shaft to the depth of two thousand feet, and brought a rich saline stream to the surface ; and at Herford, the next station, left the line of rail. I looked in vain for the towers of Enger, a league or so to the west, where Wittekind died as a Christian prince, and where his bones still rest. Before turning aside for Detmold and the hills of the Teutoburger Forest, let me very briefly recall the career of that spiritual successor of Hermann.

Nothing certain is known of Wittekind’s descent or early history. We first hear of him as one of the leaders of the Saxons in the invasion of Westphalia, which they undertook in the year 774, while Charlemagne was occupied in subduing the Lombards. Three years later, when this movement was suppressed and the greater part of the Saxon chiefs took the oath of fidelity to the Emperor at Paderborn, Wittekind fled to the court of his brother-in-law, King Siegfried of Jutland. He returned in 778, while Charlemagne was in Spain, driving back the Saracens, and devastated the lands of the Rhine. After carrying on the war with varying success for four years, he finally surprised and almost annihilated the Frank army at the Süntelberg, not far from Hameln, on the Weser. Enraged at his defeat, Charlemagne took a horrible revenge: he executed forty-five hundred Saxons, who were in his hands. All the tribes rose in revolt, acknowledged Wittekind as their king, and for three years more continued the desperate struggle, the end of which was a compromise. Wittekind received Christian baptism, was made Duke of Saxony, and, according to tradition, governed the people twenty years longer, from his seat at Enger, as a just and humane prince. The Emperor Karl IV. there built him a monument in the year 1377.

At Herford I took my place in the diligence for Detmold, with a horsedealer for company on the way. It was a journey of three hours, through a very pleasant and beautiful country, lying broad and warm in the shelter of circling mountains, veined with clear, many-branched streams, and wooded with scattered groves of oak and beech. If there was any prominent feature of the scenery, as distinguished from that of other parts of Germany, it was these groves, dividing the bright meadows and the golden slopes of harvest, with their dark, rounded masses of foliage, as in the midland landscapes of England. The hills to the south, entirely clothed with forests, increased in height as we followed their course in a parallel line, and long before we reached Detmold I saw the monument to Hermann, crowning the Grotenburg, a summit more than a thousand feet above the valley.

The little capital was holding its annual horse-fair, yet I had no trouble in finding lodgings at one of its three inns, and should have thought the streets deserted if I had not been told that they were unusually lively. The principality of Lippe has a population of a little more than a hundred thousand, yet none of the appurtenances of a court and state are wanting. There is an old ancestral castle, a modern palace, a theatre, barracks and government buildings,—not so large as in Berlin, to be sure, but just as important in the eyes of the people. A stream which comes down from the mountains feeds a broad, still moat, encompassing three sides of the old castle and park, beyond which the fairest meadows stretch away to the setting sun. Ducks and geese on the water, children paddling in the shallows, cows coming home from the pastures, and men and women carrying hay or vegetables, suggested a quiet country village rather than a stately residenz; but I was very careful not to say so to any Detmolder. The repose and seclusion of the place took hold of my fancy: I walked back and forth, through the same streets and linden-shaded avenues in the long summer evening, finding idyls at every turn ; but, alas ! they floated harmlessly by and faded in the sunset.

Detmold is the birthplace of the poet Freiligrath, and I went into the two bookstores to see if they kept his poems, — which they did not. Fifty years hence, perhaps, they will have a statue of him. As I sat in my lonely room at the inn, waiting for bedtime, my thoughts went back to that morning by the lake of Zurich, when I first met the banished poet; to pleasant evenings at his house in Hackney; and to the triumphant reception which, at Cologne, a few days before, had welcomed him back to Germany. This was the end of twenty-three years of exile, the beginning of which I remembered. Noble, unselfish, and consistent as his political course had been, had he followed it to his detriment as a poet, or had he bridged the gulf which separates the Muses from party conflicts ? That was the question, and it was not so easy to resolve. Poesy will cheer as a friend, but she will not serve. She will not be driven from that broad field of humanity, wherein the noise of parties is swallowed up, and the colors of their banners are scarcely to be distinguished, Freiligrath has written the best political poems in the German language, and his life has been the brilliant illustration of his principles ; yet I doubt whether “ The Dead to the Living31 will outlive the “ Lion-Ride.”

I picked up, however, a description of the Teutoburger Forest, written by the Cantor Sauerliinder of Detmold,— a little book which no one but a fullblooded Teuton could have written. Fatiguingly minute, conscientious to the last degree, overflowing with love for the subject, exhaustive on all points, whether important or not, the style — or, rather, utter lack of style — so placed the unsuspecting author before the reader’s mind, that it was impossible to mistake him, — a mild, industrious, harmless egotist, who talks on and on, and never once heeds whether you are listening to his chatter.

I took him with me, but engaged, in addition, a young gardener of the town, and we set out in the bright, hot morning. My plan for the day embraced the monument to Hermann on the Grotenburg, the conjectured field of the defeat of Varus, and the celebrated Extern Rocks. Cool paths through groves of oak led from the town to the foot of the mountain, having reached which I took out the Cantor, and read : “ From this point to the near forest the footpath mounts by a very palpable grade, wherefore the wanderer will find himself somewhat fatigued, besides suffering (frequently) from the burning rays of the sun, against which, however, it is possible to screen one’s self by an umbrella, for which reason I would venture to suggest a moderate gait, and observant pauses at various points ! ” Verily, if his book had been specially prepared for the reigning prince, Paul Friedrich Emil Leopold, he could not have been more considerate.

The fatiguing passage, nevertheless, was surmounted in ten minutes, and thenceforth we were in the shade of the forest. At about two thirds of the height the path came upon a Hünenring, or Druid circle, one of the largest in Germany. It is nearly five hundred feet in diameter, with openings on the north and south, and the walls of rough stones are in some places twenty feet high. Large trees are growing upon them. There was another and greater ring around the crest of the mountain, but it has been thrown down and almost obliterated. German antiquarians consider these remains as sufficient evidence to prove that this is the genuine Teutoburg, — the fortress of Teut, or Tuisco, the chief personage of the original Teutonic mythology. They also derive the name of Detmold from “ Theotmalle,” the place of Teut. There can be no doubt as to the character of the circles, or their great antiquity; and, moreover, to locate the Teutoburg here explains the desperate resistance of the tribes of this region both to Rome and to Charlemagne.

Near the summit I found some traces of the greater circle, many of the stones of which were used, very appropriately, for the foundation of the monument to Hermann. This structure stands in an open, grassy space, enclosed by a young growth of fir-trees. It is still incomplete ; but we, who long ago stopped work on the colossal Washington obelisk, have no right to reproach the German people. Thirty years ago the Bavarian sculptor Von Bandel exhibited the design of a statue to Hermann. The idea appealed to that longing for German unity the realization of which seemed then so distant; societies were formed, collections made, fairs held for the object, and the templeshaped pedestal, commenced in 1841, was finished in 1846, at a cost of forty thousand thalers. The colossal statue which should crown it demanded an equal sum, — two thirds of which, I am told, has been contributed. Parts of the figure have been already cast, and the sculptor, now nearly seventy years old, still hopes to see the dream of his life fulfilled. But the impression has gone abroad that the strength of the winds, sweeping unchecked from the Rhine and from Norway across the Northern Sea, is so great upon this Teutoburger height, that the statue would probably be thrown down, if erected. A committee of architects and engineers has declared that, with proper anchorage, the figure will stand ; yet the contributions have ceased.

The design of the temple-base is very simple and massive. On a circular foundation, sixty feet in diameter by eleven in height, stands a structure composed of ten clustered pillars, connected by pointed arches, the outerspans of which are cut to represent stems of oak, while heavy garlands of oak-leaves are set in tire triangular interspaces. The first rude beginning of Gothic art is here suggested, not as a growth from the Byzantine and Saracenic schools, but as an autochthonous product. Over the cornice, which is fifty feet above the base, rises a solid hemisphere of masonry, terminating in a ring twenty-five feet in diameter, which is to receive the metal base of the colossus. The latter will be ninety feet in height to the point of the sword, making the entire height of the monument a hundred and eighty-two feet.

I mounted to the summit, and looked over the tops of the forest upon a broad and beautiful panoramic ring of landscape. The well-wooded mountains of the region divided the rich valleys and harvest lands which they enclosed. On all sides except the west they melted away in the summer haze ; there they sank into the tawny Westphalian plain, once the land of marshes, traversed by the legions of Varus. While yonder, beyond the ring of the forests sacred to Teut, the fields were withering and the crops wasting in the sun, here they gave their fullest bounty; here the streams were full, the meadows green, and the land laughed with its abundance. From this point I overlooked all the great battle-fields of Hermann and Wittekind. The mountains do not constitute, as I had supposed, a natural stronghold ; but in their heart lies the warmest and most fertile region of Northern Germany.

In the neighboring hostelry there is a plaster model of the waiting statue. Hermann, with the winged helmet upon his head, and clad in a dose leathern coat reaching nearly to the knee, is represented as addressing his warriors. The action of the uplifted right arm is good, but the left hand rests rather idly upon the shield, instead of unconsciously repeating in the grip of the fingers the energy of the rest of the figure. The face — ideal, of course — is quite as much Roman as Teuton, the nose being aquiline, the eyebrows straight, and the lips very clearly and regularly cut. To me the physiognomy would indicate dark hair and beard. I found the body somewhat heavy and ungraceful ; but as it was to be seen from below, and in very different dimensions, the effect may be all that is designed.

In the Hall of Busts in the Museum of the Capitol, in Rome, there is a head which has recently attracted the interest of German archaeologists. It stands alone among the severe Roman and the exquisitely balanced Grecian heads, like a genial phenomenon of character totally distinct from theirs. When I stood before it, a little puzzled, and wondering at the absurd label of “ CECROPS ? ” affixed to the pedestal, I had not learned the grounds for conjecturing that it may be a portrait of him whom Tacitus calls Arminius ; yet I felt that here was a hero, of whom history must have some knowledge. It is certainly a blond head, with abundant locks, a beard sprouting thinly and later than in the South, strong cheek-bones, a nose straight but not Grecian, and lips which somehow express good-fellowship, vanity, and the habit of command. The sculptor Bandel made a great mistake in not boldly accepting the conjecture as fact, and giving Hermann this head. Dr. Emil Braun considers that it is undoubtedly a bust of one of the young German chiefs who were educated at the court of Augustus ; and he adds, very truly, “If this can be proven, it will be of great importance as a testimony of the intellectual development of the German race, even in those early times.”

Hermann, who was born in the year 16 B. C., must have gone to Rome as a boy, during the campaigns of Drusus and Tiberius in Northern Germany. He became not only a citizen, but a Roman knight, was intrusted with the command of a German legion, and fought in Pannonia. He acquired the Latin tongue, and acquainted himself with the military and civil science of the Romans. Had the wise and cautious policy of Tiberius been followed, he might have died as a Consul of the Empire; but the brutal rule of Varus provoked the tribes to resistance, and Hermann became a German again. He turned against Rome the tactics he had learned in her service, enticed Varus away from the fortified line of the Rhine, across the marshes of the Lippe, and on the southern slope of the Teutoburger Forest, in a three days’ battle fought amid the autumn storms, annihilated the Roman army of fifty thousand men. Well might the Imperial city tremble, and the old Augustus cry out to the shade of the slain commander, “Varus, Varus, give me back my legions ! ”

For five years the sovereignty of Hermann and the independence of his people were not disturbed. But after the death of Augustus, in the year 14 A. D., Germanicus determined to restore the prestige of the Roman arms. In the mean time Hermann had married Thusnelda, daughter of Segestus, another chief of the Cheruski, who had reclaimed her by force in consequence of a quarrel, and was then besieged by his son-in-law. Segestus called the Romans to his aid, and delivered Thusnelda into their hands to grace, two years later, the triumph decreed to Germanicus. Hermann, infuriated by the loss of a wife whom he loved, summoned the tribes to war, and the Roman commander collected an army of eighty thousand men. The latter succeeded in burying the bones of Varus and his legions, and was then driven back with great loss. Returning in the year 16 with a still larger army, he met the undaunted Hermann on the Weser, near Hameln. The terrible battle fought there, and a second near the Porta Westphalica, were claimed as victories by the Romans, yet were followed by a retreat to the fortresses on the Rhine. Germanicus was preparing a third campaign when he was recalled by the jealous Tiberius. The Romans never again penetrated into this part of Germany.

Hermann might have founded a nation but for the fierce jealousy of the other chieftains of his race. He was victorious in the civil wars which ensued, but was waylaid and murdered by members of Ids own family in the year 21. His short life of thirty-seven years is an unbroken story of heroism. Even Tacitus, to whom we are indebted for these particulars, says of him: “He was undoubtedly the liberator of Germany, having dared to grapple with the Roman power, not in its beginnings, like other kings and commanders, but in the maturity of its strength. He was not always victorious in battle, but in war he was never subdued. He still lives in the songs of the Barbarians, unknown to the annals of the Greeks, who only admire that which belongs to themselves, — nor celebrated as he deserves by the Romans, who, in praising the olden times, neglect the events of the later years.”

Leaving the monument, my path followed the crest of the mountain for two or three miles, under a continuous roof of beech. Between the smooth, clean boles I looked down upon the hot and shining valley, where the leaves hung motionless on the trees, but up on the shaded ridge of the hills there was a steady, grateful breeze. The gardener was not a very skilful guide, and only brought me to the Winnefeld (Winfield) after a roundabout ramble. I found myself at the head of a long, bare slope, falling to the southwest, where it terminated in three dells, divided by spurs of the range. The town of Lippspringe, in the distance, marked the site of the fountains mentioned by Tacitus. The Winnefeld lies on the course which an army would take, marching from those springs to assault the Teutoburg, and the three dells, wooded then as now, would offer rare chances of ambuscade and attack. There is no difficulty in here locating the defeat of Varus. That the Teuton victory was not solely the result of Hermann’s military skill is proven by the desperate bravery with which his warriors confronted the legions of Germanicus five years later.

Standing upon this famous battlefield, one cannot but recall the subsequent relations of Germany and Rome, which not only determined the history of the Middle Ages, but set in action many of the forces which shape the present life of the world. The seat of power was transplanted, it was exercised by another race, but its elements were not changed. Hermann, a knight of Rome, learned in her service how to resist her, and it was still the Roman mind which governed Italy while she was a defiant dependency of the German Empire. Charlemagne took up the uncompleted work of Germanicus, and was the true avenger of Varus, after nearly eight hundred years. The career of Hermann, though so splendidly heroic, does not mark the beginning of Germany ; the race only began to develop after its complete subjection to the laws and arts and ideas of Rome. Thus the marvellous Empire triumphed at last.

I descended the bare and burning slopes of the mountain into a little valley, plunged into a steep forest beyond, and, after plodding wearily for an hour or more, found myself, as nearly as I could guess, on the banks of a brook that descends to the town of Horn. The gardener seemed at fault, yet insisted on leading me contrary to my instinct of the proper course. We had not gone far, however, when a mass of rock, rising like a square tower above the wooded ridge to the eastward, signalled our destination ; and my discomfited guide turned about silently, and made towards it, I following, through thickets and across swamps, until we reached the highway.

The Extern Rocks (Externsteine) have a double interest for the traveller. They consist of five detached masses of gray sandstone, one hundred and twenty-five feet in height, irregularly square in form, and with diameters varying from thirty to fifty feet. They are planted on a grassy slope, across the mouth of a glen opening from the mountains. Only a few tough shrubs hang from the crevices in their sides, but the birch-trees on the summits shoot high into the air and print their sprinkled leaves on the sky. The hills of the Teutoburger Forest are rounded and cliffless, and the same formation, it is said, does not reappear elsewhere.

In the base of the most northern of these rocks a chapel, thirty-six feet long, has been hewn,— but when, or by whom, are matters of conjecture. Some very imaginative antiquaries insist that, the Romans captured by Hermann were here sacrificed to the pagan gods ; others find evidence that the place was once dedicated to the worship of Mithras (the sun) ; but the work must probably be ascribed to the early Teutonic Christians. The rocks are first mentioned in a document of the year 1093. On the outer wall of the chapel there is a tablet of sculpture, in high relief, sixteen feet by twelve, which is undoubtedly the earliest work of the kind in Germany. Its Byzantine character is not to be mistaken, and, judging by the early Christian sculptures, and mosaics in Italy, it may be as old as the ninth or tenth century. The tablet is in three compartments, the lower one representing the Fail of Man, the centre the Descent from the Cross, while at the top the Almighty receives the soul of the Son in his arms, and holds forth the Banner of the Cross. Although mutilated, weather-beaten, and partly veiled in obscuring moss, the pathos of the sculpture makes itself felt through all the grotesqueness of its forms. Goethe, who saw it. says : “ The head of the sinking Saviour leans against the countenance of the mother, and is gently supported by her hand, — a beautiful, reverent touch of expression which we find in no other representation of the subject.” The drapery also, though stiff, has yet the simplicity and dignity which we so rarely find in modern art.

Two of the rocks may be ascended by means of winding stairways cut in their sides. On the summit of the first there is a level platform, with a stone table in the centre, — probably the work of the monks, to whom the place belonged in the Middle Ages. By climbing the central rock, and crossing a bridge to the next, one reaches a second chapel, eighteen feet in length, with a rock-altar at the farther end. It is singular that there is no record of the origin of this remarkable work. We know that the spirit of the Teutonic mythology lived long after the introduction of Christianity, and the monks may have here found and appropriated one of its sacred places.

By the time I reached the town of Horn, a mile or so from the base of the mountains, I was too scorched and weary to go farther afoot, and, while waiting dinner in the guests’-room of the inn, looked about for a means of conveyance. Three or four stout Philister, drinking beer at an adjoining table, were bound for Steinheim, which was on my way; and the landlord said, “An ‘extra post’ will be expensive, but these gentlemen might make room for you in their carriage.”

They looked at each other and at me. “ We are already seven,” said one,“ and must be squeezed as it is.”

“ By no means,” I replied to the landlord ; "get me an extra post.”

Both vehicles were ready at the same time. In the mean time I had entered into conversation with one of the party, — a bright, cheerful young man,—and told him that I should be glad to have company on the way.

“ Why did you engage an extra post ? ” they all exclaimed. It is expensive ! we are only five: you might have gone with us, — we could easily make room for you ! ”

Yet, while making these exclamations, they picked out the oldest and least companionable of their party, and bundled him into my “expensive” carriage ! I never saw anything more coolly done. I had meant to have the agreeable, not the stupid member, but was caught, and could not help myself. However, I managed to extract a little amusement from my companion as we went along. He was a Detmolder, after confessing which he remarked,

“ Now I knew where you came from before you had spoken ten words.”

“ Indeed ! Where, then ? ”

“Why, from Bielefeld ! ”

My laughter satisfied the old fellow that he had guessed correctly, and thenceforth he talked so much about Bielefeld that it finally became impossible to conceal my ignorance of the place. I set him down in Steinheim, dismissed the extra post, and, as the evening was so bright and balmy, determined to go another stage on foot. I had a letter to a young nobleman, whose estate lay near a village some four or five miles farther on the road to Höxter. The small boy whom I took as guide was communicative ; the scenery was of the sweetest pastoral character ; the mellow light of sunset struck athwart the golden hills of harvest, the lines of alder hedge, and the meadows of winding streams, and I loitered along the road, full of delight in the renewal of my old pedestrian freedom.

It was dusk when I reached the village. The one cottage inn did not promise much comfort; but the baton’s castle was beyond, and I was too tired to go farther. The landlord was a petty magistrate, evidently one of the pillars of the simple village society; and he talked well and intelligently, while his daughter cooked my supper. The bare rooms were clean and orderly, and the night was so warm that no harm was done when the huge globe of feathers under which I was expected to sleep rolled off the bed, and lay upon the floor until morning.

Sending my letter to the castle, I presently received word that the young baron was absent from home, but that his mother would receive me. As I emerged from the shadows of the narrow village street into the breezeless, burning air of the morning, the whole estate lay full and fair in view,—a thousand acres of the finest harvest land, lying in the lap of a bowl-shaped valley, beyond which rose a wooded mountain range. In the centre of the landscape a group of immemorial oaks and lindens hid the castle from view, but a broad and stately linden avenue connected it with the highway. There were scores of reapers in the fields, and their dwellings, with the barns and stables, almost formed a second village. The castle — a square mass of building, with a paved court-yard in the centre — was about three hundred years old ; but it had risen upon the foundations of a much older edifice.

The baroness met me at the door, with her two daughters, and ushered me into a spacious room, the ceiling of which, low and traversed by huge beams of oak, was supported by a massive pillar in the centre. The bare oaken floor was brightly polished ; a gallery of ancestral portraits decked the walls, but the furniture was modern and luxurious. After a friendly scolding for not claiming the castle’s hospitality the night before, one of the daughters brought refreshments, just as a Burgfräulein of the Middle Ages might have done, except that she did not taste the goblet of wine before offering it. The ladies then conducted me through a range of apartments, every one of which contained some picturesque record of the past. The old building was pervaded with a mellow atmosphere of age and use ; although it was not the original seat of the family, their own ancestral heirlooms had adapted themselves to its physiognomy, and seemed to continue its traditions, just enough of modern taste was visible to suggest home comforts and conveniences ; all else seemed as old as the Thirty Years’ War.

After inspecting the house, we issued upon the pleasaunce, — a high bosky space resting on the outer wall of the castle, and looking down upon the old moat, still partially full of water. It was a labyrinth of shady paths, of arbors with leaf-enframed window’s opening towards the mountains, and of open, sunny spaces rich with flowers. The baroness called my attention to two splendid magnolia-trees, and a clump of the large Japanese polygonum. “ This,” she said, pointing to the latter, “ was given to my husband by Dr. von Siebold, who brought it from Japan ; the magnolias came from seeds planted forty years ago.” They were the most northern specimens of the trees I had found upon the continent of Europe. But the oaks and lindens around the castle were more wonderful than these exotic growths. Each one was “ a forest waving on a single stem.”

The young baron was not expected to return before the evening, and I was obliged to continue my journey, though every feature of the place wooed me to stay. “ But at least,” urged the hostess, “you must visit my husband’s twin brother, who is still living at the old burg. We were going to send for him to-day, and we will send you along.” This was a lift on my way ; and, moreover, it was a pleasure to meet a gentleman of whom I had heard so much, — a thinker, a man of scientific culture, and a poet, yet unknown to the world in either of these characters.

The youngest daughter of the house made ready to accompany me, and presently a light open wagon, drawn by a span of ponies, came to the door. After my yesterday’s tramp in the forest it was a delightful change. The young lady possessed as much intelligence as refinement, and with her as a guide the rich scenery through which we passed assumed a softer life, a more gracious sentiment. From the ridge before us rose the lofty towers of a church attached to an extinct monastery, the massive buildings of which are now but half tenanted by some farmers ; on the right a warm land of grain stretched away to the Teutoburger Forest; on the left, mountains clothed with beech and oak basked in the sun. We passed the monastery, crossed a wood, and dropped into a wild, lonely valley among the hills. Here the Oldenburg, as it is called, already towered above us, perched upon the bluff edge of a mountain cape. It was a single square mass of the brownest masonry, seventy or eighty feet high, with a huge, steep, and barn-like roof. It dominated alone over the beech woods ; no other human habitation was in sight.

When we reached the summit, however, I found that the old building was no longer tenanted. Behind it lay a pond, around which were some buildings connected with the estate, and my fair guide led the way to the farther door of a house in which the laboring people lived. She went to seek her uncle, while I waited in a room so plainly furnished that an American farmer would have apologized for it. Presently I was summoned up stairs, where the old baron caught me by both bands, and pressed me down into his own arm-chair before it was possible to say a word. His room was as simple as the first; but books and water-color drawings showed the tastes of its occupant.

It was truly the head of a poet upon which I looked. Deep-set, spiritual eyes shone under an expansive brow, over which fell some thin locks of silky gray hair ; the nose was straight and fine, with delicate, sensitive nostrils, and there was a rare expression of sweetness and purity in the lines of the mouth. It needed no second glance to see that the old man was good and wise and noble and perfectly lovable. My impulse was to sit on a stool at his feet, as I have seen a young English poet sitting at the feet of good Barry Cornwall, and talk to him with my arms resting upon his knees. But he drew his chair close beside me, and took my hand from time to time, as he talked ; so that it was not long before our thoughts ran together, and each anticipated the words of the other.

“ Now tell me about my friend,” said he. “ We were inseparable as students, and as long as our paths lay near each other. They say that three are too many for friendship, but we twinbrothers only counted as one in the bond. We had but one heart and one mind, except in matters of science, and there it was curious to see how far apart we sometimes were. Ah, what rambles we had together, in Germany and on the Alps ! I remember once we were merry in the Thüringian Forest, for there was wine enough and to spare; so we buried a bottle deep among the rocks. We had forgotten all about it when, a year or two afterwards, we happened all three to come back to the spot, and there we dug up the bottle, and drank what seemed to be the best wine in the world. I wonder if he remembers that I wrote a poem about it.”

Then we walked out through the beech woods to a point of the mountain whence there was a view of the monastery across the wild valley. “It was but yesterday,” said the old baron, “since I stood here with my brother,— both little boys, — and listened to the chimes of vesper. There were monks in the old building then. What is life, after all ? I don't understand it. My brother was a part of myself. We had but one life ; he married and his home was mine; his children are mine still. We were born together; three years ago he died, and I should have died at the same time. How is it that I live ? ”

He turned to me with tears in his eyes, and a sad, mysterious wonder in his voice. I could only shake my head, for he who could have answered the question would be able to solve all the enigmas of life. The man seemed to me like a semi-ghost, attached to the earth by only half the relation of other men. “ I live here as you see,” he continued; “but I am not lonely. All my life of seventy-three years I have been laying aside interest for tins season. I have still my thoughts and questions, as well as my memories. I am part of the great design which I have always found in the world and in man, and I have learned enough to accept what I cannot fathom.”

These were brave and wise words, and they led on to others, as we walked in the shadows of the beech woods, until summoned to dinner. The baron’s niece superintended the meal, and a farmer’s daughter waited at the table. I was forced to decline a kind invitation to return to the castle with the old man, and spend the night there, — for I could take but a brief holiday in the Teutoburger Forest. Then they proposed taking me to the town of Höxter, on the Weser, whither I was bound; but while I was trying to dissuade the young lady from a further drive of ten miles the sound of a horn suddenly broke the solitude of the woods. A post-carriage came in sight, drove to the door, and from it descended the Kreisrichter (District Judge), on a visit to the old baron. As I noticed that he intended remaining for the night, I proposed taking the carriage by which he had arrived, though I should have preferred making the journey on foot.

It was so arranged, and half an hour afterwards I took leave of the noble old man, with the promise — which all the battle-fields of Hermann and Wittekind would not have suggested to me—of some day returning to the Teutoburger Forest. Leaving the mountains behind me, I followed a road which slowly descended to the Weser through the fairest winding valleys, and before sunset reached Höxter. A mile farther, at the bend of the river, is the ancient Abbey of Corvey, where, in the year 1515, the first six books of the Annals of Tacitus, up to that time lost, were discovered. The region which that great historian has alone described thus preserved and gave back to the world a portion of his works.