his companions of his whereabouts before going down to the river, he sounded his horn; immediately the notes were repeated, so distinctly that he thought some huntsman had answered him. Another flourish was reproduced so perfectly that he began to doubt. After a third trial, he shook his head, saying, "It is the echo," and, placing his horn on the ground, he threw off his clothes and plunged into the river. The name of this young swimmer was Walter, son of Count Palatine, not only the handsomest, but the bravest and most accomplished lord who dwelt on the banks

time, and by his strength and skill he regained the shore. He soon found his companions, and all the hunters set out for the castle together; but while every one else gayly talked of the exploits of the day, Walter was silent, and thought of that grateful apparition which had lasted but for an instant but which had left so deep an impression.

The next day, and for days after, the fishermen looked in vain upon the Lei; no fairy was to be seen. One afternoon the young lord's hounds were pursuing a roe, and he had dismounted to follow it over the steep paths, when suddenly he

of the Rhine. At the sight of this youth, whom she had first mocked by returning the sound of his horn, the fair Lore experienced a sentiment which she had long since believed dead in her heart. He perceived her seated on a rock, and began to swim toward her. Lore joyfully saw him approach, and began to sing that ancient ballad which all around her had forgotten. Suddenly the fairy bethought herself that, between the young swimmer and herself, was the abyss in which so many unfortunates had been overwhelmed. She at once ceased singing and disappeared, and silence and darkness fell on all around. Walter saw that he had been the sport of an illusion, and while he felt attracted in spite of himself, he remembered the gulf. Happily, there was yet

became bewildered, and it seemed to him that, by some unaccountable magic, objects had changed their form. But, as if impelled by an unseen power, Walter still went on. He walked thus from nightfall till midnight, hearing constantly the sound of a harp, whose music receded as he advanced. Then he found himself on the summit of a high mountain which overlooked the Rhine. On right and left the river glided through the valley, like a broad, silver ribbon. On a lofty peak he beheld a female seated. She held in her hand the harp whose music had guided him; a soft light like that of the dawn enveloped her, as if she could only breathe in an atmosphere different from ours, and she bent on him a smile of wondrous sweetness. Walter recognized at once

the mysterious being whom he had seen on that night when he bathed in the Rhine. His first impulse was to approach her, but after taking a few steps he remembered all that had been told him of the Lore-Lei, and made the sign of the cross. Instantly the light vanished, and she from whom it had emanated uttered a cry, and disappeared like a shadow. But though vanished from his sight, she was, from that moment, present to his spirit. He fell into a deep melancholy, for, in comparison with this image, constantly present to his thoughts, no woman appeared lovely; he felt instinctively that he yearned for something which was not of earth. One day his father announced to him that he was to prepare to set out for Worms, where the emperor held his Court. War was to be made against the King of France, and Maximilian had called to his aid his bravest knights. Walter's eye sparkled for an instant with joy at the idea of the glory he might achieve, and he declared his readiness to set out. The next day, however, he fell again into his accustomed melancholy. The night before his departure he told his squire that, before leaving the country, he had resolved to have one more fishing on the Rhine, and asked him to accompany him.

It was a lovely evening; the breeze had a strange melody, and a mysterious perfume floated in the air. The river reflected the heavens like a mirror, and the falling stars traversing the azure sky seemed, amid the universal calm, to rain literally upon the earth. Old Blum cast in the nets; but Walter, instead of attending to the fishing, was watching the heavens, and left the boat to drift with the current. Suddenly a wellknown melody fell on his ears, and there, in her accustomed place on the rock, sat the fair Lore, with the strange harp in her hand. It was the third time that she had appeared to him; and this time, as he had come to seek her, he had no thought of retiring; he seized the oars, and began to row toward her. At this unexpected motion, which distended the nets, the squire raised his eyes, and saw that the barque was steering directly toward the gulf. It was too late to sieze the oars, and he begged his master to leap into the water with him, and make for land. But Walter's arms were extended toward the magic apparition, which seemed to be gliding down the mountain side to meet him. Repulsed in his attempt to grasp

him round the waist and plunge with him into the river, the faithful servant, seeing that he could not save him, resolved, with a prayer on his lips, to die with him. The fairy Lore, enveloped in the soft light within which burned a flame, drew near with a sweet smile, extending her arms toward the young man, as his were extended toward her. Light as a mist, she seemed to glide over the water. The boat trembled and shivered like an animated being which approaches its destruction. Poor Blum had only time to make the sign of the cross, for his head having struck against a rock, he felt that he was losing consciousness.

When he came to himself it was broad daylight, and he was lying on the sand at the bottom of the rock. He called for Walter, but the mocking echo of the Lei alone replied. Sorrowfully, and as best he could, he made his way back to the castle. He besought the count to let him choose men-at-arms and attempt to rescue his young master from the accursed enchantress. The count bowed his head, and hurried to his oratory, where for hours he was heard weeping and sobbing. With his picked seneschals, Blum returned to the scene of disaster; but when he saw and threatened to avenge upon the form of the fairy his lord's death, she gently raised her head, and said:

"I am but a spirit, and the young count belongs no more to the earth. He is my wedded lord. He is the king of the river, as I am its queen. He wears a crown of coral, he has a bed of sand strewn with pearls, and a lofty palace of azure, with pillars of crystal. He is happier than he ever would have been on earth; he is richer than if he had suceeded to his parental inheritance; for he has all the wealth the Rhine has engulfed, from the day of creation till to-day."

"Thou liest, wicked fairy," answered Blum; "thou thinkest to escape my vengeance.' So saying, he drew his sword, and approached

her. "Wait," replied the enchantress, in a thrilling voice..

She detached her necklace from her snowy neck, and took from it two pearls, which she threw into the river. Instantly the waters were agitated, and two enormous waves, of that uncertain and fantastic form which is ascribed to sea-horses, rose to the summit of the rock. On

one of these sat a beautiful youth with pale face and floating hair; Blum recognized the young count, and became motionless with amazement. Meanwhile, the two waves had risen till they bared the feet of the fairy. Lore seated herself on the other, and entwining her arms about the youth, kissed him. Then the waves began to recede, and, seeing that the fairy was about to escape him, Blum would have followed her. But the youth looked at him, smiling, and then said: "Blum, go and tell my father to weep no more, for I am happy."

True, there are no

of many various flowers. Raphael Madonnas or Canova busts; but that castle is worth them all. Here is no Rigi or Mont Blanc or Lake Lucerne, but the heights back of Heidelberg and the playful Neckar are worth going far to see.

There is a sad contrast between the natural beauties here unrolled and the dark deeds that men have done in the midst of them! There have been places where nature, in her quiet landscape and wild grandeur, has conquered the conqueror. Yes, even art conquered Napoleon several

Since that day no one has seen the fairy Lore, and the boatmen may no longer hear her siren song. All that remains of her is a mocking echo, which repeats four or five times the notes of the horn, or the national air which the pilot does not fail to sing in passing the rock of Lore-Lei. How true it is that the poetry of a primitive people clings to rock and tree and stream long after the decadence of science and culture.

Centuries hence, when men have forgotten that the rocks have been blasted and the channel deepened, the traveler will be thrilled through and through with the melody of this pass.

"The aromas of romantic lore

Yet linger round this sacred shore,

Where ghostly nixies combed of yore
Blonde locks that coiled and glistened!

Ah, still gold-haired Gunhilda tells

The undying tale of Drachenfels;
Through Zündorf still, by darksome spells,

The wasurman spreads deep sadness."

Now the train whizzes past the Pfalz, crowning a rocky mass in the middle of the Rhine, past the Mouse Tower, nestling upon the other islet, past the rapids at "Binger Loch," and then comes to a stand under the depot in the suburbs of Bingen. An hour's rest, and we are again journeying toward Heidelberg.

When the banks of the Rhine were governed by the Electors Palatine, Heidelberg was their capital. It has as much history as any place of its size in Europe. But its magnificent scenery is the hinge on which turns the secret of the charms that cluster about the old town. It would be called a city in the United States. Like the good old German dame on Christmas eve, Heidelberg has a gift for all who will visit her. It is a bouquet

When the heart is alive with

a religious feeling and the sword lifted in a religious cause, war is always most terrible in its ravages. This is why Heidelberg is hardly a skeleton of its former self. High hills rise on the north as well as the south side of this beautiful place. The hills flatten to the right, and the country becomes a broad plain, which is only limited by the distant mountains of France. The train crosses a part of this plain, and here we are dropped in the vine-covered station of Heidelberg. It is at the western end of the town, and by following the main street by cab a mile and a half we reach the hotel on a market-place, the Prinz Carl, a few yards to the left of the great church that stands on a line with the bridge.

We find that Heidelberg numbers less than twenty thousand inhabitants, and yet it has been

the scene of more bloodshed and heroism, and romance, too, than any other place in Europe oftentimes its size. It has been Bunker Hill and Bladensburg, Gretna Green and Whitehall, Berlin and Wittenburg, altogether. It has now been likened to old Coventry and lovely Kenilworth.

In the days of the Counts Palatine, nature, science, and royalty held Court here together; but it was one of the many fair spots in Germany which was blighted by the Thirty Years' War; and it is sad to remember that that long contest, which divested the popes of so much of their power, should have stripped Art of so many of her laurels. Bloodthirsty Tilly besieged it in 1622. He conquered; and what mercy could you expect of him who cruelly butchered thirty thousand Magdeburgers, without regard to age or sex, and then boasted in the dispatch announcing his triumph, that, "since the destruction of Jeruralem and Troy, such a victory had not been!" He gave his soldiers three days to sack Heidelberg, which was like a lion taking a day to devour a lamb.

After the Imperialist soldiers had remained in possession of the place eleven years, Gustavus Adolphus came at the head of the Protestants to recapture it. They succeeded; and near where we are stopping is the public-house whose landlord can show you the very room in which the great Swede slept. Scarcely had a half century elapsed before Louis XIV. sent Turenne with an army of French soldiers to punish Charles Louis, the elector, for a piece of independence. It is said that the elector watched the progress of the army from a window in the Heidelberg castle, as the smoke of burning villages all along the plain announced the approach of the invader. Soon he reached Heidelberg. The elector's defense was weak; he challenged Turenne to single fight. The marshal refused the challenge, and Heidelberg was chastised for its master's spirit. As soon as Charles Louis died, the French emperor sent another army to Heidelberg to take possession of the Rhine provinces. The cruel Melac headed the forces, and burnt Heidelberg in 1688. For years after this the French beseiged the ruins that their predecessors had left. Chamilly was leader then, and his inhuman barbarities even surpass the cruelties of Tilly, and deserve to be compared with the bloody ferocities of Attila, Nero, and Tamerlane. The Protestants were

butchered without mercy, and the banks of the Rhine became French territory. The houses, of course, with few exceptions, now bear no traces of any great antiquity, nearly all of them being the work of the last century. There is but little of that sombre look about the place which is so peculiar to old Brunswick and Nuremberg. But Heidelberg is the German students' land of promise; their hearts are fit to burst with enthusiasm about its beauties, and during the Franco-Prussian war their voices sang the praises of the Neckar and the German Rhine nightly.

"It never shall be France's,

The free, the German Rhine, So long as youth enhances His fervor with its wine.

It never shall be France's,

The free, the glorious Rhine, Until its broad expanse is

Its last defender's shrine."

Happy the one who has yet to take a first view from Heidelberg Castle! It is the first view that pictures itself upon the mind. Subsequent visits may afford a clearer sky and more acquaintances, but the first view is the standard picture. Future views are judged according to their approach to that first one. "Mountains are a feeling," says Byron, and it is not more so with mountains than anything else in nature. Every time you see the

same beautiful scene another link is formed which

binds you to the spot. But the first view you remember longest.

Let us cross the market-place and then take this little path up the hill. The ascent begins in earnest, not by the path to the left above the town, but by another, through the thick fir and linden-trees that grow between the town and castle. The outer gateway is reached. By passing through it and a subterranean, or, rather, sub-castle passage, we emerge from its gloominess into sunshine again. All at once, without expecting it, we stand upon one of the front balconies of the castle. The view from where we stand was described in the "Halle Year-Book" a number of years ago.

Looking down with unaided eyes ourselves upon the town, we can but feel that Heidelberg has no need to boast, through its many lovers, of its charming situation. Woods and plains, smiling and fertile fields, the shining Neckar, its banks

vocal with music, all disclose a scene of remarkable beauty. The university is about equidistant from the two large churches; standing in a marketplace, and is an unpretentious building. It was founded in 1386, and is, therefore, one of the most ancient of the many German universities. The library numbers over 120,000 volumes. It is said that the Palatine Library contained many rare and choice books, but when the town was captured by the united Catholics in the Thirty Years' War the most valuable portion of it was sent to Italy as a present to Pope Gregory XV., in token of a Roman Catholic triumph. They

honor list in the universities of Germany. The students board and lodge in the town where they please. So the universities are thus but little more than examining and lecturing bodies. Looking in the faces of the students, you are surprised to see how many of them are disfigured by long scars and patches. You might almost imagine that they had all been engaged in a battle with furious cats, and that the cats had had the best of it. Your astonishment is increased by learning that the students are proud of these scars on their faces, and regard them as so many badges of courage and honor. They receive them in the duels

were placed in the Vatican and there remained almost two centuries, and were finally restored by Pope Pius VII., in 1815. This library contains Luther's manuscript translation of the Psalms, his "Exhortation to Prayer against the Turks," and his notes written in an old Heidelberg catechism. When Tilly sacked the city, he made beds for his horses of the elector's Library, and it was not a generous heart or conscientious scruples that prevented him from putting as speedy an end to all the books as Cæsar did to the first Alexandrine Library, or as the Caliph Omar did to the second. The university is far less imposing than the picturesque and hoary old college palaces of Oxford and Cambridge, nor will it compare with cosy Harvard and Yale edifices and greens. There is no compulsory degree, but only a voluntary

which they are in the habit of fighting, a custom quite frequent, and no less disgraceful, among German students.

In 1817, when the German nation was beginning to recover from the terrible disasters it had suffered at the hands of France, two professors conceived the idea of uniting all German students into a military body for the protection of the country. This notion was readily adopted by the universities, and corps and Burschenschaften, the chief peculiarity of German student-life, were ultimately formed. The lecture-rooms of the university are on one side of the square, in the rear are the museum and reading-room, while opposite the lecture-rooms is a row of jewelry, clothing, confectionery, and other shops. The German students have ever kept alive a spirit of liberty and