the scenery around that same Kaiserstuhl was nearly as familiar to us as that of our own homes.  Entering the hills again, we knew by the blue mountains of the Odenwald, that we were approaching the Neckar.  At length we reached the last height.  The town of Neckargemund lay before us on the steep hillside, and the mountains on either side were scarred with quarries of the rich red sandstone, so much used in building.  The blocks are hewn out, high up on the mountain side, and then sent rolling and sliding down to the river, where they are laden in boats and floated down with the current to the distant cities of the Rhine.

We were rejoiced on turning around the corner of a mountain, to see on the opposite side of the river, the road winding up through the forests, where last fall our Heidelberg friends accompanied us, as we set out to walk to Frankfort, through the Odenwald.  Many causes combined to render it a glad scene to us.  We were going to meet our comrade again, after a separation of months; we were bringing an eventful journey to its close; and finally, we were weak and worn out from fasting and the labor of walking in the rain.  A little further we saw Kloster Neuburg, formerly an old convent, and remembered how we used to look at it every day from the windows of our room on the Neckar; but we shouted aloud, when we saw at last the well-known bridge spanning the river, and the glorious old castle lifting its shattered towers from the side of the mountain above us.  I always felt a strong attachment to this matchless ruin, and as I beheld it again, with the warm sunshine falling through each broken arch, the wild ivy draping its desolate chambers, it seemed to smile on me like the face of a friend, and I confessed I had seen many a grander scene, but few that would cling to the memory so familiarly.

While we were in Heidelberg, a student was buried by torch-light.  This is done when particular honor is shown to the memory of the departed brother.  They assembled at dark in the University Square, each with a blazing pine torch three feet long, and formed into a double line.  Between the files walked at short distances an officer, who, with his sword, broad lace collar, and the black and white plumes in his cap, looked like a cavalier of the olden time.  Persons with torches walked on each side of the hearse, and the band played a lament so deeply mournful, that the scene, notwithstanding its singularity, was very sad and touching.  The thick smoke from the torches filled the air, and a lurid, red light was cast over the hushed crowds in the streets and streamed into the dark alleys.  The Hauptstrasse was filled with two lines of flame, as the procession passed down it; when they reached the extremity of the city, the hearse went on, attended with torch-bearers, to the Cemetery, some distance further, and the students turned back, running and whirling their torches in mingled confusion.  The music struck up a merry march,