My friend arrived at three o’clock the next morning, and after two or three hours’ talk about home, and the friends whom he expected to see so much sooner than I, a young farmer drove me in his wagon to Offenburg, a small city at the foot of the Black Forest, where I took the cars for Freiburg.  The scenery between the two places is grand.  The broad mountains of the Black Forest rear their fronts on the east, and the blue lines of the French Vosges meet the clouds on the west.  The night before, in walking over the plain, I saw distinctly the whole of the Strasbourg Minster, whose spire is the highest in Europe, being four hundred and ninety feet, or but twenty-five feet lower than the Pyramid of Cheops.

I visited the Minster of Freiburg yesterday morning.  It is a grand, gloomy old pile, dating from the eleventh century—­one of the few Gothic churches in Germany that have ever been completed.  The tower of beautiful fretwork, rises to the height of three hundred and ninety-five feet, and the body of the church including the choir, is of the same length.  The interior is solemn and majestic.  Windows stained in colors that burn, let in a “dim, religious light” which accords very well with the dark old pillars and antique shrines.  In two of the chapels there are some fine altar-pieces by Holbein and one of his scholars; and a very large crucifix of silver and ebony, which is kept with great care, is said to have been carried with the Crusaders to the Holy Land.  This morning was the great market-day, and the peasantry of the Black Forest came down from the mountains to dispose of their produce.  The square around the Minster was filled with them, and the singular costume of the women gave the scene quite a strange appearance.  Many of them wore bright red head-dresses and shawls, others had high-crowned hats of yellow oil-cloth; the young girls wore their hair in long plaits, reaching nearly to their feet.  They brought grain, butter and cheese and a great deal of fine fruit to sell—­I bought some of the wild, aromatic plums of the country, at the rate of thirty for a cent.

The railroad has only been open to Freiburg within a few days, and is consequently an object of great curiosity to the peasants, many of whom never saw the like before.  They throng around the station at the departure of the train and watch with great interest the operations of getting up the steam and starting.  One of the scenes that grated most harshly on my feelings, was seeing yesterday a company of women employed on the unfinished part of the road.  They were digging and shoveling away in the rain, nearly up to their knees in mud and clay!

I called at the Institute for the Blind, under the direction of Mr. Muller.  He showed me some beautiful basket and woven work by his pupils; the accuracy and skill with which everything was made astonished me.  They read with amazing facility from the raised type, and by means of frames are taught to write with ease and distinctness.  In music, that great solace of the blind, they most excelled.  They sang with an expression so true and touching, that it was a delight to listen.  The system of instruction adopted appears to be most excellent, and gives to the blind nearly every advantage which their more fortunate brethren enjoy.