Views a-foot eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 522 pages of information about Views a-foot.

Views a-foot eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 522 pages of information about Views a-foot.
from America in the year 1618.  It is of the kind called arbor vitae, and uncommonly tall and slender for one of this species; yet it does not seem to thrive well in a foreign soil.  I noticed that persons had cut many slips off the lower branches, and I would have been tempted to do the same myself if there had been any I could reach.  In the curve of the mountain is a handsome pavilion, surrounded with beds of flowers and fountains; here all classes meet together in the afternoon to sit with their refreshments in the shade, while frequently a fine band of music gives them their invariable recreation.  All this, with the scenery around them, leaves nothing unfinished to their present enjoyment.  The Germans enjoy life under all circumstances, and in this way they make themselves much happier than we, who have far greater means of being so.

At the end of the terrace built for the princess Elizabeth, of England, is one of the round towers, which was split in twain by the French.  Half has fallen entirely away, and the other semicircular shell which joins the terrace and part of the Castle buildings, clings firmly together, although part of its foundation is gone, so that its outer ends actually hang in the air.  Some idea of the strength of the castle may be obtained when I state that the walls of this tower are twenty-two feet thick, and that a staircase has been made through them to the top, where one can sit under the lindens growing upon it, or look down from the end on the city below with the pleasant consciousness that the great mass upon which he stands is only prevented from crashing down with him by the solidity of its masonry.  On one side, joining the garden, the statue of the Archduke Louis, in his breastplate and flowing beard, looks out from among the ivy.

There is little to be seen about the Castle except the walls themselves.  The guide conducted us through passages, in which were heaped many of the enormous cannon balls which it had received in sieges, to some chambers in the foundation.  This was the oldest part of the Castle, built in the thirteenth century.  We also visited the chapel, which is in a tolerable state of preservation.  A kind of narrow bridge crosses it, over which we walked, looking down on the empty pulpit and deserted shrines.  We then went into the cellar to see the celebrated Tun.  In a large vault are kept several enormous hogsheads, one of which is three hundred years old, but they are nothing in comparison with the tun, which itself fills a whole vault.  It is as high as a common two story house; on the top is a platform upon which the people used to dance after it was filled, to which one ascends by two flights of steps.  I forgot exactly how many casks it holds, but I believe eight hundred.  It has been empty for fifty years.

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Views a-foot from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.