A blue range along the horizon told me of the Hartz, as I passed; although there were some fine side-glimpses through the hills, I did not see much of them till I reached Osterode, about twelve miles further.  Here the country begins to assume a different aspect.  The city lies in a narrow valley, and as the road goes down a steep hill towards it, one sees on each side many quarries of gypsum, and in front the gloomy pine mountains are piled one above another in real Alpine style.  But alas! the city, though it looks exceedingly romantic from above, is one of the dirtiest I ever saw.  I stopped at Herzberg, six miles farther, for the night.  The scenery was very striking; and its effect was much heightened by a sky full of black clouds, which sent down a hail-storm as they passed over.  The hills are covered with pine, fir and larch.  The latter tree, in its first foliage, is most delicate and beautiful.  Every bough is like a long ostrich plume, and when one of them stands among the dark pines, it seems so light and airy that the wind might carry it away.  Just opposite Herzberg, the Hartz stands in its gloomy and mysterious grandeur, and I went to sleep with the pleasant thought that an hour’s walk on the morrow would shut me up in its deep recesses.

The next morning I entered them.  The road led up a narrow mountain valley, down which a stream was rushing—­on all sides were magnificent forests of pine.  It was glorious to look down their long aisles, dim and silent, with a floor of thick green moss.  There was just room enough for the road and the wild stream which wound its way zigzag between the hills, affording the most beautiful mountain-view along the whole route.  As I ascended, the mountains became rougher and wilder, and in the shady hollows were still drifts of snow.  Enjoying every thing very much, I walked on without taking notice of the road, and on reaching a wild, rocky chasm called the “Schlucht,” was obliged to turn aside and take a footpath over a high mountain to Andreasberg, a town built on a summit two thousand feet above the sea.  It is inhabited almost entirely by the workmen in the mines.

The way from Andreasberg to the Brocken leads along the Rehberger Graben, which carry water about six miles for the oreworks.  After going through a thick pine wood, I came out on the mountain-side, where rough crags overhung the way above, and through the tops of the trees I had glimpses into the gorge below.  It was scenery of the wildest character.  Directly opposite rose a mountain wall, dark and stern through the gloomy sky; far below the little stream of the Oder foamed over the rocks with a continual roar, and one or two white cloud-wreaths were curling up from the forests.