something loomed up above me through the storm.  A few steps more and I stood beside the Brocken House, on the very summit of the mountain!  The mariner, who has been floating for days on a wreck at sea, could scarcely be more rejoiced at a friendly sail, than I was on entering the low building.  Two large Alpine dogs in the passage, as I walked in, dripping with wet, gave notice to the inmates, and I was soon ushered into a warm room, where I changed my soaked garments for dry ones, and sat down by the fire with feelings of comfort not easily imagined.  The old landlord was quite surprised, on hearing the path by which I came, that I found the way at all.  The summit was wrapped in the thickest cloud, and he gave me no hope for several hours of any prospect at all, so I sat down and looked over the Stranger’s Album.

I saw but two names from the United States—­B.F.  Atkins, of Boston, and C.A.  Hay, from York, Pa.  There were a great many long-winded German poems—­among them, one by Schelling, the philosopher.  Some of them spoke of having seen the “Spectre of the Brocken.”  I inquired of the landlord about the phenomenon; he says in winter it is frequently seen, in summer more seldom.  The cause is very simple.  It is always seen at sunrise, when the eastern side of the Brocken is free from clouds, and at the same time, the mist rises from the valley on the opposite side.  The shadow of every thing on the Brocken is then thrown in grand proportions upon the mist, and is seen surrounded with a luminous halo.  It is somewhat singular that such a spectacle can be seen upon the Brocken alone, but this is probably accounted for by the formation of the mountain, which collects the mist at just such a distance from the summit as to render the shadow visible.

Soon after dinner the storm subsided and the clouds separated a little.  I could see down through the rifts on the plains of Brunswick, and sometimes, when they opened a little more, the mountains below us to the east and the adjoining plains, as far as Magdeburg.  It was like looking on the earth from another planet, or from some point in the air which had no connection, with it; our station was completely surrounded by clouds, rolling in great masses around us, now and then giving glimpses through their openings of the blue plains, dotted with cities and villages, far below.  At one time when they were tolerably well separated, I ascended the tower, fifty feet high, standing near the Brocken House.  The view on three sides was quite clear, and I can easily imagine what a magnificent prospect it must be in fine weather.  The Brocken is only about four thousand feet high, nearly the same as the loftiest peak of the Catskill, but being the highest mountain in Northern Germany, it commands a more extensive prospect.  Imagine a circle described with a radius of a hundred miles, comprising thirty cities, two or three hundred villages and one whole mountain district!  We could see