The Castle grounds are very ample and very beautiful; and as they joined the Hotel grounds, with no fences to climb, but only some nobly shaded stone stairways to descend, we spent a part of nearly every day in idling through their smooth walks and leafy groves.  There was an attractive spot among the trees where were a great many wooden tables and benches; and there one could sit in the shade and pretend to sip at his foamy beaker of beer while he inspected the crowd.  I say pretend, because I only pretended to sip, without really sipping.  That is the polite way; but when you are ready to go, you empty the beaker at a draught.  There was a brass band, and it furnished excellent music every afternoon.  Sometimes so many people came that every seat was occupied, every table filled.  And never a rough in the assemblage—­all nicely dressed fathers and mothers, young gentlemen and ladies and children; and plenty of university students and glittering officers; with here and there a gray professor, or a peaceful old lady with her knitting; and always a sprinkling of gawky foreigners.  Everybody had his glass of beer before him, or his cup of coffee, or his bottle of wine, or his hot cutlet and potatoes; young ladies chatted, or fanned themselves, or wrought at their crocheting or embroidering; the students fed sugar to their dogs, or discussed duels, or illustrated new fencing tricks with their little canes; and everywhere was comfort and enjoyment, and everywhere peace and good-will to men.  The trees were jubilant with birds, and the paths with rollicking children.  One could have a seat in that place and plenty of music, any afternoon, for about eight cents, or a family ticket for the season for two dollars.

For a change, when you wanted one, you could stroll to the Castle, and burrow among its dungeons, or climb about its ruined towers, or visit its interior shows—­the great Heidelberg Tun, for instance.  Everybody has heard of the great Heidelberg Tun, and most people have seen it, no doubt.  It is a wine-cask as big as a cottage, and some traditions say it holds eighteen thousand bottles, and other traditions say it holds eighteen hundred million barrels.  I think it likely that one of these statements is a mistake, and the other is a lie.  However, the mere matter of capacity is a thing of no sort of consequence, since the cask is empty, and indeed has always been empty, history says.  An empty cask the size of a cathedral could excite but little emotion in me.  I do not see any wisdom in building a monster cask to hoard up emptiness in, when you can get a better quality, outside, any day, free of expense.  What could this cask have been built for?  The more one studies over that, the more uncertain and unhappy he becomes.  Some historians say that thirty couples, some say thirty thousand couples, can dance on the head of this cask at the same time.  Even this does not seem to me to account for the building of it.  It does not even throw light on it.