The collection of antiquities is large and interesting; but it is said that the old Count obtained some of them in rather a questionable manner. Among other incidents, they say that when in Rome he visited the Pope, taking with him an old servant who accompanied him in all his travels, and was the accomplice in most of his antiquarian thefts. In one of the outer halls, among the curiosities, was an antique shield of great value. The servant was left in this hall while the Count had his audience, and in a short time this shield was missed. The servant who wore a long cloak, was missed also; orders were given to close the gates and search every body, but it was too late—the thief was gone.
Leaving Erbach we found out the direction of Snellert, the Castle of the Wild Huntsman, and took a road that led us for two or three hours along the top of a mountain ridge. Through the openings in the pine and larch forests, we had glimpses of the hills of Spessart, beyond the Main. When we finally left the by-road we had chosen it was quite dark, and we missed the way altogether among the lanes and meadows. We came at last to a full stop at the house of a farmer, who guided us by a foot path over the fields to a small village. On entering the only inn, kept by the Burgomaster, the people finding we were Americans, regarded us with a curiosity quite uncomfortable. They crowded around the door, watching every motion, and gazed in through the windows. The wild huntsman himself could scarcely have made a greater sensation. The news of our arrival seemed to have spread very fast, for the next morning when we stopped at a prune orchard some distance from the village to buy some fruit, the farmer cried out from a tree, "they are the Americans; give them as many as they want for nothing!"
With the Burgomaster's little son for a guide, we went back a mile or two of our route to Snellert, which we had passed the night before, and after losing ourselves two or three times in the woods, arrived at last at the top of the mountain, where the ruins of the castle stand. The walls are nearly level with the ground. The interest of a visit rests entirely on the romantic legend, and the wild view over the hills around, particularly that in front, where on the opposite mountain are the ruins of Rodenstein, to which the wild Huntsman was wont to ride at midnight—where he now rides no more. The echoes of Rodenstein are no longer awakened by the sound of his bugle, and the hoofs of his demon steed clanging on the battlements. But the hills around are wild enough, and the roar of the pine forests deep enough to have inspired the simple peasants with the romantic tradition.
Stopping for dinner at the town of Rheinheim, we met an old man, who, on learning we were Americans, walked with us as far as the next village. He had a daughter in America and was highly gratified to meet any one from the country of her adoption. He made me promise to visit her, if I ever should go to St. Louis, and say that I had walked with her father from Rheinheim to Zwangenburg. To satisfy his fears that I might forget it, I took down his name and that of his daughter. He shook me warmly by the hand at parting, and was evidently made happier for that day.
We reached Darmstadt just in time to take a seat in the omnibus for Frankfort. Among the passengers were a Bavarian family, on their way to Bremen, to ship from thence to Texas. I endeavored to discourage the man from choosing such a country as his home, by telling him of its heats and pestilences, but he was too full of hope to be shaken in his purpose. I would have added that it was a slave-land, but I thought on our own country's curse, and was silent. The wife was not so sanguine; she seemed to mourn in secret at leaving her beautiful fatherland. It was saddening to think how lonely they would feel in that far home, and how they would long, with true German devotion, to look again on the green vintage-hills of their forsaken country. As night drew on, the little girl crept over to her father for his accustomed evening kiss, and then sank back to sleep in a corner of the wagon. The boy, in the artless confidence of childhood, laid his head on my breast, weary with the day's travel, and soon slept also. Thus we drove on in the dark, till at length the lights of Frankfort glimmered on the breast of the rapid Main, as we passed over the bridge, and when we stopped near the Cathedral, I delivered up my little charge and sent my sympathy with the wanderers on their lonely way.
CHAPTER XI. — SCENES IN FRANKFORT—AN AMERICAN COMPOSER—THE POET FREILIGRATH.
Dec. 4.—This is a genuine old German city. Founded by Charlemagne, afterwards a rallying point of the Crusaders, and for a long time the capital of the German empire, it has no lack of interesting historical recollections, and notwithstanding it is fast becoming modernized, one is every where reminded of the Past. The Cathedral, old as the days of Peter the Hermit, the grotesque street of the Jews, the many quaint, antiquated dwellings and the mouldering watch-towers on the hills around, give it a more interesting character than any German city I have yet seen. The house we dwell in, on the Markt Platz, is more than two hundred years old; directly opposite is a great castellated building, gloomy with the weight of six centuries, and a few steps to the left brings me to the square of the Roemerberg, where the Emperors were crowned, in a corner of which is a curiously ornamented house, formerly the residence of Luther. There are legends innumerable connected with all these buildings, and even yet discoveries are frequently made in old houses, of secret chambers and staircases. When you add to all this, the German love of ghost stories, and, indeed, their general belief in spirits, the lover of romance could not desire a more agreeable residence.
I often look out on the singular scene below my window. On both sides of the street, leaving barely room to enter the houses, sit the market women, with their baskets of vegetables and fruit. The middle of the street is filled with women buying, and every cart or carriage that comes along, has to force its way through the crowd, sometimes rolling against and overturning the baskets on the side, when for a few minutes there is a Babel of unintelligible sounds. The country women in their jackets and short gowns go backwards and forwards with great loads on their heads, sometimes nearly as high as themselves. It is a most singular scene, and so varied that one never tires of looking upon it. These women sit here from sunrise till sunset, day after day, for years. They have little furnaces for cooking and for warmth in winter, and when it rains they sit in large wooden boxes. One or two policemen are generally on the ground in the morning to prevent disputing about their places, which often gives rise to interesting scenes. Perhaps this kind of life in the open air is conducive to longevity; for certainly there is no country on earth that has as many old women. Many of them look like walking machines made of leather; and to judge from what I see in the streets here, I should think they work till they die.