Now as we turned ourselves north-westward into the mountains, passed by Lützelstein, an old mountain tower, in a very hilly country, and descended into the region of the Saar and the Moselle, the heavens began to lower, as if they would render yet more sensible to us the condition of the more rugged western country. The valley of the Saar, where we first found Bockenheim, a small place, and saw opposite to it Neusaarwerden, which is well-built, with a pleasure-castle, is bordered on both sides by mountains which might be called melancholy, if at their foot an endless succession of meadows and fields, called the Huhnau, did not extend as far as Saaralbe, and beyond it, further than the eye can reach. Great buildings, belonging to the former stables of the Duke of Lorraine, here attract the eye; they are at present used as a dairy, for which purpose, indeed, they are very well situated. We passed through Saargemünd to Saarbrück, and this little residence was a bright point in a land so rocky and woody. The town, small and hilly, but well adorned by the last prince, makes at once a pleasing impression, as the houses are all painted a greyish white, and the different elevation of them affords a variegated view. In the middle of a beautiful square, surrounded with handsome buildings, stands the Lutheran church, on a small scale, but in proportion with the whole. The front of the castle lies on the same level with the town; the back, on the contrary, on the declivity of a steep rock. This has not only been worked out terrace-fashion, to afford easy access to the valley, but an oblong garden-plot has also been obtained below, by turning off the stream on one side, and cutting away the rock on the other, after which this whole space was lastly filled up with earth and planted. The time of this undertaking fell in the epoch when they used to consult the architects about laying out gardens, just as at present they call in the aid of the landscape-painter's eye. The whole arrangement of the castle, the costly and the agreeable, the rich and the ornamental, betokened a life-enjoying owner, such as the deceased prince had been; the present sovereign was not at home. President von Günderode received us in the most obliging manner, and entertained us for three days better than we had a right to expect. I made use of the various acquaintance which we formed to instruct myself in many respects. The life of the former prince, rich in pleasure, gave material enough for conversation, as well as the various expedients which he hit upon to make use of the advantages supplied by the nature of his land. Here I was now properly initiated into the interest for mountain countries, and the love for those economical and technical investigations which have busied me a great part of my life, was first awakened within me. We heard of the rich coal-pits at Dutweil, of the iron and alum works, and even of a burning mountain, and we prepared ourselves to see these wonders close.
We now rode through woody mountains, which must seem wild and dreary to him who comes out of a magnificent fertile land, and which can attract us only by the internal contents of its bosom. We were made acquainted with one simple, and one complicated piece of machinery, within a short distance of each other; namely, a scythe-smithy and a wire-drawing factory. If one is pleased at the first because it supplies the place of common hands, one cannot sufficiently admire the other, for it works in a higher organic sense, from which understanding and consciousness are scarcely to be separated. In the alum-works we made accurate inquiries after the production and purifying of this so necessary material, and when we saw great heaps of a white greasy, loose, earthy matter, and asked the use of it, the labourers answered, smiling, that it was the scum thrown up in boiling the alum, and that Herr Stauf had it collected, as he hoped perchance to turn it to some profit. "Is Herr Stauf alive yet?" exclaimed my companion in surprise. They answered in the affirmative, and assured us that according to the plan of our journey we should not pass far from his lonely dwelling.
Coal and Alum-Works.
Our road now led up along the channels by which the alum-water is conducted down, and the principal horizontal works (stollen), which they call the "landgrube," and from which the famous Dutweil coals are procured. These, when they are dry, have the blue colour of darkly tarnished steel, and the most beautiful succession of rainbow tints plays over the surface with every movement. The deep abysses of the coal-levels, however, attracted us so much the less as their contents lay richly poured out around us. We now reached the open mine, in which the roasted alum-scales are steeped in lye, and soon after, a strange occurrence surprised us, although we had been prepared. We entered into a chasm and found ourselves in the region of the Burning Mountain. A strong smell of sulphur surrounded us; one side of the cavity was almost red-hot, covered with reddish stone burnt white; thick fumes arose from the crevices, and we felt the heat of the ground through our strong boot-soles. An event so accidental, for it is not known how this place became ignited, affords a great advantage for the manufacture of alum, since the alum-scales of which the surface of the mountain consists, lie there perfectly roasted, and may be steeped in a short time and very well. The whole chasm had arisen by the calcined scales being gradually removed and used up. We clambered up out of this depth, and were on the top of the mountain. A pleasant beech-grove encircled the spot, which followed up to the chasm and extended itself on both sides of it. Many trees stood already dried up, some were withering near others, which, as yet quite fresh, felt no forebodings of that fierce heat which was approaching and threatening their roots also.
Upon this space different openings were steaming, others had already done smoking, and this fire had thus smouldered for ten years already through old broken-up pits and horizontal shafts, with which the mountain is undermined. It may, too, have penetrated to the clefts through new coal-beds: for, some hundred paces further into the wood, they had contemplated following up manifest indications of an abundance of coal; but they had not excavated far before a strong smoke burst out against the labourers and dispersed them. The opening was filled up again, yet we found the place still smoking as we went on our way past it to the residence of our hermit-like chemist. This lies amid mountains and woods; the vallies there take very various and pleasing windings, the soil round about is black and of the coal kind, and strata of it frequently come in sight. A coal philosopher—philosophus per ignem, as they said formerly—could scarcely have settled himself more suitably.
We came before a small house, not inconvenient for a dwelling, and found Herr Stauf, who immediately recognised my friend, and received him with lamentations about the new government. Indeed we could see from what he said, that the alum-works, as well as many other well-meant establishments, on account of external and perhaps internal circumstances also, did not pay their expenses; with much else of the sort. He belonged to the chemists of that time, who, with a hearty feeling for all that could be done with the products of nature, took delight in abstruse investigations of trifles and secondary matters, and with their insufficient knowledge were not dexterous enough to do that from which properly economical and mercantile profit is to be derived. Thus the use which he promised himself from that scum lay very far in the distance; thus he had nothing to show but a cake of sal-ammoniac, with which the Burning Mountain had supplied him.
Ready and glad to communicate his complaints to a human ear, the lean, decrepit little man, with a shoe on one foot and a slipper on the other, and with stockings hanging down and repeatedly pulled up in vain, dragged himself up the mountain to where the resin-house stands, which he himself had erected, and now, with great grief, sees falling to ruins. Here was found a connected row of furnaces, where coal was to be cleansed of sulphur, and made fit for use in iron-works; but at the same time they wished also to turn the oil and resin to account; nay, they would not even lose the soot; and thus all failed together, on account of the many ends in view. During the life-time of the former prince, the business had been carried on in the spirit of an amateur, and in hope; now they asked for the immediate use, which was not to be shown.
After we left our adept to his solitude, we hastened—for it was now late—to the glass-house in Friedrichsthal, where we became acquainted, on our way, with one of the most important and most wonderful operations of human ingenuity.
Nevertheless, some pleasant adventures, and a surprising firework at night-fall, net far from Neukirch, interested us young fellows almost more than these important experiences. For as a few nights before, on the banks of the Saar, shining clouds of glow-worms hovered around us, betwixt rock and thicket, so now the spark-spitting forges played their sprightly firework towards us. We passed, in the depth of night, the smelting-houses situated in the bottom of the valley, and were delighted with the strange half-gloom of these dens of plank, which are but dimly lighted by a little opening in the glowing furnace. The noise of the water, and of the bellows driven by it, the fearful whizzing and shrieking of the blast of air which, raging into the smelted ore, stuns the ears and confuses the senses, drove us away, at last, to turn into Neukirch, which is built up against the mountain.
But, notwithstanding all the variety and fatigue of the day, I could find no rest here. I left my friend to a happy sleep, and sought the hunting-seat, which lay still further up. It looks out far over mountain and wood, the outlines of which were only to be recognised against the clear night-sky, but the sides and depths of which were impenetrable to my sight. This well-preserved building stood as empty as it was lonely; no castellan, no huntsman was to be found. I sat before the great glass doors upon the steps which run around the whole terrace. Here, surrounded by mountains, over a forest-grown, dark soil, which seemed yet darker in contrast with the clear horizon of a summer night, with the glowing starry vault above me, I sat for a long time by myself on the deserted spot, and thought I never had felt such a solitude. How sweetly, then, was I surprised by the distant sound of a couple of French horns, which at once, like the fragrance of balsam, enlivened the peaceful atmosphere. Then there awakened within me the image of a lovely being, which had retired into the background before the motley objects of these travelling days, but which now unveiled itself-more and more, and drove me from the spot back to my quarters, where I made preparations to set off with the earliest.