As soon as the sermon was over, the congregation dispersed. The day ended in universal joy and festivity; no revengeful recollections—no unkind feelings were entertained towards him who had been the principal actor of that day; on the contrary, the Maltese seemed rather to feel, that it was to him they were especially indebted for the pleasurable performances they had witnessed, and thus—
“In peaceful merriment ran down the sun’s declining ray.”
[SCHLANGENBAD; OR, THE SERPENTS’ BATH.]
Time had glided along so agreeably ever since my arrival at Langen-Schwalbach, my body had enjoyed such perpetual motion, my mind such absolute rest, that I had almost forgotten, though my holiday was nearly over, I had not yet reached the intended nec plus ultra of my travels—namely, Schlangenbad, or the Serpents' Bath. On the spur of the moment, therefore, I ordered a carriage; and, with my wallet lying by my side, having bidden adieu to a simple-hearted village, which, for the short remainder of my days, I believe, I shall remember with regard, I continued for some time gradually to ascend its eastern boundary, until I arrived nearly at the summit or pinnacle of the Taunus hills. The view from this point was very extensive indeed, and the park-like appearance of the whole of the lofty region or upper story of Nassau formed a prospect at once noble and pleasing. The Langen-Schwalbach band of wind-instruments was playing deep beneath me in the valley, but hidden by the fog, its sound was so driven about by the wind, that had I not recognized the tunes I but faintly heard, I should not have been able to determine from what point of the compass they proceeded. Sometimes they seemed to rise, like the mist, from one valley—sometimes from another—occasionally I fancied they were like the hurricane, sweeping across the surface of the country, and once I could almost have declared that the Æolian band was calmly seated above me in the air.
The numberless ravines which intersect Nassau were not discernible from the spot where my carriage had halted, and Langen-Schwalbach was so muffled in its peaceful retreat, that a stranger could scarcely have guessed it existed.
From this elevated point the Taunus hills began gradually to fall towards Wiesbaden and Frankfort; but a branch road, suddenly turning to the right, rapidly descended, or rather meandered down a long, rocky, narrow ravine, clothed with beech and oak-trees to its summit.
With a wheel of the carriage dragged, as I glided fast down this romantic valley, the scenery, compared with what I had just left, was on a very confined, contracted scale—in short, nothing was to be seen but a trickling stream running down the grassy bottom of a valley, and hills which appeared to environ it on both sides; besides this, the road writhed and bent so continually, that I could seldom see a quarter of a mile of it at once.
After descending about three-quarters of a league, I came to a new turn, and here Schlangenbad, the Serpents’ Bath, dressed in its magic mantle of tranquillity, suddenly appeared not only before, but within less than a hundred yards of me.
This secluded spot, to which such a number of people annually retreat, consists of nothing but an immense old building, or “Bad-Haus,” a new one, with two or three little mills, which, fed, as it were, by the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table, are turned by the famous spring of water, after fine, fashionable ladies have done washing themselves in it.