Dayton daily empire. [volume] (Dayton [Ohio]) 1850-1865, 1864-06-11

its lest From its towers aud battlements on
fair day one can overlook the valley Of the
Rhine, and trace its course for more than
thirty miles We sat down on the top Of the
| highest tower and while We listened to the
strains Of wild, unearthly music which came
from the Rolian harps which occupy many of
the windows we let our imaginations run on
10 reconstruct these dismsntled galleries and
halls, and repeople them with the brave men
and beautiful women who once lived, loved,
struggled and died here; full Of the same
! hopes fears and aspirations that we nov are
knowing sorrow and joy, love aud hate just
as we know them, as thoughtless OF the tu-
ture as we are, aud thinking it as little pro1a-
bic that passing strangers from foreign lands
would come to Sit as we we're sitting, centu-
res after they were laid to rest to muse upon
their monuments, as we do that any shall come
five hundred years hence to look upon theruins
of the capitol Rt Columbus or the court house
in Dayton. And then we looked over the
Black Forest which surrounds it, and stretches
away from it north, south and east, and which
the superstition of the people filled with
elves, fairies, wehr wolves and demons in
those days and we thanked God that we were
n little User than they--that, marking by
centuries, we can see that the worll does
move towards the light, even though at times
! it seems to be going back with rapid steps to-
wards the realms of barbarism and moral
gloom.
Some distance further down on the side Of
the same hill stands what is called the nel0
castle although it can boast of four centuries
Of existence. 1t is old enough TO have been
used as a court room and prison of the Fehnl
Gericht or secret tribunal, of whose power
aud mode of procedure Sir Walter Scott gives
a full account in the introduction to Anne of
Geiersten. With lanterns in our hands we
followed our young guide down into q laby-
rintb of cells. Some of them nearest the
light Of day were the rooms in which the ac-
cused were tried others were pointed out as
the Torture Chambers, and stopping for a
moment in one about ten feet square, into
which not ray of the light of heaven has
entered in oil the cycles of time since it was
built, beyond whose massive walls the oudest
shrek OF the wretched victim was never heard
the only entrance to which is by stone door
ten inches thick, which still swings easily and
noiselessy upon its hinges-'this," said the
boy, sis dungeon" We were very much of
his opinion read of such in my boyhood,
and have felt my blood chilled by the mere
description Of their horrors The guide of
fered to show us others Of the same kind, but
we had seen enough. As we passed q dark
corner "here," said he, "stood the figure Of
the beautiful virgin which the condemned was
required to embrace, and when in the act, fell
one hundred and ninety-four feet upon re-
volving wheel thick set with knives" We
looked into the terrible abyss, and held our
lanterns down, but they revealed nothing to
our gaze, and we drew back shudderng.
We were glad to get out of the place, and
stroll about for an hour or two before evening
in the park and by the little river What a
charming spot it o Obi what pleasure it
would be- | thought, to walk or ride about it
with little company could mention in my
far-off home. 1t is an Elysian field; and |
suppose every one in the gay company we met
there, like me, lacked but one or too things to
make them perfectly happy.
In the evening the baud 10 front of the
Come, saHonShaus reused all our musical
enthusiasm by their rendering of the over
ture of Rossini's opera of Semiramide, and
fragment from Haydn's Oratorio of Crea
ton. The part of the latter which we have
arranged as a hymn and named Creation,
and which our choirs generally sing "like al
creation, they played so softly and tenderly
as almost to bring the tears.