Morning journal and courier., 1891-09-16

SIrOlI
 an old CastIe-ssFrfedrfch's Build
 ing',-The Facade and Great Ter
 race-What Was Found in the
 Cellar.
 HEIDELBERG, Baden, Aug. 2S. To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 I am sitting at my east window looking up the valley of the Neckar There is a west wind amid the leaves of the chest nut and birch trees that somehow reminds me of home. It rustles the dark rich fo- liage and sways the tall pines on the high CT slopes and drives the fall clouds across the sky just as it does in New England. And now and then tug, steaming down the river, blows 8 sharp sudden blast with it's whistle that sets the echoes flying through all the little side valleys. Once, twice, it comes back as distinct as the original, then familiar and fainter until, with the sixth or seventh answer, the sound is blown away by the wind or caught on some intervening hillside. But there are echoes of home within me that do not die away. And here you have my excuse for bothering you.
 I have just come from stroll in the old castle, for have been here two weeks al- ready and can afford to stroll while others hurry about with guides and books. I daily thank the Lord that am not as oth- CT tourists, not with Pharisaical pride, but in spirit of thankfulness at my good for tune. I would rather see a single ruined tower at leisure, in peace of mind, than whole kingdom in haste and with guide books.
 The castle is a magnificent ruin-not so lofty and inaccessible as some of those on the Rhine, not so extensive and ornate as many in France. It has dignity and beauty of it's own. It was built of red sandstone throughout, but otherwise there was no unity of design in it's construction. A whole line of dukes and prince-electors and emperors helped in the building. And each in the style of his time added some thing that pleased him. Now all those parts stand there together-a splendid century plant-fve hundred years in the growing, with 8 leaf for each half century of it's life. One approaches from the south, from the hillside, by means of stone arched bridge; for a deep moat de- tended the castle on three sides. The fourth side, that toward the north, is flush with an inaccessible precipice. After crossing the bridge and going through the gate house, where the portcullis still hangs in rusty unreadiness, one enters a court yard, paved for the most part like a street, but with few trees and shrubs and a lit tie grass close to the buildings. From this courtyard open all the towers and wine-cellsrs, the kitchens and feast-halls and chapels. On the right of the entrance is the we'll, curbed and lined with stone Until 1889 it was some three hundred feet deep and unfailing; but at that time the destroying French, either out of pure mis- chief or emulating the bird of fable, filled the enormous shaft half full of pebbles. It was the French under Louis XIV who brought about the ruin that we see to-day. Powder and fire were used with all the cunning of human malignity, but, al though they destroyed the castles useful ness, they could not take away its beauty. About the courtyard, then, were the buildings-frst on the left the oldest structure, built about 1900 by duke of the Wittelsbacher house-a line that has furnished not only prince-electors, but kings and enperors to Germany.
 Further along on this side, and occupy ing the northwest corner of the whole pile, is 1'Friedrich's building" He had married
 
 England, and to receive her properly he built a chapel, house and a tower, and l laid out a garden outside of the moat | This tower, with walls twenty-four feet 1 thick, deserves it's name, "the thick tow | er." But the powder of the French was mightier, and 8 section of the west wall | was blown out and scattered over the town below. On the diagonslly opposite | corner is another circular tower of almost | equal strength, called the "Blown-up Tower" This was the powder magazine | of the stronghold, and when the conquer ors applied the match there must have been a tremendous explosion. For part, say a quarter, of the wall was blown out bodily and fell, as it had stood, into the moat without breaking up. And there it | lies to-day, complete to the battlements, covered with ivy. The trees that have taken root in the moat and have attained 8 height of forty or fifty feet are but just overlapping it.
 The facade of Otto Heinrich's addition is one of the finest bits of Renaissance architecture I have seen. It is on the east, the right hand, side of the court, and points so as to catch the red rays or the setting sun. The color of the reddish sandstone is there best brought out, and ii seems almost as though the warmth of life had been given to the stone statues oi | Joshua, Samson, David and Hercules One ought to see this part again, however when the full moon rising over the round eastern hills shines into the roofless rooms and through the empty windows. Beauti fuI doorways and chimney pieces of carved stone still adorn the stately halls, but the vaulted stone ceilings have fallen and tht pillars alone remain.
 Through an archway under "Fried rich's building we reach the 'grest ter race" Its background is the castle; its foreground, the valley of the Neckar, with the silver stream itself winding among the wooded hills, flowing softly past the old town of Heidelberg. and under the old stone bridge, spreading out in broad curves over the plain beyond, until il joins the Rhine at Mannheim, just this side of the hills which bound our western horizon. Little covered turrets of stone at each corner of the terrace terminate the stone balustrade and furnish shelter against the midday sun. And in the evenings of past ages they no doubt of fered shelter against the two enquirine face of the full moon as she peered over the "Glocken Thurm" and drew in the long curtain of shadow. For we must suppose that lovers existed then as now and that they would choose such a spot as this with its symbolism of the ivy cling ing to the rock and the Neckar joining herself forever to the Rhine.
 Inside the court again a paved way leads down to an arched doorway Curi
 osity would send us searching if we did
 not already know that this cellar contains
 the famous Heidelberg Tun.
 At first one sees cssk about ten feet 1T
 diameter end is 9issPpointed, but we pas