or the heights of the Black Forest? Do the blue waters of the Tweed
reflect a more brilliant colour than the Neckar or Danube; or do its
banks surpass those of the Rhine in beautiful landscape? May be, that
Scotland is gifted with a race of men possessing qualities of greater
interest than we can boast of in Germany; and that the blood which
flowed in the veins of their ancestors was of a deeper hue than that of
Swabians and Saxons of olden times; or again, that their women are more
engaging, and their maidens more beautiful, than the daughters of
Germany?

"We have reason to doubt all these superior advantages, and believe
that the magic of the Great Unknown consists principally in placing
before the reader historical facts which his fertile genius has
faithfully dressed up in the manners and costumes of the day in which
they took place. With the same view our object has been to bring to
light an event of our own country; in which we have been guided by
historical truth alone."

The translator having visited the spot where one of the principal
scenes of the narrative took place, his attention was drawn to the
original work, as giving a faithful description of its locality, and
containing an interesting account of an important occurrence in Swabian
history.

On Whitsunday, 1832, he formed one of a large concourse of people
assembled from all parts of the country, dressed in their gayest
colours and costumes, to join in the procession, which, headed by the
King of Wuertemberg in person, with all his family, met for the express
purpose, as is generally the case every year on the same day, to visit
the "Nebelhoehle, or misty cavern, and the rock of Lichtenstein." This
spot, celebrated from the circumstances which the reader will become
acquainted with in the course of the narrative, is situated near the
town of Reutlingen, about thirty miles from Stuttgardt, in a country
full of picturesque beauties, and worthy of itself, as an object of
natural curiosity, to attract the attention of the traveller. The
translator cannot but hope, that when it is better known, which,
through the means of the following pages, he flatters himself may be
the case, that the beaten track pursued by the tourist on the Rhine may
find variety by a visit to the rock of Lichtenstein, and to the
Nebelhoehle; and that he thus may have been the means of producing that
greatest of desiderata to the desultory traveller, viz. "an object."

FOOTNOTE TO