tness and home-like appearance
of every thing. Every body greeted us; if we asked for information, they
gave it cheerfully. The villages were all pleasant and clean and the
meadows fresh and blooming. I felt half tempted to say, in the words of
an old ballad, which I believe Longfellow has translated:

"The fairest kingdom on this earth,
It is the Saxon land!"

Going along the left bank of the Elbe, we passed over meadows purple
with the tri-colored violet, which we have at home in gardens, and every
little bank was bright with cowslips. At length the path led down into a
cleft or ravine filled with trees, whose tops were on a level with the
country around. This is a peculiar feature of Saxon scenery. The country
contains many of these clefts, some of which are several hundred feet
deep, having walls of perpendicular rock, in whose crevices the mountain
pine roots itself and grows to a tolerable height without any apparent
soil to keep it alive. We descended by a foot-path into this ravine,
called the Liebethaler Grund. It is wider than many of the others,
having room enough for a considerable stream and several mills. The
sides are of sandstone rock, quite perpendicular. As we proceeded, it
grew narrower and deeper, while the trees covering its sides and edges
nearly shut out the sky. An hour's walk brought us to the end, where we
ascended gradually to the upper level again.

After passing the night at the little village of Uttewalde, a short
distance further, we set out early in the morning for the Bastei, a
lofty precipice on the Elbe. The way led us directly through the
Uttewalder Grund, the most remarkable of all these chasms. We went down
by steps into its depths, which in the early morning were very cold.
Water dripped from the rocks, which but a few feet apart, rose far above
us, and a little rill made its way along the bottom, into which the sun
has never shone. Heavy masses of rock, which had tumbled down from the
sides lay in the way, and tall pine trees sprung from every cleft. In
one place the defile is only four feet wide, and a large mass of rock,
fallen from above, has lodged near the bottom, making an arch across,
under which the traveller has to creep. After going under two or three
arches of this kind, the defile widened and an arrow cut upon a rock
directed us to a side path, which branched off from this into a
mountain. Here the stone masses immediately assumed another form. They
projecte