ers; and other times he would swoop down
from his high castle on the hills of the Neckar and capture passing
cargoes of merchandise. In his memoirs he piously thanks the Giver of
all Good for remembering him in his needs and delivering sundry such
cargoes into his hands at times when only special providences could have
relieved him. He was a doughty warrior and found a deep joy in battle.
In an assault upon a stronghold in Bavaria when he was only twenty-three
years old, his right hand was shot away, but he was so interested in the
fight that he did not observe it for a while. He said that the iron hand
which was made for him afterward, and which he wore for more than half a
century, was nearly as clever a member as the fleshy one had been. I was
glad to get a facsimile of the letter written by this fine old German
Robin Hood, though I was not able to read it. He was a better artist
with his sword than with his pen.

We went down by the river and saw the Square Tower. It was a very
venerable structure, very strong, and very ornamental. There was no
opening near the ground. They had to use a ladder to get into it, no
doubt.

We visited the principal church, also--a curious old structure, with a
towerlike spire adorned with all sorts of grotesque images. The inner
walls of the church were placarded with large mural tablets of copper,
bearing engraved inscriptions celebrating the merits of old Heilbronn
worthies of two or three centuries ago, and also bearing rudely painted
effigies of themselves and their families tricked out in the queer
costumes of those days. The head of the family sat in the foreground,
and beyond him extended a sharply receding and diminishing row of
sons; facing him sat his wife, and beyond her extended a low row of
diminishing daughters. The family was usually large, but the perspective
bad.

Then we hired the hack and the horse which Goetz von Berlichingen used
to use, and drove several miles into the country to visit the place
called WEIBERTREU--Wife's Fidelity I suppose it means. It was a feudal
castle of the Middle Ages. When we reached its neighborhood we found
it was beautifully situated, but on top of a mound, or hill, round and
tolerably steep, and about two hundred feet high. Therefore, as the sun
was blazing hot, we did not climb up there, but took the place on trust,
and observed it from a distance while the horse leaned up against a
fence and rested. The place has no interest except