er name.

Every one ascending the Rhine from Mayence to Mannheim has been struck
with the beauty of these Odenwald hills, and has stood watching that
tall white tower on the summit of one of them, which, with windings of
the river, seem now brought near, and then again thrown very far off;
seemed to watch and haunt you, and, for many hours, to take short cuts
to meet you, till, at length, like a giant disappointed of his prey, it
glided away into the gray distance, and was lost in the clouds. This is
the tower of Melibocus, above the village of Auerbach, to which we shall
presently ascend, in order to take our first survey of this old and
secluded haunt of Odin.

This quiet region of hidden valleys and deep forests extends from the
borders of the Black Forest, which commences on the other side of the
Neckar, to the Spessart, another old German forest; and in the other
direction, from Heidelberg and Darmstadt, toward Heilbronn. It is full
of ancient castles, and a world of legends. In it stands, besides the
Melibocus, another tower, on a still loftier point, called the
Katzenbuckel, which overlooks a vast extent of these forest hills. Near
this lies Eberbach, a castle of the descendants of Charlemagne, which we
shall visit; the scenes of the legend of the Wild Huntsman; the castles
of Goetz von Berlichingen, and many another spot familiar by its fame to
our minds from childhood. But besides this, the inhabitants are a people
living in a world of their own; retaining all the simplicity of their
abodes and habits; and it is only in such a region that you now
recognize the pictures of German life such as you find them in the _Haus
Maerchen_ of the brothers Grimm.

In order to make ourselves somewhat acquainted with this interesting
district, Mrs. Howitt and myself, with knapsack on back, set out at the
end of August, 1841, to make a few days' ramble on foot through it. The
weather, however, proved so intensely hot, and the electrical sultriness
of the woods so oppressive, that we only footed it one day, when we were
compelled to make use of a carriage, much to our regret.

On the last day in August we drove with a party of friends, and our
children, to Weinheim; rambled through its vineyards, ascended to its
ancient castle, and then went on to Birkenau Thal, a charming valley,
celebrated, as its name denotes, for its lovely hanging birches, under
which, with much happy mirth, we dined.

Scrambling among the hills, and