10th century, and was the residence of the Emperors of Germany, and seat of the Diet. It is named from the Gose, a small stream flowing through it. It is now a dull and deserted looking provincial town, with 6800 inhab., and belongs to Hanover. It is still interesting, however, for its history, and for the peculiarly picturesque air of antiquity displayed in its buildings; among which the Rathhaus (15th century), containing some antiquities, and Armenhaus may be specified.

The chapel, now used as a Museum, was the porch (Vorhalle) of the old cathedral (date 1050), pulled down 1820, of early Romanesque architecture; on the front are some colossal statues. It contains the "Altar of Crodo," a curious antique monument of metal, believed at one time to be an altar of the early Saxons, but more probably a shrine or relic chest, of early Italian workmanship. The sides and bottom of bronze gilt seem alone to be original; the filigrees and marble top are of Charlemagne's time, as perhaps are the bronze frame and kneeling figures, like some of those which support the metal fonts in German churches. It was carried off to Paris by the French. In the same place are deposited some ancient paintings of no great value, and a crucifixion carved in wood: the windows contain painted glass of the 14th century, from Hartzburg.

A fragment of the Emperor's Paace, 1000 years old, stands near this chapel; it resembles the gatehouse at Gelnhausen, but is now converted into a corn warehouse.

The Ch. in the Market-place, lately burnt, but repaired, is a good plain Romanesque edifice, founded by the Emp. Henry II. The old Kloster Kirche is a perfect and plain Romanesque church, with pointed vaulting, windows 2 and 2; curious open projections of vaulting pillars, 2 have a ring or snake inserted loose. curiously ornamented outside. font and candelabra (? date). of the Wittgensteins, 1400.

Apsis Brass Tomb

which formed the outer defences of the city, is now fitted up as a place of entertainment, in which beer called Gose is sold; its walls are 21 feet thick. The tower is called the Richersthurm.

Marshal Saxe, son of the celebrated Aurora von Königsmark, mistress of Augustus of Saxony, was born at Goslar, October 28. 1696. His birth is registered here as "Meurice, son of a great lady, born in Winkel's house," without the name of father or mother.

In order to visit the Mines in the Rammelsberg (p. 399.), a permission must be obtained from the Chief of the mines in the town. The entrance to them is about a mile out of the town; intimation of the visit should be sent the evening before. They may be explored without the necessity of descending any ladders. The best time to see them is between 4 and 8 on Saturday morning, when the fires are first lighted. After that time the mine is closed, and no one enters till Monday morning. The Guides receive 15 Sgr. or 10 Sgr. each from a party.

Outside of the Broad Gate of Goslar is a singular isolated rock of sandstone, called the Claus, which has been excavated into a comfortable dwelling; it was once a hermitage and chapel.

The distance from Goslar to the top of the Brocken is about 28 m. In going thither we pass Oker at the mouth of the valley of the Oker, one of the most beautiful in the Hartz, and Neustadt.

The valley of the Radau, which opens out near Neustadt, displays a remarkable geological phenomenon. In a quarry on the right of the valley, about 200 paces above the junction of the old and new roads in the Radau valley, masses of a quartzy rock resembling grauwacke, and themselves containing traces of organic remains, have been found enclosed in the granite.

At Hartzburg a very copious brinespring issues out of the Keuper-sandstone and muschelkalk limestone.

Railroad from Hartzburg to Bruns

Near Eckerkrug we pass out of Hanover into Prussia, to

Ilsenburg, about 14 miles from Goslar. - Inn, Rothe Forelle (Red Trout, for which it is famed). This is a small village at the mouth of the pretty valley of the Ilse, up which runs the road to the Brocken. A carriage may be sent round to await the traveller at Schierke, while the ascent is made in a light car or on mule-back. A carriage holding four may be hired from the landlord of the Forelle, for 8 dollars, or 10 if it be kept on the summit all night. A mule costs 2 dollars.

Before setting out for the Brocken, it is worth while to mount to the top of the Ilsenstein, a projecting precipice of bare rock, towering above the woods on the left side of the valley, surmounted by an iron Cross, erected as a monument of the war. Com modious winding paths lead up to the summit, where a grand prospect over some very wild scenery rewards the climbers.

The distance from Ilsenburg to the Brocken, in a direct line, is not more than 6 miles. The road is more than twice as much; it passes up the course of the Ilse, through dark woods occupied by charcoal-burners, and amidst masses of rock. The whole way is a series of wild sylvan scenes, recalling to mind the remarkable description of the ascent to it in Göthe's Faust.

The Brockenhaus is the name of the inn on the platform of bare rock which forms the summit of the Brocken: the accommodations and provisions are very fair, considering that every article is carried up on the back of mules a distance of 12 or 15 miles. The charges are settled by tariff, according to the Prussian police regulations. The walls are thick, the windows small, and the house is heated by stoves all the year round. The host is very obliging and highly intelligent: he lives here constantly. Hard by the inn rises a prospect tower or Belvedere of massy timber, 50 feet high.

The BROCKEN, or Blocksberg (Mons Bructerus), the highest of the Hartz Mountains, is 3543 feet above the

level of the sea. In a cleft called Schneeloch, about a mile from the inn, snow lies almost all the year round. The summit and framework, as it were, of the mountain, is granite, round which the other rocks are wrapped, enveloping it like a mantle. It has long enjoyed the reputation of being haunted. The district may indeed be considered the cradle of innumerable superstitions, some of them even now not extinct, of Gnomes and Cobolds, witches, and the headless horseman. Several odd-shaped masses of granite around the summit of the Brocken are named after the witches; for example, the Devil's Pulpit; the Witches' Altar ; and, not far off, the Witches' Lake and Wash-hand Basin. According to the well-known legend, the witches hold their sabbath on this spot once a year, upon the eve of May-day, called in Germany, Walpurgis nacht, from the name of a saint who converted the Saxons to Christianity. At this annual conventiele (such is the cominon belief) all the evil spirits in the world assemble to offer allegiance to their unmentionable master, celebrating the festival with unholy orgies. Mortals who are bold enough to venture up during this night have the privilege of beholding their own ghosts on the top of the Brocken, with a billet pinned to their backs bearing the name of those who have wished them there.

The curious optical phenomenon called the Spectre of the Brocken, occasionally seen from this spot, may have contributed to strengthen the belief of its being haunted. It is not very rare, as it occurs usually 8 or 9 times a year, and is not confined to any particular season. It appears at sunset or sunrise, whenever the mists happen to ascend perpendicularly out of the valley on the side opposite to the sun, and leave the mountain top itself free from vapour. The shadow of the mountain is reflected against the perpendicular face of the rising vapour, as it were against a wall, of gigantic dimensions. The inn then becomes a palace in size, and the human beings on the summit appear giants. The size of the figures

increases or diminishes as the fog is driven farther from or nearer to the Brocken top by the wind. If the fog is very dry, you see not only yourself but your neighbour; if very damp, only yourself, surrounded by a rainbow-coloured glory, which becomes more lustrous and beautiful the damper and thicker the fog is, and the nearer it approaches.". Howitt.

The Panorama from the top of the Brocken is fine, and very extensive, when it can be seen, though at the best inferior to that from the Winterberg in the Saxon Switzerland. The horizon is rarely quite free of cloud, and nine times out of ten no good view is to be had at sunrise. It is therefore prudent for those who make up their minds to pass a night on the Brocken, in order to see the view, to reach the summit before sunset, so that, if the weather be clear, they may have two chances of seeing something.

There is a char-road from the Brocken to Wernigerode (Inns: Weisser Hirsch; Deutsches Haus; Goldener Löwe), an antiquated town of 6000 inhabitants, belonging to Count Stolberg, which suffered from fire in the spring of 1847. The Rathskeller (about 1400) is picturesque and curious. Thence to Elbingerode is a macadamised road. The footpath descends directly to Elbingerode, a distance of about 14 miles. It passes through the desolate region of Elend (Misery) by Schierke, the highest village in the Hartz, with 500 inhab. The rocks around it assume singular shapes, and receive the strangest names, -as Hell, the Firestone, the Snorters (Schnarcher). Many of these are mentioned or alluded to in Göthe's Faust, and it was up this road that Mephistophiles conducted his hero to the top of the Brocken. By broad day-light, however, and in the sunshine, the landscape of which they form part has a merely picturesque character, free from all horrors.

Elbingerode. Inn, Blauer Engel; Rischbieters. Here horses and carriages may be hired for the ascent of the Brocken. This is a Hanoverian

town of 2500 inhab., "large, naked, and bleak-looking." In the vicinity are numerous iron mines, or rather quarries, for the ore occurs in such large masses that it is quarried out in the open air. It is smelted in the neighbourhood.— N. B. The termination rode, so often occurring in the names of places in the Hartz, signifies a spot where roots of trees have been grubbed up.

About 2 m. below Elbingerode, in the gorge of the Bode, close to the cheerful village of Rübeland (Inn, Goldener Löwe), are the two Caves of Baumanshöhle in the cliffs on the left bank, and Bielshöhle in the precipice on the right bank, opposite. The Baumanshöhle has the largest chambers, and is interesting to the geologist, because bones of the Great Cave Bear, now extinct, have been found in it. The Bielshöhle has the finest and whitest stalactites. They are both under the charge of guides residing in the village, who receive about 4 groschen from each person for showing them, with something extra for additional lights. They are scarcely worth visiting. A band of local musicians is in readiness to awaken the echoes of the Baumanshöhle.

From Rübeland (fine limestone rocks in the Bodethal), through a large oak forest in the Schleifergrund, with picturesque distant views of the plain, on approaching

Blankenburg (6 m.)— Inns: Krone; Weisser Adler. A town of 3000 inhab., belonging to the Duke of Brunswick, who has a Palace here. It is an ungainly building, but the situation and view from it are beautiful. The best pictures have been removed, but there still remains one of the White Lady, who haunts this palace as well as that of Berlin, and other royal residences in Germany; and two portraits, painted by the father of Frederick the Great with the point of his finger! one of our King William IV. in his midshipman's dress, and a small collection of old glass and armour.

Louis XVIII. lived here 1796-98, under the name of Comte de Lille, in

It takes of an hour to walk up to the ruined castle of Reinstein, or Regenstein, built by the Emperor Henry the Fowler (919), to keep the Huns in subjection. It has many chambers excavated in the solid rock. The view hence is admired. There is a refreshment house, with a dining room, at Reinstein.

Blankenburg is but 6 miles distant from the Prussian village of Thale, at the foot of the RoSSTRAPPE. The Inn at Thale (Worfels) is not very good; there is a better one near the iron works (Blechhütte), on the opposite side of the Bode. This river is here hemmed in between the Rosstrappe on its left bank and the Devil's Tanzplatz (ball-room) on the right; two lofty mountains, whose precipitous granite cliffs rising on each side give a character of the utmost grandeur to this gorge or ravine. A steep footpath leads from the river-side to the top of the Rosstrappe. A carriage may ascend half-way, by a circuitous road, as far as the Bude (Boothie, Scotch), a station where refreshments may be had, including a peculiar liquor called Birken Wasser (birch water), extracted from the birch.

The Rosstrappe is a vast precipice of granite, isolated on 3 sides, rising 500 feet above the Bode, and projecting over the valley like a bastion. Its summit is a platform of rock, 5 or 6 ft. square. Its name comes from a mark in the rock bearing a distant resem. blance to a horse's hoof, and according to the traditional story was caused by a Princess Brunhelda, who, being pursued by a giant, leaped her horse (which had previously been endowed with supernatural strength) across the gorge to the opposite cliff, where the charger, as he alighted, left the dint of his footmark. The view into the depths below is very grand. A different path leads in zigzags down to the river-side. The defile here displays a scene of the most romantic and gloomy character. It is perhaps the wildest and most interesting spot in the whole district

remind one of the Alps on a small scale; the profusion of beautiful wood in the valley of the Bode adds to its attractions; one fine beech called Königsbuche is well worth notice. After threading the gorge, by the water-side, back to the Blechhütte, some persons ascend by a steep path to the Tanzplatz, on the right side of the river, from which there is a view not inferior to that from the Rosstrappe, whose gigantic precipices appear to great advantage from hence, " challenged from the other side of the narrow rift, by many no less wild and lofty crags. At the extremity of the gorge lies the Bode Kessel, or cauldron, whence the river boils up, its sides worn and smoothed by the action of the torrent and stones; a very striking scene. The walk to the Rosstrappe from Thale and back to Blechhütte takes up 3 or 4 hours. In the plain, at a short distance from the foot of the Hartz, are fragments of the Teufelsmauer, a gigantic natu ral wall of sandstone lying between Blankenburg, Halberstadt, and Quedlinburg.

A cross road from Blechhütte leads to Gernrode, 5 m. off, on the high road from Nordhausen to Magdeburg (p. 404.).

About 9 m. S. of Gernrode, and about two to the W. of the post-station of Harzgerode, lies the watering-place of Alexisbad, which may be adopted as night-quarters, if the traveller be going S. A good road leads from Gernrode to Ballenstadt (where the Inn, Zur Stadt Bernburg, is excellent, and where the Ducal Schloss, on a height, contains a fine collection of pictures). If the traveller be bent on making the entire tour of the Hartz, he may proceed from Blankenburg, by Elbingerode, to Andreasberg, at the S. foot of the Brocken, a town of 4100 inhab., interesting only to miners and mineralogists. (Inns: Schutzenhaus and Rathhaus.) The silver mines are situated in rocks of clayslate.

The shaft of the Samson mine is 2333 feet deep; the tilt-hammers, forges, and water-engines of Andreasburg are all put in motion by the

supply of water from the great reservoir under the Brocken, called Oder Teich. The dam which retains the water is a construction of granite masonry. The distance hence to Clausthal is 16 m.

From Ballenstadt a very bad road, but through charming scenery, comparable with that of the Troshachs, leads to Alexisbad. "A pedestrian should go by the Selkethal, to see the fine old Castle of Falkenstein. The footpath shortens the distance; but, by going round to Meisdorf, a road practicable for light carriages may be followed up the Selkethal."-G.

Alexisbad.-Inns: Das Logirhaus, containing 60 apartments; Das Traiteurhaus, with about 30. Alexisbad consists of a small group of buildings for the accommodation of visitors, erected in the romantic valley of the Selke, by the Duke of Anhalt Bernburg, after whom it is named. He has a small hunting-box, like a Swiss cottage. Wooded hills rise on each side, and completely hem in the little cluster of houses; and nice paths are cut through the woods in all directions. Besides the buildings enumerated above, there is a bath-house, and a saloon, in which the table-d'hôte takes place every day; also used as a ballroom, with adjoining apartments for gambling, &c.

Two mineral springs supply water for the baths, and for drinking. The water is a very strong chalybeate. Most of the resources of a German watering-place (§ 38.) are to be found here but Alexisbad owes its great attraction to its agreeable situation, and the excursions in its neighbourhood, to Mägdesprung, Mägdetreppe, Klostermühle; the Victorshöhe, &c. See the following Route.

ROUTE 74.

THE HARTZ NORDHAUSEN TO

MAGDEBURG.

143 Pruss. miles = 69 Eng. miles. Schnellpost twice a-week. Personen

post daily. This road nearly forms the E. boundary line of the Hartz.

Nordhausen is in Rte. 67. (p. 378.)

23 Stolberg. Inns: Weisses Ross; Deutsches Haus. A town of 2000 inhab. belonging to the Count Stolberg, a mediatised prince, whose territory is now included in that of Prussia. His Castle, on the height above, contains a library, a small armoury, and the statue of an idol (Krodo), dug up under the walls. Thomas Münzer, the fanatic leader of the rebel peasants in the 16th century, was born here, in a house still standing near the marketplace. From the Josephshöhe, 2 m. from Stolberg, in a most picturesque situation, surmounted by a Belvedere and Inn, a fine view is obtained.

24 Hartzgerode Inns: Weisses Ross; Drei Thürme. A town of 2400 inhab., belonging to the Prince of Anhalt Bernburg. About 2 miles to the west of Hartzgerode, lies the wateringplace of Alexisbad, (p. 404.), where a traveller, not pressed for time, may spend one or two days very agreeably, in exploring the beauties of its neighbourhood.

About 3 m. N. of Hartzgerode, our road is joined on the left by that from Alexisbad to Magdeburg, and crosses the river Selke at the iron works of Mägdesprung, consisting of a number of iron forges, furnaces, and miners' houses scattered along the banks of the river, over a distance of nearly 2 m. The situation is very romantic, and the distance from hence to Alexisbad is about 3 miles. On a neighbouring height, a tall obelisk of cast iron has been erected as a monument to a Duke of Anhalt. The hill called Mägdetreppe (Maid's foot print) receives its name from the legend of a giantess who once haunted this district, and, in one of her wanderings, leapt over the valley from the opposite hill, called Ramberg, leaving the marks of her feet upon the spot where she alighted. In proof of this story, they are still visible in the rock! The summit commands a fine view. Leaving Mägdesprung, the road passes, on the left, the ruined castle of Heinrichburg, built by the