into the spears below! At other places there were immense rollers, and
only one approach to the castle, which lead directly up the hill. When the
assaulting enemy made its approach by this, the hillside was filled with
the enemy's soldiers, these rollers would be loosened upon them, and thus
the bodies of many thousands would be mangled in a minute! Such was the
barbarity of the ancients.

I will not forget the long walk I had all alone through one of the
underground passages of the Heidelberg Castle. I saw a pale light at the
other end, when I entered; but it was dark in the middle, and turned out
to be much longer than I had anticipated. These passages are about 7 feet
high and 10 feet wide, and are arched by a brick vault. The illumination
of this ruined castle on the evening of August 23rd, constituted one of my
grandest sights in all Europe. It seemed to be enveloped with flames of
such an intense heat, that its walls, towers, &c., appeared to be about to
melt down! As the colors of the illuminating light changed suddenly from
yellowish white to blue, green and red, the scene was so indescribably
beautiful, that numbers of the ten thousand spectators actually went into
raptures.



The Tun,


in the castle of Heidelberg, the largest of all the tuns in the world, is
32 feet long, 22 feet in diameter at both ends and 23 feet in the center.
Its eighteen wooden hoops are 8 inches thick and 15 inches broad, and its
127 staves are 91 inches thick. The bung-hole is 3 to 4 inches in
diameter. To built it cost the enormous sum of $32,000, and its capacity