published this work in 1854, after returning from the tour she made soon
after achieving great fame with "Uncle Tom's Cabin." During this visit
she was received everywhere with distinction--and especially in
England.]




FREIBURG AND THE BLACK FOREST[A]

BY BAYARD TAYLOR


The airy basket-work tower of the Freiburg minster rises before me over
the black roofs of the houses, and behind stand the gloomy pine-covered
mountains of the Black Forest. Of our walk to Heidelberg over the
oft-trodden Bergstrasse, I shall say nothing, nor how we climbed the
Kaiserstuhl again, and danced around on the top of the tower for one
hour amid cloud and mist, while there was sunshine below in the valley
of the Neckar. I left Heidelberg yesterday morning in the "stehwagen"
for Carlsruhe. The engine whistled, the train started, and, altho I kept
my eyes steadily fixt on the spire of the Hauptkirche, three minutes hid
it and all the rest of the city from sight. Carlsruhe, the capital of
Baden--which we reached in an hour and a half--is unanimously pronounced
by travelers to be a most dull and tiresome city. From a glance I had
through one of the gates, I should think its reputation was not
undeserved. Even its name in German signifies a place of repose.

I stopt at Kork, on the branch-road leading to Strassburg, to meet a
German-American about to return to my home in Pennsylvania, where he had