We again traversed the high parapet, and I was now better able to examine
this way of access, the ramparts of which arose from a prodigious depth;
and they were extended along the sharp narrow ridge of the rock down to
the very bottom of the valley. It was a long flight of jagged precipitous
steps descending from the wolf's den, or rather eagle's nest, down to the
deep valley below.

Gazing down I felt giddy, and recoiling in alarm to the middle of the
platform, I hastily descended down the path which led to the main
building.

We had already traversed several great corridors when a great open door
stood before us. I looked in, and descried, at the top of a double
ladder, the little gnome Knapwurst, whose strange appearance had
struck me the night before.

The hall itself attracted my attention by its imposing aspect. It was
the receptacle of the archives of the house of Nideck, a high, dark,
dusty apartment, with long Gothic windows, reaching from the angle of
the ceiling to within a couple of yards from the floor.

There were collected along spacious shelves, by the care of the old
abbots, not only all the documents, title-deeds, and family genealogies
of the house of Nideck, establishing their rights and their alliances,
and connections with all the great historic families of Germany, but
besides these there were all the chronicles of the Black Forest, the
collected works of the old Minnesinger, and great folio volumes from the
presses of Gutenberg and Faust, entitled to equal veneration on account
of their remarkable history and of the enduring solidity of their
binding. The deep shadows of the groined vaults, their arches divided by