240 Baden-Baden. 



you can at first swallow, is presented to you, and you are expected to 

 toss off four or five large tumblers full certainly about as infernal 

 a pastime as one can well imagine. Opposite the "Hell" is a 

 covered arcade, where the "patients" go and walk up and down, 

 at least so I understood, for the poor things perform this penance at 

 five o'clock in the morning, when we happy mortals were safe in 

 bed. There are no less than seventeen springs, which all flow down 

 from the hill at the back of the town. The water is impregnated 

 with alum, salt, and sulphur, and is always beautifully clear. The 

 temperature of the various springs differs from thirty-seven to fifty- 

 four degrees of Reaumur, which is equivalent to from a hundred and 

 fifteen to a hundred and fifty-three degrees Fahrenheit. Great quan- 

 tities of the waters are bottled off and exported to all parts of the 

 world. It is said that the discharge amounts to eleven millions four 

 hundred and twenty thousand gallons per annum. There are a 

 great number of baths in different parts of the town. In fact you 

 find them at nearly all the first hotels ; but those of the Zceringen are 

 considered the best. They consist of about twenty nice little rooms, 

 each containing a marble bath, a table, chair, slippers, footboard, and 

 looking-glass. A certain quantity of water is always kept ready 

 cooled in large reservoirs, so that you can have a bath at a moment's 

 notice. The price is forty kreuzers (about thirteen pence). I forgot 

 to mention that at the "hell" the vapour is collected by some 

 physical process, and used in the shape of vapour baths. 



Not far from the mouth of the springs is the church, built on the 

 site of some Roman ruins, probably baths. It contains no object of 

 importance, except the tombs of the margraves of Baden. Turning 

 to the right, on leaving the church, you ascend a steep winding hill, 

 and if you are enterprising enough to go on, you may pass a pump^ 

 coast a long high wall, and immediately on your right you behold 

 the "new castle," so called in opposition to the " AltSchloss," or old 

 castle, which towers above it. The new castle is the Baden residence 

 of the grand-dukes ; and from its name, one might be led to expect 

 that it was quite a modern erection ; but this juvenile building was 

 erected in 1479 by the Margrave Christopher, who, according to 

 Schoepflinus, * 4 after the peace of Worms, left the strong holds his 

 ancestors had inhabited for upwards of four hundred years, and built 

 a. new palace at the foot of the hill, near the baths." Its great 

 attractions are the subterranean apartments, supposed to be the coun- 

 cil-rooms and prisons of the " Heilige Vehme," or secret tribunal. 

 These vaults have been so often and so fully described, that it would 

 be in vain for me to try to add any thing on that subject. Suffice it 

 to say, that we were escorted to the " Oubliette," " la chambre de la 

 question/' and " la salle du conseil," by a black-eyed girl, so graphi- 

 cally described by Mrs. Trollope ; and that, in addition to this, we 

 had to thank the dreary dungeons of the " new Schloss" for the 

 acquaintance of a fair countrywoman, whose black eyes .and raven 

 locks far surpassed those of the lively Alsatian. 



I must now, Mr. Editor, bid you adieu for the present ; but should 

 you think this wandering epistle worthy of insertion in your excellent 

 Magazine, which no doubt finds its way even to Baden, I shall be 

 happy, on another occasion, to conclude my "attempt'' to describe 

 that enchanting spot. Yours, &c. VIATOR. 



