478 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1818. 



mountains, at a nearly equal dis- 

 tance. We descended delighted 

 with this noble prospect, after 

 having inscribed our names in the 

 travellers' book in the tower, in 

 which we recognized some few of 

 our compatriots. 



From Carlsruhc we made a 

 pleasant excursion to Baden, the 

 capital of the old Margraviate of 

 Baden-Baden — now as fashion- 

 able a place of water-drinking, 

 bathing, and gaming resort in this 

 part of Germany, as Toeplitz, 

 Pyrmont, or Carlsbad, more to 

 the north and east. The last 

 season was unusually brilliant, 

 and boasted among its guests half 

 the crowned heads and grandees 

 of Germany. We hired for the 

 journey a Lohn Ktdsch, an old 

 crazy caleche, tumbling along 

 behind a couple of animals of the 

 true hackney-coach breed, at the 

 true German rate — about a league 

 in an hour ; for these mensurative 

 terms of distance and time so ex- 

 actly correspond in German, that 

 they are synonimes in the lan- 

 guage ; and a league and an hour 

 are both expressed by the phleg- 

 matic stunde. 



Our route to Rastadt crossed 

 the fertile plain of the Rhine, 

 between rows of young fruit trees 

 for five leagues of undeviating, 

 but cheerful formality. Rastadt 

 is a neat town on the river Murg, 

 not without traces of its former 

 consequence, at the residence of 

 the last Margraves of Baden- 

 Baden. The castle, a sort of 

 miniature imitation of that of Ver- 

 sailles, is a formal edifice, with a 

 Belvedere surmounted by a gilt 

 Jupiter, whose flaring limbs were 

 burnished by his friend Phcebus 

 into conspicuous lustre. The God 



holds, however, a decayed sceptre, 

 and looks down on desolate colon- 

 nades and grassy quadrangles 

 which now distinguish the palace 

 of the great hero, the Margrave 

 Louis of Baden, whose exploits 

 against the Turks, live in the 

 traditions of the people and the 

 trophies of the palace. The phy- 

 siognomy and figure of the war- 

 rior, recorded in large portraits 

 in the gallery of the castle, are 

 remarkably striking, though by 

 no means characteristic of his 

 profession; but rather expressive 

 of intellectual superiority and 

 refinement, looking doubly sapient 

 under the flowing wig of the day, 

 and which distinguish him not a 

 little from his moustachio'd and 

 harnessed grandfathers and great 

 uncles around, who all appear 

 better fitted than himself for ran- 

 sacking the haram, and capturing 

 the Bashaw's tails. A large glass 

 case of swords, turbans, embroi- 

 dered saddle-cloths, chemises, and 

 other appendages of eastern state, 

 are shown as testimonies of his 

 prowess; and a picture of a soft 

 eastern beaut}' — the Briseis who 

 graced his spoils. Besides a 

 variety of family pictures, in which 

 the hero and his wife Sybilla (as 

 the housekeeper, according to the 

 stately German idiom, entitled 

 her) are often times repeated, 

 the castle displays a collection of 

 stags' branches, and pictures of 

 forest monsters, killed at a re- 

 corded time and place by this 

 and that Margrave, and the 

 famous Congress saloon. 



The memorable negociations on 

 the politics of Europe, of which 

 it has been the scene, give an 

 interest to this homely white- 

 washed chamber. Here the Prince 



Eugene 



