The Park in Muskau 165 



also reserved for the Herrschaft, and from which 

 the whole tableau of the crowd enjoying them- 

 selves below may be viewed just as one may 

 choose without coming into closer contact. The 

 village of Kobeln on the outskirts ot the park 

 spreads out behind this animated foreground, and 

 remains in harmony with the character of the 

 whole. In the middle of the village a small bell- 

 tow^er was erected, to announce daily the approach 

 of dusk. The lovers of the idyllic can now with 

 delight watch the shepherds driving their Hocks 

 home over the plain, and the laborers, after their 

 day's work is done, hastening home with song at 

 the welcome sound of the bell. 



The whole district, with a few walks in the 

 bushes, which in spring are alive with nightin- 

 gales, is fenced with a trellis of rough branches, 

 and treated as a "pleasure-ground" not so care- 

 fully laid out. (See Plate XXVI for the aspect it 

 presents, and Plate XXVII for the view from it.) 



The road which we now follow leads from the 

 English house, gently ascending to the highest 

 point of the chain of hills. First there are views 

 of the Gobelin colony [bb'^ and the wide flat 

 surrounding it ; later on they lose themselves in 

 the woods where only here and there a nar- 

 row glimpse is afforded of the " Riesengebirge," 

 which assumes an increasingly solemn and silent 

 character, till one reaches the eminence in the 

 **Burg" precinct, where is placed a lonelv statue 

 of the Holy Virgin, this sweetest and mildest em- 

 blem of the Christian religion, and farther on the 



