The view from the windows next morning was one of life in the extreme.  The principal market-place was directly before the inn, and it appeared as if half the peasants of the grand duchy had assembled there to display their fruits and vegetables.  A market is always a garrulous and noisy place; but when the advantage of speaking German is added to it, the perfection of confusion is obtained.  In all good society, both men and women speak in subdued voices, and there is no need to allude to them; but when one descends a little below the elite, strength of lungs is rather a German failing.[31]

We went to the ruins while the fogs were still floating around the hill-tops.  I was less pleased with this visit than with that of last year, for the surprise was gone, and there was leisure to be critical.  On the whole, these ruins are vast rather than fine, though the parts of the edifice that were built in the Elizabethan taste have the charm of quaintness.  There is also one picturesque tower; but the finest thing certainly is the view from the garden-terrace above.  An American, who remembers the genial soil and climate of his country, must mourn over the want of taste that has left, and still leaves, a great nation (numerically great, at least) ignorant of the enjoyment of those delicious retreats!  As Nelson once said, “want of frigates” would be found written on his heart were he to die, I think “want of gardens” would be found written on mine.  Our cicerone, on this occasion, was a man who had served in America, during the last war, as one of the corps of De Watteville.  He was born in Baden, and says that a large portion of the corps were Germans.  He was in most of the battles of the Niagara, and shook his head gravely when I hinted at the attack on Fort Erie.  According to his account, the corps suffered exceedingly in the campaign of 1814, losing the greater portion of its men.  I asked him how he came to fight us, who had never done him any harm; and he answered that Napoleon had made all Europe soldiers or robbers, and that he had not stopped to examine the question of right.

[Footnote 31:  Until the revolution of 1830, the writer never met but one noisy woman in Paris.  Since that period, however, one hears a little more of the tintamarre of the comptoir.]

We drove up the valley of the Neckar, after a late breakfast, by an excellent road, and through a beautiful country, for the first post or two.  We then diverged from the stream, ascended into a higher portion of undulating country, that gradually became less and less interesting, until, in the end, we all pronounced it the tamest and least inviting region we had yet seen in Europe.  I do not say that the country was particularly sterile, but it was common-place, and offered fewer objects of interest than any other we had yet visited.  Until now, our destination was not settled, though I had almost decided to go to Nuremberg, and thence, by Ratisbonne and the Danube,