Near the Prussian frontier was “a castle that stood beetling on a crag above the road,” where smoke actually arose from a beacon-grate that thrust itself out “from a far-front tower.”  Such attractions were not to be passed, and up the winding way over two hundred feet they went, and over the small drawbridge, guarded by one groom and the Dutch growl of a ferocious mastiff.  In walls, towers, queer gap terraces,—­giving lovely glimpses of the Rhine,—­court, outside stairways of iron, fine old Knights’ Hall—­its huge fire-place, and its center droplights of lamps fitted into buckhorns—­and curious armor, Cooper found additional material for his prolific pen.

During the year 1832 Cooper gave “The Heidenmauer, a Rhine Legend,” to the world.  While the book itself is full of mediaeval, Rhine-country charm, of brilliant charge and countercharge, of church and state power, unfortunately for its author in its “Introduction” was this sentence:  “Each hour, as life advances, am I made to see how capricious and vulgar is the immortality conferred by a newspaper.”  This brought upon its writer a whirlwind of caustic criticism in the American papers, and soon became a challenge of battle by one who was to prove himself brave, able, fearless, and right through coming years of hot and bitter strife.  By one of the leading editors the glove was taken up in these words:  “The press has built him up; the press shall pull him down.”  Posterity has forgotten the stirring conflict, but Cooper’s books will never fail to fire the heart and brain of every mother’s son for all time.

In a skiff, spreading a sprit sail, they crossed the Rhine at Bingen by that postmaster’s assurance of “Certainly, as good a ferry as there is in Germany.—­Ja—­Ja—­we do it often.”  Through the Duchy of Nassau they tested its wines from Johannesberg to Wiesbaden.  Then up the Main to Frankfort, on to Darmstadt, and thence to Heidelberg.  It was quite dark when they “crossed the bridge of the Neckar,” but “Notwithstanding the obscurity” wrote Cooper, “we got a glimpse of the proud old ruin overhanging the place, looking grand and sombre in the gloom of night.”  He thought the ruins by daylight “vast, rather than fine” though parts had “the charm of quaintness.”  The “picturesque tower” was noted, adding “but the finest thing certainly is the view from the garden-terrace above.”  Below it, unrolls miles of the beautiful Neckar valley country, through which they drove to Ludwigsburg and on to Stuttgart.  Beyond, appeared a distant view of “a noble ruin” crowning a conical eminence.  This was the Castle of Hohenzollern, “the cradle of the House of Brandenburg” to which a thunderstorm prevented their intended visit.

[Illustration:  HEIDELBERG AND CASTLE.]