Lovers' vows, it is said, are like pie-crusts, made to be broken. So I am sure are the promises of Bohemian washerwomen; at least our linen, which ought to have made its appearance at seven, did not arrive till nearly four hours afterwards, and we were compelled to prolong our halt accordingly. At last, however, the slender, but to us invaluable cargo, made its appearance, though still so imperfectly arranged, that the stockings, being quite wet, we were obliged to sling outside our knapsacks, while the damp shirts were left to dry, as they best might, within. But the precious time which our dilatory laundress had wasted, nothing could recall. We therefore felt ourselves under the necessity of confining our day's operations to the inspection of a hermitage, or einsiedlerstein, near Burgstein, with what was described to us as a short and pleasant walk afterwards, as far as Gabel. We quitted Hayde without regret; and though still foot-sore with yesterday's travel, contrived to reach Burgstein, which is about three English miles distant, between twelve and one o'clock. It is an inconsiderable village, prettily situated under the felsen, or crags, from which it derives its name; and can boast of its schloss, the residence of Graff Kinsky, as yet a child. Like other buildings of the kind which we had passed in our tour, the schloss at Burgstein resembles a manufactory much more than a nobleman's palace; for it stands close to the high road, is roofed over with flaring red tiles, and shows in its dazzling white front a prodigious number of small windows. Connected with it by an avenue of umbrageous planes, which overshadow, perhaps, a couple of hundred yards of road to the rear, is the mausoleum of the late count,--a most ungraceful pile, evidently constructed after the model of an English dove-cot, and like the schloss, shining in all the splendour of white walls and a scarlet covering. But from such objects the traveller soon turns his eyes away, that he may fix them on the bold and isolated crag, the summit of which is crowned by what he naturally mistakes for masonry; but which, on a more minute inspection, he discovers to be, for the most part, the rock itself. There stands what is now described as the Einsiedlerstein,--that is, the stony dwelling of the hermit; a grievous misnomer surely,--for though the last occupant of that dwelling was doubtless a recluse, its original purpose, which for many ages it served, was that of a strong-hold, or castle. And perhaps nowhere, even in Germany, can a more perfect specimen be pointed out of the sort of nest which used, in the dark ages of feuds and forays, to shelter the robber-knights and barons, to whom forays were at once a business and a pastime.