Hochstadt, so named from the elevated nature of its situation, stands on the summit of a mountain, and is raised probably not less than three thousand feet above the level of the sea. It commands a magnificent mountain view, with a much larger scattering both of vegetation and culture, than we had any right to expect. Bleak it doubtless must be, in winter, for just across the valley which dips down from it on the west, are hills whose tops retain their snowy coverings till August; while eastward is an immense plain, undulating here and there, but scarcely broken by the wooded cones that are scattered over it. But in the month of June, when we beheld it, the landscape is exceedingly interesting, and the promise of an abundant harvest was bright. There was nothing, however, either in the town or its vicinity, to detain us longer than the space of time that might be necessary to appease our hunger and rest our limbs: so, between one and two, we paid our bill, took our host's directions, and departed. He told us that if we walked well, we might reach the Iser in an hour and a half, after which we could not be more than an hour and a half removed from Hoen Elbe. Who that has read Campbell's glorious ballad of _Hohenlinden_, would not feel his imagination warmed by the thought of standing even for an hour, on the banks of "Iser rolling rapidly?" Who, likewise, that is acquainted with Sir Humphry Davy's exquisite _Consolations_, and has, as the amiable philosopher had, a true relish for the gentle craft of angling, would not begin to put his rod together as soon as Iser's waters met his view? For my own part, I cannot undertake to say which principle operated with me most powerfully,--whether the romantic associations which Campbell's muse must ever call up, or the more matter-of-fact, but hardly less animated description, which Sir Humphry gives of the capital sport which he had in a stream of the same name; but of this fact I am quite certain, that the hopes of discovering the river behind every eminence, or coming suddenly upon it as I emerged from each successive grove, served to render me, during this hour and a half's progress, proof against the encroachments of weariness. And my wishes were gratified at last. Just after we had obtained a glimpse of what we knew to be the iron foundry at Eisenhammer, we beheld rolling his waters beneath us, the Iser himself, not like the Elbe, in a troubled and dingy stream, nor, after the fashion of most of its tributaries, with a mere thread of silver, but roaring and chafing from pool to pool, or else gathered in a black mass under some huge crag, as if intervals of repose were necessary to the element itself, and it could repose only in darkness. And then when we cast our eyes along the banks,--the sides of magnificent mountains,--feathered from their bases with ancient forests, out of which, from time to time, a bald rock projected, truly we were forced to admit, that to obtain this