One of the most curious Old Castles I was ever at, was that of Baden. The word “Baden” is German, and signifies “bathing,” and it is here that much bathing takes place. The city is situated in a charming vale, about two leagues from the river Rhine. The Castle is one of the “lions” of those parts; it is situated on a rock, and affords from all sides the most splendid prospect. The road to it is well cut, and made as easy as the nature of the ground will permit; but it was a full hour before Keet (who is one of the best and most courageous of companions) and I reached the place where the wide-spread ruin stands. The rock on which it is placed is many hundred feet above the level of the Rhine; and, being almost in the shape of a sugar-loaf, the panorama is perfect. [Illustration] Keet said his prayers, which he generally does on any painful ascent, and with the pathos of an old Greenwich Pensioner, blessed the steps, the brambles, and the hard stumps that annoyed him. He also performed sundry pious ejaculations to the tyrannical lords of the ancient domain, wishing them in the “abodes of bliss,” with a fervor and pathos truly marvellous. At last, we were shown, amid ruins, a low-browed, dark, shaggy, doleful, savage, ugly-looking archway, at which Keet curled the hair of his upper lip, as did Don Quixote when about to attack the Fulling Mills; while I, like Sancho, stood by, opening the sandwich-box, and the little bottle of very weak liquor, called water, which Keet eyed with great jealousy. We had a fierce-looking man as a guide, with a great black beard, clod-hopping shoes, a long pole with a spike in it—and he had lost his nose, one eye, and all his front teeth! When we came to this ugly-looking gateway, our guide, whom Keet called “Ferocio,” knocked with his spike-stick at the thick walls of the building, and cried out in mournful accents,—“This is the great gigantic gateway of the powerful, puissant, and portentious Castle of Baden; where men were strangled, women were pressed to death, and children were _done for_ in a most sanguinary, blood-thirsty, and barbarous manner. Behold,” said he, in continuation, “the frowning granite that seems to yawn upon you with the sleep of seven centuries. Within these blocks of stone, was the famous ever-to-be-remembered, and never-to-be-forgotten secret tribunal; below it are the secret chambers, the secret prisons, the secret dungeons, and the secret horrors of this unsatisfactory pile of buildings; but, come my friendships, we will go to the within port, and there you shall see all the horrors of the dungeons as it appears by the light of the flambeau. You would like to see the dungeons!—_Gents?_”