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west wing, or that facing thc upper part of the Neckar, is themost remarkable oF all the buildlngs for the exquisite tasteof its design and the richness of its architectural embellish-ments. It is in the best Italian style, called " cinque cento"and of the noblest proportions, having been designed, it issaid, by Michael Angelo. Here the doorway is a choicebit of beauty, with its caryatides and embossed entablature,and the Windows are finely pedimented and elaborately frettedwith decorations; whilst the niches which indent the wallsare filled with statues of the heroes of mythology and ancienthistory, both profane and sacred,— Hercules, Mars, Nero,Samson, Venus, Joshua, Brutus, &c, being ranged one besidethe other in a curious historic and mythic medley.

At the south-eastern corner of the Castle, and at theend of the broad walk by which we first entered the ground,is seen the split tower, that was undermined and blown up bythe French (der gesprengte Thurrn). This originally formedone of the bastions of the Castle, and was 70 odd feet indiameter and 150 feet high ; but the walls were so massive andthe masonry so sound, that though the tower was split down,and a " vertical section," as it were, made of its construction bythe explosion of the powder—leaving the vaulted casemates ofthe interior exposed to view—the enormous fragment, insteadof crumbling to pieces, merely slid down into the moat belowin one solid mass, where it still remains inclined against thewall like a huge splinter of rock, with the fir-trees sproutingfrom its embrasures and crevices, and the wild thicket that hassprung up in the dry moat half hiding it from view.

Almost at the cross corner to the " Sprung Tower," thatis to say, at the north-western part of the building, there isa cave beside the English Palace, containing the enormousHeidelberg Tun — which is the largest wine-cask in theworld, and capable of holding 800 hogsheads, or very nearly