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126

DOMESTIC MANNEBS OF TUE HUTSSIANS.

300,000 bottles, but still of little better tlian half the capacityof one of the monster porter-vats of our London brewers.*

At the first glance, this huge cask strikes one like theliull of some unweildy Duteh bärge resting on its Stocks.Upon its bead it bears an escutcheon carved on the staves.A broad staircase runs up alongside of the beam of thevessel, as it were, and leads to the deck-Iike platform withwhich tbe top of the gigantic tun is covered. Here theElector Charles-Theodore (the last princely occupant of theCastle) was wont to assemble the eilte of Ins court, and togive a supper and ball on the completion of the vintage,when it was filled with its river of wine—the annual tributeof the vineyards of the Palatinate.

The history of the Castle is replete with vicissitudes.

Its origin is coeval with the Counts-Palatine themselves,having been founded by the first Pfalzgraves. Otto ofWitteisbach is said to have established his residence atHeidelberg, and made the town the capital of the Palatinate;and his son Lewis IV. of Bavaria (surnamed "the Severe")who was son-in-law to Rudolph of Hapsburg, is thought tohave founded the present Castle, towards the end of the 13thCentury, on being invested with the dignity of Count-Palatine,and Coming into possession of the manor of Heidelberg.

The Elector Rodolph I. added the royal nuptial apartmentsto the Castle, and in them celebrated his marriage with thedaughter of the Emperor Adolphe of Nassau — he whose tombis seen in the Kaiserdom, and who feil at the battle of Speier.

The oldest portion, however, at present standing, was built,

* The Heidelberg Tun is 36 feet long and 24 feet high, and contains250 fudders (800 hogsheads), or precisely 230,000 bottles. A large Londonporter-vat is Said to contain 3000 barreis, of 36 gallons each = 108,000 gallons ;and reckoning 6 bottles to the gallon, 648,000 bottles in all!