MARKSBURG.

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lows-tree in less " romantic " times; while many of tlie ancientcounts — those fine old f'amilies from whom the modern " su-perior classes" love to date their extraction—were a mereband of pirates sallying forth from their Castles to plunder themerchant-vessels on their way. Indeed, it would have beenstränge if, in times when might alone was right, those whoruled the others were not the most ferocious and dishonest ofthe whole Community; for, creating nothing themselves, theyand their vassals could subsist merely by plundering the moreindustrious and peaceable, or eise by forcing those whom theyhad subjugated to yield to them, as so-called " rights oftenure," the greater portion of their produce.*

From the " dog-hole" we had to ascend a narrow spiraltube—for staircase it could not be called—hewn in the stone-work of the principal tower, and this was so pitch-dark that itseemed positively as if we were Walking into a wall of solidjet in the thick blackness of the gloom: thus we reached thesmall Square platform on the top of the tall tower itself, and

* " We have before alluded," says Mr. Dunham, in his History of the Ger-manic Empire, " to the predatory habits of the German nobles; and never, per-haps, were they so conspicuous as during the Franconian period (1024-1138).The Castles, which were built on almost every eminence, were garrisoned with menwho were obliged to procure their subsistence from the surrounding country ; eventhe troops in those belonging to the emperors had the same permission ; und theexcesses committed by these Imperial banditti were one of the canses that led tothe frequent revolt of a large province. That the example set by the em-perors was imitated by the inferior lords—that robbers, under the name ofknights, laid waste the surrounding country—and that the professed bandits whoserved a particular Chief were hardly more licentious than the legitimate defendersof the place, are facts that meet us at every stage of history."—P. 177, vol. i.

" Again," the same gentleman says, p. 182, " a knight was, at the end of theeleventh Century, but another word for bandit, and a count or duke, or evenking, the chief of bandits. The only consolation of the sufferers lay in theirbelief of a retributive justice. They held that, after death, every robber-knightwas compelled to wander over the earth enveloped in burning flames ; and super-stition gravely affirmed, that fiery horsemen might be seen by night flyingthrough the gloom of the forest.