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to be transported to the Federal fortress of Mainz. Had we been brought there, our fate would have been sealed.

The sentimental, nay, even the humorous element, which is seldom wanting in tragic events, also played its part in two cases at Frankenthal. The Director's daughter, a good, sweet girl, when gathering vegetables or flowers in the garden, each time made a little nosegay, and, looking kindly through the bars of my cell, silently placed it on the window sill for me, as a token of sympathy. The turnkey, knowing well who brought these floral gifts, never questioned me about them. Nor did the Director, when I took such a bouquet with me into the courtyard. The cell of Friederike, I must here explain, was on the second story. It had its outlook upon the courtyard and upon an opposite building in which officials resided. That building had a gallery with creepers and other foliage round it, which in that autumn had turned into splendid purple-red and golden colours.

As the Director had latterly let me walk about in the courtyard by myself, quite alone, I once espied such an opportunity. Seeing Friederike look down from her window, I put a few lines of encouragement, which I had written, into the nosegay, and threw it up towards her window. Before doing so, I gave her

Ι to understand by signs that I conveyed a message.

She caught the flowers, read the message, and rapidly secreted the paper, when in rushed a turnkey. He, after all, had seen, unobserved by me, that I had thrown a bouquet. Still, he was unaware of its concealed contents. Though fumbling about it, he did not find anything.

From that day the supervision of my walks in the courtyard was stricter. Occasionally, I had to be there with the common criminals, when a warder of specially grim and malicious aspect kept watch, in whom hatred of the human kind was written in every lineament of the face.

Early in November, after a more than two months' imprisonment, Friederike was released; the case against her being judicially dismissed. I was then put into another cell, this time with a young peasant who was charged with some minor offence. It was the cell from which Dr. Siebenpfeiffer, a distinguished patriotic leader in the thirties, had escaped in 1833. He had been accused of high treason on account of his participation in the great mass meeting at Hambach, but declared not guilty by the jury at Landau. Nevertheless he was kept in prison under pretence of his having committed some other political offence against officials. Under that charge he was condemned by judges nominated by the government, before a Tribunal of Correctional Police, to two years' imprisonment! Such were the devices then of tyrannical kingship. Dr. Siebenpfeiffer made his escape, however, through the chimney. He reached Switzerland safely, where he received an appointment as Professor at the University of Berne. The chimney was thereupon so altered that escape through it became impossible.

In conversation with the Director I was told now that my case would, no doubt, come before the Assizes at Zweibrücken. mentally prepared myself for that eventuality, being resolved upon speaking before the jury in such manner as to place the Royal Government, and all German kingship, in the position of the rightfully accused as enemies of the freedom and union of the German nation. Such attack, I fancied, would be the best defence; and perchance I would carry the jury with me.

Great was my astonishment when one morning I was informed that the Chamber of Accusation had dismissed my case, too. I scarcely trusted my ears. I could only explain it, partly from strong sympathy with Liberal aspirations among the judicial body itself; partly—and most probably, in a higher degree—from a fear of Government lest the trial at Zweibrücken should, as in the case of Dr. Siebenpfeiffer and Dr. Wirth, end in a verdict of not guilty. Such an issue would certainly have been a public scandal—that is to say, for the authority of Government. volutionary spirit was already vaguely abroad; and such a scandal had to be avoided by all means.

Thus, strangely enough, I also became free in November. Having made a present of a book of poetry to the Director's amiable daughter, with a dedication, and given a substantial gratification to a warder who had proved very kind, I took a carriage and drove to Mannheim, where I arrived late at night at my father's house.

Great was the astonishment there when I so unexpectedly appeared. I then learnt that, after I had been arrested in the Palatinate, an order had been given in Baden to search his house. So ridiculously severe was the search that linen lying in a bucking tub was turned out, in order to see whether revolutionary pamphlets and such like things were not concealed in it. A very likely place indeed! Shortly before leaving Mannheim for Dürkheim, I had, however, deposited all my belongings and manuscripts

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in the rooms of the friend who had given me Heinzen's pamphlets. This the police did not know.

Thinking of the possibility of a renewed domiciliary visit, I, in a fit of anger, destroyed all my manuscripts in the flames of the stove. Among them were a great number of poems of my school and University days. Many years afterwards, in the seventies, I learnt from one of my best University friends, the poet Ludwig Eichrodt, who occupied the post of a judge under the Grand Ducal Government, that he had preserved some of those early productions, and published several of them, without my knowledge, in his Hortus Deliciarum and in the Lahrer Kommersbuch for students. Others he gave, later on, in an anthology, entitled Gold. The responsibility for all this I must leave to him.

The three months imprisonment had by no means cooled my zeal. An address to the Swiss Diet, as a congratulation for the victorious overthrow of the Sonderbund, was drawn up by me, and sent to Berne with numerous signatures. At the request of the editor of the Mannheimer Abendzeitung, the influential organ of the popular party, I went to Karlsruhe, where the Chambers were about to meet, there to edit a Parliamentary Gazette' as a supplement, and to write commentaries on the course of affairs. In this way I became acquainted with all the chief leaders of the Opposition.

Soon I was to learn that a new sword of Damocles had been suspended over my head. An inquest was instituted against me on account of a speech I had made in summer, before the arrest, in Rhenish Bavaria, at Heppenheim, during a festival of gymnastic associations. I had spoken there in an intimate circle, recommending our secret pamphlet propaganda, for which a small league of men had latterly met, at stated times, in the very town where the Federal Diet of Germany sat-namely, at Frankfort-on-theMain. That league was wholly composed of trusty friends, true as steel. At Heppenheim the circle had been widened a little; and there, manifestly, a traitor and informer had slipped in. However, the outbreak of the Revolution in March 1848 quashed this new prosecution for high treason. And now events followed with the rapidity of thunder and lightning, which presently cast the old state of things into the dust.

KARL BLIND.

OUR RIDE THROUGH RUPSHU.

BEING LEAVES FROM A LADY'S DIARY,

WE had spent three weeks in Leh, in the Ladakh country, at a height of 11,500 feet. We had seen the great Lamasery at Himis, and the wonderful devil dances, and, rarest sight of all, we had been admitted to the sacred treasure-room, which had not been opened for nine years. And now we were about to return to India. We had come to Leh, the other memsahib and I, on ponies by way of Srinagar; but we meant to go back to Simla by the higher route, through Rupshu.

Two of our men, on hearing that we intended to take the route to Simla over passes of 17,000 and 18,000 feet, came to us weeping and imploring to be sent back to Kashmir, as they would die on the road. So we let them go, and began to look for others. We were dismayed to find that we could get no one to undertake the journey; and difficulties also arose as to the transport, the owners of pack-ponies absolutely refusing to let their animals go over this route. At last a man was found who condescended to allow his ponies to go as far as Gaya, three marches from Leh, but no further.

Rakman, a Chinaman, volunteered to go, and the Naib Wazir engaged Gunho, an old Ladakhi, to accompany us, as he knew the route. After much persuasion another Ladakhi was induced to come, so our complement of men was made up to seven. We had one tent for the servants, and the other memsahib and I had each a separate tent, mine being an eighty-pound Kabul tent, with double fly and porch, which I bought at Pindi. Our furniture consisted of a camp bed, a tin wash-basin which fitted into a folding wooden tripod, and a chair; some cooking pots, knives, forks, and plates completed the list of our possessions.'

For those who intend to make an expedition into the highlands of Ladakh let me recommend them not to take copper degchis' (cooking pots), which have to be coated with 'kalai'-a kind of white solder, which wears off very quickly, and copper poisoning ensues. It is impossible to have them re-soldered after leaving Srinagar, and block tin ones-or, still better, aluminium-are absolutely

When the merchant from Srinagar arrived, we got what provisions we could from him, bought several maunds of grain for the ponies, and made all arrangements for the journey.

I was full of regrets at leaving Leh, for the spell of Central Asia had fallen upon me.

I often wished that I could prolong the summer months and spend more time in this fantastic country ; but we had planned to go still further east, and we had a long march in front of us.

On July 4, everything being ready, we sent our camp on early, that we might have the luxury, for the last time, of finding our tents up and dinner ready on our arrival at the campingground. Then we spent the day with our kind friends, who gave us two civilised meals, which, they jeeringly assured us, would be the last that we should have for many a long day. When the sun began to get lower, we bade farewell to the Moravian missionaries, who had been most kind and helpful to us in our preparations for the journey, and, accompanied by the Joint Commissioner and old Gunho the Ladakhi, we started out of Leh on the four-hundred-mile ride to Simla. As we passed through the long street or bazaar little groups of natives had assembled to stare at the two memsahibs who were going to ride through Rupshu alone.

Passing the numerous Chortens and long rows of Manis which stand outside the town, we followed the stony track down to within a mile of the Indus, and, keeping along by the right bank, we arrived at the village of Tikzay just as the light was fading. At first I thought that my eyesight was affected by the terrific glare in Ladakh, for I could not see any tents. But no; it was too horrible to believe—the camping-ground was empty. It was clear that the bearer had bade a too affectionate farewell to the chang and opium of Leh, and had taken our men and pack-ponies to Chushot, on the left bank of the Indus. It was now too late to march the twenty miles which lay between us and our camp; and here we were, stranded at over 12,000 feet, without tents, bedding, food, or wraps—an unpleasant predicament in a country where it freezes every night, even in summer.

The only one of the men with us was Gunho, and we could only communicate with him by means of signs, so it was fortunate

necessary. Then, as to drink at these high altitudes, tea (hot and cold) only is required. Stimulants of any kind are unnecessary, and even deleterious. We carried some whisky with us, but it was never opened.

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