and the Inselberg in Thüringen, in the vale of the Bode, in the Hartz, in the lovely valley of Lorsbach, luxuriant with beech and birch, with hills folding in one another like fingers, and the chestnut glades about Cronberg in the Taunus. Where the pine woods begin the sylvan beauty mostly ends, for the pines are not imposing, and they shut out in a tantalising manner the more distant landscape. The village of Eschborn, about half-way between Frankfort and Cronberg, situated where the plain breaks into undulating ground at the foot of the mountains, is memorable for a battle or considerable skirmish in the middle ages, in which the burghers of the Free city, in German phrase, “drew the shorter,” or in plain English, got the worst of it.
On every side of Frankfort are picturesque watch-towers, at a mile or so out of the town, doubtless erected as outposts, or substantial sentry-boxes, which could even stand a short siege, and whence the approach of any enemy likely to be dangerous to the jealous liberty of the city, could be readily telegraphed. The watch-tower at Bockenheim is one of the most remarkable of these, built as an especial compliment to the lords of Cronberg. From its top the fate of the Cronberg expedition would have been watched. What the immediate source of this particular quarrel was does not appear to be known; but in those times neighbours were always supposed to be on bad terms, when they had no special reasons for being on good. Every man was an Arab, the chief distinctions between western and eastern Arabs being that the former lived in castles, while the latter lived in tents; the former made themselves, by means of defensive armour, into a kind of iron nuts with a human kernel to be cracked by maces and battle-axes, while the latter preferred a costume which did not impede their offensive activities, and trusted more to the sharpness than the weight of their weapons. The religion of both chiefly seemed to consist in swearing—in the former case by the Virgin, in the latter by the Prophet. The chronic feud which existed between all neighbours not bound over by special treaty to keep the peace with each other, was peculiarly bitter in the relations between the idle barons and the industrious Free towns, the heavy butterflies and the bees of those days. Such a quarrel may have had but a slight origin; the lord of Cronberg may have trespassed on Frankfort ground
To seek a hound or falcon strayed;
To seek, good faith, a Frankfort maid:
