Here we took a guide, left the village,
ascended a hill, and now the woods rose up before us in a verdure which
surprised us like a sorcery. The spring had burst forth with the
suddenness of a Russian summer. As we left Gottingen there were buds,
and here and there a tree half green; but here were woods in full
foliage, distinguished from summer only by the exquisite freshness of
their tender green. We entered the wood through a beautiful mossy path;
the moon above us blending with the evening light, and every now and
then a nightingale would invite the others to sing, and some or other
commonly answered, and said, as we suppose, "It is yet somewhat too
early!" for the song was not continued. We came to a square piece of
greenery, completely walled on all four sides by the beeches; again
entered the wood, and having travelled about a mile, emerged from it
into a grand plain--mountains in the distance, but ever by our road the
skirts of the green woods. A very rapid river ran by our side; and now
the nightingales were all singing, and the tender verdure grew paler in
the moonlight, only the smooth parts of the river were still deeply
purpled with the reflections from the fiery light in the west. So
surrounded and so impressed, we arrived at Prele, a dear little cluster
of houses in the middle of a semicircle of woody hills; the area of the
semicircle scarcely broader than the breadth of the village.
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