* * * * *
We afterwards ascended another hill, from the top of which a large plain
opened before us with villages. A little village, Neuhoff, lay at the
foot of it: we reached it, and then turned up through a valley on the
left hand. The hills on both sides the valley were prettily wooded, and
a rapid lively river ran through it. So we went for about two miles, and
almost at the end of the valley, or rather of its first turning, we
found the village of Lauterberg. Just at the entrance of the village,
two streams come out from two deep and woody coombs, close by each
other, meet, and run into a third deep woody coomb opposite; before you
a wild hill, which seems the end and barrier of the valley; on the right
hand, low hills, now green with corn, and now wooded; and on the left a
most majestic hill indeed--the effect of whose simple outline painting
could not give, and how poor a thing are words! We pass through this
neat little town--the majestic hill on the left hand soaring over the
houses, and at every interspace you see the whole of it--its beeches,
its firs, its rocks, its scattered cottages, and the one neat little
pastor's house at the foot, embosomed in fruit-trees all in blossom, the
noisy coomb-brook dashing close by it. We leave the valley, or rather,
the first turning on the left, following a stream; and so the vale winds
on, the river still at the foot of the woody hills, with every now and
then other smaller valleys on right and left crossing our vale, and ever
before you the woody hills running like groves one into another.
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