My mother remained several days with us, and as the weather was fine she accompanied us to the neighbouring heights--the Kirschberg, to which, after the peaceful cemetery of the institute was left behind, a zigzag path led; the Kohn, at whose foot rose the Upper House; and the Steiger, from whose base flowed the Schaalbach, and whose summit afforded a view of a great portion of the Thuringian mountains.
We older pupils afterwards had a tall tower erected there as a monument to Barop, and the prospect from its lofty summit, which is more that a thousand feet high, is magnificent.
Even before the completion of this lookout, the view was one of the most beautiful and widest far or near, and we were treated like most new-comers.

During the ascent our eyes were bandaged, and when the handkerchief was removed a marvellous picture appeared before our astonished gaze.

In the foreground, toward the left, rose the wooded height crowned by the stately ruins of the Blankenburg.

Beyond opened the beautiful leafy bed of the Saale, proudly dominated by the Leuchtenburg.

Before us there was scarcely any barrier to the vision; for behind the nearer ranges of hills one chain of the wooded Thuringian Mountains towered beyond another, and where the horizon seemed to close the grand picture, peak after peak blended with the sky and the clouds, and the light veil of mist floating about them seemed to merge all into an indivisible whole.
I have gazed from this spot into the distance at every hour of the day and season of the year.