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306 ascent insensibly to the brow of the mountain, when suddenly the moderate fatigue is recompensed by the revelation of a landscape which takes the eye by storm with its tranquil beauty. Spread out at the foot of the hills lies an oval or nearly circular basin, large enough to form the body of the landscape, and small enough to be easily comprehended in the area of vision, of the same blue as the sky, but somewhat deeper and more delicious where shadows of banks or promontories are cast on it, and reflecting every fleecy cloud; surrounded, save where a band of golden green forms the immediate margin, by wooded hills of the softest outlines, with others behind them in the distance. Directly in front are the cone-topped towers and white-glancing buildings of the abbey, a small object across the lake, and seeming to realise by its position the very luxury of loneliness. Far away to the right and over the nearest hills is an intimation of the bold scenery about the banks of the Ahr, with one grand castle standing sentry on a jutting headland, and beneath, a steep slope covered with budding trees, with out-cropping masses of deep violet-coloured volcanic rocks. It is a scene the more beautiful as so unexpected in these latitudes, and the beholder might well imagine himself standing on the brink of the Lake of Nemi, among the Sabine hills. Italy is also brought to mind by the fact that Laach possesses a cave where the fixed air destroys animal life, as is the case with the Grotto del Cane, near Naples. And all this is within an easy walk of the cockney-ridden Rhine!

The Lake of Laach is the central focus of a volcanic circle which nearly approaches in magnitude that of the higher Eifel. It is 864 feet above the level of the sea, 705 above that of the Rhine at Andernach, and according to an old account of 1674, when it was frozen hard, it was 4,347 ells long, 3,945 broad, and 107 deep. The Counts Palatine had formerly a castle which commanded it on the southern bank, called the Pillenz, or Pfalz, which name denoted the official district of the “Missi Domenici” in the Merovingian times, and had its origin in the Palatium of Trêves. In the tenth century the whole country belonged to the Counts of Hochstaden; half of this, and in particular, half of the lake, was given as a dowry to Matilda, Countess of Hochstaden, who brought it to her husband, Henry I. The Count Palatine Henry II. called himself “Dominus de lacu,” and generally resided with his wife Adelaide at the castle of Laach. By them the abbey was founded, A.D. 1093. This pair had long cherished the wish to found a religious establishment near their sequestered home, and childlessness was added to the ordinary pious motives which influenced so many persons in those days. They were hesitating about the best site, when it is said that one night the whole lake was preternaturally illuminated, and a light brighter than elsewhere rested on one particular spot. This they understood as the