IBRARY THE UNIVERSITY OF CAL IFORNIA SANTA BARBARA ^ .igs^sy'ijaBifc '> v^%f^~:^Kfcv >>>T^i^ Tyr?l MCSB . * ("> /Tr T- ^ :L-I xi i /B ;r ( j' THE RHINE ILLUSTRATED BY BIRKET FOSTER. DESCRIBED BY HENRY MAYHEW. ROTTERDAM TO MAYENCE. LONDON: DAVID BOGUE, FLEET STREET; H. MANDEYILLE, PARIS; BANGS, BROTHER, AND CO., NEW YORK. MDCCCLVI. LONDON : Priiitcd by G. BARCLAY, Castlo St. Leicester Sq. CONTENTS. I. ROTTERDAM 1. TlIE RIVER-ROADWAYS AND SEA-WALLS OF HOLLAND AND A TRIP IN THE AQUATIC OMNIBUS ... 9 '-1. THE STORY OF THE CITY BENEATH THE WATERS OF THE ZUIDER /EE . .... 24 3. THE DUTCH SHOPS, MARKETS, AND MARKET-FOLK . 29 II. COLOGNE . . . . 44 1. COLONTA AGRIPPINA THE " GERMAN ROME " . . 50 i 2. THE MEDI.F.VAL " HOLY CITY" WITH ITS BISHOP- PRINCES AND PATRICIAN MERCHANTS . . (53 :3. STORY OF THE MYSTERIOUS DOM BUILDER ... 68 j 4. THE DoM-KiRciiE " UNFINISHED AND UNKNOWN '' . 77 5. THE CHURCH OF SKULLS ...... 88 0. CULONIA FARINA THE MODERN COLONY OF THE MARIA- FARINAS 100 III. BONN 1. THE MUMMY MONKS OF KREUZBERG V i CONTENTS. PAGE IV. TIIK KILINK PORTAL . . 137 I. 'I'm; PitAriiENFELs A NIGHT AT THE MOUNTAIN " GASTHOF ".....,. 144 1. SUNRISE AT THE DRACHENFELS .... 153 ->. THE STORY OK THE DRAGON'S ROCK . . . 161 '1. RoLANDS-EcK AND NONNEN-WERTH .... 170 *' 1. THE STORY OK ROLAND AND HILDEGUND . .172 V. THE LOWER RHINE GORGE, FROM ROLANDSECK TO ANDERNACH . . . . . . . . .183 VI. THE RHINE PLAINS, FROM ANDERNACH TO COBLENZ . 199 VII. THE PRl'SSIAN RHINE CAPITAL. COBLENZ AND ElIRENBREITSTEIN . . . . . . .215 1. TIIK "BULWARK OF GERMANY" AND THE "RHENISH GIBRALTAR" . . . 224 VIII. THE RHINE SLOPES . . 241 1. Tin; MODERN MOUNTAIN-PALACE STOLZENFELS . 246 2. THE MEDL-KVAL STRONGHOLD MARKSBURG . . 251 5 3. THE BROTHER CASTLES LIEBENSTEIN AND STERNFELS 270 IX. THE TPPER RHINE GORGE . 289 1. THE LURLKI PASS . ... 291 r . I. THE ECHO AND RAFTS AT LURLEI . 307 2. THE STORY OF THE SIREN OF THE LURLEI . . 320 ? 2. THE CASTELLATED RHINE PASS . . .33] I. THE ROBBKR-CASTLES FROM " MOUSE" TO PFALZ 347 * !. Till. PiOBBKR-CASTLES KROM PFALZ TO llATTO's TOWER 372 N. THE RHINE VINEYARDS 384 LIST OF PLATES, jfrom xlruUnugs bp J)irhct poster I. II. III. SUBJECTS. MAYENCE .... (Frnntispua:) ROLAXDSECK BRACIIENFELS (VkmcW-) . COLOGNE E. A. E ENGRAVERS. I. ROBERTS WILLMORE I ROBERTS PAGE 45 IV. BONN .... T. A. PKIOR 118 V. THE SEVEN MOUNTAINS S. BRADSHAW 137 VI. ANDERNACH E. BRAXDARD 199 VII. EHRENBREITSTEIN E I. ROBERTS . 22G VIII. STOLZENFELS ..... E. I. ROBERTS . 241 IX. CASTLE OF MARKSBURG E. 1. ROBERTS . 258 X. IJEBENSTEIN ..... E. I. ROBERTS . 274 XI. RHEINFELS ST..GOAR A. WILLMORF. 293 XII. ST. GOARBIAUSEN .... S. BRADSHAW 290 XIII. RHEINSTEIN A. WILLMORE 298 XIV. THE LURLEI ROCKS .... A. WILLMORK 305 XV. CASTLE OF THURNBERG, OR " THE .MOUSE " T. A. PRIOR 351 XVI. OBERWESEL .... A. \VIT,LMORE 354 XVII. PFALK CAUB GUTENFELS S. 15RADSHAW 304 XVIII. HACHARACU ...*.. T. A. PRIOR 372 XIX. EHRENFELS HATTO's TOWER 1HNGEX A. Wri.T.MORE 381 XX. ELFELD E. I. ROBERTS . 384 ENGRATED UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF MR. E. T. RORERTK. THE RHINE. ROTTERDAM. "HERE'S Rotterdam!" cry the English passengers on board the " AMICITIA" (from Antwerp), as they bob down into the " pavilion" one after another to collect their cloaks, shawls, carpet-bags, and bright red guide-books. The ladies they have been aboard all night are smooth- ing their hair and arranging their bonnets before the mirrors on either side of the cabin, and the little laughing golden- haired girl has just run in her eyes twinkling with delight at the end of the long voyage to fetch the pretty pet squirrel that she has brought with her in a bright wire salad-basket. The deck is all bustle and litter with the boxes and port- manteaus that are being lifted from the hold ; and on many of these you can trace the history of their travels by the series of little railway labels that arc stuck over them, like turnpike- tickets round a waggoner's hat. At the head of the vessel are grouped those who have never visited Holland before, watching every new object that the steamer brings into sight as it ploughs through the river " jMaas" (Meuse), turning up the water on either side of it B 2 ItOTTEllUAM : like so much snow. Among them stands the young Dutch soklicT \\lio c:une on board in a little boat, off Zealand, habited in his loose prussian-blue great-coat, with the broad white belt crossed over his bosom, and he is telling the strangers the names of all the places by the way. The banks on either side of the river are low as the Essex marshes, and the interminable meadows flat and green as the tops of so many billiard-tables. The muddy shore on the left is matted Avith tall rushes, and behind these are seen the club-like stems of the stunted willows, with their twigs growing in a tuft at the top, and their white under- leaves brushed up by the breeze, till there seems to be a dewy bloom upon them; Avhile the opposite bank is covered with huge ship-building sheds, that look like monster NCAV- foundland-dog-kennels. Within their large black archways, dusked by the shadow of the sloping roofs, you see, as you pass, the shell of some new iron steamer, its keel above the ground, and Avith the plates of its dark hull striped vermilion at the seams, till it is chequered all over with red, like Scotch plaid; and as the boat goes palpitating on towards its journey's end, you catch the clank of a hundred hammers beating at the metal sides, like the ring of a gong for the swarming of a hive. This is " Fijnoord" the largest engineering establishment and steamboat building- yard in Holland; and you can tell by the many funnels that peep above the bank like huge weather-beaten trunks lopped of their boughs how busy and extensive a place it is. "That row of trees there, with the windmill aboA'e them," suvs the steward, pointing to the opposite bank, "is the New Plantation, and that man-of-war before them the guard-ship. The long red-brick building yonder, at the end of the trees, Avith the bare masts of the ships showing behind, is what Avas ITS TOWN. 3 once the Arsenal, but it is now no longer used for that purpose." The steamer rounds the corner of the river, and then the town of Rotterdam of which before you saw onlv the spires bristling above the opposite shore suddenly bursts upon the sight. As you behold the forest of masts and funnels beside the quay, and the trees in front of the houses at the water's edge, and the church steeples and towers, and the chapel turrets, peeping over the cluster of red roofs, you cannot help fancying you have seen it all before. This roAv of tall, narrow houses, rising straight up out of the water, reminds you strongly of the whitebait taverns beside the river at Greenwich : and that long line of old- fashioned-looking red-bricked dwellings a little farther on, with the bushy-looking trees in front of them, almost at the water's edge, suggest vivid reminiscences of Chcvne Walk, Chelsea though here the place is termed the " Boompjes; " while yonder tall white club-house, which is seen at the extreme end of the town looking up the river, you could declare were it not for the Eddystone-Lighthouse-like wind- mills beside it you had beheld many a time at Blackwall or Gravesend. Again, the two ships in the course of con- struction on the low marshy bank opposite the town, with their hulls among the grass and trees and one with its ribs all bare, like the skeleton of a huge wicker-basket bring to mind similar sights that you remember to have noticed somewhere O i/ about the Isle of Dogs. The crowd of steamers, too, hustled together alongside the quay, with their dark, thick funnels, crowded close as tree-stems in a wood, appear quite of a piece with the Custom-House Quay on the Thames; while the masts of the ships at the back of the houses, peering above the tiles, seem to be a veritable bit of the London Docks. 4 ROTTERDAM : The Antwerp boat is at length at her " lirjplaats" as the Hollanders call the mooring-placc ; and then the vessel is immediately hoarded by a host of custom-house officers and hotel commissioners, but who, together with the group of porters and idlers on the shore above, have nothing foreign in their appearance neither beards, nor peculiar-peaked caps, nor full trowsers by which to distinguish the crowd from that of a landing at Folkestone. The only official that reminds you of being in a strange country, is the policeman who stands on the quay beside the gangway-plank; though even he, habited in his bright green surtout, with metal buttons, resembles one of our own park-keepers more than a continental gens- (Varmc. The huge brass plate, however, which he wears at the front of his hat after the fashion of a London sweep and the stick he carries, with a knob to it like a huge billiard- ball, are sufficiently remarkable to rivet the attention for a time. The walk down the Boompjes little distance as it is to the New Bath Hotel, (our " loyement" as the Dutch call it,) has, to an observant eye, distinctive marks enough about it to impress it vividly on the memory. As you proceed along the broad avenued way, what a strange mixture it seems of the Boulevards and the Thames ! the long line of trees set beside the road the shipping, with the masts and tangled rigging peeping between the branches. The hoiises along the planted quay are solid-looking, red- bricked buildings, with heavy stone copings, such as you see in some of the antiquated streets of London, more especi- ally Great Ormond Street, where the houses are strangely Dutch in their character. In Holland, however, the house- fronts are scarlet, from the bricks having been recently ITS HOUSES. " pointed ;" the stonework as white as porcelain, with its fresh coat of paint; and the windows so exquisitely clean, that there seems to lie nothing between you and the white curtains behind them. Then the two little mirrors that stand, wedge-like, outside every window by the way, so that the inmates may have a view of the street without, are too striking a feature to be missed ; for there is not a house you pass but has its one or two of these glistening prisms before the window-panes, telling you of the domesticity of the people within. You know by these mirrors that the greater part of the Dutch folks' lives is passed at home, and that, unlike the French, the Hollanders are an in- door nation rather than a race living at restaurants and lolling on hired chairs in the open air. Over the two mirrors, however, you occasionally observe a third, at such an angle that a full view of the doorstep below is presented to the eyes in the sitting-room above ; so that if the two larger mirrors gave you pleasant notions of homely lives and simple manners, how different the story that this third, sly little tell-tale, looking-glass whispers to the mind ! You think of the poor relations who have been turned from the door for there must be such folk in Holland, and they are as irksome, doubtlessly, to Dutch pride as pride in any other part of the world; you think that the lady wishes to be "out" until her toilette is duly arranged; you think that even she simple Hollander as she is has learnt to believe that her home duties are mean and unladylike, and that she is admirable only when tricked out in the last Parisian fashions. It was morning when we landed, and the servants were still busy cleaning the handsome blue "millstone" steps that stand in front of almost every doorway on the quay. The tall street-doors were ajar, so that you could just get a peep G ROTTERDAM. at the exquisitely' dean hulls within, with their white marble pavements and richly-corniced ceilings, looking so snowy that they seemed like plaster of Paris models rather than human habitations; yon could see, too, the holland-covered stairs at the end, without a speck upon them, and with their wide brass bands of stair-rods, shining in the sun like strips of burnished gold. Then the maids themselves were as clean as the houses they tended; their close caps were white as the walls, while the ample apron, which they wore tied tight around their dress, was as spotless as a charity-girl's. How different from the slatterns who are generally seen at the same early hour, with their hits of dirty black net over their fuzzy hair, hearth- stoning the doorsteps of London ! We import a number of foreign commodities now-a-days to add to the comforts of the well-to-do among us, but assuredly, of all the articles of conti- nental produce, none could be more advantageously shipped into our own country than a cargo of these same cleanlv J o / Dutch housemaids. " That girl yonder scouring away at the brass knocker," said we to our companion, as we walked along to the hotel, " is a prodigy of cleanliness, from the close white border of her cap down to her equally white wooden shoes. Just stop, for a minute, to look at the little box by her side in which she keeps her rotten-stone. See ! the wood of it is scrubbed as clean with sea-sand as her own sabots, and the little bits of brass at the corners are as bright as new sovereigns." We had scarcely finished admiring the neatness of this maid before we were forced by the fountain of water pro- jected against the windows of one of the houses in our path to direct our attention to another girl, who stood out in the road pumping the jet, against the house. " There never were such people!" we exclaimed: "why CLEANLINESS OF THE SERVANT-GIRLS. 7 that maid, looks as though she had been just sent home from the wash ; her hair is as smooth and glossy as a coach- panel; her cheeks as red and shiny as apples ; and though her skirt is of black stuff, you can discover, as she stoops, that her under-linen is white as driven snow ! Look, too, the long y ' O brass syringe that she is working is polished like a piece of golden dinner-plate, and even the copper hoops of the pail in which it stands are rubbed up as bright as if they had been burnished!" Again, at a little distance from this girl, there stood two others, under the trees, with short canes in their hands, one at either side of what appeared to be a pair of bright-green steps, but which, on closer examination, proved a special appar- atus for beating the stair-carpets. Affixed to each side was a large trough, and in one of these the roll of carpet, as it came from the stairs, was placed, while the end was passed over a roller at the top to the opposite maid ; so that as the first girl reeled the carpet off, and half beat it on the one side, the second drew it over the roller and beat it thoroughly on the other side; and when the latter had caned every particle of dust from it, she rolled it up once more, and placed it tidily in the trough before her. We stood for some little time gazing at the ingenuity of the apparatus, and the remarkable nicety of the plan told us how wonderfully clean and neat the people mast be, when even their instruments for cleansing are thus carefully con- structed. A week's residence in Paris, where dust-pans are seldom seen, and the sweepings of chambers are carried away in cloths, or el.-e brushed into the fire-place which in summer does dutv as a dust-hole will make you rub your hands as you rejoice that your own country-people are a far more cleanly race than the -French. 8 UOTTEKUAM. But, go to Holland, and witness the painstaking thereto remove all dirt and dust from the house in which you live, and you will soon see how much your own nation has to learn as regards the homeliest and purest of all the virtues ; and then, if you think as we do, you will acknowledge that it would he much bettor if, instead of going to Paris to learn French manners, some of our ladies made a trip to Holland to study Dutch cleanliness. The hotel is the same cleanly place as the houses you have already had a peep at. The long hall, as you enter it, looks as white and cool as a dairy, and the marble you walk upon is almost like a pavement of alabaster. The rooms have no longer bare bees'-waxed floors, with the legs of the tables and chairs reflected coldly in them, as with " la nation la plan cirilisee" as the French delight to call themselves ; but here you once more enjoy the cosy comfort of a carpet, and as your foot sinks in the soft pile, you feel you can walk your chamber without fear of sliding on to your back. The bedsteads, too, are 110 longer sunk, French fashion, in a hole in the wall, like a tomb; but the canopies that droop over them tent-like, together with the bedding itself, are of such a snowy whiteness that you feel, at the first sight of i/ t- O them, agreeably assured of a good night's rest. Further, the living at a Dutch hotel, though partly English and partly French in its character, has sufficient peculiarities about it to enable you to take another lesson in geography from the dishes; for here stewed pears are served at dinner with the roast chicken or veal, while Dutch cheese, with cakes like rusks, is an invariable accompani- ment of the breakfast-table. The tea-kettle, too, no longer stands with its spirit-lamp under it among the tea-things, but is now placed in a machine like a vertical coal-scuttle on THE KIVEH-ROADWAYS AND SEA-WALLS. 9 the floor by your side, and there kept boiling by means of an earthenware box of red-hot peat inclosed within it. In other parts of Holland, however, you will meet with still greater gastronomical oddities; sometimes you will get French beans sprinkled with nutmeg and sweetened with sugar, and vermicelli soup made with eggs ; while at luncheon you will occasionally find the rusks and white-looking cheese served up with a small dish of aniseed sugar-plums. 1- TlIE RIVER-ROADWAYS AND SEA-WALLS OF HOLLAND and a trip in the Aquatic Omnibus. But, as yet, we have seen no more of the town than the Boompjes the avenued quay at which we landed ; so, as soon as our bath and repast are ended, we hasten to take a peep at the " Havens," which lie at the back of the quay itself, and which constitute the principal characteristic of a Dutch town. The havens are a series of canals or long tanks, cut down the middle of broad streets, and were they wider so as to be more like "basins "than enormous gutters as they are the crowd of craft with which they are covered would make you fancy that Rotterdam was situate in the heart of St. Katherine's Docks. As you turn from the quay into one of the little streets leading to the " SCIIEEPJIAKJ^JS HAVEN," you see a row of light-haired German emigrants seated on benches, outside the small beer-houses that have merely little green kegs nailed, as signs, to their door-posts. The women are without 10 KOTTKKIUM. caps or bonnets, with their liair tidily plaited up, and are knitting in the sun ; while the men, who are smoking china- bowled pipes, have cow-hide knapsacks at their backs, and bright new tin cans littered on the stones at their feet. At the end of the street the drawbridge that crosses the Haven is seen, with the halves of its parted platform slanting, like the sides of some steep roof, up high in the air, and with the mast-head and little red flag of the passing vessel showing just above. There is a crowd of people waiting to cross the bridge immediately it descends, and as you hear the winch click again, and see the broad erect gang- wav gradually sink, the boys, together with the most im- patient of the throng, mount it while it is still high above the quay, and jump across, even while there is a wide gap between the divided planks, with the water showing far down below. The flaps are no sooner joined, and the traffic able to be resumed, than the horses' shoes which are made like pattens, so as to bite upon the wood in crossing the many bridges clatter with a hollow sound, as the animal drags the silent sledge, laden with bags of rice, over the Haven. Let us pause for awhile upon the bridge, and look down the watery roadway that here does duty for a street. The masts on either side of the stream, or rather pool, stand up as thick as rushes, and the hulls of the vessels are nearly all of that peculiar Dutch build which reminds one so forcibly of an enormous wooden shoe. Their sides are pic- turesquely brown and shiny, and have quaint boards, like huge fins, projecting midwr.v from them. The sun sparkles again upon their polished beams. The large green- tipped rudders curl above the stern, like the crests of hel- mets, and their rich-coloured tanned sails, that are, here THE HAVEN ITS SHIPPING. 1 1 and there, loosened to dry, drape and fall, in graceful folds, about the yellow, greasy-looking masts. How prettily the white smoke there rises like a cloud of snow before the wind from the narrow funnel of the little raised green cabin, filming over, as with a bloom, the objects behind it! Yonder is a woman busy washing at one of the sterns, while her little plump-limbed girl is playing, like a kid, along the roof of the only home that, perhaps, she has ever known. "May she never know a worse !" we inwardly exclaimed; for the tidy white curtains showing at each cabin-window, and the bright red-leaded flower-pots, with the geraniums blooming in them, ranged along the cabin-top, tell vou that, unpleasant as such a life may appear to us, still Dutch care and cleanliness can convert even a berth on a canal-boat into a place of comfort aye, and doubtless to those who pass all their days in it of fond and happy associations. Some of the leatherv-lookinff vessels are lying with their / O ,' O heads to the quay-side their bowsprits tilted almost straight up in the air, so as to avoid projecting over the thorough- fare and the bits of polished brass about their sterns shine in the sunlight as if they were on fire. The shadows of the masts and dangling sails chequer the roadway beside the canal, and rock and play to and fro upon the pavement, with every little commotion in the Haven. The surface of the water is crumpled with each passing breeze or boat ; and as the ripples run along, the reflections of the masts are thrown into a thousand wavy lines, till they seem like so many serpents diving deep down into the pool. A fine wedge-like shadow comes slanting down from the house-tops next the Maas, a:id reaches half across the canal. It hangs like a veil of dusk between the eye and the distance, throwing a film of darkened air over every object that it falls upon. Beside the nearest landing-stage a heavv barge is i O O v *-- 1 2 ROTTERDAM : moored, and over the hold of this there swings a huge cask, while on the deck are seen in exquisite "clear-obscure" the blue-and-red-shirted sailors swaying at the tackle, and the porters on the little jetty beside straining every nerve as they try to pull the bulky barrel towards them. On the opposite side of the canal the storehouses are half hidden by the trees; and high above the green and sun- lighted tops of these, you see the figures of men leaning out of some of the upper wareroom doors, and guiding the rope that hangs from the projecting crane just above their heads. Below, between the tree-stems, you catch sight of the forms of the passers-by and the bale-laden carts twinkling in the sun-light as they go ; and along the narrow plank that con- nects one of the craft with the quay, a string of spectral porters, clad in white from head to foot, flit backwards and forwards to the " pack-house," with sacks of flour oil their backs. Now look down the Haven itself through the vista of tall masts, tipped with their many-coloured flags, and see what a length it appears! How narrow, too, seems the strip of water that forms the highway between the craft ! You would fancy there was scarcely room for a canoe to travel; and yet how easily that little row-boat, towing the bulky Dutch barge after it, threads its way down amidst the close-packed vessels, dimpling the stream with the plying of its oars, and scooping up the water at every stroke, till you can see it dripping from the blades like jewels in the sunlight! Turn the eye towards the other end of the Haven, and the scene is almost the same; for there you find a like medley of water and roadway of masts and trees of bridges and warehouses. The other havens and the town is cut into a hundred islands with them are all kindred in character. The ITS BRIDGES AND CANALS. 1 3 bridges, however, form the main points of distinction among the network of canals that seem to entangle the wanderer at every turn. Many of them stand up like a huge pair of rude scale-beams, and have thick chains hanging from each of the heavy wooden levers that slant above them. Some, however, consist of a high stone archway, with a long trap-door across the roadway on top, and only just wide enough to allow the mast-head of a passing vessel to glide through. A few, on the other hand, resemble the old draw- bridges occasionally seen across the moats of fortified towns ; others again, which span the smaller streams, are built high up in the air, and have somewhat the look of little clumsy Rialtos ; while there are still others which are so low that they have mere brick vaults under them, and these are barely high enough for a punt to pass beneath, so that their black arcs seem more like the entrances to coal-cellars than the arches of a bridge. Moreover, in the less busy canals, as the "Steiger" where the houses stand immediately in the water, you see large wooden balconies, like big chests, shored tip against the wall and set with shrubs and flowers. Then on the banks of the "Cinyel," which almost surrounds the triangular town like a moat, there are square patches of garden run out on piles, with the willows growing at their edges slanting over the stream, and the foliage hanging down into the water in long dis- hevelled tresses, like some mermaid's hair; while in other parts the canals are skirted with tall windmills, whose sides are grey with the thatch of reeds, and built, as it were, on the roof of the miller's house below, that, with its little garden beside it, seems like some narrow island towering out of the water. In almost every quarter, too, the banks are set with little square ledges, that have steps descending to the pool, and on these you invariably observe some good-wife, 14 KOTIKHDAM: down on her knees, with a bundle of twisted wet clothes by her side, and leaning far over, as she rinses the white linen in the water below. Further, many of the public buildings are erected upon the canals themselves. The Corn Market, for instance, stands over the water of the "Kolk" and looks not unlike one of the Parisian floating-baths that are built upon barges on the Seine. Then the little Clothes Market, at the end of the " HoOGSTRAAT," is constructed over a pair of gigantic canal locks, at one end of which stands the long water-gauge, marking the height of the tide outside the crates, and recording how in o o * o the year 1825 it was within a few inches of inundating the whole of the town and country on the other side of the dyke. The Exchange, again, is situate at one corner of the pool termed the " Bla.ak," between the Old and the " LEUVE HAVEN " the waters of the Cingel glide in front of the New Hospital the Steiger flows under the " GREAT MARKET " the Courts of Justice look out upon the Delft Canal the principal street is built on the long dyke, or water-dam, which protects the surrounding country from the horrors of flood and the palace in which the great Napoleon so- journed stands, as we are told, on no fewer than 730 sunken Norwegian firs, to ensure it a firm foundation. Indeed the whole town of Rotterdam is but an artificial Polynesia a city where every parish is an island, and al- most every public building a peninsula; where the houses have been thrown up, like coral reefs, by a thousand busy workers in the water; where the cathedrals, and the " Statehouses," and the dwellings, are buoyed on a forest of pine-trees above the almost-liquid earth; where the gardens are planted on jetties; and even the soil, in which the trees are rooted and the flowers bloom, itself an exotic, that has been brought miles, particle by particle as it were, by the ITS PUBLIC BUILDINGS. 15 industrious ant-like people, who have heaped up the mounds and dykes as fortress-walls against the invading sea; until what was once a spongy swamp has been converted into a solid city a commercial Venice, whose liquid streets bristle with countless masts, and amid whose chimney-pots wave flags, tinted with " colours " from every quarter of the globe. In the country, too, the rivers form the principal road- ways, the same as in the towns canals and "s/oofo"' stretching, from village to village, as do the highways and byeways of other nations, and the " Trekschuit" or tow-boat, being, as it were, the Holland diligence. This aquatic vehicle consists of a long canal-boat, with a low raised cabin, extending from one end to the other, and divided off, near the stern, into what is called the " Roef" a little saloon for the first-class passengers, and the " Ruim" which occupies nearly the whole length of the vessel for the second-class ; though even the people who travel first- class in these canal omnibuses are not particularly remark- able for the refinement of their manners : so that, should a lady venture a voyage in one of them, she must be prepared to "rough it." The mode of travelling (provided you can obtain a seat in the only breathing-place the small open space at the stern and have no particular ob- jection to the tiller wriggling at your elbow every minute, and provided, more especially, that you are blessed with the patience of the phlegmatic Job himself, so that you * The fields in Holland are divided by " Sloois," or Ditches, instead of fences. These are used i,ot only to mark off the possessions of one farmer from another, hut as the means of transporting in punts the produce or stock of the farm to a distance, as \vell as of supplying water to the cattle grazing in the meadows. The Dut.-h :-lr.<)ts, therefore, serve at once as ]>;iundaries and roads to the agriculturists, while they aho act as drains to the land ; so that hedges, though they might be more picturesque, would be far less serviceable than ditches there. 1 () ROTTERDAM. can bear seeing, without having the fidgets, the end- loss string of poplars that line the banks crawl past you, at the rate of three miles an hour, for half a day,) is, under sncli conditions., not particularly unpleasant. We tried it, and fancy we can lay our hand upon our heart and say, without vanity, that we Lore the tantalization like a mild inartvr. For the first five minutes, the utter absence of all sense of motion, the freedom from the joltings and tossings, by which we usually know that we are going on, was abso- lutely delightful, as well from the ease as from the novelty of the sensation ; and having once navigated the smoke of London in a balloon, the trekschuit reminded us faintly of the feelings we then experienced, from the seeming still- ness of the locomotive machine, and the impossibility of knowing whether we were moving or not, excepting, in the latter case, by bits of paper thrown out from the car. Nevertheless, the journey in the trekschuit at last became so tedious and monotonous, that we suffered the same agony of impatience as a schoolboy does while sitting out the performance of " GEORGE BARNWELL" previous to the pantomime on a " Boxing-night." So, when our intellects had been made dizzy by the long-continued prospect of the same wearisome Dutch landscape, and the hearse-like pace at which we were moving, we diverted ourselves with the childish pastime of watching the reflections of the objects on the banks, and found them multiplied by the ripples from the boat as it pushed aside the stream ; nor were we a little amused to see the various images in the canal ren- dered erect by a second reflection from the waves, and appearing positively as if they were the objects themselves moving along under the water.* * The manifold reflections thus produced are very peculiar, and have not, that the author is aware of, been noticed by any optical writer. The rays falling REFLECTIONS IN THE STREAM. 1 7 Presently there passed us four dogs in a team, towing a small barge laden with hay ; and a picturesque sight it was to watch the brown figures of the labouring mastiffs with their black muzzles go by, painted in the water their paws twinkling as if imaged on the glass of some brilliant camera. Then came another tow-boat, with a woman harnessed to it ; and her bending form, too, was seen in the stream, pressing against the wide leathern belt strapped across her chest, with the tight rope stretching from it far behind, and mirrored in the flood bright-coloured as the picture on some cathedral upon the stream are reflected, not only directly to the eye, so as to form the ordinary inverted image seen on the water, but also indirectly, by a second reflection coming from the side of the wave nearest the first. Thus the second image appears erect, and underneath the ordinary one. This wave, however, in its turn, reflects rays to the wave next to it, and that again reflects them to the eye ; so that thus a third image is produced below the second, but inverted like the first. Each wave, therefore, produces a separate image, every other one of which appears erect, and all the rest inverted as usual. As the waves flow past the object, the images thus produced are seen to run one into the other ; so that the lower part of the inverted image joins, and ultimately blends, with the upper part of the erect one beneath it. These phenomena would seem to afford a simpler explanation of the inverted and erect images of ships occa- sionally seen in the air. The generally received theory supposes the rays pro- ducing the inverted image to have crossed before entering the eye, and the aerial images themselves to have been produced directly by some extraordinary refractive power in the atmosphere. The author, however, would suggest, that the aerial images may, probably, arise from an extraordinary refraction rather of the rays reflected from the surface of the water than those proceeding directly from the vessel ; for this would easily account for the lower aerial image appearing inverted, and the upper one erect, as generally observed. Indeed it is evident, that if, while in the trekschuit, the images from the water had been extraordinarily refracted, so as to have seemed to have entered the eye from above rather than below, we should have seen them in the air instead of the water itself ; so that the first image, in that case, would have appeared inverted, and the second erect. The author is acquainted with Dr. Wollaston's experiment, illustrative of the inversion of objects by strata of unequal densities, but thinks the trekschuit theory more feasible, as it is only with objects on the water that the aerial images produced by extraordinary refraction appear both inverted and erect. The aerial image of Dover Cattle, for instance, as seen by Dr. Vince, was beheld only in an erect position. C 1 8 ROTTERDAM. window. Next ;i merchant's carnage appeared, as if running alono- under the water,, with the figures of its two coal-black horses (such as are seen in our mourning-coaches) bright as jet in the stream, and the wheels looking misty as they went twirling past. Tired, at length, of peering into the pool, we sought to while away the longest hours we ever passed in all our lives, by noting the peculiarities of the Dutch villas which beskirt the banks of the " Sc/tie " at frequent intervals, and give it, here and there, somewhat the look of the Regent's Canal. These villas are culled " /K.S&S," or pleasure-houses, and are built in that metropolitan-rustic style which prevails about Peckham Rye and Clapham Park ; though the architecture of the Dutch domiciles is hardly so ornate as that order which has been aptly termed the " florid Cockney." The buildings are mostly affectations of the humility of the cottage, combined with attempts at the grandeur of the park mansion. The lawns in front are about the si/e of table-covers, and mown so close that they appear as sleek and glossy as a footman's green plush breeches. The gardens are set out with flowers of the most gaudy hues, arranged in grotesque forms, not unlike a harlequin's jacket : and they have usually a pair of iron gates placed beside the house, through which you can see the lozenges of blood-red dahlias, and stars of yellow rosette- like hollyhocks, and pyramids of bright red-leaded flower- pots. At the end of the tiny grounds is perched the indis- pensable wooden "zomerhuis" (summer-house), built in the bathing-machine style of architecture, and raised high, so as to command- a view of the canal and neighbouring road- way. Often, too, the house itself is reached by a little bridge placed across the ditch, which stagnates in front of it, and which is generally so green with duck-weed that it seems as if covered with a thick crop of mustard and cress. BOAT-LIFE IN HOLLAND. 19 The stranger, bored with the wearisomeness of the journey in the trekschu.it, is glad to occupy himself by translating the names, or mottoes, inscribed over the gateways of the Dutch suburban retreats, and some of these are too odd to be for- gotten. One Batavian bourgeois paints up over his threshold, " MIJN GENEGENHEID is TOLDAAN " (Anylice, My desire is satis- fied). Another retired merchant has printed in large letters, at the entrance to his villa, " HET VERMAAK is IN 'T HOVENIEREN " (There is pleasure in gardening). A third contented citizen placards his door-posts with " NIET zoo KWAALIJK" (Not so bad). And a fourth adorns his gates with a painting of two hams, commemorating (with a truly Dutch love of a good bargain) the not-particularly-praiseworthy fact of his ancestors having purchased the property for a couple of legs of salt pork. This occurred during the famine, at the time of the invasion of the country by the Spaniards, when the previous proprietor was induced to part with the house and grounds for the means of saving the lives of his starving family. Before quitting the subject of the canals we may add that, during our stay in Rotterdam, we went aboard one of the stationary barges, to have a peep at that curious boat-life which is to be met with onlv in Holland, where many prefer living in vessels to houses; so that, when they have grown tired of their residence in one part of the country, they can unmoor their habitations and anchor their homes in some other town, without fear of any demand for ground- rent. These aquatic gipsies generally consist of persons who have only sufficient money to purchase an old barge. One of the class whom we saw had been a small trades- man, and ruined, according to his own account, by giving too much credit. He had devoted the last twenty pounds 20 ROTTERDAM. lie had in the world to buying the floating residence he occupied, and subsisted by selling mats, which he and his family made on board. The canal-home was a peculiar one, indeed. It consisted of a bed-room and sitting-room, that could be entered only by crawling on the knees; and yet the tidy carpets on the floors, and the white curtains before the windows, with the geraniums blooming on the ledge behind them, and the snowy counterpaned bed, and the slung book-shelves with the little library hanging against the ship- sides, all gave an air of comfort ; so that, even though the place looked more like a doll's house than a human habi- tation, it did not require much experience to know that there are many worse dwellings in the world, and many a harder life to be endured, than that in a Dutch canal-boat. But the river-roads and streets are not the most peculiar, though perhaps the most striking, feature of Holland. If we could ascend hio;h enough in a balloon to narrow the whole of O O the Netherlands into a mere span, the country would seem like a spider's web with its many threads of water ; though, at the same time, we should see it almost like a tiny fortress hemmed in by a ring of rampart walls against its great ocean enemy without. These sea-bulwarks are what are termed the dykes, and along their tops run the roads of the country and the streets of the towns. The High Street of Rotterdam, for instance, stands upon one of these, and the highway to the village of Scheidam is merely a continuation of the same embankment. The dykes, at first sight, strike the beholder as no extra- ordinary work, and it is not until we find that a considerable part of the country of Holland lies some 24 feet beneath the level of the sea at high tide, and that it has merely a fence of mud-banks to fortify the land against the terrors of invasion THE DYKES. 21 from the host of waters about it, that the mind becomes awakened to the vastness and importance of the structures.* Nor is it in summer time, when the surrounding rivers are half-dried up and the ocean without is placid and beautiful as some vast lake, that we are able to arrive at a sense of the protection afforded by the belt of sea-walls to the people within them but only during the tempests of winter, when the terrible waves are towering to the sky, like liquid moun- tains, and the tide has risen many feet above its usual height, owing to the immense body of water from the Atlantic having been driven by the gales across the German Ocean towards the narrow Straits of Dover, and there being dammed up as it were, so that the vast flood is forced back upon the Dutch coast, and leans, with all its stupendous weight, against the ridge of dykes around the Nether-country. It is at such times, indeed, that we learn how much property and how many lives depend upon the strength of these same ocean-bulwarks. It is fearfully interesting then to walk at the foot of one of the great dykes, and to hear the heavy waves beating, like so many battering-rams, against the outer side of the mud wall, and to know by the noise that the ocean is already some twenty feet above the headf to find watchmen posted day and night * The gross sum annually expended throughout Holland for the repairs of the dykes and regulations of the water-levels amounts to more than half a million of pounds sterling. + The dykes are sometimes 40 feet high, and their foundation, which is gene- rally of clay, is from 120 to 150 feet in width. The dyke itself is composed of clay if not entirely, at least on the outside and the interior filled with a mixture of earth, clay, and sand. The face of the dyke is thatched, as it were, with willow twigs, interlaced into a kind of wicker-work, the interstices of which are filled with puddled clay. This wicker-work lasts but a few years, so that, as it requires to be repeatedly renewed, a number of willows have to be grown in Holland for the purpose. The base of the dyke is generally protected by masonry, and strengthened by large heaps of stones and rows of piles ; while the summit is mostly planted with trees, because their roots are found to bind the soil firmly together. 22 ROTTERDAM. along the threatened line of coast, noting the rising of the tide and ready to give instantaneous warning of the slightest sign of weakness in the Lank to see the " Water-Staat" staff of engineers stationed round the shores, with their companies of workmen and temporary magazines, stocked with every imple- ment and material, so as to be able to make good the least defect at a moment's notice and then, m&ybe, as the waters rise and rise without, till they threaten to flow over the bul- wark, to hear the alarm bell in the neighbouring villages fill the air with its terrifying peals, and behold all the workmen and peasants hastening to the spot, so as to run tip another rampart on top of the old one, before the flood has time to reach tne summit of the first. At such a time it is marvellous, we were told, to see with what rapidity the work proceeds ; for they pile up the clay, and drive in the stakes, and "puddle " the wicker-work fences for dear life for the sake of their homes and all that they possess or care for in the world. It is a race between the height of the embankment and the height of the tide a struggle between life and death and every one engaged at the work knows, that if the imprisoned flood only surmount the dyke, so as to flow over it, the ruin of the whole country is inevitable ; for not a soul is labouring there but has heard O from his father or grandfather before him how some such calamity, years ago, buried hundreds of villages and thousands * ' *, ' o o of people for ever beneath the waters. Such a sight, we were assured, was witnessed on the 1st of February, 1825. That was a day of terrible anxiety through- out Holland, and at Amsterdam in particular; for the tide had mounted far above its usual level, so that, had the sea con- tinued to rise a quarter of an hour longer, the dyke must have been overflowed, and perhaps have given way, from the enormous pressure upon it, while the country for miles round FEABFUL INUNDATIONS. 23 would have suffered a most calamitous inundation. Fortu- nately, however, at the very moment when the danger was the most urgent, the ocean ceased rising, and thus the immense pressure was immediately diminished by the receding of the waters from the sea-wall. It is a matter of common occurrence, however, for the places that lie outside the dykes to he flooded at the time of the autumnal equinox, and then the people have to go in boats to the market-place of Rotterdam, while at the farm-houses alongside the river the inmates are driven up to the attics for shelter, and the cattle have to be housed in floating barges. The most fearful inundation, perhaps, upon record, is that which occurred on April 14th, 1446, at the village Dordrecht, through the breaking down of the dykes no less than 72 villages and 100,000 people having been then engulfed in the flood. The vast body of water called the Zuider Zee owes its origin to a similar calamity, for the greater part of the space no\v occupied by that arm of the ocean is known to have been dry land down to the thirteenth century. Before that period there were merely two freshwater lakes existing at the spot, but the action of the waters gradually destroyed the tract of country between them; and in 1170, during a great flood, the southern lake rose to the gates of Utrecht, and became permanently extended over a much larger area. For upwards of 200 years from that time the lake continued to increase in size, " swallowing up whole forests and many acres of land, so that large ships could be navigated where carriages used formerly to travel." At last, in 1396, the fresh water entirely disappeared ; the islands now existing were cut off from the main land, and the ancient lake of the Zuider Zee became converted into an arm of the German Ocean. There are many traditions existing i:i Holland concerning 24 ROTTERDAM. these inundations, and the sudden disappearance of once flourishing cities ; but perhaps there is none among them more beautiful than that which we here subjoin. 2. THE STORY OF THE CITY BENEATH THE WATERS OF THE ZUIDER ZEE. More than six hundred years ago, Stavoren ranked among the principal commercial towns of Holland. Its merchant- ships covered the seas, and brought back to its secure harbour the world's richest products, so that its vast commerce raised the prosperity of the city to a height before unknown. Although there were poof to be found in Stavoren, as in all other towns, still the rich far surpassed them in number. Dissipation, voluptuousness, and luxury, however the inva- riable consequences of exceeding wealth prevailed among the merchants of Stavoren. Silly pride and ruinous rivalry made the wealthy endeavour to surpass one another in the magni- ficence of their houses, and in the sumptuousness of their banquets. The legend tells us that many of the merchant-dwellings were like palaces, being built of white marble, with the interior of the apartments artistically sculptured and hung with the richest stuffs, while the furniture was most rare and costly, and that even the very doors were ornamented with the precious metals. But none of the wealthy of Stavoren could compare their riches with those of the young Richberta. The merchant fleets of this damsel sailed to the most distant ports, and A LEGEND. 25 returned each time freighted with the most valuable cargoes o o such as pearls and precious stones ; and with these she loved to ornament her palace until its walls dazzled the eye with their brilliance. Richberta, however, did not know how to be happy with all her wealth. Her pride increased with the growth of her treasures and this was shown in her neglect and ill-treatment of those less prosperous than herself. She indulged her vanity in giving magnificent entertainments to the burgomasters and merchant-princes of Stavoren ; and she did this, not for any real pleasure it afforded her, but to astonish her guests by the ever-growing splendour of her palace, and the costliness of her banquets. During one of these luxurious festivals, Richberta was informed that a stranger from distant lands begged admittance at her gates. He had visited, she was told, the courts of many kings, and had come expressly to admire the marvellous riches for which she was renowned. Richberta felt flattered, and ordered that the stranger should enter and take his seat by her side. The old man, who was habited in the picturescnie costume of the East, approached the damsel, expecting to receive at her hands the customary symbols of welcome bread and salt. At Richberta's splendid board, however, bending with its load of luxury, the simple food of the poor was banished. The stranger took his seat in silence. After a while he began to speak of his travels by sea and land, and told of far- off people of his own adventures, joys, and misfortunes of the evanescence of earthly things, and the fickleness of human happiness. With the exception of Richberta, all lent a willing ear to the old man's discourse. She, however, expected that he would have spoken in admiration of the richness and splendour 20 ROTTERDAM. of her banquet ; but not a word did lie utter thereupon, until urged by Richberta herself, and then the stranger confessed that he had never seen such magnificence anywhere not even at the courts of the Eastern, kings. Nevertheless, he found that there was one precious thing missing at her board and " that one," he added, "was the best and most valuable among all the earth's gifts." In vain did Richberta beg to be told the name and nature of this most valuable possession, for the stranger evaded her inquiries, and at length, Avhen she became so importunate that it was impossible to avoid giving her a direct answer, he withdrew, and was never seen afterwards. Richberta's pride and curiosity were now excited to the highest point. She could no longer rest. She possessed almost every precious object for which the human tongue had a name nearly all the treasures that the earth or sea poured forth and yet she lacked that which was more precious than any. She consulted philosophers and divines, to ascertain what this could be ; but not one among them could name a O valuable that did not already belong to her. In her overweening desire to obtain this extraordinary treasure, Richberta sent messengers by land and ships by sea, at the same time forbidding any to return without bringing her some precious object that was not yet numbered among her riches. The commander of the fleet set sail upon his difficult mission, undetermined as to whither he should direct his vessels. lie sent one division of the fleet to the east and another to the west, to explore the most distant seas, while his own ship he left to the hazard of the winds, so that it might be driven whithersoever fortune ordained. Now Richberta had directed that the vessels should be " victualled " for several years, so that they need not return A LEGEND. 27 till they had ransacked every corner of the earth for the precious gift she lacked. The commander's ship was there- fore laden, like the rest, almost to the water's edge with i^s ample store of provisions consequently, in the first storm it encountered, the waves dashed over the deck with fearful fury, staving in the hatches, and half filling the hold with water. Nor was it until a considerable part of the stock of food had been cast into the ocean that the vessel could be made to ride through the waves with any buoyancy. The ship's store of provisions was thus greatly decreased, while even that which remained had been so wetted by the sea, that in a few days after the tempest had abated, it was found that the flour and biscuit had begun to rot and decom- pose. To use them in such a state was to hazard the outbreak of a pestilence, so that every cask of bread-stuff had to be flung, like the others, into the waves. It Avas in this disaster that the commander began to see the meaning of the words the stranger had pronounced at Richberta's table, and to understand, when he beheld his crew ravaged with the leprosy of scurvy, what was the best and most valuable among all the gifts of the earth. It was not spices nor perfumes from the far Indies nor pearls from the beds of the sea nor gold from the deep mines in the mountains ; no, it was the most simple product of nature that which flourished under every climate which was indis- pensable inestimable which strengthened and renovated in a word, it was " JJread." The commander's resolution was soon formed, and he set sail for a port in the Baltic, where he took in a cargo of corn and returned with it immediately to Stavoren. Immediately he arrived he presented himself to Richberta, who was amazed to see him home so soon. The delighted commander announced to her that, lie had found the most 28 ROTTERDAM. prec-ious of worldly possessions, and that he had laden his ship almost to the gunwale with it. He then recounted to his overjoyed mistress the way in which he had made the discovery, telling her that during the sutt'erino-s of his crew after the storm he had learnt that the t7 greatest treasure upon earth was bread the food which the stranger had found wanting at her table. Richberta cast an angry look at the commander, and, almost choking with passion, asked him at which side of the ship he had taken in the corn. " At the right side," replied he. " Well, then," she cried, " I order you to throw the whole cargo from the left side into the sea." In vain did the commander remonstrate against this terrible order in vain did he appeal to Richberta's heart, and implore her not to destroy the precious gift of Providence, but to use it as a means of soothing the misery of the poor families around her in vain, too, did he send the barefooted children of the city to soften her nature. For in the presence of the starving creatures Richberta had the ample store of corn that would have fed them every one the winter through cast into the waters, amid the lamentations and curses of the people. The sea received the precious cargo, but the grains became the seeds of perdition, germinating and growing in the ocean bed ; for they were continually being covered there by fresh layers of soil, so that at length a forest of stalks without ears grew and grew until like the_ madrepores and coral workers they reached the surface of the water. The ever-agitated quicksand at the bottom of the sea was thus held fast and bound together by the spreading roots and hedge of stalks, and so it eventually formed an immense bank before the town of Stavoren that no human power could destroy. The numerous vessels of the city, among which were those THE DUTCH SHOPS. 29 of Richberta herself, could now no longer enter their once secure harbour, for the impassable sand-bank blocked up the mouth of it, and over this dashed the furious breakers, bat- tering to splinters many a stout ship that was borne among them. Adieu, then, to the commerce and wealth of Stavoren ! Richberta's riches and pride were soon changed to want and humiliation ; for her ships were wrecked one after another on the sand-bank that she had raised, and herself reduced to beg, in the streets of Stavoren, the bread which she had cast into the sea. Finally the ocean, pent up and driven back by the huge bank which had thus accumulated at the harbour mouth, dashed with continually increasing fury against the mound of roots and soil ; until, during the terrors of one stormy night, it burst through the dyke that Richberta, in the wickedness of her arrogance, had raised overwhelmed the town beat down its foundations and buried the city for ever in a watery abyss. The waves of the Zuider Zee now flow where once stood Stavoren, and the mariner, whilst sailing over the ancient site, sees with terror, to this day, the church spires and palace pinnacles of the engulfed city the " Verdronken Land" as it is called. 3. THE DUTCH Snors, MARKETS, AND MARKET-FOLK. To obtain a rapid and comprehensive view of the in- habitants in any strange town, there is no spot like the market-place, for thither the people swarm, not only from every quarter of the city, but from the country round about ; 30 ROTTERDAM. so that you see the peculiarities of the folk for miles distant focused, as it were, into one motley group. We are off, therefore, the first market morning after our arrival, to the " G ROUTE MARKT," while the dust-cart is still in the streets; for scarcely is our foot off the door-step before we catch sight of the long yellow " Asch-kar" creeping lazily along the quay. The dustman, who is habited in a leathern jockev's cap, with a peak behind as well as before, and is many shades less grimy-looking than his London brethren, carries a large wooden rattle, like a watchman's, in his hand, which he springs now and then, as he goes along, to give notice of his approach to the maids who have not yet placed their box of ashes on the door-step ; while the boy who ac- companies him runs forward to ring each house-bell by the way, so that the servants may be ready to take in the ash- box as soon as emptied. Along the streets, at almost every turn, we meet trucks drawn by dogs, and laden with huge, brass, Etruscan-shaped jugs, that are filled with the morning's milk, the metal, as usual, glittering bright as a soldier's helmet, and the white wooden stoppers to the unwieldy cans showing above them, as big as skittles. Then as we round the corner, we are agreeably startled with the sound of the first street organ that has saluted our ears since our arrival ; for it is only on market days that the quiet and not-particularly-musical Dutch allow their " silent highways " to be disturbed by any such strains. Presently the baker's polished oaken truck hurries past us, and as it runs by, the brilliancy of the brass clamps, which ornament its every corner, sets us wondering at the inordinate xeal of the Dutch for rotten stone. Next you observe, through the wire blinds of the barber's quiet shop, that has nothing to mark the trade but two bright brass cymbals dangling over the door, the white lathered chins of the early customers; and THE GROOTE MARE.T. 31 the moment afterwards you encounter tlie tidy, white-capped country-girl, with her brass-tipped yoke on her shoulders, and the brown baskets which dangle from either end piled high with fresh-looking fruit and vegetables. The servant-girls are busy at the street-doors in their white sabots, sluicing the bricken pavement in front of the houses for the trottoirs in Holland are set with long, narrow bricks, in the manner of an English scullery, and, from continual scrubbing, have scarcely a bit of mould left between the cracks; while some of the maids are seen inside the high halls, through the open doors, with their carpet-slippers on, standing on tiptoe, and with a long broom like a grenadier's cap set on a pole busily sweeping the dust from the white cornices of the ceiling. The ground-floors, which serve as " Kantoors" (counting- houses) to all the private residences along the quays, are with- out a soul at the tall desks, which peep from behind the windows; and as you traverse the streets at the back, or rather between, the several havens, you notice for there is little to distract the attention now placards here and there, pasted on boards that project from the sides of the houses like little tavern signs, and with the following announcements printed upon them: " HIEK is EEX PAKIIUIS IE HUUII" (Here is a storehouse to let) ; or, " HET BOVENIIUIS is IE IIUUR" (The upper part of this house is to let). As we cross the broad and level stone-bridge leading to the " Beurs" (Bourse), the chimes of the Exchange clock mark the hour by jangling a tune that we can just recognise as the market-chorus from " Masaniello ; " and as we stop on the bridge to look up at the clock-turret, it seems to have as many bells in it as a railway hotel. Then, early as the hour is for the shutters of the " FKAXSCHE KOFFIJIIUIS" (French coffee-house) are not yet down a funeral procession is seen 32 ROTTERDAM. advancing slowly towards us, it being the custom with the tradesfolk of Rotterdam to bury their dead early in the morn- ing; the gentry, however, defer the ceremony till the middle of the day. At the head of the train stalk two of the under- taker's men, tricked out in black cocked-hats and knee- breeches, and looking not unlike a couple of sheriffs' footmen in mourning, excepting that they have scarves at their backs which reach from their collars to their heels. Immediately after these creeps the open hearse, with its ghastly ornaments of a black skull and crossbones at each corner of the canopy, and the palled coffin showing beneath, curtained with the sombre drapery. The two horses are caparisoned in black velvet, so that their bodies are completely hidden their dark covering fitting tightly, as a racer's stable-suit, over their necks and ears; and these are driven by a coachman, who looks, in his black cloak and enormous broad-brimmed felt- hat, as if he were some horrible functionary belonging to the Spanish Inquisition. Near the Market-place the shops are all astir. Some of these, which have over their doorways round wooden signs like grindstones, on which is painted " BOTER EN KAAS" (butter and cheese), smell strong as guano-ships as you go by. Others have fixed above their entrance a liuee carved and O coloured Turk's head, with the mouth wide open, and a violent expression of disgust thrown into every feature, as indicative that drugs are sold within; this, with the word " APOTHEEK," is here the only ostensible sign of the chemists' trade, the monster bottles filled with bright green and red liquids being absent from the windows, and the railway- signal-like lamp nowhere to be seen above the doorway. Farther on, the Lottery-shop arrests your attention, the windows stuck all over with bills like a house-agent's office ; nor can you avoid noticing the hardware shops, their THE GROOTE MABKT. 33 " fronts " yellow with the many kinds of brass pots and pans displayed within them : for the articles which are usually made of tin or zinc with us, are, in Holland, invariably formed of " cuicre jaime" as the French style it. Here are brass dust-pans and brass slop-pails ; coffee-pots with brass spouts, and lids, and handles ; and huge brass milk-jugs, and brass tea-kettles, and brass spittoons, and brass soap-boxes ; all telling you that a Dutch housewife will tolerate no pot nor pan in her kitchen that does not admit of being polished every week up to the lustre of gold. The houses approaching the Market-place especially such as are seen across the Kolk are far more peculiar than those nearer the river Maas, for, being narrower, they seem taller, and have a more primitive look, than the dwellings at what is considered the handsomer part of the town. They are al- most all built, too, with their gable-ends facing the water ; and some of these are castellated to the top like a double flight of steps, while others have the gables scolloped in- wards, and others, again, curved like a scroll. Moreover, no two are of the same height, so that the line formed by their roofs undulates with a picturesque irregularity. Then their red fronts peeping out behind the masts and rigging, and the reflection of the white window-sashes quivering here and there in the stream beneath, with the loosened sails of the gutta-percha-coloured vessels screening the bal- conied gardens partly from the sight all serve to render the view across the Kolk from the Groote Markt as new to the stranger as it is pleasing to the artistic eye. Further, from the sinking of the foundations, the walls of some of the houses here lean forward from the rest, breaking up the flat- ness with a variety that is certainly more pictorially beautiful than physically comfortable to contemplate; for the overhanging walls give you a notion that the least jolt would topple the rooms D ,54 ROTTERDAM. beside the water headlong into the flood, and bring the bricks and cliininev-pots of those behind you on the quay rattling about your ears. Indeed, from the shakiness of some of the foundations, wheeled carriages were formerly forbidden to traverse the streets of Holland, and, even now, there seems to be almost as many brewer-like sledges as there are carts travelling along the quays; so that from the traffic being mostly carried on by water, and the greater number of the convey- ances in the streets being without wheels, the ear that has been accustomed to the din of London is startled to find a town so busy, and yet so silent, as Rotterdam. Moreover, in the year 1651, the tower of the " Groote Kerk " (or St. Lawrence Cathedral, as it is termed in English,) was found to slant several feet out of the perpendicular, so that stronff fears were entertained lest the edifice should O get limper and limper underneath, and topple over some wet morning, like a dissolving barley-sugar birdcage at an evening party. The consequence was, that the wooden spire which formerly surmounted the tower, and increased its height some 100 feet beyond what it is at present, had to be taken down, while the foundations were laid bare and strengthened ; and thus the square dumpy turret of the Ca- thedral just peeping yonder above the roofs seems as though it had been broken off short, like the neck of a torso. * * The interiors of the Dutch cathedrals are unlike all others in their hideous ugliness. The reader may, perhaps, be able to conceive the havoc the Quakers would play with the inside of St. Paul's, should it ever fall into their hands for a meeting-house ; and assuredly the Dutch Puritans have gone to work with their white-washing brushes in the same stern hatred of ornament, and transformed the beauty of the ancient Catholic piles throughout Holland into the dreariness of so many cellars. The pillars have been all " lime-whited" the illuminated vaulted roofs painted the colour of lead the stained windows removed for panes of green bottle-glass- the carved oak-work stripped from the walls of the chancel, and its place supplied by rows of shed-like yellow deal pews, surmounted at short intervals with brass chamber candlesticks, which have been polished till every bit of beading has been worn off them. LINENDEAPEBS' SHOPS. 35 At one side of the Market-place stand the two largest linen- draper's shops of Rotterdam, one with tall bronze columns or- namenting the extensive windows, and the other with the shop itself sunk far back, under a portico supported by Ionic stone- pillars. These " establishments " are the more remarkable as being among the few tradesmen's houses upon which any " architectural taste " is lavished, or where any glaring display of goods is thrust forward as a means of enticing custom. Many of the " Magazijns " in the High Street, indeed, are still in the unobtrusive form of private houses, and the business conducted in a place more like a store-room than a shop ; and even where shop fronts have been constructed they appear with their many-paned windows to be like those in our small country towns, rather than the commercial palaces with sheet of plate-glass as large as elephant paper, now common in London and Paris. The Market itself presents a far prettier sight than any- thing of the kind seen in our country. The open square on a market-day is like a painter's palette, spotted with brilliant patches of almost every colour. Never before, to the English eye, did greens appear so green nor turnips so white nor carrots so scarlet nor beetroot so purple for not a root, nor a plant, is here exposed for sale that has not first been washed as clean as a pet poodle ; so that the unaccustomed eye is startled, not only at the freshness and vividness of the tints, but at the utter absence of all mould clinging to the vegetables. The market-women stand in long rows, and the mass of white caps looks at a distance like so many ridges of snow. In front of the dealers are piled their bright green and scarlet stores, and between these saunter the tidy servant-girls, with their sabots clattering on the stones. As you thread the crowded and busy lines, you are more astonished than ever at the minute cleanliness that everywhere prevails. The lilac printed-cotton <)() HOTTE11DAM. jackets of the women seem all fresh from the mangle, and the stockings showing above the wooden shoes are white as the bed-curtains at a boarding-school. The red pickling-cabbages look so bright and metallic,, that you could almost fancy their leaves had been polished with a blacklead brush before they were brought to market. The cauliflowers, too, have heads as white as ne\v mops, and the bunches of carrots are as ver- milion as so many sticks of sealing-wax ; while the baskets on which the vegetables are heaped are clean as the deck of a man-of-war from continual scrubbing. Then, as we shift our quarters to the side of the bron/e statue of Erasmus, which fronts the Market-place and for which, by the by, a special act was obliged to be passed, in order to prevent the polishing -mad townsfolk from rubbing out every feature with their scouring -paper* as we stand beside this, and look over into the Kolk, the stream appears crowded with canal -boats, their narrow decks piled high with cabbages, while not a waggon is to be seen anywhere near. The surface of the water, too, is strewn with the same litter of cabbage-leaves as the pavements about the " green markets " invariably are with iis. A few yards farther down lie the potato-barges, with the drab-looking " earth apples," as the Dutch call them, showing in the holds as clean and free from mould as shingles on a beach, and the bargeman standing knee-deep in them busy shovelling, with a wooden spade, the huge marbles into the, baskets by his side. It is in the neighbourhood of the Market-place, too, that vou observe a greater variety of those peculiar head-dresses, and gold and silver ornaments, worn by the peasant women of Holland. First you meet some short-waisted " rrouw " from * A fact. See " New Picture of Rotterdam,'' p. 89. FEMALE ORNAMENTS. 37 the North, and she, you perceive, has shining beneath her fine lace cap a large plate of silver at each side of her head, covering the ears and fitting close to the temples, so that she positively looks as if she had been trepanned. Next you pass some " Scheveniny" fish-woman, wearing an enormous sun-burnt straw hat, the broad brim of which is bent down at each side like the flaps of a saddle ; and she is bedizened with a pair of bright gold-wire horns, projecting from each side of her forehead, and twisted round and round like the tendrils of a vine : then the moment afterwards you come upon some farmer's wife, or, maybe, some nursery-maid, with the same kind of gilt cork- screws beside her brows, but now with a pair of broad ear- rings dangling from them, and swinging backwards and forwards, like the bells on a pagoda, as she walks. Others, again, that you encounter, have caps with a deep " fall" at the back, that looks not unlike the head-gear known as a " fan- tail," though made in the choicest lace ; whilst nearly every market-woman and servant-girl that you meet wear heavy necklaces of large ruby-coloured beads, with gold clasps to them as big as shoe-buckles. Indeed, so great is the rage for trinkets and gilt and lace head-dresses among the Dutch working-women, that even the housemaids of Rotterdam may often be seen decorated with head-plates and pendants that have cost, at least, a score of pounds. The poor, you are told, love to wear these ornaments, so as to show that they are not utterly destitute, and they are pur- chased by them with the view of investing their earnings in articles which will be always of value, and which will, at all events, they feel assured, provide them with the means of obtaining a decent burial. It is not, therefore, mere empty pride that leads the Dutch serving-girls and fish-wives to ornament their heads and necks in the costly manner they do ; rather, the petty pomps and vanities of life are, with 38 ROTTERDAM. them, forethoughts of the grave : for the silver head-plates anil glittering earrings that they carry at their temples are used, not only to adorn themselves, but to make death itself appear less ugly in their eyes. The Cattle Market and the Fish Market have, with the ex- ception of the points already indicated, few peculiarities to mark them. The same marvellous cleanliness prevails even in the Rotterdam Smithfield as in other parts of the town, and the tails of the magpie-marked cows (for they are nearly all black and white) are as clean as an old beau's pig-tail.* On the drizzly morning when we visited the spot the cattle had their loins protected by cloths, like an old maid's pet Italian greyhound in the winter ; and even the pigs' backs were white and pinky underneath as a banker's head. Unlike the Vege- table Market, however, there was here a crowd of the odd- looking country conveyances, called " Speelwagem" round about the place. These were in shape more like rude trium- phal cars than an English farmer's cart. They were mostly made of varnished oak, and long and narrow, to suit the width of the dykes upon which the Dutch highroads are invariably formed ; while in front of them there projected, in the place of our ordinary shafts, a short pole, curved up at the end like an elephant's proboscis. This is used as a tiller, and with it the vehicle is steered, as it were, along the little raised roadway the driver working the waggon-helm with his feet between the horses' tails, in a manner that none, who was not more bargeman than carter, could ever hope to accomplish. * In the Dutch village of Broek, which is cele' rated as being the cleanest place in the whole world, and where the people are said to keep a painter in the house all the year round, and the public paths are strewn with shells arranged in patterns, there are pulleys in the cow-houses with lines over them, having a weight at the end, so as to keep the tail of the cow in a state of perfect cleanli- ness. In the farm-houses round Rotterdam, however, we observed no such apparatus, though the brickcn pavements of the sheds were as bright and red as those of a model washhouse. THE AANSPREKEES. 39 But though there be a considerable crowd of speelwagens round about the Cattle Market, you have only to pass through the Delft Gate (which would be like one of the huo-e lodges \ C> o at a French barriere, were it not for the canal that runs underneath it) and see the number of Trekschuits that are moored to the banks of the river "Schie" to be satisfied that the greater part of the cattle-dealers (with a true Dutch love of canals) have preferred travelling by water rather than land. " Who on earth," cried we, as we walked along the " Oudehaven" on our way back to the hotel, in company with our guide, " are those extraordinary individuals yonder in black cocked-hats, with large white rosettes at one side of them?" " They are the l Aansprekers? or bidders," replied our companion. " On the death of any person, they go round to the houses of all the friends and relations of the deceased and announce the event to them. They are thought a great deal of \J O O iii Holland ; and it is a saying with us that the ' Aanspreker struts like a peacock.' One of them, you see, carries a paper in his hand, and if you were near enough, you would find it had black mourning edges to it, and was inscribed with the names and addresses of all the persons to be visited. It is the unmarried daughter of some tradesman whose death they are now engaged in making known." O O O " How can you tell that ?" we inquired, as we watched one of the Aansprekers ring at the bell of a merchant's house. The other we observed standing at the end of a plank, that reached from the quay to a barge moored alongside of it, and speaking with the woman whom he had summoned from the cabin. A small crowd gathered about him as he did 40 KOTTERDAM. so, and the dejected head of the bargeman's wife indicated the melancholy character of the news the "bidder" was communicating to her. " I know that the deceased was the unmarried daughter of a tradesman," was the answer; "first, by the white rosette at the side of the cocked-hat, and secondly, by there being only two Aansprekers employed : for if the death had occurred in any gentlefolk's family, you would have seen as many as four, or even six, bidders walking the streets in a body, and then, as they called at the houses, there would have been a larger crowd gathered round the doorsteps to hear what great person had recently breathed his last. Had the death occurred, on the other hand, in a poor family, there would have been only one bidder, and he would have told his tale without any of the passers-by thinking it worth while to stop and listen." The grave, they say, makes us all equal ; and yet, thought we, go where we will, there seem to be the same silly dis- tinctions and vain formalities, even after death, as prevail during life. The Aansprekers' visit, however, by no means supersedes the public notice of the death in the newspapers of the day, for the decease of all persons belonging to the wealthier classes is duly advertised, as with us, though the announcements are made up of such a strange medley of pathos and commerce, that a picture of the peculiarities of Holland would be im- perfect without one or two examples culled from the Dutch Obituaries. We append, therefore, two literal translations, taken from the journal entitled the ALGEMEENHANDELSBLAD " (literally, The Universal Trade-sheet): ADVERTISING BIRTHS AND DEATHS. 41 To-day died our much-esteemed friend, Mr. , at the age of 39 years. August 7th, 1854. K. W. H. VAN . R. Testamentary Executors. NB. Due notice will be given of the re-openiny of the Medical Glaus Shop. It has pleased the All-wise God to deprive me and mine by death of my beloved marriage-partner, , at the age of nearly 57 years. The hope of a blessed meeting on yonder side of the grave, will, I trust, make me resigned to God's will, and console me in my loss. L. August 10th, 1854. WIDOW The business will be carried on upon the same principles as heretofore. Nor are the means by which an increase of the population is made known less peculiar than those by which an intimation is given of a decrease in it. In your rambles through a Dutch town, you will occa- sionally see a small piece of paper pasted against the street- door, and this, on closer inspection, you will find to be a medical bulletin, informing you of that day's state of health of some " little stranger " and its mother within. Should you happen to pass the same way again on the following morning, you will observe another such bulletin issued on the door-post, and telling the world probably that " the mother and child are doing well." This mode of announcement is adopted, it is said, to prevent the necessity of ringing, and so disturbing the house at each fresh inquiry after the condition of the lady and her little one. In the town of Haarlem, however, the crown of a small lace cap, with a piece of coloured silk underneath, is framed and hung at one of the door-posts, to indicate an increase in the family within. The sex of the infant is marked by the colour of the silk beneath, if a boy, it is pink; and if a girl, white. The house, moreover, which has been thus blessed," is entitled to several privileges. Nothing calculated 42 ROTTERDAM. to disturb the rest of the mother is permitted to approach the premises for several days ; and troops, passing by on the march, are bound to silence their drums on entering the street. No soldiers can be billeted upon the dwelling at such times, nor can bailiffs legally enter it. This curious custom, and these peculiar immunities, owe their origin to an occurrence during the si^ge of Haarlem by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century. The town so runs the story being about to be surrendered by the Dutch, a deputation of aged matrons went to the Spanish General to beg that the women, who were then in child-bed, should be protected from disturbance. The Spaniard ordered that some simple sign should be affixed to the door of each house in which there was a female so conditioned, and pledged his word that such houses should be exempt from violence. The lace crown of a baby's cap was chosen ; and to this day the little token continues a shield against molestation to the inmates. We were almost perfect in the reduction of "francs" and "centimes" into "gilders" and "stivers" when we were obliged to enter upon a new course of arithmetic as to the comparative value of " thaler s" and " silber" (or, more strictly speaking, electro-plated) " groschens" and "pfennings." We had just got to distinguish the " Wi JNHAYEN " from the " BIERHAVEN," and to be able to find our way in and out the canals, without car- rying before us a great map like a posting-bill, announcing our foreign extraction to the deni/ens of Rotterdam and we were, moreover, about growing accustomed to bread and cheese for breakfast, and sugar-plums for luncheon, when one drizzly morning, long before daybreak, we were hammered out of a sound sleep to start by the Rhine-boat at half-past five. During our stay in Holland we had seen all the sights COLLECTIONS OF PAINTINGS. 43 which a stranger is invariably hurried off to, immediately he has deposited his carpet-bag in a new town, and which give one no more notion of the people, and the country round about, than an antiquarian has of the world in which he lives. There is, however, a fine feast for the eye in the public collections of paintings at Rotterdam and the Hague, where some of the great aesthetic treasures of the world are stored things that sink deep in the brain even to glance at, and which, when once seen, become beautiful remembrances for the rest of one's life. Here are portraits by Vandyke, with the very souls (as it were) of the people looking at you through their pensive eyes ; grand old heads by Rembrandt, solemn as a forest glade, with their rich contrast of light and shade; landscapes by Ruysdaal, where even Dutch nature is made poetic in its tints and forms; cattle by Paul Potter, positively intelligent upon the canvas ; and bits of still-life by Weenix, with the plumage of the pheasants and peacocks made to look really metallic with the colour ; together with a hundred others, the witchery of whose art it is no more possible to give the stranger even a hint of, than it would be to describe a melody in words. But our time for exploring the curiosities of Holland was up, and our engagements compelled us to listen to the per- severance of the " Boots," as he summoned us to prepare for the starting of the Rhine-boat. When we walked down the Boompjes again, on our way to the steamer, we really felt loath to leave our comfortable quarters and "mine host" an honest old steamboat captain at the New Bath Hotel, and to say "good bye" to a country and a people as peculiar and admirable, perhaps, as any on the face of the earth. IT. COLOGNE WE arc at Cologne at last! At last, we say ; for never was water in the desert more acceptable to the traveller than the sight of the Rhine, beside the " Dom-Kirche" (Cathedral), after two days' journey along the Dutch shores that dismal blue-green pano- rama with its everlasting rows of dumpy willows its regi- ment of lanky poplars, drawn up in rank and file in the distance and its windmills after windmills, flinging their arms about like so many antiquated telegraphs at work. Occasionally, as we steamed along, we caught sight of the tipper stories of some little village sunk beside the banks, and were then treated to a view of a few attic-windows, and roofs, and a church spire, peeping over the high wall that protected the pigmy town from inundation. Here and there, too, we saw a white sail gliding along between the banks of some hidden canal, and looking as if it were ploughing its way through the swampy fields themselves. Indeed we are not ashamed to confess that the couple of hundred miles of Isle-of-Doggy landscape was more than we could bear at one sitting; so our family caravan halted for FATHER RHINE. 45 the night on its way through the Great Swamp, and the consequence was, we did not reach the birth-place of the illustrious Jean Maria Farina till late the next evening. " So this is Cologne! the German Rome! the Holy City!* having once as many churches as there are days in the year!" we said to ourselves, as we stood on the bridge of boats, soon after our arrival, gazing at the long line of steamboat piers and quays, with about a dozen steeples peering over the roofs behind them. "This, then, is the Rhine! Father Rhine! the king of rivers ! " we mentally exclaimed, as we crossed the bridge towards the opposite village of " Deutz" intent upon ob- taining the best possible view of the stream, but which, nevertheless, struck us as being disgustingly Thamesy in its aspect. " But where are the vine-clad hills ?" we asked ourselves, as we recalled the song, " Am Rhein ! am Rhein ! Da wachst der Wein ;" and, though we looked far up and down, we could dis- cover nothing in the distance but the same low marshy banks as had haunted us for days past. " Where are the castle ruins on the mountain tops, romantic with their thousand legends?" again we inwardly inquired, for we could see only huge railway-like hotels and custom-houses beside the stream ; so that, though we tried our hardest to work ourselves up into a poetic fury at the first sight of the "Holy City," we must acknowledge that Father Rhine had so much the look of Father Thames * Cologne, on account of "its piety, being equal to that of Rome itself," was called in the Middle Ages " Roma Germanica Civitas San eta." 46 COLOGNE. about him, that our first impression was, we could have done as well with a twopenny trip to Battersea. First impressions, however, are seldom worth much ; and though the beauty of Cologne lies not by the river- side, arid the charms of the Rhine are to be found only above Bonn, still, as we continued gazing at the scene before us, we found little picturesque points come peeping out of the darkness, one after another, like stars. We retired to the Bellevue Gardens that overlook the river, on the opposite shore to Cologne, and whither the citizens and soldiers flock every Sunday evening to listen to Strauss's polkas and Labitsky's waltzes, as they sip their coffee beneath the canopy of trained chestnut-trees. Here we sat long for it was a beautiful autumnal night watching the life and features of the novel scene before us. Close beside us (we wrote in our note-book at the time), stretches the bridge of boats from one shore to the other, with the line of barges, upon which the long, floating platform rests, looking in the moonlight black as so many blocks of jet, and the descending stream, as it hurries between the many hulls and curls about their rudders, glit- tering in the pale beams in wavy lines of liquid silver. Half-way down the bridge there is moored a floating-bath, like the caravan of a large show taken off its wheels and set upon barges instead. Along the quays and under the bridge itself the river is streaked with trails of light, reflected from the windows and lamps above, which shine in the water so brilliantly, that they look like a flight of rockets mirrored in the stream ; while, here and there, the crimson pier-lights mingle their rays with the others, so that the current appears striped in places with the brightest ruby bands. The people are streaming across the bridge, back- wards and forwards, to and from the " Kirmes" (the fair), THE BBIDGE OF BOATS. 47 the canvas booths and stalls of which now line the long street of Deutz; and you can hear, amid the hubbub of the salesmen shouting " Ram ! Ram ! Ram ! Ein Groschen Jedes Stiick" (a penny a -piece), the music from the "PEINZ CARL" floating over the water in beautiful gusts with every breeze. Look up or down the stream, and you see the lights of distant steamers wandering through the air like so many will-o'-the-wisps. And suddenly, towards the tower of " Bayenthurm" which looms yonder in the dusk, like a column of dark smoke, you are startled by a bright flash from the upper point of the crescent formed by the Rhine here, and then, in a few seconds, the boom of a gun rumbles along the river; another flash soon follows, and another after that. This is the signal for the bridge of boats to be opened, and the next minute the tide of passengers across it is dammed up in the middle, while the line of barges, sup- porting the long roadway, is seen to part near the opposite shore, and some of the boats, with large pieces of the plat- form upon them, to come floating away from the rest. A great gap then appears in the bridge, with the crowd pent up on either side of the opening, waiting for the vessels to pass. Presently you hear the throbbing of the approaching paddle-wheels, and see, as the steamer Comes nearer and nearer, the white and ruby lights at the foremast-head the solitary lantern at the bows skimming above the water the red crown of flames glowing a-top of the dark fun- nel and the little cabin -windows shining like plates of gold with the lights within them ; while, far behind the steamer, comes a long train of dark, naked-looking vessels, two a-breast, and the near ones rocking and tossing in the white wake of the tug-boat as if they were at sea. The lengthy convoy takes some time to glide through the parted 48 COLOGNE. bridge, and the mob of passengers, detained on either side, grows denser and denser the while ; so that, immediately the train has passed and the platform is joined again, a double current of people, and "droskies" (cabs), and diligences, hurry twinkling in the moonbeams from one side to the other, making the planks rumble and rattle again as they go. The shore from " Bayentliurm" (Bayen Tower) down to " Thurmchen" (the little Tower), which form the extreme points of the view, is nearly a league in length, and seems, in the shade of the moonlight, to be almost black with the long line of the fortress-wall and the covered quays, with the vessels lying in front of them, and stretching from one end of the long city to the other ; and as we sit in the gardens on the opposite shore, we can hear the roar of the escaping steam and the alarum-like jangle of the bell of some Rhine- boat about to start, even at this late hour. Then, over the long, black, wavy line of quays and walls at the edge of the river, there are seen, above-bridge, the fronts of the club-like hotels, glistening as white as snow in the moonshine, and their hundred windows golden with the lights within ; while, below-bridge, appear the gabled walls of the more antiquated houses, with their tiny casements peeping above the dark quay^sheds, and the deep furrows of their roofs shining as if wet with the liquid light of the moon. Close behind the castellated " Lager-haus" (store- house) rises the square tower of " Gross St. Martin's Kirche" with a tiny minaret at each corner of the steeple, and one of the sides of its tall slate spire seeming almost phosphorescent with the slanting beams, while the others are as if palled with the dusk shadow, the whole showing dimly out against the silver-grey background of the sky. Farther down, and at a greater distance from the shore, SPIKES OF THE CHURCHES. 49 the eye rests on the hazy pile of the " Dom-Kirche, " (the Cathedral), looking half spectral in the dusk, and with its flying buttresses and filagreed pinnacles all tipped with the moonlight, and standing out, in soft relief, from the great shadowy mass behind. How exquisitely, too, the moonlight falls in one silver sheet upon the chancel-roof! and what a story of unfinished work is told by that little patch of cold blue sky seen through the unglazed Gothic windows ! Then the half- built tower looks, on such a night as this, like one of the huge basalt columns at the Giant's Causeway, seen from a distance, and the jagged bits of stone left standing on the top seem like peaks of rock-work, while the quaint-looking crane that crowns the whole appears, as the cathedral legend steals across the mind, as if it were some demon finger forbidding the com- pletion of the building. The eye lingers long here, for there is an exquisite fas- cination in the Gothic tracery picked vaguely out by the moonshine; and the fretted turrets sparkling at their many points, almost like icicles in the cold white light. Then, as you look up and down the long line of buildings, you see steeple after steeple, and tower after tower, come glimmering through the mist. Now you pause to notice the Reculvcr-like towers of "St. Cunibert's Kirche" far down the river, at the lower end of the city ; and then you are struck with the old octagonal turret of the State-house, peeping over the houses near the bridge. Next, the little cupola of the "Jesuiten Kirche" takes your attention, and the moment after the solitary steeple of the "Little St. Martin" arrests your gaze. After this, again, you are attracted by the quaint little " Lijs Kirche," standing close to the fortress-wall, beside the river, with its rude spire seeming as if built upon four tall gable-ends. And so the eye wanders on and on from tower to tower, and steeple to steeple, that come peeping out one E 50 COLOGNF. after another from among the stars in the distance, till you are carried back to the time when Cologne, as the chroniclers say, was blest with as many spires as there are days in the year, and, doubtlessly, with as many priests and beggars, too but this the chroniclers do not say as would breed a famine in the land.* 1- COLONIA AGRIPPINA the " German Rome" Cologne is no mushroom city no lath-and-plaster upstart, begotten, like our Folkestone, by railroads and steamboats. On the contrary, it comes of most ancient bricks and mortar, and traces the genealogy of some of its walls and pavements even farther back than the Church of Rome itself. At one corner of the open space which surrounds the Cathedral, and which is called the " Dom Kloster" there is a large oldish-looking house, with a stone tablet set in the wall, just round the turning, and bearing the following inscription : C. C. A. A.f PORTA HIC STABAT RoMANA DICTA AGRlPPlNENSlfiVs. HVC VsdVE PAPHlA. We tread here on classic ground, and though the neigh- * Cologne, at the time of the occupation of the city by the French at the end of the last century, contained no less than 1200 beggars and 2500 ecclesiastics, out of a population of 90,000 and odd inhabitants, so that nearly one-sixth part of the entire people consisted of priests and mendicants. f c. c. A. A. stand for Colonia Claudia Agrippina Augusta. ORIGIN OF THE PEOPLE. 51 bouring depot of Eau de Cologne, with its wicker-worked quart bottles in the window, reminds us that we are in the midst of the modern colony of the Maria Farinas, (for there is a whole legion of them now settled in the city,) still that stone tablet carries us away to the time when Cologne was merely a colony of Roman soldiers instead, and when Venus was worshipped by the Agrippinenses, somewhere near this same Paphian gate, even as St. Ursula and her eleven thousand virgins are reverenced by their descendants at the present day. The faces of many of the people, indeed, as well as the stones on the walls, assure us of their ancient extraction. This peasant-girl coming towards us with her ample white kerchief arranged like a hood over her head, and the Etruscan-shaped brass milk-jug poised upon it, has the rich raisin-coloured eye and the raven hair of the dark Italian rather than the fair German race ; and as we gaze at her as she passes, we wonder from which of the Roman legions she sprang whether she be descended from some of the soldiers who followed Marcus Agrippa, when he first pitched his tent here among the Teutoni, in the reign of Augustus, 57 years before the birth of Christ or whether her forefathers originally came to the banks of the Rhine with the Roman leader Germanicus, when he laid the country waste with fire and sword, sparing, as we are told, " neither sex nor age," and " giving no quarter to the barbarians." Surely, if there be truth in ethnology, this peasant-girl is an off-shoot from a very different stock from that fair-skinned beggar-boy yonder one of the many who loiter about the doors of the Cathedral; for his locks are yellow and unkempt as raw silk, and his eyes as he hurries up to us, and looks with a well-learnt sorrow in our face are so exquisitely azure in their blueness, that even the whites themselves are tinted with the hue, forcibly reminding one of the " ccendei ,V2 COLOGNE. ocnli," which Tacitus mentions as being a distinctive feature of the early German tribes; while the short ragged smock he wears is of the same fashion as the loose linen vest the Alemanni are said to have worn centuries back. Now, if there were a Herald's College for mendicants, we might perhaps be able to trace the pedigree of this young flaxen-headed urchin back who knows? to one of the very Ubii, (a tribe of Lower Germany,) whom Tacitus tells us "inhabited the right bank of the Rhine,"* and who being pur- sued by the Suevi, crossed the river and sought refuge from their enemies in the camp of Agrippa ; for the same historian informs us that all the German tribes were averse to marrying with other nations, while the Romans, on the other hand, forbad the officers of their provinces to choose their wives from the natives: so that, when the Ubiens had been invited to settle in the Roman camp, and induced to build the first city on the spot, (for Cologne was originally called " Civitas Ubiorum"} there was but little likelihood of their intermar- rying with the Romans; and this is probably the reason why the two races who were the founders of the city have maintained each their distinctive features to the present day. But not only do the faces of the people and the ancient monuments assure us of the community of the Roman and Germanic nations in Cologne, but the very names of some of the streets are like memorials of the fact. We have but to cross from the spot where the record of the existence of the old Roman gateway is let into the wall, to see inscribed at the * The town opposite Cologne is called Deutz, so that the name is probably a record of the Deutsche or ancient Germans having had a settlement on the right bank, even as the title of Cologne corrupted from Colonia is a like memorial of the existence of the Romans on the left bank of the river. The Romans called "Deutz Casirum T\ritium which, like the word Deutsche itself, was pro- bably derived from T^uitco, the German God of War. PUBLIC BUILDINGS. 53 corner of the street beside the Eau-de-Cologne depot, " RUE DE MUR ROMAIN," and underneath it in German, " AUF DER BUKGMAUER." Pursuing our way, then, along this Roman- Wall Street, we reach after passing a curious martello-tower-like habitation, and some old tumble-down dwellings of the last century a couple of houses with a modern wall before them, built on what appears to be a mound of rubbish. As we look again, however, we find the apparent rubbish-heap consists of a mass of mortar and unhewn stones, set so firmly together, that though the ends of some of the rude slabs project grotto-like from the mound, it is impossible to displace any one of them, for the mortar is hard as rock. Farther on, in front of the modern semicircular "Justitz- Pallast" which more resembles some cavalry barracks than the Court of Appeal (Appelhof} we come to the "Zeughaus" or Arsenal a long castellated building, with the walls rising to a gable-point in the middle and looking like the transept to a church. Here we perceive that the bricks at the bottom are totally different from those a little way above the ground, Avhile the wall itself bulges forward at the lower part like a bank, so that the building seems to have been raised upon some more ancient structure. A few yards farther up we meet with the same kind of brick-work, and the same compact mass of stones and mortar as we have before seen, but in a more perfect state. Here the walls are at least ten feet thick, and the broad crust of bricks on either side is filled (as you can see where the structure has been broken off) with the same firm compost of stones and mortar as exists lower down the street. This, then, is a veritable piece of the Alte-mauer the Mur-romain, from which the street derives its German and French names. What a crowd of associations and conjectures 54 COLOGNE. rush into the mind at the sight of the ancient rampart, with the long grass growing like hair on the top of it ! Were these bricks laid by the Romans in the reign of Augustus, at the time when the natives hereabouts wore dresses of skin instead of being renowned for their perfume, and when the men carried long spears instead of long pipes when all the districts of the Rhine were reduced to the condition of Roman provinces and when, we are told, nearly fifty castles and forts were built by the conquerors, principally along the left bank of the river ? Was it from these walls that Germanicus, in the reign of Tiberius, sallied forth against the neighbouring Teu- tonic tribes, and, rushing among the Roman ranks, told his men he had no need of prisoners, for " the extirpation of the barbarians was all that he desired ? " Did this rampart stand here when Agrippina, Germanicus' daughter, was born in the town? Or was it built afterwards, by order of her husband the Emperor Claudius, when, for love of the woman who subsequently poisoned him to make way for her son Nero he directed that the city should be embellished in honour of its having been her birth-place? Or, else, was the wall not erected until the Empress despatched a band of Roman ve- terans to the site of her birth, and commanded that the humble civitas should be raised to the rank of an important Colonia, and instead of being called, as formerly, " Civitas Ubiorum" be styled for the future, after her, " Colonia Agrip- pina?" What would the arseniciferous Empress the worthy mother of the notorious Nero say, if she could be gal- vanized to life again, to find that the Agrippinenses of the present day had forgotten the name of the royal lady who originally stood godmother to their town, and that the ancient Roman Colonia had been converted into the modern German Coin ? On the other side of this ancient wall stands the modern TJIE 110MER-TIIURH. 55 " Artillerie Wagenhaus" with the stuccoed front just peeping above the weeds at the top. As we turn round the corner and see the space before the wagon-house littered with long cannon and dumpy mortars, and catch sight of the trim Prussian soldier, in his leathern brass-tipped helmet, pacing beside the zebra-striped sentry-box that stands before the Zeughaus, we cannot help thinking how different it all must be from the time when the ferocious Emperor Maximin overran the country and burnt the German towns, as he says in one of his exulting letters to the Roman Senate, "for the space of" four hundred miles, bringing away their flocks, enslaving the inhabitants, and slaying the armed." There is a street near the Cathedral which bears the Emperor's name to this day, as if in memory of the brutal havoc he once played among the native tribes. But if the victorious Thracian could stand beside us now, and see the huge pieces of ordnance that the Germans have ready here for defence, what dismay would he feel to think how little his catapults and balistce, with their cumbrous stone projectiles, would avail him against the wondrous force of the modern powder and ball! A few paces farther on is seen the large, squat Roman tower, called to this day " Romer-thurm" and so dumpy- looking for its size, that it seems like a huge mortar reared on end. The upper part of this building is evidently modern, for the bricks are still scarlet and sharp at the edges, whereas at the base there is scarcely a bit of colour left in them, and they are almost rounded with age. Here you find the ancient wall, worked, as it were, in various devices. In one part the bricks are arranged all zig-zag, the tower seeming to be vandyked with them; in another they are set in circular patterns ; while above this they are placed in the form of a little temple : so that, as you view it from a short distance, the ,5(5 COLOGNE. bottom of the building seems more like a bit of tesselated work than a mere bricken construction. Here too, again, as we mount the top of the ancient tower and behold the distant Rhine, dotted over with little steamers, the mind involuntarily wanders back to the time when the early tribes of Lower Germany traversed the stream in rude skirt's of osier twigs, made waterproof with hides, and which, when on land, they carried strapped to their backs like a cliilf'onniers basket. We wonder, too, what would be the feelings of Ger- manicus, who first taught the Teutoni the art of shipbuild- ing (for it is said the Roman leader built as many as a thou- sand vessels on the Rhine, Maas, and Scheld), if he could see with us now that long convoy of ships towed up against the stream, without a sail set, or an oar to move them, but dragged along merely by the power of that marvellous vapour which we can just see yonder escaping in white gossamer films from the foremost boat. From the Romer-thurm the wall formerly ran parallel to the river, for it is still found in little bits, here and there among gardens, and with the remains of its towers projecting into the street, occasionally beside some new factory.* After this we catch the ancient rampart again, in a narrow passage called the " ALTE MAUER AM LACK " (the Old Wall by the Pool or Marsh), and here it is cobbled and patched up so as to do duty for the garden wall behind the houses that now stand on the ground which (according to the present name) would seem at one time to have been a mere swamp. Then we lose sight of the wall once more for some few yards, and meet with it afterwards running down towards the * As in the street called "ALTE MAUER BEI APOSTKLN" (the Old Wall by the Church of the Apostles). THE ROMAN MONS CAPITOLINUS. 57 river in the ricketty, antiquated-looking thoroughfare, reeking with tanneries, styled the " ALTE MATTER AM BACH," so that it now bears the name of the Old Wall by the Brook. This brings us down almost to the site called the " HOIIE PFORTE " (Anglid, the High-Street Gate), where all traces of the wall are lost amid the crowd of buildings, and where no relic exists even of the gateway that once stood here at this end of the High Street, in a line with the " PORTA PAPHIA," whence we started, and which originally occupied the other extremity of the ancient thoroughfare. At length, however, we reach an open space, formerly called the Agripparea (Agrippai Area), and here we see a little Gothic archway tricked out in shabby blue and gold, with an old bricken bank on one side of it, that has all the look of the Roman wall again. " What strange old place is this ? " we exclaim, as we pass under the miniature gateway and enter a little " Platz" half gloomy with the trees in the middle and the shade of the tall antiquated houses on one side of it. " And what venerable pile is that," we ask, " which we see peeping from between the branches ? " An old stone slab set in the wall puts an end to our in- quiries, for on it we can just read the French inscription, " MONT DE CAPITOL." * " So, then, this is the ancient Roman 'Mons Capltolinus ! '" and in corroboration of the fact the old church that now occu- pies its site is called "Maria in Capitolio" to this day. Here, tradition says, the Capitol itself remained until the year 700, and that in the time of the Romans, and indeed long after- wards, the Senate was held at this spot. The story runs, too, * The French inscriptions at the corners of many of the streets of Cologne are relics of the occupation of the town by the French during the Revolution at the end of the last century. 58 COLOGNE. that this was once the principal fortress of the colony, and that a temple of Jupiter stood within its walls, as at Rome itself. The ground, however, is now consecrated to the worship of "Maria in Capitolio" instead of "Jupiter Capitolinus" This is the place, we are told, where Aulus Vitellius (after Otho had stabbed himself) was first declared Emperor of Rome, in the year of our Lord 69, though the honour lasted but for a short time ; for the glory heaped upon Vitellius by the legions on the banks of the Rhine was soon effaced by the soldiers on the banks of the Tiber, into whose waters a few months afterwards, when he was deposed by Vespasian, his mutilated corpse was thrown. The present building is said to be somewhere about a thou- sand years old, and the patched and rent walls bear record of the fact, for they are as motley with their many piecings as a beggar's garment; and perhaps even the present antiquated structure w r as raised upon the foundation of the old Roman fortress, for the chancel and the ends of the transepts are rounded out from the body of the building, so as to have more the appearance of squat Roman towers than parts of a Christian church. As you look up from among the trees at the eastern end of the old edifice, what a long history you can see written in the various styles of architecture with which the parts are cobbled. Here the worn stone arches are rounded in the Romanesque style, and in them has been built the more modern pointed Gothic window; while in some even the Gothic tracery has been filled up with bricks, that are still a dingy scarlet from being of a more recent date. Above the cornice, as it were, of little Roman arches, the grey, crumbly walls, are girt with brown, rusty hoops, to keep them from tumbling to pieces. There is hardly a straight line, too, remaining in the building, for the flat shafts of the pillars are leaning in different CHURCH OF MAKIA IN CAP1TOIIO. 59 ways, and even the walls themselves are bowed like some tottering greybeard's back with the decrepitude of age ; while the line of the stone-copings undulates again from the sinking of the foundations in different parts. At the sides of the rounded choir some half-modern little square chapels have been run out, as if to serve as crutches to the shaky old pile. The flight of steps, too, that once led to the Mount has long since disappeared, so that now a steep paved hill, with here and there a large slab still sticking among the stones, forms the principal approach to the edifice. Set in the walls, outside the choir, is an antique bas-relief image of Plectrudis,* the foundress of the present church. This is sculptured the size of life, in the peculiar style of the middle ages: for the lady has her head on one side, and a large glory round it that looks not unlike a huge stone ruff, while in her limp-looking, kangaroo-like hands, she holds a long, narrow scroll, that reaches to her feet, and on which a half-worn-out inscription is graven. On entering the edifice through the dusky passages that run out from either end of the transepts, one is almost sure to find some old crone huddled up, like a bundle of rags, in her cotton cloak and hood, telling her beads before the huge wooden figure of Christ upon the cross, and worshipping the God who first taught love and kindness to the human race; so that we are again set wondering at the change that has * Plectrudis was the wife of Pepin of Heristal, who was mayor of the palace, and ruled the kingdom of France in the names of the kings Clovis III. and Childebert III., A.D. 691-711. Pepin, it seems, conceived an attachment for Alpais, the mother of Charles Martel, who was the after conqueror of the Saracens, and also mayor of the palace in the time of Chilperic II. On account of this attachment Plectrudis separated from her husband, and retired to Cologne in 696, where, in the year 700, she built a church and convent. The convent has long disappeared, and only parts of the church are said to exist in the present structure. 60 COLOGNE. conic over the world since the people offered up their prayers on this very sput to the Deity whom they knew only as the author of the lightning. Beyond the ancient mount of the Capitol, we can obtain but little clue (excepting such as tradition and the names of places afford us) to the track of the remainder of the wall that formerly enclosed the Roman city ; for the houses lie thick on each side of it now, and extend far down to the river, though in ancient times the very fortress of the Capitol itself appears to have been washed by the Rhine for not only is there, in a line with the mount, a street which bears the name of the "ALTES RHEIN-UFEE " (the old Rhine-shore), and which is some hundreds of yards now from the stream, but, hanging in the passage of the church of the ancient Capitol, there is to be seen the huge jaw-bone of a whale, which, tradition says, was caught at the church-door. Following, then, the ancient bank of the river, we pass the fine old building called the "GuuzENiCH,"* which is now a cheese store, with the corners of its walls made octagonal at the top, and ornamenting its castellated roof with handsome battlements ; and thus, at length, we come to a street called " OBEN MARS PFORTE" (Upper Mars Gate). Here, as we gaze at the walls above the Confectioner's Coffee-house, we find, set in a niche, the statue of a Roman warrior, with the symbol of the God of War upon his shield, and a little figure of a ram jumping at his feet, while on a tablet underneath are graven * " Giirzenich " is said to have been the name of the merchant who originally gave the ground for the edifice, in 1440. This we are inclined to doubt, and would suggest, that as the Giirzenich was originally the Rhein-lager-haus, or storehouse, its title may be derived from Gewiirlzen (spices) ; so that Gewiirtzeniff would signify "appertaining to spices" which was perhaps the first use to which the new Layerhaus was applied in the palmy days of Cologne, when the city was the chief emporium of the trade with the East. THE OBEN MAES PFORTE. 61 the following Latin verses, recording the existence of the ancient Roman gateway there : ^EDIBVS , HIS . PHANO . MARTIS . CELEBERRIMA . PORTA ASTITIT . HANC . VRBIS . STRVXIT . AGRIPPA . PARENS . ADDIDIT . ILLVSTREIS . ARAS . VBI . IVRA . FEREBANT . BELIvORVM, ET . STABANT . FIXA . TROPHEA . DIIS. HIC . GLADIVS . MAGNI . FVERAT . SVSPENSVS . IVLI SALVIVS . ET . dVO . SE . FODERAT . ENSIS . OTHO.* This finishes our walk round by the remains of the ancient. Roman walls ; for though we are told the ramparts formerly * For the benefit of those who have passed their school-days in learning living languages, rather than wasting their time over dead ones, we subjoin a translation of the above : " Adjoining these houses stood the gate so highly celebrated from the Temple of Mars. Agrippa, the father of the city, built this. He added splendid altars, where the ordinations of war were upheld, And where stood trophies set up to the gods. Here the sword of the great Julius was hung up, As well as the sword with which Salvius Otho killed himself." (See p. 58.) Where the Temple of Mars itself really stood is a mystery, though it would seem as if the spot now occupied by what is called Gross St. Martin's Kirche (Great St. Martin's Church) was originally the site of the pagan edifice. In the first place, the ground on which this church stands was, long ago, an island in the Rhine, and this would account for the Mars Pforte, which was formerly situate at the very edge of the ancient Rhine-bank, being called the Upper Mars Gate, for, in that case, the Lower Gate would have been on the island itself probably where the archway leading directly to the church now stands. Secondly, The church is not far removed from the Oben Pforte, there being merely the width of the market-place between them. Thirdly, The site of the present church is known to have been occupied by an earlier one, which, in 980, Bishop Warin gave to the Scotch Benedictines ; and even the modern edifice contains a bap- tismal font of white marble, which is said to be a Roman work of the time of the Empire the labrum of a bath, it has been suggested. And, lastly, The name itself of Martin may be only a corruption of Martis, the early Christians having, perhaps, called the church by the name of the saint that was the most like its original title. 62 COLOGNE. ran in a direct line from this spot, past the Rath-haus (Town- hall) to the Dom-Kirche, and so on to the Paphian Gate (whence we set out), there is no farther vestige of them to be seen. The walk itself has little or no natural beauty to recom- mend it ; but to those who love to contrast the present with the past, and who can discover charms in the most trivial objects when embellished with pleasant associations, there is an unspeakable delight in finding the very bricks chattering history to you as you go, and seeing leaf after leaf of the Roman archives turned over, as with the weird finger of Time; till the mind is carried back to events which before were misty as some remembered dream, but which, now that there is the least bit % of reality connected with them, start into existence again with all the vividness of a present scene. Thus, for the time, we live a kind of mixed life, oscillating, as it were, be- tween the past and the present, with visions of old Roman leaders mingling with the distant Prussian sentinels- and the clatter of the war-chariots rumbling in our imagination, while the scream of the railway-whistle from the neighbouring sta- tion sounds in our ears and with the very churches, too, re- viving in the mind the worship of Jupiter Tonans, even while the bell is tingling within them for the elevation of the Papal Host Not a spot you tread, not a stone you see, but some being of the past springs, spectral-like, from out it. Here is a slab at the side of an old gate near the river, upon which you can just make out the words " GERMAN icus WERFT" (Ger- manicus' Wharf); and though you read the inscription with a modern gas-light shining upon it, and with the jangle of the neighbouring steamboat bells in your ears, you can behold in your fancy the country for miles round red with the flames of the devastating legions ; you can see the helmeted and tunicked hosts battering down the sacred walls of the German temple THE " HOLY CITY." 63 the "Tanfance" and the "brave" warriors slaughtering the simple Teutonic tribes while they are sunk in sleep, or unarmed and dispersed.* 2. THE MEDIEVAL " HOLY CITY " with its Bishop-Princes and Patrician Merchants. The grandest monument of the prosperity of Cologne during the Middle Ages is the Cathedral, or " Dom-Kirche" as it is called, f At the period when the Cathedral was begun there was a great ecclesiastical " Chapter " attached to the cily, and this was composed of sixty canons, or non-officiating prebend- aries, who were all princes or counts ; for such was the priestly pride of those times, that the Chapter would not receive simple gentry nor even barons into the body. Twenty-four of the elder of these sixty canons constituted the special Chapter, from among whom the Archbishop Prince- Elector was chosen. J To the latter dignitary belonged great * " Germanicus, to spread the slaughter as wide as possible, divided his men into four battalions. The country, fifty miles round, was laid waste by fire and sword. Neither sex nor age excited pity. Their sacred temple, the Tan/ante, was destroyed. This slaughter was perpetrated without their receiving a wound, be- cause the enemies they attacked were sunk in sleep, or unarmed and dispersed." TACIT. Ann. lib. i. Yet, Tacitus, who is so lost to the moral guilt of all this as to extol Germanicus for his conquests, is one of Rome's most applauded historians. f Dom is an abbreviation of the Latin Dominus, a Lord, and was the title given to the dignitaries of the Roman Catholic Church : hence the Dom-Kirche meant the Archbishop's Kirk. + The Archbishop Prince-Electors ceased in the year 1754, Maximilian Frederick being the last, and to his memory the obelisk in the market-place of Bonn is erected. 64 COLOGNE : prerogatives : he was Grand-Chancellor of the Empire in Italy, and claimed the right of consecrating the German Emperor as King of the Romans. It was about this period, too, that the ecclesiastical au- thority of the Romish Church rose to its proudest point. For in the century previous to the laying of the first stone of the Cologne cathedral, the Pope Celestine III., to show his power of making and unmaking kings, had kicked the crown from the head of the German emperor, Henry VI., while he was kneeling before him. And a few years before that, Pope Gregory VII. (the famous Hildebrand) had com- pelled another German emperor (Henry IV.) to stand at his castle gate barefooted for three days, in the depth of whiter, to implore his pardon. Indeed, it was during the reign of this pontiff that the power of the Church of Rome attained its utmost height ; and shortly afterwards, the Romish hierarchy carried their pretensions to so arrogant a pitch, that they held themselves up as lords of the universe, arbiters of the fate of empires, and supreme rulers of the kings and princes of the earth. At length, moreover, they even affirmed that the whole globe was their property, and pre- tended to be lords of the future world also ; assuming that, by the dispensations and indulgences which they sold to the credulous, they had the power of restraining, and in some instances of subverting, even Divine justice itself.* It was during this period of priestly dominion that Cologne acquired the name of the " Holy City? while its wealthy merchants, anxious to uphold its fame as the Rome of the North, styled themselves "Patricians;" the two principal magistrates wore the consular toga, and wew attended by the " lictors" with their "fasces? whenever tliey appeared in * Aspin : Lives of the Popes. ITS ANCIENT GLORY. 65 public, while the town banners bore the pompous inscrip- tion, S. P. Q. C. (Senatus Populus Que Coloniensis). These patrician merchants delighted to expose their wealth in the entertainment of the German emperors at their magni- ficent banquets ; for Cologne, from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, was the richest and most flourishing city of the nor- thern world the city in which the trade of the East was con- centrated, and through which, not only Eastern productions, but Eastern arts as well, were transferred to the then remote West of Europe. It was one of the chief emporia, moreover, of the Hanseatic League a league signed in the year 1241, and in which sixty-six of the principal cities of other nations were allied, for the mutual protection of their commerce as well as for their defence against the power of their princes and populace, and including, among others, the then wealthy towns of Antwerp, Rotterdam, Calais, Rouen, Marseilles, Cadiz, Seville, Lisbon, Naples, and London. So powerful was this merchant-league in the middle ages, that, to aid their ally, the Count of Holstein, they dispatched a fleet of 250 vessels against King Eric of Denmark, and forced him to purchase peace at a most heavy price. Henry VI. of England, too, to please the great company of Hanseatic traders, accorded them the exclusive use of the Guildhall in London, with all the privileges attached thereto. Cologne was thus, at the time when the Prince-Arch- bishop Conrad de Hochsteden laid the first stone of the Dom- Kirche, on the 13th of August, 1248, the richest, the proudest, and the most priestly city in all Germany rivalling Venice in the wealth of its merchants Cadiz in the haughtiness of its people and Rome itself in the tyranny of its priestcraft. The Cathedral is an apt emblem of the glory of the town ; F 66 COLOGNE. for not only does the adumbrated magnificence of the struc- ture indicate the former grandeur of the city, but the un- finished tower, with the typical crane still surmounting it, is a striking memorial as to how the pride of the citizens and the priests was suddenly cut short. Indeed, the same crane that was used to raise the blocks some hundreds of years ago now stands amid the splinter-like fragments of stone on the half-built tower top an almost superstitious monument of Romish vanity and Romish short-sightedness. For the sight of it carries the mind back to the gorgeous dreams of the Archbishop Ertgelbert de Berg (the predecessor of Conrad de Hochsteden), who, seven hundred years since, first deter- mined upon raising in Cologne a cathedral, whose majesty and beauty should eclipse every other in the world dreams that, at the present time, form a strange contrast with the blighted look of the half-wrought reality, in which is seen the remarkable anomaly of an edifice in ruins, even while yet in the process of construction. The name of the architect who originally designed this marvellous structure remains notwithstanding the efforts of the learned of Germany to trace him out buried in the dust of the middle ages. One Master Gerhard is the first builder who is spoken of in connexion with the work ; but this was in the year 1252, while the walls were being raised, and nothing certain is known even of him. The plans, however, must have been made by some master-hand many years before ; though these also are lost to the world, like the name of their author.* The perfect pile, therefore, such as it existed in the brain of him who first conceived it, can never be realised to us; but, judging from the parts constructed after the original designs, * At the Cathedral, they profess to have found the original designs at Darm- stadt fifteen years ago. THE DOM-KIRCHE. , 67 and which are acknowledged to be among the finest and purest Gothic monuments in Europe, the Dom-Kirche of Cologne would assuredly, if it had been completed according to the early plans, have taken rank as the St. Peter's of Gothic architecture. The history of this wondrous structure has much in it of that strange linking of disastrous events which looks like Fate to some minds the frustration, for instance, of the proud projects of the ambitious and turbulent Prince- Archbishops the repeated interruptions and many beginnings and endings of the work the loss of the original plans the oblivion to which the name of the ancient architect has been doomed and finally, the continuance of the crane on the tower-top for centuries as if for ever promising the completion of the building, and yet for ever showing that the work was at a stand-still ; so that, though the presence of the instrument for raising the stones may at first have indicated to the people that the idea of finishing the edifice was not abandoned, still, from its being seen there day after day, and year after year, from all parts of the town, without a block ever dangling from its peak, it naturally came to pass, that what was once the type of hope grew, in course of time, to be regarded as the symbol of despair. All this, we say, has so doomed an air about it, that, to the German mystic mind, it has naturally given rise to one of those middle-age myths which are called legends, and which are generally supernatural explanations of some extraordinary and, perhaps, unaccountable train of natural events. The Germans, therefore, tell you that the oblivion entombing, as it were, the name and fame of the original designer of the Cathedral, is not to be attributed to the same circumstances as made it the common lot of almost all the architects who covered Europe with monu- ments of their skill during the middle ages, but to the 08 COLOGNE. special interposition of some demon power and in illustra- tion of this they tell you the following curious tale. 3. STORY OF THE MYSTERIOUS DOM BUILDER.* It was towards the middle of the thirteenth century the legend runs that Archbishop Conrad de Hochsteden,f the Prince-Elector of Cologne, determined to erect a cathedral which, in its grandeur and magnificence, should surpass all other Christian temples. Conrad himself was in possession of great riches, which he was ready to sacrifice to the pious object; the patrician magistrates, too, he knew, would contribute largely towards the construction of an edifice that would eminently adorn their city; and, moreover, he could count upon gifts being forwarded by the devout from far and near, so that no financial obstacles existed to the execution of the great enter- prise. Nevertheless it was necessary to find an architect capable of designing a plan that should realise, in all the sub- limity of form and proportion, the grand conception filling the mind of the Archbishop-Prince. Such an architect was at length found among the people of Cologne itself, where he had already acquired a high * This legend is derived partly from the work by Kiefer, and partly from the " RHEINLANDS SAOEX " of Dr. Reumont. + The legends all make Conrad de Hochsteden the originator of the Cathe- dral, whereas history refers to his predecessor, Engelbert de Berg, as the prime mover of the undertaking, and the silver shrine of Engelbert, preserved in the " Golden Chamber " of the Dom-Kirehe, assures us of the fact. STORY OF THE DOM BUILDER. 69 reputation from his works, which not only gave evidence of the fitness of his powers, but of the greatness of his genius. The architect was flattered by the patronage of the pre- late; so eager for the glory which seemed to be in store for him, and which he fancied was to endure for ever, in association with so gigantic an enterprise, he promised the Archbishop that he would trace upon parchment a plan of a Christian temple that should excel all others, present and future, by the massive grandeur of its form and the richness of its details. From that moment the architect thought of nothing else than the glorious scheme of the building he had been entrusted with. He gave up all other undertakings, however advan- tageous they might appear to him, so as to be able to reflect, without chance of distraction, upon the arrangement and symmetrical distribution of the several parts of the embryo edifice, as well as upon the harmonious disposition of the columns, and the graceful apportionment of the arches. It was his ambition that the temple he was about to create should become an everlasting monument of the piety of the age in which he lived, and that it should hand down to posterity the name of its designer as one of the glories of the time. But though he fatigued his brain with long meditation, and weakened his body by continual fasting and prayers for fitting inspiration for the work, he made sketch after sketch, and laid down plan after plan, without satisfying either him- self or his archiepiscopal patron. The ideal which existed in his brain the exquisite image that he beheld so often and so vividly in his dreams, he could never seize precisely as he saw it, for it seemed to fade from his mind immediately that he took his compasses and his " T-squares " in hand with the view of reducing it to parchment. 70 COLOGNE. So lie drew and drew and added, and erased and cor- rected, and began again, but still he could not succeed in fixing the beautiful apparition which continually flitted before . his mind, and which seemed to have been conjured up by some evil genius merely to mock him. At length, after being repeatedly foiled, the architect grew morose and disheartened, and wandered through the fields and the forests for many entire days for the restless- ness of his spirit became greater and greater with his succes- sive failures. One day his rambles had led him to the shores of the Rhine, where he wandered along by the river-side meditating upon his plan. Absorbed in thought he reached the Franks' Gate. Here he seated himself, and, with a small stick in his hand, drew sketch after sketch upon the sand. Still no plan could he complete : some were too mean in their masses, and others, on the contrary, too extravagant in their proportions. He continued in this manner drawing and effacing until the setting sun reflected its last rays upon the bosom of the Rhine. While the purple dusk of twilight began to close in around him he traced, with his stick, a sketch upon the shore, that, as he eyed the towers, and transepts, and columns, and buttresses which he had grouped together into one grand whole, seemed to him to be the very image which he had beheld in his sleep, and which he had never before been able to em- body in his waking moments. " Yes, that's it ! " he cried aloud, overjoyed at the thought of having at length succeeded. " Yes, that's it, indeed ! " murmured an old man, who was seated on a neighbouring block of stone, and who, though he had been watching the architect for some time, had remained there unperceived by the architect himself; " but it is the cathe- dral of Strasbourg," the old one added, with a sarcastic chuckle. STOKY OF THE DOM BUILDER. 7 1 The stranger was right. The artist, as he looked again, saw that his production was an effort of his memory rather than his imagination. Accordingly this plan was effaced, like the previous ones, and another commenced. Then the old man came behind the architect's shoulder, and as he watched him trace on the shore now a tower, and now a porch, and then a chancel, he would titter, as he mut- tered in his ear after each design, " Amiens ! Metz ! Ant- werp!" or some other city famous for its cathedral. " On my word, master," cried the artist, angry at the jeers of his companion, and yet struck with the knowledge he evinced, " you seem to delight in pulling to pieces the works of others : I should like to see what you can produce yourself. Come ! come ! try your hand ! " And he held out the stick to the other. The queer old man looked at the architect in a cunning manner, and then, taking the proffered stick, he traced a spire on the soft ground at his feet, but in so masterly a manner that the architect cried out immediately, "Oh, 'tis plain you are a great artist! Tell me your name, I must have heard of it. But why do you stop? I entreat you to finish your design." " No ! no ! " responded the unknown, with the same odd chuckle as before, while he returned the stick ; " you would copy the plan, and reap all the honour." " Listen, old gentleman ! " continued the architect, " we are alone ;" and so they were, for the shore was now deserted, and the night growing darker and darker. " I '11 give you ten golden crowns if you will complete the sketch before me." "Ten golden crowns! ha! ha! ha!" laughed out the 72 COLOGNE. l, as he drew a little purse from under his cloak, and poured out of it an endless stream of gold pieces, though it seemed capable of holding but two or three. The artist started hack a few paces when he found his companion was beyond temptation. Then growing desperate, and intent on seeing the completion of the plan that had so charmed him, he seized the old man by the arm, and, drawing a dagger from his belt, shouted, in a menacing tone, " Finish the plan, I say! or you die upon the spot." " Threats to me ! ho ! ho ! ho ! they will avail you as little as your gold ! " and, so saying, he gripped the architect by the wrists till the wretched man felt as if held in a vice, and shrieked again with the sudden agony. Then hurling the awe-stricken builder scornfully to the ground, he exclaimed, " Now that you know that neither money nor force can move me, I will tell you that there is one way still in which you may become the possessor of the design, ay, and the trumpery honour along with it, too." " How so ? " eagerly exclaimed the prostrate and terrified artist. The stranger leant over the other, and whispered in his ear, _ " Be mine body and soul!" The affrighted architect was no longer in doubt as to the character of his companion, so he made the sign of the cross, and commenced repeating a "Paternoster" whereupon the demon suddenly disappeared. " So ! " exclaimed the architect, the following morning, on being roused from his feverish sleep by the old dame who STORY OF THE DOM BUILDER. 73 waited upon him at home, "the design of the cathedral that is to transcend all others, and has so long engrossed my thoughts, does really exist!" Whereupon he fell to work again, drawing spires, and naves, and choirs, and domes, but none were to his mind. The old man's plan, the marvellous plan of which he had had a glimpse, was the only one that would suit him, and yet, strive as he would, he could not reproduce the least fragment of it. Yes! he must become possessed of it be the sacrifice never so great. Then he thought of the loss of his own soul, the eternal torments he would be doomed to undergo, and all for some ephemeral worldly honour. So he breathed a prayer to the Virgin, and besought her to deliver him from the spoils of the tempter. His mind, however, was too agitated to rest ; accordingly he quitted the city and wandered about for days, still dreaming of the scheme, and still with the demon plan tempting him as he went for, pray as he would, he could not shake the beauty of it from his soul. So he rambled on and on, praying and designing by fits on the way, till at length he found himself benighted in the forest that then surrounded the Seven Mountains ; and as he groped for the path round by the base of the Drachenfels he perceived the same little old man, drawing with his staff upon the rocky wall. Every stroke that the evil one made was of fire, and left a long trail of light behind it, as if he were sketching with so much phosphorus. But although the burning lines crossed and interlaced each other in a thousand different ways, yet, in the midst of all the seeming confusion, exquisite forms of steeples and spindrals and Gothic fretwork might be distinctly traced. These, however, sparkled only for an instant and 1 4 COLOGNE. then disappeared, while at times the brilliant lines would seem to combine and form a perfect glittering temple. " Well, will you have my plan ?" said the stranger to the artist. (The latter sighed deeply.) " Will you have it?" iterated the demon ; and as he uttered the words he drew a portal in luminous tracery on the rock, and then as suddenly effaced it. " I will do all you ask," wildly answered the architect. " To-morrow, then, by the Franks' Gate at midnight," said the other, and immediately left him. ***** The next day the architect returned to Cologne full of life and joy ; he had forgotten everything save that he was at last to become the possessor of the plan which he had so long struggled to embody. On reaching home he found the old woman who tended him, and who in his childhood had been his nurse, about to quit the house. She was clothed in black. " I am going," said she, as she stopped for a moment to answer his inquiries, " to the Holy Apostles' Kirche, to hear a mass for the deliverance of a soul from purgatory." " A mass of deliverance I " cried the distracted architect, as, on entering the house, he threw himself upon his bed and burst into tears. " Alas ! no prayers nor masses can avail me ; I am doomed doomed for ever 1" The next moment the image of the marvellous cathedral sparkled once more before his eyes and fascinated his imagi- nation ; but the minute after, the idea of eternal torment rose so vividly and forcibly to his mind that he trembled like a leaf. In this state his nurse found him on her return ; and when she had forced the awful tale from him, the poor affrighted woman crossed herself again and again, and at STORY OF THE DOM BUILDEB. 75 length hurried off to her confessor, to consult him as to what her master had better do. The priest, when he had heard the whole matter from the good woman, began to reflect. " What ! " said the holy man, " a cathedral that ' would make Cologne the marvel of all Germany and France ! " "But, father," interposed the dame, "my good master is to give his soul to the demon for it." " A cathedral to which pilgrims would resort from all parts of- the world!" continued the confessor, speaking to himself. " That it should come to this after all the prayers I formerly taught him ! " And the old nurse wrung her hands at the thought. " A cathedral that would surpass all other Christian temples in the world !" murmured the priest. " Here, my good woman, is a relic of the eleven thousand virgins. Give it your master. He must obtain the plan of this won- drous church from the arch-fiend before he signs the bond. Let him take this little bone of St. Ursula with him to the place of meeting, and as soon as he gets the design into his hand, let him show the relic to the evil one, and trust to the protection of the holy saints for the rest." ***** It was half-past eleven when the artist quitted his dwelling that night, leaving his nurse upon her knees. Having con- cealed the relic she had given him under his cloak, he pro- ceeded to the appointed place, where he found the demon, who was no longer in disguise, but arrayed in all his natural hideousness. " Here is the plan of the cathedral, and here the contract which you must sign," said the prince of darkness, as he placed the two parchments in the hand of the trembling architect. 76 COLOGNE. The artist felt that this was the moment upon which his salvation depended. Breathing a prayer to the holy saints for success, he grasped the marvellous plan tightly in his hand, as he held up the precious relic with the other, and exclaimed, " In the name of the holy Ursula and the eleven thousand martyrs I bid thee begone! Begone! I command thee, Satan! by virtue of this virgin relic." The arch-fiend was taken by surprise. " I am outwitted," cried he, furious at the trick ; " but I will be revenged in spite of your relics and your priests. Listen, foolish mortal ! That church, the plan of which you have cheated me, shall never be completed ; and as for thee, I will blot out thy name from the memory of mankind: thy cathedral shall remain for ever unfinished, and thee for ever unknown." And so saying, the demon vanished. The words, unfinished and unknown, rang ominously in the architect's ear; and, though master of the marvellous plan he had so long desired, he returned home stricken down with melancholy. ***** Years passed by, and the noble cathedral, the building of which had been begun with vigour, continued to rise higher and higher, and to grow daily into form, so that the architect got almost to believe that the fiend would prove a false prophet after all. As for his name, he determined so that it might endure as long as the structure itself to have it engraved upon a brass plate and let into the tower, beneath where the clock was to be fixed. He was the builder of an edifice which he knew the world could not equal, and, in the vain-glory of his heart, he thought no accident could cheat him of his fame. The architect went to the top of the half-raised tower to survey with pride the proportions of the expanding mass, and, THE DOM-KIRCHE. 77 as he looked over the edge, a black cloud above his head burst suddenly in thunder and hail, and with so awful a crash, that the workmen there hid their faces in their hands for very fear. When the peal had ceased and the men looked around, their master was gone : his body was afterwards found by them crushed upon the stones below. Then disputes arose between the Archbishop and the citizens, and the progress of the building was soon interrupted ; so that, though divers attempts were made, at different intervals, to complete the structure and though some 700 years have rolled away since it was begun and though, too, learned and patient men have diligently sought among the archives of the past to find out the name of him who planned it, despite all this, the edifice remains to this day almost in the same unfinished state as when Satan hurled the artist from the tower the original plans of the building are lost and the name of the architect is forgotten and unknown. 4. THE Dcm-KiRCHE "unfinished and unknown" It is a peculiar sight after passing through the dark arch- way, with the curiosity-shops beneath it, that stands at one corner of the open space called the " DOM KLOSTER," round about the Cathedral, to behold that wondrous mass of old and new towers, and porches, and buttresses, burst for the first time upon your sight to hear the click of the many mason-chisels at work in the red-brick sheds that almost cover the " platz" surrounding 78 COLOGNE. the ancient pile to sec the blue sky glistening through the new stone tracery of the unglazed windows, and the long green grass growing in tufts upon the top of the old broken-off tower at the end. Then the net-work of scaffolding-poles in front of the fresh stone walls, with their little railway along the top, and the huge block of yellow stone dangling before the half- finished columns beneath how strangely does all this consort with the queer old-fashioned crane a-top of the tower, with its base built round and slated, and ever standing there amid a hedge of weeds and jagged blocks ! The sight of that crane, like the arm of an old telegraph pointing in the air, carries the mind back through hundreds of years, and whispers in the ear the mystic legend in which, despite your reason, you cannot help having a lingering faith, because it expresses exactly the sentiment of the pile. For when you remember how long the crane has stood there, and call to mind how many times the space round about the building has been littered, as you now see it, with the huge square blocks intended for the completion of the edifice, and with sheds-full of workmen, busy as now, carving capitals for the wanting columns, and griffin images for the deficient buttress-corners ; and when you see, moreover, how little has been done, notwithstanding all this show of work, and that the nave is still without a roof, and the transept scarcely raised above the porch, and the intended tall towers but little higher than the neighbouring house-tops, you cannot help thinking that the fate which has attended the Dom for now some 700 years is still sure to have its sway. This year a portal, with its white stone arches, chased and embossed like so much silver, may be added at one corner ; but as the work goes on, Time, the great devourer, is surely doing his work in some other part gnawing at the edges of the ancient fretwork, or crumbling the tips from some buttress-pinnacle, or stripping the leaves off some ancient capital: so that, as THE DOM-KTRCHE. 79 fast as one portion is sharpened into new forms, another is being rounded and worn into almost shapeless ruins.* Nevertheless, there is sufficient of the pile existing to charm even the most fastidious taste. The chancel, which is the only part that can really be said to be finished, and which was consecrated as far back as the year 1322, is an exquisite specimen of Gothic beauty. At first sight it reminds one strongly of Henry the Seventh's Chapel in Westminster Abbey ; for the pinnacles to the buttresses around it are notched at the edges, and have the same light, elegant air, looking more like carved ivory than heavy stonework. On a second glance, however, you discover that the architecture of the Dom-Kirche is less filagree in its character, and that the grandeur of the mass is not frittered away in the profusion of ornate detail. The flying buttresses shoot out in rays from the tall chancel walls, and spread round about it like an open fan; while the thin, sharp points of the buttress-pinnacles stand up about the steep roof, light and fragile - looking as so many icicles round some frozen spring. Between the lower part of the buttresses themselves are set the several chapels around the choir, with their gable- like roofs stretching along in a Vandyke line, and serving as a broad base to the tall chancel behind. At the end of this, the clean, fresh-carved portal of the unfinished transept appears, with its yellow walls above, and the open-pastry- like work of its large, unglazed window, contrasting strangely with the grey rounded old stones beside it ; and the images of the little carved Scripture-pieces that ornament the upper part of the new doorway, looking so white that one is puzzled * It is calculated that it will still take 30 years to complete the exterior of the Cathedral ; the interior, however, the sacristan informed us, is to be com- pleted in 8 years. SO COLOGNE. to tell whether they are in plaster or stone; while high above this stands the scaffolding, like a huge " scratch- cradle," upon whose upper galleries you can perceive the tiny figures of some party of strangers busy viewing the works of the present building. Next to this, the wall of the recently-finished aisle stretches along towards the old tower; and here, Ibetween the fresh O * Gothic tracery, are seen the painted panes of the newly-glazed windows, appearing, when viewed from without, like the wrong side of some bright carpet-pattern. The buttresses, too, jutting from the walls, seem, in their half-finished state, to be broken off short; while the grotesque monsters that stretch over from their upper corners are scarcely discoloured yet by the rain. Finally, the eye rests upon the ancient, abrupt tower, with the Gothic niches up its sides, all blunt and eaten at the edges like some half-dissolved crystal, the worn little statue- porches looking like hillocks of dirty thawing snow and the few images that remain converted into torsi by their many mutilations ; while, through the empty windows above, you see the black beams of the old scaffolding within, and catch sight, here and there, of part of some Gothic arch that was begun and discontinued centuries ago, with the curving stonework brought to so sudden a termination that you wonder how the overhanging blocks can hold together. Indeed, turn which way you will, the same picturesque jumble of columns in ruins before they have been half reared of windows almost eaten away before even their tracery was complete of buttresses crumbling to pieces long ere the masonry had mounted to the pinnacle and all this side by side with walls whose blocks and ornaments are so fresh from the chisel, that they look almost like biscuit-china work in their newness, and whose scaffolding is peopled, for the THE DOM-KIRCHE. 81 hundredth time, with a crowd of workmen, as intent on finishing the building as those who laboured at it centuries ago long before Luther had raised his voice against the pomps and vanities of Popery. The interior of the Dom-Kirche is grand and impressive as some forest glade ; the tall columns rise about you like so many slender tree-stems grouped together, and the high arches are groined above like interlacing boughs. The light is dimmed and solemn, and as it pours down from the upper windows you can see it spotting the pillars half-way up even as you have observed the sunshine leaking through a canopy of leaves and dappling, with luminous spots, the white and graceful trunk of some silver birch. The tall stained windows along the aisles on either side are gorgeous as the richest flower-beds with their many colours, and the pavement is tinted in places, like a rainbow, with the beams that stream through the glass, subdued and stained in their passage. On one side the windows are new, and the dyes so vivid and transparent that the air, immediately round about them, seems to be suffused with the hues in the same manner as you have noticed some brightly-coloured blossom shedding a positive halo of tinted light around it. On the other side the windows are ancient, and, though less gorgeous, are in far better taste ; for the little bits of white in them relieve and soften the tinted parts so that they look like the exquisite coloured forms seen through a kaleidoscope. At mass time, the scene to minds trained in the simpli- city of Protestantism partakes more of the character of a pageant than a religious ceremony. Nevertheless, as we hear the organ filling every arch with its harmonious thunder, and G 82 COLOGNE. almost feel the peals of melody sweeping in rich gusts along the vaults as we hear, too, the flute-like voices of the boy-choristers mingling their treble with the deep organ bass the mind, despite the judgment, is entranced with reverence, and wafted upon the wing of the sweet solemn sounds far above the earth. Then how superb the picture, as you peep through the arch of the chancel-door and see the priest bending before the cupola-crowned altar in the distance, with his glittering gar- ments half veiled in the incense smoke which the scarlet-robed boys beside him are pouring forth in white clouds, as they swing their silver censers to and fro ! You can just distinguish, too, amidst the fumes, little bright bits of the massive plate that is piled upon the altar ; and at the foot of the broad steps before it you see, in exquisite relief with the grey clouded background, the huge red-gold-looking candlesticks, with their tall lights ranged along in front of the lace-like railings ; while on one side appears the archiepiscopal throne, with its gor- geous canopy looped gracefully aside, and just revealing the royal-looking seat beneath. Then the choir itself is motley with the robes of its many priests and choristers, some clad in bright purple, others in black with white lace skirts, and others, again, in green and gold, and seated amid rich old oak carvings, with heavy red hangings behind them draping from above, and emblazoned statues of the Apostles projecting from the gilt columns high overhead; while at either chancel gate there stands the red-gowned and gaunt- leted beadle, with his square black-velvet cap upon his head the only one allowed to be covered there and carrying a huge staff surmounted with a silver model of the Cathedral. It must be confessed that the sight has all the elements of barbaric beauty about it that it is a fine spectacle, with the best possible scenery, dresses, and music and that the mind THE DOM-KIRCHE. 83 is tricked by it, for a time, into a kind of religious swoon. But once over, and the gorgeous illusion past, the cool reason cannot help placing it amid the worn-out pageantry of our own Lord-mayor's Show, a bit of empty mediaeval pomp, that may perhaps impress children of a larger as well as smaller growth, but which, to every thinking mind, is a mere piece of surface trumpery even in connexion with the installation of a civic functionary and which becomes almost impious when applied to the worship of the All -Wise, of Him to whom the beggar's raiment is as acceptable as the richest robes ; while it is absolute mockery in union with a creed whose great Exemplar and Teacher was the first to show the pomp-stricken world the majesty of poverty, a King without a place to put his head in, arid whose only robe was a garment without a seam. Around the chancels are set the seven chapels large niche-like recesses, bathed in an almost prismatic light from the stained windows about them, and where lie stately figures of the old Prince-Archbishops who founded or watched over the growth of the Cathedral. In one of these the bronze image of CONRAD DE HOCHSTEDEN he who laid the first stone of the edifice appears stretched at full length, as if he were some iron Prelate sleeping there for ever, amid the organ peals, and with all the proud ambitious spirit of the mediaeval hierarch graven in the metal lineaments of his face. Beside this one is the stately monument of the warrior Arch- bishop PHILIP OF HEINSBUEG, whose full-length painted-stone figure reposes on a faded reddened-granite cushion, and with the. gilding nearly all worn off his sculptured mitre; while round the recumbent image is set a border of minia- ture ramparts, like some model castle on an elephant's back, as indicative that he the preacher of the creed of kindness was the first to raise the outer fortress walls round 84 COLOGNF. about the town, and telling strange stories of the days when the mitre was almost as warlike an emblem as the helmet On the other side of the chancel is the tomb of the Archbishop WOLFRAM DE JULIAN, with the full-length marble figure re- clining, white and truthful, as if it were the prelate himself who had just been dug out of the snow ; while near this again, in the " Chapel of St. Trinity," is the admirable painting of the " Dom-lild," as it is called (the cathedral picture), the work of the celebrated Master Stephen in the fourteenth century. This is painted on the back of two folding-doors somewhat like those to a bookcase which are generally kept closed, but when opened, reveal three pictures, the two on the back of the folding-doors themselves representing the martyrdoms of St. Ursula and St. Gereon, and the one in the centre, which is usually covered by the others, the Adoration of the Magi, while the whole with their gold backgrounds look like a leaf from some exquisitely illuminated missal. Then, behind the altar, is seen a large dark slab, let into the pavement, and from which the brass lettering has been stripped (by the French). Beneath this, the heart of MARIE DE MEDICIS is interred; and close beside it stands the far- famed shrine of the so-called " Three Kings," though a Latin inscription upon the tomb tells you that "HERE REPOSE THE THREE BODIES OF THE HOLY MAGI." The tradition declares these to be the remains of the Wise Men who came from the East with presents to worship the infant Saviour. The relics were originally carried, it is said, to Constantinople, in the year 328, by the Empress Helena (mother of Constantine the Great, and widow of the Roman Emperor, Constantius Chlorus, who died at York) transported thence, at a later period, to Milan afterwards carried off from the church of St. Eustorgio, at Milan, by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, when he took that city by storm (A.D. THE DOM-KIRCHE. 85 1 1 64) and ultimately handed over, as his share of the booty, to Reinald de Dassel, who was Archbishop of Cologne at the time, and had accompanied Barbarossa on his warlike expedition. But how the Empress Helena became possessed of the relics in the first instance and how she got to know that the bones she carried to Constantinople were really those of the Magi who were the first to adore the new-born Saviour and how, moreover, she ascertained, after more than three cen- turies had elapsed, and Titus in the interval had rased the Holy City to the ground, that the names of the sages were, as we are told nowadays, " GASPAR," " MELCHIOR," and " BAL- THAZAR" the tradition, though particularly circumstantial, is not sufficiently so to inform us. Nevertheless, even if the story be one of those " pious frauds," or holy taradiddles, that the Romish Church delights to indulge in as a means, perhaps, of giving a greater reality to the faith it teaches, by vivifying every minute incident in connexion with the Saviour's life even if it Belong, we say, to one of these priestly tricks, the shrine itself is antique and curious enough to make it an object of interest even to the intellectual, and of reverence to the credulous. The tomb in which the shrine is enclosed reminds one strongly of the vault of the Capulets ; and here, on Sundays and festivals, you can see through an open window in the front (the brass lattice, which usually screens the interior from view, being then thrown back, and two long candles placed upon the sill to burn in the day-light for the glorification of the blessed saints within) through this little window, we say, you can see, shining in the dark and stellated vault, the gable-like end of what appears to be a massive-gold and richly-chased coffin, with a little grating let into it, through the gilt bars of which you can just make out the three brown gutta- percha-like skulls of the pretended " Magi," tricked out in 86 COLOGNE. jewelled tiaras, and with their names printed in rubies upon scrolls along the bars. The end of the gilt sarcophagus is knobbed all over with little figures carved out of the precious metal, and studded with big jewels, whose splendour, amid the ghastliness of death, strikes one as the very hideousness of worldly pomp and frippery. Never, indeed, did riches appear so glaring a cheat to the mind ! The very sight of the profusion of wealth here, surrounding so many senseless skeletons the barbaric gewgaws of the world used to glorify things that naturally lead the mind far away from the world itself sets one wondering at the obtusity or wickedness of priests who, professing a creed which despises treasures that "moth and rust can corrode," still seek to bewilder the poor and ignorant into fancied Christianity by the glitter of lavish riches, and these, too, in connexion with the terrible realities of death itself. See that old peasant woman who is on her knees muttering her prayers before the tinselled shrine! Think you that the sight of all this gold and jewels is likely to teach her that the wealth, which her very poverty must make her regard as the means of unbounded happiness, is but a splendid delusion, and to believe that Solomon, arrayed in all his glory, is not so admirable as a simple lily of the field ? Will the contem- plation of those frightful skulls be likely to rob death of its sting to her, or make her look upon the grave as the threshold of a bright and happy home, rather than a charnel-place of terror and corruption ? But the shrine is, after all, far less precious than it looks ; for a considerable portion of its jewels and gold turn out, upon investigation, to be mere paste and pinchbeck. It seems that, during the French Revolution in 1794, when the canons of Cologne fled to Arnsberg in Westphalia, they carried with them the treasures of the cathedral, and, when these were brought THE DOM-KIRCHE. 87 back to Cologne, after the war, it was found that many of the massive, silver-gilt figures which originally decorated the shrine had been wrenched off entire ; others, by their deformity and mutilations, gave evidence of the efforts that had been made to remove them. -* Several of the enamels, too, and sapphires that formerly ornamented it proved to be missing, the empty settings rendering their disappearance the more striking. The tiaras round the heads of the Three Kings, moreover, had had nearly all their diamonds picked out ; while many of the rubies, in which the names of the Magi were written in front of the golden coffin, had been sold by the priests who guarded the relics, and the places of the precious stones sup- plied by glass imitations : thus showing, that however sacred the remains of the " wise men " might appear in the eyes of the people, the priests themselves valued them only at so much money's worth. Still there is sufficient gold and cameos, and enamels, and precious stones left about the shrine to give a fair notion of its riches and -magnificence in its original state. It is said to have been constructed in Cologne, at the cost of the German Emperor, Otho IV., surnamed " the Superb" (A.D. 1208- 1212), the antiques and jewels being presents from the Cologne merchants and foreign princes. The value of the golden coffin, even at the present day, is " quoted" at near a quarter of a million sterling; and extravagant as the amount may seem, still it does not appear to be overrated, for the gorgeous case in which the relics are deposited is an enormous mass of silver gilt, weighing upwards of a ton, embossed all round with solid figures of the prophets and apostles, and scriptural subjects in alto-relievo, while it is studded with rare gems, as big as eggs, and cameos and intaglios of the most exquisite workmanship. At the end, by the skulls, there is a monster topaz, like a lump of frozen honey, as large as a lemon; and near this, 88 COLOGNE. again, tlierc is an intaglio of " Venus Victrix" beautifully graven upon a carbuncle that seems like a huge goute of solid red wine, and a magnificent cameo of the " Coronation of Augustus," carved with the choicest art. Indeed the entire shrine is a wondrous piece of mediaeval craft and splendour, got up by the priests as a means of awing the simple into a belief of that faith which made the prelates at one time the rulers of kings as well as people, and which they themselves seemed to revere more for the dominion it gave them than for the kindly doctrines it inculcated. 5. THE CHURCH OF SKULLS. Almost at the outskirts of the city of Cologne there stands a little church, which externally has nothing peculiar about it to arrest the attention, unless, indeed, it be the square tower, with its pagoda-like top, built of slates, and surmounted by a huge wooden crown, that you see, as you approach, soaring above the neighbouring roofs. Nor would you think, on entering it, that the edifice was in any way remarkable, for the interior is almost as plain and simple as an English country church ; so that, were it not for the showy altar-piece at the end of the choir, with the tall candles in front of it, and the silver tabernacle in the centre, together with the scarlet and gilt capitals to some of the chancel- columns, you would feel inclined to believe from the drab- coloured walls and primitive character of the architecture that you were in a Protestant, rather than a Roman Catholic, place of worship. After a time, however, as you look about the chancel, you THE CHURCH OF SKULLS. 89 are struck by a series of glazed compartments, half-way up the walls, in shape something like the fan-lights over door- ways, and extending at intervals around the choir. The glass of these is, as it were, trellised with ornamental brass-work, so as to be divided into a number of large honeycomb-like cells, and while you are wondering what on earth they can be for, the long black-coated sacristan by your side points out to you that there is a human skull set in each of the divisions. Then, as you look again, you can just see the oval brown crania showing dimly behind the glasses, and no sooner are you impressed with the fact than the walls seem to swarm with the hideous things for in each compartment there are four rows, and each row contains six skulls while round the chancel alone there are no less than eight such compart- ments on either side; so that in that small space you are surrounded by nearly four hundred human skulls. And here, within this ring of crania, prayers are offered up to the Almighty by the Romish priests, even as triumphs are cele- brated by savages ! Again, as you look up at one end of the little transept, there are two other compartments in the same style as those you have before seen, but so much larger, that they contain upwards of a hundred more skulls ; while facing these, on the opposite wall, is still another case let into the brickwork, and holding some sixty more. At the other end of the transept, too, the same sight meets your eye, for there you find similar ghastly cabinets sunk into the walls ; and all along one side of the outer aisle, above the lower arches, there runs a kind of projecting wooden locker, with the front removed. This is packed close, and full of human bones sainted tibice and ulnce so that from the length and thickness of it you are almost terror-stricken at the mass of mortal remains that must be stored within. Above this is 90 COLOGNE. placed a row of pigeon-holes, reaching from one end of the aisle to the other, and each of these also has a skull peeping out from it, one after another, till there are nearly another hundred, ranged in one long line. Moreover, at the end of the aisle, there is a large open " press," as it were, fixed half-way up the walls, with still another century of skulls set out on shelves at the lower part, while the upper portion is crammed with a larger quantity of bones even than before. Nor is this all; for the priestly-looking sacristan who seems to take a special pleasure in the ghastly exhibition leads you to a huge, square, old sarcophagus, like a stone bath, and, removing the wooden cover, withdraws, from beneath the white cloth within, a handful of yellow bones, raising them with so slight an effort that you are positively sickened at their lightness. Indeed the whole place is packed with these hideous stores at almost every corner, and you yourself can easily sum up nearly a thousand skulls exposed in the several compartments ; so that the story you are told of there being no less than 1760 human crania altogether visible in the church would doubtlessly be found correct, did you think the matter worth the testing. Further, the very walls round about the choir are said to be double, and the space between them to be filled all the way round, to the height of ten feet, with like remains ; so that the church strikes you as being more like a vast bone- house than a place of worship. The grim sight stirs you to the core. You are moved, partly with pity for the dead about you partly with horror at the thought that those ghastly bones once owned a frame like your own, and that some day there will be nothing more re- maining of you, no other bodily relic to mark your own existence but mainly with disgust at that charnel creed which delights to use the death's-head and cross-bones as a means of working THE CHURCH OF SKULLS. 91 the weak-minded into a fancied religious fervour. Surely these are rather bugaboos to frighten children than arguments by which to win men's hearts to the beauty and love of the Christian faith. After this you are ushered to a kind of gilded ossuary, called the " GOLDEN KAMMER" (Golden Chamber), where you find the same horrible bedizenment of human skeletons with jewels and gold, as you had before had a glimpse of at the cathedral. This chamber consists of a lofty apartment, such as might do duty for the vestry-room in one of our smaller parish churches, and against the walls stand, what seem to be, tall, spacious cabinets, with the folding-doors of some of them latticed, as it were, with a gaudy device of broad-spreading leaves, fashioned in ormolu, and each front entirely covering one side of the room, so that, on entering the place, it strikes you as being walled with gold. The cabinet doors, when opened, reveal a curious sight. On some of the shelves stand rows of life-sized busts, the hair and chests of which are brightly gilt, while the faces are as brightly silvered, though they give you a sense of the features being cast in pewter. Other shelves are filled with skull after skull, to the extent of some six hundred, and each of them tricked out with a kind of Turkish " yashmack," made of old red velvet, covering the mouth and jaws, and upon this the name of the saint, to whom the cranium is said to have belonged, is worked in threads of gold, that are half black from long tarnishing. Some of the metallic, heavy-looking busts, are then removed from the shelves for your edification, and the crown of the head lifted up on its hinge, when some brown skull, that has become almost polished from repeated handling, is withdrawn from its bed of wool within the carved image. As the sacristan tells you that this one belonged to some of the more holy 92 COLOGNE. saints, you observe that the name of the individual is worked in pearls upon the red velvet respirator-like mouth-piece. The heads 'of all the tinsel busts (and there are upwards of a hundred of them here) you now find to be "practicable" as they say in theatrical language, and to be each stored with the same ghastly treasures. Next your attention is drawn, with no little pride, to the fact that the spaces above the cabinets are stacked high with bones reaching to the ceiling ; and as you look up the sides of the chamber, the walls at the top seem positively ribbed over with line after line of human remains, so that they look like the rustic-work of some Swiss cottage ; while along the front of these you can decipher the inscription, " SANCTA URSULA ORA PRO NOBIS " embroidered, as it were, in bones around the room. Moreover, down the centre of the chamber there extends a long glass case (such as you see covering minerals at a museum), and within this are treasured the most precious relics of the place. Here is one skull encircled by a crown of great value; there another, which has the name worked in precious stones ; and there a jaw-bone in a golden case, with the still perfect teeth exposed to view, so that you may be assured of its being, as asserted, that of the young bride- groom of the principal lady-saint ; another, too, has a sharp incision (a sabre wound) in the skull, with a portion of the bone broken away; while again another has tufts of hair still clinging to the cranium. For as these are adapted to give the spectators a stronger spasm of horror than the rest, the place of special honour seems to be reserved for them. Such constitute the larger relics of the principal case ; but among them lie little glass tubes filled with wool, one con- taining a couple of sprigs, that you are reverently assured formed part of the rod with which the Saviour was scourged, and the other enclosing a thorn, which the sacristan bows his THE CHURCH OF SKULLS. 93 head to, as he tells you that it came from the crown in which Jesus was crucified. These are the strange sights one sees at " St. Ursula's Kirche ;" though, to English minds, it must be confessed, they serve in no way as quickeners of religious faith, but rather, perhaps, to beget a spirit of scepticism as to all the early tra- ditions of the Church ; for the sight of the pretended spicula from Christ's crown of thorns, and the exhibition of the iden- tical pitcher in which, it is said, Jesus turned the water into wine at the marriage-feast of Cana, (and which you are also shown at the reliquary,) instead of stirring you to reverence, serve rather to make you indignant at the pious frauds that you feel intuitively are being practised upon you, and to set you speculating as to where the holy impositions end ; since, if it were the practice of the early Fathers, you naturally say, to try and cheat people into belief, how is it possible, in the long lapse of ages, to distinguish the false from the true ? Nevertheless, despite the priestly trickery, you cannot help feeling a desire to know what all this heap of human bones and skulls means whence they came and if they be really the remains of some tremendous tragedy enacted on the spot. Now, along one side of the outer aisle of the church there is a series of odd old pictures, painted in the style of the early German school, with large gilt glories, like immense cymbals, about the heads of the heroes and heroines, arid composed of limp-looking figures, with the objects in the background piled above those in front.* These are illustrative of the history of Saint Ursula, to whom the church is dedicated * It must not be imagined, from the above, that we are insensible to the merits of the early German painters. Some of the productions of Master Wilhelm and Master Stephen have exquisite bits of painting in them, the effects being produced often in a most masterly manner, and the flesh tints remarkable for their transparency ; so that one must admire, despite the apparent absurdities of perspective, and the " killing" gold backgrounds. 94 COLOGNE. thi' several tableaux being arranged in succession, and depicting each a distinct event in the life of the saint, with explanatory lines underneath, after the fashion of the celebrated " Adven- tures of Monsieur Villebois." The explanations, which are in German, with Latin trans- lations below, are to the following effect; and by their aid it will not be very difficult to conceive the character of the pictures themselves: " Cijc Etfe of >t. SHrSuIa, fotti) tlje Coinpano of fjer 11,000 Virgins, toljo, A.D. 237, jfyrtJ tfcctr JJtoofc, in tf)i3 Country, Cor tljf (Lljnstiaa JLultcjton, antt UjuS obtained tl)f Crolun of ^Hartprtom. 3King Uioneth jftlanr toith his toife Baria in Ttnglanto tcscccl; U;c Got) (or an heir. J : i om tuliom tlicii obtain a tiancdmr. Hn liob baptism she vcccibcs tbe name of JHrsula a name that has since become glorious throughout the toorlo. 'atiorneB toith then) grace anU birtttt, she Dcbotes herself to a life of goDhj celibaty. ^The fitathtn Hing "agrippin senBs 'SmbassaDors to lEnglanti. Che groti IXing Jt\aur toclcomes the limbassa'Dors, anti honours them to their hearts' content. KUio tio honour to .{Haur toith presents, nnli ask his Daughter in marriage for 3lgiipplu's son. On reflection, hoiDcbcr, he rejects their proposals, anti then cnDeabour to turn him from bis resolution. Ursula, tohile praning at night, is bisitetf btj an angel, toho brings her tilings iljat it is the bull of GoD she shoulu baeB Conan, 'Jlgtippin's son. he is cnjointti, hobocbcr, to twit three peats, lulun Conan shall become a (Christian, ana a birgin host be as= scmblcU for her. THE CHURCH OF SKULLS. 95 SCh.e 'ambassaUors rejoice to hear the liftings, so agreeable to them, anO proceet) upon thzir Snap. Chep return thanfes to trjeir tools, for tijcri toorship sue!) tilings, ant) are cuutjcu in their actions bn tljcm. , blintJcti bp heathenism, is let) to oppose the marriage, but ffiot) softens his heart. (Eonan, bp ^is entreaties, tiissuatles hjs father from f)is tic termination ; lit seefes to tiepart, anti mafecs prepa= rations for so Hoinn. ionctfi orters clefaen large ships to be built toitl) all fjaste for tfje inrgin I)OSt. 3Jn roljicfi, full of glorn, tfiep emfiarft upon trje sea, ant), praising C^oti, sail fjitfjer ant) thither. f)e rorjal briBe tafees leabe of her relations, ant) submits herself to the bonage. Che tnrgins lant at the famous toton of Sihiel, tohere the clergrj receibe them totth honour. Bishop 'Squilin toelcomcs them at Coin, anK, ffiot) inspiring them bp night, ihco continue tijeir journep to= toartis Borne. XX. at 93asl, ant) after that the ^@ope dTtmacus at IRome, hospi= tablp recetoe them. manrj of them are bapti^eU, becoming as tJobes, anti being in= struciet) in the true belief. XXII. CCpriactts, together toith his clcrgp, accompanies them on tljetr return ; ^antalus shoto? \)im much hoo ur ' anti toelcomcs tljcm on their reap back. XXIII. ?he Journcrj is continucB from Basl to j^Iain?, tohere CConan meets his betrothet) briBe. Conan is bamijetf, antf rcceibes the name of 3iethcrius a name that is note fcnoton throughout the toljole toorlti. ct) fepart from Jlain?, antJ hasten back to the toton (Coin), tobc CT'Ot) has long orCaineti that thep shall obtain a croton of martgrtiom. COLOGNE. is slain tint) Departs tl)(s life. liMs brine, piertcD bij an arrotu, also meets the same fate. XXVII. ;= ee ; line is tlic fatal place cohere so manrj heroines babe by a brabe Dealt) boon for tljemsclbes tljc martin's croton."* According to the legend, says the Pastor of the Church,f in his printed version of the story, St. Ursula was born in Great Britain, about the year 220, of Christian parents the King Dionctus Maurus and his wife Daria. Being of remark- able beauty, the neighbouring king, Agrippinus, asked her in marriage for his son Conan. The betrothment was celebrated contrary to the wish of Ursula herself, for she had already vowed everlasting virginity, and it was against her conscience, moreover, to be united to the Pagan Prince. Wherefore she bethought herself of a means by which to elude the projected marriage. It was accordingly arranged to defer the nuptials for a time. In the interval, trusting in God, assisted by two kings, and attracted by rising Christianity, Ursula undertook a voyage to the Continent, accompanied by a great number of virgins. She embarked with these in eleven ships, and having safely arrived at Thiel, in Holland, continued her journey thence, up the Rhine, by Cologne, to Basle, being on all sides hospitably received. We are indebted to Herr Weyer, the city architect and eminent con- noisseur of Cologne, for copies of the above inscriptions. This gentleman, whose gallery of old Dutch and German paintings ranks among the most tasteful and valuable of private collections, has recently had several of the Ursula pictures restored, and has found, as he informs us, other and more ancient inscriptions under the varnish. The inscriptions, of which the above are translations, are of the date 1702, whereas the older ones belong to the year 1450; but though the language of these differs considerably from the others, the facts recorded by both are the same. The pictures Herr Weyer has discovered to have been painted by Jan van Schryum. t The Rev. Fr. Vill, who cites Surius as his authority, and adds, that the date of the written account is prior to the year 1111. THE CHURCH OP SKULLS. 97 By the advice of Pantalus, bishop of the last-named city, the virgins left their ships, and crossing the Alps under his guidance, wandered on to Rome. There they visited the tombs of the Martyrs, when the unbaptized, touched by the heroic devotion of the early Christians, desired to be instructed in the creed and received into the Church. Then, strengthened in their faith, the pious company de- parted from Rome, and on their return Cyriacus, with many others, joined them. Reaching Basle once more, they descended the Rhine to Mayence, where Conan, the bridegroom of Saint Ursula, met his betrothed, and, encouraged by the examples of the virgins, allowed himself to be baptized b} r St. Pantalus, under the name JEtherius. After this, they proceeded to Cologne, where the holy band landed, and was ultimately attacked by barbarians hostile to Christianity, who slew them one and all Saint Ursula, who would not listen to the propo- sition of marriage from the Prince of the Huns,* being herself the first to fall, pierced by an arrow. The version of the Benedictine monks is also quoted by the Pastor ; but this is wholly different from the preceding, and dates the catastrophe somewhere between the years 378 and 383, when Maximus, the Roman leader in Britain, was pro- claimed emperor by the army, after which, it is said, he passed with his troops into Brittany, and thence sent an embassy to England to demand virgins in marriage for his newly-settled soldiers. The British chiefs complied with the request, and a large retinue of virgins were embarked against their will, the most honourable among these being Ursula, daughter of the king of Cornwall. She was betrothed, we are told, to Conan, the leader of the British warriors settled in Brittany. A storm, however, overtook the ships in which the virgins * The Pastor tells us that the words of the original are, " Totius Europae victorem " (the conqueror of all Europe). H 98 COLOGNE. sailed, and drove them on the German coast, where the Huns, who overran the country at that time, assaulted the maiden- host and murdered them all. The church of Cologne, it is added, celebrates, with becom- ing ceremony, on the 21st October, the memory of the mar- tyrdom of Ursula and her virgin company. ,We are informed, moreover, that the city of Cologne, in order to honour the memory of the Christian heroines, bears in its coat of arms eleven flames, by which as many thousand virgins are signified. But against these different versions it may be urged, with no little force, that the Huns, who are said to have been the authors of the massacre, did not enter Germany until after the year 430 which is more than two centuries subsequent to the date of the first version of the legend, and more than fifty years after that of the second. Then, again, the relics themselves, at the Church of St. Ursula, prove that the persons said to have been slain there could not, with any probability, have belonged to the virgin train of an English princess; for one of the heads, according to the account of the Pastor, is that of " FLORENTIA, a negro prin- cess ;" another, numbered 26, that of BENIGNA, also a negress ; while two others, numbered 27 and 28, belong, it is said, to BERTHTMA and ARTHDIA, royal princesses of Sicily; and that marked No. 14 to AUREUUS, king of Sardinia. Moreover, it is asserted (though on what authority we know not),* that anatomists have detected many bones of animals among the so-called human remains. And, finally, at " St. Gereon's Kirche" in Cologne, there is a like treasury of crania and tibice, with the skulls set about the church in the same manner as at St Ursula's, and stored like- wise in the heads of gilt busts ; and though these are said to be * See Mr. Buckingham's work on the Rhine. THE CHURCH OF SKULLS. 99 the relics of St. Gereon and the Theban legion, amounting to 6000 men, who were slain at Xanten, Bonn, and Treves, A.D. 290, during the persecution of Diocletian, because they had become Christians, still the fact of one of the principal martyrs being there represented also as a negro, and the cele- bration of the fete of the massacre of St. Gereon falling in the month of October, just about the same time as that of St. Ursula, would seem to link the one event with the other, and to require some more satisfactory explanation than those which have been already afforded. It is certain, however put what construction we please on the fact that the two churches are, and have been for centuries back, vast human ossuaries ; and though we may not believe the story of the eleven thousand virgins (some of the chronicles make the band which accompanied Ursula on her travels to amount to no less than 71,000, i.e. 11,000 noble ladies, and 60,000 meaner women), still no frittering the number down to eleven, by translating, as some have done, the Roman numerals X I M V into XI WLartyros Virgines, nor even reducing Ursula's train to a single attendant, by asserting, as others have, that the name of her maid was Un- decimilla, and that this ultimately became confounded with the Latin words Undecim millia (\ 1,000), no such subterfuges as these, we say, will enable us to avoid the conclusion, that at one time an immense number of deaths occurred upon the spot, and that, from the reverence with which the remains are traditionally regarded, they are most probably connected with some fearful religious catastrophe.* * Our own impression is, we frankly confess, that the whole institution is a remnant of some Pagan rites, to which the early Fathers, owing to the indis- position of the people at all times to abandon their ancient customs, have given a Christian form in the same manner as the Saxon feast of Geol or the Yule, as it is called (that combination of religion and conviviality in which our Pagan ancestors indulged at the end of the year, when they kindled immense fires in 10 old gabled house, as it stood when Beethoven drew his first breath within it. It is wonderful the influence of places and material things upon the train of thought. Here were we sitting under a roof not one tile of which ever covered the head of him whom we had come to glorify, and doing intellectual homage in a dingy room whose walls we knew had never echoed with the exqui- site music of his soul ; and yet we could think of nothing else but him who wrote "Fidelio" of him who, in the deafness which afflicted him in after-life, was, as he sat in his chamber, stringing together notes of marvellous harmony which he was never to hear with his bodily ear, but which his spirit knew the tone of right well the most startling exposition that the human mind is something more than a piece of cunning clockwork a bit of elaborate organisation. For, as it was pos- sible for the great deaf musician to compose some of his most wondrous works when he could no longer hear the sound of the notes he blended, so must it be possible for every other faculty to live on even when all the organs that originally called them into play shall be crumbled into dust to see as vividly after the eyeball shall have perished, and to feel as acutely when the nerves shall all have withered, as the mighty Master of Harmony heard when his ear was dead to every sound. And thus we got to think of the great Beethoven as one still living about us, and to talk with his spirit, there upon its native ground, as a man " speaketh to his friend face to face." 1- THE MUMMY MONKS OF KREUZBERG. The environs of Bonn bear the reputation of being exceed- ingly picturesque ; the suburban dwellings are generally con- THE MUMMY MONKS OF KREUZBERG. 131 sidered to be models of taste ; but if the villas about Brixton have any pictorial charms if " VICTORIA LODGE," Clapham, be the beau ideal of architectural elegance, or " ALBERT COTTAGE," Stoke Newington, be a bit that Prout would seize for the foreground of one of his water-colours, then assuredly is the English quarter at Bonn worthy of being classed among the beauties of the Rhine. But by your leave, courteous plebs, we must dissent from public opinion on this point. The English inhabitants about Bonn mostly live outside the handsome gate called the " Coblenzer Thor" where they have established what the Romans would have called a " Colonia Anglicana" or perhaps the " Castra Cockneyenses." Here you find, beside the road- way, a row of little top-knotty acacia-trees, that, with the round tufts of feathery foliage growing upon their straight, slender stems, look like so many green-bodied ostriches ; and here, too, you see little stucco-mansions or should-be cottages tricked out into would-be palaces with pocket- handkerchief parks in front of them, whose flower-beds remind you of the pattern of some showy bandanna. Then, as you saunter down the road, you catch sight of some ex-clerk of the Bank of England or London Post-office and his ladies without bonnets, and their work-baskets on their arm, crossing the road to pay a friendly visit to the Anglo-Germans over the way. But this is not the route to " Kreuzberg? where there are greater curiosities to be seen. Kreuzberg stands on a hill, behind the village of Poppels- dorf, and was once a convent of " Servites ; " but of this the church alone remains. As you mount the long wooded slope that leads to the spot, and see, between the trees, the white front of the little building above with its pillared portico surmounted by a 1 32 BONN. balcony, upon which stand life-si/ed plaster-looking figures you can hardly believe, despite the small spire peeping over the roof, that you are approaching a place of worship ; and even though, as you draw nearer, you can perceive that the principal statue, in the group above the doorway, represents the Saviour between his Jewish judges, still the two other figures, at the recesses of the blocked-up windows on either side, are so like "Pierrots" at a carnival, that you cannot get rid of the notion of the edifice being some eccentric gentle- man's country-house. The fact is, the church itself stands behind the small mansion-like front, which is an addition of comparatively recent date having been built by the Elector, Clement Augustus, as a shelter to the " Scala Santa " (Holy Staircase), when he set up the sacred steps here in 1725. The church is a rude old country thing, having nothing in its architecture to attract attention ; at the end of it stand a large out-house half-farm, half-co/# the proprietor of which is outside with his yoke of oxen, ploughing the field adjoining the church, and the wife in the homestead parlour upon the window of which is painted "WsiN u. GAFFE" attending to the visitors, who, like ourselves, have come to see the Mummy Monks and the Holy Staircase of Kreuzberg. The interior of the little edifice may be readily pictured in the mind by conceiving one of our English village churches tricked out with gaudy altar-pieces, and gilt pulpits, and emblazoned side-chapels. In the centre stands a white china-like painted figure, as large as life, of Jesus in the arms of the Virgin, who has a silver crown on her head, and long flowing calico robes at her back, while between the pews in the nave there is a trap-door sunk in the ground, and, previous to reaching this, the sacristan lights two candles. THE MUMMY MONKS OF KREUZBERG. 133 When the board is raised, you see a small flight of almost perpendicular steps, leading down into what appears, in the dark, to be a large cellar. The vault below is about the size of a small railway-arch, and as you enter it at the heels of the sacristan, the dim light of the candles scarcely reaches to the end, throwing a lurid glare and long black shadows upon the whitened walls. Upon the ground lie some two dozen common, rough, deal coffins, all open at the top, and ranged side by side in a double row, so as to admit of one's walking between them from one end of the vault to the other. As you cast your eye along the narrow boxes, you see the corpse of monk after monk lying there, habited in cowl and cassock, as when he lived. The flesh, however, has gone from all the faces, so that, even to the strong-nerved, it is rather a fearful sight to look upon that grim line of skeletons with their deep, empty eye-sockets, and ghastly grinning mouths, and long ape-like hands tricked out in monastic rags; the faint yellow light and deep shadows serving to make the spectacle even more hideous than it would otherwise be. Some have their mouldy shoes still clinging to their bony feet, and mostly all their brown tinder-like cowls round about their bare skulls. Some, again, have their death's-head resting on their shoulder, and others their skinless hands clasped as if in prayer, while one or two have their mouths wide open, as if yelling with the agonies of death though this has arisen, we were told, from the jaws not having been duly closed after decease. Here is one, the sacristan shows you, that has the arteries and veins of the arm still visible, but withered into the appearance of whip- cord there another with his skeleton hands folded across his breast ; and then your attention is directed to the fact that the nails of this one are still perfect. The next that you are requested to observe has a withered wreath about his bony 1 34 BONN. skull ; lie, the tradition runs, was the gardener of the monastery, while the one after him has the body stuffed with hay some inquisitive professor having had the intestines removed in order to examine them. It is, indeed, the grimmest sight that the eye can possibly rest upon to stand there, in that dim vaulted chamber, among the skeleton fathers, and see, by the flickering candle-light, the different expressions graven upon each of the death's-heads and bony limbs about you; for it is the signs of emotion traced in the fleshless countenances which render the sight doubly horrible. Did they seem like human frames, of mere inexpressive bone such as the eye has become almost familiar with in surgical museums the scene would be, in a measure, stripped of its terrors ; but to witness so many forms claiming kindred with your own, though so fearfully dissimilar, and each with some emotion, as it were, pictured in the clasped hands, or the drooping head, or the place where the lips should be, must stir the stoutest heart with such a spasm as perhaps it never felt before. The story is, that these are the bodies of the Servite monks, who, centuries ago, belonged to the place, and that some of them were interred as far back as 1400, their preser- vation being owing to the unusual dryness of the sandy soil. They are, indeed, natural mummies, and perhaps a more curious, and, at the same time, more ghastly sight, is not to be seen in the w r orld. On the day of our visit, a German lady descended with us to the vault, and immediately she caught sight of the grim skeletons, in their cowls and cassocks, she put her hands before her eyes, and ran screaming up the stairs " They're like apes ! like withered apes ! I shall dream of them for many a night to come ! " Nor could the sacristan persuade her to look upon them again. THE MUMMY MONKS OF KREUZBEKG. 135 The " Scala Santa" or holy staircase, which is the other sight to be seen at Kreuzberg, is of a totally different kind. You are conducted through a door at the end of the choir, and so led to the interior of that little building, which seemed like a small mansion, as we said, as we ascended the hill, in front of the church. On reaching this, we find it to consist of a spacious hall, the ceiling of which is vaulted and ornamented with frescoes, while from the bottom to the top of the " salle " there slants a broad flight of steps, almost as wide as the building itself. These are of flesh-coloured marble with thick slabs raised on end for the balustrades and railed off at top and bottom by green wooden palisades. The marble steps have a flight of narrower wooden ones on either side ; the latter are for the sight -seers to ascend or descend while inspecting the holy staircase between them ; but the marble stairs themselves are to be mounted only by the faithful, and then upon the bended knees, from the lowermost step to the uppermost, where stands an altar set among pillars, and surmounted by a large figure of the Saviour. The marble steps, you are told, are an exact model of the sacred stairs which led to the Jewish judgment-hall, and up which Jesus was conducted into the presence of Pontius Pilate. They were erected rather more than a century ago, by the Archbishop of Cologne, in imitation of the staircase at Rome called the " Scala Santa." As you peep over the solid balustrades your attention is first drawn to three large rings of brass, as big as the rim of a plate, and notched round like the teeth of a saw, so as to appear not unlike a monster " escapement- wheel," cut out of sheet-brass. These are let into the sacred steps one at the bottom, another half-way up, and the third at the top and are said to indicate the " identical spots " where the goutes of 13f> BONN. blood fell from the wounds caused by the crown of thorns upon the Saviour's brow ! All the way up the flight there is to be seen, in front of the perpendicular part of each step, a little glass bull's-eye, as it were, let into the marble, and protected by a brass frame. Behind this, you are informed, are stored relics of different saints. Of course you are at liberty to believe as much as you please of the story you have heard. Perhaps you will be heretic enough to remember that Titus razed the holy city "to the ground" in the year 70 (A.D.); and then, maybe, you will be troubled with doubts as tohow the exact form of the steps that led to the demolished judgment-seat should have been made out centuries afterwards ; and, moreover, how, under such circumstances, the " identical spots " could have been ascertained where the drops of blood fell from the Saviour's brow : so that, possibly, you will not regard the sacred stair- case with the same reverence as do the credulous, child-like peasants of the Eifel hills, who at stated periods of the year (when public worship is performed at the altar at the upper end of the holy stairs, and when the palisades, which fence them off at other times, are duly removed) flock hither in crowds, and struggle for the grace of being permitted to mount the Scala Santa on tjieir bended knees devoutly believing that by so doing they are cleansing their souls from many a sin. Oh, simple peasants ! Oh, cunning priests ! IV. THE RHINE PORTAL, WITH THE JANITORS DRACHENFELS AND ROLANDS-ECK. As yet, the Rhine itself has revealed but little beauty to us. Below Bonn, the banks still preserve their flat Dutch cha- racter, without even a hill to make the land less level than the water. Above Bonn, however, you can see the green mountain- gateway, as it were, opening in the distance; for as you walk the terrace of the " Alter- Z oil," adjoining the Uni- versity, you behold looming on one side, far up the river, the huge billowy forms of the Sieben-Gebirge (the Seven Mountains), resting, like rich, dark cumulus-clouds, upon the horizon; on the other side is the broken hill of Rolands-eck ; while between Roland's Castle and that of the Drachenfels which stand like ancient watchtowers at the very edge of the opposite promontories there is a wide gap, as if some fabled monster had bitten a huge mouthful out of the mountain ridge ; and through the pass, far in the dusk of the distance, you see a high wall of hazy hills, filmed with a faint purply bloom, that tells you what a long vista of air lies between the foremost and the farthest mountain-chain. We are going by the little steamer which is no bigger than a canal boat, though fitted with paddles, and which plies 138 THE RHINE PORTAL. continually between Bonn and Koenigswinter to pass the night on the top of the Seven Mountains, and see the sun rise from the summit of the Drachenfels. The bell of the tiny boat, as it rounds towards the landing-pier, is jangling like an alarum, to announce at once its arrival and departure for it is off again as soon as the one cargo of passengers is landed and the other shipped. As we hurry aboard, and take our seat on the roof of the saloon beside the captain (who is also the helmsman of the baby " dampf-schi/" and stands close behind the funnel, small as a stove-pipe in the middle now twisting the little rudder-wheel, and now shouting down the long speaking- trumpet that reminds one strongly of the tube at the end of a fire-engine hose), as we sit here, we say, watching the novel scene about us, we see, drifting below, slowly across the river, the "flying-bridge" of Bonn, with its load of blue- smocked peasants, and white-hooded market-women, and brown cattle, and the tall, yellow diligence all grouped prettily within the railings of the platformed barges. In gazing at the floating motley crowd, we are at first puzzled to understand the means by which the bridge is carried from one side of the stream to the other ; for not an oar can we perceive, neither is there a sail nor paddle-wheel visible, nothing, indeed, but two large barges, with a broad platform resting on them ; so that, were it not for the tall white frame above (like those erected across our roadways for the sign-boards of country inns to swing from), we should fancy it was some steamboat landing-pier which had gone adrift, and was being carried slowly down the river. As the bridge itself swings gently across, we begin to perceive that the long line of punts before it, which at first we hardly thought to be connected with the barges, is being carried along with them from one shore to the other; so that THE FLYING-BRIDGE OF BONN. 139 this same string of punts, which before slanted from the middle of the Rhine over to Bonn, appears, after a while, to slant over to the opposite village of Beuel. The secret of the motion is now apparent. We perceive that the line of boats, with the "flying-bridge" at the end of them, works like the pendulum to a clock, and that the first punt moored in the middle of the stream is, as it were, the pivot upon which the whole swings ; so that the platformed barges, being turned at starting half-sidewavs to the current, are driven, by the pressure of the water, over from one bank to the other, upon the same principle as the slanting kite, held by a string, is made, by the action of the wind sweeping past it, to rise in the air. The white cloud of steam suddenly ceases roaring from the tiny tube of the twopenny Rhine boat, and the paddles no bigger than the wheels to a pony-chaise begin twirling in the water, when immediately the line of houses beside the river seems to be sliding past us, as if they were the scenes in some diorama. First, the high bastion-like walls of the "Alter- Zoll " glide swiftly by, with the people sitting under the trees there peeping down at the boat; then the embanked and ter- raced hotels slip before the sight, with their gardens on the sloping banks, and their names painted in large letters on the lower walls ; and after them come the water-side villas, with their church-like turrets some at the side and some in the centre and their steep green lawns in front of them, slanting down to the river walls ; and, lastly, we see, though but for a moment, the dingy-looking porcelain manufactory, with the huge bricken kiln, like an enormous skittle, before it, and the tall factory-chimney piercing the air above : while, at the other end of the town, the windmill beside the shore keeps dwin- dling in size, as we leave the houses behind, till the flickering shadows of its sails are no longer visible to us. 140 THE "siKVEN MOUNTAINS." A few moments afterwards, as we look back upon Bonn, the dwellings have ceased to be distinct, for the several build- ings have become huddled into one dense crowd of white walls and dark grey slate-roofs, with the tall spiky tower of the Muenster Kirchc grouping them gracefully into a pyramid. The river turns so sharply round a little above Bonn, at the village called Ober-Cassel, that you keep fancying every minute you are coming to the end of the Rhine for you can see but a few hundred yards up it here and the Seven Mountains, whose forms are now growing more sharp and definite with almost every twirl of the paddle-wheels, are beheld towering above the low green bank upon the same side as Bonn itself, so that you can hardly believe they really stand upon the opposite shore ; while, just peeping over the river-side meadows, you catch sight of the lonely peak of Godesberg, tipped with its castle ruins, and these, though seeming but a mere jagged heap a little while ago, are breaking up every moment into form: for you now begin to make out the thick plates of broken walls that stand about the still perfect round tower in the centre, and you can detect little patches of blue light shining through the empty window-holes. Still there is scarcely any colour to be distinguished, either in the Seven Mountains or the solitary conical hill of Godes- berg ; all is one uniform tint a mere dark bloom rather than a positive colour, and with the shadows almost as dim as the lighter parts themselves, Nevertheless, as the distant outlines of the Sieben-Gelirge keep coming out stronger and stronger against the dappled sky, how exquisitely grand their swelling forms appear ! They look like so many huge land-waves, and seem to tell of the time when the solid and steadfast earth was convulsed, and heaved and tossed like the liquid ocean itself in a tempest ; and as you gaze presently at the dark mountain forms towering above the deck, you can almost fancy yourself OBER-CASSEL. 14 1 to be deep down in the trough of the sea during the raging of some hurricane, and that you are looking at the monster black billows rolling, in mighty masses, high over your head. But no sooner have you rounded the corner, and left the drab walls and humble tower of the solitary little church at Ober-Cassel, standing at the brink of the Rhine, amid the bright green meadows, and with the lovely rampart of vine- hills sloping at its back, than you begin to make out the tiny white speck of a chapel, that looks no bigger than a sea-shell, surmounting the flat table-top of the foremost of the Seven Mountains, called " Peters-berg ;" and farther back from the shore the summit of the lofty " Oel-berg" soars high into the horizon-sky, with its curving peak broken down on one side, so as to resemble the head of an eagle in its outline. Indeed, as the boat brings you nearer and nearer every moment to the great mountain crowd, you begin to see that each of the many hills, though seeming at first so similar in form, has, like the human face, its own distinctive features. Every one of them, too, as you find afterwards, has its name, as if they were some human family ; and, moreover, its history told in some curious legend: so that, when you get to know them well as the peasants round about know them you come to think of the hills as animate things, and to feel almost an affection for this peak and an awe for that, according as the tradition associated with it is more or less kindly or tragic in its character. As the blue-grey spire of Dollendorf shoots into sight, with its double village ( the " Ober " and " Nieder," little hamlets) stretching from beside the Rhine, back against the sloping base of Petersberg, the Seven Mountains begin to grow in colour, and the shades of the deep dingles between them to darken with exquisite richness. The sun, as we go, is screened behind a dark leaden cloud (for the autumn day has a coming wintry look), and the 142 THE " SEVEN MOUNTAINS." rays are streaming like a "glory" from behind its golden edges each beam being visible as it comes slanting down through the hazy atmosphere, even as you have seen the bright line of light streaking the air within the dusk of some cathedral. As the sunshine falls here and there upon the mountain-sides, and in broad patches upon the river, how vividly the colours start forth ; rendered doubly brilliant by the sombre shade of the parts about them. Now you can see the bare rocks, projecting, in places, like huge bones through the straight sides of Drachenfels ; and what an exquisite tint they are ! as lovely as the grey-green stems you have noticed in the woods half-mossed with lichen. The vineyard, too, which stretches half-way up the sloping sides of Petersberg, is a fine golden green ; for the vine-leaves are almost yellow with their autumn tint, while the mountain-tops are of a rich warm -brown colour from the reddening oak about them; and in the height the woods look soft as so much moss. Then the white chapel on the summit of Petersberg is seen glis- tening in the sunbeams, almost like a little crystal grotto ; and the iron-grey broken tower of Drachenfels stands straight up, as if it were the topmost crag of the rock itself; while on the stream, far below, the sunbeams glitter again, the ripples playing and flickering in the light like a swarm of fire-flies. The towering Oel-berg has, in the rounding of the river, disappeared from the sight ; while the lesser Hirsch-berg (deers' hill), that was before hidden by Petersberg, has started into view, and seems like some huge volcano-blown bubble, with its brown wooded sides looking as if scorched by the subterra- nean heat Wolkenburg, again, with its truncated top shaggy with fir-trees, and its sides shingly, as some shelving beach, with the drift of loose stones from its quarries, has slid forward from beside the Drachenfels; and now its bare, and blunt, and pebbly summit forms a fine contrast with THE OEL-BERG. 143 the rounded, and wooded, and castled tops of the other mountains. Indeed, it is a rich treat for the eye to watch the majestic figures of the Seven Hills gradually creep out from the dusk of the distance, as the boat goes quivering on ; and to see the misty bloom vanish from them like so much hoar-frost from the earth at sunrise ; and to watch the colours and the outlines of their crags and ruins grow gently more and more definite ; while the monster hills themselves, as you wind along the Rhine, keep shifting their places as if they were so many moving things, some sliding out of sight and others stealing forth ; so that the scene is never the same for two minutes together. At length, however, the vessel reaches the little village of Koenigswinter, with its line of stuccoed villas and hotels embanked beside the stream the gardens and the summer- houses on top of the river walls the crevice-like streets seen stretching from the water-side the crowd of dark roofs behind the square tower of the rustic church peeping above the slates; and, towering close at the back of the whole, the great mountain-mounds, that seem as if the least tremble of the earth would topple them over, and bury for ever the little river-side village in. an avalanche of crags and forests. The bell of the tiny steamer jangles once more to announce its arrival and departure, as at Bonn; and the next minute the escaping vapour roars from beside the funnel, and we are landed upon a pier so small that it looks, with its one end sunk in the water, like the wreck of some church free-seat. A few moments afterwards we are mounted on the back of a shaggy, podgy, black pony, with legs as short and thick as those of a four-post bedstead, on our way to clamber up the steep sides of the Drachenfels. 144 TIIK "SEVEN MOUNTAINS.' 1. Tin; DUACHENFELS and a Night at the Mountain " Gasthof" By the time we had ascended to the " GASTHOF ZUM DRACIIENFELS " it was late and dark, not only with the shades of night, but with the heavy mist that had commenced falling when we were half-way up the mountain. The clatter of the pony's hoofs upon the rock soon brought a flaxen-headed lad with a lantern to our side, and we then began to see that the little mountain " hotel," was about the size of a large park-lodge, and that in front of it there was a bit of flat table-land, thickly wooded, and studded here and there with rustic tables and rude bench-like seats, which we could just trace in the darkness. The mist, however, was so thick, that it was impossible to make out how far this ledge of level ground extended, or whereabouts lay the edge of the crag ; though in the morning we found that the little wooded plain before the house was about the size of the small tea- gardens one sees beside the railway lines in our own country, and that the whole was situate on a broad shelf of the rock, within about 200 feet of the summit the ruined tower of the Drachenfels castle standing on a tall perpendicular crag at the land-wards side of the little hotel garden ; while at the Rhine-wards side you looked deep down upon the river, that lay shining at the foot of the steep stony mountain near upon a thousand feet below. The room into which we were shown was the entire width of the house, and had windows looking up the river towards Coblenz, and which would, doubtlessly, have afforded a fine prospect, had the night allowed one to have seen it ; but though we strained our eyes to the utmost, the haze without was so A NIGHT AT THE MOUNTAIN " GASTHOF." 145 thick and gauzy that we could not even catch sight of the stream beneath, reflecting the little light that yet remained. Down the apartment stretched a long table-d'hote-\ike table, and the sight of it set us wondering how many people ever sat down together there 1000 feet above the level of the sea to partake of the German " ordinary at one." The ceiling was hung with thick garlands of oak-leaves, extending in fes- toons from the centre to either corner of the room. This we afterwards found was the handiwork of the landlord's daugh- ters, in celebration of their father's birthday. The blue walls were decorated with similar oak festoons, arranged over the mirrors and the prints of " NAPOLEON BEI WATERLOO " and " FKIEDRICH DER GROSSE MIT SEESTEN GENERALEN BEI POTZDAM." Then there were set out upon the side -tables between the windows stuffed squirrels, clambering up rustic woodwork; and stuffed hedgehogs, that the son had shot in the beech- woods hard by; and little cases of prints of the well-known river views, and long panoramas of the Rhine, for sale ; toge- ther with the eternal bottles of " Eau de Cologne," manufac- tured by one of the thousand " Aeltesten Distillirer" that posi- tively haunt your every resting-place from Rotterdam to Lake Constance; and, finally, there was, of course, in one corner of the room, the dumpy black-leaded steamboat funnel that, through- out Germany, does duty for a fire-place, and which, if it does not cheer you, at least bakes you, like a potato, in your jacket. Here we had a " nice, comfortable tea," as the ladies say, and later in the evening we solaced ourselves with a "flasche " of " drachen-blut " (dragon's blood), said to be the wine of the neighbouring vineyards. Then, to pass the time, we read the " HISTOIRE DES SEPT MONTS, par GEORG HULLE, prdcepteur a Koenigswinter" and studied the genealogical table of the ancient lords of the Drachenfels, till we got as learned in their pedigrees as a L 140 mi': "SEVEN MOUNTAINS." " Norroy King-at-Arms ; " and when we knew every legend of the Seven Hills by heart all about Peters-berg (the hill of St. Peter), and Wolken-burg (the "cloud castle"), and Loewen- burg (the " lion castle"), and Oel-berg (the " hill of the olive trees"), and Lohr-berg (the "hill of the laurel trees") and Drachen-fels (the "dragon's rock"),* and Strom-berg (the " hill of the stream"), we began to turn our thoughts to the extreme solitude of the place in which we were housed for the nic-ht, and to wonder (as we sat there alone with two dismal O ' \ * The names, height, and geological constitution of the Seven Mountains, are as follows : 1. The DRACHEN-FELS (Angl. the Dragon's Rock), 1 Composed of Trachyte which is looift. high. I (a kind of volcanic 2. WOLKEN-BURG (the Cloud Castle) 1009 porphyry). 3. LOHR-BERG (the Laurel-tree Hilf) 1355 ,, 4. PETERS-BERG (St. Peter's Hilf) . 1027 - 5.NoNNEN-STROM BE RG(Me^*' Composed of Basalt Stream-hill) .... 1036 I (which geologists sup. 6. OEL-BERG (the Olive-tree Hill) 1429 pose to be ancient vol- 7. LOEWEN-BURG (the Lion's Castle) 1413 ,, (The height from the ground to the top of the cross of St. Paul 's is 404 feet. The height of Snowdon is 3571 feet.) N.B. Instead of Lohr-berg, " Murray " includes "Hemmerich" which is one of the Honnef Hills among the Seven Mountains. The castle of the Drachenfels was built in the year 1117, by the Prince- Archbishop of Cologne, Frederick I. (who is interred in the abbey of Siegbourg), so as oppose, with greater success, the troops of the German Emperor Henry V. Some fifty years after this, the Provost of Bonn purchased the castle, with the view of using it as one of the fortresses of his church, but it being too expensive for him to maintain, he ceded in 1193 a tenth part of his posses- sions at the Drachenfels to his " bourgrave," Count Blaise (who was after- wards killed by one of big cousins), on the condition that he would defray all the expenses of the castle, and pay the vassals connected with it. In a few years subsequent to this period, the domain became the absolute property of the Bour- graves of Drachenfels, and they continued tbe lords of the soil till the year 1806, when the rights of the Seigneury were annulled by the French ; and shortly afterwards the last Bourgrave of the Drachenfels 'Maximilian Frederick de Vorst Gudcnau disposed of all his possessions on the banks of the Rhine and retired to Moravia, where he purchased the Seigneury of " Zadlovitz." Wolkenbnrg is now a quarry, the stone of which is used for the building of the Cologne Cathedral. The " trachyte" of Wolkenburg contains less feldspar A NIGHT AT THE MOUNTAIN " GASTHOF." 147 candles, whose light but half-filled the room for we could not see to the end of it), whether the mountaineers of the present day were more civilised than those of the past. This made us call to mind the fate of Colas, the young lord of the Drachenfels, who was "poignarded" on the spot in 1493; and set us thinking of the time when the opposite hill of Rolandseck was infested by a band of robbers. After that we rambled off to Banim's memorable G'Hara Tale of the murder at the lonely Irish inn, and of Miss Kelly's wondrous acting than that of Drachenfels, and therefore is more durable, for it is the decompo- sition of the feldspar that is the cause of the disintegration of these rocks. Formerly the Prince- Archbishop Frederick I. built a castle here, at the same time as that of the Drachenfels ; and at the end of the 12th century it was inhabited by Godfrey of Wolkenburg, who, it is said, was the terror of the surrounding lords. The Archbishop Conrad de Hochsteden (the founder of the Cologne Cathedral) re-fortified the castle in 1245. In the thirty years' war, however, it was laid waste, and not a vestige of it is now to be seen. Lohrberg (or Laahr-berg) has no associations worthy of being mentioned. The ruins which exist on the summit of Loewenburg are those of an old castle, formerly belonging to the Prince- Elector Herman V., count of Wied. The reformer Melancthon sojourned here for some time. Oelbfrg (or Auels-berg\ which is the highest of the mountains, has merely a little inn on its summit, which affords coffee, wine, and eggs, but no bed for the traveller. Upon the summit of Nonnen-Stromberg there was, as its name implies, formerly a convent ; but of this scarcely any traces remain at the present day. Lastly, there is at the top of Petersburg (or Stromberg, as it was formerly called,) a chapel dedicated to St. Peter, and a farm-house belonging to the owner of the fields on the table-land. Formerly, however, at the commencement of the 12th century, a monastery stood here, belonging to the monks of the order of St. Augustine, and under the superintendence of the famous hermit Walther. A few years afterwards, the monks from the Eifel mountains took up their abode in the Kloster for a short time, but " finding the air too bleak," they retired to the neighbouring valley of " the Mantel," and there built the abbey of Heister- bach the beautiful ruins of whose choir are still to be seen. Of the ancient Petersberg monastery scarcely any traces remain. In 1585, however, when the mountain belonged to the Seigneury of Drachenfels, Agnes, countess of Mans- feld (see art. " Bonn"), took refuge here, after her flight from Popplesdorf ; for she had passed her childhood, at her father's castle at Godesberg, with Apollonie of Drachenfels (who became, in after life, the wife of the rich and powerful Lord Walpot de Bassenheim) : and under whose roof Agnes found a safe asylum, dwelling 148 TIII: "J$!-:VKN MOUNTAINS." in the drama of "The Soy cant's Wife," that was adapted from it ; anil then we felt a strong desire to ascertain how many people there were about the Gasthof zum Drachenfels ; for though we had seen merely the son, who acted as waiter, we had heard men's voices in the out-houses. What was the old man like, we wanted to know ? and how far off was the nearest house? and would it be possible to make any at the castle of Drarhenfels till Apollonie was widowed, when they both retired to the solitude of the old monastery on the summit of Petersberg, where they live secluded from the world for some years. At length, however, Agnes (the history continues), accompanied by her faithful friend Apollonie, fled to England, to seek the protection of the Protestant Queen Elizabeth. There, however, she met the intriguing Lady Gordon, who, observing the likeness of Agnes to the unfortunate Mary Stuart, persuaded her to dress herself after the peculiar fashion of the Queen of Scots, and in that costume the fugitive and suppliant Countess was introduced to the Queen. Elizabeth, the story runs, thought she beheld her murdered cousin once more kneeling before her, and hurried from her presence. Lord Leicester, who had become smitten with the beauty of Agnes, then prevailed upon her, under pretext that during her absence he would pacify the resentment of the Queen, to retire to the Highlands of Scotland. There she and her constant friend Apollonie were received by the Lady Douglas, with whom the Countess dwelt till death put an end to her grief. For after the sad end of her husband, the deposed Archbishop, Count Guebhard, the Rhine had too many melancholy associations connected with it to make Agnes desirous of returning to its shores. The relative situations of the Seven Mountains are shown in the following diagram : OEL-BERO. I.OIIR- BERG. LOEWEN-BI'RG. NOXNES-STBOM- II Ml'.. PETEBS-BEKG. I WOLKEN-BCKO. A NIGHT AT THE MOUNTAIN " GASTHOF." 149 one hear from such a height in case of danger? Next we wished we had brought less money with us, and that we had come accompanied with either a commissioner or a thick stick; and so we went on piling one ugly thought upon another, till suddenly we were roused from this unpleasant reverie con- cerning our remoteness from all civilised places and people, by the sound of a piano in an adjoining room, making the lonely house ring with the music of " GOD SAVE THE QUEEN ! " Never before did the English national air sound so beautiful to English ears. It spake there, in the depth of night, on the summit of the Rhine mountains, not only of the comfortable homes of England, but of that security for which England is pre-eminent. So we wondered what eccentric countryman of ours could be located in such an out-of-the-way corner of the world ; and scarcely were our speculations at an end before the " LAST ROSE OF SUMMER" tinkled pleasantly in our ears. We rang the bell to be allowed to make the acquaintance of our musical fellow-countryman, who, we now felt satisfied, was lodged in the adjoining room ; but, to our utter astonish- ment, we found that it was the youthful mountain-waiter himself who had been thus gracefully whiling away his evening hours. He stood us out, moreover, that the airs he had been playing were both German " Volks-Lieder" (national songs), and that what we termed " GOD SAVE THE QUEEN," the Rhine-folk called " HEIL DIR IM SIEGERKRANZ," whilst our "LAST ROSE OF SUMMER" was their " LET'ZTE ROSE."* It is wonderful how a taste for the beautiful dignifies a person in one's eyes ! Here was the simple mountain lad, whom, but a moment before, we had been meanly classing * Learned Germans tell you that the air of "God save the Queen" is of Swiss origin, and that they, as well as ourselves, have borrowed it from that country. The German " Letzte Rose," however, is so literal a translation of Moore's pretty words, that there can be no doubt of their having borrowed this from the '' Irish Melodies." 1.50 THE " SKVEN MOUNTAINS." with the ancient freebooters of Rolandseck, skilled in an art, the Aery love of which betokens a gentle nature a creature whom we at first naturally believed to be almost out of the pale of civilisation, displaying more refinement in his tastes than many a so-called gentleman with us; so that we could not help contrasting the elegance of his pastimes with the mere sensuality of the boors to be found on the mountain-tops of our own country. The rest of the evening was passed amid the mountain family in their little sitting-room, which we found garlanded (in honour of the eldest girl's birthday) with oak leaves, in the same manner as the apartment we had first occupied. There was a portrait of Beethoven, too, against the wall, and a written tablet over the door-way, styling the room the " ALLEY OF ROSES AND FORGET-ME-NOT." Here we sat listening to the elder boy's snatches of airs from the "BARBIER VON SEVILLA" then to the graceful " FEEN REIGEN" ("Fairies' dance"), played by his sister (a young fresh-coloured German lass, with the mountain air tinting her cheeks, ruddy as hawthorn berries) and then to her younger sister Caroline's performance of pieces from Meyerbeer's " HUGUENOTS ; " while the portly, good-humoured- looking mother, sat beside the piano reading the German version of "LAURA dn roman von GEORG SAND;" and the father (a weather-beaten-looking little man) recited, between the pauses in the music, lines of German poetry from the old " Niebelungenlied" as to how "Siegfried the horny" slew the dragon. Thus, before the evening had passed, we got to know and to respect that happy and graceful mountain family* as well as if we had been acquainted with them for many a day ; and * There were some six children in all ; and even the youngest, though only eight years of age, could play a little, while most of them were studying French. A NIGHT AT THE MOUNTAIN " GASTHOF." 161 when we retired to rest, we did so with a hearty shame at our ignorant suspicions upon first entering the place, and a fervent aspiration for the time when our own people shall be as refined and accomplished, and yet as simple and unassuming, as they. The apartment in which we were to sleep was a little chamber at the back of the house, over the table-d'hote-room which we had first occupied. Every article of furniture here was enveloped in white coverings chairs, sofa, and tables which the blue walls made to appear even whiter than they really were; while the bed, with its huge eider-down cushion on top of it, gave one the notion that we were about to pass the night under a mountain of snow. At the end of the chamber was a small bow-window, looking up the Rhine towards Coblenz, and as we entered our attention was directed to the fact that we could see the sun rise through the panes on the left-hand side. Before retiring to rest we threw back the venetian-blind shutters, in the hope of seeing how the Rhine looked by night- time from so great a height. We thought, too, it might be possible, by craning one's neck over the steep, craggy sides, to catch a glimpse of the famous "Dragon's Hole" and to imagine, in the vague outlines of the darkness, that we could see the monster itself lurking beside his cave. We threw back the windows, but saw nothing save a vast white sheet, as it were, of vapour, that w r as so dense we could not even distinguish the roof of the little shed which stood on the lower shelf of rocks, where the girls had told us they kept their goats. As we drew ourselves up from stretching over the window- sill we beheld, to our horror, a huge spectral figure, that seemed to rise out of the earth beneath, and to grow r and grow, until at length it stood there in the mist, like one of the genii 152 THE " SEVEN MOUNTAINS." of the Arabian Nights. The spectre remained perfectly still fur a moment or two ; but presently, as we started back at the sight of the monster apparition, a double impressiveness was given to the figure, for we beheld it raise one of its giant arms high into the air above its head, as if in solemn warning to us ; and then let it fall again by its side. For an instant, we honestly confess, we were almost paralyzed by the scene. Motion at all times, when one is ignorant of the nature of the body producing it, is more or less alarming ; the mere fluttering of a curtain, for instance, or the closing of a door, in the stillness of the night, by some unknown power, being sufficient to affright even the stoutest hearted ; and though we had no old-woman's belief in goblins and spectres, still we knew that there are "more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy : " so that the sight of that giant apparition, quickened, as it were, with the principle of life, and standing there solemnly amid the mountain-clouds, was a scene that, for a time, dissipated all our metaphysics, and stirred us to the very core. Presently, however, we remembered that the spectre of the " Brocken" in the Hartz Mountains, was found to imitate the actions of the beholders. To test, therefore, whether the raising of the arm by the apparition of the Drachenfels arose from some involuntary movement on our part, we waved our hand to the tall black figure that still stood looking at us from out the vapour, and lo ! the giant ghost was sufficiently polite to return our salutation. Then we were emboldened enough to shake our fist at the monster, whereupon, sure enough, he repeated the menacing gesture. The secret was now out. The spectral figure was merely a huge shadow of ourselves, projected, by the candle behind us, upon the white sheet of mist that filled the air without, being produced in the same manner as the optical illusion SUNRISE AT THE DRACHENFELS. 153 called the " Ombres chinoises" And when we had solved the ghostly mystery we amused ourselves, before sliding under our " eider-down" for the night, by making the spectre of the Drachenfels perform a variety of evolutions that are utterly inconsistent with the gravity of the spiritual world. Sunrise at the Drachenfels. We were up and out the next morning by five o'clock, for we wished to see the veil of Night drawn slowly from " the face of Nature," and to behold the great colourless disc of the earth become gradually tinted with the increasing light; and to watch the shapeless black masses spring, as it were, into form, and the lovely details of the mountains, and the river, and the plains come peeping out, one after another, as the sky passes from black to grey, and from grey to blue, with the approach of the great orb. It was still dark, and the sky overcast, when we ascended the crag above the Gasthof, on our way to the ruined tower that stands on the summit of the Drachenfels. When we reached the top, we were just upon 1000 feet above the level of the sea, and more than three times the height of the greatest pyramid above the bed of the Rhine, while the patch of earth upon which we were standing was no bigger than the platform of a river steamboat's landing- pier. Nor was the ground such as could be called " table- land," for it was as full of mounds and hollows as a heath, and with large bits of the rock peeping up from the soil, such as are seen on the beach by the sea-side. 1 54 THE " SEVEN MOUNTAINS." At one end of this, looking down the river towards Bonn, and close against the edge of the steep crag, there are two thick plates of stone walls the corner of some ancient hall still left standing, and not unlike a huge half-opened book set up on end. Here one window-hole is almost perfect, while the one above it is broken away, so that nothing re- mains but a mere castellated notch in the uneven top of the structure. At the other end of the summit, looking up the river towards Coblenz, a high square tower is seen, with its stone walls built as compactly as some of our modern bridges, and still in such perfect preservation that you wonder how the castle can be in ruins. Nor is it until you clamber up the rock upon which the tower is set, and peep in at the little hole at the river-side of it, that the mystery is solved ; for then you find that one of the four walls has been carried away by the decomposition of the feldspar, and the consequent breaking down of the rock, upon whose very edge the tower has been built ; you see the slanting crags running down right under the ruins ; and the three thick slabs of walls, with the old chimney-places still visible, resting, as it were, upon a mere overhanging splinter of the mountain mass. Then, a little way down the side farthest from the river, you discover fragments of the outer walls sticking up like monster grave-stones among the brambles, and telling you by their distance from the tower how powerful and spacious a strong- hold the castle must have been in the days of its " Bour- graves" From the early hour at which we first visited the spot it was impossible to make out all we have here described, for there was hardly a streak of light showing in the east ; and so black was all around us, that we kept far from the edge of the fearful precipice next the Rhine itself, where no bit of SUNRISE AT THE DRACHENFELS. 155 wall remains to guard one 'from the danger of toppling over. Indeed, the people hereabouts tell a story of some Prussian soldier, who came to paint his name on one of the highest stones of the tower, and clambering up the outer edge of one of the remaining walls, had no sooner set his foot upon a pro- jecting block near the top than it gave way beneath his weight, and he was hurled deep down into the abyss of rocks below, where he was impaled upon the craggy splinters, even while in the act, as he believed, of perpetuating his existence. Behind us lay the huge black masses of the neighbouring crowd of mountains, though it was still impossible to dis- tinguish one from the other, so that the very helplessness of one's sight made the dark monster lumps look tenfold more grand and awful. The earth below was more like a pitchy thunder-cloud than the variegated land such as we know it ; while the Rhine stream itself, that you could just make out winding beneath your feet, was dull and metallic- looking as the back of a looking-glass. Far down the dim streak of water you could see, wandering in the air, the tiny ruby and diamond lights of some early Rhine steamer ; and below on the opposite shore, where you fancied the villages ought to be, you could discover little brilliant golden patches amid the darkness that you knew were cottage windows shining with the candles of the rising peasants; while echoing from the shadowy mass, which you guessed to be some barge on the river, moored beside the shore for the night, you could hear the click of the windlass-palls telling of the heaving anchor. This, with the yelling of some distant dog and the faint screaming of the village cocks, were the only sounds that gave life to the still and sombre scene ; for all colour had fled from the earth the sky itself seemed low as some vast dungeon vault, and the air dark and untransparent as if it were a canopy of crape about the world. THE "SEVEN MOUNTAINS. Presently, as we turned our head back to the surrounding mountain, \ve found that the dark clouds had parted, and that there was a lovely, faint, grey streak of early light showing just over the hill-tops between the long gashes, as it were, in the sky, and making the outlines of the distant peaks look sharp and black, as if they were carved out of ebony. Then, as we watched the light grow and grow, how many different tints the atmosphere itself appeared to assume ! First, the air was like the faint blue bloom upon tempered steel ; then it changed to a pale " lavender-grey" such as the great Herschel tells us is the tint seen at the very edge of the spectrum the boundary, as it were, between colour and darkness ; and then the tint of azure in the air brightened till it seemed almost like what one could fancy to be the colour of the vapour of " tur- quoise ; " next, it was a light violet hue, as if tinted with the fumes of wine ; and lastly, it was a rich, bright, golden colour, glowing like a fire-mist, and yet exquisitely cool and fresh withal, and kissing the face, as it swept by, with a dewy softness, that stained the cheeks with the very hues of morning itself. Nor are the changes that are wrought at such a time in the sky and on the earth less exquisitely beautiful than those occurring in the air. As the clouds of night appear to crack and split in the east before the fires of the approaching orb of day, how finely the cold blue background of the sky peeps out in long lucid lines the light seeming to leak through them as you have beheld it streaming through the narrow chink of some ancient dungeon cell. Then you can see the white houses that lie facing the dawn come peeping out one after another, and the fields and trees begin to grow faintly variegated with their colours, though each hue still remains so indistinct that the whole seem blended together, the earth appearing rather to be suffused with a dim prismatic halo than positively painted with vegetation. Towards the east, where every object serves only SDNEISE AT THE DKACHENFELS. 157 to impede the coming rajs, the forms are deepening in their blackness, and growing sharper and sharper every moment at their edges, until they stand out in wonderful contrast witli the light behind them. Then how beautifully the pinking of the lower borders of the eastern clouds tells of the coming day ! You can see the dark patches of vapour in the sky above blushing into beauty, one after another, high up to the zenith, till they appear almost flushed with the warmth to come. And now look how the earth begins to sparkle with the dew that covers it, almost like a lustrous glazing, and the fields to grow more and more green, and the fallow-lands to brown into the rich umber of the newly-turned soil, and the autumn vines to become more and more golden in their tints, and the mountain oak-woods to redden till they appear like so much iron rust upon the hills, and the winding stream to glitter with the play of its ripples, like some long silver serpent stealing through the valley meadows ! Now look again; the rosy tints have all fled, and the clouds that were ruby islands before have changed to huge mounds of gold ; and now, too, the outlines of the mountain- peaks, and the jagged ruins upon some of them, and the dark- green feathery fir-trees upon the tops of others, which a little while ago were all so sharp and definite, are melting like the edges of so many crystal forms in the bright blaze of the light behind them ; and you can see the air immediately a! out them quiver in the golden flood, as you have observed it tremble over the mouth of some glowing furnace ; while, resting just above the hollow near the fine old mountain-top of Loewenburg, the sun's splendid arc of liquid fire begins to appear, with the broad glowing bands of its beams spreading round and shooting upwards into the air, as if the very gates of heaven itself were a-jar, and the glory of the Godhead's throne streaming out upon the world! 158 THE " SEVEN MOUNTAINS." How beautifully, too, tlie trembling luminous arc grows and grows above the melting outline of the hill-top, till at last the entire brilliant disc floats just over the rim of the horizon ! And then, what a deep well of liquid light it seems! unfathomable, as if it were the very soul of nature shining through the day's bright eye ; and no sooner does the orb hang over the mountain peak than in an instant the whole earth leaps into startling beauty the colours springing out as if it were some wondrous magic-picture developed in an instant by the fires of day. See, now, what an exquisite scene lies girdled within the broad ring of the horizon, vivified with all the lovely contrast of light and shade ! Yonder stretches the silver ribbon of the Rhine, dividing the hills, and twisting and turning as it flows here from out the distance behind the Ahr mountains, and there into it again towards the mouth of the river Sieg. Now hidden for a moment amid the curving " Rliein-thal" banks, and then seen, like a bright metallic streak, shining amid the dusk of the far-off plains; and still, as the eye runs on, peeping out, again and again, in dimly-shining lines till it is lost there, by the spectral image of the Dom-kirche in the extreme limits of the vision. Then how beautifully painted the river appears, with the reflections of the hills and villages along its banks, as if the very dyes of the mountains and the plains had leaked down into the stream ! Up there, towards Oberwinter, the Rhine is a golden green, with the autumn tints of the vines upon the hill-side; here, beneath Rolandseck, it is reddened with the mountain woods above it, and greenish-black in places with the image of the overhanging and jagged basalt rock ; down there, at the bend of the stream, it is flecked with white from the cluster of cottages that make up the little river-side village of Plittersdorf; then, close under us, it is almost blackened with SUNRISE AT THE DKACHENFELS. 159 the rich shadow of the mountain upon which we are standing ; while, scarcely a mile off, it is brightly green with the pretty little garden-like islands of Nonnenwerth and Graven- werth twin tongues of land, with the Rhine curling and sparkling about them, and with the white walls of the convent peeping from out the trees of the former the very image of some peaceful home isolated from the world itself. Nor is the land less beautiful than the water. Directly facing us are the vine-clad hills of the volcanic Roderberg, and we can look down into the huge basin that was once the crater of the burning mountain, but which is now striped brightly green with the "after-crops" and deep umber with the rich fallow-lands of autumn. The fertile crater appears here more like the bed of some dried -up lake than the immense cauldron-mouth of an ancient volcano ; and down in the deep hollow a tiny farm-house appears, looking as placid in its lava bed as a babe in a cot. Then, farther up the Rhine, the blue sky is seen shining through the solitary broken arch (all that remains) of the castle of Rolandseck, that once stood there on the summit of the towering basalt-hill close beside the stream ; and farther up still, the mountain chain on either side begins to close in, till in the distance the monster rocks narrow into a deep gorge, with the river gushing from between them as if it were some mighty dingle flood pouring from out the hills. Lower down the stream the earth is one large level plain, speckled with white villages, and belted with narrow yellow roads, while the meadows, shining in the sun, are green as the plumage on some parroquet's back, and striped with the long black shadows of the trees beside the river. Indeed the whole earth seems, from the height we are above the ground, like some enamelled miniature world, more than the vast confused mass such as we ordinarily know it; for it appears to have dwindled beneath us almost into the compass of a map, and the very 100 THK " SEVEN MOUNTAINS." bosses of the hills and furrows of the valleys to be like a carved landscape upon some huge cameo-ring. The life of the scene, however, renders it impossible to image its beauty by comparing it with any mere unchanging type ; for the banks of the Rhine are now busy with the horses towing the heavy barges up the stream the air rings with the shouting of the crowd of oars-men labouring at either end of some long raft, that looks like a large moving floor upon the water the surface of the river is white and rumpled, as it were, in places, with the wake of the passing steamers, their paddles seeming to chuckle as they dart by the villages are prettily filmed with the white smoke of their morning fires rising above them, like a cloud of snow-dust flying before the wind the plains are dusked in places with the moving shadows of the clouds that flit across them like so much breath dulling the surface of a mirror the red woods at the mountain- tops are half veiled with the gauzy scarf of the rising mists the roadways are dotted over with tiny puppet-like figures of peasant-women and creeping market-carts, and the hill-side fields are alive with toy-like oxen-teams while the air close behind us rings again with the clink of the hundred hammers at work in the neighbouring quarries and, rising from out the ravines near at hand, you can hear the shouting of voices from the farm-houses that are nestled high up among the warmer nooks of the mountains. In fine, there is not, perhaps, amid all the rich treasures of colour and form strewn throughout the globe, a more lovely and inspiriting sight than that bright bit of the world seen with the bloom of early morning upon it from the summit of the Drachenfels. It is an exquisite treat to look down upon the earth there with an almost eagle's eye, and to find that you have the power, by your mere vision, of extending your con- sciousness to scenes that are miles away to feel the half- THE STORY OF THE DRAGON S ROCK. 161 divinity of your own being in the faint sense that you thus obtain of Omnipresence ; and to have a foretaste, as it were in the very dwindling of the earth, the nearer you draw towards heaven of that vast spiritual expansion of your nature, which is destined to ensue when the faculties are no longer " cribbed, cabined, and confined," within the close prison walls of the body. 11 a- The Story of the Dragon's Rock. Americans would have you believe that the scenery of the great Hudson river is similar to that of the Rhine; some Frenchmen declare that the Loire is equal to the German stream in beauty ; and occasionally Englishmen will assert that the Wye is even more picturesque, in parts. But turn a deaf ear, gentle reader, to all such ignorant prejudices; for it is not the mountains nor the vineyards, nor the stream nor the rocks lovely as they all are that alone constitute the charms of the exquisite Rhine valley: but it is because almost every hill there, beside the river, is some- thing more than a mere inanimate heap of earth, and every neighbouring ruin other than a mere group of old dead walls. it is because each castle and rock upon its banks is hoary with legends and quickened by some chivalrous history it is because each of its ancient piles is hung with emotions thick as ivy, lending all the graces of expression to the natural beauty of its shores that the Rhine is as different from other rivers as the dumb, soulless statue, differs from its living, speaking proto- type. Not a tower nor a peak is mirrored in the stream but has a busy world of past events linked with it, suggesting in M 162 THE "SEVEN MOUNTAINS." the mind a long train of thoughts and feelings; so that you get almost to love, " like old familiar faces," the very stocks and stones by the way, through the wondrous magic of association; in the same manner as some fond mother, in the depth of her affection, finds a melancholy beauty even in the broken toys of her departed little one. So it is with the Drachenfels. That handsome huge lump of volcanic porphyry with its edges next the river exqui- sitely jagged and broken, and the lines about them running a thousand different ways, and its peaks of rock beside the summit, standing up like monster tusks it is not a mere mass of stone, but instinct with life from the strange middle-age myth that is wrapt about it. True the tale is, as it were, out of tune with the real character of the present age; nevertheless, it mirrors the child- like faith and bloody barbarism of the past times, as brightly as if the modern magicians of the East had conjured the events up to the vision of some youth, and you had heard the boy at your side telling all he saw.* But what is better still, it expresses the very sentiment of the spot ; for though we are all sufficiently scientific in the present century to put little or no trust in goblin stories and tales of hybrid monsters, still, in the thick dusk and solitude of the wooded dingles hereabouts, your eye, despite your reason, will twist the vague, indefinite forms of the stocks and stones, into curious griffin shapes and spectral figures ; so that, if you know now-a-days that these are mere optical illusions, begotten by the emotions of the time and place (for it is im- possible, if you have any soul at all, to thread your way * See Mr. Lane's account of the mirror of Ink, in which a lad who accompanied him to the magician was made to see and describe the figures of Nelson, and we think Shakespeare, though the lad was a native of Egypt, and had never, probably, heard of either. THE STORY OF THE DRAGON'S KOCK. 163 among the ravines of the Seven Mountains without being touched by their deep solemnity) nevertheless, remember it was not so with the mediaeval peasants and sages, too who had not yet learnt to " correct the evidence of their senses by their understandings," and therefore devoutly believed in all they fancied that they saw. You should remember, too, that in the early days of Christianity, religion consisted of something more than merely calling yourself a "miserable sinner" once a-week from a cosy pew, but was really a deep abiding presence in the soul; for the people believed then, as unhesitatingly as we all in our childhood believed in the fairy tales we had read, for there is hardly one among us, perhaps, who has not prayed in his earliest distresses for some magic wand or wonderful bird to deliver him from his petty trouble. In such times the cross was naturally looked upon, not as the mere type of the tree upon which the Saviour suffered, but in that strange mixture of religion and magic, that blending of the conjuring of the ancient fire-worship with the faith of the new philosophy which made up the creed of the early Fathers it was regarded rather as some charmed wand that had power over all things ; so that the mere belief alone in the omnipotence of the symbol was sufficient to make it work many wonders, as well as to make the people fancy that it wrought far more marvels than it really did. So now, reader, dismiss all thoughts of Mechanics' Insti- tutions and Exeter Hall from your mind, and come with us to see the " Dragon's Hole." Old Moritz Mattern, the keeper of the mountain Gasthof, is our guide. He knows every tree about the place, as well as the squirrels do that are chattering in the beech-woods over our head, and almost flying before us, from branch to branch, as we descend the steep dingle 1G4 THE "SEVEN MOUNTAINS." between Drachenfels and the " Honnef Hills" so steep, indeed, that Moritz stops by the way to give us a vine-pole, in order to make our footing more sure. The woods we thread are parti-coloured with the tints of the waning year. The wild cherry-trees are a bright pink, the leaves of the aspen are a deep metallic purple, the young oaks are a rich warm brown, the beech are brightly yellow, the crumpled leaves of the nut-trees are still a pale green, the feathery firs are almost black, and have merely a tint of dark bronze-green in those parts where the light falls upon the foliage, while the stems of the birch are like silver wands, and the moss upon the trunks of others looks fresh and soft, and is "shot" (chatoyanf) with many shades like some insect's back. The air, too, is redolent with the faint mushroomy odour of the woods ; and as you descend towards the vineyards there rises from the meadows below a rich smell of burning weeds. The old mountain-boy Moritz, every now and then, halts by the way, to lift his arm and shout some German verses to the clouds ; and as he does so, you can hear the hoarse scream of the frightened crows flying overhead. At length we are landed at the foot of the Drachenfels, on the roadway to " Roendorf," close beside the Rhine ; and then our guide turns us round by the shoulders, and points to the flat bare wall of " trachyte," that here rises straight up behind the sloping vineyard banks and forms almost one entire side of the Drachenfels rock. " You see those three peaks," says he, pointing high above our head " there, just on one side of the Gasthof?" As we looked up, the craggy points seemed like monster teeth, and the little house, where we had slept the night before, scarcely bigger than a lap-dog's kennel. " Now run your eye down the first of the peaks," continued THE STOBY OF THE DRAGOTTS ROCK. 105 Moritz, " and you will perceive, at a little distance above the vines, a black hole in the hill-side, like the month of an oven. That is the * Dragon's Cave.' " We followed the instructions of our guide, and sure enough we saw a dark indentation in the rock, in shape like a giant stirrup, and the edge of a huge slab within it shining dimly in the light. Moritz had clambered up many a time to the cave when he was a boy, he said, and the inside of it seemed to him like a big vault. But how it was ever possible to have reached the spot was a mystery to us, for the side of the rock in which the hole was situate was so flat and perpendicular, without even a projecting crag to rest the foot upon, that it appeared absolutely inaccessible. Well, in that rocky cavern there lived in olden times, the legend says, a huge dragon. This monster, we are told, was of the most hideous form. His head was shapeless his jaws bristled with their hundred teeth, and were so vast that he could swallow several victims at a time. His body was of an immeasurable length, and covered with scales of armour that glistened with the many colours of the rainbow. His limbs were like an alligator's, but armed with sharp claws ; and his tail like an immense serpent, that he could coil round and round his human prey, and, boa-constrictor-like, crush them in its folds. The Pagan peasants of the Rhine -shores paid divine homage to this formidable monster, for they regarded it as a creature sent to punish and correct them. The priests taught the people that human sacrifices were necessary in order to appease its wrath ; and all those who offended either the chief- tains or elders, as well as those who were captured in battle, were invariably immolated on its altar. lf)6 THE "SEVEN MOUNTAINS." At the time when Christianity was beginning to be diffused along the left bank of the Rhine there reigned within the forests on the opposite shore two princes, Rinbod and Horsrik, who were powerful warriors. Excited by the priests to bitter enmity against all those who had become converts to the new and benevolent creed of the Saviour, they often crossed the river to attack the Christians there, and never failed to return with a considerable number of prisoners, as offerings to their Dragon God. Now one day the two princes, after a fierce onslaught upon the people of the opposite bank, were dividing their booty and prisoners, as usual, when there chanced to be among the latter a beautiful Christian maiden. Rinbod was so charmed with her youth and graces, that he demanded her as his share of the spoil; while Horsrik, who was not less enamoured with her exquisite beauty, claimed her as his portion. Whereupon there arose a serious dissension between the chiefs, and the hasty Horsrik had already raised his spear, when the high- priest interposed and stopped the feud, saying : " A daughter of these Christians, whom we detest and despise, should not destroy the amity of our princes;" so he decreed that she should belong to neither Rinbod nor Horsrik, but should be offered up to the Dragon on the morrow, in honour of their great god Woden. The authority of the priest was supreme in those times, hence all remonstrance was vain. Rinbod, nevertheless, felt for the maiden a more noble love than his fierce rival, and would willingly have risked his life to save her. The wretched girl, when she heard the fate that awaited her, was overcome with horror and dismay ; nevertheless, after a time, she was consoled and fortified by the thought that it was the will of God it should be so, and accordingly prepared to surrender herself without a murmur to the decision. THE STORY OF THE DRAGON'S ROCK. 167 Early the next morning, while the stars were yet shining in the heavens, the pious Christian maiden was led forth towards the Dragon's Cave. The people and warriors fol- lowed in a crowd at the heels of the priestly train and torch- bearers, for never had any of their sacrifices before been made with so much pomp and solemnity. Rinbod was already on the spot, and when he beheld the beautiful victim pass by him, calm and resigned, she seemed to him no longer like a creature of the earth ; but robed as she was in white, w r ith her golden hair streaming down her back, and her hands crossed over the crucifix upon her breast, while her blue eyes were raised to Heaven, she looked like one of the heavenly host, sent to waken him to the truth and beauty of the Christian creed. Thus she was led, amid the chanting of the priests and people, towards the place of sacrifice, at the foot of the moun- tain, where she was bound to an oak facing the Dragon's Cave, there to await the coming of the monster, who sought his prey at sunrise. During the interval the train of priests and peasants pro- ceeded to the summit of the mountain, thence to watch in security the immolation of the victim below; and as they remained chanting above upon the rocks, the high-priest would, every now and then, bid the affrighted people listen to the roarings of the waking monster. At length, as the wind swept in gusts through the forests of the Sieben-Gebirge, the crags seemed to echo with louder yells, and then every neck was stretched over the edge of the precipice to see the huge brute encircle its victim in its serpent folds. As they strained their eyes down into the dusk, they one and all beheld or fancied they did so the hideous dragon spring forth from its lair, while many declared they saw its eyes flash fire at the sight of its prey, and others, 168 THE " SEVEN MOUNTAINS." flames issue from its mouth. Even the warriors trembled to trace the monster form in the twilight, and hear the thunder of its voice; and every one wondered at the fortitude of the young Christian girl, whom they conld now hear, between the lull of the roarings, singing a peaceful hymn to the Saviour's praise. The terror-stricken crowd, in the delirium of their superstition, saw, from above, the huge dragon, with parted jaws, approach the undaunted maid, and spring with a fierce bound towards the girl. Then they beheld her white arms raised with the crucifix in the air ; but at the sight of this, they said, the dragon turned suddenly aside, and disappeared with a deafening roar : while some vowed that they had seen the monster precipitate itself into the waters of the Rhine, and that it was engulphed there for ever. The people, when they had witnessed the marvellous deliverance of the maiden, were stricken with awe ; and, though the priests asserted that their eyes had deceived them, they refused to listen any longer to their teachings: for the peasants said that the God of the Christians must be greater than the idols they worshipped, since the young believer in the Saviour had power to overcome them. So they hastened down the mountain to loosen the cords that bound the pious girl, and to learn from her an explanation of the miracle that had been wrought. " I am a Christian," she said, in answer to their question- ings, " and tlu's little crucifix is my safeguard." At sight of the sacred emblem the peasants knelt down in adoration of the Saviour; and then the maiden explained to the people the meaning of the cross she carried, till they begged of her to send them teachers who would instruct them in the new faith, and baptize them in the name of the great God. Rinbod conducted the beautiful young Apostle in triumph THE STORY OF THE DRAGON'S ROCK. 169 among the people, and was the first to embrace the new faith ; and when he had built a castle for her upon the summit of the Dragon's Rock he was united to her, and became the founder of the race of the bourgraves of Drachenfels, which flourished for centuries afterwards. It was thus, says the legend, that Christianity was intro- duced among the people on the right bank of the Rhine, and in the name Drachen-fels the memory of the Pagan Dragon, that formerly infested the rocks, is preserved to this day.* * With all deference to the old monks, from whose writings the Rhine legends are principally derived, the truth would seem to be that, instead of the name of the Drachenfels being due to the circumstances narrated in the above tradition, those circumstances rather have been made up from the peculiarity of the name it- self. We have before said that the rock on this part of the Rhine consists of a kind of volcanic porphyry, called, in English, "trachyte," the German term for which is " trachyt," but which the people at the Drachenfels pronounce " Drah-heet." Hence, what we in English would call the Trachyte-rock, would in German be styled " Tr achy t-f els," or (in patois) Drachit-fels, or Drachiten-fels ; and this it is evident would, in the course of ages, become clipped into Drachen-fels. The ancient monks, however, having a greater taste for the marvellous than they had for geology, would, when they saw or heard the name Drachen-fels, imagine, from the term Drachen, that it meant Dragon' s-rock, and thus invent for the exalta- tion of the faith some story of a famous pagan monster, half alligator, half boa-constrictor, who was destroyed in some way or other by some Christian agency, and so became the means of suddenly converting a whole body of people to a belief in the existence and passion of the Saviour. We shall find, as we proceed with other Rhine legends, that the stories have generally been framed upon some fancied meaning of the name of the place, and that, when the true origin of the title is discovered, the fabulous character of the tradition is imme- diately rendered apparent. At Diirkheim (near Mannheim) there is another mountain called Drachenfels, which has the same legend associated with it. This rock, however, is likewise composed of volcanic porphyry ; so that the similarity in the geological constitu- tion of the two mountains, coupled with the identity of the legends attached to each, are convincing proofs that the story of the Dragon has arisen, in both instances, merely from a mistake as to the name of the stone of which the rocks are composed. 1 70 ROLANDS-ECK AND NONNEN-WERTH. 2. ROLANDS-ECK AND NONNEN-WERTH. The towns and places that you touch at, oft your way up the Rhine, have characters as distinct and marked as those of human beings. Rotterdam, for instance, is cleanly, busy, and watery Cologne, mediaeval and picturesque with the remains of the glories of the " holy city," and its patrician merchants Bonn, collegiate and " genteel," the Drachenfels, wild and monster-like and Rolandseck, noble and watchful while the pretty little island of Nonnenwerth is lonely and loving. From the Drachenfels to Roland's Castle it is but a " stone's throw," as the saying is ; for the one lies on the opposite shore, almost facing the other, and the river here is about the width of the Thames at Westminster. The little village of Rolandseck (there are barely a score of houses in it altogether) consists merely of a small terrace^ of inns and cottages, set on an embanked roadway close beside the stream, so close, indeed, that the road is railed off from the water to guard against accidents. At the lower end stands the older portion of the village, which is merely a cluster of red-brick cottages; and at the upper end is the modern portion of it, consisting of a row of white-fronted inns and villas, with raised and arboured gardens stretching along the tops of the walls at their side, parallel to the stream; while, between the old and the new buildings, there rises the tall basalt rock, crowned with its pretty ruin (and, alas ! its gimcrack summer-house and " belvidere,") and with its blue- black crags shooting straight up from beside the roadway. Immediately in front of the village, and separated from it by an arm of the river little wider than a canal, lies the long, ASCENT OF ROLAND'S ROCK. 171 narrow island of Nonnen-werih, with the Rhine curling and eddying about its low banks in many a graceful line and dimple ; while, at a little distance behind this again, you just catch sight of the hedge of willows that environ the twin-islet of Grafenwertli. These little green patches are neither of them 200 acres in extent, and seem scarcely bigger than the long rafts those tiny- wooden towns one so often sees floating down the Rhine. At a turning beside the base of Roland's Rock you are sure to find a " stand " of sleepy -looking donkeys, gaily " got up " in bright scarlet saddle-cloths, with a group of blue-smocked urchins loitering beside them, and ready to carry the visitor to the ruins above ; for the ascent is steep, and the summit as high as our own St. Paul's. The path up the mountain side lies among vineyards, and is so narrow that you brush the broad handsome leaves as you go. The sloping banks are golden with the autumn tints of the vines, and, peeping out from amidst the curling, yellow foliage, you see the pendant bunches of grapes, drooping in rich, heavy drops, about the stunted poles, and with a lovely bloom like a delicate film of frost upon the blue- black- berries. Then, as you mount the hill, the air resounds with the cries of the boy-driver, close at the donkey's heels, shouting, as he belabours the poor, patient brute, "Hiisch, Hans! hu-u-usch!" And when he finds his blows make no impression on the dogged animal, who, with his head drooping to the ground, still main- tains the same snail-like pace, the yellow-haired rogue tries to coax old Hans into a spasmodic trot ; and, rushing forward, seizes the bridle, and exclaims, in a half-affectionate tone, as he drags the creature after him, " Kommensie Hans I Kom- mensie-e." But persuasion goes no farther with Hans than force; so 172 ROLANDS-ECK AND NONNEN-WERTH. lie continues snorting leisurely up the mountain, and ultimately lands you safe amid the ruins of Rolandseck. Now we will seat ourselves, gentle reader, upon the rustic bench that stands here beneath a feathery canopy of acacia trees at one side of the small patch of table-land where the castle formerly stood, and tell you, as we picture the sur- rounding scene, of the loves of " Kuhn Roland " and " ScJion IlildeguncV (brave Roland and fair Hildegund). 1 i- The Story of Roland and Hildegund. That mere skeleton of an arch facing us, which almost overhangs the edge of the rock, and seems like the ruins of some ancient gateway, is all that remains now of the once proud "Rolands-burg" that the Count d' Angers, the nephew of Charlemagne, is said to have built upon this spot, jn order that he might have daily before his eyes the beloved form of his beautiful Hildegund, who was lost to him and the world for ever; and that white palatial convent below, with the little chapel at its side, that we behold set amid the " Rhine- stream," and peeping out from a cloud of red woods and black plume-like spruce-trees, on the little island of Nonnemverth, stands upon the site of the ancient " Kloster" whither Hilde- gund retired when she believed that her Roland had been killed in the wars against the Saracens. It was yonder, too, at the old castle of the Drachenfels, which we can see here, shining in the sun through the broken THE STORY OF ROLAND AND HILDEGUND. 173 stone-work of Roland's solitary arch, that serves as a pictur- esque frame, as it were, to the lovely landscape in the distance it was yonder, we say, that the knight-errant, Roland, while scouring the banks of the Rhine in search of chivalrous adven- tures, claimed hospitality of the Count Heribert, who, in those days, was Lord of the "Seven Mountains;" and it was within that broken tower, whose empty and mouldering old chimney- corners we noted but yesterday, that Roland, in the dusk of the evening, when the walls of the Ritter-Saal (Knights' Hall) were glittering with the flames of the blazing logs reflected in the points of the many lances, first beheld the azure-eyed Hildegund kneeling at his feet, as she offered him, in welcome, bread, wine, and fish, after the custom of those times. The legend tells us, that the lady of the Drachenfels was beautiful as the Rhine in spring that her hair was like a golden cloud her cheeks like the pinky lining of a shell her lips red as poppies amid the corn and her hand and arm fair and graceful as the wild rose ; and that the wine trembled in the cup as Roland raised it to his lips, and, with his eyes still fixed on the lovely maiden, drank to the health of the Lord of the Sieben- Gebirge. The next morning, when the summit of Loewenburg we can see it finely here, towering far inland at the end of the chain of the Seven Mountains shone like a huge jewel in the rays of the rising sun, Hildegund stood on that shelf of rock (where is now the little " Gasthof " garden, but which was at that time the court before the "Falle-Thor" or port- cullis of the castle), and presented the " stirrup-cup " to the departing knight ; and then Roland beheld the damsel's cheeks tinted brighter than ever with the rosy hues of the morning ; so that when he heard the venerable Bourgrave once more entreat him to prolong his stay with them, and to continue the history of his chivalrous adventures, the sight of the beautiful 174 KOLANDS-ECK AND NONNEN-WERTH. Hildegund, with the long lushes of her downcast eyes shadow- ing her pretty cheeks, made him fling himself from his saddle, and declare that he could no longer withstand the generous persuasions of the hospitable old Baron. You can partly guess what followed. The mingling of the Rhine and the Ahr yonder, where the united streams come circling round through the opening chains of the distant hills, was not more perfect, nor more gentle, than the pouring of those two souls one into the other nor that handsome mountain-form of Petersberg more deeply mirrored in the trembling waters of the Rhine than was the image of young Roland, count of Angers, impressed on Hildegund's heart How often, when the white moonlight fell like snow upon the earth, and the Rhine itself was as a stream of molten silver, must the knight have wandered with the bourgrave's fair daughter along those pretty orchard meadows upon the oppo- site shore, And where we now see the little village of Roendorf nestling, amid the trees, under the mountain-side, screened from the north winds by the Drachenfels, and from the bleak blast of the east by the towering Loewenburg, they must have sat many a time beside the stream, and prattled love till not a light glistened in the cottage windows round about Was it there where now stands the white-turreted villa that Roland gave her the jewel-hilted sword that his uncle, Charlemagne, had presented to him before he quitted the court of France upon his chivalrous excursions ? or was it yonder, by the beech copse, where the vineyards are stretching up the hill close behind the roadway, that the knight vowed to the blushing, trembling girl, that the weapon should never be wielded in the cause of other lady than herself? Was that the spot, too, where Roland shortly afterwards broke the sad tidings to the weeping Hildegund, that Charle- THE STORY OF ROLAND AND HILDEGUND. 175 magne had recalled him to France to take part in the wars against the Saracens, who were then ravaging the north of Spain ? Did the lovers part there by the dingle of Wolkenburg that we can see now, like a red cloud, peeping from behind the edge of the Dragon's Rock ? and was yon the place where the maiden, sad with her presentiments, let fall the tear-drops which, the legend tells us, rusted ever after the scabbard of the sword she then gave back to Roland ? We can almost fancy we see now the form of the anxious Hildegund amid the misty peaks of the Drachenfels, watching, as we are told she did, day by day, when months had flown by, for Roland's promised return ; or standing there on the summit of the higher Lohrberg which we can just catch sight of, beautifully veiled with air, between the openings of the nearer mountains so that she might see farther into the distance; at one time gazing anxiously towards Cologne, at another looking, under her fair palm, along the plains to- wards the castle of Godesberg, and then up the river towards Ober-winter, that little village yonder, with the white cot- tages, like a flock of lambs, crouching under the mountains, at the very end, as it were, of the Rhine itself. But Hildegund, the story runs, watched and watched in vain; for though each day she saw her Roland coming, and fancied that every distant horseman was he, the loved one never returned to her again. For soon a rumour spread among the bourgraves round about that the brave Count of Angers had fallen beneath the infidels' swords. The sad tidings passed along the Rhine-shore from stronghold to stronghold (for the fame of the knight was known to all), till, at length, the fatal news came to the castle of Drachenfels itself, that the " flower of chivalry " had perished in battle against the Saracens. 176 UOLANDS-ECK AND NONNEN-WE11TH. Hildegund, in her forebodings, had long expected the blow, and when it came she said that the world was as a tomb to her. The Rhine no longer had any beauty in her eyes, for every wood, and crag, and tower was craped with sorrowful remembrances, and not a spot she looked upon but it recalled the time when she and Roland were there together, talking of happy days to come. How prettily now the village of Honnef, with its straggling line of cottages and villas, grouped midway to a point by the turret of its little church, stretches along the green and fallow plains of the opposite shore, and with the yellow background of the hill-side vineyards sloping gracefully up the neighbour- ing mountains ! It was from the ferry there that a boat, in days long past, was observed to steal across the Rhine, and as it curled round by the arc-like island of Grafenwerth, the dejected forms of an old man and young girl were seen re- flected in the stream below. On it came, with the oars crump- ling the smooth water; and as it neared the adjacent island of Nonnenwerth you might have perceived, on looking down from such a height as this, that the hands of the two were clasped in one another. At length the boat stopped at the old gateway that then stood at the end of that path, leading to the front of the Kloster ; and as the heavy gate was opened, the father and child flung themselves passionately into each other's arms, and stood locked in one long last embrace. And when the door at length closed upon the girl, the old Bourgrave of the Drachenfels hid his face in his hands, for he then knew that the world was really as a tomb to Hildegund. Now the tradition tells us, that though the brave Count d' Angers fell beneath the Saracen swords, his faithful squire found him still breathing on the field after the battle, and carried him to a neighbouring hut, where, by constant care, the knight was at length restored. Months, however, passed THE STORY OF ROLAND AND HILDEGUND. 177 before Roland had strength to quit the spot and to return, even by short journeys, to the banks of the Rhine that were so dear to him. At length, one winter's night, the Count d'Angers knocked at the gates of Drachenburg, and hurried into the halls, elate with imagining the joy that his return was to give the bourgrave and his fair daughter. The Count Heribert, how- ever, turned from the knight as he beheld him enter; and when Rolp.nd announced to him that he had come to claim his Hildegund, the old lord drooped his head mournfully, for he had not the courage to tell the knight that she whom he sought was lost to him and the world for ever. The legend adds, that Roland, when he heard that the bourgrave's daughter was, though living, dead to him and all around, grew morose and taciturn, shunning all company but that of his friendly squire ; and that, in order that he might at least be near his beloved Hildegund, he built the castle, of which that solitary arch before us is the last remaining fragment. Here, from the window, we are told, of the tall tower that once stood upon that curve of the old wall, where the stones now reach no higher than the knees, he loved to sit, day after day, looking down upon that little island plat- form, in the hope of catching once more a mere passing glimpse of the form that was far more beautiful to him than river, or mountain, or valley. It is a lovely sight, to this day, to gaze down, from the height of Rolandseck, upon that narrow tongue of land, buoyed as it were upon the crystal stream below, and behold its dozen meadows striping the stream with bands of bright emerald and the richest umber. It seems like a little garden world spread beneath the eye, while the people that we see there now moving in and out the trees, look no bigger than fairies. That boat, too, lying close against the bank, is more like some baby's cot 178 iioLAXDS-ECK. AND NONXEX-WERTH. than a vessel fitted for the stream ; and the smoke yonder, drifting from the heaps of burning weeds that spot the little fallow fields, looks, as it streams over the green after-crops, and smears them, as it were, with its white fumes, like a wraith of morning mist curling about some mountain side. And there, a little on one side of the dark fir-trees, that seem no bigger than fern-leaves along the yellow pathway, you can just make out the dots of hives, as you hear the boom of the gong for the swarming of the bees. But if the little island be a fairy spot to us, what words shall paint the beauty of it in Roland's eyes ! How must he, from long watching, have known every nook and corner of the tiny world! and how must his heart have leapt, when, after weeks of long, useless gazing, he saw some form that he thought was Hildegund pacing the pretty meadows yonder, where the goats are grazing now ! How often, too, must Roland have listened here for the sound of the matin and vesper bells, so as to try and single his Hildegund out from the train of veiled nuns that he could then see passing from the Kloster to that little chapel door! What would he have given to have beheld his Hildegund once wave her hand to him, as we can now see that group of school-girls^there, at the very end of the island, just beyond the little wood fluttering their hand- kerchiefs to some one on the passing Rhine-boat I Upon this rock, the legend adds, Roland lived many months, in company with his faithful squire ; it tells us that, at last, he learnt to distinguish Hildegund from the other nuns by the peculiar rosary she carried ; and that then he watched the sisters enter the chapel morning and evening, with even greater ardour than before. One morning, however, it is said, he missed his loved one from the matin train. Again, at vespers he could not dis- tinguish her from among the others, and as he numbered THE STORY OF KOLAND AND HILDEGUND. 179 the sisters on their leaving the chapel, he found there was one deficient from the throng. Some few days passed and still that one was wanting ; yet Roland, in terrible suspense, watched and watched from out his tower window, till at last the chapel bell tolled slowly and solemnly; and as it did so, each knell thrilled through his frame, and his heart whispered death in his ear. Then, as he gazed down upon the island with greater anxiety than ever, he heard the solemn funeral chant come floating up to him on the air, and presently he saw the black-veiled and brown-robed sisters steal from the Kloster, with their heads bent towards the ground, and the palled bier borne among them towards the chapel he had so often watched them enter before ; and then, as the breeze blew towards him, he could catch the intoning of the mass within for the departed soul; and then he, too, clasped his hands in prayer, for he knew that soul was his own dear Hildegund's now, indeed, lost to him for ever. From that moment Roland spake not a word immovable and pale, he sat continually at the tower window, with his gaze fixed upon the Kloster-kirche, in whose vaults Hildegund was entombed. In that same attitude, it is said, his squire found him one morning dead, and, though his eyes were glassy and soulless, they were still turned towards the chapel door. To this day, the tale concludes, the hill upon which Roland's Castle once stood is named Rolands-eck (literally, Roland's corner), and its ruins recall the story of the love that was the most pure and faithful in all the annals of chivalry. The Castle of Rolandseck was mainly destroyed in the wars of the Count Palatine Ruprecht (who had been deposed from the archbishopric of Cologne), aided by the Duke of Burgundy 180 HOIANDS-ECK AND NONNEN-WERTH. (Charles le Temeraire), against the Emperor Frederick III., A.I). 1400. The ancient convent of Nonnenwerth, which formerly belonged to the nuns of the " order of St. Benoit," some say, and others, of St. Ursula, was burnt to the ground in the year 1775, after which it was built with greater magni- ficence than before. In 1 802 it was suppressed by the French, for when Napoleon took possession of the country he ordered that it should share the fate of all similar institutions that had fallen into his hands ; but Josephine used her influence with the Emperor, and obtained permission from him that the nuns might keep possession of the island so long as any of them survived but no new sisters were to be received within its walls. For several years afterwards the convent continued to exist, though the inmates annually decreased in number ; and nothing, it is said, could be more mournful than the meeting of the lessening band at the hours of re-union : for the chapel, which was once hardly large enough to hold the entire sisterhood, at length came to be so scantily filled by the few that remained, that it seemed only to show the tombs that waited below for those still living. During the life- time of the abbess the nuns resolutely refused to leave the place, but when she died the survivors, whose numbers had then been reduced to six, " had not the courage to watch the work of death any longer within their little circle each, perhaps, hoping, and yet fearing, to be the last." Accordingly, they disposed of their remaining interest in the convent in the year 1822, when they quitted their long-cherished island all at a very advanced age to seek an asylum in a world that they were almost utter strangers to, and amid the few relations and friends that their long seclusion had left them. After this the convent was converted into a large hotel, THE STORY OF KOLAND AND HILDEGUND. 181 but in 1845 it became once more the property of a religious body (the Franciscans), and is now occupied by the sisters of that order, who maintain a school for young ladies in part of the building. Being accompanied by a lady we obtained permission to enter the Kloster, and after we had been admitted by a nun portiere we were conducted by one of the sisters, through the long white-washed and vaulted galleries, over the different parts of the establishment. Our nun-attendant was young and beautiful as Hildegund herself is said to have been, and there was a plaintiveness in her voice that, coupled with her downcast look, seemed to tell of some secret melancholy. She was habited in a coarse, dark- brown, loose robe, made after the fashion of a lady's "peignoir" and this was tied round the waist by a knotted hempen cord. Her cap, which was white as driven snow, was starched almost into the shape of a sun-bonnet ; while across her forehead was fastened a straight band of linen, and from the back of her head hung a long black veil. Indeed, as she led us over the large, desolate, and cleanly Kloster, it required but little imagination to realise in one's fancy the legend of the bour- grave's daughter.* * It seems like heresy to doubt the facts relating to so popular a tradition as that of the loves of kuhn Roland und schon Hildegund, nevertheless, the truth must out, that this is merely another romantic tale which has sprung from a mistake in the name of the place with which it is connected ; for history tells us that the castle of Rolandseck, instead of having been built by the nephew of Charlemagne in the eighth century, at the time when the Saracens overran Spain, was not constructed till the year 1120, and that then it was erected by Frederick I. archbishop of Cologne, shortly after the completion of the castles of Drachenfels and Wolkenburg, with the view of more strongly opposing the progress of the troops of the German Emperor, Henry V., with whom he was at war. Nor was the convent on the island of Nonnenwerth erected till the same period the same Frederick having laid the first stone of it in 1122. Again, in old records, the castle of Rolands-eck is called " Rulches-eck," and the island of Nonnenwerth styled " Rulches-werth," and occasionally "Raulands-wertA." The castle, moreover, 182 KOLANDS-ECK AND NOXNEN-WERTH. history says, was at one time infested by robbers, that were the dread of the surrounding country. Hence, as the Knight Roland must have lived in the eighth century, and the castle was not built till the twelfth, it is evident that its erection cannot be referred to the so-called nephew of Charlemagne. Let us see, therefore, what other explanation can be afforded for the term Roliuuls-eck, to which the legend clearly owes its origin. Now, between the islands of Nonnenwerth and Grafenwerth there is so strong a current always running that the spot has thence acquired the name of " Goties-hulf," (God's- hclp,) for it is customary with the Rhine boatmen to take off their caps and pray God to help them on approaching any " rapid " or dangerous part of the river. The German term for such a current as exists in this part of the Rhine is rollendes-wasser (literally, rolling water, i.e. running in waves, in contra- distinction to reissendes - vasser rushing water, where the waves would be broken) ; so that there would seem to be little doubt that the eck, or bend of the stream here, was originally named the eck of the rollendes-wasxer, and that in course of time it came to be abbreviated into the rollendes-eck, and then into Rolan'h-eck. In the lapse of years, however, the title Roland (from its similarity to the Christian name) was naturally thought to refer to some great person who was the former owner of the castle, and one of Charlemagne's nephews being found to have that name, and to be, moreover, famed in the annals of chivalry, the gallant knight was, of course, made to be enamoured with one of the nuns in the convent below (though the first stone of it, as we have said, was not laid till centuries after), while the perpendicular and overhanging character of the rock naturally suggested the notion of the castle having been originally built for the express purpose of continually watching the pretty sister. Moreover, the simplest motive that could be framed for the lady entering the convent was grief at the supposed death of her affianced cavalier in the wars against the Saracens. Thus, from a mere misapprehension in the meaning of a name, as in the case of the legends of St. Ursula and that of the Dragon's Rock, we have another romantic tale invented, which, perhaps, expresses the sentiment of the spot with which it is connected more aptly than any of the myths met with throughout the Rhine. V, THE LOWER RHINE GORGE, FROM ROLANDSECK TO ANDERNACH. THE regular Rhine steamers vary in size, from a Greenwich to a Margate boat; some, however, are no bigger than the "ANT" or the BEE" of the "'Delphi Pier," while others again as those running between Bonn and Koenigswinter are, as we have said before, as long and narrow as a Dutch treckshuit. The larger steamboats, however, are mostly fine vessels, and there are generally a dozen of them throughout the day ascending, and as many descending, the Rhine during the summer. Some have large, square, glass pavilions erected upon the after-deck all are painted a bright green and white and fitted with two iroutube ventilators standing up in front of the funnel-like monster ear-trumpets have crews clad in bright red jackets and a semicircular raised stage at the stern, where the boat is steered, by means of a horizontal wheel that is twisted round, after the fashion of a turnstile; while they are every one provided with huge bells, as big as those at boarding-schools, and the incessant ringing of these, at all hours of the day and night, wherever you are upon the Rhine, is one of the distinctive features of the locality for they begin at half-past three in the morning in summer, and are jangled, as long as an alarum, thrice before starting 184 THE LOWER RHINE GORGE. and for some time before arriving. Owing to the force of the current, the steamers take nearly as long again to ascend the stream as to descend it (there is such a heavy fall in the river that Germans, who speak " a little English," talk of tra- velling in these different directions as "going up-stairs and down-stairs the Rhine "), and for the journey either way there is the " RUBENS," or the " GOETHE," or the " SCHILLER," or the " STOLZEXFELS," or the " AGRIPPINA," or the " MARIANNE," or the " PRINCESS OF PRUSSIA," or the " QUEEN VICTORIA," or unromantic climax! the " JOSEPH MILLER" all ready to carry you whithersoever, and land you wheresoever, you please. We are sitting at the window of the " GASTHOF ZUM ROLANDSECK," waiting for one of the Rhine fleet to bear us to Coblenz, with the silver breakfast-kettle steaming away above the broad blue flame of its spirit-lamp, and a basket of queer- shaped rolls " little breads" as the Germans call them some twisted into " true-lover's-knots," and others made up into the form of a big chrysalis set out on the table before us ; while in the roadway, immediately under our open casement, there is a band of recruits drawn up, and the dapper helmeted serjeant is calling over the names of the* " awkward squad," who still retain their peasant blue smocks, though they wear the red- banded military cap to mark their recent change from plough- men to heroes. The Rhine is running in a broad, bright sheet, almost at our feet ; and close before us lies the pretty Nun's Island, like a big emerald set in the silver shield of the river, with the cones of the " Great and Little Hemmerich " rising mistily in the background from the long ridge of the Honnef Hills. As the " kellner" places the dish of unbidden raw ham before us, he intimates that we have no time to lose, for the FROM ROLANDSECK TO ANDERNACH. 185 " MARIANNE" has just left Koenigswinter ; and scarcely have we discharged the " rechnung " before the bell of the steamer is heard jangling away as it goes panting along the " Gottes- Hulf" (God's help), between the two islands facing the village. The next moment we are packed in a little punt, amid some half-dozen peasants, bound, like ourselves, " nach Coblenz ; " and scarcely have we set foot upon the deck before the wheels of the steamer throb again, and the solitary arch upon the hill of Rolandseck is seen to dwindle, as it appears to recede from us. As we look back upon the scenes we have visited, the distance is screened on either side by the high jutting hills of Rolandseck and Drachenfels. In the trough of the earth- waves lies the bark-like island of Nonnenwerth ; and beyond this, through the na - row mountain aperture, the distant vine- yards of Koenigswinter are seen sloping up the base of the half-hidden hill of Petersberg, as if burnished with the beams of the midday sun. Then, stretching inland from the Drach- enfels, we behold cone after cone of the Sieben-Gebirge, each tipped with a streak of bright light, and rising higher and higher, till the lofty Loewenburg towers at the end of the mountain chain, like an immense preen pyramid of earth. Here begins the lo:ig ridge of mountains known as the Westerwald hills, which reach along the right bank of the Rhine from the Sieben-Gebirge to the vast plateau of "brown coal" at the back of Ehrenbreitstein. On the opposite shoie the hills belong to the Eifel chain, whose line of crater peaks extends from the banks of the Moselle to Bonn. At Rolandseck the moun- tain chain draws in close upon the river, whilst at Drachenfels the hills fall back with a graceful sweep, and leave a beautiful long green bay of meadows in front, where the orchard plains are speckled with many a village and white villa peeping 186 THE LOWER RHINE GORGE. prettily from out the trees. As we look up the stream, the distant hills are seen to close in, and the Rhine to turn so sharply round that we wonder how the vessel is to proceed on its course. The little hamlets now twinkle amid the fields as they scud past us ! First, Overwinter runs by, set in an arc of the curving mountain chain, close beside the Rhine, with rude archways cut in the house-walls leading from the water-side to the streets at the back. Facing this are the villages of Kheinbreiibach and Scheuem, the former standing so far back amid the meadow-lands that one sees only the spire of its church and a mist of smoke soaring above the intervening trees, and the latter white with the pretty crowd of turreted villas gathered about it. Then, as we approach the sharp corner of the stream, the village of Unkel grows more and more definite, seeming, as it stands immediately on the brink of the farther shore, to be at the very end of the river ; and as the vessel sweeps towards the point, the houses come peeping forth one after another, as if it were some panoramic scene gradually unfolding itself to our eyes. Now two or three old burgers' houses are seen simple and solid as the inhabitants themselves raised on the river-side walls, so that they seem as if on stilts ; then comes the old-fashioned and half-palatial JBurgermeisterei, and after that the yellow and rude, clay-beplastered church of St. Pantaleon, perched like the rest on top of the ancient ram- parts, and with a few white crosses beside it, just peeping above the brown walls, to mark the place of the village cemetery ; next the domed round tower of the "Alte Festung" (old fortress) starts into sight, at the very end of the river ramparts ; and lastly, the citizens' little gardens and summer- houses, set right at the angle of the stream. As the whole glides past us, the houses, and the streets leading from the FROM ROLANDSECK TO ANDERNACH. 187 river, seem to shift and turn with every change in the per- spective, like a manoeuvring army. Unkel, as we said, is beautifully situate at a sharp bend of the Rhine. Above and below it stretches a bright green plain of orchard land, reaching from the huge rock named " Erpeler Lei " down to the Drachenfels ; whilst, far inland, at the back of it, runs the long chain of hills linking the " Lei " with the seven mountains, and screening the pretty little town from the bleak blasts of the east. Immediately facing it, on the opposite side of the river, rises the great mound of basalt known as " Unkelstein" and here you catch the click of the quarriers' hammers as the boat darts by, and see the tiny figures of men at work, in the dusk, under the sheds close beside the roadway. The high rock at the back is hollowed by long quarrying into deep bays ; and at the top of these the experienced eye can detect the slender rusty-looking prisms of basalt, packed in one part close together as the rods in the Roman fasces, and in another thrown by a recent convulsion into wavy lines, so that they resemble cable-tiers rather than layers of stone ; whilst in front of the mountain there are immense heaps of rubble, made up of the d&bris formed at the time of the Bergschlupf (land- slip) in 1848, when one half of the rock gave way, and was precipitated, with a noise like thunder, towards the river, lifting the high road in front of it some 40 feet above its previous level.* Once the rocks at this part extended so far into the river, that the pass, until the reef was blown up by the * A visit to the quarries of Unkelstein will soon explain the cause of the breaking down of this mass ; for the felspar with which the disintegrated portion abounds will be found in every stage of decomposition, some of it being as soft as moistened pipe-clay. Felspar is, chemically considered, a double "salt" consisting of silicate of alumina and silicate of potash indeed it is a kind of alum, in which silicic acid (the acid of flints) replaces the sulphuric acid (oil of vitriol) in the ordinary compound. It is subject to decomposition by the agency of the weather, owing to the tendency of the more soluble silicate of potash to be 188 THE LOWER RHINE GORGE. French, was almost as dangerous as that of Lurlei, and the simple raftmcn doffed their caps and prayed God to help them as they neared it. Even now the current sweeps with tre- mendous force round the point, being scored with many a circling line, that shines almost phosphorescently in the dark- ness of the reflection from the volcanic mass beside it; and when the water is low, groups of broken basalt columns can be perceived at the bottom of the Rhine, like the ruins of some submerged " Fingal's Cave." Beyond Unkelstein the road is seen stretching along the shore, so close to the stream that it looks like some long quay " quarried out of the solid rock." This is proved to have been the work of the Romans, for, according to the inscription on an ancient military stone dug up in the neighbouring town of Remagen (the Hicomagus* of the " Tabula Pentingeriana" a Roman map of the year 200 A.D.), this same roadway was begun by the legions located on the Rhine during the reign of Marcus Aurelius and his son-in-law, Lucius Verus (A.D. 161-169). In a few minutes afterwards the twin-villages of Remagen and Erpel seem to glide towards us house after house dissolved out, so that the silicate of alumina, or pure porcelain clay (such as is obtained in Devonshire from the decomposed granite), alone remains behind. Water in combination with carbonic acid gas acts powerfully upon felspar, and it is by this simple agent that even the granite rocks themselves are disintegrated. At the Westerwald we find layers of white lehm (clay), which have evidently arisen from deconv osed basalt, overlying the brown coal, and thus proving that the brown coal itself has been formed by the charring and pressure of the volcanic deposits. * The title Ricomagus would appear to be a Latin derivative from the German verb rege-machen, to stir up, to excite ; so that the ancient name was probably applied on account of the river at this part having been in a state of violent commotion, uwing to the impediment of the Unkelstein and adjoining rocks even as the name of Erpel, the village on the opposite shore, is manifestly a corruption of the German Wirbel, a whirlpool ; and that of Unkel, an abbreviation of the phrase Um-kehle (the village), by the narrow channel or gorge, meta- phorically, the throat or slender passage between the rocks. FROM ROLANDSECK TO ANDERNACH. 189 starting from behind the bend of the river as the boat winds along its way, the one village facing the other, and both so close to the water's edge that the Rhine is like snow on either side with the images of the many white walls mirrored in it the villa-like hotels ranged along the top of the river ramparts the little floating-pier, and the steep, narrow streets of old mud cottages slanting up from the shore of the one and the river-side gardens, with the pleasant summer-houses over- looking the Rhine and the solid old burgers' mansions, with their tawdry statues of saints projecting from the walls, at the other. High upon the hill, too, just before reaching Remagen, is seen the exquisitely light and graceful church of Apolli- narisberg (no bigger than a park villa), set on an embanked pedestal, and with its fretted pinnacles like tiny steeples, making it appear as it hangs in the mid-air as if it were some beautifully-carved toy-cathedral,* On the other side of the * It is worth while staying a day or two at Remagen. The town itself, however, has little to attract the stranger excepting a curious old Romanesque gateway outside the Catholic Church, rudely sculptured round with small grotesque bas-reliefs of mermaids, and wild swine wlla their young, and hunters blowing horns, and men planting trees, and others treading grapes, and herons killing fish, &c. &c. This is said by some to have formed part of the old palace of the Prankish king Sconilare ; but as such figures are often found on the portals of the Lombard churches in Italy, and not a few of the early Rhenish edifices are built in the Lombard style, it probably formed part of the entrance of the old " Pfarr-hof" (parish-church), which dates many hundred years back the choir having been added by " the Priest Richard" in 1246. The style of the gate is said to belong to the tenth century. Then the church of St. Apollinarius is, as the Germans say, "one of the sight-worthiest art-creations in all Rhineland " St. Apollinarius was bishop of Laodicea in the fourth century. He taught that the Divinity served instead of a soul to Christ that the flesh of the Saviour existed before his appearance upon earth and that it was sent down from heaven, and conveyed through the Virgin as through a channel that there were two sons, one born of God, the other of the Virgin and such-like wild fantasies ! He was deposed for his opinions, and ultimately suffered martyrdom. There formerly existed at this spot a little chapel dedicated to St. Martin, with a " priory" attached to it belonging to the Abbey of Siegburg ; and on the altar of this chapel the relics of the " holy 1 90 THE LOWER RHINE GORGE. river, a little beyond the charming town of Erpel, there rises the lofty basalt mass known as " Erpeler Lei " (Erpel's rock) a huge boss of arthy lava that, with its rounded rocky summit, looks like some monster bowlder-stone or gigantic aerolite hurled from the clouds. Remagen is, as we see it now, bathed in a rich transparent shadow, the dusky air slanting from its walls as if it were a solid wedge of darkness, and the town itself being seen in all the veiled beauty of the " clear-obscure"- like some noble painting viewed in a black mirror. The opposite shore, on the other hand, is all a-glow with the sunbeams, the warm, yellow light shining, like a golden phosphorescence, on the surface of the water, and the land, and the rocks. The stream, where the Apollinarius " and several "holy martyr followers " were placed, when they were brought from Ravenna by the Archbishop Reinald von Dassel in 1164, during the same memorable expedition as that in which he carried off the heads of the three Magi from Milan. Thus the church came to be visited by pilgrims from far and near. In 1836 the hill came into the possession of the Graff von Fiirstenberg, and he caused the present edifice to be erected after the designs of Zwirner (the restorer of Cologne Cathedral). The interior of the church, which is hardly bigger than the hall to a nobleman's mansion, i? as rich with bright colours and gold as the illuminated missals of the old monks. The walls are entirely covered with frescoes, as large as the " high-art " pictures that poor self-bigotted Haydon delighted in. These are in the best German style, though the tints are often too much like dyed earths, and too little like the transparent films of coloured air which make up the various hues in nature, while the outlines are as hard as the forms of what the scene-painters call " cut-pieces." Moreover, Protestants must forget that they are in a temple dedicated to the worship of the Most Wife, but rather fancy themselves in the cabinet of some tasteful virtuoso and then assuredly St. Apollinarius will seem the prettiest little plaything of a church that a baby zealot could possibly desire. For those, on the other hand, who prefer God's building to men's pastry-work, and the exquisite no-colours of the rocks to the gaudy positive-tints and tinsels of Catholic churches, there are the noble " lasalt- bruche's " of Dattenburg, and Minderberg, and Erpeler Lei, close on the opposite shore sights that will fill the mind with tenfold more real religion than all the barley-sugar temples in the world. Further, there is the Ahr valley within a pleasant ride of Remagen, and this is one of the loveliest of the many bye-ways to the great highroad of the Rhine ; and lastly, there is the Lake of Laach the great volcanic pool set in its vast basin of lava to stir the soul with the profound poetry of creation. FROM ROLANDSECK TO ANDEKNACH. 191 rays fall upon it, is as if on fire, and the bright patches of light flicker like flames upon the waves. The meadows, too, have an almost metallic lustre upon them, like the bright green plumage of the humming-bird. As the sun bursts out anew the tints seem to start forth each time with a fresh vividness, as if it were some bright camera picture brought into focus, and the landscape positively to leap forward into the light, while the whole face of nature appears to be suffused with a sudden gladness, like some young maiden at the coming of her lover. The gigantic pile of Erpeler Lei is alone a rich feast of beauty for the sight. This immense volcanic mass is half as high again as the Great Pyramid of Gizeh, and the basalt of which it is composed is finely " columnar ;" so that the rock, seen from the river, seems to be ribbed in places like a shell, or "pectinated" like the cliffs of the Isle of StafFa in the Hebrides. The surface is stained a variety of colours rusty- brown, and iron-grey, and a greenish drab by the weather and long quarrying, while it is black as a mastiff about the muzzle, and indented by many a " stein-bruche." In other parts it seems like a huge flight of steps, with the many walls of its vineyard-terraces ranged one above another ; and there it is golden with the autumn foliage of the vines, so that it looks, as it shines in the sun, like a monster lump of ore spangled with bright particles of protruding metal. As you glance up the almost perpendicular sides you wonder how anything but moss could cling to them; and yet you see the white-hooded peasant-women, high up on the rock, gather- ing the autumn crop of grapes that have been produced from vines planted in baskets between the crevices of the lava ; for so steep is the basalt mound, that it is only by such means the soil can be kept from being washed down its sides with every shower: and thus even that barren-looking volcanic mass is 1 92 THE LOWER RHINE GORGE. made to yield " an excellent white wine, known by the name of ' Lei.' " A few more twirls of the paddle-wheels, and the boat is alongside of all that remains of the castle of Ockenfels. This consists of merely one thick slab of an old wall, half green with ivy, that looks, in the distance, like a film of verdigris upon it, and a low, black, broken rampart stretching before it, with a summer-house at the end that reminds one of Crusoe's umbrella the whole cresting another basalt rock close beside the river. The next moment we are in front of the ancient fortified town of Linz. Here the yellow, silty shore, is littered with boats, and the little " flying-bridge," stealing across the Rhine, is blue with the smocks and spotted white with the kappe- tuchs (cap-cloths) of the peasant men and women grouped upon it. The houses, stretching inland from the river-side, are built upon the slope of a hill, so that the streets seem as if tilted up at the back, and you can see the basalt-built fortress- walls encompassing the crowd of roofs like a square frame round about the town. The Pfarr-kirche (parish-church), resting on a height behind, seems as if it were some " good shepherd," watching over the little flock gathered within the fold below. The old *' palace " at the lower corner of the town, near the river, whose plain ochre-coloured walls and conical- roofed tower at the one end might be mistaken for the nave and turret of some rude country church, was in the thirteenth century the " Schloss " of Engelbert, the archbishop who originated the cathedral of Cologne, and later still the dwelling- place of Carl Theodore, the " Kurfurst von der Pfalz " (the Prince-Elector of the Palatinate) he who, towards the close of the last century, made the " Rhine-street " (the road beside the river) from Coblenz to Bonn, during which the Roman coffins, and urns, and monuments, were found at Remagen. That FROM BOLANDSECK TO ANDERNACH. 193 bulky square tower, too, with the battlemented corners, the bars before the windows, and the archway underneath it, through which we can just see a bright patch of the " Corn- Markt Platz " shining behind, was built by the self-same archbishop as a " Gefdngniss " (prison-house), for enforcing what was called " toll " in those primeval days (but in more righteous times it is termed "plunder") from the Frankfort and other merchants on their way down the river to the Cologne fairs; and those brown old " Stadt-ihiirme" the martello- like towers that are ranged along the river-walls were erected for the defence of the place against the burgers of Andernach the Andernachians and the Linzites having been for centuries the Capulets and Montagues of the Rhine. The few houses facing the river have ornamented gables like those w r e noted at Cologne ; and jutting upon the shore in front of the town there is a large white villa, rising out of the water as it were, built in what the guide-books call the Italian style though it struck us rather as belonging to the whitebait-tavern order of architecture, and contrasting strangely with the brown old fortified town at the back. Facing Linz is a broad semicircular patch of meadow- land a low alluvial bank, thrown up by the mingling of the waters of the Ahr with those of the Rhine. The Rhine itself here is yellow in places with its island shoals, especially in front of where we see the two planked gangways (mere boards resting on posts no higher than footstools) stretching across the end of the shallow stream that comes trickling from between the grove of poplars. This is the mouth of the Ahr ! The fields around it are exquisitely bright and fresh with the richness of the soil, and the land like a plaid with the green patches of after-crops and the fine umber tints of the newly- turned earth. Far at the back of the meadows, and close under the distant mountain ridge, stands the ancient town of o 1 94 THE LOWER RHINE GORGE. Stnzig (the Sentiacuin of the Romans *), where, says the tra- dition, Constantino the Great, while on his march to attack Maxentius, who had been proclaimed emperor at Rome, saw in the heavens the cross of fire, " two miles in length!" with the motto, " IN HOC SIGNO YINCES," encircling it We can just perceive the spire of the church and a few of the roofs of the antique town peeping above the distant thickets, and the white smoke smearing the red-wooded hills behind, as if it were so much morning mist floating about them. The sun is shining at the back of these, and the outlines are beautifully melted in the flood of amber light, while the fresh green meadows seem all the brighter from the broad masses of shadow about them. That fine chasm, too, in the hills at the back of Sinzig, whose edges now are as if tipped with burnished gold, shows all the better from the rich warm haze of sunlight behind it ; and in the far distance there is seen the noble form of the " Landskrone" (the Land-crown), shining like a huge coronet among the mountain summits. That is the entrance to the Ahr valley. The curious, old-fashioned, drab-coloured mansion which starts out from behind the corner of a tall hill just above Linz, as the boat reaches the end of the broad curve formed by the stream in front of the Sinzig meadows, is the " Schloss (Palace of) Argenfek." It is finely situate on an elevated * Sent-iacum is a Latinised form of the German Zehent-ig (the ti thing-place), of which the modern term Sinzig is a corruption. The site of the old Zehent-hof, tithing-house, is still pointed out to the visitor the mansion of a rich Jew now stands upon it close beside the church, where is to be seen the " Holy Man" a natural mummy, preserved in a glass coffin, and tricked out by the priests in a tawdry shioud for duly affecting the vulgar. The title of the opposite town of Linz, it may be added, is from the same root as Lehns-herr (a feudal lord), and originally signified the feudal town (Lehns-dorf) from Lehen or Lehn, a fief, i.e. a dependence upon the lord of the manor, or a loan from him ; for the verb Lehnen means not only to lean, to rest upon, but likewise to borrow, and to lend. There is a fine old German picture to be seen at the church here. FROM ROLANDSECK TO ANDERNACH. 195 platform of rock overlooking the Rhine, with a noble mountain serving as a background to it, and is quaint and antiquated enough in its structure to te remarkable, if not picturesque. The huge whitey-brown steeple rising from the centre of the pile is like an immense stone bottle ; the narrow gabled front is in deep shadow, being set far back between similar narrow gabled wings, and the building seems to be gashed all over with windows that are nearly as numerous as the musket-slits in a fortress, while the ramparts on which it stands are so tall that they remind one of the wall to a racket-ground. This odd old chfiteau was originally the Stamm-haus (family -house) of the " Von der Leyen" but is now the residence of Count Westerholt. Immediately beneath it is the village of Hon- ningen, environed with many a farm-house-like Biirger's-Jiof, close at the water's edge, and standing at the end of another bay of meadows, formed as before by an arc of the curving mountain-chain ; while directly facing this, on the opposite bank, is Niederbreisig, with many archways under its river- walls, and the long narrow streets stretching from the shore, looking as you see them from the boat like crevices between the blocks of houses. Scarcely has the ancient templar's house at the latter village slid past us before we are under the walls, as it were, of Castle Rheineck a bulky octagonal building, set on the truncated summit of a huge mountain cone, with as many different gables as it has sides, and seeming, from the detached old square watch-tower and the low walls about it, as if it were built beside some country churchyard. The donjon tower is all that remains of the ancient " Burg," the present " residenz" having been built in 1832 for Herr Professor Bethman-Hollweg of Bonn, from the designs of Lassaulx at a " lavish expense," say the guide-books. A little beyond this we reach the picturesque village of 196 THE LOWER RHINE GORGE. Brold, partly cradled in a fine ravine, the houses straggling back into the soft shade of the valley and the banks facing the Rhine littered with heaps of brown "tuff-stone" from the neighbouring quarries. Facing this, again, is the half-hidden village of Rheinbrohl, standing at the upper end of that lux- uriant bay of meadows, of which Hbnningen occupies the lower extremity. Here we see, close under the mountain- slopes at the back, the half-finished church, with a lattice-work of scaffolding-poles still set about the spire ; and near the water's edge a solitary white Burger-hof, with an archway cut in its high rampart-like walls, leading to the town behind. Above this the hills on either side draw in close to the river, so that the stream runs straight between a narrow mountain-pass. As we look along it through the dark vista of rocks, and behold the huge mountains jutting one beyond the other, with a fine film of air marking the ravines between each, and the tall, grey, telescopic tower of Andernach, like a distant lighthouse, looming at the end of the narrow channel the scene is the very luxury of vision. The mountain-sides, wherever the sun can fall, are golden-green with the terraced vineyards sloping up them ; and as the rays slant down upon the crags on which you would fancy blackberries could hardly flourish the hills are " shot" (chatoyant) like a June-beetle's back with many an emerald tint The boat now seems to be ploughing its way along some ravine torrent rather than a tranquil river, and the water is like a sheet of stained glass, with the many colours of the vines, and crags, and villages beside it. Presently there rises a bold, brown, precipitous rock of grauwacke, the handsomest mountain mass we have yet seen ; for it is grandly schistose, and the lines with which its surface is scored slant sharply down to the water's edge, while the tints upon it are finely neutral so free, indeed, from the goth- FROM ROLANDSECK TO ANDERNACH. 1 97 delighting glare of positive colour, that it is difficult to say what hue prevails : now there is a faint bloom of lichen-green upon the slabs, and now a slight nacreous film is discernible ; here it is the exquisite grey colour of wintry tree-stems, and there a dark earth-brown, with just a glance of bronze in the sunshine. Towards Andernach the rock seems to have been broken abruptly off, for the crags are so steep at that part that we have to bend the head back to look up to the top where is seen the stump of an ancient round tower, like the stock of some huge felled tree, standing almost at the brink of the perpendicular cliffs, with a broken brambly old wall stretching beside it, scarcely higher than a hedge. This is all that remains to mark the site of the once royal stronghold of Hammerstein ; and here it was that Henry IV. of Germany took refuge after his rebellious son had torn his royal robes from him at the Castle of Klopp, in Bingen, on Christmas-day, 1105; and here, too, the crown and insignia of the empire were kept till they were wrested from the old emperor and carried off by the usurper Henry V. A goat scarcely could find refuge within the walls at present ! The river at this part is studded with a small turfed shoal- bank, called the island of " Westholder-Rheinau ; " and on the opposite shore the hills once more curve back, and leave another pleasant batch of meadow-land at the foot of a warm mountain niche. Within this stands the village of Namedy, embowered among the trees ; and a little higher up the stream, but on the other bank, we see the long line of mud-walled cottages of Leutersdorf, inhabited chiefly by fishermen, and squeezed in beforo the hills, just at the end of the gorge. Then, as the vessel draws nearer and nearer to the opposite corner of the river, the ancient town of Andernach slides into sight, building by building, First, the bulky round Rhine- crane house is seen, with its roof as red as a cardinal's hat ; 1 98 TIIE LOWER RHINE GORGE. then the tall telescopic watch-tower appears, seeming as if a slender octagonal turret had been built upon some old round " Ronw-thurm" (Roman tower). After this the twin square turrets of the beautiful Byzantine Pfarr-kirche (parish church), old as the Carlovignian kings, starts from behind the edge of the neighbouring mountain; and the next minute we catch sight of the antique Rhine-gate, the work of the Romans, with the houses peeping over the high bastioned walls facing the river ; lastly, the steep roof of the obsolete Franciscan church meets the eye, soaring above the crowd of gables ; and then the steamboat bell jangles loudly to announce its arrival at the place. Here it is worth while to step ashore for a time, for the town is one of the oldest on the Rhine. Accordingly, we jump into the punt that puts off for the passengers, and the moment after we are landed on the desolate-looking shore in front of the old Roman walls. VI. THE RHINE PLAINS, FROM ANDERNACH TO COBLENZ. ANDEENACH was the ancient Roman fort " Antonacum :" Drusus pitched one of his camps upon the spot. Indeed, ingenious German etymologists love to tell one that this was the second city built by the Romans in Germany, Treves being the first ; so that Andernach came to be christened by the natives " Andre-dar-nach" meaning, another after that. TheAustrasian kings (the ancient rulers of the Franks) formerly had a palace here, and the city once held a high place among the Rhine towns ; for at the time of the celebrated Hanseatic League it furnished, say the chronicles, 2000 "fantassins" (infantry), and 500 " cavaliers " (cavalry), though at present its population is but little more than the sum of those two numbers. In the year 1688 the French burnt the town, and destroyed three- fourths of its houses ; indeed, only 74, we are told, were left standing. Before that period, however, it contained as many as five convents, and swarmed with priests, and monks, and beggars, though its population numbered only 4000. Till then, moreover, there existed a curious custom, which had pre- vailed for nearly two centuries, of preaching in the open air every year a sermon against the people of Linz ; and during that time, had any- Linzite appeared in the streets, he would 200 THE RHINE PLAINS. assuredly have been massacred by the bitter Andernachians. This long-enduring enmity arose, it is said, from the people of Linz having, in the time of the Emperor Charles V. (A.D. 1420-1550), put the people of Andernach and Rheineck to the sword, and cut off the ears of those they made prisoners. The Rhine-gate, by which we enter the town from the beach-like shore, (for the fortress walls are set back from the river, and the bank is rude as if it adjoined the sea), is a hand- some Roman structure, built in the form of a square, open in the interior, with a round-arched gate at three of the sides, and at the fourth a strangely-built house with galleries round the other sides (like those at our ancient inns) ; then over the archway farthest from the river there are some stone figures the size of life, the sculpture of which is about as primitive as is the carving of our wooden dolls to this day. The streets of Andernach are all as narrow and dirty as lanes, and as you walk them you meet but two or three people on the way. Nor have the houses much picturesque- ness to recommend them to the eye. One was pointed out to us, that the tradition among the towns-people referred to the time of the Romans. This had a double gable-end facing the street, and each of the gables castellated after the fashion of those seen at Cologne and Antwerp, which are generally supposed to have been built by the Spaniards. The principal hotel, winch is a comely-enough inn, in front of a desolate " platz " that looks like a stable-yard, with the empty mail-carts about it, has a large garden attached to the house, with a pleasant arboured terrace and summer-houses ranged along the top of the broad fortress walls of the town, and commanding a fine view of the ancient watch-tower, as well as of the Rhine itself.* * Since writing the above the " GATZHOF ZUM LILYS " has been closed for want of custom. At our first visit there were only two Prussian officers at the FROM ANDERNACH TO COBLENZ. 20 1 Outside the " Coblenzer Thor " ( Coblenz Gate ), which stands at the end of the High Street, and whose pointed arch proves it to be no Roman structure, though it is generally sup- posed to be so, the ruins of the ancient palace of the Arch- bishop Prince-Elector of Cologne are to be seen. There is only one tower of this fine old " chateau " left standing, and but a single thick plate of its walls remaining; but it is exquisitely picturesque with the empty window-holes, and the broken green mound before it, spread with the peasants' linen, where once stood the Archbishop's throne; the old, comical chimneypieces, stacked with fagots ; and the villager s washing in the brook that was formerly the castle moat for you can see fragments of the old bastions protruding between the brambles from the bank. A short distance from this, along the Coblenz road, are the remains of the once noble abbey of St. Thomas. This is now partly occupied by a tannery, and partly by an asylum for lunatics, but it was formerly an aristocratic convent of the order of St. Augustine, where none but ladies of rank were admitted into the sisterhood, the Countess of Spanheim being its abbess in the 12th century. Returning to the High Street by the Coblenz Gate we come to the Rathaus, an old-fashioned building, something like an ancient French mansion, with a heavy projecting balcony, arid a pediment to the front walls that looks like a huge attic- window. Here the old " Jew's bath," as it is termed, is to be seen ; to obtain a peep at this you must enter the cloistered hall and mount to the burgermeister's office on the first floor, where you will find some two or three not very active clerks table d'hote, and they, said the landlord aside to us, " eat twice as much as they pay for." On our second visit we found the shutters before the windows, and porters moving out the looking-glasses. " I am about to become a rentier," said the landlord, smiling. 202 THE RHINE PLAINS. and a musty smell of old papers, with which the place is lit- tered. One of the functionaries will then accompany you down-stairs with a huge bunch of keys in his hand, and lead you to a coach-house in the yard behind, whence he will remove one of the long links that dangle in a row from the rafters, after the fashion of candles in a. chandler's shop. Having lighted this, he will invite you, as he enters a little door-way at the end of the yard, to descend a pitch-dark, cork- screw staircase, deep down into the earth ; and when you have gone down, Heaven knows how many stairs, you will find yourself in a small cellar-like vault, the bottom of which is filled with water, that seems in the darkness like so much ink. Looking down into this black liquid you can just see, by the lurid light of the torch, a flight of steps shimmering in the pool ; and this, you are told, was the " tauf-bad " (baptismal bath) of the old Jews: but, from its resemblance to the old Roman bath, it has, with greater probability, been suggested to be part of the ancient constructions of Antonacum. Not far hence are to be seen the rums of the old Fran- ciscan church ; and here, on entering the cloister at the side, you will find the interior space boarded-up, from 'which proceed noisy directions to riders as to how to maintain themselves on horseback ; when, if you are inquisitive enough as we honestly confess we were to peep through the cracks of the boards, you will probably see a string of soldiers in grooms' canvas jackets riding round a ring, whose soft, loose bed, reminds one strongly of some circus ; while the helmeted riding-master, standing with his whip in the centre, as if he were the pivot upon which the whole turned, looks wonderfully like the Widdicomb of the arena. The church itself is being converted into a Protestant place of worship, and has now little of the picturesque about it. The Pfarr-kircJte, at the other end of the High Street, is very elegant ; its two tall, square towers, at the end of the FROM ANDEKNACH TO COBLENZ. 203 nave, are pierced all the way up with light romanesque arches, while in other parts the arches are in the " ace-of-club," or Byzantine style : the southern entrance to the transept is beau- tifully sculptured, and the bas-reliefs are curious specimens of middle-age work. One of these represents the Adoration of the Lamb, and another the death of some lady in a painted green dress, amid a crowd of priests and choristers, with arch- bishop angels looking down upon her from the clouds above. The interior of the edifice has a spacious gallery called the " Mann-liam? where the male part of the congregation for- merly sat, the females being placed below. There is a tomb here, too, which is said to be Roman, that of Valentinian II., who was murdered by one of his officers, A.D. 392. The telescopic watch-tower is not many paces from the parish church, and as you pass it on the road leading to the river-side, you can see a large hole battered half way through the thick walls, and strongly resembling the kind of cavity that mice gnaw in cheese. This is the mark left by the guns of the French when they attacked the town in 1688. The tower is said to have been built in the 15th century, but the tradition of the town is, that the octagonal portion only was then erected upon the roof of the old round tower itself, and that the martello-like base is of Roman origin. The shore round about the picturesque Rhine crane is littered with dark grey millstones, made of a hard porous lava, and that look not unlike so many cheeses lolling one against another. These are from the neighbouring quarries of Nieder- Mendig, and they are not only exported now-a-days to every quarter of the globe, but even in the time of the Romans they were articles of considerable fame the Rhenish mill- stones being mentioned by many Latin authors. The banks here are skirted with heavy barges, ready to transport the millstones to various parts of the globe ; and 204 THE 1UIINE PLAINS. there arc women, with a kind of chiffoimier's basket at their back, carrying loads of " tuffstone? and sliooting it into the liolds of the adjacent Dutch vessels: for this kind of stone, when reduced to powder, is much prized by the Hollanders as a cement for their dykes, from its property of hardening under water. From Andernach to Neuwied is but a half-hour's trip, even though the boat has to run against the stream ; so when we have exhausted the curiosities of the old Antonacum we are off by the next steamer to visit " the colony of many creeds." Between Andernach and Coblenz lie what we have termed the Rhine Plains extensive prairies formed out of the " loess" deposited by the stream, and nearer the hills, of volcanic sand and bowlders (gerdtte). These plains are nearly ten miles long and five miles broad, so that, being encompassed by a ring of volcanic mountains, composed chiefly of the scoriae and ashes ejected from the neighbouring craters of the Eifel on the one side, and the Westervvald on the other, they may be regarded as a vast lava basin, with a thick layer of silt, or allu- vium, spread over the bottom. The volcanic deposits in these parts are of comparatively recent origin. This is proven by the discovery of a Rhenish Herculaneum, supposed to be the Roman city " Victoria" near the village of Niederbiber, about a couple of miles from Neuwied, towards the close of the last century. Here was exhumed a castle of a rectangular form, upwards of 800 feet in length and 600 feet in breadth, surrounded by a wall as thick as a bridge pier, furnished with projecting towers, and having a bathing-house of great extent in the interior of the rectangle, the ceiling of which was supported by a century of pillars, and which, judging from the remains, must, it is said, have been very beautiful. The statue " of a Genius" was found at the FROM ANDERNACH TO COBLENZ. 205 same time in the canal that supplied the baths, whilst from the baths themselves large bronze figures of Victory, Diana, and Mercury, were obtained : besides armour, helmets, a plough- share, a sacrificial knife, pottery, tiles stamped with the names and numbers of the legions quartered at the place, and coins in great abundance, but none later than the time of Valentinian the elder (A.D. 375), thus fixing the date of the inhumation at somewhere about the close of the fourth century. This in- teresting spot has long since been covered in by the intelligent landlord, so that crops of corn and grass now wave over the site of the German Pompeii. The silt deposits, of which the Rhine Plains are partly composed, have a more obvious source than the volcanic strata. Between Coblenz and Andernach no less than four rivers dis- embogue into the Rhine the Moselle, the Sayn, the Wied, and the Nette, whilst the mouth of the Lahn is barely a league higher up the stream. Hence the Rhine at this part must receive a vast accession of earthy matter from the drainage of these tributaries, so that the bed of the river would be rapidly elevated, and many islands formed along the channel. Thus we find the large island of Obenverth just below where the Lahn flows into the Rhine, and that of Niederwerth just below the confluence of the Moselle, and two more smaller tongues of land between the mouths of the smaller rivers, the Sayn and the Nette. The plains themselves have evidently been formed in the same manner as the banks of the Nile, viz. by periodic floods. These generally occur every year on the breaking up of the frost at the commencement of spring, when a vast increase is occasioned in the waters of the Rhine by the melting of the snow towards Switzerland ; so that as the flood subsides, and the water drains off the surface of the land, a considerable portion of the earthy matter held in suspension by the stream is deposited over the whole area that has been 206 THE RHINE PLAINS. inundated, and a fresh stratum of soil usually spread over the ground every year the banks thus increasing annually in height and gradually growing out of the reach of ordinary floods. The silt-beds of the Rhine are in some places not less than fifty feet thick ; so, supposing the deposits of each inundation to average, when indurated, one-eighth of an inch in thickness (half that of the muddier Nile), it is manifest that they must have taken near upon 5000 years to form. In appearance the Rhine Plains are not unlike the Rhein- gau the broad tract of fields between Mayence and Bingen though considerably flatter. The meadows, too, are marked by the same blueish-green tint of the grass as prevails among the marshes of Holland, while the land is equally bare and destitute of woods. The soil is generally fertile, and laid out as market-gardens and orchards. Historically considered, these plains are objects of interest, as having been the site of most of the decisive battles fought during the German wars. Here some few miles above Andernach Julius Caesar crossed the Rhine (55 years B.C.) when on his way to attack the Sicambri, the people located on the banks of the Sieg, below Bonn here, too, many a bloody encounter took place; e.g. (1,) during the wars between the grandsons of Charlemagne, Charles the Bald and Louis of Germany, A.D. 87 1 ; (2,) during the ravages of the Normans, A.D. 882 ; (3,) during the contests between Otho IV., surnamed " the Superb," and Philip of Hohenstaufen, A.D. 1208-1212 ; (4,) during " the Thirty Years' War," A.D. 1631 ; (5), during the "War of the Spanish Suc- cession," A.D. 1702 ; (6), during the wars of the French Revo- lution, A.D. 1794-97. Moreover, these plains are the site of the " sham fight" performed by the Prussian troops every three years, when some 25,000 men are manoeuvred. On the opposite shore, immediately after leaving Ander- nach, against the upper end of the mountain-gorge we have FROM ANDERNACH TO COBLENZ. 207 just left, there stands the little village of Fdhr ; and here, close beside the river, is a huge plate of wall, some twenty windows long, without a sash or a pane in its many casement-holes, and with the upper part of the long mural fragment castel- lated, as it were, with its indentations, meant for the third tier of windows. This has a very picturesque and striking appear- ance, for it looks like the remains of some extensive palace. It bears the name, of the " Teufels-haus" (Devil's-house), and is said to have derived the title from the peasants having been compelled by the Prince of Wied, in the 17th century, to build it by forced labour : the palatial structure, however, of which it was intended to have formed a part, was never completed, so that it now bears the reputation of being haunted, though several of the poor fishermen's families that live hereabouts are glad to seek its shelter. At a little distance beyond this close beside the village of Irrlich, with its drab steepleless church, like a huge Methodist's chapel, set upon the hill you can just see, as the boat passes, the narrow river Wied flowing into the Rhine, and a tiny rustic bridge stretching across its banks. It is from this stream that the ancient princes of these parts derived their title of Fiirst von Wied; and as you look up towards the mountain, that rises far inland, you can distinguish amid the dark cloud of woods upon the hill-top a long white streak, marking the faade of the " Jagd-schloss " (hunting-palace), called " Mon Rdpos" that belongs to the present members of the once princely family : for the Wied territory is no longer a distinct principality, but forms part of the kingdom of Prussia instead. In a few minutes after this the steamboat bell jangles once more as we draw close to the " Residenz- Soilless" the palace of the present nominal prince, at the end of the town of Neuwwd, 208 THE RHINE PLAINS. Here we land again, and the broad and busy quays imme- diately toll us that we are in a thriving town. The history of this friendly city is peculiar. It was founded in the year 1653 by Prince Frederick of Wied, who was desirous, after the cruel persecutions consequent on the religious wars, to open an asylum for the members of all persuasions, and to assemble thither the wretched fugitives who had emigrated from the Netherlands.* Accordingly the prince issued a decree, offering protection and shelter to persons of all creeds, on the simple condition of their living amicably together and banish- ing all theological discussions among one another. Colonists of every belief were invited to settle upon such terms, and perfect toleration promised to them all. That this was as wise as it was magnanimous is proven by the prosperity and industry of the city, where may be seen the curious sight of Catholics and Protestants, Calvinists and Lutherans, Moravians and Mennonites (Anabaptists so called from Simon Menno), and Jews, all living peaceably together. The streets of Neuwied, though utterly deficient in pic- turesque beauty, are, nevertheless, constructed with a view to what is much better social convenience and comfort; being each as broad as a Mall, and arranged so that five of the thoroughfares may run in lines parallel to the river, and the remaining five (for there is but a decade of them altogether) at right angles to the others the blocks of houses being thus formed into squares, with large gardens behind them. The colony of Moravian Brothers is the most peculiar and interesting of the curiosities belonging to the town. The Moravians are the remains of the ancient followers of John Huss, " the Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy" in the Univer- sity of Prague, who espoused the opinions of Wycliffe, the * On the 26th July, 1853, the second century of the town's existence was celebrated in Neuwied. FROM ANDERNACH TO COBLENZ. 209 English reformer, and not only taught that the Pope was " Antichrist " from his " chair," but preached the same doc- trines from the pulpit ; and who, having been condemned for heresy by the celebrated council of divines at Constance in Switzerland, (A.D. 1414), had the sacramental chalice snatched from his hands, his priest's gown torn from his back, his hair cut into the form of a cross (so as to obliterate all traces of the shaven crown), a " tall paper cap " placed on his head with the inscription of " HERESIAECH," surrounded by three devils, painted upon it, and was finally " cursed as Judas" by the bishops ; after which he was handed over to the mercy of the " secular " authorities : whereupon he was taken, by order of the Emperor Sigismund (though the same right royal gentleman had promised him " safe conduct "), before the chief magistrates of Constance, who condemned him to be burnt as a heretic. On his way to the place of execution, we are told, he chanted psalms, and having been led past the bishop's palace, in order that he might see his books consumed in the flames, he was ultimately tied to the stake "with his face towards the west;" and though the Elector Palatine then approached him, " with the Marshal of the Empire," and ex- horted him to retract his opinions and save his life, he, for the hundredth time, resolutely refused, and declared his willingness to die for the truth : whereupon the fagots were kindled, and he was suffocated by the clouds of smoke " blown by the wind into his mouth while singing," before the fire could reach his body. After such a fate the " Hussites," as they were then called, of course increased enormously, and being driven from Bo- hemia, the advocates of " gospel liberty" settled in Moravia, Poland, and Prussia. At the first-mentioned place the Em- peror Maximilian II. permitted them to establish themselves, till they were forced to fly the country by the Thirty Years' r 210 THE RHINE PLAINS. War (1618-1648). They were then admitted into Saxony by the Count Zinzendorf, (the councillor of the Elector Augustus, king of Poland), who embraced their doctrines, and not only relinquished his post in order that he might devote himself to the propagation of the tenets, but created, in 1720, a new establishment of the followers- in the village of HerrnMtt, so that they then came to be called " Herrnhutters " as well as Moravians, by which names they are known to the present day. The Moravians are not only a religious sect, but a kind of republic. They have laws of their own, regulating all acts of civil and private life, and administered under the superin- tendence of religious chiefs. The community is divided into " novitiates," " progressives," and " adepts." Their man- ners and customs are grave and severe, so that they are called the " Quakers of Germany." Each person is em- ployed according to his ability, and contributes a portion of his earnings to a general fund. Living is cheap, and luxury is excluded. Marriages are regarded as matters for grave consideration, and are never contracted without the inter- ference of the elders of the body. Permission to marry is given to the parties only after each has selected the other with due" reflection, and never without the consent of both parents being previously obtained. In the cemetery of the community the men are buried apart from the women, and no inscriptions but the simple name of the deceased allowed to be placed on the tombs. The schools are much lauded, and corporeal punishment there forbidden. There are many in- genious artisans, such as watchmakers, saddlers, glove- makers, turners, and some few artists and engravers, belong- ing to the body, who are generally praised for the honesty of their dealings, and the excellence and soundness of the articles they manufacture. FROM ANDERNACH TO COBLENZ. 211 The colony of Moravian Brothers at present numbers about 400 ; of these, 70 or 80 are the " unmarried brothers," and they live altogether in one large house at the upper end of the town, in " Louisen Strasse ;" while the " unmarried sisters," who are about 120 in number, occupy an equally large build- ing in " Engersen Strasse:" there are, moreover, 100 " mar- ried brothers and sisters," the remainder being widows and widowers. The sisters all wear a peculiar white head-dress something like a school-boy's calico nigbt-cap with the ex- ception that it is tied under the chin with ribbons of different coldirs, according to the social condition of the individuals; the young, unmarried girls, fastening their cap with red strings, the more elderly with pink, the wives with blue, and the widows with white. The houses in which the unmarried sisters and brothers live have long whitewashed corridors, that reminded us for- cibly of those at the convent at Nonnenwerth, though they were not cloistered as at the latter place. The dormitories are large, college-like sleeping-rooms, and the chapel is as bare and unornamented as a Quakers' meeting-house. There is a kind of small, rude bazaar, on the ground-floor at the sisters' house, for the sale of fancy articles, such as envelope-boxes, porte-monnaies, and Berlin-wool work; and we were shown over the establishment by a sister, the sternness of whose manners contrasted forcibly with the gentleness and grace of those of the sister at Nonnenwerth. At the unmarried brothers' house the sight was almost similar, with the exception that here were shoemakers' rooms and tailors' rooms, and one into which we were ushered in the evening was the smoking-room, where we found some dozen of the " German Quakers " enveloped in a dense fog of tobacco fumes. The prince's palace at Neuwied, it may be added, con- 212 THE RHINE PLAINS. tains a valuable collection of Roman antiquities found in the neighbourhood, as well as an interesting museum of objects of natural history collected by the Prince Maximilian during his travels in the Brazils. On quitting Neuwied, the first object that strikes the eye even if it have not been noted before is the dumpy obelisk standing on the ridge of the opposite hill high above the little village of Weissen-thurm (so called from its rhom- boidal, white watch-tower, that was built originally by Cuno of Falkenstein to mark the fortified boundary of the territory belonging to the Archbishopric of Treves). This obelisk is a monument to the French General Hoche, who, in 1797 i. e. seventeen centuries after Caesar had done the same thing on the same spot threw a bridge over to the island in the middle of the Rhine, and so enabled the French army to cross the river in spite of the Austrian cannon. The island which lies between Weissen-thurm and Neuwied is called " Vlsle des Fran$ais" to the present day. The monument is inscribed, " L'ARMEE DE SAMBRE-ET-MEUSE A SON GNRAI, HOCHE ;'' though the French army had nothing whatever to do with the matter, for it was erected by the general's widow, and after- wards repaired, to prevent its falling into rums, by the Prussian Government. We are now on our way to Coblenz, and the clusters of houses at the river-side fly rapidly past us once more. That small village, with its old French-looking palace, set on an embankment immediately beside the stream, and the zig-zaggy steps before it leading down to the water, was built in 1758, upon the site of an ancient fort, to defend the navigation of the Rhine against the brigands who then infested it ; and those arms sculptured on the pediment, wrought in the ironwork of the balcony as well, are the escutcheon of the founder the FROM ANDERNACH TO COBLENZ. 213 Archbishop Prince -Elector of Treves, Cuno de Falkenstein (he who erected the Weissen-thurm). The chateau is now " a princely residence " appertaining to the Prussian Govern- ment. This little cluster of fishermen's dwellings, almost adjoining Engers, and which we are now hurrying by, is called Miihl- hofen. It stands close to where the river Sayn flows into the Rhine, and, far inland, you can see the ruins of Sayn Castle, with the romantic and beautiful park of Friederichsberg rising above it. Within this valley, too, stands the great German cannon-foundry, called " Sayner Hiitte," and rivalling in size the largest English iron-works ; while at the end of the ravine is to be seen the castle of the Counts Isenberg, whence the " nobles " used to sally forth and plunder the merchant- vessels on the Rhine. A little beyond this, on the same side of the river, we pass Bendorf, and on the opposite shore is Sebastian. Then comes the narrow island of Graswerth, seeming as if it were a mere strip of land cut off by a canal from the larger island of Nieder- werth close above it. Here is a village you can just see the roofs peeping over the trees,, as the steamer passes close under the island bank in the old electoral palace of which Edward III. of England passed the summer of 1337, and where he had several interviews with the German emperor, Louis of Bavaria, and other Rhenish princes. On the Rhine-shore behind this is the village of Vallendar, screened from the sight by the island woods; while on the opposite side of the river is the twin-village, as it were, of Kesselheim, with its chateau of " Sclionbornslust " set far back among the plains, where the Bourbon princes resided during the first French Revolution, and where the plans for invading France were concocted with the Allies. Our journey is now at an end, for, towering high on top of 214 THK RHINE PLAINS. the huge rock is the fortress of " Ehrenbreitstein," and a moment or two afterwards we dart past the mouth of the Moselle, and catch sight of its tall, many-arched bridge, though but for an instant, while the bell of the steamer clatters once, announcing our arrival at Coblenz. VII. THE PRUSSIAN RHINE CAPITAL. COBLENZ AND EHRENBREITSTEIN. COBLENZ is a kind of gusset of dwellings let in between the rivers Rhine and Moselle a V-shaped city, thrust like a wedge into the cleft, as it were, of the two most lovely streams, perhaps, in the world. It is the "halfway -house" upon the great high-road of the Rhine between Cologne and Mayence the principal halting-place of the aquatic caravans of the tour- ists. It is, moreover, situate at the point of junction of the roads to Frankfort and to Paris (via Treves), and is the entrepot for the commerce of three rivers the Rhine, the Moselle, and the Lahn (the latter being the principal outlet for the mineral and agricultural produce of Nassau); so that, what with its being the seat of the military and civil government the sum- mer residence of the king the site of a large garrison, and the temporary resting-place of the crowds daily arriving and departing by coaches and by steamers, together with its exqui- site situation and the interesting ca'stles and delightful valleys with which it is environed, "the City of the Confluence" is one of the most agreeable throughout "the whole length of the Rhine. Close along one side of it sweeps the " stream of the Lorraine," which is here as broad as the Rhine itself, and 216 THE PRUSSIAN KHINE CAPITAL. the other side is washed by the German river, while the two great floods meet at the very apex of the triangular town, and mingle their waters almost at the foot of the ancient and picturesque turretted church of St. Castor. To-day the Moselle is swollen with the autumn rains, and its water is tinted a reddish-brown with the soil washed down from the mountains through which it flows; but the Rhine is still clear and green as the grapes that grow upon its borders, and as we stand upon the meadows at the end of the Moselle bank facing the town, gazing at the pretty city of" the Confluence"* across the river, we can positively see the two streams mingling at the angle one with the other ; and the now rusty-looking waters of the Moselle pouring into the more pel- lucid current of the Rhine, and veining it with many a ruddy, wavy streak, like the mottling of red marble. On glancing along the fork of the two rivers, how different is the look of each ! The transparent Rhine is tinted along the banks, as if it were some beautifully-tessellated pavement, for it is stained with the colours of all the objects beside it ; * The city was called by the Romans Confluens, or Confluent ia, of which the modern name of Coblenz is merely a corruption the etymological changes being first Cofluens, then Cobluens, and, lastly, Coblens or Coblenz. Drusus, the Roman general, who was the son-in-law of Augustus, is said to have built a castle here 413 years B. c. During the dominion of the Franks in Germany, Coblenz frequently became the residence of the emperors, who had a palace in the town. It remained without importance, however, up to the confederation of the Rhenish towns, and in 1018 the Emperor Henry II. presented the city, which had previously formed part of the empire, to Pappo, the then Archbishop of Treves. Shortly afterwards the archbishop built a palace in the town, and began to strengthen and improve the fortifications on the opposite shore of the Rhine. In 1689 the greater part of the old houses and buildings were destroyed during a siege by the French, who were, nevertheless, compelled to retire ; but in 1794 the town surrendered to the army of the Revolution, and then became the head- quarters of the department of the Moselle and Rhine under the French Republic, in whose power it continued for twenty years. In 1814 it was formally assigned to Prussia, the French troops having withdrawn from the city on the first day of that year. COBLENZ AND EHRENBREITSTEIN. 217 but the turbid Moselle is one broad wash of brown, seeming more like a roadway than a river, and has not a single reflec- tion in it to vary its hue. Facing Coblenz, the Rhine is almost like a bit of black marble, with the image of the tall, handsome, fortress-rock of Ehrenbreitstein, towering directly out of it ; and whose preci- pitous sides are mirrored so deep down, that the water at its base appears like an unfathomable pool. Just beyond this, again, the river is like a bit of alabaster, with the white fronts of the little valley-village* cradled in the glen-like hollow between the heights of Pfaffendorf and Ehrenbreitstein. The banks of the Moselle, however, opposite to Coblenz, are low, and a long plain stretches far away behind them towards Andernach, that has been from Caesar's time, as we have said, the scene of many a fierce battle ; while, close in front of them, the river is floored with the rafts, that are to be here pieced together into one "float" before descending the broader part of the Rhine on their way to Holland : all along the shore, too, there are huge, square stacks of planks, and the air pants again, as it were, with the grating of the saws from the neigh- bouring timber-yards. The Coblenz houses along the quay beside the Rhine are very different from those along the quay beside the Moselle ; for the buildings facing the " Rhein-strom " are parts of the new town, and consist chiefly of large, white-fronted hotels, with their names painted all along them in gigantic letters, after the fashion of " PREPARATORY SCHOOLS FOR YOUNG GEN- TLEMEN ; " and the banks immediately under these are beset with many a landing -pier, beside which are grouped the steamers, with their piebald funnels ; while beyond the dumpy round -tower, with the Rhine -crane, like a giant fishing-rod, projecting through its roof, and the square yellow-ochre turret of the Government House rising behind it, at the end of the * This is Ehrenbreitstein-Thal, formerly called Coblenz in the valley. 218 THE PRUSSIAN KII1NE CAPITAL. quay, we can just catch sight of the tall red sandstone pillars of the palace portico, as high as the building itself, and break- ing, with a bold simplicity, the great length of the otherwise plain facade. The buildings, however, on the side of the city next the Moselle, are all of an antiquated character, and there the gables of the narrow houses are huddled together, one above another, till the roofs look like so many black billows; and beyond these the odd, old Exchange is seen, with its battle- ment-like turrets projecting from the upper corners of its walls;* while farther on still, at the end of the quay next the bridge, the eye rests upon the ancient palace of the Arch- bishop of Treves, with the lighthouse-like towers at either angle of its ochre-coloured front, and seeming more like the gate to some fortress than the residence of a Christian minister, f Then the Rhine-stream is crossed by a bridge of boats that is no higher than a floating-pier, and whose platform stretches along the line of barges like an enormous lengthy plank, reaching from one side of the river to the other, and linking the valley-village with the city. This is now all in pieces, for we can see large slabs of the floating roadway standing out in the river, far away from the bridge itself, and * This is the " Altes Kauf-haus," and was built in the 15th century. The upper part of it, however, was destroyed during the siege in 1688, and rebuilt in 1725. Under the clock, which is set in the square tower facing (hefrucht- markt, there is a head the size of life, that looks like the face of some gigantic German nutcracker thrust through the wall. This is said to be one of the most ancient pieces of mechanism extant, and to roll its eyes at each oscillation of the pendulum ; though, when we saw it, the whites were so dirty, it was im- possible to detect the least motion in the eyeballs. Another feat performed by the clock head is to open its mouth at the striking of the hour ; and this we certainly observed it do in the best nutcracker fashion. t This was built in the year 1280 by Henry of Vintengen, the archbishop prince-elector of Treves. It is now the japan-ware manufactory of Messrs. Schaffhausen and Dietz. Here, in 1609, the celebrated Catholic League (whose army was commanded by Tilly) was instituted by the then Archbishop of Treves, Lothaire de Metternich. COBLENZ AND EHRENBRE1TSTEIN. 219 with two or three white-hooded peasant-women upon them, as if they had been carried adrift in the hurry of crossing. Then, at either end of the gap in the " Schiff-brucke" we can distin- guish the crowd of passengers dammed up the brass-tipped helmets of the cluster of soldiers there looking as if on fire in the sun the market-women, with their baskets poised upon their head, together with the white awning of the tilted carts all brought together into one pretty group ; while between the glittering opening in the platform we perceive in the distance some heavy, lazy-looking barge, with the yellow load of planks stacked high above its deck, and without a sail set, drifting down with the stream slowly towards the bridge. But across the Moselle there stretches a many-arched stone bridge, so high that the barges can pass under it without lowering their masts, and with handsome massive gateways rising above it, like castles borne on some elephant's back; and the brown stream rushing through the arch-piers below, and curling about them in many a dimpled eddy.* * The Mosel-brilcke is very nearly the length of our Waterloo Bridge ; but it is about as narrow as a railway tunnel. It has fourteen arches, and is nearly level along the top : the sides, however, are sadly " out of straight," for the bridge is more than 500 years old, having been built in 1344 by the Archbishop Bau- douin, brother of the German Henry VII. of Luxembourg. In order to defray the heavy expenses attendant upon its construction, the cunning archbishop sold indulgences to the simple people round about, so that the driving of the piles may be said to have been paid for by permission to eat meat on a Friday, and the arches raised upon the archbishop's promissory-notes made payable in the world to come ! This bridge formerly connected Klein (little) Coblenz, on the left bank of the Moselle, with Alte (old) Coblenz on the right bank. Klein Coblenz, however, was destroyed by the French in 1668, and its place is now occupied by timber-yards. Old Coblenz would seem to have been built chiefly along the banks of the Moselle, and the ancient walls to have extended from the river-side a little above the bridge, along the " Seller Wall," up to the " Altes Lohr-thor" (old Lohr-gate), and thence by the " Wasser-thurms-mauer" down to St. Castor's Church, at the corner where the Moselle enters the Rhine. This appears to have comprised the Alt-stadt (or old town), as it was called in the days of Prince Cle- ment the archbishop who built the present palace of the king, and so greatly 220 THE PRUSSIAN 1UIIXE CAPITAL. It is indeed a pleasant sight to stand at the very point of union of the two rivers, and look at the pretty city of the Confluence, with its old and new towns pinnacled with their many quaint steeples the rude, bell-shaped spires of St. Florin* the bulbous mosque-like tops of those of the Lieb- franen-Kirclie] (the church of the " Blessed ^Virgin"), seeming almost like a bit of turner's w r ork and the slated domes of the enlarged and improved the city, that it is now double its ancient dimensions. The valley-village, which is colled Ehrenbreitstein-Thal at the present day, and which is connected by the bridge of boats across the Rhine with the Neu-stadt, (new town of Coblenz), was formerly named Coblenz im Thai; f. e. Coblenz in the valley. * St. Florin's Kirche was originally an ancient Christian temple, founded in the fourth century by St. Helena, who was the mother not only of Constantine the Great, but of a whole city full of churches and cathedrals as well. Here, in 806, a great council was held, at which " three kings and eleven archbishops and bishops" were present. The present building dates from about the year 1150, though it has been almost entirely reconstructed since that period. The towers were built in 1792, the old ones having been struck by lightning. It was con- verted by the French army into a hay-store for their cavalry, and afterwards made over by them to the town for the purpose of being used as a butchery ! It was ultimately purchased, however, by the Prussian Government, for the sum of 6000 crowns, and has since been made the Lutheran (Evangelische) place of worship. It contains some fine old painted glass, as well as a curious oaken reading-desk and baptismal font the handiwork of one Nicholas Hufschmidt, an ingenious mechanic of Coblenz. t Liebfrauen-Kirche (Notre Dame) was originally built in the year 1259. In the year 1405, however, it was almost in ruins, so that it had to be thoroughly repaired, and then the choir was added. The vaulting dates from the 16th century, and the upper parts of the towers were added after the bom- bardment of the French in 1688. On the south side of the southern tower is the "indicator" of Coblenz, exhibiting the changes of the moon. The chimes here are reckoned the finest on the Rhine. Below the indicator is a life-sized figure of Christ on the Cross, sculptured by Schorb in 1841, with a vine growing around it ; this is certainly far more pleasing to contemplate than those hideous painted wooden images of the suffering Saviour, daubed over with exaggerated bloody wounds, which one usually sees at the threshold of the German churches, and indeed sometimes at the corners of the German streets, as at the " Trank- Gasser Thor ' ' in Cologne. This church is further remarkable for its early pointed arches and scalloped windows the latter not unlike the bottom of a jelly-mould, which are curious enough in an architectural point of view. It also contains some ancient tombs. COBLENZ AND EHEENBREITSTEIN. 221 squat, round towers of the Priests'-house, * looking in the dis- tance like helmeted giants in their suits of mail- and the square turrets of St. Castor,^ with their low steeples, like crayon points, standing between the streams, as if they were twin-lighthouses at the end of some tranquil harbour; while the whole town itself is girdled with fortress -walls, and set upon a pedestal of quays, so that it seems to be the model of an ancient city designed for a glass shade. It is market day to-day, and the usually quiet streets of Coblenz are all astir with the crowds of peasant-women, and market-carts, and trucks, that are flocking from the Nassau side of the Rhine into the city some from the little villages of Arzheim and Pfaffendorf others from Neuhausel, and others again from Bendorf. Almost as soon as it is light, * This is now called the KatholischPfarre-haus, but was formerly a " Kloster " belonging to the Capuchins. f Castor- Kirche was built at the expense of Louis "the Pious," and con- secrated in his presence in 836. The interior of the choir and the lower part of the front towers are the most ancient parts of the building, though these are probably of a later date than the year of its consecration, for the style of archi- tecture would seem to be that of the later Byzantine character, and to date from the end of the 12th century. This church is said to afford the earliest example of the appearance of the " Lombard style" in the Rhenish provinces. The exterior of the choir, which is rounded, dates, we are told, from 1157-1201 ; the nave and transept from 1208, and the vaulting from 1498 : but in 1830 the whole was restored under the direction of Lassaulx. It has four towers, the two front or western ones being considerably higher than those at the eastern end, and the stunted spires set, as it were, on the four gables of the square-tower walls. The interior of this church is handsome, though in the gaudiest Romish style. The arches of the roof are a bright azure, picked out with stars. The columns on either side of the nave are red, with gilt capitals. It has an emblazoned pulpit, and a fine Germanesque fresco over the choir, painted on a gold background by Stettegast in 1849. Within the choir, on the left, is the exquisitely-beautiful tomb of Cuno of Falkenstein, archbishop of Treves, (A.D. 1388) he who built the Weissen-thurm to mark the frontier of his fortified domain : and there is a paint- ing here which is a magnificent example of the early German school. It repre- sents the adoration of Christ upon the Cross, and is painted upon a golden 222 THE PRUSSIAN KHIXE CAPITAL. we can see from the windows of " ZCM DREI SCHWEIZER" (the Three Swiss), which faces the toll-house of the bridge of boats, the long platform across the river thronged with a stream of countrywomen carrying baskets, some of which are filled with tin milk-pitchers like huge oil-cans, and others with eggs, and butter, and poultry, and all balancing the heavy load upon their heads without a hand to steady it ; and pea- sant-men are coming, too, with long sacks of white sand strapped like knapsacks at their backs; and picturesque ox- waggons, laden with roley-poley-like Sourwater-bottles from the factories at Vallendar the very colour of the cattle them- selves ; and long trucks, drawn by dusty-looking donkeys, that are full of half- dead calves, each with their legs tied in a bundle, as if they were so many fagots some lowing pitifully, and others, poor things! with their heads hanging background, being the only one known to belong to this epoch. It is said to be the production of Master Wilhelm of Cologne, whom the old chroniclers style the best German painter of his time Master Stephen, the artist of the celebrated Dom-bild, having been one of his pupils. The associations connected with this pleasant old church are as interesting as its situation is picturesque and its architecture remarkable. Here Charlemagne's grandsons (Lothaire and Louis of Germany, and Charles the Bald, the co-heirs of Louis le Debonnaire, who was the only surviving son of the Great Emperor, and who con- sequently inherited, on the death of his father, the whole of the Western Empire,) met in 843 to divide the vast dominions of their father among themselves, for it was the custom of that age that every estate should be equally par- titioned among the sons; and it was in this same church of St. Castor that Louis le Germanique agreed to accept Germany as his share of the royal inheritance, and Charles the Bald to have France, while Lothaire took Italy, Switzerland, Burgundy, and Lorraine, and with these the title of Emperor of the West being crowned Lothaire I. Here, too, in the " Platz" outside the church, Edward III. of England (who had repaired to Coblenz, and passed, as we have said, the summer of 1337 on the neighbouring island of Niederwerth, in order that he might meet Louis of Bavaria, and obtain from him the succour of the crown vassals on the left bank of the Rhine in the course of his wars against France), was installed by that emperor " Vicar of the German Empire;" and in the church itself the English crown, which Edward deposited as a pledge of his honour, was guarded day and night by fifty English and fifty Teutonic knights. COBLENZ AND EHRENBREITSTEIN. 223 over the sides, and the whites of their eyes showing as if they were swooning with the agony. The market itself has little peculiar about it, except that it is held in the streets round about the " Liebfrauen Kirche," rather than in an open space, as at Cologne and Bonn and other towns; the narrow thoroughfare at the end of the " Lbhr-strasse " is all littered along the kerbstone with the line of dealers, as in the London street-markets on a Saturday night. Nor are the articles displayed in any way different from those seen at other places of the kind. The most re- markable points about it are the houses at the four corners of the market-street, for each of these has a kind of square-tower of bow- windows, projecting bastion-like from the angle of the walls, and reaching from the shop right up to the roof of the house, so that it presents an exceedingly picturesque appear- ance, for the wood-work is all carved, and the upper part finished by a small bell-shaped dome. It is in this quarter of the town, too, that the most anti- quated and interesting buildings of Coblenz are to be found ; the " Metternicher-hof" or " Stamm-haus" (family-house) of the late Austrian prime-minister, is close at hand, though the house itself has little remarkable about it, for it is merely a large, plain, pea-green-coloured building, with the words " METTERNICHER-HOF " worked in the iron ties outside the front walls. Then nearly facing this, there is the ancient mansion of the Counts of Bassenheim, with a fine Romanesque gateway in front of it, and a huge signboard, announcing that it is now a " RESTATJRATION UND BAIRISCH-BIER-HAUS " (restau- rant and Bavarian beer-house). A few paces from this, again, stands the old Archbishops' Palace, which is at present a japan- ware manufactory ; and as you pass it you can see through the antiquated windows glittering trays and lamps stored in the ancient Prince-Elector's halls, and hear the jangle of the many 224 THE PRUSSIAN RHINE CAPITAL. hammers at work, and smell the fumes of the chemicals employed in the archiepiscopal factory ; while a little farther on, again, you may behold what is said to be the oldest house in Europe a queer-looking little building, beside the ancient Exchange, with knobs of battlements on the upper corners of the walls that look amazingly like the top of a beadle's staff, and a low-pointed door-way, rude and step-like as the arches made by children with their toy bricks. Indeed there is many a pretty sight to be seen in the little capital of Rhenish Prussia for the "old town" is as pic- turesque and interesting as the " new town " is handsome and pleasant, while the many beautiful spots in its immediate vicinity render it one of the most delightful of the halting- places up the Rhine: for the Castle of Stolzenfels is hard by; at the back of the city lies the lovely valley of the Moselle; at a little distance down the Rhine is the Sayn valley, with its old castle and park ; and about the same dis- tance up the Rhine is the Lahn valley, with its lively watering- place of Ems, crowded with the German " big-wigs," who go there to chat politics over their mineral waters as ours do over " claret." i. THE " BULWARK OF GERMANY," AND THE " RHENISH GIBRALTAR." But the most peculiar feature of Coblenz is the military character of the place. The greater number of the public buildings are either some large "Proviant" (provision-stores), looking like huge workhouses, or some " Festungs-Bauhof" ITS MILITARY CHARACTER. 225 (fortifications' building-house), that you might mistake for the entrance to the royal stables or else huge military waggon- houses, that you would fancy were the ship-building sheds of some dock-yard. In one part you will find the ancient, mouldy, green-looking palace of some German prince, turned into the residence of the "General Commando;" in another some quondam Dominican "Kloster" transformed into the military " Lazaretli " (hospital) * with the helmeted sentinel pacing there in lieu of the cowled monks ; and in another part, again, the yellow old Teutonic Knights' house, that stands at the very angle of the Moselle and Rhine, converted into a military store. Then, moreover, there are military " Casinoes" and " Zeug- hduser " (arsenals), and military " arrest-houses " and " Regie- rungs-gebaude" (government houses), and huge fortress-gates roofed with thick green turf, and with guard-houses at their side ; while at the king's palace itself which is set at the end of a flat lawn, as it were, without so much as a railing to separate it from the public road you will find the St.-Peter's- like arc of buildings in front of it used as the cavalry stables and principal guard-house (Hauptwaclie). Further, on every side of the town outside the walls there are huge fortresses built on hills. Stroll out by the " Mainzer- Thor " (Mayence Gate), and at a little distance down the road you will see soaring high above you on the mount, where once stood the Carthusian Convent (Karthduser-Kloster), the forts of "Alexander" and " Constantine" strong citadels like bulky castles, with their ochre-coloured walls gashed with musket- * Coblenz would seem to have had as many monasteries and convents during the middle ages as Cologne itself. Not only was there the Dominicanner-Kloster (which, as we have said, is the present Military Hospital), but there was the Gorgen-Kloster (now the Protestant School), and the Barbara- Kloster (now the Catholic Orphan-house), and the Capuziner-Kloster (now the Catholic priest's house), and the Car militer- Kloster (now the Civil Arresthaus), and the Jesuiten- Kloster (now the Gymnasium, or High School). Q 22f> TIIE PKUSSIAN 11IIINE CAPITAL. slits as thick as the chinks in a glass ventilator, and pierced with huge embrasures as big as oven mouths. Or cross the Moselle Bridge at the other end of the town, and there you will find another immense stronghold, called "Fextuny Kaiser Franz" (French Emperor's fort); and on top of this, when you have passed through the long tunnels and x many massive gates within it, you will see lying on the table- land in front of the fortress barracks a plain monumental slab, inscribed with the name of " GENERAL HOCHE," and marking the spot where he was interred. As you wend your way afterwards along the birch plantation at the foot of the fort, you will come to a black-looking lava-built pyramid, standing amid the orchards, and seeming in the distance almost like a big pile of cannon balls. This, again, is the monument of the heroic young French commander MAKCEAU, who, as the in- scription says, was " a soldier at sixteen and a general at two- and-twenty" a boy Alexander, as it were, whose burial was honoured by the enemies against whom he fought, as well as by the troops whom he himself had led. Or if, on the other hand, you traverse the Rhine by the bridge of boats, towards the little valley-village on the opposite shore, you will see, towering above it, on the side towards Mayence, the " Pfaffendorfer heights? crowned with the forts of " Asterstein ; " and half-way up the hill, at the back of the hamlet, the martello-like tower of the "Helfensteinfort" perched over the dome of the valley church ; while on the side towards Cologne you will behold the huge, precipitous rock, crested with the strong prison-like citadel of Elirenbreitstein. This has been styled " the Gibraltar of the Rhine ; " and though it is hardly equal in solemn grandeur to the island- citadel that immense block of adamant set in the sea, and bristling with guns as if it were some monster " echinus-shell " nevertheless, the Rhenish fortress is sufficiently majestic in THE " GIBRALTAR OF THE RHINE." 227 its massive strength to make it one of the most striking objects on the Rhine. Facing the mouth of the Moselle there rises, close upon the Rhine-bank, a long mountain, whose sides are nearly per- pendicular with the water, and whose top is long and straight as an alligator's back. The end towards Cologne is a rich golden green, with its thin covering of sun-burnt turf, except- ing where it is quarried in places, and there it is pinky with the strata of red sandstone (gres rouge) exposed to view ; and as we look at it now, we can see it change colour as the sun shoots in and out from the clouds (for it is a grey autumn-day, and the sky is dappled all over with flock-like patches of vapour); so that the hill-side is "shot" at each play of the varying light with many a shade, and seems to melt into a new tint of green with every shift of the clouds as fitfully as the dolphin starts into a fresh hue when quivering with the agonies of death. At the Ehrenbreitstein end, however, the bare grau- wacke rocks protrude, like mouldy bones, through the side, so that the mountain there is a fungus-brown, and rough and gnarled with enormous lumps of "earthy basalt;" while the whole surface of the tall and jagged rock-wall is beautifully hacked, as it were, with the breaking down of the crags, and finely scored all over with the lines of the slanting schistose blocks, the slabs leaning on one side, as you have seen a row of heavy folios sloping upon some library shelf. In some places the crags look soft with the velvetty bloom of the moss upon them; and in others they glitter with a golden tinge when the sun bursts forth, as if they were so many big lumps of pyrites. Then, how strangely do the vertical lines of the for- tress walls consort with the slanting strata of the rocks beneath them! how smooth and drab they look in contrast with the dark and jagged mass ! There are black, rough peaks, too, shoring up the topmost walls, like Nature's own buttresses. THE PllUSSIAN IlIIINE CAPITAL. Towards the valley-village the rock is in ledges, as it were, each Hat shelf being lower than the other, so that it seems almost like an irregular flight of steps; and at the end of every ridge there stands a clump of fortress buildings, looking, with their prison-window-like embrasures, as if they were parts of some stone penitentiary; while from the, extreme point of the lowest ridge, which is still far above the roofs of the village houses by the river, the fortress roadway wall slants all along the front of the rock in a lengthy diagonal line, reaching from one extremity of the fort above to the other extremity below. Then, at the base of the rock itself, and under this same road- way wall, is seen the white front striped with its red sand- stone columns of the ancient palace of the Archbishops of Treves (now a military magazine); while at the end of the slanting fortress-road there stands, a little above the water's edge, a double row of bastions, the upper one terminated by a martcllo-like tower, and each set behind the other, so that they stretch, like a pile of narrow terraces, half up the steep rock sides.* * There is no positive proof that Ehrenbreitstein was fortified by the Romans, though it is known that they had a camp there ; and down to 1794 there was a Roman tower, called Casars-thurm, standing on the rock. Moreover, there is said to have been a castle upon Ehrenbreitstein in the time of the Emperor Julian, A.D. 361-3. In the year 633, Dagobert the Great the Prankish King of Germany, who ruled a century before Charlemagne appears, according to some documents, to have made over " the castle " to the Archbishops of Treves ; and in 1018 Henry II. certainly confirmed the gift to those prelates. Nevertheless, in the 12th century " the castle" had fallen into ruins, and then the Archbishop Hermann 1 1 ill inns reconstructed it, and so considerably enlarged and improved its fortifications, that it first obtained the name of Hermannstein, which was shortly clipped into Inn-stein, and was afterwards christened by the Archbishop Ehren-breit-stein the Broad Stone of Honour. Three centuries after this (1481) the Elector John, margrave of Baden, further increased the strength and extent of the fortress- works, and sunk a well in the solid rock for the supply of water to the troops within; and between 1600 and 1700 two bastions were constructed at the north side of the rock, to which exterior works were afterwards added, so that "the EHKENBREITSTEIN. 229 It will repay the labour of the ascent to mount the fort, and see what a mighty stronghold it really is ; for at each shelf of the rock you will find a small town of barracks, girt with a wall like a volcano-crater, ready to pour its flood of fire upon any foe that should dare to approach it ; and furnished with gates that seem, like huge canal locks, to shut out the strong tide of an advancing army. Then, as you climb the pathway, you perceive musket-slits hemming you in on every side ; and im- mense embrasures above you, that seem, Argus-like, to follow you with their hundred monster-eyes, wherever you go ; and when at last you reach the platform of the rock itself, you are astonished to find that the summit, which, as you gazed at it from Coblenz, seemed no bigger than some suburban garden, is as spacious as one of our largest squares; and that the exterior of the principal barracks is not unlike the front of castle" thus became transformed into a comparatively modern "fortress." When the French took possession of the fort (1799), they set to work erecting many new bastions ; and during their stay there, which lasted till after the treaty of peace at Luneville (1801), they repaired and augmented the defences. But on their quitting the citadel they demolished and blew up all the works ; and the demolition was so perfect, that it was impossible even to make use of the ruins during the reconstruction of the stronghold. Napoleon, however, after his return from Russia (1812), is said to have had a plan prepared by his en- gineers for the erection of a new fortress ; but nothing was done by the French towards this object. In the year 1816, however, the new works were commenced by the Prussians, under the direction of General Aster, who designed them after the combined plans of Cainot and Montalembert. Prussia devoted to the construction of the present fortress the 15,000,000 francs which, by virtue of an article in the second peace of Paris, the French bound themselves to pay the Prussian government. More than four times that sum, however, was expended on the completion of the fort, which was not finished till the year 1826, and is said to have cost altogether 5,000,000 dollars, or about 750,0002. On three of its sides Ehrenbreitstein is strong enough, say military critics, to bid defiance to any assault. Its only weak point lies towards the N. or N.W. ; and even there art has done its utmost to repair the natural defect : for a double line of bastions has been constructed, and these would have to be carried one after the other before the enemy could enter in that direction. 230 THE PRUSSIAN RHINE CAPITAL. our own Covcnt Garden Theatre, while the whole place seems to swarm with a dense population of soldiers. Here, in the centre of the open space, stands a square stone pillar, like a tall pedestal to some intended column, and which at first sight you might fancy to be another monument to some hero. This the corporal who escorts you round the fort informs you is a fountain for the supply of water to the troops, the wells which feed it having been sunk by the Archbishop John of Baden, 400 feet in the rock. He tells you, moreover, that the entire platfonn on the top of the rock, which serves as a parade ground, has vast arched cisterns underneath it, and that these are capable of holding a three-years' supply of water for the fortress troops, the cisterns being fed by springs outside the walls. Then, as you look over the wall next to Coblenz, you see a flight of steps reaching from the very bottom to the top of the steep hill, and looking like some immense "shoot" for forest trees, such as are said to be used in Norway for the descent of the firs down the mountain sides. There are no fewer than 900 of these steps, you are told, cut in the solid stone ; for the fortress rock is nearly as high as St. Peter's at Rome. You learn, besides, that Ehrenbreitstein mounts no less than 400 cannon, and that the fortifications of Coblenz are capable of containing 100,000 troops (though 5000 are considered to be sufficient to defend them), while the magazines are spacious enough to hold a supply of provisions for 8000 men for ten years. And, lastly, you are led to the highest point of the fort, in order that you may enjoy the magnificent view of the Rhine and Moselle, folding the baby city of the Con- fluence in their arms.* * The garrison consists of 3000 (3 battalions) infantry, 900 (about 3 com- panies) artillery, and 200 (not quite 1 company) pioneers, in all, 4100 men; EHRENBBEITSTEIN. 231 Now it may be readily imagined that, with a town so strongly fortified as Coblenz, there must be a large military population connected with it ; and statisticians tell us, that about and the fortifications are said to require only 5000 to put them in a state of perfect defence, viz. : 2,000 for Forts Alexander and Constantine (commanding the roads from Mayence and over the Hundsriick mountains). 500 for Fort Kaiser Franz (commanding the roads from Cologne and Treves, as well as the city of Coblenz). 2,500 total for the forts on the right and left banks of the Moselle. 1,200 for Ehrenbreitstein (commanding the Rhine and the road from Nassau). .800 for Asterstein (commanding the approaches from the Lahn). 2,000 total for the forts on the left bank of the Rhine. 800 for the ramparts round the city, including the right bank of the Rhine. 5,300 total number of men in all. Ehrenbreitstein has always been considered impregnable. It has succumbed only twice to the enemy ; and on those occasions the event was brought about at one time by treason, and the other by famine. The first instance occurred in the year 1632, when the troops were induced, by false reports, to quit the for- tress in order to encounter the enemy, who, they were told, had taken up their position in the plains between Coblenz and Weissen-thurm, on the opposite shore, whilst the French, acting under the connivance of the Elector, arrived from Bingen, with Count Bussy at their head, and so obtained, during the absence of the garrison, an easy possession of the citadel. The second occasion was in the year 1637, when the French garrison, that occupied the citadel at that period, could not be compelled to surrender the fort to the renowned Imperial General Jean de Werth (he whose sword was 8J feet long, and whose helmet required two men to lift it !), till after they had been reduced by famine to such an extremity that they were glad to boil their saddles and sustain life with the leather. In 1799, however, the fortress was obliged to capitulate, after a long siege by the French, during which all the provisions, even to the flesh of the horses, had been consumed ; and when cats were sold within the citadel for half-a-crown a- piece, and horse-flesh fetched as much as one shilling a-pound. The commander, Colonel Faber, nevertheless, when he evacuated the fort after a treaty had been concluded, did so triumphantly with his colours flying, and the band playing at the head of his troops. Ehrenbreitstein has, on the other hand, been repeatedly attacked unsuccess- fully. In 1688, for instance, it was in vain besieged by the French under Marshal Boufflers, though the celebrated Vauban directed the works against it ; and even Louis XIV. had repaired to the spot in order to be an eye-witness to 232 THE PRUSSIAN RHINE CAPITAL. one-sixth part of the people belong to the army:* but as this calculation includes Loth male and female civilians, as well as the very young and the very old, it gives one but a poor notion of the swarms of troops that infest the streets of the Confluence. It is better, therefore, to say, that every third man you meet in Coblenz is either a private or an officer in the Prussian army ; and that the town swarms with soldiers as thick as blight upon a rose-bush. At all hours in the day you can see their brass-spiked helmets pouring into the city from Ehrenbreitstein, across the bridge of boats and streaming over the Moselle from fort " Kaiser Franz" and through the " Lohr-Thor" from forts " Alexander" and " Constantino." Go where you will, you are sure to be in a small crowd of them ; at the theatre the pit is blue with the uniform of private soldiers standing there (for the German "parterre" has no seats), while almost every box in the house glistens with the epau- lettes of the officers. In the shops, again, you will be certain to rub shoulders with them ; and at the " Casino" (Coblenz club-house) you will find them reading the " Zeitungs" (Jour- nals), like " Boursemen" in the cafds on the Boulevards. Now you will meet a group of troops in undress, wheeling along a truck-full of large, shiny, bar-like loaves, that are as brown as gingerbread. Then you will pass some half-dozen others, its surrender. Again, in the course of the wars of the Revolution, it was fre- quently invested by the French without success : (1 ,) during the autumn of 1795, by the troops under the command of General Marceau ; (2 and 3,) in June and July of the year 1796, when it was cannonaded from the heights of Pfaffendorf, and the village in the valley below almost destroyed by the shells, and when the French succeeded in obtaining possession of a height near the fort ; but the retreat of Jourdan compelled them to raise the siege ; (4,) the citadel was again invested in 1797 by the army under General Hoche, after he had passed the Rhine at Weissen-thurm ; but the siege was once more checked by the truce concluded at Leoben. * The population is 26,000, of whom 4,000 belong to the garrison. The town itself is about the size of Dover; to which, from the overlooking castle of Ehrenbreitstein and the surrounding forts, it bears some faint resemblance. EHRENBREITSTEIN. 233 carrying open tin vessels full of yellow-looking soup ; and the next moment you will encounter a party of them bearing on their shoulders some sick comrade, in a kind of covered wicker palanquin, that is like a long bonnet-box, and on their way to the lazaretto ; while round about the suburbs you may hear the bugles sounding all the day long ; and at the post-office, if you have a letter to despatch early in the morning, you can see the helmeted guards in their great-coats, as loose as bathing-gowns, descending with the conductor from the interior of the royal mails. Nor are the tables d'hdte themselves without their sprink- ling of officers ; the hat-stand in the corner of the room is covered with their helmets, and their swords occupy the place usually devoted to the umbrellas. You will generally find one entire wing of the dinner-table parti-coloured with the Prussian uniforms, for the officers dine all together, and, ac- cording to the popular report, make sad havoc with the fare. Indeed the people of Coblenz and Mayence, when they wish to describe to you any one who is remarkable for the capacity of his appetite, say, " that he is as hungry as a Prussian officer;" and certainly we ourselves have noted the gallant fellows make enormous breaches in the puddings, and literally "sack" the game-dishes when they were handed round to them. But if they be remarkable for the dexterity of their " knife-and-fork exercise," they certainly seem to have even a George Cruikshank's horror of "the bottle," and love to charge their guns rather than their glasses with grape; for not even the mild and verjuicy " Zeltinger" (excellent for salads, by the bye) passes their lips: though, as the saying goes, " there is not a headache in a hogshead of it," but only a violent stomach-ache in every glass.* * The Prussian soldiers are a remarkably fine body of men not fine in stature (for they are considerably shorter than our troops), but in appearance 234 TIIE PRUSSIAN RIIIXE CAPITAL. As our subject lias thus naturally digressed from the martial into the gastronomical, and this is a theme upon their uniforms being much superior to ours. The infantry all wear a leathern helmet, strengthened and ornamented with brass, and surmounted by a brass spike, while their coats are well made, and have the skirts cut so short that they give the men an exceedingly trim and dapper look. Further, owing to the system of conscription, and the purchase of substitutes, running as high as 40/., the ranks are not filled with mere clodhoppers, and hence even the privates have a far less boorish air than our men. Indeed you will generally find the common soldiers about as polite in their manners as our linendrapers' shopmen. It is difficult at first to distinguish the officers from the privates, for their uniforms and accoutrements are very similar, though, of course, of superior materials, to those of the men. The pay of the officers averages but a groschen (penny) or two more per diem than the price of the table d'hote at which they dine. Hence the Germans love to indulge in all kind of savage jokes at the poverty and voracious appetites of the Prussian officers ; and so far from the gentle- men in uniforms being in high favour with the German ladies, as with us, you find even the Zimmer-madchen (chambermaids) turning up their noses at the Offizieren, and soon hear that the Coblenz damsels think far more highly of the young merchants than they do of the " gallant defenders of their country." That the lieutenants, and even captains, find it exceedingly difficult to maintain themselves as gentlemen upon the slender means allowed them, there cannot be a doubt ; and they suffer, maybe, even worse privations and heartburnings than our own country curates in their struggles to appear "genteel." It does not requires very long acquaintance with Germany to discover that the chief cause of the poverty of the people generally is, that the country is overrun with troops like rats in a barn. Enter what German city you will, you are sure to see almost as many spiky helmets as soft felt hats in the streets ; and the consequence is, that where so many drones have to be kept out of the honey stored by the working bees, the whole hive must suffer. Hence you find the mining capabilities of the soil unde- veloped, and " the capital of Rhenish Prussia," as Coblenz is styled, unable to afford other than a bridge of barges across the Rhine, even though this has to be pulled to pieces and the traffic stopped with each passing vessel ; you see at the same time, too, steamboat after steamboat laden with large colonies of what the Germans call out-wanderers and we, who prefer Anglo- Latin to Saxon-English, style emigrants with their capacious linen pouches at their sides, or their cow- hide knapsacks at their backs, quitting one of the fairest and most fertile coun- tries in the world, and one, too, that they love with almost a child's affection for its parent, for some foreign and less genial soil, but where at least they will be sure to get something more than the husks as their share of the corn they produce. Indeed, if the tide of Prussian emigration proceeds long at the same rate as at present, the ants will have eaten up the whole of the German villages, and the people have fled from the " plague of locusts " as th'ey did in ancient times. EHKENBREITSTEIN. 235 which our lady readers can enter with greater congeniality than gun practice and parades (for their forte, their " broad- stone of honour," indeed, we may say lies among puddings and pies), we will conclude this chapter by a statement of the details of a German table d'hote dinner, for there is suffi- cient peculiarity about it to entitle it to take rank among the curiosities of the Rhine. The table d'hote room at the large German hotels is usually as spacious as a music-hall. Some have fountains in a niche at the side of them, playing amid mirrors and plants into gilt basons; others, statues set at the end of the immense room in an alcove of flowers ; and others, again, have the broad walls covered with diorama-like paintings of the Rhine; while almost all have a large gallery at one end for the musicians, who during the season play throughout the repast. The tables, which strike one as being as long as a railway platform, reach two and three times up and down the room, and are generally lined all the way with fresh faces every day excepting the regular knot of officers and the little clique of merchants from the town. The invariable dinner-hour is one o'clock, when a heavy school-bell rings with so loud a clatter that it penetrates down every one of the long corridors of the hotel, and indeed even to the conservatory-like belvidere on the tiles. Then the visitors pour in by scores the married German ladies invariably taking the arm of their husbands, not only upon entering, but on leaving the room. All are usually " dressed" for the occasion, and even the lively kittens of fifty decked out with ribbons as long as Rhine-panoramas, streaming from their three skeins of back-hair ; though sometimes, it is true, a lady-tourist who has just stepped from the boat does make her appearance in her bonnet. No sooner is the immense crowd seated than the room is 236 THE PRUSSIAN RHINE CAPITAL. like a Babel with the chatter of French, English, and German. The German merchants, and the Jews in particular, begin to talk of " tausends" and " hoonderts" and " acht und achtzig thalers;" the officers to gossip about the singing of " Marra" or " 1' 'orrnc- " at the theatre last night, or the leap through the hoop of tobacco-pipes at Renz's Circus, or the " Grosse Menayerie" that has recently been opened in the town; the Frenchmen to gesticulate and declare that some old castle is " ravissant" or " tout-a-fait cUlideux? or some mountain top " la place pour s'enivrer avec les charmes duRhin;" and the French ladies to protrude their eyes like lobsters, and to hitch up their brows as a sailor does the waistband of his trousers ; while the English " rentiers'" (for even your printers'-ink manu- facturers become "landowners" up the Rhine) to feed amid the stiff, stand-up shirt collars encircling their heads, like the paper round some big bouquet in sulky, solemn silence. First comes the soup ; and this consists of either vermi- celli and cheese, gravy and sausage-meat, or a decoction of sorrel and cream. Then follows, sometimes, the roast beef; but oftener still, the bouilli (though the latter is not the celebrated dry-boiled cable of France, but meat with still some portion of the juices left in it). This is cut up as, indeed, are all the viands on a large wooden platter at a side-table by the head-waiter, and handed round in slices to the several guests; while the "kellner " who brings it to you is immediately followed by another, bearing in one hand a silver sauce-boat, filled either with a thick gravy and capers or else with mashed horse-radish, and in the other a dish of some peculiar pickle, such as cold, boiled, pickled cauliflower, or pickled melon, or pickled vegetable marrow, or pickled " ticklebats," or a " herring salad : " the vegetables served with these being sliced potatoes with parsley. EHRENBREITSTEIN. 237 Next you are treated to a course of what the French call "hors d'ceuvres;" and these are made up either of mutton cut- lets, or slices of raw ham, or large rolls of sausage-meat, or pieces of liver and bacon, or bits of boiled pork, or strips of raw salmon, or shavings of German sausage, or fillets of raw red-herrings, or cuttings of tongue, or dishes of hot, boiled, miniature lobsters ; while the vegetables at this course consist sometimes of mashed spinach with fried onions sometimes of salsefy in melted butter ; at others of boiled celery or Swede turnips, or lentils, or uncooked radishes ; and at others, again, of either boiled, chopped red-cabbage, or else the national " sauer-kraut" which is a mass of shredded cabbage that has been allowed to ferment until it has acidified and tastes like "high" greens flavoured with vinegar-sauce. After this you have an "entree" of either carp or pike stewed with mushrooms, or plain boiled trout, or eels a la tartare, or else stewed calves' head, or roast hare with pickled onions and gherkins, or, maybe, a blanquette of fowl. The remove to this is the pudding, which generally con- sists of a fez-cap-like, boiled, sponge-cake composition, and which is served with a frothy, white, sweet sauce, or else with a syrup like melted red-currant-jelly flavoured with wine ; or, maybe, you get fried French rolls, covered with grated chocolate, and accompanied with the same red sauce as the pudding; or, perhaps, "puff-balls," like "devil's snuff-boxes," made in paste ; or baked apple dumplings, or marmalade sandwiches. Now come the more substantial baked meats, either veal or mutton ; and these are eaten without vegetables, but with stewed pears, or a compote of plums, or boiled prunes, or cooked red peaches (as puce-coloured as lenten eggs), and, occasionally, preserved apricots. And following this, the salad and the birds; which are 238 THE niussiAN RHINE CAPITAL. either a dish of roast field-fares (krammete'Vdgefy that have fed on juniper-berries upon the Hundsriick hills, and which eat with such a peculiar bitter taste that you would fancy they were flavoured with a sauce of marigolds, or else you have snipe or pheasants, or roast goose stuffed with chestnuts. And, lastly, you are supplied with dessert, which is mostly made up of grapes, plums, red peaches, macaroons, wine-cakes, pears, apples, and nuts and sometimes melon, the slices of which some of the Germans eat with a sprinkling of pepper and sugar ; while those who prefer tobacco to fruit light their cigars at the dinner-table immediately the pudding is re- moved; and others, who have a taste for cards, call for a pack and commence playing with their opposite neighbour for " cabanas." The wine usually drunk at the table d'hote consists of either the white or red Rhenish wines, though the white are more popular; while occasionally, at about the fourth orfth course, those who indulge in champagne will have their bottle of " Cliquot" placed upon the table in a silver ice-vase and the cork drawn, the wine being allowed to stand hi the open bottle for some quarter of an hour, in order to get rid of the gas; for which the Germans have such a distaste, that the champagne will sometimes be ordered to be opened even an hour before dinner-time.* The same thing is done with the " sparkling Moselle," and even with the " Ehrenbreitsteiner" which is a good and cheap kind of Rhenish champagne, grown under the very mouths of the cannon on the fortress rock. A favourite drink with the Germans, either during or after dinner, it may be added, is " Bohle" (Bowl,) the Teutonic potative equiva- lent of our " Punch." This is also drunk at "Hochzeit" * The champagne bottles are fitted with a temporary silver handle, in shape like that of an ewer, and made to catch in the hollow at the bottom a tasty sub- stitute for the napkin which we use. EHRENBREITSTEIN. 239 (literally " high time," and figuratively the wedding " breakfast," which in Germany consists of dinner, tea, and supper as well ; the company bride and bridegroom included remaining feasting all the time till late at night). "Bohle" is com- pounded of sugar (in the proportion of half a pound to each bottle of wine) and cold water (but only just sufficient to melt the sugar), and Piesporter (a light Moselle wine), the whole being flavoured either with the peel of young green oranges by rubbing a small piece of the sugar against the rind of the unripe fruit when it is hardly bigger than a marble or else by adding a drop or two of Mai-wein (May-wine) or Mai-trank, as it is sometimes called. The latter is an extract of the essence of the wild-flower called Wald-meister (literally the Master of the Forest and, Anglice, Wood-roof ; Asperula odorata).* In the spring, however, the leaves and flowers of the plant are used, and the flavour extracted from them is that of an entire garden. Occasionally a preserved peach (rothe pfirsiche) is used to flavour the bohle instead of the Mai-wein or green oranges. Either way the compound is a delicious beverage, being " specially approved by brides and bridemaids," say the kellners, and drinking refreshingly cool in the summer. But there is still to be mentioned the most extraordinary item in the account of the German tables d'hote, and that is the price. English readers, who are as yet strangers to the Rhine, will marvel when they hear that a dinner, consisting of eight courses, is put upon the table at a charge which varies between eighteen pence and two shillings per head. Nor would it be right to conclude without saying a word or two in favour of the waiters who serve at these dinners; for it * The extract is sold at the " Apotheke's" in small bottles, at five groschen each. "Bohle" is what Murray calls "a spiced wine or cup flavoured with some aromatic herb ! " 240 THK PRUSSIAN RHINE CAPITAL. is astonishing to those who have dined at the large city "ban- quets" in England, where there are almost as many serving- men as guests, and where even then you can obtain but little attention to find some half-dozen young men able to wait upon a hundred or more of people at a time, and that Avithout the least bustle or delay. Moreover, there is scarcely one of these same "Miners" who cannot speak some three or four languages, while many of them are excellent musicians ; and it is no uncommon thing to find your cry for the " kellner" of an evening answered by some youth starting up from his book at a desk hard by, and who, when the busier part of the day is over, is engaged in studying some new tongue. VIII. THE RHINE SLOPES : AND THE THEEE CASTLES STOLZENFELS, MARKSBURG, AND LlEBENSTEIN. THIS triad of ancient strongholds are as different each from the other as if they were so many living beings. In Stol- zenfels you see the royal Rhine Castle modernised, as it were (for it was not many years ago presented by the city of Coblenz to the present King of Prussia);* gaudy with all the luxury of the present time, though with a suffi- * This castle was in ruins till 1825, and shortly before that period it was offered for sale for III. (70 thalers), but without finding a purchaser. It was presented by the citizens of Coblenz, whose property it was, to the present King of Prussia, while crown-prince, during his visit to the Rhine with his young bride. It had been reduced to ruins by the French in 1688. The title of Stolzenfels is said to signify "proud rock." We would suggest, however, that the name of the castle was originally Zoll (pronounced Tsoll} zum-fels that is to say, the Toll upon the rocks (for history tells us that formerly there were as many as 32 such Toll-castles along the banks of the Rhine), and that this was ultimately corrupted into Stol-zen-fels the change of z into st being by no means unusual, as in erz into erste, and the derivation far more consonant with common sense than the metaphorical one generally received. The castle of Stolzenfels is said to have been built in 1250 by Arnold of Isenburg, the then archbishop of Treves. But as it is certain that the Princess Isabella, sister of Henry III. of England, and bride of the German Emperor Frederick II., was lodged at the castle with a large retinue in the year 1235, its foundation must date from an earlier period. R 242 THE RHINE SLOPES AND THE THREE CASTLES. cient " smack " of tlie past about it to redeem the kingly barbarism of its glitter: for monarchs are still, like babies and savages, delighted with bright colours and gewgaw metals, their liveries and decorations being always of the showiest kind, and such as would condemn a poor lord-mayor as a very Goth or Vandal in taste. In Marksburg, however, you be- hold the stern old mediaeval castle as it existed in the dark ages; and far more beautiful than Stolzenfels, from the truth- ful picture it affords of the ferocity of the nobles of past times, when your lords were merely bandits, sallying from their castles to plunder the merchants on their way, for the mind finds the same complex pleasure in threading the gloomy passages, and gazing at the torture-chambers and human " dog- holes" of this old palace-fort, as it does in witnessing some fine Shakesperian tragedy and watching the torrent of man's devilry wrought beyond the terrible into the sublime: where- as in Liebenstein the ruined castle walls have no longer a tragic or barbaric grandeur, like Marksburg and Stolzenfels, but are romantic from the passionate legend that is connected with them, the old towers serving merely as the scenery for the mythic drama with which romance has peopled, and given life and action, to the "Brother" mountains; and, though your reason may discredit the story, still your fancy gets to love the twin-ruins, from the chivalrous emotions that tradition has hung about them. Stolzenfels is but a half-hour's journey from Coblenz, and there is a little boat like that from Bonn to the Drachenfels to carry you to the village of Capellen, at the foot of the tall rock, upon whose side the castle stands, some 300 feet above the Rhine. The trip thither has little to interest the eye, now grown so satiated with Rhine scenery that it needs some strong stimulus to give it zest OBERWEKTH. 243 On your way you pass the villages of Pfaffendorf and Horchheim ; the former lying almost under the forts of Aster- stein, opposite Coblenz ; and the other higher up the stream, and being the last Prussian village on that bank of the Rhine ; * while both are pretty-enough little hamlets, with the images of their white walls trembling in the water, as if you were looking at them through so much heated air. The only object of interest, indeed, is the island of Ober- werth (the Upper Island, in contradistinction to Nieder-werth, the Lower Island, which we noticed before reaching Coblenz), which lies almost in a bay, with merely a narrow arc of the Rhine to separate it from the shore a little beyond Cob- lenz ; and even this is better seen from the heights of Ehrenbreitstein, from which point you might fancy it to be the enormous whale which Munchausen mistook for a patch of island; for it seems like the back of some huge fish, upon which the trees have taken root and a homestead has been run up : so that you cannot help thinking that one day it will take a dive, all down together, to the bottom of the river ; or else be carried adrift, and floating down the stream like a raft, the owner will wake up "some fine morning" and find his fields aground somewhere in the kingdom of Holland. The ruins of the con- vent that formerly stood here have been converted into the country-house and farm of the family of the famous Graff von Pfaffenhoffen, who, in 1828, threatened to commence legal proceedings against Charles X., the then king of France, in order to obtain repayment of the money that he had advanced his majesty when he was Count of Artois, and living as a refugee in Coblenz. * Horchheim produces a good red wine, which the Coblenzers love to drink in the gardens of the river- side Gasthauser there. Above this the duchy of Nassau begins, and extends along the bank of the Rhine up to Biberich, near Mayence. 244 THE RHINE SLOPES AND THE THUEE CASTLES, The little village of Capellen, with its embanked roadway at the foot of Stolzenfels, bears a rude resemblance to the row of river-side houses which skirt the base of Rolandseck ; though at Capellen the buildings are of a more primitive character, and the gasikofe less like our own watering-place hotels ; while many of the cottages are mere claywalled things, with a net- work of beams showing through the white-washed fronts, not unlike the ribbons with which theatrical brigands are wont to adorn their hose. Here are found the usual stud of long-eared " Hanses," and " Johannchens," and " Fritzes," to carry the visitor up the steep rock side. And a beautiful journey it is to ascend that lovely dingle, along the zig-zaggy road leading to the castle; and as you cross the tall aqueducts that span the wooded chasm, to hear the pleasant whispering of the little crystal thread beneath grow dimmer and dimmer as you rise, till it sounds in the ear as a summer breeze rustling along some shady grove; and then to look down from each turn of the heights on your way, and see the grey shaggy-coated animals, with their bright scarlet trappings, bearing some new troop of visitors far below in your wake ; or, on the other hand, to gaze upwards and be- hold the overhanging, ochreous, and ivied castle pile, scarcely bigger than a park villa, set half-way up the mountain side amid a rich red cloud of autumnal woods, and with its notched pin- nacles and many-angled turrets grouped to a truncated point by the tall prism-tower rising from the centre ; and, again, to find the serpent Rhine uncoiling itself, as it were, with every step you take, until the sparkling line of water seems, when viewed from the heights of the castle, to streak the meadows of the Rhine-valley like some crystal vein of spar in a slab of bright green malachite; while as the scene expands beneath the eye, the crowd of mountains round about grow denser and denser until at length the Rhine itself appears but as a passage THE VALLEY OF LAHN. 245 opened by the miraculous parting of the mountain waves through the great sea of land. Then, how balmy is the repose of the pretty valley of Lahn, on the opposite shore ! You would fancy that the little river there flowing into the Rhine was some stream of silver pouring from out the distant mountain mines. The tiny vessels that break the curving line of its yellow banks, seem from the height scarcely bigger than summer insects on the water. Here, too, at the very point where the Rhine and Lahn mingle their streams, are seen the ruins of Johannis-kirche (St. John's Church), set on a low base of outstretching moss-like mea- dows ; and you can look down into the shell of roofless walls as if it were into some empty sarcophagus ; while its tall, lonely tower, standing in front of the yellow shoal-bank seems more like some ancient Rhine-toll than a church steeple. Nor would you believe that human passion and evil feeling ever had sway in that little fairy town that you behold yonder, bordering the Lahn stream white as a cluster of water- lilies and with its dark grey roofs hazed with their mist of smoke. That is Nieder-Lahnstem ; and not many paces from it, on the other side of the Lahn, is its brother-village of Ober- Lahnstein, set on a long silt-bank facing the Rhine, and with the shore crimson with the heaps of red iron ore from the Nassau mines; and as the nether hamlet overhung the Lahn, as if, Narcissus-like, enamoured with its own image in the water, so does the upper village stretch itself along the very edge of the Rhine-bank, with its ancient rampart-walls, and many brown old donjon- to wers, and thick-turreted fortress-gates, and the old Prince-Elector's palace, with its high and massive square tower, at the farther end of the town all painted in the stream, with the colours soft and deep-stained as some fine antique enamel. Behind this, again, and close beside the Lahn, rises the 246 THE RHINE SLOPES AND THE THREE CASTLES. solitary hill of Lahn-eck (Lahn corner), like a huge dromedary's hunch, with the ruins of its old castle cresting the summit, that you might mistake for some simple mountain church ; while facing this there rises on the other side of the valley stream the Aller-lieiligen-berg (All Saints' Mountain), with, perched upon the hill-top, its pilgrim's chapel, tiny and white in the sun as some bride-cake ornament ; and, as you look through the beauteous chasm of the valley between these two grand hills, you can see the fine purpley form of the far-off mountains, hazed with the intervening air, and standing up like monster fortress-escarpments in the distance. i. THE MODERN MOUNTAIN-PALACE Stolzenfels. The interior of Stolzenfels is, of course, far less beautiful than the scene without, though there may be some who find a greater charm in viewing royal residences than in con- templating the rich dower of beauty that the Creator has be- stowed upon the earth in these parts, and, happily, for the gladdening not only of royal eyes but even of the humblest who has soul enough to appreciate it. You are ushered through the different apartments of the castle by a long custodian, tall as a French drum-major ; and, as you are led in and out the palace rooms and gardens, you have at one moment to incase your feet in huge felt slippers that are like a pair of soft sabots, and the next to kick them from your boots on to the mouse-coloured heap that lie at the doors of STOLZENFKLS. 247 the principal chambers. Now you are shown into the cloistered coffee-room, no bigger than some chapel crypt, on a level with the garden, and the sides of which are chequered all over with blue and white porcelain tiles, ornamented with antlered deer- heads. Above this the walls of the castle front are decorated with a large fresco, painted in 1840 by Lasinsky, and repre- senting the reception of the Count Palatine Ruprecht by the Archbishop of Treves in 1400 ; while in front of the coffee- room stands the little chapel, that seems like a pinnacled porch resting on a shelf of rock, at a little distance from the castle itself. Then you enter the small " Jwf-garten " (the chief garden), at the side looking down the Rhine towards Coblenz, and where is a vine-covered verandah, and bronze statues of Siegfried " who killed the dragon," and Joan of Arc, and a little fountain set amid the flowers. Next you mount the steps with the cloister-like arches above them, and on one side of these is a sculptured chimneypiece part of the ancient castle left standing with a bas-relief upon it representing the leap of Marcus Curtius into the gulph; and thus, having passed from the front to the back of the building, you reach the court-yard of the principal entrance, whose arched gateway is ornamented with frescoes of the arms of Prussia and Bavaria. Thence, by steps again, you are led to the corridors of the castle ; and here, when you have muffled your feet in a pair of the felt bags that are heaped outside the door, you are admitted into the oak-floored and raftered bed-chamber of the Crown-prince : and so you go sliding along the slippy floors through similar rooms, small and low, with wooden walls and ceilings, as if they were apartments in some French- polished Swiss cottage, until you reach that which was the sitting-room of Prince Albert and the Queen during their visit 248 THE RHINE SLOPES AND THE THREE CASTLES. to the Rhine in 1845. This is not unlike the state-cabin of some large vessel, and what with the rafters ribbing its low ceiling, and the panelled walls, you could almost fancy that the small square windows at one end were the stern port-holes, through which you were looking back upon the river. Hence you are conducted, through the royal oaken bedroom and dressing-rooms, into Queen Victoria's private sitting-room, at the front corner of the castle ; and this, again, is walled, and floored, and raftered with oak, and looks as yellow and bees- waxy with the fresh wooden fittings as the office of some newly- started insurance company, while the floors are as admirably adapted for skating as the " Glaciarum" itself. Nevertheless, the bastion-like bay-windows command exquisite views of the Rhine the one showing the distant handsome rock of Ehren- breitstein, set like a choice picture in the oaken frame of the casement ; and the other looking out upon the lovely valley of the Lahn, with its ruined castle and pilgrim chapel watching, guardian-like, over the stream. After this you go sliding along once more in your felt over-shoes through a series of low and bare oaken apartments, consisting of the " music-room," and the "spare bed-rooms," though they are all so much alike, that, were it not for the small cabinet-piano in the one, and the bedsteads hardly bigger than sea-chests in the others, you would be puzzled to distinguish the concert-hall from the dormitories. At length you are permitted to shuffle off your gouty slip- pers while you descend the massive stone corkscrew of a stair- case, and the moment after, when you reach the lower corridors, there is another heap of ugly cloth goloshes ready for you again to bury your feet in. Now you are shown into the royal dining-hall on the floor below. This is about as long as some large steamboat saloon, but vaulted and skirted with oak like a cathedral chancel, and STOLZENFELS. 249 the walls hung with iron Guernsey-like suits of mail, set amid a glory of spears, while the corners of the banqueting-hall are filled with complete suits of armour, propped on poles, and looking like mediaeval scarecrows made out of sheet-iron. Above the handsome freestone chimneypiece droops a drapery of many-coloured flags, and the carved sideboards about the room are like a mass of jewels with the ruby and emerald Bohemian-glass drinking-vessels. Then, through a door at one corner of the dining-room, you are ushered into the little armoury, no bigger than a butler's pantry ; and this is metallic with the iron lay-figures, as it were, of ancient knights, while the walls are studded with the weapons of famous generals. Here you see the gold sabre worn by Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo, and the heavy steel one used by Bliicher there ; and beside these hang the slender foil of the Duke of Alba, and the silver sword of Prince Poniatowski ; while grouped round about them are the weapons of the French Murat and the Polish Jan So- bieski, together with the rude knife and fork of Andreas Hofer, the heavy pistols of Major Scheld, and the tawdry plaything of a powder-horn all gold and jewels that once belonged to the dandy Louis Quatorze. Lastly, you pass from this into the " reception-room," the " Ritter-saal" (Knights' Hall, as it is styled) ; and this is a small but lofty apartment, the vaulted roof of which is emblazoned with gold and bright colours ; while above the high oaken skirting the walls are " ilhiminated" with six arc-shaped fres- coes, painted in 1844 by Professor Stilkie of Dusseldorf, and representing the knightly virtues and accomplishments of COURAGE, FIDELITY, JUSTICE, PERSEVERANCE, LOVE, and Music, by means of various historical incidents. These, though ex- cellent for the correctness of their drawing, are, nevertheless, too hard in their outlines, and too house-decorator-like in the 250 THK RHINE SLOPES AND THE THREE CASTLES. vividness of their colouring, to please those who have learnt that gaudy tints prevent, by the distraction of a multiplicity of bright points, that focussing and repose of the eye which is the first element of pictorial beauty. Such are the details of the royal castle of Stolzenfels, and though its interior be far too new and bees-waxy to delight the eye that has grown prejudiced, as it were, to the soft twi- lighty tone of more ancient piles, from the many fine old strong- holds to be seen about the Rhine-banks, still it must be con- fessed that the very contrast of the modern castle (tawdry as a coloured statue) with the more antiquated ones (rich and sombre as a Rembrandt picture) is a pleasing variety in the scenes. Moreover, to English minds, Stolzenfels derives a factitious O y interest from its having been the abiding-place of Queen Vic- toria during her visit to the Rhine. True, we may not care much to know that Her Majesty was fond of gazing at Ehren- breitstein from this window, or contemplating the softer charms of the Lahn valley from that ; for, worthy little English gentle- woman as she is, still she is neither a Salvator Rosa nor a Gothe in her sense of pictorial or poetic beauty to make us set much store upon what she may deem the admirable in nature. Nevertheless, it must be said that there is a pleasant sentiment about these quiet and graceful retreats of royalty, for the mind cannot help sharing in the delight that it fancies crowned heads must feel in quitting courts where all is necessarily false about them where they can never know the grace of frankness nor the fine nobility of candour nor the heroism of outspeaking nor even those charms of friendship which spring from a loving and close intercommunion with our fellow-creatures being hedged in by such a barrier of etiquette and servility that per- haps the least free, and the one who hears the least truth, and MAKKSBURG. 251 is the most friendless of all persons in the kingdom, is the being who rules the rest : so that we who have but little love of power in our souls cannot but have a lingering sense of pity for those who are doomed to occupy the high places in this world, cut off as they are from all that makes life truly admirable, and so surfeited, doubtlessly, with the sycophancy of courtiers, that they can hardly but believe the whole human race to be as wily and untruthful as Jesuits. To quit, then, the heated and impure atmosphere of a court for the fresh and sweet air of such a place as this, must indeed be a relief that none others than monarchs can know ; and if the vine-clad mountains, and the wooded valleys, and the commingling of the streams, that make up the lovely Rhine-picture here seem beautiful in our eyes, how much more beautiful must it all appear to them one bright bit of real open nature of God's own handiwork after so much of man's meanness so much artificial life ! 2. THE MEDLEVAL STRONGHOLD Marksburg. From Stolzenfels it is a pleasant hour's excursion to the castle of Marksburg, especially if you journey by the road rather than by water, for the path lies close alongside the Rhine, and the mountains immediately adjoin it; so that in the autumn it is a pretty sight to see the peasant-women in their white " kappe-tucher" peeping from on high amid the vineyard terraces, busy gathering the grapes far up on the tall hill-sides ; while, as you journey on, you meet the ever- 252 THE RHINE SLOPES AND THE THREE CASTLES. graceful " ox-wagons," with the sieves of grapes showing through the open rack-work of their sides some for the Coblen/ market, and others to be made into Rhenish wine. Then, too, you pass on your way the celebrated " Konigs- stnhl" (King's Seat), and further on the ancient town of Rhense. % The Konigs-stuhl formerly constituted what may be termed the German House of Peers, though it is scarcely bigger than a summer-house, and stands among orchards on the narrow meadow between the high-road and the river. But the most peculiar feature about the little Rhenish house of parliament is, that it has no roof, and is open at the sides ; indeed, it is not unlike a large stone baptismal font, for it is of an octagonal form, and but little more than three men's length in height, and four men's length in diameter. The lower part of it is, as it were, cloistered within, and has an open arch at each of the eight sides, so that the stone stage on the top is sup- ported by nine pillars below, one at each of the eight angles and the ninth in the centre. On the farther side from Coblenz there is a flight of steps about as long as those up the side of a steam-boat ; and at the upper end of these stands an iron gateway, through which you reach the un- covered stone platform above. Here the seven ancient electors (called, in German, Kur-fursten, i. e. choosing princes) were wont to sit upon the benches that extend all round the inside of the shallow basin formed by the octagonal wall each of the seven electors being seated at one of the sides, and the German Emperor himself occupying the eighth, which is towards the north, and has the imperial eagle sculptured below it, outside the wall ; while the armorial bearings of each of the electors are carved, in bas-relief, over the key-stone of the arches above which they respectively sat. The custom of thus deliberating in the open air upon THE KONIGS-STUHL. 253 the grave questions of the State is not a little singular, but it seems to have grown gradually out of precedents, and to have been a type of the ancient ceremony of the entire body of freemen assembling in the plains to consult on matters concerning the national welfare :* for in the year 1024, after the death of Henry II., we find some 50,000 of the German people meeting at a Diet, with their feudal rulers, upon the vast plains of the Rhine lying between Mayence and Worms, to decide as to the election of the future monarch ; and some years after this, on the death of Henry Y. (A.D. 1125), history tells us that a limited number of princes were chosen to serve as a commission to exercise the right of "pretaxa- tion : " that is to say, of selecting, from among the candidates proposed as Emperors, the one whom they considered most worthy to be submitted to the approval of the assembly. At length, however, the attendance at the yearly Plaids, or Diets, grew to be so irksome to the freemen, that many applied for liberty to be absent from them, whilst even some of the lords who had the privilege of voting sought to exercise that privilege by proxy. This increased the power of the Princes, so that the Diets, eventually, came to be held without summoning the people to them, the Emperor calling into deliberation with him such of the dignitaries only as happened to be at his Court at the time on the pretext that the affair under consideration was too trifling for the convocation of a regular Diet. Thus the privilege of governing the political affairs of the empire, as well as electing the Emperor, got to be claimed by these * These ancient national assemblies were called " Plaids " (placita regnf), and were originally attended by all the freemen of the country ; the higher nobles, however, had alone the right of voting at such assemblies, the privilege enjoyed by the lower lords (Frei-herren the equivalent of our Barons), being that merely of applauding the votes of their superiors. The Mallum, or Court of Justice, was also an open-air tribunal, and had often nothing but an oak or a cross to mark its site. 254 THE RHINE SLOPES AND THE THREE CASTLES. dignitaries as a right ; so that, in the year 1 184, those who had formerly been merely the representatives of the nation in such matters, declared themselves to constitute the absolute hereditary Diet of the country ; while that which was once the mere privilege of pretaxation, as regards the future monarch, the electors now asserted to be their indefeasible right of royal nomination, styling themselves the Electoral College of the Empire the " lumina imperil" The privilege of election thus came to be finally vested in seven dignitaries three ecclesiastical and four secular princes; the former being the Archbishops of Mayence, Cologne, and Treves, wliile the secular electors consisted of the Duke of Saxony (the Arch-Marshal), the Count Palatine of the Rhine, (Arch-Steward), the King of Bohemia, (Arch-Cup- bearer), and the Margrave of Brandenburg, (Arch-Chamber- lain). By this little but powerful body the whole affairs of the empire were for many centuries conducted, the seven elective princes of Germany resembling the seven cardinal bishops of Rome in their power of choosing the future head of the community ; and here, upon the top of this odd, little, sum- mer-house-like senate, called the Konigs-stuhl, many emperors were elected and dethroned by them ; many treaties of peace concluded ; and the celebrated decree passed in 1338, declaring that the Imperial authority depended upon God alone, and that the Pope had no temporal influence over the sovereign chosen by them the hereditary electors of Germany. It was here, too, that the Emperor Maximilian I. appeared in person to take the royal oaths. The reason why this out-of-the-way spot was chosen for the site of the electors' councils was because it was situate on the frontier of the four principal electorates, so that each of them could see, as they sat on the stone bench above, one of RHENSE. 255 their castles or towns : the Archbishop of Mayence could behold his palace at Oberlahnstein, directly facing him on the opposite shore of the Rhine the Archbishop of Treves could see his castle of Stolzenfels towering upon the rock close behind him the Prince-Elector of Cologne could look upon his town of Rhense, at a little distance along the road to Mayence and opposite this, again, the Count Palatine could gaze at his seigniory of Braubach on the opposite side of the river.* The road now lies through pleasant orchards, for the mountains have been gradually decreasing and receding from the river-side since we left Stolzenfels, though they still stand at no great distance from the Rhine; while the river bends so sharply round at Oberspay, that it begins once more to assume the appearance of a mountain lake rather than a stream stretching through many kingdoms. In a few minutes after leaving Konigs-stuhl we enter the picturesque old German town of Rhense, formerly belonging to the Archbishop of Cologne. Here the houses mostly date as far back as the year 1500, and some even as the fourteenth century, so that the streets have a fine mediaeval character. The buildings have many of them carved wooden fronts, which are as brown and worm-eaten as the cassocks of the mummy monks at Kreuzberg; while the bastion-like bay-windows overhang the narrow and irregular streets with charming picturesqueness. As the carriage rattles along the ill-paved thoroughfare white-headed children run down the blocks of steps before the doors, and shout as it goes by ; and women * The Konigs-stuhl was allowed to fall into ruins under the French govern- ment, and was pulled down in 1807 ; but it was rebuilt in 1843 in its original shape, and partly out of the old materials, which are of " tuff," or " tufa stone." It is exceedingly plain in design, and has no ornaments about it, saving those of the arms of the Emperor and Electors. 256 THE URINE SLOPES AND THE THREE CASTLES. come and stand at the tall thresholds to gaze at the unusual sight of the vehicle ; and when you reach the little gateway at the upper end of the village, it is a pleasing picture to look back upon the rude market-place-like area, skirted by its antiquated tenements each of a different style and colour ; the wood-work of the carved fronts of some behi as brown as o new-turned earth, and the walls of others white as snow with their recent wash of lime, while others, again, are seen down the narrow street, with their clay-plastered walls, rudely latticed, as it were, with the timbers showing through them. Rhense is about half way between Stolzenfels and Nie- derspay, where there is a ferry to carry us over to the opposite shore, at the foot of Marksburg ; but the road be- yond the mediaeval German village affords little worthy of mention. The small ferry-boat in which we cross the water is square, and flat-bottomed as our fishing-punts, and the old oarsman works with a pair of sculls that are broad and flat at the blades, like bakers' peels ; w r hile a mere child sits at the stern and guides the boat by means of a bent oar, somewhat resembling a scythe, with the exception that the blade is bent downwards instead of sideways.* The passage across the river occupies but some five or ten minutes, for the current runs so swiftly that the boat is borne rapidly down the stream to the village of Braubach, which lies on the opposite bank, a little below our starting-point. It is a pleasant enough trip to cross the river hereabouts, for the breeze blows gently down the Rhine valley, screened * Many of the small Rhenish boats are steered by a broad flat oar, which is fixed at the "quarter" of the vessel, like the Roman " gubernaculum," and which leads the mind back to the days of Germanicus, who is said to have taught the Germans the art of ship-building. The other oars are so rude in their structure, that it is evident no change has been made in them since the time of the Romans. MABKSBURG. 257 by the many mountains that environ it, so that the surface of the water is smooth and bright as some polished speculum, under the lee of the tall hills, and nicely rumpled in the more open places with the soft passing gusts ; while it is as if scarred in others with the trail of the passing boats, so that it seems like some bright silver plate, whose surface has been dulled in parts by many scratches. It is wonderful what a charm there always is to the eye in a broad sheet of flowing water ! though the sight contains most of the elements of sensuous beauty the playful glitter of the metallic-like surface, sparkling like a cloud of fire-flies, as the ripples flicker in the sunbeams the everlasting motion of the current giving continual variety to the " lights " about the water (for you can almost see, by the bright luminous streaks, how the flood comes streaming down in separate liquid masses, as it were, till yonder, in the distance, the brighter parts look like so many glittering flakes of ice floating down the stream) then the colours at the bank-side, how beautifully they variegate the broad crystal band of the river, seeming here, beside the village, like some white coral bank shimmering beneath the water, and there, like a mass of bright jet, with the image of the dark mountain-side towering above it; while, as you look far down the stream, you can see its edges faintly tinted with many colours, as if it were some plate of steel that had been newly tempered in the fire. Then how pretty is the life upon the banks ! Yonder, above Braubach, creeps the towing-horse, with the tight rope stretching from behind him to the masthead of that charcoal- laden barge, with its sooty crew, and its deep-black freight piled high above the deck; and there where the river takes a sharp bend at Oberspay you behold, issuing from between the mountains, the long trail of black smoke left behind by the steamer, that a few moments ago was rounding the corner. s 258 THE RHINE SLOPES AND THE THREE CASTLES. Immediately facing our little boat we can perceive the peasants carrying up the manure to the mountain vineyards in chiffonnier-like baskets strapped to their shoulders bend your neck well back, and you can catch sight of them climbing high up the hill-side in a line like so many sheep. And below these, again, the quarrymen are at work with their pickaxes upon the rock under the castle, while the hill-sides immediately beneath them are like a steep shingly beach with the loose drift of the broken stones cast down from the mouth of the quarry. In a few minutes we are landed a little above the ancient village of Braubach, that lies so close at the foot of Marksburg that it is said the olden possessors of the castle had a secret passage made down the interior of the mountain to the palace at its base beside the river, though the hill itself is several hundred feet in height. The rock on which the castle stands when viewed from the opposite shore is like a solid pyramid, with the lines of its schistose slabs and blocks slanting down on either side like the branches of the spruce-fir. With every change of our position we catch sight of some new development of the fine broken outline of its many crags. Look at it sideways, and it appears like some immense crystal that has been half dissolved away by the rain. Gaze up at it from the narrow streets of the little town at its base, and we could fancy that it was some tremendous avalanche of rocks that was tumbling about our head ; while on the stony pinnacle high above we see the grey turreted castle pile, forming a fine harmonious finish to the jagged and conical mass below. The castle itself bears a faint resemblance to that of Dover, though the hill upon which Marksburg is set is infinitely grander from the rock-work about its base. The architecture, too, of the German stronghold is less formal than our own, MARKSBURG. 259 for Marksburg Castle has only one square tower at one corner of the building, instead of one at each of its four corners like Dover, and the other angles of the walls are bossed above with battlements, while, below, the chateau is girt with a double rampart-wall, one raised on the other, and the two serving as a handsome pedestal for the principal pile. The ascent to the ancient stronghold is by a path at the side of the hill, and to reach this you have to pass along the lane-like streets, and under the old-fashioned archways of the town of Braubach, which is -built partly beside the river, and partly in the deep cradle-like hollow between Marksburg and the neighbouring hills. That part of the village of Braubach which lies between the hills would seem to have been built on either side of a brook, that, as the name implies, once flowed down the valley behind it* for the houses have all the ir- regular character of village dwellings erected beside some little stream while at the end of the town towards the valley there stands an old martello-like tower, such as almost every Rhine city can boast Hence you have to thread your way through long and narrow alleys, until you reach the foot of the hill-side, and then the ascent to the castle is pleasant enough along the zig- zag path, for at each step you take the Rhine opens up once more its wondrous charms to you. Then, as you near the old stronghold, you catch sight of the bright brass about the helmet of the sentry twinkling as he paces to and fro in front of the castle-gate, and see the military caps of the soldiers within, peeping from between the notches in the castellated walls for Marksburg is now garrisoned by a corps of invalids. * Brau-lach signifies the " Breiver's Brook," though, from the dyers' houses existing thereat the present day, the name may be a corruption of Blau-bach, the "Dyer's Brook," which is the title of one of the streets in Cologne where the cloth-dyers formerly lived. 260 THE RHINE SLOPES AND THE THREE CASTLES. The date of the foundation of the castle is unknown ; it was originally styled the Castle of Braubach, but the Count of Katzenelnbogen is said to have built a chapel here in 1437, which he dedicated to St. Mark, and afterwards the strong- hold was called St. Mark's Castle, or, in German, Marks-burg.* In 1651 it became the property of Hesse ^Darmstadt, and in 1803 passed over to the duchy of Nassau, by which govern- ment it is now occasionally used as a state-prison. On entering the gateway, how different it all seems from Stolzenfels the newly French-polished " schloss" that we have lately left ! The court-yard is skirted with old tumble-down sheds, that are littered with the stock of wood which is to serve for the winter fuel of the military invalids quartered there ; and as you follow at the heels of the old corporal, who is habited in a long grey great-coat like a duffle dressing-gown, and carries a bunch of large keys that jangle as he goes, the soldier, in his brown-holland groom-like jacket, under the shed, stops sawing at the logs before him, so as to have a good look at the fresh party of visitors ; and farther down, by the outhouses beyond the gate, there are some half-dozen of the invalid corps, who have come out in their slippers to have a stare also, whilst by the time we have reached the staircase we are joined by a tall foxy-looking private, whose red mousta- chios hang down from the corners of his mouth positively as long and bushy as squirrels' tails. " This," says our guide, when he has thrown back a heavy * We would suggest, however, that Marks-burg was so called from its being one of the border castles, for this is the literal meaning of the German word ; and we have seen in the account of the Konigs-stuhl, that Braubach, in the middle ages, formed one of the boundaries of the possessions of the Counts Palatine of the Rhine indeed, the ancient Palatinate commenced at Marksburg and ended at Lorchhausen. The castle thus was, doubtlessly, the residence of the Mark- graf, or, " Lord -Marcher," as we should say the noble whose duty it was to guard the marches, or borders of the Count Palatine's territory, from aggression. MARKSBURG. 261 door massive as that to an iron safe in the first passage within the castle, " was the prison of the German Emperor Henry IV." The gloomy vault into which we are ushered is like a cellar. The walls are bare and ochred, and there is only a rude, little, conical chimneyplace sunk in one corner of the apartment, while, facing it, is a mere port-hole of a window set in a recess no bigger than an embrasure. On one side of this is a small stone slab projecting from the thick wall, and intended to serve as a rude seat near the casement. " Here, your grace,"* says the old corporal, "Henry IV. was imprisoned for two years of his life. The German princes had risen in rebellion against him, and elected in his place his brother-in-law, Rudolph, duke of Swabia. Yes, my lord is right," he continues ; " Henry was a brave man, and slew Rudolph afterwards in single combat at Meresberg, in Saxony ; for, when Rudolph was about to cut the Emperor down, Henry, with one stroke of his sabre, severed his right hand from the arm through the coat-of-mail that covered it, and then thrust the usurper through the body. ' That,' said the dying Rudolph repentantly, on being shown his lost limb, f is the hand which I pledged when I swore fealty to the Emperor.' Ah, your grace ! I often read about Henry's troubled life here, for we have a good bit of spare time, and living on the spot where the old monarch was confined makes one like to know all about him. Besides," he added, laughing, " I have a num- ber of odd questions put to me by the visitors, and one doesn't like to appear ignorant." "No, that I wouldn't, your lordship," replies the soldier, in answer to a question from us ; "I wouldn't like to have exchanged places with Henry, great emperor as he was, for he * Euer gnaden (literally, your grace, or your honour) is a common mode of address to Englishmen by the peasants of Germany. 202 THE RHINE SLOPES AND THE THREE CASTLES. must have seen more misery in his lifetime than most men. Why, you know,'' proceeds the chatty old man, " it was he whom I 'ope Gregory VII. 'the HeUbrandJ as some called him in a joke upon his name compelled to Avalk barefoot from the castle of Ifambach that's up in Rhenish Bavaria, above Mannheim all the way to Rome, and to stand at his door, with naked feet, for three days, in the depth of winter, before he would grant him his pardon. Ah ! that same Pope Gre- gory must have been a stern and powerful pontiff, indeed, though he was nothing but the son of a blacksmith at first to have been able to have humbled in such a way such a man as Henry was. Then, I dare say my lord remembers how Henry was treated by his sons. Why, there was first his eldest boy, Conrad, who tried to usurp the throne from him, and was even elected emperor by the Swabians in his father's stead ; but the old monarch conquered the rebels before long, and forced the traitors, with the young usurper at their head, to fly before his troops ; and then Conrad was declared guilty of high treason, and deprived of his future right to the throne though that, to be sure, was of little matter to the youth, for he died a year or two afterwards at Florence. " Then again, you know, your grace," chatters on the grey-headed keeper, delighted to have an opportunity of telling all he had read on the subject, " there was the Em- peror's other boy and the one he loved best who was also set on by the Pope to rise in rebellion against him ; and that seems nearly to have broken the old Emperor's heart No wonder, either ! for I am sure it would mine, to have seen one's own flesh and blood the little urchin that you had fondled and watched over when a child take arms against you, and try to have your life and all you possessed in the world." " Very true, Mr. Count," adds the soldier ; " we live in different times now-a-days, but that doesn't prevent one MARKSBURG. 263 feeling for poor old Henry the Fourth ; for, though some do say he was a bad man and he certainly seems to have treated his two wives in a way that was far from right still he was very good to all that were in want ; and we are told he used to have the sick poor into his own castle and tend them him- self till they were well. Yes, and no doubt, as your grace says, he is made out a bit worse than he really was on account of his quarrels with the heads of the Church in those days. " Ah ! many a time, when I have been reading about his meeting with his son, young Henry, at Coblenz, I have found my eyes tingling again I'm not ashamed to say it, soldier as I am, for I am a father myself; and when I've come to the part where the old king threw himself into his rebellious boy's arms, and wept upon his bosom, I've had the tears start into my own eyes ; and yet I've felt so angry at the deceitfulness of the young prince, that I could have struck him down that I could if I'd only been beside him at the time; for I knew well enough it was all a make-believe on Prince Henry's part, and that he merely wanted to lure his father up to Mayence, where he had arranged for the archbishops and the troops to be ready assembled against their coming. And when he got his old father to the castle of Klopp at Bingen, why, what did the deceitful young hypocrite do, but let the Archbishops of Coin and Mainz loose upon him and that was on Christmas- day, of all days in the year for such a deed, in 1105; and then they and the troops tore the royal robes from the poor king's back, and proclaimed his treacherous son Emperor in his stead. Moreover, because the resolute old monarch refused to give up the crown and sceptre, which were kept at the castle of Hammerstein that's a little below Andernach, your grace the son had his father imprisoned in the stronghold of Bockelheim, which is on the banks of the Nahe, near Bingen, and kept the dethroned old king there till he had forced them 264 THE RHINE SLOPES AND THE THREE CASTLES. from him. After this, the poor exiled monarch was compelled to retire to Liege; and some books do say, the old broken- spirited and broken-hearted man wanted, in his last days, for the necessaries of life though his own son, Mr. Count, was on the throne. Even when the deposed Emperor died, too, the heads of the Church refused to permit him, to be buried in consecrated ground, because the excommunication of the Pope had never been removed from him during his life; and it wasn't till his corpse had lain five years in the little chapel of St. Afra that he was allowed to be interred in the cathedral at Spires, where his tomb is now to be seen. There's a life for you, Mr. Count ! It is said that Henry IV. had only one friend through all his troubles, and that was the Duke of Bohemia ; and that every one else, archbishops and even his own children, after they had feigned repentance and pledged their faith to him, turned against him, in order that they might obtain what he possessed." " Yes, your grace may well say that ; for when one has read of the many sufferings of this brave old monarch," says the corporal ; " (and even his bitterest enemies cannot deny that he was a man of great courage, as well as great kindness to the poor) this prison-chamber, where he passed two years of his wretched life, is. as interesting a place as you will find anywhere. The story that is handed down among us at the castle here, is, that the king used to sit there upon that little stone bench by the window, for hours looking through the bars out upon the Rhine and the beautiful country that had been wrested from him. " So ! he used to sit, we are told, Mr. Count," said the old soldier, as he put himself in the traditional attitude of the royal prisoner. The corporal's elbow was placed on the sill of the small square window, and his cheek rested in the hollow of his palm, MARKSBURG. 265 while his body was bent forward, so as to look well down upon the bright flood beneath. It was a beautiful picture to behold made doubly interesting by the associations of the place, for the light streamed into the dark room almost with the silver-grey tint of moonlight, and fell full upon one side of the old soldier's face and figure, while the other half of his frame was nearly black with the rich dark shadow that chequered it ; so that, in the dusk of the chamber, you might have fancied you saw the old king seated there, envying the liberty of the bright waters that flowed beneath him. " In Henry's time," .continued the soldier, " there used to be three windows to the room, but two of them were long ago blocked up." By this time we had grown so intimate with our chatty and well-informed military guide, that the ramble through the ancient castle became a source of deep interest to us. From King Henry's prison-chamber he led us across an old barn-like loft, which was so dimly lighted that we trod the creaking boards with that peculiar dread with which one always walks along strange and dark passages, and we had heard enough of the human "dog-holes" of Marksburg to fancy that we might stumble into one of them as we went. Thus we came to cramped and winding alleys, and steep tunnel-like flights of steps, that seemed to be the ascent to some rude belfry ; and when we had groped our way a few feet up these there was a projecting ledge of stone, and we had to twist sharply round from the stairs on to it to reach the dismal chamber called the " Hund-locli " (dog-hole). Here it was so dark at first, that, on entering, our eyes (which had been dazzled by the rays that flashed across us for a moment as we clambered into the place) were unable to distinguish a single object round about, and even now we can scarcely recall the size and shape of the wretched vault. After 266 THE BIIINE SLOPES AND THE THREE CASTLES. a time, however, we began to make out the bits of brass on the soldier's uniform, and to tell whereabouts our guide was standing. Presently we w r ere able to discover, close beside the old corporal, a beam that slanted up on end, like a crane projecting from the ground, and having a rude windlass at- tached to its base. This was the apparatus, the veteran told us, by which those who were condemned to confinement and indeed death (for the one seemed but the necessary consequence of the other) in the " dog-hole," were let down into the pit below. Then our guide lifted up a broad trap in the floor, and as we stood at the edge and craned our neck over the terrible opening we could see, by the light that struggled in below through the single chink no bigger than a musket-slit in the wall and which fell in a faint blue patch at the bottom, that the hole was like a large well thirty feet deep the old soldier said it was though it seemed to us, in the thick gloom which pervaded it, to be as deep as if one were looking down into the tube of some martello-tower sunk in the rock. Into this pit the wretched prisoners were lowered from the rude crane above, and the old man made the windlass whirl round and rattle again, in order to realise to us the rate at which they were shot into it. By the same means the food was let down to the victims for the few weeks or days that human existence could hold out in such a place. We could not help thinking of the "good old times," as they are called, as we peered down into the black dismal well, and thanking our stars that we lived in days when the " nobles" troubled their heads with other things than ingenious schemes for the torture of those who objected to be plundered by them. We hear fine things of the knights of old, but stern history teaches us that these same knights were on the shores of the Rhine at least unmitigated bandits or highwaymen fellows who would have swung upon the gal- MARKSBURG. 267 lows-tree in less "romantic" times; while many of the ancient counts those fine old families from whom the modern " su- perior classes" love to date their extraction were a mere band of pirates sallying forth from their castles to plunder the merchant-vessels on their way. Indeed, it would have been strange if, in times when might alone was right, those who ruled the others were not the most ferocious and dishonest of the whole community; for, creating nothing themselves, they and their vassals could subsist merely by plundering the more industrious and peaceable, or else by forcing those whom they had subjugated to yield to them, as so-called "rights of tenure," the greater*portion of their produce.* From the "dog-hole" we had to ascend a narrow spiral tube for staircase it could not be called hewn in the stone- work of the principal tower, and this was so pitch-dark that it seemed positively as if we were walking into a wall of solid jet in the thick blackness of the gloom : thus we reached the small square platform on the top of the tall tower itself, and * " We have before alluded," says Mr. Dunham, in his History of the Ger- manic Empire, "to the predatory habits of the German nobles; and never, per- haps, were they so conspicuous as during the Franconian period (1024-1138). The castles, which were built on almost every eminence, were garrisoned with men who were obliged to procure their subsistence from the surrounding country ; even the troops in those belonging to the emperors had the same permission ; and the excesses committed by these Imperial banditti were one of the causes that led to the frequent revolt of a large province. That the example set by the em- perors was imitated by the inferior lords that robbers, under the name of knights, laid waste the surrounding country and that the professed bandits who served a particular chief were hardly more licentious than the legitimate defenders of the place, are facts that meet us at every stage of history." P. 177, vol. i. " Again," the same gentleman says, p. 182, " a knight was, at the end of the eleventh century, but another word for bandit, and a count or duke, or even king, the chief of bandits. The only consolation of the sufferers lay in their belief of a retributive justice. They held that, after death, every robber-knight was compelled to wander over the earth enveloped in burning flames ; and super- stition gravely affirmed, that fiery horsemen might be seen by night flying through the gloom of the forest. 268 THE RHINE SLOPES AM) THE THREE CASTLES. there all the glories of the Rhine burst suddenly upon the eyes in an almost blinding flood of light and colour. The scene was indescribably grand and beautiful not only as an exquisite relief to the utter darkness of the passage we had mounted, and which served to give a tenfold brilliance and vividness to the tints of the mountains, the plains, the valleys, and the river, but because the past sights, connected as they were with the very devilry of man's nature, made this exquisite bit of God's bounty flung over the earth seem like passing out of some human hell into all the loveliness and repose of a bright Eden land. From the tower top we descended to the " Folter-Kammer? (the Rack Chamber), and this was almost as dark as the " dog- hole" we had previously visited. Here, too, it was some time before we could acquire the owl-like use of our eyes. The chamber then appeared to be longer and narrower than the cell above the dog-hole. The rack that once formed the only furniture of the room had been removed some few years ago, the corporal told us, to Wiesbaden, though our guide once more expressed in graphic pantomime the action of the barbarous instrument. First he flung his arms round just above the ground, as he told us the wheel was made to re- volve upon the floor; then he stretched his hands and limbs far out till his body assumed almost the shape of a cross, and it was in that position, he said, that the wretched victims were corded to the spokes ; and lastly, he beat the air with an imaginary club, to teach us how " the fine old aristocracy" delighted to mash the bones and flesh of those who had displeased them. Few who read these lines can have a sense of the awful horror inspired by this place, for it needs the presence of the gloomy rack-chamber itself to picture the scene of torture so vividly before the mind's eye, that the very heart feels MARKSBURG. 269 sick, and the blood runs cold, at the fiendish reality of the scene. Thence we passed into the ancient " Speis-Kammer" (Dinner Chamber), and this was so rude in its construction, that it seemed more like some long monastic cell than a baronial banquetting-hall. After that we entered the ancient " Ritter-saal" (Knights' Hall) now the state-prison of the duchy of Nassau ; here the old hall had been partly walled off, so as to form a small, and after the other chambers not very unpleasant-looking apartment : it was destitute of all furniture, however, like the rest of the rooms, and utterly devoid of ornament, the walls being merely ochre-washed, so as to form a striking contrast in their bareness and sim- plicity with the modern Ritter-saal at Stolzenfels. The only remarkable feature about it, indeed, was, the bay-window at one side of it, which was as spacious as if it were an ante- room. Adjoining the Ritter-saal was another strong room, and the white walls of this were covered with rude frescoes f drawn by the prisoners who had been, within the last century, inmates of the place. These were similar in execution to the sketches which used, years ago, to decorate the walls of our own debtors' prisons. Some of the pictures consisted of figures of warriors and princes, while others were of a ludicrous rather than a chivalrous nature; such as wooden-legged fiddlers with dancing countrymen, and publicans with cans of beer : beside these was a man riding on a goat, together with escutcheons bearing the arms of some of those who had been incarcerated in the cell. Moreover, there were inscriptions a few of which were in verse recording the imprisonment of the writers at different periods. This ended all that was to be seen within the castle itself ; but before we quitted we were led to the ramparts in front of 270 THE RHINE SLOPES AND THE THREE CASTLES. the chateau, to be shown the several old cannon that had been taken in battle from foreign powers. Here was one with the initial " N " embossed upon the breech, and this had been car- ried off from Waterloo ; another a fine old piece of ordnance was a trophy won from Gustavus of Sweden ; while the others were ancient German guns. And wh*>n we had finished examining these we were informed that here ended the series of curiosities to be seen at the interesting old castle of Marks- burg the only Rhine castle, indeed, which is an unaltered type of the medieval stronghold. 3. THE BROTHER CASTLES Lielemtein and Stemfels. The well-made road by the river from Niederspay to Boppard runs so close alongside the Rhine, that, for the journey to Liebenstein, it affords a pleasing change to the steamboat excursions to return from Marksburg to the opposite shore thence to continue the drive on to the ferry which faces the village of Kamp and there to ascend on foot to the ruins of the twin-castles. Between Niederspay and Boppard the Rhine bends and re- bends so sharply round as to describe the figure of an 8, Marksburg being situate at the lower end, and Liebenstein at the upper end of the letter. The mountain chain on the op- posite shore to Niederspay has once more drawn in close to the river; and just beyond Marksburg the hills are beautifully rounded and detached, as if they were so many huge earth bladders. The Rhine land-bubbles are at this point exqui- THE BROTHER-CASTLES. 271 sitely handsome in form, and the openings between them are wooded with tall poplars, which shoot up so high and straight, that, viewed from the opposite side of the stream, they seem like the spray from so many fountains playing high into the air. When we have passed the little village of Oberspay, which lies at the first bend of the river, the white castle of Lie- beneck is seen glistening on top of one of the opposite hills, with the autumn -tin ted oak wood below rising about it like clouds of lurid smoke, while close beside the shore at its feet stretches the little village of Osterspay* with its freshly- built white church, bright as a new shilling, at one end, and its mud-walled cottages at the other. The hills beyond this point give place to another broad edging of rich alluvial meadow-lands, while those on our own side of the Rhine now rise so close to the water, that we have to bend back our head to see the tops of them ; and at the end of the road they stand up like huge wedges of rock, with exquisite ravines cleft between their sides. In a few minutes after this we reach the upper bend of the S-shaped stream; and as we round the point, building after building of the ancient town of Boppard f comes peeping into * The name Osters-pay would seem to be a corruption of Osten, or Osten's- pass, afterwards abbreviated into Osten' 's-pay or Oster's-pay that is to say, it means simply the Eastern-pass ; for not only does the river just below Boppard bend sharply round towards the east, but this part of the stream is called " Der Pass," owing to the navigable channel of the Rhine becoming here considerably narrowed. In the same manner Nieder's-pay meant the lower pass, and Ober's- pay the pass immediately above the lower one. The introduction of the s in the middle, as if it were the genitive case, and the dropping of the same letter at the end (as in the French pas), are quite consistent with the grammatical habits of the peasants. t Boppard was in ancient times called Baudo-briga, of which name the modern title is a corruption. The old name, Baudo-briga, seems to be merely a barbarous mode of writing the words Bau' -die-Briicke, which literally mean Build-the -bridge ; so that the ancient title of the place would imply that a built 272 THE lUFINE SLOPES AND THE THREE CASTLES. view. First, a row of yellow mud-walled cottages shoots into sight then the grey and cylindrical Romer-thurm (Roman tower) part of the old town walls appear; and next pops out the Carmeliter-kirche (Carmelite's Church), with its tiny belfry turret set like a mere pinnacle at the end of its roof. After this the fortress-like wall, with its picturesque gateways close beside the water, starts into view; and soon the tall, square, double towers of the Pfarr-kirche (parish church), with a gallery joining the two crayon -point -like steeples, that reminds you of the band uniting the Siamese twins; and lastly, the church-like donjon-turret at the water's edge, right at the end of the town ; while, perched up on the hill-side behind, you see the long front of the old convent of Marienberg. Indeed the approach to Boppard in this direction is as pretty a sight as there is upon the Rhine, for the little town itself is more like a museum of antiquities than a village of the 19th century ; and it is a rare delight to behold it unfold itself, bit by bit, to your eye its ancient Templars' house its old Bayer-house its many antiquated cloisters and watch-towers with the little village of Filzen on the oppo- site shore, at the foot of the sloping hill all bursting forth in quick succession, as if it were some exquisite dioramic scene gliding swiftly past the sight. bridge (of stone or wood) formerly existed here ; this was probably erected by the Romans, who are known to have constructed such works across the Rhine at Engers and Cologne. Above Bacharach there is a small village called Die- bach (literally, tbe brook), and then to distinguish one Diebach from another we find the terms Rhein-diebach and Ober-diebach, (that is, the Diebach by the Rhine and the Upper Diebach). In the same way Boppard may have originally been styled Die-briicke, and then called Bau-diebriicke, either to distinguish it from another Die-briicke, or so as to signify that a built bridge was an extraordinary work. According to the old " notitia imperii," belonging to tbe 12th century, the " Prefects militum ballixtariorum" had his residence in Boppard, whilst the tiles found in the neighbourhood show that the 13th Roman legion used this town- as their winter quarters. THE BROTHER-CASTLES. 273 Some half mile farther on we reach the ferry over to Kamp, a village that was once a Roman Castrum, but which now consists of a mere string of houses set on a raised bank, a little way back from the shore. Thence the road to Lieben- stein lies through a long meadow by the river-side, planted thick with walnut-trees. The Rhine here is so closely pent up in its mountains, that it reminds one strongly of the lake of Buttermere. At the end of the walnut avenue we reach the little village of Bornhofen, of which only the convent is at first visible, standing close at the foot of the camel-like rock, on whose two humps above rest the ruins of the Brother-castles we are about to visit. The edge of this mountain, as you approach it from Kamp, is like a huge broken flight of steps leading to the clouds. The little convent below, jiitting from the nave of the church at the entrance of the narrow ravine, resembles an alms-house more than a Kloster, and the precipitous rock rises directly at its back like an immense massive iron wall. You have to turn sharp round here, and shoot into the deep cleft of the dingle that leads, by a winding road, to the ruins above; and as you pass under the spacious cloistered portico of the convent church you are startled to find a small village beyond it, with telescopic stories to its toy-like cottages, and a hideous little image of a saint carrying a large street-door key all squeezed into a mere cranny, as it were, of the ad- jacent mountains. The walk along the ravine is marvellously beautiful, for the rocks rise so close on either side of you, that as you look up you can see but a mere strip of the blue sky, like a line of light showing through some crack overhead, while the huge crags seem toppling down, as if the sixth seal had opened and the heavens were raining rock upon the earth. T 274 THE RHINE SLOPES AND THE THREE CASTLES. Then, down in the narrow channel at the bottom, you see the little brook tumbling over the stones in many a wraith of snow; and when you lose sight of it amid the overhanging trees you can still, as you mount, hear it singing, like some sea-shell, in your ear. On Hearing the ruins, the hollabaloo made by a little house-cur, that runs out and perches himself on a shelf of the bank above your head, where he keeps barking away with his nose in the air as you come up the path, tells you that the summit of the rock is inhabited ; and, a few steps higher up, some peasant children come scampering, like so many goats, down the crags, to stare at the strangers. Then, on turning off towards the summit, we find a little rude farm-house, built, as it were, out of the stones from the castle ruins, which are piled, grotto-fashion, loosely upon one another; and on the high steps before the door here sits the dame, binding into fagots the wood that lies all in a litter upon the ground about her. As we pass the neighbouring outhouse, too, we catch sight of the peasant lad through the open door, with a billhook in his gauntletted hand, busy cutting the long moss-covered branches into sticks. The ruins of Liebensteiri lie at the back of the modern homestead ; and some hundred paces in front of them, towards the Rhine, stand those of Sternfels. The one castle is con- nected with the other by a sharp chine of rock, which lies below the twin-summits; so that the double hunch upon which the ancient strongholds stand give you, as we have said before, a sense of their being borne on some monster camel's back. Liebenstein must have been at one time a powerful and spacious " Burg," for the area marked out by the ruins as the site of the ancient castle is as large as some crater lake, and the tall slabs of walls, that are still left standing, gird the THE BROTHER-CASTLES. 275 summit in a broken ring, so as to remind you, at the first rough glance, somewhat of the inner Druid circle at Stonehenge; and yet, when you come to examine them, the one has no real resemblance to the other, for at Liebenstein the remains con- sist of mere shells of towers, broken off short at the top and left standing in large detached fragments at different points of the compass, and in different stages of decay. The tower at the corner towards the Rhine, and the nearest to Sternfels, is almost perfect, and looks like some square old church-turret, whose aisles and nave have crumbled away; while at one side of it is built the farmer's cattle-shed, with its sloping roof pro- jecting from the walls like a large, rude buttress. At some little distance from this point, and turned towards the pretty village of Salzig (so famous for its cherries), on the opposite shore, three sides of an old tower stump are still to be seen, so close at the brink of the rock that they seem as if they were part of the hollow trunk of some monster petrified tree that had once grown out of the crags ; while on the other side of the hill-top there rises, facing this, a huge mound of rock, crested with the mere husk, as it were, of another turret-shaft, but so much higher than the rest that it is plain this one originally formed the principal tower of the castle. These, with a small block of wall that overhangs the edge at the farthest point from the Rhine, are all that now remain to tell of the donjons, and the bastions, and the rampart-walls of the once powerful chateau of Liebenstein. The ruins of Sternfels cover a similar extent of ground, and afford but a mere dreamy trace, as it were, of the ancient stronghold. As you stand at the edge of Liebenstein and look towards the Brother-castles you can see two massive plates of walls, one built behind and rising above the other ; and though almost all vestige of their original outline has crumbled away, you can still make out, by the indented bits still standing here 276 THE UHINT. SLOPES AND THE THREE CASTLES. and there along the top, that they were originally castellated: so that the sight of them impresses you with a notion that they once formed part of some strong ramparts, which had been raised as a protection against the inmates of the neighbouring citadel. Tradition says, that the outer of thesek walls was origi- nally built high enough to shut out all view of the one castle from the other, though, at the present day, the remains of the tower-shaft of Sternfels is seen peeping above them both. It is impossible to regard these twin-ruins without a feeling of strange interest, for you can see plainly enough that, upon the double summit of this hiijh rock, there once stood two O * powerful strongholds, with a mere neck of crag to separate them, and the one apparently fortified against attacks from the other ; so that the mind naturally feels a strong desire to get at the heart of the mystery. Why should two knights, between whom so little amity existed that it was necessary to run up fortress-walls to protect the one from the other, have had their castles in such close neighbourhood? or, if they once communed in friendship, what gave rise -to the feud that made Sternfels live in continual dread of attack from Lieben- stein ? Those double ramparts before the one assuredly sug- gest that the lord of the other bore his neighbour no particular love; and, accordingly, the mystic German mind has created another of those curious Rhine -tales, by which it loves to express the sentiment begotten by the various mountain ruins. How truly the legend of the Dom-Kirche shadowed the doom that one could not help feeling overhung the Cologne cathedral! With what aptness, too, the grim and monster- like character of the Drachenfels was typified in the myth of its Dragon's Cave ! Then the tender history of the loves of THE BROTHER-CASTLES. 277 " kiihn Roland und schon Hildegund " served to give dramatic life and utterance to the very feeling created by the sight of the lovely ruined arch of Rolandseck for ever watching over the pretty little island nunnery below. Even so is the emotion which is called up in the mind on beholding the twin-castles of Liebenstein and Sternfels with the rampart-walls between them to fortify the one against the other as gracefully ren- dered in the following legendary romance of In the thirteenth century the castles of Liebenstein and Sternfels belonged to the noble Bayer von Boppard. The Stammhaus of the Bayers is still to be seen, standing in the town from which the family took its title. The most illustrious member of the Bayer family was the ally of the Emperor Rodolph, count of Hapsburg, in the destruction of the many robber-nests of the Rhine. It was Bayer von Boppard who assisted Rodolph in exterminating the bandit knights that, in the year 1280, infested the castle of Falkenburg, near Bingen; it was he, too, who aided the Emperor in his attack upon the castles of the brigand Counts within the ravine of Jacobsberg, who for years had been the terror of the town of Boppard; and it was he who attacked the pirate Counts of Isenburg, whose robber-castle still stands at the end of the valley of the Sayn, and whence the nobles used to sally forth and plunder the merchants on the Rhine. Now, the noble old Heinrich Bayer had educated and brought up with his two. sons, Heinrich and Conrad, a young orphan girl, named Hildegard Bromser, belonging to the illus- trious family of Riidesheim, to whom the Graff of Boppard was nearly related. The brothers were some years older than Hildegard herself, and having been reared with them as a sister, they had both grown to regard her with fraternal 278 THE RHINE SLOPES AND THE THREE CASTLES. affection ; for the retired mountain life she had continually passed with her cousins, coupled with the simplicity of her manners and the innocence of her heart, had created hi both of their bosoms a pure and generous attachment to their orphan playmate; and when the years of childhood had passed, and Hildegard had grown to be a blooming maiden, the youths could not avoid seeing how highly she surpassed, both in personal and mental attractions, all the damsels of the neigh- bouring castles and surrounding towns. Heinrich and Conrad both inherited their father's chival- rous disposition, and the same desire to distinguish themselves, as he had done, by their bravery; but in no other point did the two boys resemble one another. Heinrich, the eldest, was grave, thoughtful, and almost taciturn ; if he were long in forming an opinion, his decision of character was, at least, the more marked when he had determined upon his course, for then it was difficult to divert him from his purpose. Conrad, on the other hand, was of a more lively and hasty character surrendering himself to the impressions of the mere moment, and prepossessing all in his favour by the frankness and cordiality of his manners. Hildegard Bromser grew to attach herself to Heinrich, with a deep respect for the sterling worth of his character; for in the grave but kind-hearted youth she always found a valued friend and excellent adviser, and a warm eulogist of her many virtues to the old Count; whilst Heinrich daily felt that the impression made upon him by his orphan cousin sank deeper and deeper into his heart, and that her image blended itself in his mind with all his projects for the future. To Conrad, however, the feelings of Hildegard were of a warmer and tenderer nature. She had not, perhaps, in her heart, the same high esteem for him as she felt for his more THE BROTHER-CASTLES. 279 thoughtful brother. Still the more emotional character of Conrad's disposition, and the greater vivacity of his spirits, caused her to entertain towards him feelings that she had, as yet, scarcely learnt to avow to herself: while the impulsive Conrad followed her steps with every look, and not only gave up all the gaieties of youth, but renounced all society for the sake of being near her. At length, Heinrich, who had long noticed that the cheeks of Hildegard were suffused with blushes, and that her eyes were unable to meet Conrad's gaze w r hen he was by her side, became convinced that the being whom he loved better than all the world, and without whom he could frame no scheme of life, was really devoted to his brother; and though it cost him many a day's struggle, he at length determined to sacri- fice his own happiness for ever in favour of those who were most dear to him: for, after Hildegard, he loved Conrad more than any worldly thing. Accordingly, Heinrich spake first with his brother, and then with Hildegard, when she, encouraged by Heinrich's generosity, overcame her maiden timidity and frankly avowed to him her secret love for his brother. Heinrich had now gained a dear-bought victory over the deepest feelings of his own nature ; and though, when the strugsle was over, he felt an inward pride at the sacrifice he had made, nevertheless he could obtain little consolation for the loss he had voluntarily incurred. So, finding that the wounds in his heart became deeper each day that he continued near Hildegard, and fearing that his passion might eventually con- quer his self-denial, he thought it more prudent to seek repose in some distant land, and diversion in a busy and active life. Most grateful, therefore, to Heinrich, was the appeal of St. Bernard de Clairvaux, calling upon all Christian knights 280 THE RHLN'E SLOPES AND THE THREE CASTLES. to join the holy army in a new crusade against the infidels ; and ere many days had elapsed he declared his intention of quitting the castle for Palestine with the first band of knights. Before leaving, however, he confessed to his father the real motive of his departure, and obtained his promise, that he would raise no obstacle to the union of Hildegard with his brother Conrad ; and the morning after this the generous youth quitted Liebenstein, with a few faithful retainers, on his way to Frankfort, where the warriors were to assemble. The old knight, who well knew the dispositions of his two sons, would have preferred that his adopted child, Hilde- gard, had chosen the more generous and self-denying Heinrich for her partner through life; but the Count was unwilling to interfere in any way with the free choice of his orphan charge, so he gave his blessing to them both, and told Hilde- gard that he should be proud of the day when the marriage- rites should make her really a child of his own. He added, however, that it was his intention to erect a castle on the summit of the adjoining mountain, in order that she and Conrad might dwell near him, and that even when death had taken him from them, and the castle of Liebenstein had passed into Heinrich's possession, Conrad and Hildegard might still possess that of Sternfels, and the family thus remain for ever united. But before the castle of Sternfels was finished the old Count was seized with a fatal sickness, and scarcely was the principal tower raised, when death denied him the long- wished-for joy of seeing Conrad and Hildegard wedded. This sad event was the cause of the marriage being de- layed for another year; so Conrad, whose heart had grown sick with hope deferred, at length got to seek distraction in the dissolute company of the young nobles of the neighbour- hood, whc laughed at him as a love-sick swain ; whilst Conrad THE BROTHER-CASTLES. 281 began to find less and less delight in Hildegard's company, and to grow more inclined for the pleasures of the table and the chase. At length the news from the East brought accounts of the valiant deeds done in Palestine by Heinrich. The tidings made a deep impression upon Conrad. Though he did not envy his brother the glory he had won, he reproached himself with passing his days in listless inaction, whilst others were reaping honour in the wars against the infidel. The amiable Hildegard soon discovered that Conrad suffered from some secret cause of grief, and great was her agony of mind when she learnt from him that he longed to join his brother in the wars. Vain, however, were the tears of his betrothed ; for the idea of joining the Crusade was this moment conceived by the impulsive Conrad, and the next moment acted upon : so that soon he was seen with his re- tainers departing from the castle along the same road that Heinrich had passed before him. Hildegard passed her days at the now lonely castle of Liebenstein, brooding in silence over her melancholy lot ; for though she entertained no doubt of Conrad's affection, she knew well his desire for glory, and she wept bitterly over the uncertainty of his return. Months passed thus, when, one summer evening/ Hilde- gard stood on the tower of Liebenstein gazing, as was her custom, over the wide extent of country that was thence visible, for the return of her beloved Conrad, when, to her surprise, she saw a company of travellers and beasts of burden, laden with heavy baggage, ascending the road beside the dingle. She watched them mount the hill, and then, as they neared the summit, she beheld them turn off by the road to Sternfels, where they entered the gates of the uninhabited castle. 282 THE RHINE SLOPES AND THE THREE CASTLES. " Who could be insolent enough," she asked herself, " to enter the castle of her adopted father in the absence of Hein- rich and Conrad?" The retinue could belong to neither of them, for they would have made Liebenstein their home, rather than have sought an asylum away from her. Accordingly she summoned one of the -vassals of Lieben- stein, and bade him learn who had dared to enter the gates of Sternfels without first seeking her permission. The answer was as a thunderbolt to her. Conrad, they said, had come back from the war against the Saracens with a Grecian bride of exquisite beauty, and was about to return on the morrow to Sternfels, which he had chosen for his residence. Nevertheless, Hildegard could scarcely credit what she heard, and in her agony, jealousy, and impatience, she waited the coming of the time that was to give her assurance of the truth or falsity of the rumour. From the earliest dawn the next day Hildegard watched upon the tower-top of Liebenstein ; and when the bells at Boppard were ringing for vespers, she beheld a band of men- at-arms joyously marching up the hill. Her blood froze in her veins, for she could distinguish the banners of Bayer; and as she saw them approach the castle she staggered from the tower and hastened down to the ramparts, in order that she might the better scan the face of each that passed towards Sternfels. She placed herself behind the outer wall of the castle, so that, from the short distance between the strongholds, she could plainly distinguish the features of all in the train. There, as she stood watching with bated breath, she beheld her own Conrad pass in triumphal entry towards the gates of Sternfels, with a bright-eyed and black-haired damsel by his side, who merrily smiled on all around. THE BROTHER-CASTLES. 283 Conrad would have cast a glance towards the neighbour- ing castle of Liebenstein, but he was unwilling to disturb the pleasure he felt beside his lovely bride by the least remem- brance of the past. Then followed banquet upon banquet. Music, and songs of rejoicing, were heard every day in the castle of Sternfels ; and the hall of the stronghold was filled with the crowds who came to congratulate the bride and bridegroom, and to take part in the splendid festivals. Liebenstein, however, grew to be more and more desolate and sad. Hildegard shunned the chambers from which the neighbouring castle could be seen, and, to shut out the sounds of mirth from her ears, retired to the farther tower of the castle, where she lived alone, refusing to see any one but her attendant. Long after this a strange knight came, late one evening, to demand hospitality for himself and his followers. Hildegard was not apprised till the morning that a stranger was within the castle ; and it was only when she heard that he was the bearer of news from her foster-brother, Heinrich, that she would consent to admit him into her presence, and then she was overjoyed to find that the knight was none other than Heinrich himself. The reason of his return was soon told : he had come back to Liebenstein, not because he was tired of the war, but be- cause he had heard of the melancholy union of his brother ; and the thought of the sufferings of Hildegard in her lone- liness would not permit him to rest longer away from her. Conrad, he told her, had soon found that he wanted hardihood to bear the fatigues of the Crusade, and, discovering that he could not win his honours the instant after he had joined the army, became unwilling to bear the fatigues and privations, and returned to Europe after a brief sojourn in Palestine. 284 THE HHIXE SLOPES AND THE THREE CASTLES. Then, on landing at Constantinople, he had become enamoured of a Grecian lady, and had been weak enough to ally himself to one of whose ancestry nothing was known forgetting at the same time the faith that he had pledged in his own country. When Heinrich heard that his brother had been so wanting in good feeling as to bring his bride to the very threshold of his foster-sister, to whom he had been formerly betrothed, and when, moreover, the generous youth beheld the sad inroads that misery had made upon the beauty of Hildegard, he was overcome with indignation, and vowed to avenge the wrongs of the orphan girl whom his father had taken under his protection. Heinrich knew that he had sacrificed his own happiness for that of his brother, and Hildegard, whom he fancied Conrad loved better than he ; and now the most violent resentment seized him when he saw his foster-sister spurned and almost insulted, and the sacred pledges that had been made to her trodden underfoot. Accordingly Heinrich despatched his squire to his brother, with a demand that Conrad should meet him in single combat, to answer for his having violated all the laws of chivalry as well as the oaths he had sworn to Hildegard. Conrad was thus awakened from his thoughtless intoxication by the unexpected appeal to his honour, and would willingly have avoided the encounter; but pride, and the fear of ap- pearing to lack courage in the eyes of his bride, caused him to take up the gauntlet that his brother had cast at his feet. At the break of day, upon the narrow neck of land between the two castles, stood the brother-foes, ready to break asunder every natural tie that should have existed between them. Fearful decision was marked in Heinrich's every feature, whilst Conrad, anxious to avoid his brother's gaze, conversed THE BROTHEE-CASTLES. 285 with his retainers until the signal for battle was given; for, though carried away by impetuous passions, he was not altogether devoid of shame at thus meeting one from whom, but two years before, he had parted with tears of gratitude and affection. Already the swords were drawn and the word of attack pronounced, when a veiled figure rushed between them. " What would you do ? " exclaimed the terrified Hildegard. " Oh, Heinrich ! is it for my sake that you would be the destroyer of your brother ? Ah, Conrad ! is this your return for Heinrich's generosity? Are you mad? Think of the doom which awaits both of you the victim as well as the conqueror if this unnatural contest proceeds. Put up your swords, and promise me to live in peace and happiness for the future, for in another day I shall be lost to you both for ever. Yes ; my decision is fixed. To-morrow's morn conducts me to a convent; so forgive each other: and if either of you ever bore" me the least love, let this, my last injunction to you both, be obeyed." The swords of the combatant brothers had fallen from their hands at the first sound of Hildegard's voice. Conrad, overpowered by a thousand recollections, durst not raise his eyes from the ground, but in obedience to the command placed his hand silently in that of his brother. Heinrich could not do other than accept the proffered pledge of amity, for Hildegard's wishes were to him a sacred duty. Still no friendly word accompanied this outward recon- ciliation. The following day the maiden crossed the Rhine, accom- panied by her well-tried friend and foster-brother, on her way to the convent of Marienburg, near Boppard, where, in an agony of grief, she bade adieu for ever to Heinrich, and the world which no longer had any happiness for her. 286 THE RHINE SLOPES AND THE THREE CASTLES. Then deep melancholy and profound tranquillity reigned at Liebenstein. Gay and joyous, however, was the life led at Sternfels, where the young and giddy chivalry of the neigh- bourhood assembled to feast and revel in company with the beautiful Greek. Nevertheless, peace was banished from Con- rad's breast, for he soon began to perceive N that the wayward and inconstant Grecian to whom he had linked his life found more pleasure in the society of the young knights than in his own ; nor could he confide his sorrows to his brother, for there was no communion between them. Indeed Heinrich never turned his eyes towards Sternfels, where the dissipated roys- terers amused themselves by laughing at the "monkish lord" of Liebenstein. Thus a year passed, and then one morning Conrad made his appearance, for the first time for many long months, within the walls of Liebenstein. Pale, and overcome with bitter anguish and remorse, he stood before his heart-broken brother. " The false Greek," said he, " has fled from me in the night. Whatever may have been my suspicions, her guilt, till now, was hidden from me." Heinrich had still sufficient generosity to press his early playmate to his breast, while Conrad begged to be allowed to put an end to their long estrangement, and to take up his abode for the future at Liebenstein, saying, that " Now the only consolation left him in the world was the friendship of his generous brother." From that moment the castle of Sternfels was deserted, for never more did its owner cross its desolate halls, and the brothers lived for the rest of their days in peaceful harmony and seclusion at Liebenstein. On their death the twin-castles became the heritage of the young Chevalier Bromser von Riidesheim ; and to this day THE BROTHER-CASTLES. 287 the ruins bear, in remembrance of the feud of Heinrich and Conrad, the title of " The Brothers." * * The above tradition seems to have been formed, like most of the Rhine legends, upon the mere name of the locality for the title Lieben-stein signifies Love-stone, and this, in connexion with the appellation of " gebriider" (the brothers), applied to the twin summits of the rock, has evidently given rise to the story of the two brothers being enamoured with the same maiden, while the for- tified character of Sternfels has suggested the notion of a deadly feud having existed between them. Let us see, however, what the names of Liebenstein and Sternfels really mean. In the first place, the title Sternfels (or, more correctly, Stirnfels) signifies merely the front, or /ore-part, of the rock ; the term Stirn, according to the Worterbuch, being sometimes applied to a part of a thing re- sembling the human forehead, as the front of a rock or mountain (" zuweilen ein der menschlichen Stirn dhnlicher Theil iryend eines Dinyes die Stirn eines Berges ; auf eines Felsen Stirn"). In the same manner Liebenstein (or, properly, Leibenstein) means the hinder part of the rock the word Leib signifying not only the body, but commonly the nether portion of it (besonders der Theil diesses Korpers zwischen den Armen und Beinen; gem. der Rumpf), and tbe term Bergleib being usually applied to such mountains as have double summits con- nected by a narrow ridge like the waist. Thus it is manifest that the names of Sternfels and Liebenstein (or, rather, Stirn-fels and Leiben-stein) meant originally tbe front rock and the behind stone, or literally, the head and body of that pecu- liar double mountain, which is connected by a narrow " neck" of land. The for- tress-walls about Sternfels admit of a simpler though more prosaic explana- tion than that given in the romantic love-story. This castle doubtlessly formed one of the thirty- two Rhine-tolls and watch-towers that in the middle ages were established along the banks of the German river, and which, being especially objectionable to the people, owing to the heavy duties levied by them on each passing ship, were powerfully fortified places : such was the Rheinfels near St. Goar, as well as the castle of Pfalz near Caub the latter, owing to the strength of its defences, serving in former times as a place of special security for the Countesses Palatine during their accouchements. The object of these Rhine toll- houses was to collect the imposts which the lords demanded upon the freights of all vessels passing along particular parts of the river; and it would appear that almost every feudal chieftain, whose territories joined the Rhine, possessed, in the middle ages, one or more of these same tax or toll-houses. The Duke of Nassau, however, is now the only noble who retains the barbarous privilege. Hence the fortress-walls of Sternfels were not raised us a defence against some unfriendly brother, but as a protection against the attacks of the overburdened merchants and people the one castle doubtlessly serving as the " Festung," or place of special security to retire to in case of danger, and the other as the " Residenz Schloss " of the old brigand chieftain to whom it formerly belonged. 288 THE UHIXE SLOPES AND THE THREE CASTLES. Thus we find that another of the curious Rhine legends has arisen merely from a misconception of the original meaning of the name of the place. As an instance of the ingenious stories that are framed by the Germans upon some fancied meaning of the name of a particular place, we may cite an anecdote related to us by a gentleman who had passed his youth among the priests at the village of Born-hofen. The name of this hamlet signifies the " houses by the spring " as does Muhl-hqfen the houses by the mill (hofen being the patois for hqfe, dwellings), and there being a little brook immediately at the back of the vil- lage. But this was far too simple an etymology for the father of the Born-hofen Corfvent, so he came to the conclusion that the name of the valley-village was a corruption of the words " boden-oben," which is the equivalent to our topsy- turvy; saying, " that at the time of the death of the ancient proprietor of the two castles on the rock above, and the division of the property, according to the old Teutonic custom, in equal parts, among all the members of the family who, according to his version, consisted of two sons and a blind orphan-girl, whom the bourgrave had adopted as his daughter the youths respectively filled up, as their share of the treasure, a bushel measure with the gold found stored in the castle cellars ; and then turned the vessel bottom-upwards when they came to measure out the portion of the blind girl dispensing to her, as her share, merely the small amount of coin that would lie within the shallow rim at the under part of the bushel." IX. THE UPPER RHINE GORGE. THE trip from Boppard to St. Goar for these are the places where the Rhine boats call, and which, therefore, constitute the extremes of the journey from Liebenstein to Lurlei is but an hour's run, and the scenery by the way is one con- tinuous rock-panorama. The mind, however, occupied with the grandeur of the masses on either side, fancies the passage to be much shorter than it really is. The river-side villages follow one another in such rapid succession, that scarcely has the eye finished gazing at one before another appears close on the opposite shore. Hardly have you seen enough of the pretty church at Bornliofen, with its convent outhouse hugging the base of the tall rock behind, as close as some frightened child clings to the skirt of its mother, before the opposite village of Salzig, set amid its cherry-orchards immediately next the river, and with its church perched on a mound at the back, has almost flitted from the sight. There is little, how- ever, to be seen at the latter place in the fall of the year, though in the summer-time the sight is as pretty as any on the Rhine, for then the little orchard-forest, stretching along the mossy meadows in front of the mountains, is as if hung all over with u 290 THE U1TEK K1IINE GOUGE. rubies the bright transparent red of the fruit showing in exquisite contrast beneath the green leaves; and in front of the two or three cottages close at the water's edge (for the village stretches inland) the shore is lined with barges, and the orchards alive with the villagers some busy gathering the fruit, and others carrying the crimson load in sieves, upon their white-kerchiefed heads, towards the boats that are waiting at the bankside to bear the famous Salzig fruit far down the stream even to Holland; whilst alongside the ship stands the village " headborough " (Schoppe), now seeing the fruit weighed, and now receiving the money from the boatmen that he is to divide among the peasants on the fol- lowing Sunday, after vespers.* No sooner has Salzig flashed by, than the boat rounds what the Germans call an " Eck," a sharp, craggy corner of the stream and then you. are suddenly plunged within the Rhine Gorge itself, with its huge cones of rock towering so high that the river seems like some current hurrying along a narrow ravine, while the mountains on either side are the abrupt ends of line after line of hills running down close to the Rhine, and with monster V- shaped openings between them ; so that each mass you pass looks like some immense pyramid, raised by Nature in record of the terrible convulsions which, long before history began, shook the earth here to its centre. The light, too, is half obscured by the lofty mounds, so that the same feeling of solemnity steals over the mind as in some forest glade ; and the paddles of the boat are heard to clatter upon the water with a double noise as when a train darts between * Many Rhenish villages have a peculiar fruit for which they are celebrated. Thus, Schierstein, in the Rheingau, is renowned for itsapples and pears ; Capellen, by Stolzenfels, for its strawberries ; the gardens by Coblenz are famous for their red peaches and Mirabel plums ; Sonnenberg for its apricots ; Wiesbaden for its chestnuts ; Kreutznacb for its table grapes ; the Westerwald for its mulberries, &c. THE LTJRLEI PASS. 291 the walls of a railway bridge. The river at this part appears of a different colour, and looks almost unfathomable in the depth of the reflections on either side of it. The villages, moreover, that are squeezed in, one house deep, between the rock and the water, are mostly inhabited by the miners who work in the quarries hard by, where you see the loose drift of stones streaming down the mountain -side like shingles on some shelving beach; and as you go, you can hear the clink of the hammers and the rattle of the loosened crags pouring down the cliff. Then the grauwacke rocks are split into a number of large blocks and slabs, as if the clay had been cracked by the heat of the volcanic fires ; and the lines of the strata slant steeply down to the water; the flat plates of schist seem so flakey at the edges, that you fancy you could peel them into layer after layer like so much card- board; and there is a green bloom upon their sides, that is bright as verdigris in places. i- THE LTJKLEI PASS. The Upper Rhine Gorge has two phases the one dis- tinguished by precipitous rocks, and rapid currents, and whirl- pools; the other by a long line of castle ruins, cresting almost every crag beside the stream. The former constitutes the Lurlei Pass ; the latter, the Castellated Pass. Let us proceed on our way, towards the famous rocks, reef-bank, and echo of Lurlei. 292 THE UPPER RHINE GORGE. Immediately after entering the gorge, the little village of Kester, with its white church striped with red-sandstone pillars, appears, facing the eck before-mentioned, and set on a narrow table of silt which the stream, in rounding the sharp angle of rocks just above it, has left in a small snug bay of the hills. Then, on the other side, beyond the exquisitely handsome mass of schist that faces Kester, the white village of Hirzenach ap- pears, with its ancient priory, and its church whose walls and windows are edged with pink stone ; the tiny town glistening in the dark-green niche of the hills, like the snowy blossoms of the lily of the valley peeping from out their leafy sheath. As we look back upon the twin-villages of Kester and Hirzenach, before they are snatched from our sight, the scene reminds us somewhat of the brother-towns of Erpel and Remagen, seen at a similar bend of the river in the Lower Rhine Gorge; and though the graceful Gothic chapel of Apollonarisberg is wanting on the hill, the mountains here are much finer in the majesty of their masses and the striated character of their crags, and the villages of a more humble and primitive nature : so that the contrast between them is grander, and that blending of the sublime with pretty, which we have before alluded to, rendered more striking at this part of the river than at the other. The Eck below Kester is no sooner rounded than the little yellow shoal-bank, called Hirzenach Island, appears bristling with osiers in the middle of the river ; and close below this is the small miners' village of Ehrenthal, consisting of not more than a dozen mud-walled cottages, thrust in at the end of a large ravine, with the broken edge of the rock rising close at the back of the dwellings ; while, winding up the dingle-side, we can see the little ribbon of roadway leading to the quarry above, where the rock is blue-back, and drifty with the heap of refuse stones. THE LURLEI PASS. 293 Another moment and we are at Welmich; there being but one hill between it and Ehrenthal. Of this you see, in passing, but two or three of the houses and the countrified church-steeple, peeping over the stone embankment with the red-sandstone bridge for the village itself creeps up the valley between the rocks. Here, high above the hamlet, upon a flat ledge of the crag at the mouth of the ravine, stands the weather- stained ruins of the " Raub-Schloss" (robber-castle) of Thurn- berg or Falkenburg, as it is sometimes called, after the Archbishop of Treves who built it though, more frequently, it is styled "Mouse Castle," in opposition to the Castle of " Katz" which is a little beyond it. Though it has neither roof nor windows, the walls are still so high, and the round tower so tall and perfect, that from the want of battlements at the angles, and the coping being no longer castellated, you might imagine it to be some deserted factory, with a huge half-demolished chimney-shaft rising from one side. Never- theless, the sight of the pedestal of ramparts below soon destroys the first impression of its resemblance to any modern structure, and at a second glance it looks more like the ruins of some martello fort guarding the neighbouring valley. Before the eye has finished admiring this tottering strong- hold of the ancient Rhine-bandits, the boat rounds another rocky " Eck," and immediately afterwards the loveliest bit of all the Rhine bursts in a flood of beauty upon the eye. We are then but a few twirls of the paddle-wheels from the charming village of St. Goar. So the bell of the steamer jangles loudly, and the next moment we are deposited on the little landing-pier in front of the " Vorder Rhein-strasse " there. At the " GASTHOF ZUR LILIE " (an excellent halting-place, by the by,) a delightful week may be passed in exploring the riches of the country round about; for St. Goar lies in the 294 THE UPPER RHINE GORGE. very heart of the Rhine-world, and is encompassed by beauties on every side, that are strewn thick as shells upon the sea- shore. The river, too, at St. Goar widens as it flows out of and into the narrow gorge above and below it, and the " Ecks" at either end project so sharply into the nood as to shut out all farther view of the stream, so that the Rhine at this part reminds one strongly of Windermere, though it is far more beautiful than any Cumberland lake ; for the mountains that environ it are finely rugged, and ribbed with the schistose rocks that protrude in some places through the green hill- sides, like monster chines, and that seem in other places to stream down from the top as if they were a cascade of crags. Then there are the grand old ruins cresting the summits, and lending a hoary historic life to the neighbouring mountains and the little bits of vineyards, crammed in among the stones wherever the sun can fall, and tinting the green-grey crags with many a golden streak and the lovely repose of the valley openings, looking soft and cool in the rich "clear- obscure" of the shade, that hangs over them like a veil of dusky air, and with the steamy cloud of smoke that rises, as if it were so much morning mist, from the valley-hollows, telling of the peaceful homesteads that lie cradled within them and the white frothy brooks streaming under the little archways beside the Rhine, and whispering of the many mills they give life and motion to as they come tumbling down the steep rocky dingles behind, and pouring over the walls of crag there in such a mass of foam that the very water seems no longer liquid, but to be a torrent of powdery particles, like snow, showered down from one ledge to another. Then, again, the Rhine itself, as it streams past the bold corner called the " Bank," just above St. Goar, runs in a perfect diagonal line across to the opposite village of St. THE LTJELEI PASS. 295 Goarshausen, and in such a furious current that this part of the river is called the Gewirr (literally, the confusion, or entanglement). Here the water is drilled, as it were, all over with eddies, and whirls in distinct round masses as it flows, with a bright line of light playing at the edge of each revolving disc, till the surface is ringed with many circles, like a pool into which a number of stones have been thrown. At the time we visited the Gewirr the Rhine was high, and a faint reddish brown, with the autumn rains, so that the rocks which run out into the stream from the "Bank" were covered by the flood ; still the water, as it struggled past them, seemed absolutely to boil, for it kept swelling up in huge round heaps, as you have seen the fluid in some cauldron writhe and heave before breaking into positive ebullition ; and, indeed, so obvious is this analogy to every eye, that the peasants have given this part of the Gewirr the name of the " Kessel" (kettle). When the water is low, however, the protruding rocks of the "Bank" make this one of the most dangerous parts of the Rhine for the boats and rafts, for then there is a perfect whirlpool, and before passing this the simple oarsmen always pray the patron saint of the town St. Goar to help them safely through it. The surrounding ruins, moreover, are rich in beauty. Close below St. Goar, on a green truncated pyramid of earth, stand the yellow and shaky walls of the once proud " Schloss und Festung Rlieinfels" (the palace and fortress of Rheinfels) the Ehrenbreitstein of the middle ages, formerly mounting its 180 cannon, and garrisoned by upwards of 3000 troops, the " residenz" of the Landgraf of Hesse-Cassel, and beyond com- parison the handsomest old mouldering pile throughout the length of the river. Here you behold walls that were once "ball-proof," slowly crumbling down under the silent and steady attacks of Time; ramparts, and escarpments, and 296 THE UPPER RHINE GORGE. lunettes, that have held out successfully against no less than thirty-four sieges ; and that even the French General Tallard, with his 24,000 men (though he had promised it as a new- year's gift to Louis XIV.), could not force to surrender, now yielding to the mere weather and the air; and the rain */ o battering down a stronghold that even cannon could formerly make no impression upon. We cannot tell why, but when we saw Rheinfels for the first time, it struck us as being like our own Houses of Parlia- ment in ruins. The analogies, however, which rise at the first glance of an object often will not bear the test of examination, depending, as they do, upon the resemblance of some isolated feature rather than the similitude of the whole ; and, perhaps, the likeness struck us merely because the ruins of the mediaeval fortress present a great extent of faade to the river. The walls at the end farthest from St. Goar, which once formed part of the " Darmstadter //o/," and served as the barracks for the officers of the garrison, are still standing, though in high frag- mentary plates ; and at the opposite end there is the stump of the square turret that was formerly the " Ure Thurm" (the clock-tower) ; while in front of these you see remnants of the many rampart-terraces and the fortress walls stretching down the slope to the very edge of the river all sufficiently indicating the ancient might of the pile to make its empty and rounded window-holes, and blunted broken towers, strike one forcibly with the contrast of its former strength and present weakness. Directly facing St. Goar, and made up of its tiny old and new town, is the little village of St. Goarshausen, raised on a massive stone embankment to protect it not only against the force of current which, as we said, here drives directly against it, but also from the pressure of the ice. The old town here is but one street deep, and the houses which belong mostly to the men who live by the salmon-fisheries hard by built THE LTJRLEI PASS. 297 on top of the ancient ramparts, with a martello-like tower at either end of the walls ; while the new town consists merely of one long row of pretty white houses, stretching at the foot of the hills. High above the old town stand the ruins of another robber-castle, called " Katz," once the stronghold of the famous Count Katzenelnbogen he who built Rheinfels, to guard himself against the fury of the people and perched on a shelf of rock at the entrance to the lovely Schweizer - Thai (Swiss valley). Katz looks so like its twin-ruin of Mouse (which you can see from St. Goar towering at the lower end of the basin), that you might readily mistake the one for the other. Katz, however, is so weather-stained, that the walls of the castle and round-tower are almost black on one side, and the whole fungus-coloured, till it stands barely out from the shade of the valley behind, for it is in such perfect keeping with the crags above and below, that it appears to have been hewn out of the solid rock rather than put together piecemeal. Again, at some distance over the hills by Patersberg (the spire of whose mountain church you can just catch sight of peeping over the top of the steep escarpment-like mountain behind the Swiss valley), there are the ruins of still another " Raub-Schloss" called Reiclienstein, and these are perfect enough to be rich in architectural beauty; for its tall round tower is like a huge cathedral column made up of many pillars, and there is a handsome Byzantine porch still standing, together with a magnificent " Ritter-saal " (Knights' Hall) co- lonnaded, as it were, with slender red porphyry pillars raised one on the other, and with the roof vaulted and groined like a rich chancel (though the briers and trees are growing amid the columns) all telling you of the splendour in which the " noble " highwaymen of former times managed to live. Further, there is the village of St. Goar itself, with its octagonal Rhine-crane house at the lower end near Rheinfels, 298 THE UPPER RHINE GORGE. and a line of " Gasthofs" and " WeinwirtJischafts" (wine-shops) stretching along the quay towards the white-washed Stadthaus. Then comes the " Eeangelische Kirche" (said to be the oldest Protestant church on the Rhine), with its little planted " Platz" in front of it, and its square tower (like a very tall sentry-box) next the choir, and the edges to its windows and walls all pink with red sandstone ; while beyond this again, and reaching to the corner of the great Eck, called the " Felsen-Bank" (rock bank), there are raised gardens, at the foot of the precipitous mountains, with summer-houses to each of them, where the wealthier inhabitants of the village love to smoke their evening pipes as they sit gazing on the Rhine. The " Hinter Rhein-strasse," which is the High Street of St. Goar, and the principal one of the two making up the long narrow town has so few shops in it, that you would almost believe the simple villagers dealt with one another according to the primitive mode of barter. At the end of the street, however, by the Stadthaus, there are certainly two " buch- handlers " (booksellers), with their windows embellished with the ubiquitous engravings of "beauties of the Rhine;" but these are for the many strangers who visit the place, rather than the natives themselves. Farther down the thorough- fare you may see a few gingerbread-coloured loaves and chrysalis-like rolls exposed in a wire cage upon a window-sill, as indicative that the " staff of life" at least may be purchased within the precincts of the little village; while a knot of woollen " comforters," dangling from a hook outside a parlour window, are the simple sign of the only " Mode-waaren-handlung'" (linendraper's) in the place. The Catholic Church is in perfect keeping with the rest of the village, for the interior of it is almost as devoid of archi- tectural detail as a barn ; and the gaudy altars at the end, tricked out with their many tall candles, and silver vessels, ' ,'. THE LURLEI PASS. 299 and tabernacles, without the usual chancel to give them an ecclesiastical air, suggest curious reminiscences of the stage dressed for one of Herr Db'bler's performances. Then the church is festooned all round with garlands of oak-leaves, and the heavy wooden posts that prop the gallery above entwined with them as well ; while at one side of the little edifice there is a niche in the wall, which is bordered with a thick roll of moss, and within this stands a gaudy life-sized statue of the patron saint, St. Goar the so-called hermit, though he is here in green and golden robes who, we are told, first preached the Christian creed to the Lurlei fishermen, and who, to prove his divinity to the people, hung his cloak upon a sunbeam! (A.D., says the tradition, 575.)* It is a curious sight to see this little place filled on a Sunday * This Saint, who is said to have been born, of noble blood, in Aquitaine, and to have refused the bishopric of Treves, is renowned for having saved many a boatman who prayed to him from the perils of the neighbouring whirlpool of the Gewirr. But from the identity of the two names (for the German people pro- nounce the name of the Saint as if it were written Gowar), there can be little doubt that the traditionary Christian hermit, living in his rocky grotto, and hanging his garments on the sunbeam, was none other than the Pagan Deity of the whirlpool the great Gewirr Idol the Water- God, who was supposed to dwell among the rocks under the river whose mantle was the mist which was borne upon the rays of the sun and to appease whose wrath the superstitious boatmen offered up their prayers, so that he might not draw them and their craft to the bottom of the stream. As Christianity, however, diffused itself along the banks of the Rhine, the early fathers, finding the people of these parts wedded to the worship of a Deity that seemed to them to have the greatest power over their destinies, naturally sought to give a Christian rendering to the ancient Pagan myth, and therefore elevated the Water-God into a Catholic Saint canon- ized the Idol framed stories to the boatmen as to how the Blessed Gewirr had left his rocky cell, in order to preach the new creed to the Heathens, and trans- lated that which was originally a poetic type of the misty mantle, supposed to cover the River Sprite, into an idle and unmeaning miracle. And thus it is that the simple ferrymen, and fishermen, and raftsmen, pray in these parts to this day to the Spirit of their great Gewirr, or Gowar, while passing over the famous whirlpool, offering up their praises to his image when they have traversed the spot in security, the same as they did centuries ago, before the legion of Catholic Saints had been invented. 300 THE UPPER RHINE GORGE. with the peasants from the several villages round about, for here the odd custom still prevails of the men and women occupying separate parts of the church ; and as you look along the seats devoted to the female portion of the congregation, never was such a curious assemblage of head-dresses seen crowded together under one roof. Some of -the women wear what is called the " Spitze-kappe? i. e. the pointed cap (for the Rhenish and Mosel kappes, and the haar nadels, and rund miitzes, are seldom seen above Boppard). This consists of a kind of extinguisher, or cornichon, made in printed cotton, and sometimes ornamented with a ruche of ribbon round the front. Others appear in the " Hundsruck Haube " (Hundsruck cap), the crown of which stands up high at the back, and is fluted and spread out like an open fan or peacock's tail, while a plain band in front fits tight over the ears. This head-dress is made of a kind of " dimity," and is generally dyed a pale prussian blue, while the back and band are embroidered with open-work. Others, again, are decked in what is said to be the true " St. Goar haube," and this is likewise made in dimity, but in shape not unlike a school-boy's night-cap, though rather fuller at the back, while the greater number are coloured of the same light indigo tint as those from the Hundsruck. Then, as neither the Hundsruck nor the St. Goar head-dresses admit of the back hair being arranged within the cap itself, the prevailing mode of coiffure with the women is a broad thick loop of hair hanging down on the neck, and reminding one of the old time of bag-wigs, while the front locks are combed back h la Chinoise. The Spitze kappe, however, being roomy enough to admit of a knob almost as big as a porter's knot being carried within it, is generally worn with the hair turned up and plain in front. At St. Goar, it may be added, there w r as formerly a curious custom, called the " Hdnseln." . This is said to have THE LUELEI PASS. 301 been as old as the time of Charlemagne, and prevailed until within the last few years, indeed, till those dreadful inno- vators, the steamboats, commenced running. Up to that period, each traveller, on entering the village for the first time, was conducted towards the pillory, which consisted of a large brass collar attached to the walls of the Custom-House, and there he was held by the neck till he named two godfathers and chose between a baptism of water or wine ; for it was only by such means that he could obtain his release. If he preferred the baptism of water, a bucket-full of the Rhine was emptied over his head ; and if, on the other hand, he chose to be christened with wine, he was bound to drink off a goblet of the St. Goar vintage to the health of the Emperor, the Lord of the Manor, and the inhabitants of the town. The laws of the Order were then read to him; a crown was placed upon his head, and he was declared to be invested with the right of fishing at Lurlei and of hunting along the banks of the river. Finally, he was obliged to give a donation as alms to the poor, and to inscribe his name in the "Hansel-buck" among the members of the Order. At the Gasthof zur Lilie you can see the insignia of this curious custom the crown, goblet, and hansel-buch, being still preserved there. The crown is a mere tiara cut out of thin sheet brass, and not only bears evidence, from the many lumps of solder about it, of having been repeatedly broken, but was, even when we saw it, still gaping at the ends, like a loosened hoop from a cask. The goblet is of thin silver, in shape like a large gallipot with a lid to it, and the sides stamped with medallions of Charlemagne and two of his sons ; while above these is a Latin inscription, saying that the institution was " founded by the divine Emperor Charle- magne, in memory of the reconciliation of his sons Charles and Pepin." The hansel-book, or rather books for there 302 THE UPPER RHINE GORGE. are two consist of rough waste-ledger-like volumes, the earlier dating as far Lack as the year 1714, and the ink being like lines of iron-mould from age, while the seals attached to the names inscribed on the pages are all flattened, so that the impressions are almost squeezed out of them. One of the earliest inscriptions, written in bad French. > is as follows: 1714 le 30 atml, il t? a &t. oat "Louts 33outJctnn tt prcns pour parens /Elon cousin ^Philip eni it 3*an, Ikiut *cnt ct satisfatt la compagnic. {JTtsmoins . . ." The inscriptions in the second book are of a more modern character, and gradually become less and less grave as they approach nearer our own time, till at last they consist merely of lines of doggerel verse and would-be jocular effusions.* But the favourite sight in the neighbourhood of St. Goar is the Lurlei Rock. This is little more than a quarter of an hour's walk from the Gasthof, and the path is a pleasant one, * One of the latest of these, which bears date 1853, is signed " Mazzini," and is as follows : " Oui ! le pouvoir est une chose amable, Et quand on le tient une fois ; Qu'on serait un grand miserable De le laisser, comme un vain sable S'chapper soudain de ses doigts. " MAZZINI, " Milano." The word Hdnseln is said by the Germans to be derived from Hans, John, " prendre quelqu'un pour un Jean-Mathieu ;" or a " Johnny-raw," as we say. But such a derivation is obviously erroneous. The fact is, the word Hansel comes from the Gothic Hansla a sacrifice, an offering to God and is the same as our " Hansel penny" or " God's penny," as it was sometimes called which was the money given as " earnest" of any bargain, and formerly devoted, per- haps, to charitable purposes ; so that, whatever might have been the origin of the curious custom at St. Goar, it is beyond question that it derives its name of Hdnseln from the alms which the traveller was compelled to give to the poor THE LURLEI PASS. 303 lying along the embanked roadway close beside the river. The rock itself is hidden from view at St. Goar by the pro- jecting Felsen-bank, whose crags tower like an immense wall at the upper end of the village. On rounding the bank, the mountains on either side of the stream describe almost a half circle, the river here ap- pearing as a large basin set in a ring of lofty hills, so that you could imagine it to be some huge crater-lake; while at the very end, as it seems, of the opposite shore, the gigantic mass of Lurlei is seen jutting sharply out into the stream, and looking like an immense breakwater damming up the current behind. We must confess that the first sight of this monster block of grauwacke though it is between 400 and 500 feet high, and a more stupendous mass than the Great Pyramid of Gizeh itself somewhat disappointed us ; for the rocks all along the Upper Rhine Gorge are so grand that the eye becomes familiarised with this kind of beauty before reaching the spot, and is, consequently, unable to appreciate the sublime form of Lurlei, in all its integrity. The mind is, as it were, pre- of the village, and which, probably, was paid in the first instance to the monks for the right of fishing at Lurlei. The rude baptismal ceremony was, no doubt, originally instituted with the view of forcing the stranger to declare himself a Christian ; and the crowning was most likely a memorial of the Emperor Sigis- mund having, in 1488, granted the salmon "take" of Lurlei as "an imperial fief." There is certainly a tradition extant that the sons of Louis le Debonnaire (i.e. the grandsons rather than the sons of Charlemagne, viz. Lothaire, Louis of Germany, and Charles the Bald) were reconciled at St. Goar "after many years of bloody strife," in presence of the relics of the pretended hermit. We are told also that, amongst other miraculous cures wrought by the holy bones, Fastrade, the wife of Charlemagne, was relieved of a " long-standing" disease by touching them. Further, it is said that Charlemagne himself had proof of the truth of the popular belief that some disaster was certain to befall the traveller who failed to stop and offer up his prayers at the shrine of St. Goar, for, having passed the chapel once while descending the Rhine, a thick fog immediately rose from the water and enveloped the king's vessel in such darkness that he was unable to continue his journey ! 304 THE UPPER RHINE GORGE. pared for the sight for Nature always avoids your melo- dramatic surprises so that, as it does not at the first glance appear to vastly transcend the other rocky " Ecks " seen on the way, the exquisite majesty of the bold promontory is in a measure lost to the stranger. After a time, however, the fine serenity of the spot on which it rears its head the bright silver shield of water at its base the solemn stillness of all around, and the apparent desolation too (for St. Goar and the opposite village, with the mountain ruins, are screened from view by the tall bank which you round on your road), the absence of all human habitations, and, indeed, of everything that could give token of man's existence, except the faint clinking of the distant quar- riers' hammers and the sight of the little patches of vines tinting the mountain-sides wherever the sun can fall and the fisherman's tiny bark, with its lace-like net suspended like a large scale-pan over its side, moored at the foot of the rock itself; then the gurgling of the vast body of water, which is heard with fine intensity as it streams swiftly round the bold craggy corners together with the narrowing of the gorge immediately above Lurlei and the rich dark shadow there, picked out in places with exquisite bits of accidental light, and contrasting charmingly with the bright, clear at- mosphere of the broad basin of water in front of the monster mass; all of these, as they steal upon the senses one after another, tend to make the sight grow and grow in beauty, until at last we come to comprehend why Lurlei, beyond all the Rhine rocks, should have made so deep an impression on the German mind. The Lurlei Felsen, as they are called, are assuredly the handsomest crags beside the river. The Drachenfels, though considerably taller, are by no means so imposing ; for they are lost in the crowd of the Seven Mountains, and want isolation THE LURLEI PASS. 305 to bring their grandeur forcibly out. Ehrenbreitstein, too commanding mass as it is runs parallel with the stream ; so that its length detracts from the nobleness of its height, and makes it look too much like what it really is a natural fortress wall to impress its form with exceeding majesty. Again, the Erpeler Lei and Hammerstein, though exquisitely handsome mounds of basalt and grauwacke, both want the fine sharpness and prominence of Lurlei to make them equal to it in wildness and sublimity ; for the St. Goar rock is like a stupendous wedge, with the thin edge turned towards the Rhine, while the sides round which the river streams are both different in character : that next St. Goar is partly wooded with oak, so that with the autumn tints of the foliage it is a fine rusty red ; and near the summit the crags are almost columnar in their arrangement, and seem like a mass of huge, green, petri- fied trunks, showing through the lean earth. Here, too, the rock is comparatively bright from the open space before it ; whereas on the other side, which forms the end of the narrow gorge above, the light is so dimmed with the shadow of the opposite mountains that the rock, seen in the half-dusk which prevails there, looks grandly grim and gigantic. Moreover, the crags at this part are utterly barren, and the striae slant almost as sharply as the noonday rays down to the water ; whilst, owing to the fissile character of the stone, it is split all over into slabs and plates, some of which are greened like winter tree-stems, and others have a mother-of-pearl-like bloom upon them, from the thin film of moisture that glistens on their sides. Verily, a handsome rock like this ranks among the hand- somest sights in all the world, and one that the dwellers in cities and plains can scarcely comprehend without the seeing ; for they know the earth only as a fertile and brightly-tinted plain, flecked with flowers, and fruit, and grain, and herbage, JL 306 THi: I 1TEK RHINE GORGE. and alive with birds and cattle. But in the barrenness, and sombreness, and desolation of the rocky masses, what a different aspect the world assumes ! If the many-coloured blossoms that are scattered like a rainbow over the land, be a token of the mercy and goodness of Him who embellished creation with them ; the mountains of stern and sterile stone are, on the other hand, wondrous evidences of the Omnipotence that upheaved them. And yet, even they have an exquisitely wild beauty impressed upon them the utter absence of all rounded lines from the blocks and slabs the fine variety and play of their infinite angles and striae as well as their freedom from anything like positive colour, and yet tinted with a faint bloom of almost every hue on Nature's palette, as if the entire spectrum had been compounded into the exquisite grey of their sides. Then, again, who can look at them without wondering how they came ? If the beholder have no more brains than a polype, surely he must ask himself, Did the river, which now travels hundreds of feet below the summits of these mountains, wear itself a passage through them the soft liquid water rubbing away particle by particle of the solid stones, so that its present channel must have been the work of an eternity of years that overpowers the mind to contemplate? Or was the monster mound, with its tons upon tons of stone, upheaved by some mighty and incomprehensible force from below tossed by some giant spasm of the earth thus high into the air? Or was it spouted from some huge volcano- mouth, streaming over the land in a once liquid state, and cracking and splitting as it solidified ? And how many thou- sand summers have past since the little creatures, whose shells are found entombed in this huge sarcophagus, sported and played in the bed of the ocean that assuredly once flowed over where the rock now stands ? THE ECHO AND HAFTS AT LUKLEI. 307 These are thoughts and wonderings that make it impossible to look upon such an object without a deep religious feeling clouding the soul. And if you have learnt but the first lesson in art, namely, to think of the artist in all things you see, so that a picture is not a mere material assemblage of colours and forms, but so many living lineaments and features in which you can read (if you know but the language) the skill and the power of him who produced it then will the sight of a mighty mass like Lurlei lead you to think of the wondrous art and might of Him whose hand raised it: even as the lovely play of light and shade will show you, in the beauty that is lavished even here (and which same beauty, be it remembered, is at once the most useless and most admirable thing in all creation; and flung, too, over every nook and corner of the earth with a most prodigal hand), bright tokens of the wondrous bounty and kindness of Him who might have Avilled it all otherwise had He Himself been otherwise ; and make you see, as we now see, the sun which is shining in a brilliant flood upon one side of the stiipendous rocky wedge, till the green-grey slabs glitter as with a million jewels as the glorious handwriting of God Himself upon the wall. The Echo and Rafts at Lurlei. Soon after your arrival in the little town of St. Goar you w r ill probably receive a visit from an old soldier, who an- nounces himself as " rhomme qui fait jouer I'dcho." This veteran is not a little proud of having been one of Napoleon's 308 THE UPPER RHINE GORGE. Old Guard, for lie has no sooner informed you of his present occupation than he makes you acquainted with his past ; and, indeed, it is not difficult to perceive, by the jpolitesse of his manners, that, though a German, he has passed a considerable part of his life among the French. He, moreover, tells you, with no little satisfaction, that Mrs. Trollope has spoken of him in her work upon the Rhine ; and you are then requested to say at what hour you will honour him and the echo with a visit. At the appointed time you are sure to find the old soldier at his post in front of the Lurlei rock, for he has built a little hermit-like grotto there rude as the one that St, Goar him- self is said to have inhabited with a tiny garden beside it, fenced round with twigs, while the cell, or rather cellar, itself is hardly bigger than a cabin to a Dutch barge, and has an awning made out of a bit of an old sail, projecting, eaves-like, from the adjoining hill-side. Immediately on your arrival you are invited to inspect the interior of the primeval dwelling; and as you bob under the small doorway, upon which are pasted engravings of Na- poleon as General and as Emperor, with Freiderich der Grosse in the middle, the old soldier points out to your notice the different curiosities of the apartment " There is my sofa," he says, alluding to a rude bench hewn out of the rock, and upon which something like a horse's nose-bag, stuffed with straw, serves as a cushion. " That is my stove," he adds, directing your attention to a bit of rusty iron tubing, that has been converted into a grate, about as big as a chimney-pot, and set on slabs from the neighbouring quarry. " Here are my rods, for I amuse myself sometimes with fishing;" and he points to a rack suspended under the roof of rock, upon which are ranged some halfi-dozen osier- twigs. THE ECHO AND RAFTS AT LURLEI. 309 You are then informed that the heap of roots, that look like a few pounds of potatoes, stored in a corner, are dahlias for the little garden without; while the pages of the old ac- count-book that lies on the rude dresser-like board at the end of the cabin are used by him in the manufacture of cartridges for the musket with which he tests the powers of the echo. Further, there are bird-nets for catching nightingales though, says the veteran slily, it is " defended " to do so ; and coils of fish-line, wound like harpstrings, dangling from the wall ; and a stock of blank cartridges, like so many " screws " of tobacco, in a little receptacle after the fashion of a doll's bed- stead ; and a large hunting-horn, together with a number of similar odds and ends. While you are inspecting all these, the veteran entertains you with a brief history of his adventures, telling you how he was " ancien trompeteur Franqais" belonging, as he says, to the " rdgiment chasseurs a cheval;" and how he served with Napoleon eight years and ten months ; and how, too, he was with the French army in Russia, and lost all his toes from the frost at Vilna: whereupon he proceeds to give you ocular proof by pressing on the end of his shoe that his foot is now as dumpy as an elephant's. He tells you, moreover, that it was in the same country he received a musket-ball in his thigh, and that his pay was one franc a-day as trumpeter, and ten sous as chasseur, and that he returned with the retreat of General Sebastiani from Moscow. And when the old guard has enlightened you on these points, he requests your attendance outside, where he places you close by the awning, while he himself proceeds to the railings that fence off the broad roadway, immediately in front of the grotto, from the Rhine ; and then he begs your attention as he blows a tantivy on his huge French hunting-horn. 310 THK UPPER RHINE GORGE. No sooner have the fine brassy notes ceased, than you hear them repeated on the opposite shores ; so distinctly, too, that, though you know it is but the echo, you can hardly persuade yourself that there is not some one concealed on top of Lurlei imitating the sounds. You are, nevertheless, somewhat disappointed, for you have read that the echo repeats no less than fifteen times ; and though you listen most intently, you can hear the sound iterated but once. Then the old soldier blows a number of different notes, some shrill, and others so low that they seem to be on the very confines of musical sound ; and as he does this, the rocks take up the tones, and now ring with a sharp shrill twang, and now boom with a deep moan. The next portion of the entertainment is with the musket ; and for this the old guard waits till the air is perfectly still. Then, directly a lull ensues in the breeze, click goes the trigger, and the report rattles against the wall of the opposite rock as if the crags were tumbling down in a shower ; and no sooner has it burst upon the ear than you hear a second ex- plosion, almost as loud as the first, clattering behind the sum- mit of Lurlei. This time, however, the echo does not end here ; for, the moment after, the sound seems be ascending the river in a kind of small thunder peal, muttering along the opposite cliffs, up to a higher point in the river known as the " Fisherie von Satin ;" then comes a pause as it leaps across the stream, after which you catch it again on the same side of the Rhine as yourself, descending along the rocks, in fainter and fainter peals, till it reaches the vineyard (wein berg) adjoining the Felsen-bank by St. Goar ; and the next instant, after another pause, the ear detects it across the river once more, where it THE ECHO AND RAFTS AT LURLEI. 311 ultimately expires with a faint puff, just above the ruins of Kafcz.* But such is the greediness of human nature, and the innate love of a good pennyworth for one's penny, that one is but half-satisfied with the performance, because we fancy we have had only one-third of our due allowance of echoes. We therefore proceed to remonstrate with the veteran " who makes the echo play" upon the shortcomings of Lurlei: whereupon the old soldier informs us that the deficiency is due, not to any failing in the vocal powers of the fabled syren supposed to inhabit the summit of the rock, but rather to the unfavourable state of the atmosphere; for when the air is light and rare, and so offers but little resistance to the passage of the sound, the series of echoes become, as it were, blended together: so that, instead of sounding like a succession of reports, at distinct intervals, they appear like a roll of mus- ketry as they travel up and down the banks of the river, and are heard only as separate reverberations at the opposite points, where they cross and recross the stream ; at each of which places, owing to the pause produced by the water, two distinct echoes are noted. On denser days, however, the echo, on account of the greater obstruction of the atmosphere, is heard as it runs along the opposite sides of the river to * The following diagram will make the different points of reflection and reverberation more intelligible to the reader. In this the several figures repre- sent the various positions of the successive echoes, and the letter A the place of the original discharge. The course of the river is made straight for the sake of simplification. * 5 12 Katz. Lurlei. Fislierie von Sann. * * * RHINE. 312 THE UPPER RHINE GORGE. bound with a succession of heavy bumps, as it were, against each of the intervening rocks ; so that, instead of fifteen, almost an infinite series of separate reports may be distinguished. Or, in the simpler language of the old soldier, the echo at the time we heard it went r-r-r-r-r-r as it travelled up and down the banks ; whereas, on more favourable d?ys, he said, it ran along them with a pop-pop-pop-pop-pop. Our conversation was here interrupted by the sight of one of the Cologne boats rounding the Felsen-bank, and steaming prettily across the broad basin of the Rhine which lies between "the Bank" and Lurlei. Then the horn was brought forth once more, and the musket reloaded, so as to be ready to give the passengers in the steamer a sample of the echo as they passed the renowned rock ; and as the vessel neared the spot, you could see the people on board grouped into a crowd on the deck eager to listen to the voice of the fabled syren. Presently, the horn was blown as before, and then you could see the heads of the group on deck turned up towards the summit of the tall rock, as they heard the notes mimicked so perfectly that the action of regarding the spot whence the echo seemed to come was almost an involuntary one. After this the musket was fired in due course, and the hill-top gave back the loud clatter of the report; but this time the echo ceased with the first repetition of the sound, owing to a sudden gust that swept down the gorge: where- upon you could almost distinguish, by the contemptuous toss of the head of some of the strangers on board, how in- dignant they were at finding the famous fifteen rounds of echoes dwindle to one. Then, as the steamer passed along the narrow gorge, it seemed almost to block up the entire breadth of the river there ; and when, in another moment, it shot behind the Eck a little beyond the grotto, it left a long trail of brown smoke behind to tell of its passage, THE ECHO AND RAFTS AT LURLEI. 313 which floated down the gorge like so much cobweb in the air. As we passed the Fel sen-bank once more, on our way back to the Gasthof, we stood for a time watching the heaving and writhing of the \vater, as it poured over the bed of sunken rocks, seeming to rise from below in heavy gulps; but though we stayed long, thinking to see some raft traverse the site of the famous " Strudel " (whirlpool), which was then but a mere rapid, owing to the height of the Rhine, none came that day to give us a notion of the perils of the passage. And even when, the morning afterwards, we did see one of the large timber-floats cross the pass, there was, from the quantity of water and the consequent covering of the rocks, but little to impress us with a sense of the dangers at this part of the river. True, as the vast platform shot swiftly round the jutting corner of the bank, and was carried by the current in a sharp diagonal line over to the opposite shore by St. Goarshausen, it seemed to be as much as the crowd of men working at the huge oars, that were as long as masts, at either end of the raft, and making the air ring with their shouts as they pushed at the handles of the heavy blades high above their heads, could do to prevent the im- mense floating floor from being dashed against the strong stone embankment in front of the little village. With this exception, however, there was little excitement in the sight. But it is far different when there is little water in the Rhine, so that the rocks within the stream break the current into a hundred furious eddies ; and the rafts, owing to their unwieldy size, are either driven against the crags, or sucked under the surface of the water. To impress the reader with a sense of the dangers at such times, it is necessary that we should give him a more definite 314 THE UPPER RHINE GORGE. idea than we have yet done of those monster platforms of floating timber which constitute the Rhine rafts; and which, in the summer season, are seen continually drifting down the stream big as ice-floes, and so yellow with their new deals, that you might mistake them for some immense sand-bank showing above the surface of the riven The larger rafts are considerably longer and nearly as broad as the interior of the most spackms cathedrals, being no less than 12 enor- mous fir-tree trunks in length (the trunks being kept nearly as they are felled for the masts of ships), and each of these 60 feet in length ; thus the entire raft often measures upwards of 700 feet from one end to the other, whilst in width it is about 250 feet : none, however, are allowed to exceed this breadth, each float being measured at Caub, on its way down the Rhine. The rafts are, moreover, three logs thick or deep, so that a large float frequently contains as many as 6000 or 7000 forest trees, bound together by means of chains, and rivets, and green logs fastened across the top, in such a manner as to form one vast and compact mass, the interstices being carefully stopped with thin planks, and the upper surface, mostly, covered with a flooring of rough deals ; while the spars ranged round the edge of the enormous platform are generally " Murg firs," these being of a superior quality. To navigate a large floating mass like this requires from 250 to even as many as 500 men ; each of the larger rafts, therefore, has a row of some eight or ten new-looking deal huts for the accommodation of the crew; these are built of planks, put together merely for the voyage, and stretch along the middle of the float, like one side of a street to a village. Indeed, the Rhine-raft is a floating village itself, with a tall red flag streaming from a staff in the centre of the tiny temporary town. The wooden huts some of which are in the shape of low marquees, and others built like the small sheds for THE ECHO AND RAFTS AT LURLEI. 3 1 5 workmen that one sees outside some new building consists of sleeping-places for the crew, and a public kitchen and dining- room, together with covered stalls for the cattle, pigs, and poultry, which are to serve as food during the voyage ; and sometimes a large pleasure-tent is erected in the centre, to shelter those who are off duty from the rain or sun. The beds in the dormitories for the crew are little better than litters of straw, in wide wooden compartments like boxes ; and the rude deal-walled kitchen is hung round with tin pots and pans, and has a fireplace in the middle of the floor built up in bricks. The captain and the pilot have each a separate house, and these are generally fitted up like any other dwelling with this exception, that the articles of furniture are mostly made of undressed deals; the captain's house, however, has more apartments than one, and the sitting-room is frequently comfortably furnished. At the after-end of the float there is generally a raised deal platform, like a rustic bridge upon stilts, stretching entirely across it, and from which the captain or pilot gives his orders to the crew. The raft, which is driven along merely by the force of the current, is steered by means of enormous oars, that are as large as the masts to a good-sized barge, and which require each some half-dozen men to work them. The larger floats have eight or ten of these oars placed across either end on raised rullocks, and the oarsmen lift their arms high above their head, and shout lustily as they push the heavy blades through the water. Sometimes smaller rafts are at- tached to the larger ones for protection, and there is always a string of boats alongside laden with anchors and cables, and used for the purpose of sounding the river and going on shore. The domestic economy of an East Indiaman or a man- of-war, it has been said, is hardly more complete than 3 1 6 THE UPPER RHINE GORGE. the appointments of the Rhine -floats. The boatmen are occasionally accompanied by their wives and families, and spinning, knitting, tailoring, and even dressmaking, are carried on aboard. The dinner-hour is announced by a basket stuck on a pole, at which signal the pilot gives the word of com- mand, and the workmen run from all quarters to receive their messes. It is as pretty a sight as any on the Rhine to watch from your hotel-window these vast floating floors pass through one of the bridges of boats, that stretch from shore to shore at each of the principal Rhenish towns. To allow them to pass, nearly one-half of the entire bridge has often to be drifted back from the rest; and they are so long in floating through, that the crowd, pent-up at either end of the gap, is sufficient to fill the pit of a good-sized theatre. Then you will see the long, yellow, and new-looking forest platform come gliding slowly down, like a mere deck level with the water, littered with trunks of trees, and with the reflections of the people who walk along the unrailed edges showing so close under them, that the feet of the individuals seem to be almost touching those of their images in the water. First you catch sight of only the square end of the raft, with some eight or ten immense raised oars ranged across it, and each oar driven by some half-dozen men, not unlike our "navvies" in appearance; while the oars them- selves, as they dip up and down, remind you of the working of so many keys in the inside of some monster piano. Then, after a time, hut after hut steals slowly by, in shape like gipsy-tents, made out of new deals, with the whitey-brown planks overlying one another like the edges of a coachman's cape. Then you will catch sight of two or three brown oxen tethered within an open shed ; and part of a huge carcass hanging in front of the deal kitchen; and a cloud of smoke THE ECHO AND RAFTS AT LTJELEI. 317 drifting from the fire which you can see shining like a bit of crimson foil beneath the huge cauldron, and so close down on the deck, too, that you wonder a hole is not burnt through the logs below; while beside these will be a row of huge barrels, containing the beverage of the crew. Here, too, you will generally observe some noisy cur that scampers barking across the raft, with his image twinkling in the water as he comes to the very edge to yelp at the people on shore. Next the dormitories steal by, like mere slanting wooden roofs set upon the deck ; and the captain's house, with its small glazed windows, reminding one of a little toll to a bridge ; after these comes the narrow raised stage, such as connects the paddle-boxes of a steamboat, but tenfold as long, with the captain and pilot perched up on it ; and, finally, the crowd of men working the oars at the stern though each extremity of the raft is so like the other, that the forepart is merely the end that may happen to go first. The navigation of these enormous floats is a matter of no little skill, owing to the rocks and shallows, and many windings of the river; for it is said that the larger rafts twist and bend like serpents, when passing the dangerous whirlpools and straits of the Rhine as at the Lurlei and the Binyen Loch. At such places, indeed, when tke river is shallow, the forepart of the raft is often dragged several feet beneath the surface, the oarsmen plunged up to their middle in water, and the crew sometimes washed over- board by the waves dashing over the slippery planks. Some years ago the secret of navigating the rafts was thought to be understood only by a boatman of Rlidesheim "Old Jung" and his sons, but now there are many others engaged at the business. The timber of which the rafts are composed comes from the many forests which cover the hills and mountains beside 318 THE UPPER RHINE GORGE. the Rhine and its tributaries such as the valleys of the Black Forest traversed by the rivers Kinsig and Murg, and the woods on the banks of the Neckar, the Main, the Nahe, the Lahn, and the Moselle. The trunks are hurled down in single logs from the steep heights of the forests where they are felled ; and when the mountain rivulet has become sufficiently swollen by the rain, or the thawing of the snow, to float the stems, they are cast into it, and so carried down to the small river below. Then, if the tree escape being shattered by the rocks against which it is dashed by the mountain-torrent, it is bound with other logs into a small raft, and once more set afloat down the tributary stream. In this manner it is carried to the stations on the banks of the rivers giving into the Rhine ; and at the mouths of these, as at Bingen and Coblenz, there are generally timber- wharves and sawpits ready to divide some of the logs into planks, and to join the smaller rafts into one larger one. The larger raft then begins its course upon the Rhine, and is floated down towards Neuendorf, just below the mouth of the Moselle, where it is again extended by the addition of others from the mouths of other rivers ; till it is ultimately built into one prodigious mass, such as we have described, and then navigated to its destination at Dordrecht in Holland. When fine, the voyage from Mayence to Dordrecht is made by the rafts in about eight days ; but in stormy weather it often takes six weeks to descend the stream. During the journey, as much as 45,000 Ibs. of bread and 30,000 Ibs. of fresh and dried meat are often consumed, besides 500 tuns of beer and 8 butts of wine ; together with vegetables, cheese, butter, tea, coffee, sugar, &c., in proportion. The outlay in connexion with a raft is so great, that a large capital is required for the undertaking; for, averaging the cost of each man employed in the navigation at only ten shil- THE ECHO AND RAFTS AT LURLEI. 319 lings per week, the expenses of its transit alone down the Rhine would range between 125/. and 2501. a-week ; and be- sides this, there is the purchase-money for the thousands of trees of which the float is composed : so that a single raft is generally the property of several associations of men, who unite their funds and energies in the undertaking. On reaching Dordrecht every article on the raft is sold wood, fittings, and all ; the carriage up the Rhine being too great to admit of anything being taken back. The wood is sold to the timber-merchants at Dordrecht, either for exportation to England, Spain, and Portugal, in the form of logs, or for being sawed into deals; the sawing being generally executed at the Dutch village, where there are many windmills for the purpose. But the best of the Murg firs are always retained for the Hollanders, for in felling the trees in the Black Forest the wood-cutters invariably call a fine fir " a Dutchman." The price 'realised for a large raft varies between 25,0001. and 30,OOOZ. The quantity of timber imported into Holland, via the Rhine, is said to average upwards of 100,000 tons weight per annum, and its value to amount to about 200,000^* The trees thus brought by the Rhenish rafts are ultimately destined to spring up once more with a new life. After having lived for an age rooted in the earth, they exist again for many years floating on the waters, where, instead of resisting the mountain-storms, they have to struggle with the tempests of the ocean. * The price of choice timber may be taken at about 7%d. per cubic foot in the forest ; 9d. or lOd. delivered at any part of the Rhine. Therefore a large raft, 700 feet long, 250 feet broad, and, say 4 feet deep, would contain altogether 700,000 cubic feet of timber; and this, estimated on an average at 9d. per cubic foot, would give 26,250^. for the gross value of the float. 320 THE UPPER RHINE GORGE. f The Story of the Syren of the Lurlei. \ Lurlei, of course, has its legend. Long acquaintance with any natural object such as an old tree, a graceful river, or a noble mountain necessarily leads the mind to think and speak of it as some living thing ; for as we look upon the same form day after day, and see it under the opposite phases of noon and night, of summer arid winter, of sunshine and storms, it seems to assume so many various expressions, that we cannot help regarding it as instinct with different emotions like ourselves, and thus we grow at length to love the senseless object as if it were really some old familiar friend. Moreover, there is an innate tendency in our nature to diffuse our own feelings over everything about us, so that if we are happy the very earth itself appears to participate in our gladness. It is merely this dif- fusive character of our own emotions that makes our home or our native land though it may really have no natural beauty of its own appear the most lovely of all places to us ; for the love we bear those who dwell there extends itself to the very roof which shelters them, as well as to the soil they tread, and so makes the walls, and meadows, and mountains that encompassed those who are dear to us, as dear to us almost as they. This incipient poetic process is common to all minds to the boor, who seems as unimaginative as the team he drives ; and even the utilitarian " economist," who, more brutish than the boor, deems everything " valueless" that does not contribute to our creature comforts. What wonder, then, STORY OF THE SYREN OF THE LURLEI. 321 that to the mystic, and, therefore, mythic Germans, that mighty rock, in whose jagged outlines the eye can trace so many curious shapes, should be something more than a mere pile of stones; that, seeming now to frown with the flitting shadows, and now, as the sun bursts out again, to be lighted up as if with some sudden gladness, it should become to them a living presence ; that they should fancy its spirit spake to them in the echo from the summit, and sang to them as it repeated the murmurings of the river curling round its base, or the soughings of the breeze sweeping down the neighbouring gorge ; that in the dim sheen of the moonlight, resting like a silver glory on the mountain top, they should believe they saw, seated amid the crags there, the misty form of some water-nymph, covered with a veil of vapour, and with her filmy robes jewelled over with drops of spray, and think hers was the voice they heard, at one time mocking their own, and at another singing wildly as the wind or softly as the water to them ! For, verily, there is not a force in nature, however simple it may seem to unthinking minds whether it be a mere echo, or the life that moves an ani- malcule, or the principle of growth in the leafless, stalkless, and almost shapeless moss upon the stone that is not so utterly incomprehensible to even the wisest of us, that we can only, with all our knowledge " in these enlightened times," speak of them as so many different expressions of the will of Omnipotence: in other words, the ultimatum of all our science is to refer the several powers about us to the One Great Power of all. In times past, however, there was a distinct deity for each distinct force, the force of the thunder, the wind, and the water ; the fire and the volcano ; and even love, and gold, and war; and music and poetry, too; for each of these seemed, even to the Pagan mind, to require some will or other for its production; and as they Y 322 THE UPPER RHINE GORGE. one and all appeared to be different principles, they were every one supposed to stand in need of some different Spirit to give rise to it. But whilst the Greek and Roman people invented a legion of gods as the causes of the several powers in the universe, the Teutonic, like the Celtic race, imagined a host of fairies, and elves, and goblins, and sprites, to do the same work ; and thus comes the following story : Till the days of the last Palatine of the Rhine Count Bruno of the Rhein-pfalz the boatmen who obtained a scanty livelihood by the salmon fishery among the rocks above St Goar used to see from time to time, as they cast their nets by night, a nymph of the most exquisite beauty standing in the moonbeams on the top of the "Lei "(rock). Her delicate form was light and graceful, as though her limbs were moulded out of air her face was enveloped in a transparent veil of azure mist that was studded with brilliant drops, like the starry sky on a bright winter's night; and through this her eyes shone like planets. Her hair was golden as the sands, and round it was a crown of white coral ; while her robe was blue as the waves, and glittering as the sea by night ; still it was of the lightest texture light as the vapours of morning and decked with water-flowers, and girt with a zone of crystals that glistened pure and bright like a cluster of petrified dew-drops. This was the enchantress Lore, the Ondine of the Rhine, who distributed fortune and favours to the boatmen of St. Goar. To the good among them she showed the spots that abounded in fish; those who displeased her she beguiled with the charms of her voice, so that as they listened, spell-bound, to her melody, their boats were dashed against the rocks, and drawn beneath the whirlpools there; while to those on land who scoffed at her power, she made the STORY OF THE SYREN OF THE LURLEI. 323 river by night appear like the roadway, and called to them from the opposite shore, so that they walked into their own grave. In such days lived Hermann, the only son of the Pfalz- graf Bruno, a gentle youth of some fifteen summers, who, too delicate for the rougher exploits of such times, and un- fitted by nature for chivalrous exercises, had long devoted himself to the softer graces of music and song. As he and his father, the Palatine, descended the Rhine one night, on their way to the castle of the Landgraf of Rheinfels, Hermann sang to the old Count by the way ; and as the boat neared the Lei, the syren on the summit heard the flute-like melody of the boy's voice, which sounded so soft upon the water that she in her turn was spell- bound by the beauty of the song. She longed to answer him, but was mute for a while with admiration at the grace of his form as well as the mellifluence of his music; so that, even though she would gladly have ensnared the lovely youth into her caves below, her voice failed her as the boat glided swiftly by. For a time nothing was heard of Lore, and the fishermen, no longer alarmed by her spells, plied their trade safely be- neath the syren's rock, where their nets were always the heaviest laden. In the meanwhile the spirit of young Hermann seemed to be wholly changed, and from a love of birds and flowers he got to find pleasure in the rough and thoughtless sports of the chase, excelling in almost everything he undertook. From a timid and gentle youth he grew to be a brave and daring lad. The wildest steeds, which no one else could manage, followed his guidance like lambs ; and mounted on them he would leap precipices that the boldest horsemen dared not venture. His arrow overtook the eagle in its flight, his hawks were keen and sure as bloodhounds, and 324 TIIK U1TER RHINE GORGE. his dogs never lost the track of the deer. Though when lie hunted no matter which way he started on his excur- sions some strange adventure was sure to lead him towards the Lurlei ere the day was ended, and where he always met with the best sport. Sometimes, in the daringness of his spirit, he would dash across ravines where the huntsmen feared to follow him ; and then, as he blew his horn to make known his whereabouts to those he had left behind, he could hear another horn answer- ing him far away: but though he followed in the direction of the sound, it brought him no nearer to the huntsmen. Still as he blew his bugle again and again, he could hear another in the distance leading him on and on, though never bringing him into sight of his lost companions, but always enticing him to the self-same rocks. On his return home Hermann would not fail to upbraid his retainers for mocking him; but being assured by them, one and all, that they had gone in the opposite direction to the Lei, he would, the next time that he was out with his hounds, and he, by some other mishap, got separated from the pack in the neighbouring woods, no longer trust to his horn, but shout through his hands to the rest, making the desolate thickets ring with his " Hillo-ho-o-o-o-o-o." But then, immediately afterwards, he would hear voices at the end of the wood crying "Ho-o-o-o-o-o" in answer to him. So he would proceed again in quest of the sounds, but still, as before, they drew him farther from, rather than nearer to, those from whom he had parted company, and always landed him at Lurlei. Or if, alone with his favourite " gaze-hound," he crossed the moun- tains, coursing as he went, the animal would be sure to leave him before the first hare was started ; and when he whistled to the dog to return, another whistle would be heard so dis- tinctly in the distance that the beast, mistaking it for his STORY OF THE SYREN OF THE LURLEI. 325 master's, would hurry off in the opposite direction : so that the more young Hermann called the creature back the farther it was led from him, till at the end of the pursuit the youth would once more find himself at the very rocks that he was thus forced day after day to visit. At last Hermann began to think that some spell was upon him, and though it seemed to bode him no harm by the many rich prizes it brought him, he fancied it might be some snare to lure him into danger; so he resolved to stay at home, and again find pleasure in the gentler pursuits to which he had been formerly accustomed. As the youth sat at his chamber window one summer's evening, enjoying the lovely twilight that was stealing, like a dark purple mist, over the earth, he heard a nightingale singing on the Rhine banks, and pouring from its swelling throat such a rich volume of melody that he could not resist the temptation of approaching it. He crossed towards the shore, and, imitating the notes of the bird as he went, called to it; then he could hear it answer him again and again, though it seemed to fly far down the gorge, as the warbling grew fainter and fainter. Hermann, fancying he had scared the bird from him, called it again, when the lovely piping of the nightingale seemed once more close at his side, but only to vanish once more in the distance. Another call, however, appeared to bring the precious songster back ; still it Avas but for a moment, for it seemed to fly from him as soon as near him. So on and on the youth went, calling to the beauteous bird, and hearing it respond to his call in notes that sounded more and more lovely as they died away among the distant rocks, till at length, to his astonishment, Hermann found himself once more beside the Lurlei but this time enveloped in darkness. Suddenly the moon burst from behind the clouds, and 326 THE UPPER RHINE GORGE. then, on casting his eyes above, he beheld a faint glow of light on the summit of the rock, while in the midst of it there seemed to be a dazzling crystal grotto prismatic with the reflections from the glistening stalactites that hung from the roof within and about the sides, as if it were some ice-cell ; and seated in this, upon a red coral throne, he beheld the lovely water-sprite, whose transparent robes now shone in the moonbeams bright as the scales upon some silver fish's back, while her countenance, as she looked down from her crystal cave, was fair as the moon itself, and her eyes soft and bright as the evening star. Smitten with the beauty of the vision, Hermann was about to clamber up the crags towards the syren, when the thought of the dreaded Ondine Lore rushed to his mind, and devoutly crossing himself, he turned his steps towards home again ; for now he knew whose mimic voice it was that had lured him so often to the spot Still as he hurried along the banks, and the wind swept in fitful gusts down the narrow gorge, the youth could hear, amid the whisperings of the stream at his feet, the syren singing to him, now wildly and plaintively as some JEolian harp, and now murmuring forth her strain, soft as the music of some sea-shell in his ear. Often he would have paused to listen by the way, en- chanted by the melody ; but he knew the force of the spell too well to linger, and though the music sank deep into his soul, and seemed to haunt him as he went, playing about the crags like angel voices in the air, he did not turn nor tarry till he reached his home. From that time forth, young Hermann could banish neither the sight of the Ondine's lovely form, nor the sound of her exquisite voice, from his mind. By day he heard her music amid the hum of the distant church bells; by night STORY OF THE SYREN OF THE LUKLEI. 327 he saw the water-sprite in his dreams, like some bright halo assuming the human form; and do what he would, or go where he would, he could hear no sound but the syren's voice upon the shore, and see no form but hers reflected in the water. At length Hermann confided his sorrows to his preceptor the old priest Walter who knitted his brows and reminded his pupil of the danger to which he would expose himself if he did not shake the spell, by continual prayer, from his soul. Numberless were the tales the old man recounted to his pupil of youths whom Lore, the lovely water-sprite, had lured to their destruction by the charms of her beauty and the witching melody of her voice. Nothing, however, could banish the bright remembrance from the young Count's mind, and his only hope was that he might once more hear her sing to him, and behold her once more in all her crystal glory. At length, unable to rest, the youth besought the priest to accompany him down the Rhine, under the pretext of fishing ; and though the idea of the water-sprite filled the old man with apprehensions, he deemed some pastime necessary to divert his pupil's mind, and considered it only prudent to comply; moreover, he was fond of the sport himself. Her- mann, whose whole thoughts were bent on Lore, let the boat drift nearer and nearer towards the dangerous rock without its being perceived by his tutor, who was so much taken with the good fortune which attended them, that he could think of little else than the quantity of fish he was netting. Soon the moon rose in all her splendour, and her snowy light silvered the peaks of the Lurlei, strewing the surface of the water as with a thousand crystal gems. Hermann seized the lute that he had brought with him to summon the syren from her cave, and no sooner did his fingers sweep the 328 TIIK Ul'PEK RHINE GORGE. chords and his voice pour forth its song than the air and rocks resounded with the exquisite melody of the syren's notes in answer to the boy. Walter, who was now roused to the peril of their situation, cried, as he let go the net that he had ready for casting, " My lord ! my lord ! See yonder is the Lurlei ! straight before us I In the name of the blessed Virgin and the saints, let us make for the shore ! " But the young lord seemed to have lost all power to withstand the spell. His eyes were steadfastly fixed on the summit of the rock, and there, as the moon poured the full stream of her phosphorescent light upon the crags, he beheld the river-maid, like the same radiant halo as he had seen in his sleep. In the meantime the boat glided nearer and nearer to the Lei; for though Walter strove with the oar to turn it from the current, it was drawn swifter than ever towards the rocks. Suddenly the waves rose to a fearful height, and the stream seemed to boil up in huge billows from below, so that the frail bark was flung upon the reef with a force that shivered its planks like glass. Then young Hermann plunged into the whirlpool, where, with his eyes still turned towards the sprite, he was engulphed in the watery abyss. A mighty wave bore the old priest safe to the opposite bank ; and as, in the midst of his grief, he called aloud the name of Hermann in half hysteric tones, he could hear the syren on the rock laugh as she cried Hermann too. At length, summoning up his courage, he retraced his steps to the castle, and communicated the sad tidings to the old Palatine. For a time the venerable father was overcome with grief, but soon he swore to be revenged upon the sorceress. Accordingly, on the following evening, the Palatine, at the STOKY OF THE SYREN OF THE LURLEI. 329 head of his guards, and accompanied by the old priest, went forth to seize the water-sprite. The entire rock was surrounded by the vassals, while the Pfalzgraf, with a few of the most courageous of his followers, stationed himself on the summit; and when the moon rose high above the mountain, Lore herself appeared once more in all the spiritual beauty of her loveliness. She gazed at the Palatine for a moment, and then asked, in a voice whose melody thrilled through the veins of all that heard it, whom they sought. " Thee, vile witch ! " cried the Count. " Where is my son, my beloved Hermann ? " The river-sprite raised her white transparent arm and pointed silently to the stream, whose waves, as if agitated by a storm, now dashed furiously against the crags. The nymph then cast her girdle of crystal beads into the troubled flood, and instantly the water was smooth as a mirror, and the gems were seen floating in a circle like a diamond wreath upon the river. Next she spread out her veil, which glittered like fountain spray in the sunlight, and sang in the wildest ^Eolian tones, " Come to me, sweet Rhine ! enfold me in thy misty arms, and carry thy daughter to the crystal caves below. Come ! oh, come to me, sweet Rhine ! " No sooner had the rocks ceased ringing with her lovely song than there arose two huge waves, that seemed like the curving necks of river-steeds showing above the water ; upon these she threw her silver veil, and still singing as the current roared, she sprang amidst the foam, and was borne gently down the river. The veil streamed after her upon the flood, like a trail of meteors, and continued to shed a soft phosphorescent light over the water, till at length all disappeared in the whirlpool. Then, as the waves opened, the old Palatine fancied he could see the pale features of his boy beneath the waters, and behold him 330 THE UITEU R111NK GORGE. clasp the spectral nymph to his bosom as she sank for ever in the flood. From that time no mortal eye has ever looked upon the Lurlei sprite, though she is still heard, they say, imitating the sounds of the voices on the opposite shore.* * The above tradition must be added to the already long list of legends due to a mistake in the meaning of the names of the places with which they are associated. The title Lurlei, M. Eugene Guinot tells us, in his catalogue of the Rhine scenery, " has been derived from a variety of sources." It has been said to sig- nify, he adds, " the rock which watches, the rock which mocks, or better than all the rock of the Syren Laure," (pronounced Laura). But to derive Lur-lei or Lore-lei from Laure is precisely the same as if we were to make a-jrjof come from Peter, rather than Peter from a-i