Over the Ocean Part 26

The wine-drinkers here, from America, are in ecstasies, for we appear to be at headquarters for the light Rhine wines of the country; two francs buy a bottle costing one dollar and twenty-five cents at home, and five francs such as cannot be got in America for three dollars. The sparkling Moselle and celebrated Johannisberger are to be had here in perfection, and the newly-arrived American is not long in ascertaining what a different thing the same brand of wine is in this country from what it is at home.

"Ah, if we had wine like this at home, how I should like to have it oftener!" have I heard frequently said by travellers. It is too true that it is extremely difficult to get pure (imported) wines and liquors, pay what price one may in America; and perhaps one reason why the light wines of Germany are so agreeable to the tourist's palate, is in the surroundings and the time they are taken, such as on the deck of a Rhine steamer, at the top of a steep crag, in a picturesque old castle, in a German garden, where a capital orchestra makes the very atmosphere luxuriant with Strauss waltzes and Gungl galops, or at the gay _table d'hote_ with pleasure-seeking tourists, who, like himself, are only studying how to enjoy themselves, recounting past pleasure jaunts, or planning new ones.

However, be this as it may, it is, I believe, acknowledged that the only place to get the Rhine wines is in Rhineland; and the difference between them and the compounds furnished in America is obvious to the dullest taste. The purest and most reliable wines now in our own country are the California and other native wines, although they are not so fashionable as the doctored foreign, and imitation of foreign that are palmed off as genuine.

As I looked from my windows over the river and up at the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, seated on its rocky perch three hundred and seventy-seven feet above the river, and the eye caught the occasional glitter of a weapon, or the ear the faint rattle of a drum, or the sound of the bugle call, softened by the distance, I found myself repeating fragments of Byron's Childe Harold.

"Here Ehrenbreitstein with her shattered wall, Black with the miner's blast upon her height, Yet shows of what she was when sh.e.l.l and ball Rebounding lightly on her strength did light."

"A tower of victory" it is indeed, for it has only twice been taken by an enemy during the best part of a thousand years--once by stratagem, and once being reduced by famine.

We crossed the bridge of boats, which is fourteen hundred and ten feet long, got tickets of admission to the fortress in the little town of Ehrenbreitstein the other side, mounted with labor up the steep ascent, and as we came within view of these tremendous works, upon which money and engineering skill seem to have been expended without stint, we did not wonder at their impregnability, or that they excite so much admiration among the military engineers of the world. From the ramparts we enjoyed a magnificent view of the whole river and the country between Andernach and Stolzenfels. Below us was triangular-shaped Coblentz, and its row of handsome buildings facing the River Rhine, the bridge of boats and never-ending moving diorama sort of scene, while at the right of the town glided the blue Moselle, its azure waters moving unmixed as they flowed along with the Rhine, and the railroad bridge spanning the stream with its graceful arches; beyond that the fortifications of Fort Franz, commanding the river and vicinity; and far off to the right of that a fertile plain towards Andernach, the scene of Caesar's first pa.s.sage of the Rhine, B. C. 55, and of the sieges of the thirty years war, in 1631 to 1660, and the b.l.o.o.d.y campaigns of Louis XIV.

Farther to our left, and near the junction of the two rivers, we observed the Church of St. Castor, built in 1208; and it was in a small square near this church, in one of our walks about the town, that we came to a little monument, raised by a French official at the commencement of the campaign against Russia, bearing this inscription:--

"Made memorable by the campaign against the Russians, under the prefecturate of Jules Doazan, 1812."

When the Russian general entered the town, he added these words, which still remain:--

"Seen and approved by the Russian commander of the city of Coblentz, January 1, 1814."

A delightful afternoon ride, in an open carriage, along the river bank for three or four miles, brought us to the foot of the ascent leading to the castle of Stolzenfels, which looks down upon the river from a rocky eminence about four hundred feet above it. Refusing the proffers of donkeys or _chaise a porter_ for the ladies, we determined to make the ascent on foot, and very soon found that the "guides," donkeys, and portable chairs were "a weak invention of the enemy," for the road, although winding, was broad, easy, and delightfully shady and romantic.

We pa.s.sed an old Roman mile-stone on the road, and after crossing a drawbridge, reached the royal castle.

This most beautifully restored relic of the middle ages was, in 1802, a ruin of a castle of five hundred years before; in 1823 it was partially restored, and since then has been completely rebuilt and beautified at a cost of fifty-three thousand pounds sterling. Everything is in good proportion, Stolzenfels being somewhat of a miniature castle, its _great_ banquet hall scarcely double the size of a good-sized drawing-room; but its whole interior and exterior are a model of exquisite taste. It has its little castle court-yard, its beautifully contrived platform overlooking the Rhine, its watch-towers and its turrets, all undersized, but in exact proportions. Through the tower windows, which are wreathed with ivy; from the windows of little boudoirs of rooms, which were cabinets of rare china and exquisite cabinet paintings; from embrasures in galleries and halls which had exquisite statuettes, instead of large size statues; from little Gothic windows in the chapel; and, in fact, from every conceivable and most unexpected point was the visitor encountering different lovely framed views, as it were, of the natural scenery of the country. These outlooks were so skilfully contrived as each to give a different view, and as at this point of the Rhine is the narrowest and most romantic part of the valley, the views are of the most enchanting description.

Looking out of an ivy-wreathed window of Stolzenfels, the spectator would see, framed, as it were, in stone-work and green leaves, a picture of the river, with its boats and bridges: through another, or an embrasure, a square-framed picture of an elevation on the opposite bank, crowned by a pilgrims' chapel, while from the watch-tower you look down upon the lovely valley of the River Lahn, which near this point flows into the Rhine; and from another turret we look back upon the ma.s.sy walls of Ehrenbreitstein, Coblentz, with the apex of its triangle pointing out into the stream, and behind its base the strong walls of Fort Constantine, marked out like stone lines on the greensward. The apartments in this castle are exquisitely furnished, and the furniture, tapestry, pictures, and statues adapted to harmonize with their size, which is fairy-like in comparison with castles generally.

In one hall were a series of beautiful frescoes of chivalric scenes--G.o.dfrey de Bouillon at the Holy Sepulchre; John of Bohemia at the Battle of Cressy; Rudolph of Hapsburg judging knightly robbers, &c.

There was a beautiful little chapel with elegant frescoes. In the armory were specimens of light and curious armor, among which were swords of Napoleon, Blucher, and Murat, specimens of exquisite Toledo blades, arabesque ornamented daggers, exquisitely wrought and flexible chain-mail shirts, and other curiosities of defensive armor. In the different rooms through which we were conducted, among other works of the old masters, were cabinet pictures by Holbein, t.i.tian, Van Dyck, Albert Durer, Rembrandt, &c. The charming views of the surrounding scenery without, and the exquisite taste displayed on the interior of this royal castle, made us regret to leave its little leaf-clad turrets, fairy-like watch-towers, romantic terraces, and picturesque battlements; and we believed the custodian when he averred that Queen Victoria was charmed with the place when she visited it a few years since, for it was fit to charm even a queen with its beauty.

Once more we are steaming up the river, and Stolzenfels is left behind us, and the towers of Lahneck come in sight, a feudal castle restored by a wealthy Englishman, and which occupies a crag above the River Lahn; we pa.s.s little white villages nestled at the foot of the hills, and looking far inland, see the slopes bristling with vineyards; we are in the land of the vine. Next comes another great castle, Marksburg, frowning from its rocky height four hundred and eighty feet above the stream, and we lazily inspect it by the aid of a double field-gla.s.s, as we lie at full length on a settee, beneath the steamer's awning, and, on inquiry, find that after being an old feudal castle, and bearing its weight of half a thousand years bravely, it has been degraded into a states prison! The little town near the river, an old watch-tower, a road winding off amid the hills for a foreground, and this old castle high above as the background, forms so charming a picture, that one wishes it might, by some magic process, be transferred to canvas, that he could carry it away, and show it to others as it appeared to him. Farther on we pa.s.s the little castle of Liebeneck; then comes Boppard, where, in feudal times, once existed an establishment of the Knights Templars. Next we sweep round a great angle or elbow of the river, and there come in sight of a little village, with a Gothic church of the fifteenth century, behind and high above it, the two castles known as "the Brothers,"

connected with each other by a narrow natural bridge of rock.

These two castles have a legend, as in fact nearly all the Rhine castles have, and half the charm of one's trip consists in having them told to you at the right time, or recalling the half-forgotten story of boyhood piecemeal with some _compagnon de voyage_. The story of these castles is familiar, and is of two brothers loving the same lady, of faithlessness, of jealousy; and finally the lady in the case, with the delightfully German romantic name of Hildegarde, retires to the convent at the foot of the hill--that is the way they always do in these Rhine legends; it brings the convent into the story, and, perhaps, excites a desire on the part of the tourist to see the cell occupied by the fair penitent, without suspecting that the exhibition may prove something more of a sell than he bargained for. Well, the lady retired, the two brothers were reconciled, and lived ever after in one castle, instead of two.

More quaint little villages, other ruined castles! Thurnberg, the "Mouse" tower, looms up, with its square, shattered walls, and round tower, rising from their midst against the sky as we sweep by it; and St. Goar, a conspicuous-looking town, comes in view, with the huge ruins of Rheinfels, three hundred and seventy feet above it, the most magnificent ruin on the river, a second Ehrenbreitstein in strength, and which has laughed one siege of fifteen months to scorn in the thirteenth century, and in 1692 was again defended successfully against an army of twenty-four thousand men, but blown up by the French revolutionary army of 1794. It is now simply a picturesque ruin on its rocky eminence, with the railway track creeping around its base; below the track, nearer the river, winds the carriage-road to the town.

The Mouse, or Maus Tower, which we pa.s.sed before reaching Rheinfels, was so called by the envious counts of Katzenelnbogen (there's a name to write), who named their own castle, near here, the Cat (Katz); but the story goes that the mouse and its stout old warrior were more than a match for the cat; in fact, he was so feared in his day that the proverb was reversed, and when the mouse was away the cat would play.

Now we reach the precipitous rocks known as the "Lurlei" crags, towering four hundred and twenty feet above the river, which flows swiftly down their base; and here was where Lurlei, the siren, sat and chanted her songs, which lured fishermen, knights, and sailors to their destruction in the rapids that whirled beneath her lofty and romantic seat. As we pa.s.sed we heard no siren's song, but our ears were saluted with the shrill whistle of that practical chanter of the advance of civilization, the locomotive, that rushed through a tunnel, piercing the very base of the magic rock, and whirling out of sight with a shriek that made the hills echo like the scream of a demon, leaving an angry puff of smoke issuing from the rocky orifice, as if the fiend had vanished from the surface to the centre.

Now we pa.s.s Oberwesel, with its romantic ravines, picturesque vineyards, and old ruins of Castle Schonburg; farther on, on the opposite bank, the grand old castle of Gutenfels stands guard over the town beneath it; then comes that little hexagonal castle, or stone fortification, on an island, looking as though anch.o.r.ed in mid stream, known as the Pfalz; it was erected in the thirteenth century, as a toll-house for exacting tribute, and has served, if not as a prison, as a place of royal confinement--tradition being that the Countesses Palatine remained here during their accouchements. We wind round a point, and the Castle of Stahleck, once the princ.i.p.al residence of the Counts Palatine, makes its appearance; then come the ruins of Furstenburg, once the stronghold of an old robber, who was bold enough to fire into the emperor's boat that refused to pay toll as it pa.s.sed; the stream now narrows perceptibly, and a little slender tower, perched like a sentinel on watch on its walls, at a narrow ravine, attracts attention; it is Sooneck, and was a robbers' stronghold in the eleventh century.

Now we sweep round another bend in the river, and come in sight of the lofty pinnacles, turrets, and towers of the beautiful Castle of Rheinstein, two hundred and fifty feet above the river, completely restored, the banner floating in the breeze from its topmost tower, and a basket suspended upon an iron crane from one of the towers towards the river; the whole shows the tourist just how these old strongholds used to look during the middle ages, and a party of ladies, far up in a little ivy-clad bower, at an angle of the castle terrace, exchanged greetings with us in handkerchief wavings as we pa.s.sed.

Now we come to Ehrenfels, and the vineyards where the Rudesheimer grapes are raised; these vineyards are arrayed in terraces, one above the other, and the banks all along on the side of the hill, upheld by arches of masonry, and brick and stone supports, put up apparently to keep the earth in place, and afford more s.p.a.ce for the vines from which the celebrated vintage is obtained. At this point, on a rock, in mid stream, stands the well-known Mouse Tower, celebrated in Southey's legend as the retreat of Bishop Hatto, who sought to escape the rats by fleeing to it; but his enemies swam the stream, entered the stronghold, and

"Whetted their teeth against the stones, And then they picked the bishop's bones."

Bingen would never have attracted so much attention from Americans and Englishmen if the Hon. Mrs. Norton, I think it was, had not written her beautiful poem of the dying soldier, who was a native of the place, and whose last words to the comrade who knelt by his side on the field of battle, were his memories of "Sweet Bingen, dear Bingen on the Rhine,"

and sent messages home to his friends who lived at

"Bingen on the Rhine."

For no other reason than because they had read this poem and wished to see Bingen, that had been so charmingly written about, did a party of Americans land here; and in truth the little town was prettily situated, with a little river at one side of it, the Nahe, flowing into the Rhine, spanned by an old arched bridge, while its slender spires and white houses look forth upon the swift-flowing river, divided by the little island bearing the Mouse Tower, and upon the steep slopes of vineyards on the other side of the Rhine, backed by the old Castle of Ehrenfels.

After leaving Bingen we come to the square-looking old Castle of Bromserburg, its shattered turrets green with vines and weeds, and farther on, other old ruins, "whose names I noted not," except one little church, that stood out like a white toy, away up on a sharp point of the hills; and then I was sorry I attempted to note it, for the Prussian, who spoke English, was compelled to write the name for me, it being an absolute impossibility for me to do so correctly, according to the p.r.o.nunciation of the country; so I will leave Rochuscapelle, and the bright-looking little villages that we pa.s.s, for the old castle, Johannisberg, which greets our view on its vine-clad eminence, three hundred and forty feet above the river.

The vineyards which circle round and about the great hill surmounted by this castle are said to cover forty acres of ground, and it is here that the celebrated _Jo-hannis-bagger_--as they p.r.o.nounce it--wine is made.

This Johannisberg vineyard is situated in the district, about fifteen miles in length, celebrated as producing the finest wines of the Rhine.

There are Rudesheim, Hosheim, Hattenheim, the Steinberger, Graffenberg, and many other "heims" and "bergs," whose mellowness and flavor, which is more or less injured by travel, may be enjoyed here by wine-drinkers, in their perfection, at a comparatively moderate cost.

Now we pa.s.s two or three islands, with unp.r.o.nounceable names, more white-walled towns, backed by castle ruins, or handsome country residences and well-kept vineyards, with their serried rows of vines rising terrace above terrace on the hill-sides. Here come the ancient, quaint little village of Niederwalluf, known in record as far back as the year 770, Schierstein embosomed in trees, and Biebrich with its ducal palace, splendid garden, and park; we glide between two islands, and come in sight of the triple line of fortifications and cathedral steeples of Mayence.

Mayence, which claims to be the place where the Emperor Constantine saw his vision of the cross, which is the strongest fortress in the German confederation, which was founded B. C. 14 by the Romans, and where they show you the remains of a Roman acqueduct, a Roman burial-ground, and the site of the Roman camp, and, in the walls of the citadel, a monument erected by two of the Roman legions in honor of their commander-in-chief, Drusus, more than eighteen hundred years ago, an aged-looking, gray, circular tower, forty feet in height,--Mayence, with its bridge of boats, two thousand two hundred and twenty feet in length, and Mayence, which is the end of our journey up the Rhine.

We expected, from travellers' stories, to have been disappointed with the Rhine, and were--favorably disappointed. The succession of natural beauties of its scenery, the historic interest attached to almost every foot of the course between Cologne and Mayence, the novelty to American eyes of the romantic ruins that crown the picturesque heights, the smiling vineyards, quaint little towns, odd churches, prim watch-towers, Gothic cathedrals, white-walled cities, and boat-bridges, of course lend a charm to this beautiful river, and, notwithstanding my national pride, I cannot agree with some of my countrymen, who a.s.sert that the Hudson River is as rich in picturesque scenery as the Rhine, "leaving the castles out." The river scenery in America, that in character most resembles that of the Rhine, is the Upper Mississippi, between Prairie du Chien and St. Paul, and there some of the remarkable natural formations of the limestone bluffs supply the place of the Rhine castles; but where that river widens out into Lake Pepin, the comparison, of course, ceases.

The Rhine is a river of romance. A sail up the Rhine is something to be enjoyed by a student, a tourist who has "read up," a lover of travel who has longed to wander amid the scenes he has pored over on the pages of books, gazed at in pictures and engravings, and wondered if the reality could possibly be equal to the counterfeit presentment; and to such it will be as it was to us,--

"A thing of beauty, _and_ a joy forever."

We rambled around Mayence, visited its filthy market-place, and its old cathedral, founded in the tenth century, which has felt the stern vicissitudes of war quite severely, serving at different periods as a garrison for troops, a hay and provision magazine, &c. In the interior are quite a number of monuments of German electors, with tongue-puzzling names, and a tablet to the memory of one of Charlemagne's wives; and in the Chapter-house is a beautiful sculpture by Schwanthaler, representing a female figure decorating a sarcophagus with a wreath; a monument, erected by the ladies of Mayence in 1842, in memory of a certain holy minstrel, who sang of piety and woman's virtue some time in the early part of the fourteenth century. Not far from the cathedral is Guttenberg Square, where we saw Thorwaldsen's statue of Guttenberg, representing him as an old man, with the long, flowing, philosopher-looking gown, or robe, full beard, and skull-cap, with some of his precious volumes under his arm, and upon the pedestal of the monument were ba.s.s-reliefs representing scenes in his life. A bronze statue of Schiller adorns another square here.

After Mayence, we found ourselves taking a two hours' ride to Wiesbaden, one of the oldest watering-places in Germany, and for gambling second only to Baden-Baden. Here we found fine rooms at the Hotel Victoria, and the polite landlord, Herr Holzapfel, with a desire to facilitate the enjoyment of the tourist, very graciously presented me with a handsome little local guide-book, bearing the astounding t.i.tle, "_Fremdenfuhrer fur Wiesbaden und seine Umgebung_," and its imprint informed me, "_Im Auftrage des Verfchonerungsvereins herausgegeven._"

Fancy an individual, unacquainted with the German tongue, with this lucid little guide, printed in small German text, to aid him in seeing the sights! However, I thanked the landlord, and pocketed the guide-book as one of the curiosities of the place. Our first walk was to the chief attraction here to all visitors, the great gaming-house known as the Cursaal,--which is suggestive of the more appropriate t.i.tle Curse-all,--where the s.p.a.cious and elegant gaming-saloons, that have been described so often, were open for play from eleven A. M. to eleven P. M., and which, during the season, are thronged with players at the roulette and _rouge-et-noir_ tables. The central figure of attraction to strangers, when we were there, was the old d.u.c.h.ess of Homburg, who was each day wheeled in a chair to the table by her servant, and gambled away furiously, not scrupling a malediction when she lost heavily, or caring to conceal the eager gratification that played upon her wrinkled features, or made the gold rattle in her trembling and eager clutch, when she won.

This gaming-hall is furnished with elegant dining, ball, and reading-rooms, and adjoining the building is an extensive and elegantly laid out park and pleasure-ground, where a fine band play during the afternoon, and throngs frequent its delightful alleys, walks, and arbors. All these are free to the visitor; and sometimes, in the evening, the band plays in the ball-room, and gayly-dressed crowds are whirling about in German waltzes and galops, and couples, for a rest now and then, will stroll into the adjacent lofty saloons of play, the silence of which is in striking contrast with the ball-room clatter without. Here the only loud words spoken are those of the managers of the table, which, at regular intervals, rise above the subdued hum and the musical rattle of gold and silver, or its clink against the croupier's rake, as they sweep in the stakes from every part of the table to the insatiate maw of the bank, with the familiar and oft-repeated formula of,--

"_Faites votre jeu, messieurs._"

"_Le jeu, est-il fait?_"

"_Rien ne va plus._"

(Make your game, gentlemen. Is the game made? Nothing more goes). Or, at the roulette table, audible announcement of the numbers, and color which wins, determined by the ball in the revolving wheel.

Leaving Wiesbaden, its gamesters, and its mineral spring, the water of which tasted very much like a warm decoction of salt and water, we sped on to Frankfort-on-the-Main. Here we rode through beautiful streets, upon each side of which were broad double houses, surrounded by elegant gardens. Here is the monument of Guttenberg, consisting of the three figures of Guttenberg, Fust and Schoffer, beneath which, on the ornamental work, are likenesses of celebrated printers, and grouped around the monument are figures of Theology, Poetry, History, and Industry.

Here we saw the house in which Goethe was born, and rode down through the _Judenga.s.se_, or Jews Street. The quarter inhabited by the Jews is a curious old place, some parts too narrow to permit two vehicles pa.s.sing each other; the unpainted, high, quaint, and solid old wooden houses, totally black with age, stores in the lower stories for the sale of second-hand clothes, and every species of cheap and second-hand merchandise; on all sides were troops and troops of children, with sparkling black eyes, and the unmistakable Jewish nose. The houses had antique carved wood door-posts to deep, dark entries, in which were deeply-worn stairs, that lead away up to the overhanging stories above; and in the entry of one of the blackest and most aged of these old structures yawned a huge trap-door, occupying more than half the s.p.a.ce from the threshold to the stair. Peeping down the aperture, left where the half leaf had been raised by its old-fashioned iron ring, I could see nothing but blackness, and imagine how some wealthy Hebrew might have made this the drawbridge to his citadel, so that the robber, who gained access beyond the bolts and chains that guarded the portal, would, with a step, be precipitated into the depths below. An iron ring, a trap-door, and old house in the Jews' quarter--what an amount of capital or material for a sensational story-writer in a cheap publication!

Here, in the Jews' quarter, we were shown the house in which Rothschild was born,--Rochid they call the name here,--and just as we were emerging from the narrow, gloomy, and dirty pa.s.sages of this quarter, my eye caught a familiar object in the little grated window of a sort of shop or office. I looked a second time, and there, the central figure amid a straggling display of bank notes of different nationalities, was a five-hundred dollar United States five-twenty bond, a part of the stock in trade of a Jew exchange and money broker, who, notwithstanding the unpretending appearance of his shop, which looked like a prison cell with the outside shutter down from the grated window, would probably have been able to furnish a purchaser ten times the amount on demand if he required it.

In striking contrast to the Judenga.s.se is the Ziel, the finest street in Frankfort, filled with elegant shops and houses. The Jews in Frankfort were so tyrannically treated, that they founded the Jews Street themselves in 1462, and lived exclusively in that quarter of the city till the year 1806, and in olden times, on Sundays and holidays, the entrances to this quarter were closed with gates and bars, and any Jew who ventured into any other part of the city incurred a heavy penalty.

Now, midway between Judenga.s.se and the Ziel rise the business offices of the Rothschilds, that opulent family to whom even the proudest in their hours of need would fain doff their caps for favors; and hard by the progress of toleration is marked by a fine new synagogue, built in the Oriental style in 1855.