34 Notes and Gleanings. 



others lower and more smooth and rounded, occasionally close to the river ; at 

 other times receding from it, leaving a space of level ground at their foot. In 

 some places, however, the banks are low, and the shore spreads out into broad 

 plains. This is so in the upper part of its course near Mayence, as well as lower 

 down by Cologne. The southern slopes of the hills are appropriated to vine- 

 yards, whenever there is sufficient soil for the vines to grow ; some of the level 

 ground being also used for the same purpose : and, as the river is tortuous or wind- 

 ing in its course, these southern slopes are sometimes on one bank of the river, 

 sometimes on the other ; and are used for vines, according to their more or less 

 exposure to the sun. From the vineyards on the banks of the Rhine are made 

 some of the most esteemed German wines, — as the Johannisburger, the Rudes- 

 heimer, and the Marcoburner ; althougli a preference is sometimes given to that 

 made from the vineyards on the Moselle, one of the affluents of the Rhine, com- 

 ing into it at Coblentz. The vineyard of Johannisburg contains about seventy 

 acres on the southern slopes of a rather low, conical-shaped hill lying on the 

 right bank of the river. Here is made the wine that in favorable years, when of 

 superior quality, is only used by princes, or those of great wealth ; although 

 that of a lower quality can be readily obtained. Of late years, the Steinburger — 

 a wine made in Nassau, a little farther up the river — has been considered to^ 

 rival the Johannisburg in quality. The vineyards that produce the Johannis- 

 burger, the Rudesheimer, and the Marcoburner, are in near contiguity ; and it is 

 not easy to see what should cause the difference in quality between them, unless 

 it be more or less care and skill in the manufacture, that has probably much to 

 do with it : but that would not wholly account for a difference in flavor, that may 

 be caused by the inorganic elements of the soil where the vines are grown. 

 While the vine is the most important cultivation on the banks of the Rhine, that 

 of other and different kinds of fruit is not neglected. Apricots and cherries 

 seem abundant, and pear and apple trees in great numbers are noticed ; much 

 of the level ground along the river being devoted to the raising of the crops 

 usually cultivated in temperate climates. 



Of Switzerland I can give but a brief and very general account: indeed, 

 considering that a very considerable part of it is occupied by high mountain- 

 ranges, and that many lakes (some quite large) are scattered about its surface, 

 perhaps it would be as well for me to content myself with describing it as a land 

 of lakes and mountains. But this, to a certain extent true, would not be wholly 

 accurate ; because a portion of its territory is of a different character, and adapted 

 to agricultural purposes. On its southern and eastern side, much of Switzer- 

 land is occupied by the mountains and ridges of the chain of the high Alps, 

 whose highest summits are covered with perpetual snow ; while their sides, to 

 the line where vegetation ceases, far below, are stupendous naked rocks, rent 

 and split into fantastic forms of peaks, minarets, and domes. Of the lower 

 mountains of the range, many are bare, naked rocks, with their strata twisted 

 and contorted in various directions by the violent convulsion that, perhaps, 

 caused their existence ; some of them with the angles of their sides worn and 

 rounded into the resemblance of the towers and bastions of a fortress ; others 

 with their sides sheer perpendicular precipices, hundreds of feet high, — so high, 



