AGKICULTURE ON THE RHINE. 9 



as potentates whose alliance is courted and whose enmity 

 is dreaded by their reigning contemporaries. These 

 districts all belong to the region of the Rhine, or are so 

 contiguous to it as to be influenced by the events of 

 which its basin was the scene. The Counts of Haps- 

 burg, of Nassau, and of Luxemburg successively ascended 

 the Imperial throne. Civic independence reared its 

 banner trium.phantly on the banks of the Rhine, and the 

 Rhenish League is a no less interesting historical event 

 than the more famous Confederacy of the lianse Towns, 

 in which the cities of the Lower Rhine, especially 

 Cologne, played a conspicuous part. That the mechanical 

 and refined arts also flourished at an early period in these 

 cities is well known. 



The portion of Prussia by which the traveller on the 

 Rhine enters Germany from Holland was formerly the 

 Duchy of Cleves. The high road from Nymwegen to 

 Cologne follows the heights that recede from the left 

 bank of the Rhine and leave a narrow strip of low land 

 (originally marsh, and afterwards enclosed), which is 

 occasionally inundated, or what is called Polderland in 

 the language of the country. This narrow strip formed 

 the county of Mors. It has been already observed that a 

 tract of land stretching along the right bank of the river 

 from the frontier of Holland to the mouth of the Lippe 

 also belonged formerly to Cleves. The farmer who fol- 

 lows other than political boundaries still distinguishes be- 

 tween the heights and the lowlands of Cleves. In the 

 former tract, which is traversed by the high road from 

 Cologne to Nymwegen, that owed its original construc- 

 tion in all probability to the Romans, trade has had its 

 usual effect upon the farmer's calculations. Estates are 



