CHAPTER III. 



THE RHINE AND THE MOSELLE. 



(Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, Frankfort, Nassau, Palatinate, Ehenish Prussia.)* 



General Aspects. — The Rhine. 



I FIE noble river which, on crossing the frontier of Switzerland, is 

 already one of the great water highways of Europe, irrigates 

 regions very different in their aspects. If it were not that the 

 Rhine forms a connecting link between Baden and Hesse, the 

 valleys of the Nahe, the Lahn, the Moselle, the Sieg, and the Ruhr 

 would each have to be studied separately. It is the Rhine which stamps a 

 common character upon regions so diverse in many respects. 



The Celtic names of numerous towns and rivers, as well as the physical affinities 

 which anthropologists have noticed amongst the inhabitants dwelling along its 

 banks, prove to us that the Rhine, from the most remote ages, formed one of the 

 highways followed by migratory tribes. The great lines of migration, however, 

 crossed the river transversely. To wandering hordes coming from the East, the 

 Neckar, the Main, and other eastern tributaries afforded easy access to the river, 

 but having once overcome the obstacle presented by it, these migrants found 

 themselves in the face of mountain ranges and plateaux which proved more 

 formidable than the river had done. Hence those incessant struggles whose 

 memory survives amongst the dwellers along the banks of the Rhine, and which 

 have rendered the river so famous. Poets speak of the Rhine almost as of a 

 sentient being, capable of comprehending the struggles of which it was a witness. 



* Area and population of Rhenish Germany, exclusive of Alsace-Lorraine and the upper basins of 

 the Neckar, the Wain, and the Lippe : — 



Area. 

 Sq. M. 



Baden -, . 5,824 



Hesse-Darmstadt 2,965 



Nassau (Prussia) 2,145 



Bavarian Palatinate 2,292 



Principality of Birkenfeld (Oldenburg) . . 195 



Rhenish Prussia (Rheinland) .... 10,413 



District of Arnsberg (Westphalia) . . . 2,972 



Total . . 26,806 



