190 GERMANY. 



In the side valleys of the Rhine the old castles are equally numerous, and well 

 may Théophile Gautier ask how their owners, those birds of prey of the Middle Age, 

 contrived to live, seeing that their area of pilluge was thus restricted. But these 

 ruins are not merely associated with pillage and the clang of arms. Every castle, 

 nay, every rock and promontory, has its legend, and this legendary lore has 

 proved a fertile source from which poets have drawn their inspirations. The 

 bold rock known as the Lorelei is the most famous amongst the promontories. 

 The Rhine rushes wildly along its foot, and the rocks, which formerly impeded 

 its course, caused many a boatman to perish, whose cries of anguish were repeated 

 fifteen times by a mocking echo. 



Picturesque scenery, old castles, and historical associations are not, however, 

 the only things which have rendered the Rhine famous, for its slaty cliffs produce 

 one of the best appreciated wines of the world. The vines are cultivated in terraces, 

 and in good years the formidable labour of the tviiizers is richly rewarded. Rhenish 

 wine has supplied German poets with one of their most fertile themes, and even 

 prose writers speak of it with raptures.* 



The only affluent of any importance which the Rhine receives between 

 Bingen and Lahnstein is the AVisper, known on account of its alternating gusts 

 of wind, which blow down towards the Rhine in the morning and up the valley 

 in the evening. A short distance below the river Lahn, which rises in the hills 

 of Hesse, the valley of the Rhine widens, and it is joined on the left by the 

 Moselle, a tortuous river, bounded by steep hills, famous for their wine. So 

 winding is the course of the Moselle that it is next to impossible to utilise it as 

 a road of commerce. The main roads, instead of following its valley, run over 

 the hills which bound it. 



Both the Moselle and the Lahn join the Rhine at right angles, and conjointly 

 they occupy a depression intersecting it transversely, and running parallel with 

 the general axis of the mountains. The Nahe and the Lower Main, together with 

 the connecting portion of the Rhine, occupy a similar depression. 



To the north of the basin of Coblenz the Rhine enters a second defile, that 

 of Andernach. This gorge is less wild than that of Bingen, and the hills 

 bounding the river present gentler slopes. Gradually they retire, and finally 

 the Rhine debouches upon the vast alluvial plain which now occupies an ancient 

 gulf of the ocean. Having been joined by a few tributaries — the Sieg, the 

 Ruhr, and the Lippe — it swerves round to the west a short distance from the 

 Dutch frontier and the head of its delta. In this portion of its course the 

 Rhine is as erratic as in the plains of Alsace and the Palatinate. Traces of 

 deserted channels abound, and between Diisseldorf and Crefeld may be seen an 

 old bed of the Pthine which extends to the north-west, and joins the Meuse 

 (Maas) to the south of Cleves. Careful measurements continued for more than 

 a century show that the volume of the river has sensibly diminished. At 

 Emmerich, with an average depth of about 10 feet, the mean level in 1835 was 



* In England Rhenish wine is usual!)- known as Hock, from Hochheim, a town on the Main. 



