Rhine Valley

“ From Rüdesheim to Wiesbaden the railway follows the Rhine as far as Castel, at the mouth of the Main, opposite Mayence. A short distance above Rüdesheim the Taunus bluffs sweep back from the river, and the garden of the Rhine valley opens out right and left. This is the heart of the wine-growing region, and within it lie many of the most celebrated vineyards in the world. The valley is dotted with villages whose names are famous in the Rhine-wine nomenclature, and upon a bold promontory, commanding all, the queen of the German vintage rules from the Johannisberg Schloss. ”

“ The Rhine Valley here is not of great breadth: eastward the heights rise to be mountainous in not many miles. By way of defence to this Valley, in the Eugene-Marlborough Wars, there was, about forty miles southward, or higher up the River than Philipsburg, a military line or chain of posts; going from Stollhofen, a boggy hamlet on the Rhine, with cunning indentations, and learned concatenation of bog and bluff, up into the inaccessibilities,—LINES OF STOLLHOFEN, the name of it,—which well-devised barrier did good service for certain years. ”

“ A great many people merely pass up or down the river in a steamer, in a day and a night, and only see the ruins and the other scenery by gazing at them from the deck of the vessel. But in this case they get no idea whatever of the Rhine. It is necessary to travel slowly, to stop frequently at the towns on the bank, to make excursions along the shores and into the interior, and to ascend to the sites of the ruins, and to other elevated points, so as to view the valley and the stream meandering through it from above, or you obtain no correct idea whatever of travelling on the Rhine. ”

“ Like other world-rivers, the Rhine has attracted to its banks a succession of races of widely divergent origin. Celt, Teuton, Slav, and Roman have contested for the territories which it waters, and if the most enduring of these races has finally achieved dominion over the fairest river-province in Europe, who shall say that it has emerged from the struggle as a homogeneous people, having absorbed none of the blood of those with whom it strove for the lordship of this vine-clad valley? ”

“ They extend northward toward and along the Rhine valley. The close of the period is marked by the southward spread of peoples from northern Germany crowding back the farmers characterized by the banded pottery. This movement is augmented somewhat, perhaps very little, by recruits from the megalithic zone of northwestern Europe and Denmark. All these people are closing in on central or middle western Europe. In the Rhine valley along the middle of the course of the river we find a region of mingling or overlapping cultures which have not yet been satisfactorily disentangled. ”

“ Rheingau, a fruitful wine district in the Rhine Valley, stretching along the right bank of the river in Hesse-Nassau; has a sunny, sheltered situation, and its wines are famed for their quality.
Rhenish Prussia (4,710) , the most westerly and most densely populated of the Prussian provinces, lies within the valleys of the Rhine and the Lower Moselle, and borders on Belgium and the Netherlands; is mountainous and forest-clad, except in the fertile plains of the N. and in the rich river valleys, where vines, cereals, and vegetables are extensively cultivated ”

“ The German and Dutch Portion.—After Basel, when the Rhine turns to the north and enters Germany, its breadth is between 550 and 600 ft., while its surface now lies not more than 800 ft. above the sea, showing that the river has made a descent of 6900 ft. by the time it has traversed a third of its course. From Basel to Mainz the Rhine flows through a wide and shallow valley, bordered on the east and west by the parallel ranges of the Black Forest and the Vosges. Its banks are low and flat, and numerous islands occur. ”

“ Instead of following his example, however, we advanced, trying to fancy ourselves on the banks of the Rhine, to which so many travellers have compared this beautiful valley. Pray employ your unrivalled taste in imagining the rugged mountains,—the sparkling river,—the ancient trees,—the smiling cottages,—the daisied meadows, and the fertile gardens, all grouped or scattered in the way you think best,—and invention can suggest nothing more perfect. ”

“ The congress of Vienna (1815) restored the lower part of the Rhenish valley to Germany, but it was not till the war of 1870-71 that the recovery of Alsace and Lorraine made the Rhine once more “Germany's river, not Germany's frontier.” In the military history of all these centuries constant allusion is made to the Rhine, its passages and its fortresses. Every general who has fought in its neighbourhood has at one time or another had to provide for a crossing of the Rhine, from Julius Caesar, who crossed it twice, down to our own time. ”

“ In the valley of the Rhine, as I before observed, the body of the loess, instead of having been formed at successively lower and lower levels as in the case of the basin of the Somme, was deposited in a wide and deep pre-existing basin, or strath, bounded by lofty mountain chains such as the Black Forest, Vosges, and Odenwald. ”

“ what waves of crime and bloodshed have swept like the waves of a deluge down the valley of the Rhine! War has laid his mailed hand on those desolate towers and ruthlessly torn down what time has spared, yet he could not mar the beauty of the shore, nor could Time himself hurl down the mountains that guard it. ”

“ Before the city lies a wide plain, rich and smiling, full of corn-fields and vineyards, with here and there a curious-looking spire or a couple of dome-topped towers marking the place of a village or small town, and beyond the plain, glistening in a long, long wavy line of silver, glides a broad river—the mighty Rhine. ”

“ They are empty now and deserted, these grim old castles. Vines creep over the crumbling walls. Mice scurry through the dim rooms, and bats flit about tower and turret. And the great Rhine, as it winds along, buries their secrets under its hurrying water. ”

“ German patriotic literature of the “Wacht am Rhein” type is mediocre in quality, but it is eloquent of the spirit of the people. Even Heine, cynic and often anti-patriot, sings proudly of “der heilige Strom.” In periods of defeat and oppression Germans of an older date have found in the cleansing waters of the great stream a symbol of hope and regeneration. Few foreigners even can resist the spell of the Rhine. Mighty rivers have a message to give to the restless heart of man as their waters sweep by, eternal yet ever changing. ”

“ High above them rose the vast dismantled ruins of Rheinfels, the lightning darting through its shattered casements and broken arches, and brightening the gloomy trees that here and there clothed the rocks, and tossed to the angry wind. Swift wheeled the water-birds over the river, dipping their plumage in the white foam, and uttering their discordant screams. A storm upon the Rhine has a grandeur it is in vain to paint. Its rocks, its foliage, the feudal ruins that everywhere rise from the lofty heights, speaking in characters of stern decay of many a former battle against time and tempest ”

“ Is more than I can tell.”
“There is a sadness in the bells of the Rhine,” continued Mr. Beal, “as they ring from old belfries at evening under the ruins of [240] the castles on the hills. The lords of the Rhine that once heard them are gone forever. The vineyards creep up the hills on the light trellises, and the sun and the earth, as it were, fill the grapes with wine. The woods are as green as of old. The rafts go drifting down the light waves as on feet of air. But the river of history is changed, and one feels the spirit of the change with deep sadness as one listens to the bells.” ”

“ With what pleasure would we again stand on the spur of hills that skirts the great plain of the Rhine, where lie the fortified old cities of Strassburg and Rastatt; and from our elevated stand point watch the sunlight gleam on the distant stretches of the Rhine, lighting up the fertile country for many a wide league. ”

“ Of all places that suggest Chaos, a poor bare beginning of things, that place is the desolate spot in which the Hinter Rhine takes its rise. It is called Paradise, and if ever man required to cheer himself with a euphemism, it might be here. From Splügen to Hinterrhein extends a flat tract of country on every inch of which nature has left an impression as of exhausted powers. And yet, under those external marks of sterility, lurks the beginning of a great thing, the Rhine, its fruitful valleys, its grandeur, its world-renowned towns. ”

“ From the moment we left Cologne the scenery began to improve, and near Bonn it became really beautiful. The Rhine, from the bold and frequent winding course it takes, presents the appearance of a succession of small lakes. It is bounded by lofty vine-clad mountains bristling with tower and keep, while below are seen opening glens through which the small streams rush on, bearing their tribute to the father of rivers. The villages have generally a most picturesque effect as they rise street above street upon the steep mountain-sides, their white walls scarcely visible amid the trellised vines. ”

“ We are all natives of one or the other bank of this great river Rhine, and feel towards each other, whether we live on the right or the left bank, very much like school-boys whose friendship is cemented by many a battle royal.
Being a Frenchman, I feel that I am about to [065] pay a visit to my paternal ancestors—for the Franks have given us our name. No wonder that I feel deeply moved.
I examine the low huts of the village, if village it can be called, and find that they are separated from each other by commons and by fields, and that they finally lose themselves in the open country. ”

“ There thou wouldst like to dwell, many a one thinks, and to pass away thy days in the regular and constant enjoyment of nature, and in voluntary labor, solitary, or in the society of congenial persons.
The banks of the Rhine have the appearance of being charming seats of repose, while they also furnish enough of stirring life. The high-road of intercourse with the world lies before the very threshold of the house; and from the midst of solitude, every hour can unite itself with the great world's varied and bustling activity. ”

“ Immense plains of the most fertile land, which seem to have been formed in this way, exist at the present time along the banks of the Rhine at various places. These plains are all very highly cultivated, and are rich and beautiful beyond description. To see them, however, it is necessary [Pg 16] to travel over them in a diligence, or post chaise, or by railway trains; for in sailing up and down the river, along the margin of them, in a steam-boat, you are not high enough to overlook them. ”

“ Every great deed, I said, is only accomplished in the soul, at the moment of determination; when it comes outward and is repeated by the body,—which holds the locust,—it disperses into insignificant movements and thirds; but when it is done, as now the operation, it becomes great again, and, ever increasing, flows onward through all time. Thus the Rhine rushes like a giant from its summit, disperses in the fog, falls as rain upon the plain, then it forms itself into clouds, and roams over the sands, and carries suns instead of rainbows. ”

“ The stream which once relentlessly destroyed mankind, now gives to thousands their bread;—that which once separated nations, now brings them together;—national prejudices, which, it was once impiously argued, this river was wisely intended to maintain, are, by its waters, now softened and decomposed: in short, the Rhine affords another proof that there is nothing really barren in creation but man’s conceptions, nothing defective but his own judgment, and that what he looked upon as a barrier in Europe, was created to become one of the great pavés in the world. ”

“ The features of the Rhine change immediately that you leave Mayence; the banks are low, and the river is studded with numerous islands, all of which, as well as the greatest proportion of the banks, are covered with osiers. Still, there is a great beauty in the Rhine even there; the waving of the osiers to the strong breeze, the rapidity of the current, the windings of the river, the picturesque spires of the village churches, or the change of scenery when the river pours through forests, lining each bank as the vessel slowly claws against the rapid stream, are by no means uninteresting ”

“ Behind it, as a natural and national bulwark, and on its banks, the German people from the beginning of their known national existence, were growing to maturity, and organizing themselves. If the history of the white race be regarded as a whole, this Rhine stands out as the most historic of all its rivers. ”

“ The romantic stretches of the Rhine lie south of Bonn. Here are castles and vineyards, and scenes of many a legendary exploit. At Bonn the long gorge beginning at [31] Bingen comes to an end, and the Rhine enters the broad plain in which Cologne is situated. Often sullied and defiled by the factories on its banks, nothing can destroy the sense of grandeur as the great volume of water sweeps forward to its fate. A hard lot for such a river to be caught in the end by the mud shallows and flats of Holland, and to make its final way to the sea broken up into countless minor streams! ”

“ This is a very large town (under a protestant jurisdiction) , clean and gay. Its chief attraction to us was the river Rhine, which rolled its majestic waters beneath the windows of our auberge (les Trois Rois) , which was spacious and convenient. We ascended to our [318] apartments by a curious spiral staircase, in an old round tower, that formed part of the building.
The Rhine is a noble river, but inferior in beauty of colour to the Rhone at Geneva. Indeed the latter I cannot at this moment recollect without a feeling of pleasure and admiration impossible to describe. ”