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OF VOLUME V

Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Switzerland--Part One

VOLUME V

A PANORAMA OF BERLIN FROM THE TOWN HALL

COLOGNE CATHEDRAL

COLOGNE CATHEDRAL BEFORE THE SPIRES WERE COMPLETED

BINGEN-ON-THE RHINE

NUREMBERG CASTLE

STOLZENFELS CASTLE ON THE RHINE

WIESBADEN

STRASBURG CATHEDRAL

STRASBURG

FRAUENKIRCHE, MUNICH

DOOR OF STRASBURG CATHEDRAL

STRASBURG CLOCK

GOETHE'S HOUSE, WEIMAR

SCHILLER'S HOUSE, WEIMAR

BERLIN: UNTER DEN LINDEN

BERLIN: THE BRANDENBURG GATE

BERLIN: THE ROYAL CASTLE AND EMPEROR WILLIAM BRIDGE

BERLIN: THE WHITE HALL IN THE ROYAL CASTLE

BERLIN: THE NATIONAL GALLERY AND FREDERICK'S BRIDGE

BERLIN: THE GENDARMENMARKT

THE COLUMN OF VICTORY, BERLIN

THE MAUSOLEUM AT CHARLOTTENBURG

THE NEW PALACE AT POTSDAM

THE CASTLE OF SANS SOUCI, POTSDAM

SCH?NBRUNN, VIENNA

SALZBURG, AUSTRIA

THE RHINE VALLEY

IN HISTORY AND ROMANCE

BY VICTOR HUGO

Of all rivers, I prefer the Rhine. It is now a year, when passing the bridge of boats at Kehl, since I first saw it. I remember that I felt a certain respect, a sort of adoration, for this old, this classic stream. I never think of rivers--those great works of Nature, which are also great in History--without emotion.

I remember the Rhone at Valserine; I saw it in 1825, in a pleasant excursion to Switzerland, which is one of the sweet, happy recollections of my early life. I remember with what noise, with what ferocious bellowing, the Rhone precipitated itself into the gulf while the frail bridge upon which I was standing was shaking beneath my feet. Ah well! since that time, the Rhone brings to my mind the idea of a tiger--the Rhine, that of a lion.

The evening on which I saw the Rhine for the first time, I was imprest with the same idea. For several minutes I stood contemplating this proud and noble river--violent, but not furious; wild, but still majestic. It was swollen, and was magnificent in appearance, and was washing with its yellow mane, or, as Boileau says, its "slimy beard," the bridge of boats. Its two banks were lost in the twilight, and tho its roaring was loud, still there was tranquillity.

The Rhine is unique: it combines the qualities of every river. Like the Rhone, it is rapid; broad like the Loire; encased, like the Meuse; serpentine, like the Seine; limpid and green, like the Somme; historical, like the Tiber; royal like the Danube; mysterious, like the Nile; spangled with gold, like an American river; and like a river of Asia, abounding with fantoms and fables.

From historical records we find that the first people who took possession of the banks of the Rhine were the half-savage Celts, who were afterward named Gauls by the Romans. When Rome was in its glory, Caesar crossed the Rhine, and shortly afterward the whole of the river was under the jurisdiction of his empire. When the Twenty-second Legion returned from the siege of Jerusalem, Titus sent it to the banks of the Rhine, where it continued the work of Martius Agrippa. After Trajan and Hadrian came Julian, who erected a fortress upon the confluence of the Rhine and the Moselle; then Valentinian, who built a number of castles. Thus, in a few centuries, Roman colonies, like an immense chain, linked the whole of the Rhine.

At length the time arrived when Rome was to assume another aspect. The incursions of the northern hordes were eventually too frequent and too powerful for Rome; so, about the sixth century, the banks of the Rhine were strewed with Roman ruins, as at present with feudal ones.

Charlemagne cleared away the rubbish, built fortresses, and opposed the German hordes; but, notwithstanding all that he did, notwithstanding his desire to do more, Rome died, and the physiognomy of the Rhine was changed.

The sixteenth century approached; in the fourteenth the Rhine witnessed the invention of artillery; and on its bank, at Strassburg, a printing-office was first established. In 1400 the famous cannon, fourteen feet in length, was cast at Cologne; and in 1472 Vindelin de Spire printed his Bible. A new world was making its appearance; and, strange to say, it was upon the banks of the Rhine that those two mysterious tools with which God unceasingly works out the civilization of man--the catapult and the book--war and thought--took a new form.

The Rhine, in the destinies of Europe, has a sort of providential signification. It is the great moat which divides the north from the south. The Rhine for thirty ages, has seen the forms and reflected the shadows of almost all the warriors who tilled the old continent with that share which they call sword. Caesar crossed the Rhine in going from the south; Attila crossed it when descending from the north. It was here that Clovis gained the battle of Tolbiac; and that Charlemagne and Napoleon figured. Frederick Barbarossa, Rudolph of Hapsburg, and Frederick the First, were great, victorious, and formidable when here. For the thinker, who is conversant with history, two great eagles are perpetually hovering ever the Rhine--that of the Roman legions, and the eagle of the French regiments.

The Rhine--that noble flood, which the Romans named "Superb," bore at one time upon its surface bridges of boats, over which the armies of Italy, Spain, and France poured into Germany, and which, at a later date, were made use of by the hordes of barbarians when rushing into the ancient Roman world; at another, on its surface it floated peaceably the fir-trees of Murg and of Saint Gall, the porphyry and the marble of B?le, the salt of Karlshall, the leather of Stromberg, the quicksilver of Lansberg, the wine of Johannisberg, the slates of Coab, the cloth and earthenware of Wallendar, the silks and linens of Cologne. It majestically performs its double function of flood of war and flood of peace, having, without interruption, upon the ranges of hills which embank the most notable portion of its course, oak-trees on one side and vine-trees on the other--signifying strength and joy.

FROM BONN TO MAYENCE

BY BAYARD TAYLOR

I was glad when we were really in motion on the swift Rhine, and nearing the chain of mountains that rose up before us. We passed Godesberg on the right, while on our left was the group of the seven mountains which extend back from the Drachenfels to the Wolkenberg, or "Castle of the Clouds." Here we begin to enter the enchanted land. The Rhine sweeps around the foot of the Drachenfels, while, opposite, the precipitous rock of Rolandseck, crowned with the castle of the faithful knight, looks down upon the beautiful island of Nonnenwerth, the white walls of the convent still gleaming through the trees as they did when the warrior's weary eyes looked upon them for the last time. I shall never forget the enthusiasm with which I saw this scene in the bright, warm sunlight, the rough crags softened in the haze which filled the atmosphere, and the wild mountains springing up in the midst of vineyards and crowned with crumbling towers filled with the memories of a thousand years.

After passing Andernach we saw in the distance the highlands of the middle Rhine--which rise above Coblentz, guarding the entrance to its scenery--and the mountains of the Moselle. They parted as we approached; from the foot shot up the spires of Coblentz, and the battlements of Ehrenbreitstein, crowning the mountain opposite, grew larger and broader. The air was slightly hazy, and the clouds seemed laboring among the distant mountains to raise a storm. As we came opposite the mouth of the Moselle and under the shadow of the mighty fortress, I gazed up with awe at its massive walls. Apart from its magnitude and almost impregnable situation on a perpendicular rock, it is filled with the recollections of history and hallowed by the voice of poetry. The scene went past like a panorama, the bridge of boats opened, the city glided behind us, and we entered the highlands again.

Above Coblentz almost every mountain has a ruin and a legend. One feels everywhere the spirit of the past, and its stirring recollections come back upon the mind with irresistible force. I sat upon the deck the whole afternoon as mountains, towns and castles passed by on either side, watching them with a feeling of the most enthusiastic enjoyment. Every place was familiar to me in memory, and they seemed like friends I had long communed with in spirit and now met face to face. The English tourists with whom the deck was covered seemed interested too, but in a different manner. With Murray's Handbook open in their hands, they sat and read about the very towns and towers they were passing, scarcely lifting their eyes to the real scenes, except now and then to observe that it was "very nice."

As we passed Boppart, I sought out the inn of the "Star," mentioned in "Hyperion;" there was a maiden sitting on the steps who might have been Paul Flemming's fair boat-woman. The clouds which had here gathered among the hills now came over the river, and the rain cleared the deck of its crowd of admiring tourists. As we were approaching Lorelei Berg, I did not go below, and so enjoyed some of the finest scenery on the Rhine alone. The mountains approach each other at this point, and the Lorelei rock rises up for four hundred and forty feet from the water. This is the haunt of the water nymph Lorelei, whose song charmed the ear of the boatman while his bark was dashed to pieces on the rocks below. It is also celebrated for its remarkable echo. As we passed between the rocks, a guard, who has a little house on the roadside, blew a flourish on his bugle, which was instantly answered by a blast from the rocky battlements of Lorelei.

The sun came out of the clouds as we passed Oberwesel, with its tall round tower, and the light shining through the ruined arches of Schonberg castle made broad bars of light and shade in the still misty air. A rainbow sprang up out of the Rhine and lay brightly on the mountain-side, coloring vineyard and crag in the most singular beauty, while its second reflection faintly arched like a glory above the high summits in the bed of the river were the seven countesses of Schonberg turned into seven rocks for their cruelty and hard-heartedness toward the knights whom their beauty had made captive. In front, at a little distance, was the castle of Pfalz, in the middle of the river, and from the heights above Caub frowned the crumbling citadel of Gutenfels. Imagine all this, and tell me if it is not a picture whose memory should last a lifetime.

We came at last to Bingen, the southern gate of the highlands. Here, on an island in the middle of the stream, is the old mouse-tower where Bishop Hatto of Mayence was eaten up by the rats for his wicked deeds. Passing R?desheim and Geisenheim--celebrated for their wines--at sunset, we watched the varied shore in the growing darkness, till like a line of stars across the water we saw before us the bridge of Mayence.

COLOGNE

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