picturesque section of the Rhine, so famous in song and legend, and our
road closely follows the river for the whole distance. The really
impressive scenery begins at Bingen, ten miles west of Mayence, where we
enter the Rhine Gorge. On either side of the river rise the clifflike
hills--literally vine-covered, for the steep slopes have been terraced
and planted with vineyards to the very tops. Our road keeps to the north
of the river and is often overhung by rocky walls, while far above we
catch glimpses of ivy-clad ruins surmounting the beetling crags. The
highway is an excellent one, much above the German average. In places it
is bordered by fruit-trees--a common practice in Germany--and we pass
men who are picking the luscious cherries. So strong is law and order in
the Fatherland, we are told, that these public fruit-trees are never
molested and the proceeds are used for road improvement. The day is
showery, which to some extent obscures the scenery, though the changeful
moods of light and color are not without charm. The great hills with
their castles and vineyards are alternately cloud-swept and flooded with
sunlight--or, more rarely, hidden by a dashing summer shower.
Bingen has gained a wide fame from the old ballad whose melancholy lilt
comes quickly to one's mind--though we do not find the simple country
village we had imagined. It has about ten thousand people and lies in a
little valley on both sides of the Nahe, a small river which joins the
Rhine at this point. It is an ancient place, its history running back to
Roman times. Slight remains of a Roman fortress still exist, though the
site is now occupied by Klopp Castle, which was restored from complete
ruin a half century ago. This castle is open to visitors and from its
tower one may look down on the town with its gray roofs and huge
churches.
From Bingen to Coblenz, a distance of about forty miles, the gorge of
the Rhine is continuous and we are never out of sight of the
vine-covered hills and frequent ruins. Nearly all the ruined castles of
Germany center here and we see fit matches for Caerphilly, Richmond or
Kenilworth in Britain. In this hurried chronicle I cannot even mention
all of these picturesque and often imposing ruins, though a few may be
chosen as typical.
[Illustration: CASTLE RHEINSTEIN]
A short distance from Bingen is Rheinstein, originally built about 1270
and recently restored by Prince Henry as one of his summer residences,
though he has visited it, the custodian tells us, but once in two years.
A wearisome climb is necessary to reach the castle, which is some two
hundred and fifty feet above the road where we leave our car. The
mediaeval architecture and furnishings are carried out as closely as
possible in the restoration, giving a good idea of the life and state of
the old-time barons. There is also an important collection of armor and
antiquities relating to German history.
In this same vicinity is Ehrenfels, which has stood in ruin nearly three
hundred years. Its towers still stand, proud and threatening, though the
residential portions are much shattered. Opposite this ruin, on a small
island in the river, is the curious "Mouse Tower," where, legend
asserts, a cruel archbishop was once besieged and finally devoured by an
army of mice and rats, a judgment for causing a number of poor people to
be burned in order to get rid of them during a famine. But as the bishop
lived about 915 and the tower was built some three hundred years later,
his connection with it is certainly mythical and let us hope the rest of
the story has no better foundation. The old name, Mausturm (arsenal), no
doubt suggested the fiction to some early chronicler.
The castles of Sonneck and Falkenburg, dating from the eleventh century,
surmount the heights a little farther on our way. These were strongholds
of robber-barons who in the middle ages preyed upon the river-borne
traffic--their exploits forming the burden of many a ballad and tale.
These gentry came to their just deserts about 1300 at the hands of
Prince Rudolph, who consigned them to the gallows and destroyed their
castles. Sonneck is still in ruins, but Falkenburg has been restored and
is now private property.
Almost every foot of the Rhine Gorge boasts of some supernatural or
heroic tale--as myth-makers the Germans were not behind their
contemporaries. We pass the Devil's Ladder, where the fiend once aided
an ancient knight--no doubt on the score of personal friendship--to
scale the perpendicular cliff to gain the hand of a "ladye fair." A
little farther are the Lorelei Rocks, where the sirens enticed the
sailors to destruction in the rapids just below. Quite as unfortunate
were the seven virgins of Schonburg, who for their prudery were
transformed into seven rocky pinnacles not far from the Lorelei--and so
on ad infinitum.
[Illustration: EHRENFELS ON THE RHINE]
A volume would not catalog the legends and superstitions of the Rhine
Gorge. At least the Captain so declares and adds that he knows a strange
story of the Rhine that an old German once told him in Bingen. At our
solicitation he repeats it as we glide slowly along the river road and I
have thought it worth recasting for my book. There will be no harm done
if it is skipped by the reader who has no taste for such things. It is a
little after the style of several German legends of ancient gentry, who
sold themselves to the Evil One to gain some greatly desired
point--though I always thought these stories reflected on the business
sagacity of the Devil in making him pay for something he was bound to
get in the end without cost. The story, I find, is long enough to
require a chapter of itself and it may appropriately follow this.
There are endless small towns along the road, but they are quite free
from the untoward conditions I have described in the more retired
villages off the track of tourist travel. Boppard, St. Goar Oberwesel
and Bornhofen are among the number and each has its storied ruin. Near
the last-named are the twin castles of The Brothers, with their legend
of love and war which the painstaking Baedeker duly chronicles. Above
St. Goar towers the vast straggling ruin of Rheinfels, said to be the
most extensive in Germany, which has stood in decay since its capture by
the French in 1797. It crowns a barren and almost inaccessible rock
which rises nearly four hundred feet above the river. Near Boppard is
Marxburg, the only old-time castle which has never been in ruin. It has
passed through many vicissitudes and at present serves as a museum of
ancient weapons and warlike costumes.
As we approach Coblenz we come in sight of the battlemented towers of
Stolzenfels rising above the dense forests that cover the great hill on
which it stands. The castle is three hundred and ten feet above the
river, but the plain square tower rises one hundred and ten feet higher,
affording a magnificent outlook. The present structure is modern, having
been built in 1842 by the crown prince on the site of an old castle
destroyed by the French. It now belongs to the emperor, who opens it to
visitors when he is not in residence. It is a splendid edifice and gives
some idea of the former magnificence of the ruins we have seen to-day.
[Illustration: RUINS OF CASTLE RHEINFELS]
Coblenz, at the junction of the Moselle and Rhine, appeals to us as a
stopping-place and we turn in at the Monopol--just why I do not know.
There are certainly much better hotels in Coblenz than this
old-fashioned and rather slack place, though it has the redeeming
feature of very moderate charges. The Captain is in very ill humor; he
has quarreled with an employee at the garage and as nearly as I can
learn, tried to drive the car over him. I feared the outraged Teuton
might drop a wrench in our gear-box as a revenge for the rating the
Captain gave him--though, fortunately, we experience no such misfortune.
Coblenz has about fifty thousand people and while it is a very old
city--its name indicating Roman origin--it has little to detain the
tourist. An hour's drive about the place will suffice and we especially
remember the colossal bronze statue of Emperor William I., which stands
on the point of land where the two rivers join--a memorial which
Baedeker declares "one of the most impressive personal monuments in the
world." The equestrian figure is forty-six feet high and dominates the
landscape in all directions, being especially imposing when seen from
the river. Just opposite Coblenz is the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein,
about four hundred feet above the river. A finely engineered road leads
to the fort, where a large garrison of soldiers is stationed. Visitors
are admitted provided they can satisfy the officials that they are not
foreign military men who might spy out the defenses.
Our route as planned by the Royal Automobile Club was to take us from
Coblenz to Treves by way of the Moselle Valley, but our desire to see
the cathedral leads us to follow the Rhine road to Cologne. Mr. Maroney
of the Club afterwards told me that we made a mistake, since the scenery
and storied ruins of Moselle Valley are quite equal to the Rhine Gorge
itself. Cologne one can see any time, but the chance to follow the
Moselle by motor does not come every day. We are disappointed in the
trip to Cologne, since there is little of the picturesqueness and
romantic charm that delighted us on the previous day. The castle of
Drachenfels, on a mighty hill rising a thousand feet above the river, is
the most famous ruin, but we do not undertake the rather difficult
ascent. The far-reaching view from the summit was celebrated by Byron in
"Childe Harold."
Just opposite is the ruin of Rolandseck, with its pathetic legend of
unrequited love and constancy. This castle, tradition says, was built by
Roland, a crusader, who returned to find that his affianced bride had
given him up as dead and entered a convent. He thereupon built this
retreat whence he could look down upon the convent that imprisoned the
fair Hildegund. When after some years he heard of her death he never
spoke again, but pined away until death overtook him also a short time
afterwards.
Midway we pass through Bonn, the university town, a clean, modern city
of sixty thousand people. The university was founded a century ago and
has some three thousand students. Beethoven was born in Bonn in 1770, in
a house which now contains a museum relating to the great composer.
Our road keeps to the right of the river, which is swollen and dirty
yellow from recent rains. We pass many villages with miserable
streets--the road in no wise compares with the one we followed yesterday
through the Gorge. Altogether, the fifty miles between Coblenz and
Cologne has little to make the run worth while.
We find ourselves in the narrow, crooked streets of Cologne well before
noon and are stopped by--it seems to us--a very officious policeman who
tells us we may proceed if we will be careful. This seems ridiculous and
the Captain cites it as an example of the itching of every German
functionary to show his authority, but later we learn that motors are
not allowed on certain streets of Cologne between eleven and two
o'clock. Our friend the officer was really showing us a favor on account
of our ignorance in permitting us to proceed. We direct our course
towards the cathedral, which overshadows everything else in Cologne, and
the Savoy Hotel, just opposite, seems the logical place to stop. It
proves very satisfactory, though it ranks well down in Baedeker's list.
Cologne Cathedral is conceded to be the most magnificent church in the
world and a lengthy description would be little but useless repetition
of well-known data. We find, however, that to really appreciate the
vastness and grandeur of the great edifice one must ascend the towers
and view the various details at close range. It is not easy to climb
five hundred feet of winding stairs, especially if one is inclined to be
a little short-winded, but the effort will be rewarded by a better
conception of the building and a magnificent view covering a wide scope
of country. We are unfortunate today since a gray mist obscures much of
the city beneath us and quite shuts out the more distant landscape. The
great twin towers, which rise more than five hundred feet into the sky,
were completed only a few years ago. In the period between 1842 and 1880
about five million dollars was expended in carrying out the original
plans--almost precisely as they were drawn by the architects nearly
seven hundred years ago. The corner-stone was laid in 1248 and
construction was carried forward at intervals during the period of seven
centuries.
Inside, the cathedral is no less impressive than from the exterior. The
vaulting, which rises over two hundred feet from the floor, is carried
by fifty-six great pillars and the plan is such that one's vision may
cover almost the whole interior from a single viewpoint. It is lighted
by softly toned windows--mostly modern, though a few date from the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and, altogether, the effect is hardly
matched by any other church in Christendom.
We make no attempt to see the show-places of Cologne during our stay--it
would require a week to do this and we shall have to come again. An
afternoon about the city gives us some idea of its monuments and notable
buildings as well as glimpses of the narrow and often quaint streets of
the old town. The next day we are away for Treves and Luxemburg before
the "verboten" hour for motor cars.
If we missed much fine scenery in the Moselle Valley by coming to
Cologne, the loss is partly atoned for by the country we see to-day and
the unusually excellent roads. Our route as far as Treves runs a little
west of south and diverges some seventy-five miles from the Rhine. It is
through a high, rolling country, often somewhat sterile, but we have
many glorious views from the upland roads. There are long stretches of
hills interspersed with wooded valleys and fields bright with yellow
gorse or crimson poppies. There are many grain-fields, though not so
opulent-looking as those we saw in the Rhine Valley, and we pass through
tracts of fragrant pine forest, which often crowd up to the very
roadside. There are many long though usually easy climbs, and again we
may glide downward a mile or more with closed throttle and disengaged
gears. Much of the way the roadside is bordered with trees and the
landscapes remind us more of France than any we have so far seen in
Germany. We pass but two or three villages in the one hundred and ten
miles between Cologne and Treves; there are numerous isolated
farmhouses, rather cleaner and better than we have seen previously. We
stop at a country inn in the village of Prun for luncheon, which proves
excellent--a pleasant surprise, for the inn is anything but
prepossessing in appearance. The guests sit at one long table with the
host at the head and evidently the majority are people of the village.
Beer and wine are served free with the meal and some of the patrons
imbibe an astonishing quantity. This seems to be the universal custom in
the smaller inns; in the city hotels wine comes as an extra--no doubt
somewhat of a deterrent on its free use.
Treves--German Trier--is said to be the oldest town in Germany. The
records show that Christianity was introduced here as early as 314 and
the place was important in ecclesiastical circles throughout the middle
ages. We have a splendid view of the town from the hills as we approach;
it lies in the wide plain of the Moselle and its red sandstone walls and
numerous towers present a very striking appearance. The cathedral,
though not especially imposing, is one of the oldest of German
churches--portions of it dating from 528 and the basilica now used as a
Protestant church is a restored Roman structure dating from 306. But for
all its antiquity Treves seems a pleasant, up-to-date town with
well-paved streets--a point which never escapes the notice of the
motorist. The surrounding hills are covered with vineyards and the wine
trade forms one of the principal enterprises of the place.
A few miles from Treves we enter the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, an
independent country, though part of the German Zollverein, which no
doubt makes our touring license and number-plates pass current here. It
is a tiny state of no more than a thousand square miles, though it has a
quarter million people. Luxemburg, where we decide to stop for the
night, is the capital. The Grand Hotel Brasseur looks good, though the
service proves rather slack and the "cuisine" anything but first-class.
Luxemburg is a delight--partly due to its peculiar and picturesque
situation, but still more to the quaint buildings and crooked, narrow
streets of the older parts and the shattered walls and watchtowers that
still encircle it. The more modern portion of the town--which has but
twenty thousand inhabitants--is perched on a rocky tableland, three
sides of which drop almost precipitously for about two hundred feet to
small rivers beneath. The hotels and principal business houses are on
the plateau, but the older parts of the town are wedged in the narrow
valleys. These are spanned by several high bridges, from one of which we
have a delightful viewpoint. It is twilight and the gray houses are
merging into the shadows, but the stern towers and broken walls on the
heights fling their rugged forms more clearly than ever against the wide
band of the sunset horizon. These are the remnants of the fortifications
which were condemned to destruction by the Treaty of London in 1876,
which guaranteed the neutrality of the Grand Duchy. Only the obsolete
portions of the defenses were permitted to stand and these add
wonderfully to the romantic beauty of the town. Indeed, the wide
panoramas of valley and mountain, of bare, beetling rock and trim park
and garden, groups of old trees, huge arched viaducts and the ancient
fortifications, form one of the most striking scenes we have witnessed
on the Continent. It evidently so impressed the poet Goethe, about one
hundred years ago, for a graphic description of Luxemburg may be found
in his writings. So charming is the scene that we linger until darkness
quite obliterates it and return to our inn feeling that Luxemburg has
more of real attractiveness than many of the tourist-thronged cities.
[Illustration: LUXEMBURG--GENERAL VIEW]
VI
THE CAPTAIN'S STORY
Friedrich Reinmuth had always been an unsettled and discontented youth;
if his days were sad he complained because they were so and if they were
prosperous he still found fault. It was not strange that, being of such
a nature, he should already have tried many vocations, although yet a
young man. At the time of my story he had become a soldier, and while he
often fretted and chafed under the rigor of military discipline, he did
not find it easy to shift from its shackles as had been his wont in
other occupations.
By chance he formed a friendship with an old and grizzled comrade, who,
although he had served almost two score years in the army, was still
hale and strong. The old man had been in the midst of numberless
desperate engagements but had always come out of the fray unscathed.
Queer stories were whispered about him among his soldier companions, but
only whispered, for it was believed, and with reason, that he would take
summary vengeance on anyone who crossed his path. He had murdered his
own brother in a fit of fury, and to him was also imputed the
assassination of the Baron of Reynold, who rebuked the fiery-tempered
man on some trifling point; but he had never been brought to justice for
any of his crimes. There was a vague rumor that Gottfried Winstedt had
sold himself to the devil in return for the power to resist all mortal
weapons and to escape all human justice--this it was that made him
invulnerable in battle and shielded him from the wrath of the law.
But Friedrich in his association with this man for the space of two
months had noted little extraordinary about him. He never guessed why
the veteran broke an habitual reserve to become his companion until one
night when they were conversing on the eve of battle. As they sat
moodily together by a waning camp-fire the older man, who had been even
more morose than usual during the day, broke the silence. In a
melancholy voice he said:
"I have somewhat to tell you now, for before the set of tomorrow's sun I
will be--God in Heaven, where will I be?--but let it pass; I dare not
think of it. My life has been one of unparalleled wickedness; I have
committed crimes the very recital of which would appall the most
hardened criminal in the Kingdom, but I would not recite them to you if
I could, for what would avail the monotonous story of vice and bloodshed
for which there is no repentance? You have heard the rumors that these
accursed fools have whispered of me--I will not say whether they be true
or no. But long foreseeing--yes, foreknowing my fate--I have sought for
someone in whom I might confide. I was drawn toward you--I hardly know
why--yet I dare not wholly trust in you. Upon one condition,
nevertheless, I will commit to you something of vast and curious
importance."
Friedrich in his amazement was silent and the veteran brought forth from
the folds of his faded cloak a small sandalwood box, which he held
toward the young man.
"I would have you swear," he said, "by all you hold sacred that you will
never open this casket except on one condition; it is that you should so
desire some earthly thing--wealth, fame, love--that you are willing to
barter your eternal welfare to secure it."
Something in the old man's manner as well as his words aroused in
Friedrich a feeling akin to fear. He took the required oath, mentally
resolving that he would throw the mysterious casket in the river on the
first opportunity.
"Now leave me instantly; I shall never see you again in this world and
even I am not so fiendish as to wish to see you in my next--but hark ye,
if you ever break the seal out of idle curiosity I will return from the
grave to avenge myself on you."
Startled by the old man's vehemence, Friedrich hastened to his quarters
and strove to sleep. But the strange event of the evening and thoughts
of the morrow's conflict, with its danger and perhaps death, drove
slumber from his eyes. He tossed about his barrack until the long roll
summoned his regiment to the field of battle. The fight raged fiercely
and long, and toward evening Friedrich fell, seriously wounded.
It was many weeks before he was able to be on his feet again and finding
himself totally unfitted by his wound for the profession of arms--and,
in fact, for any active occupation--he sadly returned to his native town
on the Rhine. Here it chanced there was an old portrait painter of some
little renown who took a liking to the unfortunate young soldier and
proposed that he study the art; and Friedrich applied himself with such
diligence in his new vocation that before long he far excelled his
master. Things went prosperously with him. His fame spread beyond the
borders of his native town and came to the ears of many of the noble
families of the vicinity. He had the good fortune to be patronized by
some of these and he transferred the beauty of many a haughty dame and
fair damsel to his canvas with unvarying success. Indeed, it is said
that more than one of his fair clients looked languishingly at the young
artist, whose skill and fame made much amends for humble birth.