Between Andernach and Bonn I saw two or three of those enormous rafts
which are formed of the accumulated produce of the Swiss and German
forests. One was anchored in the middle of the river, and looked like a
floating island. These _Krakens_ of the Rhine are composed of oak and
fir floated in smaller rafts down the tributary streams, and, their size
constantly increasing till they arrive hereabouts, they make platforms
of from four hundred to seven hundred feet long, and one hundred and
forty feet in breadth. When in motion, a dozen boats and more precede
them, carrying anchors and cables to guide and arrest their course. The
navigation of a raft down the Rhine to Dort, in Holland, which is the
place of their destination,[4] is a work of great difficulty. The skill
of the German and Dutch pilots who navigate them, in spite of the abrupt
turnings, the eddies, the currents, rocks and shoals that oppose their
progress, must indeed be of a very peculiar kind, and can be possessed
but by few. It requires besides a vast deal of manual labour. The whole
complement of rowers and workmen, together with their wives and
children, on board one of the _first-rates_, amounts to the astonishing
number of nine hundred or a thousand; a little village, containing from
forty to sixty wooden houses, is erected upon each, which also is
furnished with stalls for cattle, a magazine for provisions, &c. The
dwelling appropriated to the use of the master of the raft and the
principal super-cargoes was conspicuous for its size and commodiousness.
It is curious to observe these rafts, on their passage, with their
companies of rowers stationed at each end, making the shores ring again
to the sound of their immense oars.
[4] About twelve of these rafts annually arrive at Dort, in
July or August; when the German timber merchants, having
converted their floats into good Dutch ducats, return to their
own country. When the water is low, those machines are
sometimes months upon the journey.--_Campbell's Guide_.
The succession of grand natural pictures, which I had been gazing upon
since my departure from Mentz and the district of the Rheingau, are
undoubtedly similar, but not the same; there is alternately the long
noble reach, the sudden bend, the lake-like expanse, the shores on both
sides lined with towns whose antique fortifications rise in distant
view, and villages whose tapering spires of blue slate peer above the
embosoming foliage; the mountains clothed with vines and forests, their
sides bristled and their summits crowned with the relics of feudal
residences,[5] or of cloistered fanes: but the varieties in the shape
and character of all these are inexhaustible; it is this circumstance
that enhances the pleasure of contemplating, scenery, in which there is,
as Lord Byron says,
"A blending of all beauties, streams and dells,
Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, corn-field, mountain, vine,
And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells,
From gray but leafy walls where ruin greenly dwells."
[5] There are the ruins of fourteen castles on the left bank,
and of fifteen on the right bank of the Rhine, from Mentz to
Bonn, a distance of thirty-six leagues.
The oppositions of light and shade; the rich culture of the hills
contrasted with the rugged rocks that often rise from out of the midst
of fertility; the bright verdure of the islands which the Rhine is
continually forming; the purple hues and misty azure of the distant
mountains--these and a thousand other indescribable charms constitute
sources of visual delight which can be imparted only by a view of the
objects themselves. And is excitement awakened in contemplating the
borders of this graceful and magnificent river? Yes. When we revert to
the awful convulsions of the physical world, and the important
revolutions of human society, of which the regions it flows through have
been successively the theatre--when we meditate on the vast changes, the
fearful struggles, the tragic incidents and mournful catastrophes, which
they have witnessed from the earliest ages to the very times in which we
have ourselves lived and marked the issue of events--"the battles,
sieges, fortunes" that have passed before its green tumultuous current,
or within ken of its mountain watch-towers--the shouts of nations that
have resounded, and the fates of empires that have been decided, on its
shores--when we think of the slaughtered myriads whose bones have
bleached on the neighbouring plains, filled up the trenches of its
rock-built strong-holds, or found their place of sepulture beneath its
wave--when, at each survey we take of the wide and diversified scene,
the forms of centuries seem to be embodied with the objects around us,
and the record of the past becomes vividly associated with the
impression of present realities--it is then that we are irresistibly led
to compare the greatness of nature with the littleness of man; it is
then that we are forcibly struck with the power and goodness of the
Author of both; and that the deepest humility unites itself in a
grateful mind, with the highest admiration, at the sight of "these His
lowest works."
But do you pretend, it may be asked, in the course of a three days'
journey, however lengthened by celerity of conveyance, or favoured by
advantages of season or weather--do you pretend to have experienced that
very eminent degree of gratification which the country is capable of
communicating? Certainly not. I speak of these scenes but as of things,
which before my own hasty and unsatisfied glances came like shadows--so
departed. Instead of two or three days, a whole month should be spent
between Mentz, Coblentz, and Bonn, in order fully to know and thoroughly
to enjoy the beauties and grandeurs with which that space
abounds.--_Stevenson's Tour in France, &c._
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