Six hours after leaving Coblentz, we reached Montabaur, the first
post-town on the road, and distant about eighteen miles. An ancient
chateau, not strong enough to be a castle, nor light enough to be a
good house, commands the town, and is probably the residence of the
lord. The walls and gates shew the antiquity of Montabaur, but the
ruggedness of its site should seem to prove, that there was no other
place in the neighbourhood, on which a town could be built. Though it
is situated in a valley, as to the nearer mountains, it is constructed
chiefly on two sides of a narrow rock, the abrupt summit of which is
in the centre of this very little place.
The appearance of Montabaur is adequate in gloominess to that of
several before seen; but it would be endless to repeat, as often as
they should be true, the descriptions of the squalidness and decay,
that characterise German towns; nor should we have noticed these so
often, if the negligence of others, in this respect, had not left us
to form deceitful expectations, suitable to the supposed importance of
several very conspicuous, but really very wretched cities.