r, scrambling up the
steep path with a rapidity that made it quite difficult for Rollo to
keep his seat.

The paths leading up these hill sides on the banks of the Rhine are
entirely different from any mountain paths, or any country roads, of
any sort, to be seen in America. In the first place, there is no waste
land at the margin of them. Just width enough is allowed for two donkeys
or mules to pass each other, and then the walls which keep up the
vineyard terrace on the upper side, and enclose the vine plantings on
the other, come close to the margin of it, on both sides, leaving not a
foot to spare. The path is made and finished in the most perfect manner.
It is gravelled hard, so that the rains may not wash it; and it mounts
by regular zigzags, with seats or resting-places at the turnings, where
the traveller can stop and enjoy the view. In fact, the paths are as
complete and perfect as in the nature of the case it is possible for
them to be made; and well they may be so, for it is perhaps fifteen
hundred years since they were laid out; and during this long interval,
fifty generations of vinedressers have worked upon them to improve them
and to keep them in order. In fact, it is probable that the roads and
the mountain paths, both in Switzerland and on the Rhine, are more
ancient than any thing else we see there, except the brooks and
cascades, or the hills and mountains themselves.

When Rollo had got up about two thirds the height of the hill, he came
to the pavilion, which you see in the engraving standing on a
projecting pinnacle of the rock, a little below the ruin. There was a
gateway which led to the pavilion, by a sort of private path; but the
gate was set open, that people might go in. Rollo dismounted from his
donkey, and went in. His uncle was already there.

It is wholly impossible to describe the view which presented itself from
this commanding point, both up and down the river, or to give any idea
of the impression produced upon the minds of our travellers when they
stood leaning over the balcony, and gazed down to the water below from
the dizzy height. The pavilion is built of stone, and is secured in the
most solid and substantial manner, being very far more perfect in its
construction than the old towers and castles were, whose remains have
stood upon these mountains so long. It will probably last, therefore,
longer than they have, and perhaps to the very end of time.

It stands on a pinnacle of