raised to that height by a wall.
Thus from the gardens and terraces you look down fifteen feet over a
wall to the road, and from the road you look down fifteen feet over a
wall to the water. Along the outer margin of the road is a broad stone
wall or parapet, flat at the top and about three feet high. All this you
can see represented in the engraving.

In the middle of the river, opposite to the hotels, is a very beautiful
island with a nunnery upon it. This island is called Nonnenwerth. Now,
in regard to all these castles and churches, and other sacred edifices
on the Rhine, there is almost always some old legend or romantic tale,
which has come down through succeeding generations from ancient times,
and which adds very much to the interest of the locality where the
incidents occurred. The tale in respect to Rolandseck and Nonnenwerth is
this: Roland was the nephew of the great monarch and conqueror,
Charlemagne. He became engaged to the daughter of the chieftain who
lived in Drachenfels, the ruins of which you see in the engraving
crowning the hill on the right bank of the river, some little distance
down the stream. In a battle in which he was engaged, he killed his
intended father-in-law by accident, being deceived by the darkness of
the night, and thinking that he was striking an enemy instead of a
friend. After this, he could not be married to his intended bride, the
etiquette of those days forbidding that a warrior should marry one whose
father he had slain. The maiden, in her grief and despair, betook
herself to the nunnery on the island near her father's castle, and
Roland, since he could not be permitted to visit her there, built a
tower on the nearest pinnacle of the opposite shore, in order that he
might live there, and at least comfort himself with a sight of the
building where his beloved was confined. The story is, however, that the
unhappy nun lived but a short time. Roland himself, however, continued
to live in his tower, a lonely hermit, for many years.

Another version of this legend is, that the maiden was led to go to the
convent and consecrate herself as a nun, on account of a false report
which she had heard, that Roland himself was killed in the battle, and
that when she learned that he was still alive, it was too late for her
to be released from her vows. However this may be, Roland retired to
this lofty tower, in order to be as near her as possible, and to be able
to look down upon the dwellin