ion at half-past one, immediately after which they
returned in boats down the stream much more quickly. The day before was
a more local pilgrimage: mass and benediction were at eight, but
pilgrims came about all the morning." Later on, when the great heat had
brought "premature autumn tints to the trees and burnt up the grass,"
the English family made some excursions in the neighborhood, and in one
place they came to a "forest and a large tract of tall trees," but this
was exceptional, as the soil is not deep enough to grow large timber,
and the woods are chiefly low underwood. The grapes were small, and on
the 22d of August they tasted the first plateful at Stolzenfels, an old
castle restored by the queen-dowager of Prussia, and now the property of
the empress of Germany. "The view from it is lovely up and down the
river, and the situation splendid--about four hundred feet above the
river, with high wooded hills behind, just opposite the Lahn where it
falls into the Rhine." Wolfgang Mueller describes Stolzenfels as a
beautiful specimen of the old German style, with a broad smooth road
leading up over drawbridges and moats, with mullioned windows and
machicolated towers, and an artistic open staircase intersected by three
pointed arches, and looking into an inner courtyard, with a fountain
surrounded by broad-leaved tropical water-plants. The sight of a
combination of antique dignity with correct modern taste is a delight so
seldom experienced that it is worth while dwelling on this pleasant fact
as brought out in the restoration of Stolzenfels, the "Proud Rock." And
that the Rhinelanders are proud of their river is no wonder when
strangers can talk about it thus: "The Rhine is a river which grows
upon you, living in a pretty part of its course:... its less beauteous
parts have their own attractions to the natives, and its beauties,
perhaps exaggerated, unfold greatly the more you explore them, not to be
seen by a rushing tourist up and down the stream by rail or by boat, but
sought out and contemplated from its heights and windings.... In fact,
the pretty part of its course is from Bingen to Bonn. Here we are in a
wonderfully winding gorge, containing nearly all its picturesque old
castles, uninterrupted by any flat. The stream is rapid enough, four
miles an hour or more--not equal to the Rhone at Geneva, but like that
river in France. One does not wonder at the Germans being enthusiastic
over their river, as the Romans