On the left a beautiful picturesque town, with tower
and picturesque-looking steeples placed each exactly on the spot an
artist would have selected, with hills and woods on each side and a
bridge running over a small river which emptied itself in the Rhine.
Immediately before us, on a small islet, stood the Tower of Mausthurm,
or the Mouse turret, so called from a tradition that a Baron once locked
up a number of his Vassals in a tower and then set fire to it and
consumed it and its inhabitants, in consequence of which certain mice
haunted him by day and by night to such a degree that he fled his
Country and built this solitary Tower on its island. But all this would
not do. The Mice pursued him to his Island, and the tale ends in his
being devoured by them there.

On both sides the river hills covered with vines and woods rose
abruptly, and on the right, tottering on a pinnacle that frowns over the
flood, stood the Castle of Ehrenfels....

It would be quite impossible, and indeed unnecessary (as my sketch-book
can best unfold the tale), to describe all we saw. For above 100 miles,
with little interruption, the same scenery presented itself, attaining
its superlative point of grandeur in the neighbourhood of Lorich and
Bacharach. It might be called a perfect Louvre of old Castles, each
being a chef d'oeuvre of its species. I could almost doubt the
interference of a human hand in their creation. Placed upon elevated and
apparently impossible crags, they look more like the fortresses of the
Giants when they warred against the Gods than any thing else. But the
Castles were not the only points of attraction. Every mile presented a
village as interesting as the battlements which threatened to crush
them to death from above. Each vied with its neighbour in picturesque
beauty, and the people as well as the buildings in these remote nooks
and corners partook of the wild character of the scenery. A shower of
rain and close of the day induced us to make Bacharach our
sleeping-place. The Landlord, with his night-cap on his head and pipe in
his mouth, expressed no surprise at our appearance. The coffee and the
milk and the hock came in due season when he had nodded acquiescence to
my demand, and he puffed away with as much indifference as if two
strange Englishmen had not been in his house. We found good clean beds,
and should have slept very well but for the deep-toned Bell of the
Church within a few yards of us, which tolled th