capitals nearly perfect; its cellars,
where every year more wine is given away than is stored--_i. e._, all
that which is not "cabinet-worthy"--as in the tulip-mania, when
thousands of roots were thrown away as worthless, which yet had all the
natural merit of lovely coloring and form,--make Eberbach well worth
seeing.

Next comes Johannisberg, with its vineyards dating back to the tenth
century, when Abbot Rabanus of Fulda cultivated the grape and Archbishop
Ruthard of Mayence built a monastery, dedicated to Saint John the
Baptist, which for centuries was owner and guardian of the most noted
Rhine vintage; but abuses within and wars without have made an end of
this state of things, and Albert of Brandenburg's raid on the monks'
cellars has been more steadily supplemented by the pressure of milder
but no less efficient means of destruction. When Napoleon saw this tract
of land and offered it to General Kellermann, who had admired its
beauty, he is said to have received a worthy and a bold answer. "I thank
Your Majesty," said the marshal, "but the receiver is as bad as the
thief." The less scrupulous Metternich became its owner, giving for it,
however, an equivalent of arable and wood land. The Metternich who for
years was Austrian ambassador at Paris during the brilliant time of the
Second Empire, and whose fast and eccentric wife daily astonished
society, is now owner of the peerless Johannisberg vineyards, among
which is his country-house. Goethe's friends, the Lade and Brentano
families, lived in this neighborhood, and the historian Nicholas Vogt
lies buried in the Metternich chapel, though his heart, by his special
desire, is laid in a silver casket within the rocks of Bingen, with a
little iron cross marking the spot. At Geisenheim we are near two
convents which as early as 1468 had printing-presses in active use, and
the mysterious square tower of Ruedesheim, which brings all sorts of
suppositions to our mind, though the beauty of the wayside crosses, the
tall gabled roofs, the crumbling walls, the fantastically-shaped rocks,
getting higher and higher on each side, and the perpetual winding of the
river, are enough to keep the eye fixed on the mere landscape. At the
windows, balconies and arbors sit pretty, ruddy girls waving their
handkerchiefs to the unknown "men and brethren" on board the steamers
and the trains; and well they may, if this be a good omen, for here is
the "Iron Gate" of the Rhine, and the water