Project Gutenberg's Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877, by Various

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Title: Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877

Author: Various

Release Date: August 2, 2009 [EBook #29575]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE

OF

_POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE._

AUGUST, 1877.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by J. B.
LIPPINCOTT & CO., in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at
Washington.

VOL. XX.

DOWN THE RHINE.

CONCLUDING PAPER.

[Illustration: CASTLE OF ELTZ.]

Coblenz is the place which many years ago gave me my first associations
with the Rhine. From a neighboring town we often drove to Coblenz, and the
wide, calm flow of the river, the low, massive bridge of boats and the
commonplace outskirts of a busy city contributed to make up a very
different picture from that of the poetic "castled" Rhine of German song
and English ballad. The old town has, however, many beauties, though its
military character looks out through most of them, and reminds us that the
Mosel city (for it originally stood only on that river, and then crept up
to the Rhine), though a point of union in Nature, has been for ages, so
far as mankind was concerned, a point of defence and watching. The great
fortress, a German Gibraltar, hangs over the river and sets its teeth in
the face of the opposite shore: all the foreign element in the town is due
to the deposits made there by troubles in other countries, revolution and
war sending their exiles, _emigres_ and prisoners. The history of the town
is only a long military record, from the days of the archbishops of
Treves, to whom it was subject, to those of the last war. It has, however,
some pleasanter points: it has long been a favorite summer residence of
the empress of Germany, who not long before I was there had by her tact
and toleration reconciled sundry religious differences that threatened a
political storm. Such toleration has go