COBLENTZ.
The cities, towns, villages, hamlets, and even the houses along the Rhine, bear a closer resemblance to one another (each in its class) than in any part of the world through which I have wandered. Even the old castles, and the rocks on which they are built, are often such fac-similes of each other—that it is next to impossible for the acutest perception, joined with the most retentive memory, to retain distinct ideas of these objects, passing in rapid succession before the eye of the tourist!—
Coblentz, like Macedon, has a river—nay, a brace of them—one brown, the other blue.[9] As necessary consequences, there are two bridges, as unlike one another, as any two things of the same kind can well be. One rests its foundations on the rocky bed of the Moselle—the other on the turbid surface of the Rhine. There is a number of streets—a great number of houses—and a still greater number of people, amounting to some 12,000. Then there are churches enough, considering the number of church-goers—and in some of them, there are more dead bodies present at divine service, than living souls. There is a palace—not that of a prince, but of justice. There is good water and good wine; but both of them are brought over the Moselle bridge. Of hotels, there is no lack; the masters and “kellners” of which can tell a “hawk from a handsaw”—and more than that, they can distinguish an Englishman from a native, as readily as they can a Thaler from a Kreutzer. Coblentz has evidently more strength than wealth—more soldiers than merchants—more shells than yolks—more articles of war than of commerce. Her high loop-holed walls along the banks of the river, with one or two wharves, shew that she is compressed into a military fortress, rather than expanded into a fine mart of commerce!