CHAPTER XI.
Berncastel by Moonlight.
Berncastel is a delightful, old, tumble-down-looking conglomeration of queer-shaped houses; a mountain-stream hurries through its principal street, if such a heterogeneous jumble of odd gable-ends and door-posts may be called a street: but as it does duty for one, it must receive the appellation.
This street should rather be spoken of in the past tense, for the greater part of it was burnt in 1857; three times the town was on fire in this year, a church and about forty houses being consumed in the last and largest conflagration. As we shall have to revert to these fires again, suffice it to say that the part of the old street nearest the mountain was destroyed.
Berncastel contains some four thousand inhabitants; the tourist passing in a steam-boat would hardly believe so many people were housed in so small a space. This remark will apply to most of the towns and villages on the Moselle, for only a few of the better class of houses are visible from the water in general, the mass of buildings being huddled out of observation as much as possible, and crowded under the base of the impending hills; formerly these Burgs were all walled, which accounts for the crushing.
This town dates from the tenth century, and at the end of the thirteenth it was destroyed by a fire, in which the château of the Bishop was burnt, together with many pictures and other valuable objects, to the estimated worth of 70,000 rix thalers; it is now inhabited by many rich people, to whom a great part of the fine vineyards of the vicinity belong: there are also mines of gold, silver, copper, and lead, which serve to enrich the community.
The vineyards are very extensive, and produce a very good wine; they cover the mountain to a height of some hundreds of feet, and extend for miles down the river. We are shown the estimation in which the Berncasteler wine was formerly held in the following story of