CHAPTER XIX.
Bischofstein.
Three more castles now claim our attention; they were all places of great importance. Bischofstein appears to have been, as its name denotes, garrisoned for the Bishop (of Trèves), while Thuron and Ehrenburg were held by adherents of the Count Palatine, or other enemies of the Elector of Trèves.
Pursuing our course down the river, we left Moselkern by a path running through gardens, whose hedgerows are vines trained on a lattice-work. We found the peasants digging up fine potatoes, so congratulated them on their crop, and also on the appearance of the grape bunches; but people are never satisfied, and they said, “Yes, it is very good for the wine, and the corn, and potatoes, but the garden greens are all burnt up with the sun:” we thought of the wretched farmer, whose potatoes were all so large there were no little ones for the pigs.
Bischofstein is finely placed on a spur of the rugged mountain; beneath it is a chapel and farmhouse: vines grow in the castle-yard, and wherever a shelf of level ground can be made into soil fit for their cultivation.
There is a great white stripe round the middle of the tower, which the popular belief attributes to a deluge which submerged all the valley, and only stayed its course when half up the tower of this castle; the account given in the following tale is more probable:—