A delightful afternoon ride, in an open carriage, along the river bank for three or four miles, brought us to the foot of the ascent leading to the castle of Stolzenfels, which looks down upon the river from a rocky eminence about four hundred feet above it. Refusing the proffers of donkeys or chaise à porter for the ladies, we determined to make the ascent on foot, and very soon found that the "guides," donkeys, and portable chairs were "a weak invention of the enemy," for the road, although winding, was broad, easy, and delightfully shady and romantic. We passed an old Roman mile-stone on the road, and after crossing a drawbridge, reached the royal castle.
This most beautifully restored relic of the middle ages was, in 1802, a ruin of a castle of five hundred years before; in 1823 it was partially restored, and since then has been completely rebuilt and beautified at a cost of fifty-three thousand pounds sterling. Everything is in good proportion, Stolzenfels being somewhat of a miniature castle, its great banquet hall scarcely double the size of a good-sized drawing-room; but its whole interior and exterior are a model of exquisite taste. It has its little castle court-yard, its beautifully contrived platform overlooking the Rhine, its watch-towers and its turrets, all undersized, but in exact proportions. Through the tower windows, which are wreathed with ivy; from the windows of little boudoirs of rooms, which were cabinets of rare china and exquisite cabinet paintings; from embrasures in galleries and halls which had exquisite statuettes, instead of large size statues; from little Gothic windows in the chapel; and, in fact, from every conceivable and most unexpected point was the visitor encountering different lovely framed views, as it were, of the natural scenery of the country. These outlooks were so skilfully contrived as each to give a different view, and as at this point of the Rhine is the narrowest and most romantic part of the valley, the views are of the most enchanting description.
Looking out of an ivy-wreathed window of Stolzenfels, the spectator would see, framed, as it were, in stone-work and green leaves, a picture of the river, with its boats and bridges: through another, or an embrasure, a square-framed picture of an elevation on the opposite bank, crowned by a pilgrims' chapel, while from the watch-tower you look down upon the lovely valley of the River Lahn, which near this point flows into the Rhine; and from another turret we look back upon the massy walls of Ehrenbreitstein, Coblentz, with the apex of its triangle pointing out into the stream, and behind its base the strong walls of Fort Constantine, marked out like stone lines on the greensward. The apartments in this castle are exquisitely furnished, and the furniture, tapestry, pictures, and statues adapted to harmonize with their size, which is fairy-like in comparison with castles generally.
In one hall were a series of beautiful frescoes of chivalric scenes—Godfrey de Bouillon at the Holy Sepulchre; John of Bohemia at the Battle of Cressy; Rudolph of Hapsburg judging knightly robbers, &c. There was a beautiful little chapel with elegant frescoes. In the armory were specimens of light and curious armor, among which were swords of Napoleon, Blucher, and Murat, specimens of exquisite Toledo blades, arabesque ornamented daggers, exquisitely wrought and flexible chain-mail shirts, and other curiosities of defensive armor. In the different rooms through which we were conducted, among other works of the old masters, were cabinet pictures by Holbein, Titian, Van Dyck, Albert Dürer, Rembrandt, &c. The charming views of the surrounding scenery without, and the exquisite taste displayed on the interior of this royal castle, made us regret to leave its little leaf-clad turrets, fairy-like watch-towers, romantic terraces, and picturesque battlements; and we believed the custodian when he averred that Queen Victoria was charmed with the place when she visited it a few years since, for it was fit to charm even a queen with its beauty.
Once more we are steaming up the river, and Stolzenfels is left behind us, and the towers of Lahneck come in sight, a feudal castle restored by a wealthy Englishman, and which occupies a crag above the River Lahn; we pass little white villages nestled at the foot of the hills, and looking far inland, see the slopes bristling with vineyards; we are in the land of the vine. Next comes another great castle, Marksburg, frowning from its rocky height four hundred and eighty feet above the stream, and we lazily inspect it by the aid of a double field-glass, as we lie at full length on a settee, beneath the steamer's awning, and, on inquiry, find that after being an old feudal castle, and bearing its weight of half a thousand years bravely, it has been degraded into a states prison! The little town near the river, an old watch-tower, a road winding off amid the hills for a foreground, and this old castle high above as the background, forms so charming a picture, that one wishes it might, by some magic process, be transferred to canvas, that he could carry it away, and show it to others as it appeared to him. Farther on we pass the little castle of Liebeneck; then comes Boppard, where, in feudal times, once existed an establishment of the Knights Templars. Next we sweep round a great angle or elbow of the river, and there come in sight of a little village, with a Gothic church of the fifteenth century, behind and high above it, the two castles known as "the Brothers," connected with each other by a narrow natural bridge of rock.
These two castles have a legend, as in fact nearly all the Rhine castles have, and half the charm of one's trip consists in having them told to you at the right time, or recalling the half-forgotten story of boyhood piecemeal with some compagnon de voyage. The story of these castles is familiar, and is of two brothers loving the same lady, of faithlessness, of jealousy; and finally the lady in the case, with the delightfully German romantic name of Hildegarde, retires to the convent at the foot of the hill—that is the way they always do in these Rhine legends; it brings the convent into the story, and, perhaps, excites a desire on the part of the tourist to see the cell occupied by the fair penitent, without suspecting that the exhibition may prove something more of a sell than he bargained for. Well, the lady retired, the two brothers were reconciled, and lived ever after in one castle, instead of two.
More quaint little villages, other ruined castles! Thurnberg, the "Mouse" tower, looms up, with its square, shattered walls, and round tower, rising from their midst against the sky as we sweep by it; and St. Goar, a conspicuous-looking town, comes in view, with the huge ruins of Rheinfels, three hundred and seventy feet above it, the most magnificent ruin on the river, a second Ehrenbreitstein in strength, and which has laughed one siege of fifteen months to scorn in the thirteenth century, and in 1692 was again defended successfully against an army of twenty-four thousand men, but blown up by the French revolutionary army of 1794. It is now simply a picturesque ruin on its rocky eminence, with the railway track creeping around its base; below the track, nearer the river, winds the carriage-road to the town.
The Mouse, or Maus Tower, which we passed before reaching Rheinfels, was so called by the envious counts of Katzenelnbogen (there's a name to write), who named their own castle, near here, the Cat (Katz); but the story goes that the mouse and its stout old warrior were more than a match for the cat; in fact, he was so feared in his day that the proverb was reversed, and when the mouse was away the cat would play.
Now we reach the precipitous rocks known as the "Lurlei" crags, towering four hundred and twenty feet above the river, which flows swiftly down their base; and here was where Lurlei, the siren, sat and chanted her songs, which lured fishermen, knights, and sailors to their destruction in the rapids that whirled beneath her lofty and romantic seat. As we passed we heard no siren's song, but our ears were saluted with the shrill whistle of that practical chanter of the advance of civilization, the locomotive, that rushed through a tunnel, piercing the very base of the magic rock, and whirling out of sight with a shriek that made the hills echo like the scream of a demon, leaving an angry puff of smoke issuing from the rocky orifice, as if the fiend had vanished from the surface to the centre.
Now we pass Oberwesel, with its romantic ravines, picturesque vineyards, and old ruins of Castle Schönburg; farther on, on the opposite bank, the grand old castle of Gutenfels stands guard over the town beneath it; then comes that little hexagonal castle, or stone fortification, on an island, looking as though anchored in mid stream, known as the Pfalz; it was erected in the thirteenth century, as a toll-house for exacting tribute, and has served, if not as a prison, as a place of royal confinement—tradition being that the Countesses Palatine remained here during their accouchements. We wind round a point, and the Castle of Stahleck, once the principal residence of the Counts Palatine, makes its appearance; then come the ruins of Fürstenburg, once the stronghold of an old robber, who was bold enough to fire into the emperor's boat that refused to pay toll as it passed; the stream now narrows perceptibly, and a little slender tower, perched like a sentinel on watch on its walls, at a narrow ravine, attracts attention; it is Sooneck, and was a robbers' stronghold in the eleventh century.