It would be quite impossible, and indeed unnecessary (as my sketch-book can best unfold the tale), to describe all we saw. For above 100 miles, with little interruption, the same scenery presented itself, attaining its superlative point of grandeur in the neighbourhood of Lorich and Bacharach. It might be called a perfect Louvre of old Castles, each being a chef d'œuvre of its species. I could almost doubt the interference of a human hand in their creation. Placed upon elevated and apparently impossible crags, they look more like the fortresses of the Giants when they warred against the Gods than any thing else. But the Castles were not the only points of attraction. Every mile presented a village as interesting[185] as the battlements which threatened to crush them to death from above. Each vied with its neighbour in picturesque beauty, and the people as well as the buildings in these remote nooks and corners partook of the wild character of the scenery. A shower of rain and close of the day induced us to make Bacharach our sleeping-place. The Landlord, with his night-cap on his head and pipe in his mouth, expressed no surprise at our appearance. The coffee and the milk and the hock came in due season when he had nodded acquiescence to my demand, and he puffed away with as much indifference as if two strange Englishmen had not been in his house. We found good clean beds, and should have slept very well but for the deep-toned Bell of the Church within a few yards of us, which tolled the time of night every half-hour, and for a watchman who, by way of murdering the little sleep which had survived the sound of the Bell, sounded with all his might a cow-horn, and then, as if perfectly satisfied that he had awaked every soul in the village, bawled out the hour and retired, leaving them just time to fall asleep again before the half-hour called for a repetition of his exertions.
Every evening about dusk, in our course down the river, a curious Phenomenon presented itself which to me, as an Entomologist, had peculiar charms. We were surrounded as far as the eye could reach with what appeared to be a fall of snow, but which, in fact, was a cloud of beautiful[186] white Ephemera just emerged from their Chrysalis state to flutter away in their perfection for one or two hours before their death. I mention this circumstance now, whilst it is fresh in my memory, for I really should hesitate in relating it before company for fear of being accused of traveller's stories. I had heard of them before, and was therefore not so much surprised, though the infinite number was truly astonishing.
On Saturday, 23rd, we dined and spent an hour or two in Coblentz, which, situated at the junction of the Moselle with the Rhine, is strongly fortified towards the land. There is little worth notice in the town except a Stone fountain erected by Napoleon, from the pipes of which run the united streams of the two rivers. Upon these are carved in large letters the two following inscriptions, the one immediately below the other in characters precisely similar:—
A.N. MDCCCXII.
Mémorable par la Campagne
Contre les Russes
Sous la Préfecture de Jules Dragon.
* * * * *
Vu et approuvé par nous
Commandant Russe de la ville de Coblentz
Le Ier. Janvier 1814.
At Coblentz as well as at Cologne the Rhine is passed by a flying bridge—i.e., a large boat moored to several other smaller ones, whose only use is to keep the large one steady. It swings from bank[187] to bank, according as the mooring line is placed on one side or the other, merely by the action of the current producing a sort of compound motion. Coblentz is completely commanded by the heights of Ehrenbreitstein, a rock as high as Dover, the summit and side covered with the ruins of the fortress which the French blew up. The people in this country are pretty well satisfied with the change of affairs. They led a life of unsupportable tyranny under the rod of Napoleon. The river was crowded with custom house officers. Not a man could pass without being personally searched for Coffee and sugar in every part of his dress. All they lament now is the uncertainty of their fate. Many expressed a hope that the report of their being sold to England might be true. All they want is certainty, and then their commerce will revive. As it is, nothing can be more uninteresting in a commercial point of view than this noble river. We did not see above a dozen Merchants' barks in the course of 120 miles, and yet they say trade is tenfold greater than when Napoleon governed. Below Coblentz we passed some of the Châteaux of the German Princes, which are generally large, uncomfortable-looking houses, fitted up, as far as external examination allowed us to judge, without taste. The river became rather dull, but at Andernach, where we slept, it began to improve and to promise better for the next morning, and for some miles we were not disappointed.[188]
We were under the necessity of travelling on the Sunday, which in our situation I certainly held to be no crime. What I could do I did in inducing our Boatmen to attend their Mass. Religion, which appears to be nearly extinct in France, is by no means so in Germany. We find the churches all well attended and plentifully scattered over the whole country. In the course of the morning we passed a large Chapel dedicated to St. Apollonius, and noted for its Miracles, all of which were recorded by our Boatmen with the air of implicit reverence and belief. It happened to be the festival of the Saint, and from a distance of 10 or 20 miles even the road was crowded with persons going or coming to their favourite shrine. You will recollect what Mme. de Staël says of the Germans' taste for religious music. Of this we had a specimen to-day. As we passed the height upon which the Chapel stood a boat containing 40 or 50 people put off from the shore and preceded us for several miles chaunting almost the whole way hymns and psalms. In the Evening, soon after leaving Bonn, we came up with another containing about 120, who every quarter of an hour delighted us with the same strains. They glided with the stream, and gave us time to row alongside, and we continued in their company the remainder of the day.
Could I have heard and not have seen all would have been perfect, but the charm was almost broken by the heterogeneous mixture of piety and indif[189]ference, outward practice and inward negligence. Some were telling their beads and chattering Pater Nosters, some were at one moment on their knees, in the next quarrelling with their neighbour; but, after all, the general effect was so solemn and imposing that I was willing to spare my criticisms, and give them credit for perhaps more than they deserved. Conceive such a concourse of persons, on one of the finest Evenings imaginable, floating silently with the stream, and then at a signal given bursting forth into songs of praise to God—all perfect in their respective parts, now loud, now low, the softer tones of the women at one time singing alone. If the value of a Sabbath depends on the religious feelings excited, I may safely say I have passed few so valuable. They had no Priest amongst them, the hymns were the spontaneous flow of the moment. Whenever one began the rest were sure to follow.
When upon the subject of music I must be the advocate of Mme. de Staël. She has been accused of falsehood in stating that in the Cottages in Germany a Piano Forte was a necessary piece of furniture. I cannot from my own knowledge go quite so far, but from my short experience of German manners I may safely say there is no nation in which Music is so popular. We have heard the notes of pianos and harpsichords issuing from holes and corners where they might least be expected, and as for flutes and other instruments,[190] there is scarcely a village in which, in the course of an hour, you will not hear a dozen.
At Cologne we were lodged at a French Inn kept by the landlord and his wife alone—no waiters, no other attendance—and yet the house was spacious, clean, and excellent. I never met with more attention and wish to accommodate, and not only in the house; the exertions of our host were exerted still further in our behalf. He introduced us to a Club chiefly composed of French Germans, who were as hospitably inclined as himself. One gentleman invited us to his house, would give us some excellent hock, introduced us to his family, amongst the rest a little fellow with a sabre by his side, with curling locks and countenance and manner interesting as Owen's. Hearing I was fond of pictures and painted glass, he carried me to a fine old Connoisseur, his father-in-law, whose fears and temper were a good deal roused by the "peste," as he termed it, of still having half a dozen Cossacks in his house. However, they were officers, and by his own account did him no harm whatever; but for fear of accidents he had unpanelled his great dining-room. Our friend had a large and excellent house, in a style very unlike and far more magnificent than is usually met with in England. In return for his civility I was delighted to have it in my power to give him a few ounces of our Pecco Tea which remained of our original stock. Travelling in Germany is certainly[191] neither luxurious nor rapid; the custom of hiring a carriage for a certain distance and taking post horses does not extend here, and you are therefore reduced to the following dilemma, either taking a Carriage and the same horses for your journey or the "Post Waggon," or Diligence, which is of the two rather more rapid. Of two evils we preferred the last, and at half-past 8 this morning were landed at Aix la Chapelle, having performed the journey of 45 miles in 12 and a half hours shaken to death, choked with dust, and poisoned with tobacco, for here a great hooked pipe is as necessary an appendage to the mouth as the tongue itself. Under the circumstances above mentioned, with the Thermometer at about 98 into the bargain, you may conceive we were heartily glad to run from the coach office to the Baths as instinctively as young ducks. On looking over the list of persons visiting the place, we were delighted to find the names of Lord and Lady Glenbervie[86] and Mr. North.[87] Accordingly, having first ascended the highest steeple in the town, and been more disgusted than in any place I have seen since Spain, with virgins and dolls in beads and muslins, and pomatum and relics of saints' beards, and napkins from our Saviour's tomb, and mummeries quite disgraceful, we went to call upon them....[192]
We find this, like every other town and village, swarming with Prussian troops. General Kleist commands, and has no less an army than 170,000. This seems very like a determination of the King of Prussia not to give up the slice he has gained in the grand continental scramble. Every uniform we saw was of British manufacture. An officer told me we had furnished sufficient for 70,000 Infantry and 20,000 Cavalry.