"Peasant girls with deep blue eyes,
And hands which offer early flowers,
Walk smiling o'er this paradise;"
and I felt that the landscape before me transcended even his description. I had, however, the greatest contrast offered to my view so far as regarded eyes, hands, or smiles. Four females approached with flowers, which they desired to sell. They were all old women, and they constituted, in their features and figures, the most complete realization of hideous ugliness. It is not my intention to attempt any description of the scenes which successively astonished and delighted me whilst proceeding up the Rhine from Bonn to Mentz. I would fully adopt the unexaggerated truth contained in four short lines—
"The river nobly foams and flows,
The charm of this enchanted ground,
And all its thousand turns disclose
Some fresher beauties varying round."
I found the steamer extremely convenient and most agreeable, especially for a person debilitated by severe and recent indisposition. I do not recollect the charges for conveyance or refreshments, but I considered them moderate, and relished my repasts greatly, whether as regarded their materials, culinary preparation, or table attendance. The few hotels at which I stopped were very comfortable in every respect. At the Giant Hotel, Coblentz, I observed that the delicious wine, sparkling Moselle, was given for a Rhenish florin and a half, (two shillings and sixpence,) per bottle, and that Guinness's Dublin Porter was precisely the same price there. I have heard some Germans, who understood English, remark on the designation almost universally given to the Rhenish wines by us. The vineyards are nearly all on places considerably elevated, and the names of the wines have generally the prefix of "High." The German word is "Hoch," and they give it a guttural pronunciation which the Irish and Scotch can utter perfectly, but which an Englishman cannot accomplish. He hardens "hoch" into "hock," and adopts the prefix alone as the name of the exhilarating fluid, and we follow his example. The mistake, however, is perfectly harmless, for the abbreviation has not lessened the production, or deteriorated the flavor of the liquor.