‘They have whetted their teeth against the stones;
And now they pick the bishop’s bones:
They gnawed the flesh from every limb;
For they were sent to do judgment on him!’
“We passed ruin after ruin which the boatman said were ‘robber castles.’
“‘And what do you mean by robber castles?’ asked Herman.
“‘The old lords of the Rhine used to collect tolls from the vessels that passed their estates. The tax was regarded as unjust, and hence the lords were themselves called robbers, and their castles robber castles.’
“One of these castles, called the Pfalzgrafenstein, is said to resemble a stone ship at anchor in the river. It was formerly a rock, with one little hut upon it, and it was associated with a touching incident of history.
“Louis le Debonnaire, the son of Charlemagne, became weary of state-craft and the crown. He felt that his end was near. He desired to die where he could hear the waves of the Rhine. He was taken to this rock, and there with the ebb of the river his troubled life ebbed away.
“Most of the old castles are built on the narrows of the river. These narrows are between high rocks and rocky hills. They are in the Middle Rhine, or between Mayence and Bonn. The Middle Rhine has some thirty conspicuous castles on its banks. It is sometimes called the Castellated Rhine, and its narrows are termed the Castellated Rhine Pass.
VIEW ON THE RHINE.