XXXIII.
GERMANY.
Cologne, Tuesday, July 15, 1851.
After spending Sunday very agreeably at Basle (where American Protestants traveling may like to know that Divine worship is regularly conducted each Sabbath by an English clergyman, at the excellent Hotel of the Three Kings), I set my face again northward at 7½ A. M. on Monday, crossing the Rhine (which is here about the size of the Hudson at Albany) directly into Baden, and so leaving the soil of glorious Switzerland, the mountain home of Liberty amid surrounding despotisms. The nine first miles from Basle (to Efringen) are traversed by Omnibus, and thence a very good Railroad runs nearly parallel with the Rhine by Freiburg, Kehl (opposite Strasburg), Baden (at some distance), Rastatt, Carlsruhe, and Heidelberg, to Mannheim, distant from Basle 167½ miles by Railroad, and I presume considerably further by River, as the Rhine (unlike the Railroad as far as Heidelberg) is not very direct in its course. There is a French Railroad completed on the other (west) side of the river from Basle to Strasburg, and nearly completed from Strasburg to Paris, which affords a far more direct and expeditious route than that I have chosen, as I wished to see something of Germany. It is also cheaper, I believe, to take the French Railroad to Strasburg, and the river thence by steamboats which ply regularly as high as Strasburg, and might keep on to Basle, I presume, if not impeded by bridges, as the river is amply large enough.
The Baden Railroad runs through a country descending, indeed, toward the Rhine and with the Rhine, but as nearly level as a country well can be, and affording the fewest possible obstacles to its construction. It is faithfully built, but instead of the numerous common roads which cross it being carried over or under its track, as the English Railroads are, they are closed on each side by a swing-bar, at which a guard is stationed—a plan which saves expense at the outset, but involves a heavy permanent charge. I should deem the English plan preferable to this, though men are had much cheaper for such service in Germany than in America, or even Great Britain. The pace is slower than with us. We were about nine hours of fair daylight traversing 160 miles of level or descending grade, with a light passenger train. The management, however, was careful and unexceptionable.
This Railroad runs for most of the distance much nearer to the range of gentle hills which bound the broad and fertile Rhine valley on the east than to the river itself. The valley is nearly bare of trees for the most part, and has scarcely any fences save the very slight board fence on either side of the Railroad. In some places, natural woods of considerable extent are permitted, but not many fruit nor shade-trees, whether in rows or scattered. The hills in sight, however, are very considerably wooded, and wood is apparently the common fuel. The valley is generally but not entirely irrigated, though all of it easily might be, the arrangements for irrigation appearing much more modern and unsystematic here than in Lombardy. The land is cultivated in strips as in France—first Wheat (the great staple), then Rye, then Potatoes, then Clover, then Beets, or Hemp, or Flax, and so on. For a small part of the way, Grass seems to preponderate, but generally Wheat and Rye cover more than half the ground, while Potatoes have a very large breadth of it. Rye is now being harvested, and is quite heavy: in fact, all the crops promise abundant harvests. The Vine appears at intervals, but is not general through this region: Indian Corn is also rare, and appears in small patches. In some places many acres of Wheat are seen in one piece, but usually a breadth of four to twenty rods is given to one crop, and then another succeeds and so on. I presume this implies a diversity of owners, or at least of tenants.
The cultivation, though not always judicious, is generally thorough, there being no lack of hands nor of good will. The day being fine and the season a hurrying one, the vast plain was everywhere dotted with laborers, of whom fully half were Women, reaping Rye, binding it, raking and pitching Hay, hoeing Potatoes, transplanting Cabbages, Beets, &c. They seemed to work quite as heartily and efficiently as the men. But the most characteristically European spectacle I saw was a woman unloading a great hay-wagon of huge cordwood at a Railroad station, and pitching over the heavy sticks with decided resolution and efficiency. It may interest the American pioneers in the Great Pantalette (or is it Pantaloon?) Movement to know that she was attired in appropriate costume—short frock, biped continuations and a mannish oil-skin hat.—And this reminds me that, coming away from Rome, I met, at the half-way house to Civita Vecchia, a French marching regiment on its way from Corsica to the Eternal City, to which regiment two women were attached as sutlers, &c., who also wore the same costume, except that their hats were of wool instead of oil-skin. Thus attired, they had marched twenty-five miles that hot day, and were to march as many the next, as they had doubtless done on many former days. It certainly cannot be pretended that these women adopted that dress from a love of novelty, or a desire to lead a new fashion, or from any other reason than a sense of its convenience, founded on experience. I trust, therefore, that their unconscious testimony in behalf of the Great Movement may not be deemed irrelevant nor unentitled to consideration. Their social rank is certainly not the highest, but I consider them more likely to render a correct judgment on the merit of the Bloomer controversy than the Lady Patronesses of Almack's.
THE RHINE.
After spending the night at Mannheim, I took a steamboat at 5½ this morning for this place, 165 miles down the Rhine, embracing all the navigable part of the river of which the scenery is esteemed attractive. As far down as Mayence or Mentz (55 miles), the low banks and broad intervale continue, and there is little worthy of notice. From Mentz to Coblentz (54 miles), there is some magnificent scenery, though I think its natural beauties do not surpass those of the Hudson from New-York to Newburgh. Certainly there are no five miles equal in rugged grandeur to those beginning just below and ending above West Point. But the Rhine is here somewhat larger than the Hudson; the hills on either side, though seldom absolutely precipitous, are from one to five hundred feet high, and are often crowned with the ruins of ancient castles, which have a very picturesque appearance; while the little villages at their foot and the cultivation (mainly of the Vine) which is laboriously prosecuted up their rocky and almost naked sides, contribute to heighten the general effect. These sterile rocks impart a warmth to the soil and a sweetness to the grape which are otherwise found only under a more southerly sun, and, combined with the cheapness of labor, appear to justify the toilsome process of terracing up the steep hill-sides, and even carrying up earth in baskets to little southward-looking nooks and crevices where it may be retained and planted on. Yet I liked better than the vine-clad heights those less abrupt declivities where a more varied culture is attempted, and where the Vine is intermingled with strips of now ripened Rye, ripening Wheat, blossoming Potatoes, &c., &c., together imparting a variegated richness and beauty to the landscape which are rarely equaled. But the Rhine has been nearly written out, and I will pass it lightly over. Its towers are not very imposing in appearance, though Coblentz makes a fair show. Opposite is Ehrenbreitstein, no longer the ruin described (if I rightly remember) in Childe Harold, but a magnificent fortress, apparently in the best condition, and said to have cost Five Millions of dollars. The "blue Moselle" enters the Rhine from the west just below Coblentz. This city (Cologne) is the largest, I believe, in Rhenish Prussia, and, next to Rotterdam at its mouth, the largest on the Rhine, having a flourishing trade and 90,000 inhabitants. (Coblentz has 26,000, Mayence 36,000, Mannheim 23,000 and Strasburg 60,000.)