Koenigswinter, Germany, August 7.
The river Rhine is in many respects the greatest river in the world. It is greatest in commercial importance, historical interest and artistic development. It has been the line of battle in Europe for centuries, since Cæsar first crossed the stream and met the original Germans. After that time it was the frontier of the Roman empire until Rome fell, and then it became the object for which Europe fought. The Germans and the French met on the Rhine, the other “civilized countries” got in the game, and the valley was filled with feudal counts and princes who sometimes took one side and sometimes the other, whichever seemed to offer them the best pickings. The broad and deep stream was a highway of commerce, and the old champions of chivalry, with whom robbery and murder were the principal business, built castles on the hills, and whenever they saw a merchant with a rich caravan of goods, down they would swoop on him, grab his valuables and kill the defenders. These adventures and wars were what the world called history, and during the Middle Ages the place where hell was continually breaking out was along this beautiful valley. The use of gunpowder finally put an end to knights in armor, and the Germans and the French struggled for the Rhine. Napoleon conquered the valley, organized it into a republic, and finally annexed it to France. The Allies conquered Napoleon and restored the Prussian king and the petty princes to their possessions. The war of 1870 between Germany and France pushed the boundary a considerable distance west, and made the Rhine valley all German, under the newly organized empire.
Most rivers begin in a small way, from springs, creeks and little streams. The Rhine is the outlet of Lake Constance, and rushes out of that inland sea a great river ready-made, and begins with a magnificent waterfall second only to Niagara. It is a wide, deep river, and as soon as it emerges from the Swiss mountains becomes the great highway through Germany and Holland to the ocean. Along its banks are timber, coal and iron, great cities with factories, and fertile lands tilled to the utmost point. The freight rate is the lowest possible, and the productive value of the country is increased by the ease and cheapness with which the markets of the world are reached. Steamboats and barges go up and down in much greater numbers than do the freight trains of America’s greatest railroad. For much of its length the banks are walled, and the cities, towns and villages are almost continuous. In width the river is from 500 to 1500 feet, and it is about 550 miles long. The last 360 miles, from Manheim to the German ocean, has a channel of not less than thirty feet in depth, and in that 360 miles the fall is only 280 feet, the last hundred miles only 33 feet.
So much for the Rhine from a business viewpoint. This little town of Koenigswinter is on “the picturesque Rhine,” at the foot of the Drachenfels, the last of the big hills or mountains by which the Rhine flows in its course from Manheim to Cologne. We stopped at the little city of Bonn, seat of a good university, and an old town. Beethoven was born in Bonn, and we visited the little house he selected for that event in his life. It was most interesting to see the things used by the great composer, among them the original drafts of many of his great works. Beethoven’s folks were poor, and when only a boy he played the pipe organ at the church and was in the Bonn string band. When 22 years of age he went to Vienna, where he was taken care of financially by the Austrian emperor. He never married. He and a countess fell in love with each other, but her folks did not approve of her marrying a musician. Beethoven’s father sang tenor and his grandfather had led the Bonn brass band, and Beethoven himself was giving lessons. So they could not marry, though I don’t see why the countess did not arrange it later when Beethoven became famous. But he was very deaf and probably very cranky, for he was a great musician, and perhaps the Lady Amelia backed out herself.
This is what is called the picturesque Rhine, for here the river runs through some German mountains, which rise almost abruptly from the banks. The mountain-sides are cultivated as we do first-bottom land. The principal product is the grape, which gets just the proper sunlight on these mountain-sides to make its juice command more money than the wine from the back country. There are also many truck farms, small pastures, patches of alfalfa and wheat, all tilted up from the river at an angle of 45 to 90 degrees. The roads are good and white, the fields just now are green, the sky is a blue like the sky in Italy and Kansas. The little towns with their white-washed houses and red-tiled roofs cluster every mile or so along the river, and the view from the mountains or from the river is one that makes the tickle come around the heart. In this beautiful spot where nature and man have both been busy for so many hundred years we are spending a few days for rest.
