the convent still gleaming through the trees as they did when the warrior’s weary eyes looked upon them for the last time.  I shall never forget the enthusiasm with which I saw this scene in the bright, warm sunlight, the rough crags softened in the haze which filled the atmosphere, and the wild mountains springing up in the midst of vineyards and crowned with crumbling towers filled with the memories of a thousand years.

After passing Andernach we saw in the distance the highlands of the middle Rhine—­which rise above Coblentz, guarding the entrance to its scenery—­and the mountains of the Moselle.  They parted as we approached; from the foot shot up the spires of Coblentz, and the battlements of Ehrenbreitstein, crowning the mountain opposite, grew larger and broader.  The air was slightly hazy, and the clouds seemed laboring among the distant mountains to raise a storm.  As we came opposite the mouth of the Moselle and under the shadow of the mighty fortress, I gazed up with awe at its massive walls.  Apart from its magnitude and almost impregnable situation on a perpendicular rock, it is filled with the recollections of history and hallowed by the voice of poetry.  The scene went past like a panorama, the bridge of boats opened, the city glided behind us, and we entered the highlands again.

Above Coblentz almost every mountain has a ruin and a legend.  One feels everywhere the spirit of the past, and its stirring recollections come back upon the mind with irresistible force.  I sat upon the deck the whole afternoon as mountains, towns and castles passed by on either side, watching them with a feeling of the most enthusiastic enjoyment.  Every place was familiar to me in memory, and they seemed like friends I had long communed with in spirit and now met face to face.  The English tourists with whom the deck was covered seemed interested too, but in a different manner.  With Murray’s Handbook open in their hands, they sat and read about the very towns and towers they were passing, scarcely lifting their eyes to the real scenes, except now and then to observe that it was “very nice.”

As we passed Boppart, I sought out the inn of the “Star,” mentioned in “Hyperion;” there was a maiden sitting on the steps who might have been Paul Flemming’s fair boat-woman.  The clouds which had here gathered among the hills now came over the river, and the rain cleared the deck of its crowd of admiring tourists.  As we were approaching Lorelei Berg, I did not go below, and so enjoyed some of the finest scenery on the Rhine alone.  The mountains approach each other at this point, and the Lorelei rock rises up for four hundred and forty feet from the water.  This is the haunt of the water nymph Lorelei, whose song charmed the ear of the boatman while his bark was dashed to pieces on the rocks below.  It is also celebrated for its remarkable echo.  As we passed between the rocks, a guard, who has a little house on the roadside, blew a flourish on his bugle, which was instantly answered by a blast from the rocky battlements of Lorelei.