Page:Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home (Volume 1).djvu/198

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I WILL not even name to you the beautiful pictures past which we floated. Everything is here ready for the painter's hand. Oberwesel, with its Roman tower, its turreted walls and Gothic edifices; the old Castle of Schonberg, Anglice Beautiful Hill, where there are seven petrified maidens who were converted into these rocks for their stony-heartedness—fit retribution. Villages, vineyards, and ruins appeared and disappeared, as the mist, playing its fantastic tricks, veiled and unveiled them. As we drew near to Bingen the sun shone out, throwing his most beautifying horizontal beams on Rheinstein and other famed points of the landscape, while masses of black clouds, driven on by the gusty wind, threw their deep shadows now here, now there, as if (we flies on the wheel fancied) to enchant the senses of travellers for the picturesque.

After much discussion with a friendly Englishman (an old stager in these parts) as to the comparative advantage of landing at Bingen or Rudesheim, we followed his advice and went on shore at the former place, where we found a cheerful welcome in the face of mine host of the Weisse Rosse, but no room in his house. This man is quite my beau ideal of a German innkeeper, and, but that it would take too much space, I should like to tell you the pains he took to get us rooms in another inn, and how, after he did get them, we reconsidered our decision and determined to pass the night at Rudesheim, and