Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/118

110 For some time before the vintage—the day of which is fixed by authority, like everything else in Germany—the vineyard paths are closed, and the wayside clusters which are most exposed to depredation are protected by thorns. The Germans, however, are easily deterred from doing forbidden things. The word “verboten” has with them the effect of the taboo of New Zealand, and is a more effectual fence than with us a wall fringed with broken bottles, though I have once seen a board on which the word was inscribed peppered with shot by some profane wayfarer, probably previously demoralised by a course of poaching.

Dürkheim stands at the opening of a valley which pierces the hills to the west. It is a noted place for the grape-cure. This agreeable regime, which is very fashionable in Germany, consists in spending an hour every morning in the garden listening to the band and eating a pound of grapes, for the sale of which stalls are set in the garden. At all the baths which do not gamble, the visitors appear much of the same grade in society, and of the same—a moderately advanced—age. It looks like society, not exactly precise or puritanical, but with the “fast” element completely weeded out of it. At Dürkheim is one of those inns which one finds at rare intervals, where travellers are treated as friends of the family, called the Hotel Reitz. An excellent character is also given of the Vier Jahreszeiten. On an independent hill in the valley of Dürkheim, which the Isenach flows through with water impregnated with iron, as its name denotes, stands the grand ruin of the Abbey of Limburg, a far and wide landmark. It closely resembles in the style of architecture, which is the round-arched Byzantine, the Abbey of Paulinzelle in Thuringia, built in 1114, while its position is much more imposing, and its remains more extensive. The hill on which the Benedictine Abbey of Limburg is placed is a natural fortress. Its position thus tells of a time when sanctity was not deemed of itself a sufficient protection. On the top is a considerable plateau, sufficient for all the buildings, and a garden such as the monks of old delighted in. The authorities of the town of Dürkheim have taken into keeping this ruin; and with the best possible intentions, but questionable taste, have planted rows of limes inside the area, which have now grown so high as to hide much of the architecture. They seemed determined, at all events, to do honour to the name of Limburg, derived from the limes which grew there. Among the objects seen in the fine view from the plateau are the once-formidable Castle of Hartenburg, crouching on the side of a neighbouring glen, and the hills crowned by the immense antique fortification called the Heidenmauer.

But, how comes it that the Abbey bears the name of Limburg, or Lime-castle? In very old times, before the abbey was built, a castle stood here, belonging to the Rhine-Frankish or Salic