Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/343

14, 1863.] American forest. At length the landmark of the shining rock is reached, and we are at the top of the Hunsrücken, or Ridge of the Huns, a long hog’s-backed wooded hill, or rather series of ridges, with a more or less flat top, which extends up from the Rhine between the Nahe and the Moselle, and is about 2000 feet high. This country is strangely wild and solitary. At one of the loneliest spots there stand in the road three hinds of the red deer, looking at us. They withdraw to about a hundred yards in the wood, and stand still again, looking very grand, and, in the half-light, almost spectral.

On descending from the main ridges, we see a most solitary castle in a most solitary moor. We can get no information from the peasants but that it is called Balduinenhof, or the Court of Baldwin, probably having been erected by a sturdy archbishop of TrevesTrêves [sic] of that name.

Some charcoal-burners here show a shorter way, so we quit the main road and skirt an oak forest, as grand and antique-looking as the beech forest we had passed in the morning. As the autumn sun sets gloriously, we are aware of the hollow in which the Moselle runs, light upon a gorge which leads down to it, and arrive at Berncastel in the dark. The day’s walk may have amounted to eighteen or twenty miles, but a straight course for the shining rock would have saved two or three of these.

We knew Berncastel before, as represented in one of Harding’s views. But that Berncastel exists no longer. Like Trarbach, and several other places on the Moselle, it was partly burnt down in 1857, by some strange fatality. In the cases both of Berncastel and Trarbach the picturesque frontage of the towns on the side of the Moselle is no more. Any paintings which have been made from them, as subjects, would now acquire a double value, for they would be as portraits of the dead. From Berncastel it is but a step to Trarbach across the neck of the hill, though the steamer takes some time to get there in following the devious course of the Moselle.

Trarbach lies at the mouth of one of those long, wooded, winding gorges which lead down to the Moselle from the table-land. At present it is a very uninviting place, as the best inn stands in a close street. But on the other side of the river appears a little house with “Hotel Klaus” in large letters upon it. So we cross in the huge ferry-boat and enter it. There is a beautiful view, from the windows, of the river, with the hills over Trarbach, and the Castle of Trarbach crowning the nearest of these. The “Hotel Klaus” is situated in Traben, a corruption of the Latin word “Taberna.” It was manifestly the half-way station between Trêves and Coblentz in the Roman times. In the Palatinate we find the word Taberna corrupted into Zabern, or Saverne. Traben still exhibits some of the most curious old houses to be found anywhere on the Moselle, which is saying much, as all the unburnt towns on the Moselle abound in curious old houses. When fortifications limited the area of towns, it seems that all the decorative energies of the inhabitants were expended on putting as much ornament in a narrow compass as possible. The houses at Traben—amongst which is most conspicuous the old Town-hall—are dark, dingy, and filthy; but glory in every possible interlacing of rafters and arabesque ornamentation. Klaus’s Hotel is a favourite abode of the Düsseldorf artists; and it is a most friendly little inn, where the family appear to do all in their power to please the palates, secure the comforts, and save the pockets of their guests. There is a sociable common breakfast, dinner, and supper at regular hours. The Moselle wine is abundant and good. In our short stay we saw specimens of the prosaic and poetic intoxication: the former in the persons of two Englishmen who had been indulging in alcohol previously on board the steamer; the latter in the person of a goodly vine-grower of the neighbourhood, a well-to-do peasant, but clad in simple blouse, with a face the type for an artist. He was made a butt of by the naughty brethren of Düsseldorf, one of whom passed himself off upon him as a railway surveyor, and took his opinion with the gravest face on the different merits of problematical lines. Long may it be before the Moselle is defiled with tunnels and cuttings, and ceases to be a haunt for artists! Behind Traben is the elevation which bears the name of Mont Royal, where Louis XIV. made a great camp at great cost, which he was obliged to abandon at the peace of Ryswick. And Trarbach is historically famous, as having been occupied by Marlborough in the campaign of Blenheim. The valley behind Trarbach is rich in magnificent rock and wood scenery, as are also its two branches, which lose themselves in the upland. September is surely the time to see the Moselle. The air is still, the sun is but lukewarm, the lights are exquisite, the colours of the foliage range through every variety of green, and yellow, and pink, and russet, and brown. The only drawback is the shortness of the days, still shorter in the depth of the gorge, from which the hills shut out the last smiles of the sun. It is not so true to say that Nature is always beautiful, as that Nature can be beautiful at all seasons. On grey, foggy, overcast days, whether in summer or winter, Nature’s beauty is asleep. But to the lover of Nature even midwinter itself invests the country with greater attractions than the town. What ball-room diamonds or hanging lustres can vie with the spiculæ of hoar-frost, when the living light of the morning sun glistens through them!

The steamer which plies between Trêves and Coblentz performs the down voyage in one day, the up voyage in two. We get on board to go down the river about midday. The effect of the quiet course is curious and novel from the perpetual scene-shifting, as there are none of the long reaches of the Rhine. Yet the scenes have a certain sameness: long vine-mantled hills; little towns, with each its castle, or perhaps its ruined convent above it; gabled and fantastic houses; frowning rocks, some dark, some red, some motley, as composed of intruded igneous rocks, or flat-lying or slightly dislocated sandstone. The red rocks contrast best with the green vines. The company on board is variously composed, but there happen to be no English. There are priests from Trêves, with shovel-hats and long cloaks;