The Argosy — page 67: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

54 In the Black Forest. Baden-Baden, where one fairly enters within the territories of the Black Forest. Passing through a considerable extent of flat, unin- teresting plain, the train entered the Valley of the Rhine. Hills and romantic crags rose right and left, vineyards and gardens giving a certain cultivated luxuriance to the slopes, fantastic chateaux adding life and spirit to the hillsides. ‘These vineyards from a distance are less picturesque—it has been said before—than our hop-gardens in England; but a closer inspection brings out the beauty of the leaf, the delicacy of the tendril, the grace of the drooping fruit—and then comparison yields in favour of the latter. Between the hills the river flowed in its course to the sea, growing tamer and yet more tame towards Cologne, losing all life and beauty, its very colour, as it runs through the Dutch territories and expires. But at Bonn and upwards all the romance begins; all that strange wonder of crag and rock, romantic towns and villages, and ruined castles; valleys stretching far away, and hills rising above and behind each other; the thousand and one legends, supernatural and otherwise, that have enshrined the river in the hearts of the German people. To-day it was so shallow as to lose much of its grandeur. Steamers passed us on their way to Cologne, crowded with tourists, consisting for the most part of English, Dutch, and Americans. For the Dutch have taken a fancy of late years to travel in search of the picturesque, _ and enlarge their views of life by observing the minds, manners, and morals of other nations. The Germans, too, in large numbers seem to be following this example; so that presently we shall become a world of travellers, and the resources of the ingenious will be taxed to provide for the necessities of a wandering, though not Hebrew, race. The train went on through many a well-known spot; pausing now at good old Darmstadt, now at romantic Heidelberg, with its surrounding hills and vales, its wonderful old castle. You may pace those ruined terraces on a moonlit night, and fancy a ghost lurking in every shadow. As indeed there is—the ghosts of departed glory and grandeur, whose name is legion; the ghosts of a thousand mar- vellous tales of superstition and wonder. And you turn your gaze to the broad-flowing river far below, upon which the moon is casting her jewelled rays; you gaze and gaze, and fancy each moment that Undine, with pale loveliness and floating tresses, will rise and bid you plunge beneath the calm surface to her fairy palace; a bidding you will have no power to disobey. But to-day it was all broad daylight, prosy as anything can be in these regions of beauty and romance: where the very atmosphere possesses a quality that stirs the imagination, and for the time plunges you into a world where realities dissolve and the ideal cheats you into the belief of happiness. And every now and then, for one moment—is it not so ?—the burden of life falls away with as great relief ECORNICE OOOKS.CO© m