The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1874-07-24
SCENES ON A RHINE STEAMER.
A Group of AristOcratic Germans ON
Pleasure Bound.

a Group of AristOcratic Germans OF
Pleasure Bound.
Up the Rhine from Cologne to Co
blentz, with a party of noble German
fellow passengers, all bound for Ems
The saloon-steamer glides up the foam
ing stream under a warm June sun
ripening the cornfelds on the river
banks and making the grapes, as yet
small as peas, swell and color in the
vineyards. A pink and white awning
has been seen set up ON deck, band is
playing one of Strauss waltzes, and a
kellner rushes up the cabin stairs with
glass schoppes of cool beer, into which
those ladies gathered near the wheel
will dip their pink lips as bravely as
the gentlemen who escort them. One
would rather see them suck sherry cob
blers through straw, or try that lus
| cious French drink of Strawberries, su-
| gar AMI champagne, or at least trife
with vanilla ices, but these things are
| unknown on board and, after all, if the
| ladies choose to driL the beer, which
renders feminine features plump as pref
ty pudding apples, they have the right,
for do they not all belong to kurfahiq
society? The gentlemen are counts
and Earons to a man, and dressed in
gray with felt hats of wondrous shape.
They stalk about with the easy supple
ness of ramrods, like men little used to
civilian gear and the ladies are Frau
Grafin Won Rosenbaum, Frau Grain
Won Reiselied, and Fraulein Won La
chenspiel, who lead fashion and every
thing else worth leading in Berlin.
They are arrayed in silk mauve, blue
and cherry, these iadies-things most
appI opriate for travel--and, Judging by
the attention which the young Capt.
Won Reiselied, the countess's brother-in-
law, payg to Fraulein Irma Won Lachen-
spiel, the countess's sister, it is evident
that he is smitten in that quarter. The
elder Herr Won Reiselied, the countess's
brother, is one of your old stock Ger
mans, who smiles only at marked inter-
walls; but his brother, the captain, is a
true ladies man, who can click his heels
together for a bow as no other Prussian
can who waltzes half an hour by the
clock, leads cotillions, trolls out his
part in duet and has a fund of anec-
dote, banter and conundrums most
choice. Hark to him describing how,
during the war, he was billeted in |
French chateau where there was a VEN
erable footman in spectacles who had |
served the family forty years, and who |
one night mysteriously brought him his |
mistress poodle and confded the ami
NAL to his honor. He was persuaded, |
good man, that nothing but this could |
save ''Toto" f1om being requisitioned |
and eaten, and, as he explained with all |
a Frenchman's grave chivalry, "the |
death of his dog, monsieur, would
bring disgrace on my white hairs"
German ears are well attuned by this
time to anecdotes of this sort, but they
never fail to make fair listeners laugh
gleefully-and not, mind, with that
noiseless lip-laughter of polite French
women, but with gay tinkles audible
afar, and buOyant as healthy weather.
For all which, conversation does not
hinge only ON camp stories, for Eng
h hsfv9 v99oTes tREGh rea9 e9 R RGfFgpy9
tion, and the health of Bismarck are all
prattled over in turns by these well-in-
formed and not frivolous ladies. On
and ON shoots the steamer, plowing up
long furrows of white, and glancing by
clumps of wooden villages,
gabled town, and new riverside hotels.
The band exhausts Strauss, and takes
10 OffeHbach, Godfrey, and Metra a
Inner bell rings, and draws down half
,he passengers to o prolonged sitting
over hot meats, new potatoes fried, and
ank bottles of Rhine wine then the
Lfternoon melts into evening, and just
IS the setting sun is casting broad sheets
If purple igh over the noble river the
,oat Darts by the Giant Hotel at Co
,lentz, and reaches the landing-stage.
yroups of Prussian soldiers, blue and
White, hang about with brown kirtled
actory girls and faxep-headed school
,oys to see the passengers disembark,
nd above the two forts, Constantine
nd Alexander, which the French "shall
lever have" gaze proudly and securely
Iown at the tract of matchless land
cape where the Rhine and the Moselle
,lend their waters. Pail Mail Gazette.