Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1874-07-22
SCENES ON A RHINE STEAMER.


The Germans Pleasure Trip.
Up the Rhine from Cologne to Cob
ientz with party of noble German fell
passengers, allo bound for Ems.
The saloon steamer glides up the foam
ing stream under warm June sun, rip
ening the cornfelds on the river banks
and making the grapes, as vet small as
peas, swell and color in the VINEYARDS.
A pink and white awning has been set
up on deck, band is playing one of
Strauss waltzes, kellner rushes up
the cabin stairs with glass schoppes of
cool beer, into which those ladies gath
cred near the wheel will dip their pink
lips as bravely as the gentlemen who
escort them. One would rather see
them suck sherry cobblers through a
straw, on try that luscious French drink
OF strawberries, sugar and champagne,
or at least trife with vanilla ices, but
these things are unknown on board !;
and, after all, if the la dies choose to
drink the beer, which rem ders feminine
features plump as pretty pudding ap-
plies, they have the right, for do they
not all belong to knJahig society?
The gentlemen are counts and barons
to man, and dressed in gray with felt
hats of wondrous shape. They
stalk about with the easy sup
pleness of ramrods, like men lit
tie used to civilian gear; and the
ladies are Frau Grain Won Rosen-
baum, Frau Grafin Won Reiselied,
Fraulien Won Laohenspiel, who lead
fashion and everything else worth lead
ing in Berlin. They are arrayed in
silks mauve, blue and cherry, these Ia
dies-things most appropriate for travel
and, Judging by the attention which
the young Captain Won Reiselied, the
Countess brother-in-law, pays to Frau
lein Irma Won Lachenspiel, the Coun-
tess sister, it is evident that he is smit-
ten in that quarter. The elder Herr
Won Reiselied, the Countess brother, is
one of your old-stock Germans, who
smiles only at marked intervals but
his brother, the Captain, is true la
dies man, who can click his heels to-
gether for bow as no other Prussian
can who waltzes half an hour by the
clock, leads cotillons, 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 a
French chateau where there was ven
cradle footman in spectacles who had
served the family forty years, and who
one night mysteriously brought him his
mistress poodle, and eonfded the ami
NAL to his honor. He was persuaded,
good man, that nothing but this could
save ''Toto' from being requisitioned
and eaten, and, as he explained, with
all a Frenchman's grave chivalry,
''the death of this dog, monsieur, would
bring disgrace on my white hairs"
German ears are we'll 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
fish novels (much read in Germany
native metaphysics, the Catholic ques-
ton and the health of Bismarck are all
prattled over in turns by these we'll
informed and not frivolous ladies. On
and on shoots the steamer, plough
ing up long burrows of white, and
glancing by repeated clumps of wooden
villages, gabled towns and new river
side hotels. The band exhausts Strauss,
and takes to Ofenbach, Godfrey and
Metra; a dinner-bell rings and draws
down half the passengers to prolong-
ed sitting over hot meats, new potatoes
fried, and lank bottles of Rhine wine :;
then the afternoon melts into evening.
and just as the setting sun is casting
broad sheets of purple light over the.
noble river the boat darts by the Giant
Hotelat Coblentz, andreaches the land
ing stage. Groups Of Prussian soldiers,
in blue and white hang about brown
kirtled factory girls and faxen-headed
school-boys to see the passengers dis
embark, and above, the two forts, Con-
stantine and Alexander, which the
French "shall never have" gaze proud
" and securely down at the tract of
matchiess landscape where the Rhine
and the Moselle blend their waters.-
Pail OfoU Gazette