Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1874-07-27
SCENES ON A RHINE STEAMER.
A Group OF ArlstOcVatic Germans
on 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 corn6elds 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 kellner rushes up
the cabin stairs with glass schoppes of
cool beer, into which those ladies gather
ed 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 straw, or try
that luscious French drink of strawber-
ries, sugar and champagne, or at least
trihe with vanilla ices, but these things
are unknown on board; and, after all, if
the ladies choose to drink the beer, which
renders feminine features plump as pref
ty pudding apples, they have the right,
for do they not all belong to kurJabig
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 suppleness OF
ramrods, like men little used to civilian
gear; and the ladies are Frau Grain Won
Roseubaum, Frau Grain Won Reiselied,
and Fraulein Won Lachenspiel who lead
fashion and every ything else worth lead
ing in Berlin. They are arrayed in silk
mauve, blue aud cherry, these ladies'
things most appropriate for travel-and,
judging by the attention which the young
Cart. Won Reiselied, the countess broth
er.in-law, pays to Fraulein Irma Won
Lachenspiel, the countess sister, it is
evident that he is smitten in that quarter
The elder Herr Won Reiselied, the couu-
tess brother, is one Of your old stock
Germans, who smiles only at marked in
teryals; but his brother, the captain, is
true ladies' man, who can click his heels
together for bow as no other Prussian
can; who waltzes half an hour by the
clock, leads cotillions, trolls out his part
In a duet and has fund of ahecdote,
banter and conundrums most choice.
Hark to him describing how, during the
war he was billeted in French chateau
where there was a venerable footman in
spectacles who had served the family
forty years, and who one night mysteri-
ously brought him his mistress poodle,
and confded the animal to his honor.
He was persuaded, good man, that moth
ing but this could save Toto from be-
ing requisitioned aud eaten, and, as he
explained with all Frenchman s grave
chivalry, "the death OF her 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 noise
less lip.laughter of polite French women,
but with gay tinkles audible afar, and
bouyant as healthy weather. For all
which, conversation does not hinge only
on camp stories, for English novels,
much read in Germany native meta
physics, the catholic question, and the
health OF Bismarck are all prattled over
in turns by these welLinformed and not
frivolous ladies'. On and on shoots the
steamer, plowing up long burrows of
white, and glancing by repeated clumps
of wooden villages, gabled towns and new
riverside hotels. The band exhausts
Strauss, and takes to 0fenbaeh, Godfrey
and Metra; a dinner bell rings, and draws
down half the passengers to a prolonged
sitting over hot meats, new potatoes iried
and lank bottles OF Rhine winei 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 Hotel at Co
blentz, and reaches the landing stage,
groups of Prussian soldiers, blue and
white, hang about with brown kirtled
factory girls aud faxen-headed school
boys, to see the passengers disembark,
and above the two forts, Constantine and
Alexander, which the French shall
never have" gaze proudly and securely