Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1885-03-21
THE GRAND OLD RHINE.
A Brief Description OF its Beauties and
SuperstitiOns.

!
/ In the Swiss canton of the Grissons
nearly thousand miles from its mouth
is the source of one of the most beautiful
rivers the sun shines upon. Sung by
poets, praised by tourists, of all countries
and-best of allowed and gloried in
by the people through whose lands if
flows the Rhine certainly must not be
compared with other streams.
The Ganges, whose muddy waters
sweep through the torrid plains of India,
which annually overfows, destroying the
stock, crops and lives OF the poor people
which is worshiped as god, and which
has received into its waters thousands of
poor fanatics who imagined they were
taking the shortest route to paradise
even the Ganges cannot vie with her in
the feeling which she inspires in the
hearts of the inhabitants of her fertile
valleys. The Ganges is worshiped as a
god; the Mississippi is admired for its
great length the Amazon-whose path is
yet imperfectly explored, and which
sweeps into the sea the waters of whole
continents wondered at and feared
but none of these receive the love and af-
lection which the German peasant bears
to his beautiful Rhine.
The children are brought up to look
upon it in the light of dear friend, and
around it cluster the memories of the old
grandparents. To be separated from it
is one of their greatest sorrows. and
| wherever he may be--in the far west of
America, or in the far east of Australia
! the German looks back to the Rhine
with the fondest regret.
The Rhine has noble source. Two
small lakes nesting in the tops OF the
Alps discharge their waters into little
stream, which, gathering strength as it
proceeds, swells into mighty river,
navigable for hundreds of miles. For
many miles-broad and flowing through
! great plains, then narrow, deep, tortuous,
rushing between mountains so near that
| from distance they seem to touch, then
emerging into broad, noble stream-it
presents the utmost variety of scenes
and views Rival castles look threaten
ingly across it, ruined palaces lend an
old-time air to the scenes, the quaint and
picturesque costumes of the people whom
! it passes, make the tourist think he is in
deed in strange land, and all combined
produce the most delightful results.
Many are the legends clustered around
the Rhine. Princes and kings, noblemen
and ladies', have left their deeds as a sa-
cred inheritance to the people. Listening
to them the traveller forgets that he is
living in the nineteenth century, and the
tales he hears seem the occurrences of to-
day; and this memory is not all the cbiv
alric knights and beautiful ladies have
| left behind.
Many ruined castle, the home for
years of only the bat and the owl, is re-
visited by its former owners. Lovers,
! over whose graves the earth has rested
! for centuries, come again to the scenes of
their wooing. Foes, whose swords and
! helmets have long since mOuldered away,
and whose quarrels have been decided
! by that highest court, again ply their
! trusty blades, again hunt each other with
undying animosity AT times the castles
are all ablaze with light it is a ball, and
! the dancers are those who danced there
in the days of the greatness of the old
German empire, while the mountains are
! full of strange huntsmen-they hunted
there in years gone by. Such are the
beliefs OF the peasantry, and they add
greatly to the charm of the beautiful
river, and let no one dare to dlstrust these
old legends and ghosts! For many of
our most touching and beautiful legends
have been laid low; and let no one dare
to invade the sanctity of the Rhine! To
the German, the Rhine and Father
land" are indissolubly connected. They
are inseparable in his mind. ''The Watch
on the Rhine" won as many victories for
the Prussians in the Franco-Prussian war
as did the skill and valor of the com
manders.
With that song ringing in his ears,
with the knowledge that were they de-
feated, the sacred banks of the Rhine
would Be trampled by foreign feet, and
the beautiful Rhineland invaded; with
all this the German soldier was well nigh
invincible and his victory a certainty,
and when the war was ended, when
France and the French had been laid low
and all united Germany was rejoicing,
then wherever the German was-all the
world over-an outburst of praise and
thanksgiving assembled by millions of
happy hearts singing, "The Watch on
! the Rhine"