The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1890-10-12
GOLDEN VINTAGE DAYS.
With the Grape Gatherers Along
the Rhine.
Women In tho Vineyards = They Cut tho
Bunchos with Scissors and She
Who Sings Loudost Soonest
Gets Husband.
IcoPYRIGHT, 1891
Especial correspondence

village, past which flows the Rhine and
over which frown the ruins of the cas-
tic of StahleclS, sleeps in tho sunshine
that has ripened it's grapes for so many
hundreds of years. One forgets for
awhile the railroads and tho telephones
and the modern hotels and other nine
teenth century innovations, and goes
back to the days of armored knights and
crusaders as one walks it's narrow
streets between it's picturesque old
houses with their quaint wooden beams,
and looks up at the gray towers on the
crag, from which still descend the stout
old town walls bristling with tall watch
towers and circling us round with their
protection. as if at any moment tho
alarm bells might ring and the Counts
Palatine summon their vassals to man
the dcfcnses against the Knights Of
Furstcnbcrg, whose battlemcnts one
can see from the riverside, and who
once had the audacity to stop even tho
vessel of king to levy Rhine toll.
But tho villagers fear not, and the
women from the Stceger Thai, the green
and narrow valley behind the ancient
little town, come driving their donkey
carts and their teams OF COWS through
the stone gateways, sculptured with
men at arms ami strange animals carly
in the morning for another purpose than
behind bulwarks to seek refuge In tho
bare little platz in front of the church
1t is Tcmplars' church of the twelfth
century-they sit surrounded by great
baskets piled up with plums, red toma-
toes, peaches, pears, white and purple
grapes, hazelnuts and every kind of
vegetable. Here is Il cart drawn by n
yoke of huge white oxen, with picture
OF the Virgin painted on one of it's pan
els; there a group of women in vari-
colorcd head kcrchicfs, carrying on their
backs great oval milk trlins. 1t is the
market, and with its background of gray
walls and round Romanesuuc arches, in
the hay light Of an autumn sunrise, it
makes busy scene in a hamlet full Of
strange corners.
There is an air of expectation over
every thing. Tho stolid-looking men
and the bare-armed girls talk with ami
nation and gesticulate as they look up
at the sky. The great event of tho year
Is approaching; it is almost time for the
vintage. When the Sdn comes out warm
they say: Zach, the grapes like thisg'
When the clouds gather they look grave:
III only it does not thunder; after a
thunderstorm comes cold weather"
Eight hundred years ago the wine Of
Bacharach was noted. Pope Plus II.
used to have cask of it sent to Rome
every autumn, and Nuremberg held it's
freedom on payment Of four tuns of it
In yearly tribute to the Emperor Wen
eel. For all these centuries Bacharach
has dreaded the autumn rains.
The hill-sidcs about the village are
teWaced, and not a square foot but bears
its vine. The vineyards are dreary
things to look at from distance, less
picturesque than fields of hops or
beans, in that the poles are short and
the grapes are not allowed to fling about
their tendrils. With their straight,
monotonous rows, broken by cross lines
of walls and arches built against the
steep slopes to secure the soil from fall
ing, they disfiguro the landscape; but
when one is once among them and the
leaves, turning russell, rise waist high,
and the smell of tho heavy clusters fills
the air, thon one, too, counts the hours
OF sunshine and waits for tho ingather-
ing.
AT last comes the morning. The
grapes of Eacharach arc white, and
they have hung until they are full of
juice and thin-skinncd. To-day begins
the autumn festival. Tho girls go out
with baskets and scissors. With all nv
heart long to join them. They have
green and red and white kerchiefs tied
over their heads, and they wear short
blue skirts that stop far above their
wooden shoes. Bending, they cut the
punches and sort them. These arc for
the best wine, those for the second and
the others for the third quality Quick
ly the baskets fill, and the mon 90 up
and down the rows lifting them on
their heads and carrying them out
ready for the presses. There is hard
and fast line drawn between tho wom-
ems work and that of tho mon. No bow
will cut grapes; he will only carry them.
Before five o'clock in tho morning the
girls arc in the vineyards. The married
women have risen by $50 or four. There
as the COW to milk and feed and the COT
fee pot (these Germans are not tea
drinkers like the English) to set boil
ing. Rarely bit is eaten before, men
and women together, they are at the
gate of the master of the vineyard. He
comes down from his chamber to set
them their tasks with tho sleep not
rubbed out of his eyes. When thew
have started in the dawn up the hill
sidos he goes back to snatch another nan
before sunrise. At eight o'clock there
. comes pause in the labor. Tho girls
cluster in groups under the plum trees.
Each has her bit of black bread to
eat and as she breaks it she
passes her joke or bit of merry
gossip with her neighbor. Their faces