The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-09-05

splenoor there might De a larger passen-
ger list upon the steamers that Div its
waters. Washington Irving raked out of
the Catskills some interesting old legends
OF the Dutchmen that discovered and first
inhabited the country, but they are few
and duh compared with the exciting ad-
ventures of the knights who went to the
crusades, and the beautiful maidens who
died for love or shut themselves up in the
g-oomy old clo!Stt rs for disappointment.
We have Rip Van Wrinkle and Heinrich
Hudson, out over here they have a hun
dred Ioreleys, Hildegundes, Franken-
stems and Rollandstecks.
The Inland sea of Japan and the Straits
of Magellan are much more beautiful than
the Rhine. / suppose the Iast-named Of
fers the most imposing scenery on the
globe. with the exception of the Grand
canyon of the Colorado. Some portions
of the Parena, where it flows through the
mountains of Paraguay and Western Bra
zil, the rapids of the Amazon, the upper
waters Of the Orinoco. and the Magdalena,
where it comes out Of the Andes, south of
Bogota, are surrounded by picturesque,
and often imposing, scenery, but the
Rhine is alone in .egendry, and has a cas-
tie erect or in ruins on ever hill.
The River Rimac, in Peru, where it
dashes out of the Andes toward the
ocean, is also more beautiful than the
Rhine, and the two rivers resemble each
that cover the mountains through which
they flow. In the prehistoric days of Peru
the Incas brought soil from the sea coast
and walled up the mountain sides to make
hanging gardens, because of the poverty
of nature and the abundance of the rocks.
With a rapidly increasing population pen
ned in by the ocean on one side and the
snow-covered ridges of the Andes on the
other they had a struggle for existence.
But the Germans have strung their hang
ing gardens along the Rhine in order to
increase the wine crop from a soil that
| seems to produce a better grape than
grows anywhere else on earth. On some
of the mountains these terraces extend
from the waters edge to the very sum-
mitS, and wherever the roots of a vine can
cling it has been planted.
Along the Rimac are many ruins, too,
of Inca temples and palaces, of whose
builders and inhabitants no legends can
be told. because the traditions and the
records were effaced by the Spanish con-
quistadores, and the splendid architecture
of the 1ncas was destroyed in their search
| for treasure. The banks of the Rhine
| have been chastened by human suffering,
and almost every castle has a legend OF
avarice and passion. The castle of Drach.
enfels is one of the grandest ruins. The
title means dragons rock" and a fam
Gus wine called "Drachen-blut," or drag
on's blood. is produced from The vineyards
| that surround it. The story goes that in
a cavern halfway up the mountain side.
which you can see from the deck of the
steamer lived a ferocious dragon that was
slain by Siegfried, the hero of so many
songs and stories, who you know. having
bathed himself in the dragons blood, be-
came inVulnerable. Kaiser Wilhelm is
looking for such a dragon now. He owns
several of the old castles, but seldom Wis.
it's them. He sends his poor relations
l..
mother and sisters often come. The old
castle as Coblenz is a favorite resort of
| the Empress Frederick because some of
the happiest days of her early married life
were spent there.
Several of the most famous old castles
have been recently restored, and Ehren-
breitstein, the majestic fortress, called the
Gibraltar of the Rhine, which always was
and always will be a marvel of military
engineering, is still maintained. IL is the
Oldest fortress in the world. 1t was built
by King Dagobert as long as 636 A. D.,
and, although it has sustained a thousand
sieges, has never been surrendered but
three times The last restora ton, which
included the introduction of many modern
! improvements of military offense and de-
| fenSe cost 1900 900 marks, of which Is
100000 was paid by the French to Prussia
| as indemnity after the close of the last
war.
"A
! dwelling on the rock and used 20 entice
| foolish fishermen and sailors to destruc-
| ton, we saw one of the curious cable
| boats that are quite as typical of modern
| progress as the beautiful ballad of Heine
is if the legendary age. There are two
cables of heavy steel wire about two
| inches in diameter stretching from May
ence to the mouth of the Rhine, at Rot
| terdam. One is worked in a novel man
ner by vessels going up and the other by
vessels going down stream.
The company which laid and maintained
| the cable owns a fleet of tugs, each of
| which is rugged with a grooved drum
around which the cable is twice wound.
| This drum is made to revolve by cog
| wheels worked by a shaft from a small
engine so that when the boat picks up the
cable it can pull itself along as fast as
| the drum revolves. The tugs usually tow
a fleet of three or four heavily laden
barges, carrying from 1000 to 1000 tons
| each, and make a speed of four or five
| miles an hour 1t is represented that by
| this process an engine of ten or twelve
horse power can haul as much freight as
an ordinary tug of AGO or 5O0-horse power,
which is a great economy in fuel.
These curious freaks of navigation are
! noisy affairs, and the far-famed echoes of
the Rhine complain vigorously whenever
/ a cable fleet passes by.
Across the river from the old town of
| Bingen, high upon the mountainside,
| stands one of the most majestic monu-
| ments in the world surpassed only by
Bartholdi's figure of Liberty in New
| York harbor. 1t was erected to comment
| crate the victory over the French in 1871
and Germania forever keeps a watch on
| the Rhine" with the crown of her sover-
| eighty extended over the captured prov
inces. Back of the old city is the johann
| nisberger schloss, surrounded by the most
! famous of all vineyards, which was so
! long the property of Prince Metternch
and his descendants, but now belongs to
| the Rothschilds.
The estate includes only forty acres,
but by the quantity and quality of the
| product of it's vines it pays the owner an
income of from $4,000 to $4,000 a year. 1t
| is undoubtedly the most prolific and prof
| liable piece of cultivated ground on the
| earths surface. 1t lies upon the breast
of the northern hill, where it is always
| exposed to the sun, and the beautiful cas-
tie arises in the center, with the precious
| vines cultivated to the very doorsteps
| The house is seldom occupied. and, al
| though it is beautiful example of
| Gothic architecture and cost several hun
| dredS of thousands of dollars IL has often