The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-05-03

fall is slight from here 10 the sea, and the flow Is so slow that 1t does not inn pede navigation. A little further south the river narrows and the Seven Mountains the current Is so swift that the steamers make only few miles an hour. and so strong that the banks have to be walled in with stones almost the whole way to keep them from washing.
 Cologne is the trade center of the Rhine It has about four hundred thousand people, and is largely dependent upon it's river trade. 1t has built up great harbor for handling the traffic and is now a general transshipping point for all parts of Europe. ships come here from London, Bremen, Hamburg Copen- hagen and Russia. There are daily boats to England, and three boats which run regularly between Cologne and St. Peters burg.
 America on the Rhine.
 The most of the goods from the United States is transshipped at Rotterdam. Am sterdam, Antwerp or Hamburg, and large part of 1t is sent up the Rhine in barges I have spent much time on the river now passing rafts of logs and board of American lumber, now going by strings of narrow barges, each two hun dred or more feet long, filled with American wheat, and other barges piled high with barrels of American petroleum. I have met a few American travellers and one or two of our drummers, but the most of the travel is European. and the most of our goods go on German and Dutch boats handled by German importers.
 A Great Inland Port.
 Cologne is d good place to study the Rhine traffic. It Is the headquarters of cfa Sbf piaG trade is carefully watched it steadily in- creases from year to year, and 1t now approximates a million tons annually. Something like four thousand passenger boats call at Cologne every year, and the freight boats number many hundreds. There are also sailing vessels, and an enormous traffic by tugs and barges,
 I saw my first Rhine barges at Rotter- dam. They are built for the narrow parts of the river, and are. I venture, the longest boats made in proportion to their width. The avegare barge is about flf teen feet wide and two or three hundred fet long. It looks like a great black eel as it is lowed up the river. At the black of it Is a little cabin, with a stoveplpe sticking out of It's roof. and about midway Is a hinged mast 80 fixed that 1t can be raised and lowered at the bridges. Each barge has rudder. sometimes so large that it is moved by a horizontal cog wheel pushed around by the sailors. On many of the barges families of boat men live. You see the washing hanging on the line the women cooking at the sterns of the boats and the little ones playing about over the cargo.
 The Passenger Business.
 The Rhine has an immense passenger business during the season. This is now at its beginning, and 1t will continue until late in the fall. There are two great passenger companies which have regular daily services to Mainz and Cologne and Dusseldorf. They are doing wen. paying regular dividends of per cent and over. Their stocks are considered safe invest ments and they are bought and sold on the exchange.
 It is not the foreign travel. however, that makes the boats pay. That Is enor- nous, 1t is true, but it is nothing in com parison with the local traffic. The Rhine is one almost continuous village. There are towns everywhere near the river and back from it, except in the most noun tainous parts, and on holidays the boats are crowded and. as the fares are cheap CT than those of the railroads, the every day travel is great. A difference in weather makes big difference in the
  ially so as to the foreign traffic. A cold Whtsuntide means there will be no traf- fic from London and a cold season may cut down the dividends more than l per cent There are now about a hundred steamboats on the Rhine. and the aver age number of passengers exceeds a mil lion year.
 Travelling Is comparatively inexpensive. and, strange to say. it costs less to go up stream than down it. It takes only a day to see the most beautiful part of the river. and you can have roundtrip tick et at reduced rates. Each passenger is allowed a hundred pounds of baggage free, a small charge being made for load ing and discharging the trunks. All the steamers have eating accommodations on them. and the food Is quite as good as on similar boats at home. At o'clock there is table d'hote dinner. which costs 75 cents. with redu .ed rates for children. Brsakfast AEk supper Are also served.