Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1908-09-18

4
see all the grandeur of the Rhine. Tn,
water itself, coming from the Swis.
lakes, which we visit before long, i.
greenish with a mixture of grey in it.
AS with Scotland, words and pen fai
one in attempting to describe trip ur
the Rhine. On both sides are majestic
hills and towering mountains, some oi
them lost in the clouds. Up their slopes
where you would think goat could not
climb are titled lands, terraced up every
few yards in irregular shape by stone
walls. Apparently these walls are to
make near level plats so man can
stand upon them to cultivate. Every
acre so cultivated is in grapes, vine
yards, for wine. The peaks and crags
are of bare rock and very few patches
of trees are to be seen. In land
where the big white grapes sell for
about ten cents peck, and men labor
so to make available every foot of
ground, there must be industry. In fact,
here, as all over Europe, the women
outwork the men, and the men let them
do it. The stone for the walls is ready
at hand, for the hills and mountains are
covered with these, so it is not so stu
pendous an undertaking as at first sight
appears. And we guess that women
and children passed up every stone as
laid by the men. But one cannot imagine
how picturesque it all appears. The
people live at the base of the hills on
the river bank, and here great towns
have sprung up. Occasionally away up
appears some fellows summer home of
magnificent proportions, though but few
peasants live on the slopes. Germany
would not be tourist land without her
Rhine, and the Rhine would not be half
so fascinating without its castles 1t is
these that catch chiefest the tourists
eye, and his attentions upon them and
the descriptions in the guide books he
has.
This high crag, a rock bare and jutting
from the terraced base many hundreds
of feet below, is crowned by towers,
maybe now tottering, for they have
been there since the Caesars invaded
this land; and from it later went forth
a Goth that made Rome tremble and
fall. Over yonder is a-sky-scraper still
intact and kept up by the government.
Here is another as we go on up the
river, and there is another. On yonder
crag is big fellow, and the glasses
tell us that some baron still resides
there. On sister peak, but little more
than bows shot away, is an equally
frowning castle of as many turrets.
History tells us that in the first lived
the heir of a feudal baron. and in the
other q younger brother All was left
by the father to the older brother, but
the spirit of the younger could not
brook it; so he built as high and as fine
and just without arrows reach on
another peak, and the weakling of older
brother could not stay him. When they
were not raiding neighboring sheep
pastures and cattle pens they were
fighting each other. Finally both were
wasted with fighting, though the older
succumbed first. 1t was this sort of
fellow that made barbarian history, and
it was over this broad land that the
Robber Barons held sway; until later
times when King Rudolf of Prussia
caught and hanged seven of them on a
spot beside the river, where is now a
memorial. 1t is little wonder, then,
that Emperor William should be ''war
lord" and that his people should be yet
gruff and bellicose. That the German
hates the Briton sticks out on all sides,
and he is just itching to get a fight
with England. He knows that his navy
is nothing beside England's, and he
sees little hope of successful fight as
|yet. His hope centers in balloons that
may land his army on English soil. He
just says to himself-''If only we
could once land in Englandp' The
history of Prussia is the history of her
castled Rhine until recent times. Ger
many has been nation, or empire,
only forty years, and made so by Prus-
sia. She is young, vigorous, and spoil
ing for fight.
Reluctantly we see the shades of
night set in, the bright glow of her
electrified and magnificent cities takes
the place of the orb of day, and night
finds us at Mayence (or Meinz, in the
GERMANY. The next day we leave for
Frankfort-on-the-Ma Main, a city of beauty,
taste and wealth.
The cars and engines are growing
larger as we proceed south. Where
was all rich grass and few vegetables
in Holland, we now for the first time
see corn, our corn, but it is grown only
for fodder. Irish potatoes are more
abundant but not quite ready for digging;
the cabbages are prolific of leaves, but
the short season will not permit then to
head up, so the people eat them as
collards. On we go, south and west,
toward the French frontier, whirling
through Worms, made famous by Martin
Luther's Diet; into Heidelberg, the great
seat of learning; iato Strassburg and
over the upper Rhine, and the beautiful
Eden-like Alsace and Lorraine, which
| Germany took from France in the war
of 10. This province is now peopled
by Germans, the French having to get
out or live in misery. The country is
| fertile, but does not smile as we are
wont to believe it once did. In a
square in Paris are all the Provinces OF
France, each represented by a reigning
| female figure. Alsace-Lorraine is there,
but she is draped in mourning all the
| tsnoa Wa CON Spaooipa Tho