large and interesting assemblage of local remains discovered on the banks of the Rhine, and relics of Roman settlements in this part of Germany. It is much to be lamented that the collection is, as yet, neither named nor catalogued. The following seem to be the most remarkable objects :-A Roman altar, dedicated to Victory, which formerly stood in the square called Romer Platz, and is supposed by some to be the identical Ara Ubiorum mentioned by Tacitus (Annal. I. 39.). A bronze vase, bearing figures of Hercules, Mars, and Venus, in a pure style of art, found at Zulpich. Numerous weapons, trinkets, vases, glass vessels, a winged head of Mercury, found at Hadderneim; the gravestone of one M. Cælius, who fell in the great battle of Varus (bello Variano), against Arminius, very interesting from the event it commemorates, as well as for its representation of Roman military costume; Jupiter's wig, and a thunderbolt of bronze, from the Hundsrück; tiles stamped with the numbers of several Roman legions (xxi. xxii.) stationed in these parts; a Roman millstone of Mendig tufa, and an ancient German shield of wood, dug up at Isenburg, in Westphalia, besides 200 bronzes. The Universetätspedell shows the hall-fee 5 S. gr., for the Museum 8 S. gr. The collections are opened to the public Wed. and Sat., 12-1; the library on the same days, 2-4.

a

An Avenue of chestnuts, about m. long, forming an agreeable walk, conducts to the Château of Poppelsdorf, containing the Museum of Natural History. The collection of minerals and fossils is extensive and good, and especially interesting, as illustrating the geology of the Rhine, and of the volcanic deposits of the Siebengebirge and Eifel, arranged by Profr. Goldfuss. Among the fossil remains may be seen a complete series from the brown coal formation of Friesdorf, near Bonn. A set of fossil frogs, from the most perfect state down to that of a tadpole, discovered in the shale called paper-coal, deserves notice. Attached to the château is the Botanic Garden,

very spacious, very rich, beautifully situated, and admirably kept. hour's walk brings you from this garden to the church on the Kreutzberg.

The Minster, a fine building externally, surmounted by 5 towers, was founded, it is said, by Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, and contains a bronze statue of her, in the style and of the age of Louis XIV. The dates of the building of the different parts of this ch. are not accurately known. Perhaps the high crypt on which is elevated the choir, belongs to the ch. of Helena. The circuit of the choir,

and its 2 towers were apparently built in the 10th century: the rest, including the middle tower, about the year 1177. The more remarkable parts are the central tower, and the windows of the nave formed of 5 small pointed arches. The interior is very plain.

The English Ch. Service is performed on Sunday by an English clergyman.

There is a very good club (§ 40.) here, called Lese- and Erholungs- Gesellschaft.

Beethoven, the composer, was born (1770, d. 1827) in the house No. 515. Bonngasse. A bronze statue by Hänel was erected to him in 1845, in the Münster-platz. In the churchyard, outside the Sternen Thor, Niebuhr the historian is buried. His monument is by Rauch. Also A. W. Schlegel. Here also are the graves of several students killed in duels.

The most notable events in the annals of Bonn are its capture after a long siege, in 1584, by Archbp. Ernest of Bavaria, from Gebhard Truchsess, who had been deposed from the see, because he had become a Protestant; and its surrender to the English and Dutch army under Marlborough, in 1703, after a siege, the operations of which were conducted by the celebrated Coehorn. In the course of it a great part of the town was burnt. Bonn is mentioned by Tacitus as Castra Bonnensia, and was the spot where Claudius Civilis, the rebel leader of the Batavi, was defeated by the Romans, A. D. 70. (Hist. iv. 20).

At Bonn the beauties of the Rhino

may be said to have already commenced. There are several most agreeable excursions round about it, and the view of the Seven Mountains on the opposite side of the river is strikingly grand. They are seen to great advantage from the Bastion, or terrace, called Alte Zoll, overlooking the Rhine.

Finer still is the view from the church on the summit of the Kreuzberg, one of the hills behind Poppelsdorf, 1 m. from Bonn. It was formerly attached to a convent of Servites. It was built 1627. In a chapel behind the altar are shown the Sacred Stairs which led up to Pilate's Judgment Hall, still bearing stains of the blood which fell from the wounds caused on the Saviour's brow by the Crown of Thorns! They were built of Italian marble by the Elector Clement Augustus (1725), in imitation of the staircase at Rome called the Scala Santa and no one is allowed to ascend them except on his knees. A trapdoor in the pavement leads into the vaults under the church, remarkable for having preserved, in an undecayed state, the bodies of the monks buried in them. These lie in 25 open coffins, with cowl and cassock on: the flesh in some is preserved, though shrivelled up to the consistence of a dried stockfish; they are, in fact, natural mummies, and their preservation is attributed to the dryness of the sandy soil. They have been interred here at various times, from 1400 to 1713. The church is annually visited by numerous pilgrims, chiefly the rude peasants of the Eifel. The

other agreeable expeditions which may be made from Bonn are to 1. Godesberg, on the road to Coblenz, and the Alum Works at Fries. dorf; 2. The Drachenfels, and Siebengebirge, with the ruins of Heisterbach on the opposite side of the Rhine, described further on; — 3. The Lower Eifel (Rte. 40.); 4. The valley of the Ahr (Rte. 39.). The two last highly interesting and seldom explored.

Steamer, Bonn to Coblenz, 4 hrs.

(1.) After leaving Bonn about 3 m., the road* passes a Gothic Cross called Hochkreuz, erected by an Archbishop of Cologne, 1331. About 1 m. from this, to the right of the road, are the brown coal mines and alum works of Friesdorf. The stratum here worked is, in fact, a forest, buried in an early period of the world's existence, and now converted into lignite, or brown coal. The trunks of trees are intermixed with clays and sands, and exhibit all the stages from fossil wood in which the vegetable fibre and texture are quite discernible, down to bituminous earthy coal fit for burning as fuel. Many fossil fishes and freshwater shells are found in these beds. Associated with the coal is a stratum furnishing the ingredients for extensive alum works. "The alum of commerce is a compound of sulphuric acid, potash, and aluminous earth, and all these substances are obtained on the spot, from materials found in contact with the alum clay. The sulphuric acid is formed by the action of air and moisture upon iron pyrites (sulphuret of iron), previously gently roasted, and the potash from the ashes of the brown coal used as fuel in evaporating and crystallising the alum salt." H. "The same mine furnishes a fine potter's clay, which is used in making the conical moulds employed in refining beet-root sugar, which is extensively manufactured hereabouts."

P.

At Putzburg, near Friesdorf, gigantic trunks of trees, sometimes 10 or 12 ft. in diameter, occur embedded in the strata. The earthy brown coal worked here affords the valuable pigment known by the name of burnt umber, or Cologne earth. 1. Plittersdorf village. Here the steamer stops for passengers to or from Godesberg, 1 m. distant from the Rhine, and 5 from Bonn. Here is a ferry to Nieder Dollendorf (fare, 1 S. gr.).

GODESBEBG. Inns Blinzler's Ho

tel: Hôtel Bellevue; both very

*The Post-road quits Bonn through an archway under the Electoral Palace.

kenberg, 1055 ft.; Drachenfels, 1056 ft.; Löwenberg, 1414 ft. (commanding a view considered by some superior to that from the Drachenfelds); and Hemmerich. They are almost all crowned with a chapel, or the ruin of some ancient tower or hermit's cell, which add much to their picturesque features.

The trachyte rock of the Wolkenberg is quarried to a considerable extent as building stone; it abounds in the mineral called glassy felspar.

The most interesting of the whole group, from its shape and position, but more than all from the verses of Byron, is the famed DRACHENFELS (Dragon Rock), whose precipices rise abruptly from the river side, crowned with a ruin.

"The castled crag of Drachenfels

Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine,
Whose breast of waters broadly swells
Between the banks which bear the vine,
And hills all rich with blossom'd trees,
And fields which promise corn and wine,
And scatter'd cities crowning these,
Whose far white walls along them shine,
Have strew'd a scene which I should see
With double joy wert thou with me.

"And peasant girls with deep blue eyes,
And hands which offer early flowers,
Walk smiling o'er this paradise;
Above, the frequent feudal towers
Through green leaves lift their walls of
gray,

And many a rock which steeply lours,
And noble arch in proud decay,
Look o'er this vale of vintage-bowers;
But one thing want these banks of Rhine,-
Thy gentle hand to clasp in mine!

"The river nobly foams and flows,
The charm of this enchanted ground,
And all its thousand turns disclose
Some fresher beauty varying round:
The haughtiest breast its wish might bound
Through life to dwell delighted here;
Nor could on earth a spot be found
To nature and to me so dear,
Could thy dear eyes in following mine
Still sweeten more these banks of Rhine!"
BYRON.

The summit of the Drachenfels commands a noble view, and it may be reached in about half an hour from Königswinter. In ascending it the traveller is shown the quarry from which the stones were taken to build the cathedral of Cologne, called, in consequence, Dombruch, and the cave of the Dragon (from which the mountain was named) killed, as it is reported,

by the horned Siegfried, the hero of the Niebelungen Lay. Near the top is a tolerable inn, where parties may dine, and those who wish to enjoy the sunrise from the summit find sleeping accommodation. The ruined fragment on the top is of remote origin, and was once the seat of a noble race, long since extinct, named after the mountain on which they dwelt. They were dependent upon the Archbp. of Cologne as feudal superior, and seem to have chosen this situation for their castle from the facilities it afforded them for spying at a distance the merchant's laden boat or labouring waggon, and for sallying down to pillage or exact tribute.

The View hence extends down the river as far as Cologne, 20 m. off; upwards, the Rhine is shut in by rocks, which, however, are very grand, while Bonn and its University, with old castles, villages, and farm-houses almost beyond number, fill up the foreground of the landscape. The principal objects are the summits of the 7 Mountains, Remagen, and Apollinarisberg, the volcanic chain of the Eifel behind, Oberwinter, and the island Nonnenwerth, the ruined arch of Rolandseck, the extinct crater of Roderberg, and the donjon of Godesberg.

The ruins on several other summits of the Seven Mountains are remains of castles of the archbishops of Cologne. In that which crowned the Löwenberg, the reformers Melancthon and Bucer passed some time with the Archbp. Herman Von Wied, who afterwards adopted the reformed faith; and his successor, the Protestant Archbp. Gebbard Truchsess, took refuge here, with his beautiful wife, Agnes von Mansfeldt, 1585. The view from this summit extends back over part of the Westerwald and of Westphalia.

1. In the neighbourhood of Mehlem is the Roderberg, one of the most interesting extinct volcanoes on the Rhine. Its crater is circular, nearly

It

m. in diameter, and 100 ft. deep. is now covered with fields of corn. The sides are composed in many places of tufa and scoriæ, exactly similar to those found on Vesuvius. From this

crater you may walk through the gorge called Eliasschlucht to the ridge on which stand the ruined arch and turrets of (1.) the Castle of Rolandseck, an admirable point of view for surveying the Rhine. This ruin receives its name from a tradition that the famous nephew of Charlemagne chose this spot because it commanded a view of the Convent of Nonnenwerth, within whose walls his betrothed bride had taken the veil upon hearing a false report of his having fallen at Roncesvalles. He lived here a lonely hermit for many years, according to the story, which has furnished the subject of one of Schiller's most beautiful ballads, "The Knight of Toggenburg." The scene however, has been transferred by Schiller from the Rhine to Switzerland, and the tale to the time of the Crusades. The castle, however, is called, in the oldest records where it is mentioned, Rulcheseck, and the convent Rulcheswerth. The former was, at one time, a nest of robbers, whose depredations rendered them the terror of the vicinity.

The bold and precipitous rock of Rolandseck, composed of prismatic basalt, with its scanty and mouldering baronial fortress and desolate arch, is a very striking object from the river, and taken together with the Drachenfels on the opposite bank, serves as a fit portal to the grand scenery which lies above it. It projects so far forward, that the high road has barely room to pass between its foot and the brink of the Rhine. There are 2 inns near the foot of the rock of Rolandseck. Exactly opposite, and in the middle of the stream, is the island of Nonnenwerth (Nun's island), so called from the large building upon it, embowered in trees, an Ursuline nunnery, built 1673, on the site of that which was once the asylum of the bride of the unfortunate Roland. The amiable intercession of Josephine with Napoleon, on behalf of the nuns, is said to have preserved to them the possession of their ancient retreat, at the time when the other religious establishments on the Rhine were secularised by the French,

It

was for some time converted into an inn, but still remains in the condition in which it was left by its former inmates, and was about to be again converted into a nunnery, when the troubles of 1848 interrupted the plan. 1. Oberwinter, a village through which the road passes.

The greater part of the road from Rolandseck to Remagen may be said to be literally quarried in the rock. It was begun by the Bavarians, continued by the French, and completed by the Prussians. The Romans, however, have the credit of laying the foundations of this noble highway, as was proved by remains turned up by the modern road-makers, such as coffins, coins, and a Roman milestone, the inscription of which proved, that under Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, A. D. 161—180, a road had been already formed here.

1. Opposite the village of Unkel is the Unkelstein, a hill composed of basaltic columns, resembling those of the Giant's Causeway. They are found both in a horizontal and vertical position, and extend far into the bed of the Rhine, where they formed an obstacle to the passage of timber rafts, until the rock was blown up by the French. As it is, the current of the Rhine sweeps with great force past the Unkelstein. The basalt affords the best material for roads and pavements, on which account it is extensively quarried. In 1846 a landslip in the basalt lifted up the highroad 40 ft. above its former level.

1. Apollinarisberg, a wooded height named after a Saint, whose head is preserved here. It is surmounted by a beautiful Gothic Church, built from designs of Zwirner (the restorer of the Dom of Cologne), by Baron Fürstenberg of Stammheim, which is lighted, except in the choir, by circular windows, and decorated internally with frescoes. These, as some of the latest and most lauded of the works of the German fresco-painters, are worth the traveller's attention. The subjects and artists are as follows:- Entering by the W. door: on the 1. are scenes from the life of Christ, by Deger: in the