14

CROSSING THE RHINE.

LETTER II.

The things to be seen and observed, are the Courts of Princes-especially when they give audience to Am

bassadors.

BACON.

WE crossed the Rhine by the fine bridge of boats from Mayence to Cassel, a small place, fortified as a tête du pont, and originally built by Drusus. Neat new houses are now starting from the black ruins of the last bombardment. The Rhine here presents a majestic appearance: it is at least half a mile broad, and its deep and stately bed glides slowly before the eye down a noble reach extending several miles. Opposite Mayence, the Main unites its tranquil stream, which any where but by the side of the Rhine, would ap

pear an imposing river.

Both sides of the

Rhine are now once more German; but it is not till you have passed the river that

CROSSING THE MAIN.

15

As

you begin to feel yourself fairly in Germany. You are often reminded that the left bank was the other day France; you feel sure that the right has ever been Germany. Whatever Congresses may decree, or diplomatists arrange, you feel that the Rhine is the grand natural barrier between the Gauls and the Germans. far as Mayence, francs and Napoleons are more in circulation than the German money; but the toll is demanded on the opposite side in kreutzers, a little coin, sixty of which make a florin. At Mayence, you find French cafés, French restaurateurs, French barbers, French commissionaires. Every body at Mayence speaks French, bad or good; at Cassel, only here and there an individual; and after passing the Main at Kostheim, you would be puzzled to find one in a hundred who could answer the simplest question in that language.

You appear in another world, as you touch the commencement of the sandy German plains. The boat in which you pass the Main on the road to Darmstadt, affords indications of that stillness and apathy with which every thing here is transacted.

.

One quarter of an hour is occupied in expectation of its arrival from the opposite bank; another in passing a river about as wide and half as rapid as the Thames at Windsor. Your postilion drives in without dismounting. You are punted across by three or four heavy boatmen, without the exchange of a syllable. The fare is fixed— no more is demanded; you pay it in silence, and receive neither thanks nor murmurs. The postilion cracks his whip; his horses blunder their way out as they may; while he draws forth the fungus and flint, with which a German pocket is always supplied, and deliberately lights his pipe to beguile the seven leagues journey, through a sort of sea of sand, to Darmstadt. The country, in spite of its soil, is cultivated and fertile, rich in orchards, the roads lined with luxuriant fruit-trees. The peasants were at plough in their quaint cocked hats and blue jerkins, and the women were quite as industriously employed, their petticoats as high as their knees, and without the advantage of shoes and stockings.-These luxuries, German housewives dispense with in summer,

A GERMAN RESIDENCE-TOWN.

17

though cleanly neat in their appearance, and with few symptoms of poverty.

We were now again in the Grand Duchy of Hesse, announced by the Hessian Lion rampant on the posts of the Turnpike houses. We had entered the Duchy of Nassau at Cassel, and quitted it on passing the Main, the boundary between the two Principalities. About two leagues from Darmstadt, we entered upon a noble thick forest of firs, which continues nearly up to the gate of the town. A wide straight avenue leads for a league through the forest to this handsome little capital. The main street, three-quarters of a mile long, wide, and elegantly built, is a continuation of the avenue; and the façade of the Grand Duke's Castle, at the extremity, finishes, with an imposing air, the long stately vista. The town is pleasantly situated on the great high road from Frankfort to Basle, in a flat sandy country, relieved by the view of the wooded Bergstrasse mountains at a few leagues' distance. The handsome white buildings, the neat lodges of the corps-de-garde, the

с

18

A GERMAN RESIDENCE-TOWN:

avenues, the spacious Exercise-Place, the well-appointed troops on parade, announce the dignified residence of a German sovereign and his court.

The metropolis of a minor sovereign of Germany, presents a curious union of splendour and insignificance, a sort of miniature elegance and microscopic grandeur, which is perfectly novel to a foreigner. There is nothing in England that resembles it. Our cities are more antique, interesting and gloomy-our little towns more mean and plebeian-a neat watering place, with its regular white buildings, its absence of the bustle of trade, and its air of quiet gentility, will perhaps best bear a comparison. The resemblance may be pushed to the inhabitants, in one single particular—a sort of straitened elegance and economical refinement in the manner of life, which bespeaks persons of better family than fortune. The town of Darmstadt has increased rapidly with its sovereign's consequence. The Capital of the old Landgraviate of Hesse was a collection of gloomy streets at the back of the Palace,