THE TRAVELLER. WYSIDE NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1640, 28 April 1883, Page 8

THE TRAVELLER. WYSIDE NOTES.

(By a Special Correspondent,)

THE RHINE IN WINTER.

Tho Rhine has been so often described in its Bummer attire and in its sunnier aspects, that it may, perhaps, be an agreeable variety to speak of it under circumstances totally differing from those under which its praises have been sung by Lord Byron and Victor Hugo, and its scenery has been painted by artists and amateurs innumerable. I have been up and down it twice, in the month of November — once in the midst of a heavy snow-storm, and in the teeth of as bitter a north-east wind as ever made a tourist's teeth chatter, or tinged the tip of his nose with those cerulean tints which were conspicuous by their absence from the heavens overhead — and my impressions of the river were not of the conventional character. No one, I think, should see it for the first time at such a season, nor after having come through Italy and Switzerland — for the mountains and lakes of both countries are so .beautiful that the narrower Rhine and its comparatively dwarfish hills on either bank appear tame, and even trivial, by comparison. Ascending the river, from either Diisseldorf or Cologne, it presents nothing of interest until you have passed Bonn, when the landscape loses the flatness which had previously characterised* it, and the country begins to be embossed by hills, terraced with vineyards, which resemble those on the shores of Lake Leman ; while in Rhineland, as in Switzerland, you cannot but admire the patient, , plodding industry of the husbandmen who cultivate these declivitous slopes, and have to construct low walls of stone in order to prevent the, soil they till from slipping down the sides of the hill into the river, which flows with such an impetuous current, down below. At this present time of writing, the stream presents a very menacing aspect. It is more than bank high. It has invaded the more low lying of the towns and villages on its banks, and near Diisseldorf its waters have submerged bo large an area of subjacent land that it is no exaggeration to assert that it has attained a width, at this point, of not less than fiye miles There is no romance about that.

So far as mere prettiness is concerned, it strikes me that the valley of the Wye, in South Wales, is not less attractive than that of the Rhine ; while as regards grandeur, the shores of Loch Lomond and Loch Katrine are much more impressive. Nor is there any part of •She free, the German Rhine" which will bear comparison with the lake scenery of the Middle Island of New Zealand. It would be equivalent to sinning against the Paraclete to make any such statement, to a Teuton, whether in or out of the Fatherland, but I am quite prepared to adhere to it.

cm me other hand, the magnitude and volume of the " abounding river," flowing in such a broad and devious channel from its Bources in the Alps, where I have seen it rushing and roaring down the profound gorge of the Via Mala like a living creature frenzied with excitement to its outfall in the ocean, where it creeps leisurely through vast plains of marshy pasture and discharges itself through many outlets, justify the admiration which hundreds of enthusiastic writers and thousands of tourists have bestowed upon it. The worst of it is that you are so familiar with every feature of it, before you see it, that when you visit it for the first time it is wanting in the charm of novelty. There is not a ruined tower upon its '* castled crags," not a rocky escarpmeut, not a city, town, or village on its banks ; not a bend or an angle in its fluctuating course ; not a wellaccentuated outline in its circumscribing hills that has not figured, a dozen times at least, upon canvas or cardboard ; that has not been drawn and engraved for the embellishment of pictorial annuals, poems, books of travel, and illustrated gift-books innumerable, and that has notbeen photographed from every possible, and almost impossible, point of view by camera-obscurists innumerable, so that you seem to know every mile of the Rhine by heart, as it were. Those feudal fortresses, which are open to 'the winds of heaven, upon its jutting promontories and " coigns of vantage" ; those quaint old timber-framed houses, trim villas, and ambitious schlosses which stud its banks ; that Lorelei Rock, of which everybody knows the legend ; those mediaeval and castellated toll-houses, that seem to be moored in the middle of the stream ; and those islands that divide its impetuous waters, are all of them the oldest of old friends. Audernach, Bacharach, Obenvesel, and Bingen, Coblenz and Mainz, Ehrenbreitstein and Drachenfels, are places as familiar to you, in their aspect from the river, as if you had spent half your life in journeying up and down the Rhine, and the romantic stories and historical associations connected with them have become trite, and almost wearisome, by incessant repetition. The locality, indeed, and all its environments are 'so hackneyed that you derive some satisfaction from the feeling that you are surveying it under circumstances wholly unknown to the great mass of tourists namely, with the snow lying on the summits and among the hollows of the embracing hi'ls ; with the fugitive gleams of the wintry sun fitfully glinting on its dilapidated castles ; with the gloom of sullen, if not tempestuous, clouds overshadowing the dark masses of the Neiderwald, and partially veiling its outlines behind wreaths of vapour ; and with the turbid waters of^ the swollen river invading the more lowlying streets of the towns and villages on its banks, and sweeping away the bridge of boats at Coblenz, as a giant might crush the fragile toys of a child. Nothing can be more unlike the Rhine described by Lord Byron Whoso breast of waters broadly swells Between the banks wh'ch bear tho vine, And hills all rich with bloß-omed trees, Auci fields which promise corn and wine than the same river at the end of the month of ovember. No longer do Peasant girls, with deep bluo eyes, And hands which offer early flower*, Walk Bin.ling o'er this paradise ; for the " blue" has fled from their eyos to their cheeks and their noses ; and their hands, instead of offering early flowers, are wrapped in woollen mittens, and look somewhat chapped • and their feet are probably afflicted with chilblains. Nor, at this season of the year, would anyone feel inclined to concur with the poet in asserting that The haughtiest breast its wish might bound Through life to dwell dplighted here ; for, in the raw murkiness of even the first month of winter in Rhineland, it could not be said, with any regard to truth, that Nature is Nor too sombre, nor too gay ; Wild, but; not rude ; awful, yet not amtero.

On the contrary, the atmosphere is exceedingly sombre, and the climate is decidedly austere Everything wears a moist and melancholy look. The moss upon tho orchard trees resembles green mould upon a decaying cheese • the red and ragged foliage of the'vines seems o cling shiveringty to the stakes, as if it would void falling to mingle with tho humid mould

below ; the soil is sodden with rain, and with the slush of melted snow ; the green jalousies of the numerous villas are all closed, as if a death had occurred in every house, and the trellised terraces, the shrubberies and gardens which surround them, are litteied with leaves and destitute of flowers ; and the hotels are deserted, some having closed altogether for the winter season ; while at the door of others you see a disconsolate landlord, or a forlorn waiter, ruefully contemplating the dismal prospect outside, and wondering whether life is worth living at such a period of the, year, and why human beings were not created so as to be able to hybernate, like bears and marmots and some other animals. Those timberframed houses which are so picturesque in the summer-time, when the sun transforms their whitewashed walls into marble, and lights up the russet-brown tiles upon their roofs with quite a splendour of colour, now look dingy and dirty, damp and dreary ; the dismantled castles of Rhemeck and Hammerbtein, Stol zenfels and Marksburg, Lie.bensteiu and Sterrenberg, have been divested of their robes of radiance, and look like so many heaps of unshapely above ; while the heights above, instead of exhibiting " the fruitful bloom-" of coming ripeness," and being " rich with blossomed trees," are, in places, white with snow, or dark with naked rock, or bristling with the leafless boughs of upland forests.

A few days after quitting Rhineland for Switzerland and Italy, I learned that the river had risen higher than it had been known to do at any time during the last hundred years ; that a considerable portion of both Bonn and Diisseldorf were under water; that railway traffic had been suspended at Manz, where the railway embankment had given way ; that Deuta and Neuwred were submerged ; that the Maine at Frankfort had reached to the cathedral ; that the Mosulle and the Neckar had overflowed their banks ; that navigation had been stopped, owing to the floods, on tho Upper Elbe ; and that great consternation and distress prevailed along the banks of all these rivers.

Coming down ts Venice from Milan, by way of Verona, I was an eye-witness of the fearful devastations committed by the recent inundations of the Adige. A tract of country 40 miles long and a few miles wide, which I had seen smiling with fertility on the 24th and 25th of May last, is now a scene of destruction — the soil covered with stones, the trees and vineyards rooted up, the farmhouses in ruins, the old landmarks effaced, and hundreds of families reduced to indigence by the destruction of their little properties. It was one of the most distressing scones -I have over hud the misfortune to look upon ; but it is satistory to add that public and private benevolence promises to alleviate very effectually the sufferings which have resulted from this dire disaster.