Ill BliiWim tiM ■BflMftHciBfiaaXr& 11 nlIiHffi£ilRlIv fCjlBIg BwannQm Mro! HnffraRBRiHiiKHI anstmBiiiiii Willi ■rail 88h HF 1181811 gmiii w v 0o. o o v> * Y * ° / / » ^ ■ V o V & aV ^ o %#' : '= %** 4» V c fc ^••\ 'O0 N .0 o o V" °// > 3 , ^' \* .0 ' '/ c *> ^ V «/> A A"* * & ++ V & °A 0, > J$ % * ^ > -V * -0 * ^ v* ,0o ; a\ V ■%^ "oo' o x .0 o » "THE WIDE AND WINDING RHINE." THREE VASSAR GIRLS On the Rhine. A HOLIDAY TRIP OF THREE COLLEGE GIRLS THROUGH GERMANY, BY WAY OF THIS CELEBRATED TVER. BY LIZZIE W. CHAMPNEY. % ijl % ILLUSTRATED BY "CHAMP if AND OTHERS. ft AUG 23 18a&>) ' BOSTON: ESTES AND LAURIAT, PUBLISHERS. 1887. ' 6 Copyright, 1886, By Estes and Lauriat. Electrotyped By C. J. Peters and Son, Boston. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Delight Holmes' Journal ...<<<• II. Point Lace III. Flanders, Ghent, and Bruges IV. Holland . V. Scheveningen. — Amsterdam and Cologne. — Mr. Van Bergen, VI. Bonn, Coblentz, the Engel Rittergut . . . . . VII. A Kaffeeklatsch, and a mysterious occurrence VIII. The Moselle. — An Explanation IX. The Rhine, from Coblentz to Rudesheim. — An unexpected Meeting X. The Rheingau. — Mayence. — Several Conversations XI. Heidelberg. — Broken Towers and United Hearts XII. The Black Forest XIII. Strasburg. — War Memories. — Two Architects XIV. The Upper Rhine. — Lake Constance . XV. Munich XVI. Nuremberg. — Grief and Joy .... ii 28 40 5i 67 81 93 103 117 134 144 162 175 189 206 220 ILLUSTRATIONS. " The Wide and Winding Rhine," Frontispiece. Good-bye Col. Boujoulac Myrtle Delight Mr. Van Bergen Dutch Traders at Manhattan Rubens' " Descent from the Cross,' in Antwerp Cathedral Iconoclasts . Rubens A Realist, from Couture Sweeping the Streets . The Bookworm . Mechlin Lace Hotel de Ville, Brussels Brussels Lace Waterloo Ruin of Hougomont . Dutch Boats on the Scheldt Hotel de Ville (Ghent) Van Artevelde at his door Mine Host of the Fleur-de-ble View in Bruges . A Confidential Chat Stepped Gables of Antwerp Wharves at Middelburg House in the Renaissance Style A Dutch Landscape Erasmus William the Silent A Boy in Sabots . ii 12 13 13 15 17 20 21 23 25 28 29 30 3i 33 35 37 4i 43 45 48 48 49 5i 52 53 56 57 60 61 Rembrandt 62 Promenade at Weimar 63 A Scheveningen Boy . 67 Views on the Beach 68,69 Dutch Windmill .... 70 Descartes at Amsterdam . 7i Sketches in Holland . 73 Glimpse at Diisseldorf 74 Cathedral of Cologne . 75 St. Martin's . . . . 79 Professor Wissenschaft 82 In the Public Gardens at Bonn . 83 Godesburg . ... 85 In Andernach .... 87 Ehrenbreitstein .... 89 The Gnadige Frau Von Engel . 90 Professor Hammer 9i The Countess 92 A German Officer 93 94 The Kaffeeklatsch 95 97 The Rittergut .... 98 The Porta Nigra .... 99 Miss Boylston .... 103 With a New Pensiveness . 104 107 109 Confidences no Berncastel in Cloister of Cathedral of Treves . 115 Tourists on the Rhine Steamer . 1 18, 121 Kaub and the Pfalz 119 ILL US TRA TIONS. Bacharach Beggar at Bacharach . • • As High as a Church Spire Riidesheim At Bingen on the Rhine An Unexpected Meeting . The Lady of the Villa The Walk Through the Vineyard Mayence Art Student No. i Art Student No. 2 Looking at the Animals Heidelberg Castle, from the Terrace Students Entrance to Heidelberg Castle . Mailed Warriors .... Castle of Neckar-Steinach . Heidelberg Terrace . The Frau Professorin and her Grand daughter .... Ruins of a Castle A Village in the Black Forest . The Count The Colonel .... Peasant's House in the Black Forest The Postilion .... Ruins of the Abbey of Allerheiligen Dortchen Oberkirch ..... Platform of Strasburg Cathedral Strasburg Cathedral . A Street in Strasburg . 125 127 128 129 131 132 135 136 137 141 142 143 145 147 149 I5 1 153 155 158 159 163 165 166 167 168 169 171 173 176 177 179 Marguerite and Peter Schnecker Madame Hautcceur Stork's Nest German Soldiers Ancient Houses by the River Vauban . ' ". The Fern-Fancier City and Cathedral of Freiburg Peasant Knitting The Valley of Hell . Hotel de Ville, Ulm . Market-Place at Schaffhausen Bavarian Sketches Goatherd's Hut . In a Real Palace . Adolf Weissmauschen . Triumphal Arch, Munich . Castle of Unnoth Statue of Bavaria The Pinacothek . The Glyptothek . Uncle Kalbfleisch A Gift for the Bride . The Bride's Door, Nuremberg Weissmauschen and her Family An American Doll Nuremberg Market-Place The Landlady's Daughter The Choir of St. Sebald Ramparts of Nuremberg 181 182 183 184 185 187 189 191 194 195 198 199 202 203 206 207 207 208 209 211 213 214 215 219 221 223 224 225 228 229 231 THREE VASSAR GIRLS ON THE RHINE. THREE VASSAR GIRLS ON THE RHINE. CHAPTER I. DELIGHT HOLMES' JOURNAL. Antwerp, July. T was a great disappointment to me that my father and mother could not make this trip to Europe with me. The greater part of my pleasure dur- ing our delightful South American jour- ney was due to their presence, and I do not think that I could have borne to have seen father's figure grow more indistinct as he waved his farewell to me from the dock, and the steamer carried me out into the fog, if the tour had been for pleasure alone. But the prospect of travelling with my dear friend Myr- tle, and of settling down for a year at a German University town to the study of difficult botany and microscopy, opened such vistas before me of future opportunities as a naturalist, that I yielded to mother's urging, and here I am. I foresee that I shall find a great deal of enjoyment in this journal. I shall feel that I am sharing my pleasures with my parents, since it is to be sent to them, and that I am coming to them for advice, though I shall be hardly able to receive their counsel before the occa- sion for which I need it shall have passed. GOOD-BYE. 12 THREE VASSAR GIRLS ON THE RHINE. And first I must describe my travelling companions, and I will try to do so in a manner becoming the daughter of a scientist. I remember that father said that a naturalist must be a close observer, and I recall how he sat for three hours watching the habits of a spider. If I am to analyze plants and note their affinities, it will cer- tainly be good practice to begin by analyzing people and assigning them to their different gen- era and species. My friend Myrtle has too simple and homely a name; she is more like some glorious tropical flower. She is a Southern girl, and her father is Colonel Boujoulac, noted, they say, during the last war, as the dashing commander of the "Louisiana Tigers." He was wounded- in that desperate assault during the second day's fight at Gettysburg. There is nothing ferocious about him now, however; he is president of a railroad, and has a lazy but perfectly gentlemanly manner, as though every pursuit but that of playing cards were too laborious an exertion to be thought of. During our college days, Myrtle was a special student, paying particular attention to modern languages and music. My best friend, Victoria, did not greatly care for her, though I loved her dearly. It has been said that triangular friend- ships are hard to manage. Affection cannot be distributed between three people in just the same measure. While Victoria went with us to South America, Mvrtle was hanpf- ing over her mother's sick-bed. I think the death of Mrs. Boujoulac has made a great change in Myrtle, and that she is now filled with the noble ambition of being everything to her father. Victoria so full of energy herself, and has accomplished so much since>g A COL. BOUJOULAC. DELIGHT HOLMES' JOURNAL. 13 graduation, in the study of medicine in Zurich, and its practice among the poor cholera-smitten people of Naples, that Myrtle suffers in comparison, but I cannot help thinking that there are grand pos- sibilities in Mvrtle. I remember that, when this tour was first men- tioned, she said she felt her father needed it. I thought at the time that perhaps he had fallen into melancholy since his wife's death, or that he was out of health; he seems, however, very well, and even gay, and I cannot quite account for the anxious look which Myrtle occasionally gives him. Two girls WwmtfM MYRTLE. r could not differ more than Myrtle Boujoulac and I. She is fascinating, brave, and extravagantly gener- ous. I am insignificant, and have only one talent, my father's, for work. I am what the college slang calls " a regular dig." Myrtle, though scarcely a year my senior, looks a woman; she dresses al- ways elegantly. Whether in many-ruffled white muslins, or fashionable close-fitting costumes, there is always a certain touch of style which is more than that given by the dressmaker. Some one has said that she could make any dress fashionable by wear- ing it, while I am always the same commonplace individual in the prettiest costume. I confess, how- ever, that I do not like to study effects of dress. y travelling suit is a cloth jacket, with pleated skirt, hair drawn back, and a Scotch cap. I shall be comfortable, but not is. DELIGHT. H THREE VASSAR GTRLS ON THE RHINE. After a glimpse at the Netherlands we expect to be joined at Cologne by a Miss Boylston, also a Vassar graduate, and a friend to my friend Maud Van Vechten. One good thing about Vassar friend- ships is that they make a chain of good fellowship extending all around the world. Maud passes me on to this friend of hers, whom I have never seen, but who is sure to be kind to me for Maud's and Vassar's sake, and who will be very useful to us, for she has been studying music in different parts of Germany for the past three or four years. We have another friend waiting our arrival, in Myrtle's brother Joe, who is a student at the University of Bonn. We left New York the 30th of June, on the Red Star steamer " land," bound for Antwerp. I think we were first attracted to this steamer by a set of decorations in the cabin, made by a company of artists which crossed upon it one season. We had no reason to re- gret our choice, for these paintings were a source of continual com- fort and inspiration to us. In the stormy weather, which pursued us nearly all the way across the Atlantic, we were obliged to keep the cabin and devote ourselves, — Myrtle to Kensington embroidery, and I to Motley's " Rise of the Dutch Republic." I began by reading aloud all the interesting passages, and finished by becoming the centre of a little group of ladies, and by reading every bit to them, and the "United Netherlands" as well. It was a good preparation for what we were to see of Belgium and Holland before beginning our voyage up the classic river Rhine, and the sketches about us gave rein to the imagination, for they were chiefly foretastes of what we were to see; heads of peasants, windmills, and spires of distant cathe- drals. There was one ruined castle of which Myrtle w r as particu- larly fond. It seemed familiar to her, as though she had seen it in a dream, she said, or lived in it in some previous state of existence " I am sure that it is connected with my fate in some way," she f ith say. "Something remarkable either has happened or w T ill hap ^s me there." I pooh-poohed the notion. "You have seen a phot*,^ " lj DELIGHT HOLMES 1 JOURNAL. *5 Hy of it somewhere," I explained, "and the memory haunts you. Either that is it, or it strikes your fancy as what a Rhine castle ought to be. Ruins are very conventional; they all hold to a general fashion, a dungeon-keep half overgrown with ivy, a few cart-loads of rubbish at the foot, a grass-grown moat, a liberal supply of moonlight, and a trifle of river, and there you are." I delivered this recipe for a castle very confidently, for I had never seen one, — and one's assurance about anything is generally in exact proportion to one's ignorance. My raillery made no impression upon Myrtle; she continued to regard her castle with a pensive air, which was almost depressing. It did not occur to me at the time that she had some other cause for melancholy which was hiding itself in this picturesque ruin. I noticed that each morning she invited her father to listen to the reading. Sometimes he lingered for a few moments, but after a time he was sure to fin«er his cigar-case, and soon after he would beat a precipitate retreat for the smoking-room. When we went on deck for our constitutional just be- fore lunch, we would see him playing innumerable games of poker with other gentlemen of like tastes. His partner was usually a dark Jewish- looking man, for whom Myrtle had contracted a strong antipathy, though he was perfectly polite and gentle- manly, both in his behavior to her, and, as far as I could judge, to every one. He professes to be a dia- mond-cutter from Amsterdam. He came to America on business ected with the diamond exhibit made at the Centennial, and was tr nuch pleased with our country that this is his first return trip to s native country. He gave his name as Solomon Van Bergen, and MR. VAN BERGEN. 1 6 THREE VASSAR GIRLS ON THE RHINE. said that he was a descendant of Louis Van Berguen of Bruges, who discovered the art of cutting diamonds, in the fifteenth century. One evening the chat turned upon precious stones, and Colonel Boujoulac asked Myrtle to show her mother's diamond cross. I shall never for- get the expression of Mr. Van Bergen's face when the jewels were laid in his hand; admiration, greed, and a malicious cunning seemed united in that first glance. When he spoke, however, it was only to disparage the stones, which he said were not of the first water, though it would improve them greatly to be reset, as the clumsy old silver settings were not calculated to show off their lustre. He offered to direct Colonel Boujoulac to a responsible house where they could be remounted, and that gentleman seemed inclined to consider his offer; but M}'rtle expressed herself afterwards as violently opposed to having them touched. I think she suspected Mr. Van Bergen of designs upon her diamonds, and that her dislike for the man dated from the look which he gave the cross when it first flashed upon him from its worn mo- rocco case. Be this as it may, we bade good-bye to the diamond- cutter when the ship touched at Antwerp, and are not likely to meet him again, for he has gone directly on to Amsterdam, and we are r loitering in this strange old town. As we steamed up the river \ Scheldt, lined with shipping, we were reminded of the almost fabu- lous stories told of Dutch commerce in the days of Charles V., when two thousand five hundred ships could be counted at one time upon the river, bound to and from Arabia, Persia, India, Africa, and all * parts of the then civilized globe. A little country, like England, tie L Netherlands spread itself, in its colonies and trading-posts, in the L East and West Indies, and in North and South America. How L much of sturdy healthfulness we owe the Dutch stock. The aristo- 1 cratic names of New York and Albany, and many excellent Dutch I characteristics in our own people, are our inheritance from this enter- c prising and thrifty nation. What though the discoveries and settlements of the Dutch v )