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250

DOMESTIC MANNERS OF THE PKUSSIANS.

by a covered bridge raised upon piers, as dumpy as mushroom-stalks, and the covered way being as rüde as a barn in the in-terior, where it is divided down the middle, after the fashionof a railway shed.

The object of these covered bridges it is difficult to divine,but they are peculiar to the Swiss portion of the stream, andalmost as dark within as if they were a tunnel under thestream rather than a covered roadway above it.

At this part of the river the water is as shallow as a ford,and the green tint harmonises prettily with the flecks of thewhite waves as it curves and chafes about each impedingstone. There are some rapids close by, too, which cover theriver-bed with a white pellicle of foam, and fill the air witha bee-like buzz, for some distance round. This part of thestream bears the name of the "Hell-hook" (Höllhacken), thonglithere is little of such an infernal character about the shapeof its Channel as to Warrant so forcible a name.

At a short distance from the bridge is a kind of island,or mound of rock and earth, rising up out of the middle ofthe stream. Here formerly stood the old fortress of " Stein,"that, like Pfalz by Caub, once formed the island-palace of theancient Counts of Rheinfelden. Earlier still, this was theresidence of King Rudolph of Suabia (the Anti-EmperorHenry IV.), but was ultimately destroyed by the Swiss Con-federates during the battle of St. Jaques, in 1344.

Agnes, wife of Berthold IL, Duke of Zahringen by Frei-burg, was the last relic of the nobles of Rheinfelden.

Formerly Rheinfelden was strongly fortified, and though itswalls now seem incapable of holding out against a "park"of pop-guns, and the place appears hardly worth the taking,it was in the middle ages besieged times without number.The famous Duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimar and Johann vonWesth fought several battles under its walls in the year 1638—