-uz —a.,. :m

190

TUE LOWER RUINE GORGE.

river, a little beyond the charming town of Erpel, there risesthe lofty basalt mass known as "Erpeler Lei" (Erpel's rock)— a huge boss of arthy lava that, with its rounded rockysummit, looks like some monster bowlder-stone or giganticaerolite hurled from the clouds.

Remagen is, as we see it now, bathed in a rieb transparentshadow, the dusky air slanting from its walls as if it were a solidwedge of darkness, and the town itself being seen in all the veiledbeauty of the " clear-obscure "—like some noble paintingviewed in a black mirror. The opposite shore, on the otherhand, is all a-glow with the sunbeams, the warm, yellow lightshining, like a golden phosphorescence, on the surface of thewater, and the land, and the rocks. The stream, where the

Apollinarius" and several " holy martyr followers " were placed, when they werebrought from Ravenna by the Archbishop Reinald von Dassel in 1164, during theSame memorable expedition as that in which he carried off the heads of the threeMagi from Milan. Thus the church came to be visited by pilgrims from far andnear. In 1836 the hill came into the possession of the Graffvon Fürstenberg, andhe caused the present edifice to be erected after the designs of Zwirner (the restorerof Cologne Cathedra]). The interior of the church, which is hardly bigger thanthe hall to anobleman's mansion, is as rieh with bright colours and gold as theilluminated missals of the old monks. The walls are entirely covered with frescoes,as large as the " high-art" pictures that poor self-bigotted Haydon delighted in.These are in the best German style, though the tints are often too much likedyed earths, and too little like the transparent films of coloured air which makeup the various hues in nature, while the outlines are as hard as the forms of whatthe seene-painters call " cut-pieces." Moreover, Protestants must forget thatthey are in a temple dedieated to the worship of the Most Wise, but rather fancythemselves in the cabinet of some tasteful virtuoso — and then assuredly St.Apollinarius will seem the prettiest little plaything of a church that a baby zealotcould possibly desire. For those, on the other hand, who prefer God's buildingto men's pastry-work, and the exquisite no-colours of the rocks to the gaudypositive-tints and tinsels of Catholic churches, there are the noble " basalt-iruche's" of Dattenburg, and Minderberg, and Erpeler Lei, close on the oppositeshore—sights that will tili the mind with tenfold more real religion than all thebarley-sugar temples in the world. Further, there is the Ahr Valley within apleasant ride of Remagen, and this is one of the loveliest of the many bye-waysto the great highroad of the Rhine ; and lastly, there is the Lake of Laach—thegreat volcanic pool set in its vast basin of lava—to stir the soul with the profoundpoetry of creation.