THE BHOTHER-CASTLES.

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sitely handsome in form, and the openings between tliem arewooded with tall poplars, which shoot up so high and straight,that, viewed from the opposite side of the stream, they seemlike the spray from so many fountains playing high into theair.

When vve have passed the little village of Oberspay, whichlies at the first bend of the river, the white Castle of Lie-beneck is seen glistening on top of one of the opposite hüls,with the autumn-tinted oak wood below rising about itlike clouds of lurid smoke, while close beside the shore at itsfeet Stretches the little village of Osterspay* with its freshly-built white church, bright as a new Shilling, at one end, andits mud-walled cottages at the other. The hüls beyond thispoint give place to another broad cdging of rieh alluvialmeadow-lands, while those on oui' own side of the Rhinenow rise so close to the water, that we have to bend back ourhead to see the tops of them; and at the end of the road theystand up like huge wedges of rock, with exquisite ravines cleftbetween their sides.

In a few minutes after this we reach the upper bend of the2-shaped stream; and as we round the point, building afterbuilding of the ancient town of Boppardf comes peeping into

* The name Osters-pay would seem to be a corruption of Osten, or Osien's-pass, afterwards abbreviated into Osten' s-pay or Oster's-pay —that is to say, itmeans simply the Eastern-yass; for not only does the river just below Boppardbend sharply round towards the east, but this part of the stream is called " DerPass," owing to the navigable Channel of the Rhine becoming here considerablynarrowed. In the same manner Nieder's-pay meant the lower pass, and Ober's-pay the pass immediately above the lower one. The introduetion of the * in themiddle, as if it were the genitive case, and the dropping of the same letter at theend (as in the French pas), are quite consistent with the grammatical habits ofthe peasants.

t Boppard was in ancient times called Baudo-briga, of which name themodern title is a corruption. The old name, Baudo-briga, seems to be merely abarbarous mode of writing the words Bau'-die-Brücke, which literally meanBuild-thc -bridge ,■ so that the ancient title of the place would imply that a built