■I

304

THE UPPEK RUINE GORGE.

pared for the sight—for Nature always avoids your melo-dramatic surprises—so that, as it does not at the first glanceappear to vastly transcend the other rocky " Ecks " seen onthe way, the exquisite majesty of the bold promontory is ina measure lost to the stranger.

After a time, however, the fine serenity of the spot onwhich it rears its head—the bright silver shield of water atits base—the solemn stillness of all around, and the apparentdesolation too (for St. Goar and the opposite village, with themountain ruins, are screened from view hy the tall bankwhich j'ou round on your road), the absence of all humanhabitations, and, indeed, of everything that could give token ofman's existence, except the faint clinking of the distant quar-riers' hammers-—and the sight of the little patches of vinestinting the mountain-sides wherever the sun can fall—and thefisherman's tiny bark, with its lace-like net suspended like alarge scale-pan over its side, moored at the foot of the rockitself;—then the gurgling of the vast body of water, whichis heard with fme intensity as it streams swiftly round thebold craggy corners—together with the narrowing of thegorge immediately above Lurlei—and the rieh dark shadowthere, picked out in places with exquisite bits of accidentallight, and contrasting charmingly with the bright, clear at-inosphere of the broad basin of water in front of the monstermass;—all of these, as they steal upon the senses one afteranother, tend to make the sight grow and grow in beauty,until at last we come to comprehend why Lurlei, beyondall the Rhine rocks, should have made so deep an impressionon the German mind.

The Lurlei Felsen, as they are called, are assuredly thehandsomest crags beside the river. The Drachenfels, thoughconsiderably taller, are by no means so imposing; for they arelost in the crowd of the Seven Mountains, and want isolation