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THE UPPER RHINE GORGE.

have your blood tainted with the nature of creatures who,time out of mind, have looked upon all industrial occupationsas degrading, and whose congenial pursuits have ever beenhunting and war, and conquest and torture !

It is terrible enough to see such places by daylight; but inthe depth of the dusk, and alone upon the desolate island-fortress, they make such an impression on the heart as yearscannot efface. So, when we had been sickened with this insightinto man's devilry, we hurried from the place to think anddream of Pfalz and the Robber-Counts for days afterwards.

The Robber-Castles — from Pfalz to Hatto's Tower.

Bacharach is a kind of civic curiosity-shop. It is theoldest, oddest, dingiest, and yet most picturesque collection ofhouses on the Rhine.

If you are fond, fair reader, of " looking at the shops,"never set foot in the place, for the principal linendraper'sestablishment has merely a few bright-coloured cotton pocket-handkerchiefs fluttering in the wind outside the door. There isnot a single milliner's establishment in the town; and insteadof the last month's Parisian fashions being " in vogue " there,the people persist in the modes of the last three or fourcenturies. Moreover, the lane-like High Street boasts not asingle pastrycook, and the baker has merely a birdcage füll ofrolls perched on the sill of bis parlour-window; while theprincipal butcher has nothing but a recently-killed pig hanging