HINTS of OCCURRENCES , &c.
2 5
fold at all the inns on the road from St. Goar to that city. They call it four water, the reafon of which I couldneither learn nor conceive, its tafte being extremely pleafant, and perfe&ly free from any perceptible degree ofacidity. It has the fmgular property of corre£ting four wine, which is a happy circumftance for the inhabitantsof the countries bordering on the Rhine, as their only drink is a thin four white wine: the choiceft produce oftheir vineyards being referved for exportation, or to furnifh the cellars only of the nobility and gentry of thecountry. On drawing the cork, a thick vapour ilfues from the bottle that contains this water ; and when pouredout, it fparkles like champaign. Its effe£l foon gave me reafon to rejoice in the occafion (diftrefsful as it was atthe time) that introduced me to Do£tor Tilfot, for I may date the commencement of my recovery, from themoment I fwallowed the firft draught of the *Schwalbach water, which I certainly fhould not have taken, butfor his advice.
The windows of my apartment, commanding the views that are given in the ninth and eleventh plates, wasanother circumftance, which added very much to my fatisfa<5lion and convenience at the Bois Verd; it enabledme to make the drawings of them more perfect and correct than they could otherwife have been; and gave mean opportunity of feizing the moment, in which the moft pleafing effe6t of light and fhadow was produced: forthough the lines were beautifully contrafted, and the obje£ts as various as fancy could have formed them; thegeneral effe6t was rendered more or lefs charming, by every tranfition of the light and fhadow.
In the firft of thefe views, the principal obje6t is a caftle called the Cat, which is imagined, by fome writers,to have been ere6ted in the fourteenth century: but the ftyle of the building, its fituation, and other circum-ftances attending it, as well warrant a fuppofition, that it was built two thoufand years ago, as four hundred :and if any weight be given to etymological conje&ure, (which is, at leaft, as good as any other doubtful evidence)its foundation may, with fome fhew of reafon, be dated long before the commencement of the chriftian aera; forit feems probable, that it derives its name from the Catti, an ancient people of Germany, who poflefied, till thelatter end of the reign of Tiberius, a great part of the country of Hefle : but entering, at that time, into a warwith the people of an adjoining ftate, about the right to a fmall river which both parties claimed, were totallydefeated: and the conquerors having previoufly vowed their fpoils to Mars and Mercury, which confecratedevery living creature, that fell into their hands, to immediate and inevitable death; the Catti were obliged toabandon their country. They retired to the ifiand of the Batavi, now called Holland, where there are placeswhich ftill bear their name, viz . CAT-wick-op-zen on the fea-fide, and CAT-wick-op-den Rhein on the Rhine.
* There are two places of this name; but the Schwalbach, famous for its medicinal fpring, is a fmall town in the principality of Nalfau, fituated on the
river Aar, about fix leagues above Dietz.
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This