moors.” A Roman of the name of Vetus, as we find from Tacitus, once entertained the bold design of uniting the Saone with the Moselle by a canal, by which the legions could have been transported through Gaul to the Rhine by first being floated up the Rhone. He was induced to desist for fear of ambitious motives being imputed to him. That the canal might have been made by the strong arms of the Roman soldiers, in spite of all engineering difficulties, there is little doubt; but the utility of the work would have been questionable, as in a dry summer the upper waters of the rivers in question would scarcely have been navigable, to judge by the experience of the steamers which ply even on the Lower Moselle.
Those who leave Paris by a train which starts in the evening, and can sleep through the dull night journey, will agreeably wake up on a fine summer’s morning on the Upper Moselle, in the neighbourhood of Metz. Here it is a softly-flowing river, with vineyards and white villages on the banks.
From Trêves, downwards, the river Moselle assumes more of the character of a river in a gorge. Having seen Trêves under the July sun, 1862, we were minded to look at the Moselle in September, and with that view took the train from Frankfort to Oberstein on the Nahe, intending to cut across the land which intervenes between the Nahe and the Moselle, striking the latter river at Berncastel. The Nahe, like its tributary the Alsenz, which comes into it above Kreuznach, is the exaggeration of a stony-bedded brook overhung with rocks, many of great height and fantastic shapes, and betraying primeval volcanic convulsion. One of the most remarkable points on the Nahe is Oberstein. The little town is cramped on one side between the river and an immense wall of igneous rock, in many parts perpendicular, and even overhanging. Its shape is a rough pyramid. On the top of this rock is perched the Oberstein, or “upper stone,”—that is, the ancient castle. The newer castle, whose remains are richer, crowns the hill behind at a short distance, and is connected with the older building by a narrow causeway. It would be difficult to imagine a human habitation more resembling a crow’s nest; or rather, shall we not say of a relic so venerable, an eagle’s nest? Who the lords of Oberstein were who built and inhabited the castle, must in a great degree be matter of conjecture. Like those brave men who lived before Agamemnon, their deeds are lost in the night of the Past, because they are unrecorded by the sacred bard. It seems that they were pious as well as valiant, for halfway up the rock, and partly hewn out of it, nestles a very old church, which they appear to have built for the use of the subject townsmen. It is included in the ancient walls. Inside the church is a natural basin, where the most limpid water accumulates from the droppings of the rocks. It was probably used in former times as a reservoir, from which the holy water was taken, but this use has been forgotten since the church has become Protestant. Against the wall is a rude figure of an ancient knight, in alto-relievo, hewn out of sandstone; probably representing the founder of the church, and apparently of the eleventh or twelfth century.
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