Tower Stairs To The Vosges.

Tower Stairs to the Vosges .

BY LT .-COI . O . VF . I , C . A . COOPER , P . M .

STOBKS' N'ESTS AT STKAKIIOURR . | Ppp || l || jlS E must be a good sailorto prefer being on board a steamer fl Illsl ) W ^ 01 " twe , lr . ' ' hours , London to Amsterdam , en mute \\ ( fJ ^^ li / Ii to ¦^ ottcl ( ' am , instead of crossing to the latter place ^^^^/^• ' direct from Harwich in about six , but the announcctyb ^ a—sr ^ fefii ment of the General Steam Navigation Company that

they issued return tickets at a very low price , including meals—which latter was to me an item of no little importance—proved an irresistible temptation , the manager kindly extending my time for a month . So I embarked at the Tower Stairs—old st yle / waterman ' s boat , with the customary copper to " Poor Jack , your honour , " it is many years since I had that experience—in the good ship

Stork , and it was a curious coincidence that I sailed on the 15 th August , the very day the storks fly from Strasbourg , my destination . It was interesting to watch the last of the cargo coming on board from the lighters ; linseed , tea , great logs of cedar , a barge full of scrap tin ( the cuttings after making canisters ) from which the tin is

removed by chemical process in Germany ; they say the Emperor has a perfect set of toy regiments made of it , with which he teaches his boys battalion drill ! Well , another barge was loaded , packed tight , with poor used-up horses from the knackers' yards , for shipment to Bel gium and Holland to be made into beef concoctions , potted meat , soups , and sausages .

I had a nice deck cabin all to myself , in which I slept the sleep of the just , and—there being no lady passengers on board—had a glorious sea water tub on deck soon after sunrise . Making good way against a northerly wind and a lumpy sea , we dul y reached Jjmuiden , and entered the canal , which is now being made more commodious for ships coming in . arriving at Amsterdam four hours latei—it is to be hoped that the rule of " dead slow " through . the canal will soon cease to be one of the staiidiny orders .

Receiving kind permission to sleep on board . I was off by the morning train to Rotterdam and got my return ticket to Mannheim by the Netherlands Rhine Steamboat Company , in every way the lest line to go up and down the river by . You go on board the boat utany time during the ni ght for the 7 a . m . sailing , and have a comfortable cabin to sleep in ; you have excellent and not expensive meals

served to you , either under an awning on deck or in the saloon ; you have some hours ashore at the frontier town of Emmerich , and , if you wish it , the Company will give you permission to break your ( luruey at any station and proceed Ivy a later steamer—in any ease you have four or five hours at Cologne . From that up to Mayence the glories of the Rhine need no word of mine to celebrate them , " thev can

even , m a small way . be enjoyed by . stay-at-homes , witli their pictures and letter-press ; lint the beauties of * the Rhine and Moselle wines can only be fully appreciated on the spot , where your wine is pure and good , generally served direct from the cask , and costs but 20 or 2 "> pfennige the quarter litre ; in fact when one knows the ropes , which one can onl y do by living amongst the people of a country , and avoiding hotels frequented by tourists and trippers of any nationality .

Britishers and Americans especially , good country wine can be had , as 1 got it , at a ivein stale in Mainz , for . 'id . ( he half litre . It is worth wliile stopping for a day or two at Mayence , a colehinted old place , scene of so many battles and sieges , often a fearful chariiel house , playing an important part in the theatre of war for centuries , with France struggling for her Rhine frontier , so that the soil of both banks of ( lie river , (' . specially the left , from Strasbourg io Coblence , has been so often saturated with the blood , and literally

Tower Stairs To The Vosges.

sown with bodies of men and horses that the excellence of the vines grown on it is not to be wondered at . There was an enormous garrison iu Mainz this year , the landwchr and reserves being all up , numbering over 77 , 000 men . With their stolid appearance and excellent physique , it must be acknowledged that the Germans are a powerful race , or ratlier mixture of races , one clement of their cliaracter , in particular , giving them an advantage over us Anglo-Saxons , and that is sobriety .

Ihe appearance of a drunken man or woman in the streets , the beer halls , or the wine shops , is so rare that one wonld look upon it with astonishment , and—with all their mercurial temperament—the same can be said of the French—I am not speaking of the great cities and seaports where , of course , the population is a mixture of all sorts , sizes , shapes , and shades—and the main cause of this sobriety is the

excellence and purity of the wine and beer . Here , in England , beer —the wine of our country—may be made of almost anything , inferior sugar taking the place of malt , and it is well for the consumer if quassia be the least deleterious of the "hop substitutes , " often as much salt as the law will allow is added , and finally , when the brewer has

sailed as close to the wind as he possibly can , the publican takes a turn at the wheel and generally overdoes it . Why is such a compound , which is not beer , allowed to be labelled and sold as such ? If our milkman be caught abstracting cream and adding a little innocent water , when our butterman forgets (?) to put the stamp on his wrappers , and at breakfast we feel constrained to cry out with Faust

( every apology to the late Mons . Gounod ) "Margarina , sei tu r " or should our grocer adulterate his chicory , as he sometimes does , with a few grains of coffee and forget to label the " admixture , " the law comes down on each of them and imposes ridiculously inadequate tines , but—unless they defraud the revenue—the brewer and the publican

can do as they like , the result being that our streets are made hideous b y men and women , far more mail than drunk from the effects of what is sold to them as beer , whiskey , or gin ; fair-dealing brewers and publicans should not hesitate to label their drink " guaranteed , pure

Although they had not anything like as hot a summer as we had in England , the Rhine vintage was about a fortnight earlier than in ' 95 . and there were excellent grapes in the Mainz market ( the open street ) on the 21 st of August , for less than three half-pence a pound . of course , you would pay more in the slums .

The Cathedral and many of the churches arc well worth visiting , there are some old houses and narrow streets , which always make a city picturesque , and you can cross the river pleasantly by the splendid bridge or by the ferry steamers to Biebrich . Leaving Mayence by the Chriamliildc , a nice , fast boat , on a glorious morning , had breakfast on deck , and having now passed the

castles of the Rhine , and the river being very wide , I was looking about for objects of interest , and found about a dozen large hampers of what appeared to be cabbages , among the deck freight going up to Mannheim , they were labelled " Blwnoukold . " After wrestling with the word for some time , I came off victorious , llumen , of course , means " blooms , " therefore . " ( lowers , " and hold , " kale , so you get

" fiowerkule , ergo , '' cauliflowers ; this was a revelation , making it clear that when the humble-minded and meek Wliitechapel coster says " Take yer bloomiu' cabbage , " it is onl y his refined and playful euphemism for " cauliflower . " Left the boat at Ludwigshafen , just in time to catch a train for Strasbourg , no time to get my tickets though , but the conductor very civilly got them for nic at Neustadt .

I am under obligations to a Gorman gentleman at the station who kindly translated my French into German , as you seldom meet a subordinate railway official who understands more than his native tongue . Train came to a full stop at Weissenbourg . just inside the boundary of Alsace , no train on for two hours and a half ; this seemed rather aggravating , but nothing could have proved more pleasant ;

went into the old town—in the French time it was a frontier town , and always in hot water ; visited a very fine church , and then found out a charming old inn , " I'lwtel du Ci / gne , " the proprietress being a nice old French lad y ( it was pleasant to be again addressed as " M ' sieur"' ) , had an excellent little dinner and plenty of delicious wine for—well , what one would pav at an English country inn for a

badly-cooked chop and a pint of stout . Jieturiiing to the railway , found my new train was a (/ ramie vitesse . so at the station before Strasbourg , my ticket being ordinary , the conductor demanded the excess fare , but I explained to him at length , aud very courteously , that 1 had booked through at Neustadt , and that they should not have kept me waiting at Weissenbnrg ; he mail have understood , or

more probably , may not , but he seemed to be quite satisfied . Very good train that was , got to Strasbourg at 10 p . m . ; so 1 took my hand-bag and walked across the city to my old quarters of last year , under the shadow of the beautiful spire ; to my dismay , found the Alsatian inn shut , and learned that the people who used to keep it had gone . I was disappointed , but found a . similar

house quite near , they had not a bed , but , at my earnest entreaty , they—being French people—cleared one of the household out of a little crib of a room and got it read y for me in less than half an hour as clean and neat as a new p in . Enquiring in the morniii"' about mv old friends , found they had sold the

hotel and gone to live in what we call a flat , where I was glad to find them , also letters [ had sent to their care—they insisted on my staying with them as their guest . One does not easily tire of Strasbourg , every time one sees that glorious cathedral it appears more fascinating , at least , that is my impression of it . I shall never forget seeing it at midnight , with the full moon shining