DOWN THE RHINE.
DOWN THE RHINE.
Cologne, Germany, July 29, 1905.
The words “Down the Rhine” have a strong significance to everyone who has read history, poetry, or romance. From the time when Cæsar crossed the Rhine to punish the warlike tribes for invading Gaul, down to the Franco-German war of 1870, every European war has been fought more or less in the valley of the Rhine. And for 2,000 years whenever the nations of Europe were not marching their armies to the Rhine, the petty princes, potentates and powers of the valley were fighting one another. The Rhine is the dividing line in Europe. Those who have read these letters to The News will appreciate the fact that instead of going to the large cities of Munich, Berlin and Hanover, we began with the Rhine as it flowed out of Lake Constance and plunged over the falls at Neuhausen, and have followed it through the Black Forest and Germany on its way “down north” to the sea, and will finally watch it mingle its blue into the great salt water at Rotterdam and The Hague.
The last two days we have traveled by boat from Biebrich to Cologne, that part of the river which is called the scenic or “the castled Rhine,” the part of which poets have sung and around which history and fiction have woven stories and legends in every language. But the Rhine is not only useful for the poetand the historian; it is also a plain business proposition. I am told and I believe that the Rhine carries more traffic than any other river in the world. It flows through a rich agricultural country, is lined with important cities, and especially with manufacturing places. Freight rates on the water are cheap. Products of the farm or vineyard, the shop or mill, placed on the boats, are carried with only one transfer to all the great markets of the world.
And now imagine the beautiful Rhine gliding among high hills, with every few miles a handsome castle or the picturesque ruins of one, with a busy railroad running on each bank, passenger and freight trains as frequent as suburban trains near Chicago, and two endless processions of steamboats, tugs and barges, one going up and one going down. That is the Rhine of to-day. The hills and castles reminiscent of the past, the black smoke of the furnaces and the shrill whistle of the engine the reminders of the present. You have to shut your eyes to see either the historic or the beautiful and keep them from “telescoping” into the practical present. And I will admit that the boats and the boatmen, the passengers and the freight interested me more than the dead-walls and the ivy-covered towers. If you think it over you will realize how castles and ruins pall upon your taste. When we began the trip we would rush from one side of the boat to the other to see a castle and hardly went below for lunch for fear we might miss a lofty summit or a breasted fortress. At the close of the trip a broken-downabbey or a roofless castle had no charms that would compare with a comfortable seat and a cigar. I remember well one of the last and largest castles we passed, one I had read of and looked forward to seeing. A friend enthusiastically exclaimed: “There is the Drachenfels on the other side!” And my coarse nature revolted, and I murmured that if the Drachenfels wanted me to see it, the Drachenfels would have to come around to my side of the boat. My neck was tired.
Really a homeopathic dose of Rhine castles would be very interesting. A thousand years ago some baron would build a big stone fortress high up on a hill overlooking the Rhine, and up to the discovery of gunpowder it was practically impregnable. The baron and his followers, according to the rules of the game, would divide their time between rescuing lovely maidens from giants and robbing the merchants and traders who passed by. I never heard of a knight or baron who worked for a living. History is filled with tales of deeds the old knights did for religion or for some fair lady, but it is silent or passes over lightly the fact that they made their money by robbery and murder, disguised under the name of expeditions, crusades, knight-errantry, and war. But when the inventive genius of man made a gun that would shoot through armor and discovered that gunpowder could knock down forts, the days of chivalry and highway robbery on the Rhine were over. The merchants and artisans no longer had to hire armies to protect their property and their families, and the rule of force was followed by the rule ofshrewdness, a change which may not have brought perfection, but has resulted in a show of decency, fairness and honesty.
A few old castles transported from the Rhine to Cow creek or the Kaw would be helpful to the landscape of Kansas. But there would be no use of stringing them out for a hundred miles. A castle a thousand years old is interesting, always provided your imagination is good. The best way to enjoy castles is to believe everything the books and guides tell you. I am getting fascinated with the legends, although I think I can unfasten. Now here is a choice legend of the castles of the Two Brothers, which stand on neighboring hills and which I saw early:
THE TWO BROTHERS.
Once upon a time there were two brothers, both as valiant and noble knights as ever wore armor or robbed a traveler. Unfortunately they fell in love with the same girl, and as she couldn’t accept both and had to say she would “always be a sister” to the other, the tension in the family circle got very tight. Finally the elder brother saw that the maiden loved the younger best, so he put his broken heart in his pocket, gave the pair his blessing and lit out for the crusades. In those days whenever a man lost out in love or was in danger of being hung for crime, he went to the crusades. The younger brother was very happy for a while, but he happened to visit another country and there he fell in love with another girl, just as much and as eternallyin love with her as with the first one. The second girl was wise or else she had been warned of the young man’s record, for she announced the engagement and the marriage followed soon. Girl No. 1 went to a convent with an aching heart, everybody settled down, and even the neighbors quit talking. Just at that time the elder brother returned from the crusades, and when he heard what had happened he thought it was awful. He went to his brother’s castle and challenged him to fight a duel. The younger brother was worked up over the interference of the family in his private affairs and was anxious to fight. The two knights met in a plum-patch back of the convent and prepared to settle which was right. Just as they drew their swords the original girl, who had been informed of what was going on by some busybody, rushed out of the gate, threw herself between the brothers and begged them not to fight for her sake. She made such a good talk that they shook hands and took a drink together as a sign that it was all over. The elder brother offered to marry the girl in the convent, but she refused. The wife of the younger brother ran off with another chivalrous knight and the two brothers were left alone in the world. They built the two castles side by side, and spent all their days together hunting deer and wealthy travelers, and died without ever flirting with another woman (so the legend says). The ruins of the two castles side by side are evidence of the truth of the story.
THE LEGEND OF COW CREEK.
THE LEGEND OF COW CREEK.
“Fair Bingen on the Rhine” was somewhat of a disappointment. Thousands and tens of thousands ofAmerican girls and boys have stood up in front of the school on Friday afternoons, scared stiff with the awful prospect of forgetting the next word, and told their school-mates:
“A soldier of the legion lay dying in Algiers,There was lack of woman’s nursing,There was dearth of woman’s tears.”
“A soldier of the legion lay dying in Algiers,There was lack of woman’s nursing,There was dearth of woman’s tears.”
“A soldier of the legion lay dying in Algiers,There was lack of woman’s nursing,There was dearth of woman’s tears.”
“A soldier of the legion lay dying in Algiers,
There was lack of woman’s nursing,
There was dearth of woman’s tears.”
And when the same moon shone there that shone on fair Bingen on the Rhine, those countless American youths have breathed a sigh for the soldier and several sighs over getting through. Bingen is a good sort of manufacturing town, and the fact that the poet selected the name because of its rhythm and not because it fitted the situation accounts for the success of the poem. After some reflection on the subject among the storied regions of Europe I have come to the conclusion that it is the romancer and the singer who make a country great and interesting, and not any special merit of the place itself. If Cow creek had a few legend-writers in a few years it would rank with the Rhine, the Black Forest, and even the fields of old England. How would this do for a Cow creek legend,a laEurope?
LEGEND OF COW CREEK.
Once upon a time there lived on the creek a wealthy old farmer who had a beautiful daughter. The fame of her beauty spread all the way to Sterling and down to Pretty Prairie, and many young men aspired to the honor of her hand in marriage. Among those who loved her was a neighbor boy who had nothing to his credit but a good name and a rare ability to makespeeches before the literary society which met every other Friday night at the school-house. As the good name was no good on a check, he knew the old farmer would not listen to his suit but would likely kick him into the middle of next week if he asked him for his daughter. So all the poor young man could do was to see her home occasionally after church and talk about the soulfulness of love and the communion of congenial souls. The young lady really preferred the aforesaid young man, but as she did not want to undertake the job of making a living for two or more, and she knew her father would never consent to taking him to board, she could only sigh and pine and sit in the shade of a cottonwood tree and dream of love. At last the father told his beautiful daughter that he had selected a husband for her, a man from Nickerson, a man who owned two sections of land and a lot of oil stock, but who could not tell the difference between true love and a pain in his side. That night the two young people met down by the creek bank and she told him of the fate in store for her unless he got a move on himself. Their plan was formed. That night the lover braced himself with a good “bracer” and met the maiden behind the barn. Away they went toward the county seat with high hopes and enough cash to purchase a marriage license. Suddenly they heard the gentle murmur of the father, who had discovered the elopers and was telling the people for miles around what he would do to the son of a gun who was running off with his daughter. It was a race for love and for life, but the old man was getting the best of it and the lovers could hear himas he was overtaking them. They came to the creek, which was on its annual flood, and then they gave themselves up for lost. But the young man happened to look around and saw an old cow. An idea came into his head. He drove the cow into the creek and each of them grabbed her tail. She swam straight to the other side while the old man stood on the bank cursing a blue streak. Away they went to town and were married by the probate judge before the flood went down and the old man could get across.
There was nothing for the father to do but to give them his blessing and eighty acres of sand-hill land, on which they lived happily ever afterward. The stream which thus saved the lives and loves of those two young people has been called Cow creek ever since.
If the people of Kansas will take a few stories like the above, have them trimmed up and embellished, tell them to visitors and charge admission to see the relics, they will have as good a collection of legends as ever grew on the Rhine.