Excerpt from Wanderings of a Vagabond: An Autobiography

In all Europe no lovelier view meets the eye of the tourist than that seen from the summit of the Dragon Mountain. For more than sixty miles the eye may trace the windings of the beautiful Rhine, as it meanders through fertile valleys adorned with highly-cultivated farms, vineyards, churches, villas, and the palatial residences of the nobility. Beneath him lies the beautiful village of Melheim, to the left the ruins of Rollandseck and the islands of Nonnerswerth and Oberwinter, to the right the ruins of Godesburg, and, farther on, the city of Bonn, while in the dim distance the cathedral spires of Cologne point to heaven.

As the eye turns from the river the scene is entirely changed. Hills elevated above hills, in endless succession of pyramids, until the eye turns for relief to the beautiful Rhine.

The Rhine! The German's fairy-land! His heaven upon earth! The semi-barbarous hordes who, centuries ago, inhabited the castles whose picturesque ruins strike the traveler with admiration and delight, are to him familiar friends. Their deeds of rapine, their deadly feuds, the scenes of "battle, murder, and sudden death, " in which their lives were spent, are to him the essence of chivalry. Truly, a more blood-thirsty set of villains never disgraced humanity. The peasantry who fed their flocks on the fertile hills, or lived in Arcadain simplicity in the valleys enclosed by them, had no rights which they held themselves bound to respect. "Might made right, " according to their creed, and their scanty flocks were laid under contribution at their pleasure, and even their wives and daughters torn from their arms to gratify the brutal lust of their masters.

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