The Life of the Moselle

The beautiful scenery of the Moselle has too long been left without notice. It is true, some of our Artists have presented to us scenes on the banks of this river; but English travellers are, for most part, ignorant how very charming and eminently picturesque are shores of this lovely stream. “The Rhine! the Rhine!” is quoted by every one, and admired or abused at every fireside, but the Moselle is almost wholly unexplored. Lying, as she does, it is altogether inexplicable that a river presenting scenery unsurpassed in Europe should be so neglected by those who in thousands pass the mouth of her stream. When the Roman Poet Ausonius visited Germany, it was not the Rhine, but Moselle which most pleased him. The Moselle, which rises among the wooded mountains of the Department des Vosges, never during its whole course is otherwise than beautiful. Below Trèves it passes between the Eifel and Hunsruck ranges of mountains, which attain to the height of ten or twelve hundred feet above the level of the river.