I was informed by some French officers who were in the boat with me, that the society in Coblentz was very elegant; that a number of families lived in splendor; and also, that Bonaparte had continued with some modifications the colleges, and most of the public institutions, which the Electors of Treves had at various times established in that city. The vast and celebrated monastery, called in German Karthaus, or La Chartreuse, situated on a high mountain, in the neighbourhood to the west of Coblentz, from which the countries of Treves, Mayence, Cologne, Darmstadt, d’Anspach, and Wied, may be seen, is converted into an observatory, and a place of very agreeable recreation. Upon my return, in descending the Rhine, I had an opportunity of more closely seeing Ehrenbreitstein, which I was enabled to do from the following circumstance: the Rhine schuyt was uncommonly crowded, and late in the evening we arrived at a hamlet on the right bank of the river to sleep: the house in which we were to pass the night was not able to furnish beds more than barely sufficient for the ladies on board, which at once determined a French officer, one of the party, who had not placed his head upon a pillow for three preceding nights, and who was a wretched invalid, apparently in the last stage of a decline, to hunt amongst the cottagers for a fiddler, to whose miserable sounds this epitome of his nation, with several other officers and petty German merchants, danced till the dawn of day, _pour passer le temps_, and the boat was ready to proceed. Having found by moon-light a nook in a peasant’s nest, in the most romantic situation under heaven, I lay down, and never awoke till an hour after the boat had departed, in which dilemma I was obliged to hire a punt with two paddles, and by the assistance of a couple of sturdy peasants overtook the passage-boat, which lay off Coblentz, during which I visited Ehrenbreitstein. At its base there is a pretty town and an excellent hotel; opposite to the palace is a walk of limes, close to which was moored the electoral state yacht, or barge, in shape and size resembling our Lord Mayor’s, but not quite so gaudy. The ascent to this stupendous rock, which is eight hundred feet in a perpendicular line above the level of the river, is by a very narrow, steep, and winding path: the noble fortification on its sides, and the castles, arsenals, barracks, and batteries upon its summit, from whence the eye can behold the mountains of Lorraine, the meanders of the Rhine, and the countries through which it flows to a vast distance, and from which the beholder might almost think he could step into the clouds, are all roofless and dismantled. The citadel was erected by the order of the Prince Bishop Herman Hillinus, in the 12th century, upon the ruins of an ancient Roman building.