Below, engineering skill has dammed in the waters of the river, and the basaltic blocks form a black wall with white lines between the stones. Black and white! Even the old God of the Rhine has adopted the Prussian colors. Embankments have been constructed at the wide points of the river, for the purpose of increasing its depth, and of reconquering meadows, by the slow but natural process of raising the level by mud deposits. Between Mannheim and Cologne, the current has gained ten hours, and the dangers of navigation of legendary celebrity have disappeared. All along the embankments immense white figures inform navigators at what distance from them it is safe to pass. On each bank, too, runs a railway, and on the river itself pass steamers of every shape, form, and description—steamers with three decks, for tourists, as in the United States, little pleasure-boats, iron barges from Rotterdam, steam-tugs worked by paddle or screw, and dredgers of various proportions; all these hundreds of chimneys vomit a continuance of black smoke, which darkens the whole atmosphere. The carriage roads are in admirable order; not a rut is visible, and they are lined with fruit-trees, and with the same black and white basaltic blocks as the river. The Prussian colors again; but the aim is to point out the road for carriages on dark nights. When the way turns either to the right or the left, the trees on each side of it are painted white, so as to be distinctly visible. I have never anywhere seen a great river so thoroughly tamed, subdued, and utilized, so completely bent to man’s necessities. The free Rhine of Arminius and of the Burgraves is as well disciplined as any grenadier of Brandenburg, The economist and the engineer admire, but painters and poets bewail.