Where the Nahe flows into the Rhine, there or about there, stands Bingen, and no amount of pretty poetry that has been said or sung about “Bingen on the Rhine” can make it any thing but a dull, dry, flat, dusty village, and horribly disagreeable at noon on a scorching hot day, such as this. We footed it half a mile from the station under a blazing sun, as there was no way to ride, and found a cool shade, while waiting for the steamboat to come up the river. The sight was romantic and picturesque. In the water, a little way above us, stand the ruins of Bishop Hatto’s tower, the story of which is too familiar to be told again. He had hoarded corn in a time of famine, and the rats pursued him for his wickedness. He fled to this tower in the river. The rats swam out to it, ran up the walls, found their way in, and cleaned the Bishop’s bones for him. Southey has done the story into a ballad. [Illustration: ON THE RHINE.] The Castle of Ehrenfels is on the side of the hill across the river, and the Rudesheimer vineyards on the hill-sides furnish that celebrated variety. All the Rhine wines are named from the castle, chateau, or neighborhood where they are made. The flavor depends more on the soil than on the art with which the wine is made. The process is substantially the same in all the vineyards, but the flavor of the liquor is decidedly different. The hill-sides are so steep, and the rains are sometimes so heavy, that the soil is often carried down into the bed of the rivers. It can then be recovered only by scooping it from the bottom, and carrying it up in baskets. This is done every year. We might fear it would be spoiled by being carried into the river, but the loss of strength is not enough to alter the nature of the original. Some of the brands are famous, and the prices vary accordingly; but the cheapness of these wines here on the ground, compared with New York, makes one readily believe that the importation of wines must be among the most money-making of all kinds of business. Vinegar and water is quite as good a drink as much of this wine, and a little sugar added makes it better. Prince Metternich owns the famous Johannisberg vineyard, a little farther on, of seventy acres, of which many and fabulous tales are told of the small quantity and great prices of the wine, of the celebrated men who have owned the vineyard, and how very costly the wine becomes by age. But I will not weary you with them. The river itself is identified with the history of Europe. Taking its rise in the St. Gothard Pass in Switzerland, it receives tributaries all the way down, yet it is a small and comparatively insignificant stream. But kings have often fought for it, and it was the late French Emperor’s highest ambition to water his horses in the Rhine.