The approach to Coblentz is beautiful, and it was set off by all the effulgence of a magnificent sunset. The inns here are so crowded that it was with the greatest difficulty we found apartments in the largest of them. On the whole I am delighted with the expedition and with all I have seen, though the banks of the Rhine are not to be compared to the scenery of Monmouthshire or North Wales. 'The castled Crag of Drachenfels' is not so striking a ruin as the castle of Dinas Bran; Dover Castle is much more imposing than Ehrenbreitstein; but then there is the Rhine instead of the Wye--the grandest of rivers instead of a slimy streamlet. It is an intolerable bore not being able to speak German, for though waiters and innkeepers speak French and English almost universally, the mass of the people only speak German, and one feels miserably stupid and helpless at hearing a language clattering around one in every direction without being able to comprehend a word of it. I am much struck with the gaiety of the people and a certain style of joyous familiarity they have among one another; all the people on board the steamer (belonging to it), from the man in authority down to the cabin boy, seeming so free and easy with each other, and though very civil and particularly obliging, they have a certain air more of independence than familiarity with the passengers. [Footnote 62: [Some thirty years later the edifice was completed.]] _Frankfort, June 23rd._--I left Coblentz by the ten o'clock steamer on Wednesday morning. The scenery from thence to Bingen is by far the finest and certainly very beautiful and interesting, not that there is anything on either bank so grand or romantic as in Italy, Switzerland, or Wales, but altogether it is very charming, and the attention is never allowed to flag. The Rhine is noble, and its turnings and windings exhibit a perpetual variety of prospect, the same objects being presented in so many different aspects. It would be ridiculous to attempt to describe what has been already described by a hundred tourists and artists. A man in the steamboat, who was evidently concocting a journal, very sensibly copied out what he wanted to describe from Murray's handbook; probably he could not do better. [Sidenote: MAYENCE.] The Princes of Prussia have caused two of the ruined castles on the left bank to be repaired, and have made residences of them; but the destroyers of castles have done more for the picturesque than the restorers, for the ruins are out of all comparison more romantic objects than the perfect buildings. The amazing solidity with which they are built is proved by the facility with which they have been restored, besides which there is one that has continued perfect, and another which was allowed to go to decay only a few years ago, when the roof was taken off to save the expense of keeping it in repair.