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CHAPTER V.
All travellers that had a day or two to spare in ascend-
ing the Rhine used formerly to make an excursion from
Godesberg into the valley of the Ahr. Since the esta-
blishment of the steam-boats, many of these side ex-
cursions are neglected, as being too tedious. The agricul-
turist does not measure the interest attaching to his tour
by its length, and in studying the remarkable contrast
oflFered by the Rbenish highlands to the plains we have
traversed, he will find a stay in the Ardennes well
worth his while.
The hills that a little below Godesberg run out to the
Rhine, and with the chain of the Seven Hills opposite
form the boundary of what is so properly designated “ the
Low Countries,” are the eastern ramifications of the Ar-
dennes, the true and irremovable boundary between
France and Germany. Leaving Godesberg, the tourist
passes, at Vilip, on to the elevated plateau, whose vol-
canic origin is evident to the most superficial glance.
The rocky ground covered with a thin layer of earth, and—
where cultivation has fostered and increased its accumu-
lation— crops whose precarious appearance but too well
accounts for the poverty of the cultivators, present a
chilling foreground, behind which naked crags rise in
various elevations, darkly and cheerlessly crowned in the
distance by the summit of the Michelsberg. The middle-
ground of the picture is filled up by forests that seem
AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE.
77
boundless to the view, covering the bases of the craggy
ranges, especially to the right, where their dark shadow-
ing from an elevated point can be followed until all
merges into indistinct grey. Through one of these fo-
rests, “the Wood of Flamersheim,” so called from a
neighbouring hall with knightly privileges, the road to
Miinstereifel, or the Minster of the Ardennes (in Ger-
man EifeΓ), conducts the traveller. A walk or drive of
about fifteen miles has transported him from a sunny
corn-growing plain, into a wild mountainous region,
whose ancient evil repute is still curiously attested by
the pains every one in the towns and villages through
which he passes takes to assure him that they do not be-
long to the Eifel. And yet in times when the lowlands
where the object of knightly ravage, these barren heights
were tenanted by noble families ; and to judge by the
respectable appearance of the Jesuits’ Convent at
Miinstereifel, as well as by the name of the place itself,
they were not so poor as to be despised by the Church.
Miinstereifel is situated on the little mountain brook
called the Erft, which, from the damage its waters occa-
sion, is called the “ wilde Erft,” and its story gives occa-
sion to notice one of the remarkable phenomena which
are almost peculiar to Germany, or at least to Central
Europe, and some of the causes of which have latterly
been systematically calculated by agriculturists. The
sudden rise of craggy summits amidst extensive plateaux
and wide spreading plains, probably occasions a resistance
to the electrical streams circulating in the atmosphere,
which collect around them until an explosion takes place,
such as is rarely known in Western Europe. The “ Cloud-
break ” (Wolkenbruch) is the name given in Germany to