e62 RIESBECK’s TRAVELS THROUGH GERMANY .

four thoufand five hundred inhabitants. A great part of the corn, which is carried intothe Rhinegau from the neighbouring Palatinate , comes through this place ; which onthe other hand fupplies the Palatinate with drugs, and various foreign commodities.This traffic alone would make the place very lively ; but befides this it has very fruit-ful vineyards. The hill, at the foot of which it lies, and one fide of which is made bythe gullet, through which the Nahe runs into the Rhine , forms another fteep rock be-hind this gullet parallel to the Rhine , and the golden Rudefheimer mountain ; it there-fore enjoys the fame fun as this does, which makes the Budeffieimer wine that growson it little inferior to the Rudefheimer.

After I had enjoyed this uncommonly beautiful profped during a few days, I fpent afew more in the villages of the Rhinegau : here too I received ocular demonflrationthat the cultivators of vineyards are not the happiefl of men. The inhabitants of theferegions are fome of them extremely rich, and fome extremely poor ; the happy middleHate is not for countries, the chief produdt of which is wine : for befides, that the culti-vation of the vineyard is infinitely more troublefome and expenfive than agriculture, itis fubjected to revolutions, which in an inftant reduce the holder of land to the condi-tion of a day labourer. It is a great misfortune/or this country, that though reftrainedby law, the nobility are, through connivance of the Elector, allowed to purchafe asmuch land as they pleafe. The peafant generally begins by running in debt for hisvineyard ; fo that if it does not turn out well, he is reduced to day-labour, and therich man extends his poffeffions to the great detriment of the country. There are feveralpeafants here who, having incomes of 30, 50, or 100,000 guilders a year, have laidafide the peafant, and affumed the wine merchant; but fplendid as their iituation is,it does not compenfate, in the eyes of the humane man, for the fight of fo many poorpeople with which the villages fwarm. In order to render a country of this kind prof-perous, the hate fliould appropriate a fund to the purpofe of maintaining the peafant inbad years, and giving him the afiifiance which his neceffities, and his want of readymoney, may from time to time make convenient.

The inhabitants of the Rhinegau are a handfome and uncommonly flrong race ofmen. You fee at the very firfl afpect that their wine gives them merry hearts andfound bodies. They have a great deal of natural wit, and a vivacity and jocofenefswhich diflinguifhes them very much from their neighbours. You need only comparethem with fome of thefe, to be convinced that the drinker of wine excels the drinkerof beer and water, both in body and mind, and that the inhabitant of the fouth is muchRouter than he who lives in the north ; for though the wine drinker may not havequite as much fielh as he who drinks only beer, he has better blood, and can bear muchmore work. Tacitus had already obferved this in his treatife Demoribm Germamrum.“ The large and corpulent bodies of the Germans (fays he) have a great appearance,but are not made to laft.” At that time almofl all the Germans drank only water; but themere drinking of wine has effe&ed a i*evolution in feveral parts of Germany , whichmakes the prefent inhabitants of thefe countries very different from thofe defcribed byTacitus . Black and brown hair is much commoner here than the white which madethe Germans fo famous in old Rome .

You will eafily imagine that the monks fare particularly well in fo rich a country.We made a vifit to the Prelate of Erbach . I cannot find adequate words to difcoverthe poverty of this cloifter. Thefe lordly monks, for fo in every refpeCl they are, havean excellent hunt, rooms magnificently furnifhed, billiard tables, half a dozen beautifulfinging women, and a ftupepdous wine cellar, the well ranged batteries of which made