The Beagle Log, 23 August 2007

Subject: The Beagle Log, 23 August 2007 Wed 22 Aug 2007 - 23:07

Good morning readers,

Here is a picture I took 40+ years ago. It is of a major river where significant goods are shipped (as evidenced by the barges).
Here is a two-part question:

The easy question is: What is the name of the river?

Subject: Re: The Beagle Log, 23 August 2007 Thu 23 Aug 2007 - 8:11

Oh heck - this is a difficult one, Don. Will have to study this again when I get back here tonight. By then - someone else might have posted the correct answer!! ck-wink

Oh please can't we have another clue ck-sad

Like - which country is it? Laughing

Subject: Re: The Beagle Log, 23 August 2007 Thu 23 Aug 2007 - 12:33

OK, another clue.

Subject: Re: The Beagle Log, 23 August 2007 Thu 23 Aug 2007 - 20:27

I thought this would be easy. The river is the Rhine. The harder part was the location, which is Oberwesel, Germany. I did not expect readers to get this unless they had been there.

In putting this together, I found a website hosting recent pictures of Oberwesel. It is http://www.thurrott.com/2003/05/germany/0522/. Toward the bottom of the stack of pictures is one from the same vantage point as the above picture.

The other clue, a former capital of a European country refers Bonn, the capital of West Germany.

In the mid-60's, as a private in the Army, I was stationed in Germany not far from Oberwesel. I drove along this stretch of the Rhine many times. With its many castles, it is one of the most scenic sections of the river.
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Don

Subject: Re: The Beagle Log, 23 August 2007 Thu 23 Aug 2007 - 21:53

Thanks Don,

I'd just arrived back at this Topic & was going to try & work it out - as I later noticed the flag on your photo! Yes, I've heard that the Rhine is beautiful & your photograph certainly does show how very scenic it is at that particular point. Its a wonderful photograph. I'm signing out for a while now & going to have a look at the website you mention. See you later aligator Very Happy

Carole

Subject: Re: The Beagle Log, 23 August 2007 Thu 23 Aug 2007 - 22:49

Oh there are some lovely images on that site, aren't there.

Wow - this is beautiful, & yes, seems to be from almost exactly the same vantage point as your own photo above, Don. I've emailed the webmasters of that site to tell them I've borrowed this image, & added their copyright, & asked for their permission to be able to keep it here.

River Rhine, Oberwesel, Germany

from http://www.thurrott.com/2003/05/germany/0522/
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PS: For interest, the freefoto.com website have started a "Europe" collection - but no Germany ones yet - though some lovely pics from Italy, Austria, & others. (we can use freefoto.com images as long as always include their copyright & a link to their site). Freefoto's Europe collection index page is
http://www.freefoto.com/browse/207-00-0?ffid=207-00-0
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Carole, Smith Project/Smith Chat Admin
Nothing is too small to know, and nothing too big to attempt (William Van Horne)

Subject: Re: The Beagle Log, 23 August 2007 Tue 22 Jan 2008 - 14:10

Your pictures and travels recall some of my GG Grandfather Smith's letters --1837-1840 while studying and traveling around Europe on foot:

To his parents:
NAMUR, March 18, 1838.
All the apprehended difficulties of traveling vanish as I meet
them, and though 'tis a strange land and a strange people, yet 'tis human nature still, and I find laws and conscience everywhere, often kindness, also, because I am a stranger, and "so Young!" as the old women say, "traveling about all alone!"
And the tone in which some ask me if I am not afraid to do so, assures me that I have nothing to fear from them. The days, the weeks are passing. I can count my absence now by months, and how glad I shall be when I shall count the time before I shall see you by days only!

To a friend
HALLE, April 12, 1838.
Safely arrived at length, just about at the time when I had become tired of wandering. I walked, with my knapsack on my back, my umbrella in my hand, and my Testament and Handbook in my pocket, as far as Coblentz, spending a Sabbath on the top of Drachenfels, stopping a day at Bonn
where Schlegel lectures, a most lovely place, with a grand University building, once a palace, seeing a thousand things of which I cannot now write.

I went among the tufa hills to the volcanic region of the Eifel, climbed the hills to see on their top the singular lake which is called Laacher Zee, and went into the depths of the earth to see the millstone quarries which are excavated in the heart of the mountains, and which are also very remarkable and grand.

At Coblentz I took the steamer for Mayence, and sailed up the Rhine between these two places on a most delightful day. . . . But it was the "glorious Rhine" which was my best company. Though the vine is not yet green upon its hills nor have the trees put forth their foliage, yet the grand outlines of the scenery remain the same always. The grand in nature is always grand, and all I lost was its contrast with the beautiful. Still left to me were all the historical associations
connected with every city upon its borders, and the legends that add a charm to every rock, and make all the ruined castles as interesting in the narrative as they are in the scenery. Still left, too, was the Rhine, with its broad and steady flow, with its windings and its precipices, its teeming cities and frequent villages, its hills of grandeur and quiet vales, and, more than all, its ruined castles and dismantled towers ("robbers' nests," as the Germans call them), making it indeed to be the" castellated Rhine." . . . The most striking thought which one has in journeying upon the Rhine, and it is the same throughout all Europe, that which, especially, an American has in the strongest degree, is that the old is everywhere struggling with the new.

Familiar as this was to me from the whole history of modern
Europe, I had not expected to find it so distinctly written upon the very face of the country. You see it everywhere, and wherever you see it, there also may you prophesy that the old will pass away-the old institutions, the old policy, the old forms, the old ranks-all are passing away. The castles are tenantless, and now make only the scenery more picturesque. The churches which the papal despotism erected, and which only a despotism could have constructed, are also crumbling; magnificent are
they, but they are the monuments of oppression. The palace of the Bishop of Liege is now an establishment for the iron manufactories of an enterprising merchant. I saw a church on a hill, at a distance. I climbed up to it and heard the clatter of the machines of a cotton factory. A nunnery upon the banks of the Rhine now sends forth an excellent broadcloth. These, and such-like are the signs of coming events. It is the" monarchy of the middle classes," which is to succeed the oppression of the Pope and the despotism of the Emperor. It is the merchant who buys the castle of the baron; it is enterprise which is taking the place of hereditary power. Everywhere are the marks of change, but it is a change which is a progress also."

"The old is passing away," he wrote in his journal at this
time, "and they are blind who in the very edifices of Europe cannot read this distinctly. It is passing away, too, gradually, like all healthful changes. Whenever it has made a galvanic start it has always been rebuffed and beaten back for a time, and for the moment lost; but when the change has been gradual, it has always kept the ground which it has taken. The changes achieved by war have been less durable than those made by legislation…"

Book: Henry Boynton Smith: His Life and Work By Henry Boynton Smith

Best,
Evan Smith

Subject: Re: The Beagle Log, 23 August 2007 Tue 5 Feb 2008 - 16:16

That's wonderful to read Evan,
Thank you so much for sharing it, and I've just tidied up the "book" link you included, so that it's clearer to read what it directs to.

Thank you again
Carole Very Happy