ellers, though this tale is doubted. The castle towers high above St. Clement's Church, among the trees by the river side, somewhat farther down stream, which also has been restored. The great stronghold rises on the crest of a rock, hanging closely over the river, with barely room for a narrow road passing along at the base. Its elevation is two hundred and sixty feet above the water, the massive pinnacled towers and defensive walls seen from afar. Sir Kuno von Falkenstein lived here in the fourteenth century, and we are told there also lived in the village the beautiful Gerda of Rheinstein, famed as being, along the Rhine "the fairest maiden from Constance to the sea." She loved the brave Sir Kuno, and the neighborhood story tells of her woes, though she was made happy at last, in spite of an imperious father who encouraged another suitor. The legend of St. Clement's Church down by the waterside is more weird. St. Clement, who was martyred in the first century by being bound to an anchor and cast into the sea, has since been always invoked by the pious, when in peril from storm. There is a beautiful valley, the Sauer-thal, that comes out to the Wisper, which enters the Rhine not far away, and we are told that once the fierce lord of Rheinstein, carried off a fair and wealthy damsel from her home in this pleasant vale, and taking her upon the river, and through the whirling rapids below the Binger Loch, a fierce tempest arose. The maiden in her despair vowed that should she be saved from her |