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We passed two great boat-loads of lumber. The next stop is at Rüdesheim. Just below this they are building a new bridge across the Rhine, - not yet on map. The shores on the left are low, and recede far back to very low hills. There are no bluffs on the left. Below Rüdesheim, but on high slope, is the "National Denkmal", - a great figure of a woman on a tall and large pedestal, holding a wreath or crown aloft in her right hand. It is near the top of the hill.
Opposite this, on left side, the ^[[insertion]] timbered [[/insertion]] bluffs come suddenly close to the river, - like those just at and below Rüdesheim, (or Ruedesheim, as it is at landing).
Just below the reddish-stone bluff on left the bluffs recede slightly, and the lower slopes are cultivated.

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Rüdesheim seems to have attracted a good many of our passengers. The slopes here are covered with vineyards. Just below Rüdesheim the bluffs come close to the river (this is the first narrowing of the valley), and the slopes rise quite abruptly, but are covered with terraced vineyards.
Bingen is the next stop, and here the bluffs are close to the river. Bingen looks to me to be a little too smudgy to deserve the poet's title of "fair Bingen on the Rhine". This, however, is the beginning of the most picturesque part of the Rhine valley.
On the right, just below Bingen, only part way up the slope, there are old ruins, - an ivy-covered towered and the old walls of a castle, - Ehrenfels. (See postal).
Opposite this is an island, - a rock on which Mouse Tower stands, - now used to