The Danube from the Black forest to the Black sea

Front matter

"^HE Danube

:l THE BLACK FOREST

TO THE BLACK SEA

Chapter I

The Black Forest — The Brigach and the Brege — The Highest Sources

of the Danube — Journey thence from London — Villingen — Arrival at

Donaueschingen — The Canoes and Outfit — Arbitrary Source of the

Danube Page i

Chapter II

The Start — Swans and Spectators — The First Weir and First Luncheon — Society for the Preservation of the Banks of the Danube — Tuttlingen and Max Schneckenburger — First Public Performance at a Weir — First Night in Camp and a Spoiled Breakfast — Monastery of Beuron and its Monks — Crags and Castles . . .... 15

Chapter III

Sigmaringen and HohenzoUern — Nuns at Riedlingen — Haymakers and Haymaking — The Last Weir — A Vigorous Current — The Confluence of the Iller and the Danube — Ulm and the Danube Rowing Club — Start from Ulm — Appointment of Camp-finder 32

Chapter IV

Lauingen ; Its Architecture and its People — Blenheim and Hochstadt — Donauworth — Lumber-rafts and our Narrow Escape — Virtuous Vohburg — Roman Remains and one of the Scenes in the ' ' Niebelungenlied" — Weltenburg Abbey — The Befreiungshalle and Kelheim — In Sight of Ratisbon .... 46

Chapter V

Ratisbon ; Its Architecture and its People— The Walhalla— The Plain of Straubing— A Summer Squall— A Typical Bavarian Farm-house — Visit to a Local Freight Flat-boat— Rowing Clubs at Deggendorf and at Winzer Page 59

Chapter VI

.Fourth of July at Passau— The Austrian Frontier— Through the Gorge in Rainy Weather— A Curious Ferry— A Brief Halt at Linz and a Camp at the Mouth of the Traun — Shooting the Rapids below Grein — Melk and the Pass below 74

Chapter VII

Durrenstein, the Dungeon of Richard Cceur de Lion — Ruins and Sentiment— A Gem of River Scenery — Canalization of the River — The only " Blue Danube " — TuUn and its Antiquities — Active River Commerce— Our Raftsmen Friends 88

Chapter VIII

Vienna ; Its History and Characteristics — The Lia Rowing Club — Our Stay at Hainburg and Excursions in the Neighborhood — Theben, the Frontier Town of Hungary — A Model Postmaster . . . I02

Chapter IX

Pressburg and the River below — Monotony of Landscape and our Introduction to Dust and Mud^-Gran ; Its Situation and Attractions — Visegrad — Our Hospitable Reception — General Gorgei — Our Reluctant Parting — Approach to Budapest — The First Accident to the Fleet — The Neptune Club — Gypsy Music ■ 119

Chapter X

Budapest almost our Capua — The Bridges and Baths — The Great Hungarian Plain — Cheery River Folk — Duna Foldvar — A Surprise Picnic and a Severe Storm — In the Heart of Hungary — Mohacs and a Veteran of Two Wars — Tokay and Patriotic Sentiments . . . 133

Chapter XI

The Franzens Canal between the Danube and the Theiss — A Heterogeneous Population-^Monostorszeg and a Peasants' Dance — Curious Types and Costumes — A Spectacular Sunday — First Signs of Oriental Life . Page 151

Chapter XII

A Watermelon Metropolis — Our Fleet taken for Torpedo-boats — A Gypsy Queen — Peterwardein and Carlowitz — Busy Life on the Banks — In Sight of Belgrade — Evening in Camp — The Servian Frontier — Semlin and Belgrade — Oriental Characteristics and Modern Improvements— A Sculptor's Paradise — An Unexpected Encounter . . 164

Chapter XIII

Semendria and its Great Castle — Our Passports are Useless — Bazias and the Entrance to the Carpathians — The Emperor's Birthday on a Gunboat — tCastle of Goluba^ — Drenkova and the First Rapids — Escape from a Whirlpool and a Dash through the Cataracts . 184

Chapter XIV

Improvements to Navigation — Rapids of the Jur — The Kasan Defile — Remarkable River Scenery — Trajan's Tablet and Old Roman Roadway— Orsova and the Herkulesbad — Ada Kaleh, the Turkish Settlement— The Iron Gates — The Danube and the Ister — Origin of the Name of the Danube — We Lose our Admiral — The Iron Gates — Captured by Roumanian Soldiers — Under Military Supervision. 197

Chapter XV

We are Arrested in a Servian Militia Camp — Barbaric Soldiery and Strange People — We Surrender to a Roumanian Picket — A Characteristic Servian Village — The Frontier of Bulgaria . . . .211

Chapter XVI

Kalafat and Widdin — A Gale out of a Clear Sky — Bulgarian Fishermen— Widdin and its People — Quaint Turkish Sailing Craft — The River Landscape and the Bulgarian Villages — Custom-house Annoyances— Our Passports save us 230

Chapter XVII

A Grazing Country — Wild-fowl in Abundance — Nicopolis and the First Reminder of the War of 1S77-78— Exodus of Turks at Sistova— Trip to Pldvna— Echoes of the War— Rustchuk and Silistria— Monotony and Mud Page 247

i CHAPTER XVIII

Squally Weather and Head-winds — The Dobrudscha — Trajan's Great Wall^Our Camp is Besieged, but Peace is soon Declared — A Roumanian Village — Braila and Galatz — A Tribe of Gypsies . . . 267

Chapter XIX

The Danube Delta — The European Commission and its Work — Sulina, a Town on English Soil — We Enter the Territory of the Czar — The River divides and the Delta begins 280

Chapter XX

We Fraternize with Russian Soldiers — A Night at a Picket Station^ Custom-house Formalities at Ismail — We Encounter the Police — A Desolate Land — We Camp in the Mud — Kilia — Moldavian Peasants and Russian Pickets . . 295

Chapter XXI

We reach Vilkoff and Renew our Struggles with the Custom-house — A Remote Town — The Sturgeon Fishery and Caviar — We Push on to the Black Sea — A Gale is Blowing, and We make a Landing with Difficulty— The Roumanian "Cordon" — A Paddle in the Black Sea— We dismantle our Canoes and reach Sulina 312

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

Alfred Parsons, Poultney Bige-

low. and Y.D. Millet. FroKiisJ/iece Peasant Girl of the Black Forest 2

A Haymaker 3

Donaueschingen Girls 5

The Sketch-book 7

Black Forest Cow Team 10

Spectators 13

The Start — Donaueschingen. . . 17

Pforen 20

Hut for Duck Shooting — Nei-

dingen 22

Max Schneckenburger, Author

of " Die Wacht am Rhein". 23 Below Miihlheim, Kallenberg. . 25

Wernwag 28

Wildenstein 29

The Monks of Beuron 30

Sigmaringen 33

HohenzoUern 34

Nuns at Riedlingen 35

Crossing the Weir — Rottenack-

er 37

Peasant Girls Mowing 39

Bridge at Rottenacker 40

Wood-sawyer at Ulm 43

From Strasburg to Ulm 44

The Bell Tower — Lauingen ... 48

PAGE

Donauworth 49

The Ferry 51

From Ulm to Straubing 53

Between Weltenburg and Kel-

heim 54

An Early Visitor 55

Ratisbon from the Bridge. ... 61 Returning from Market, Ratisbon 64

Oberau, near Straubing 65

Local Freight Flat-boat 69

On the Tile-boat 71

From Straubing to Diirrenstein 75 Grein, from the Camp, July 6,

1891 77

Pump at Pochlarn 81

The Benedictine Monastery,

Melk 85

Early Morning Opposite Diirrenstein 89

Diirrenstein 93

From Diirrenstein to Budapest 96

Lumber Raft 98

A Little Girl of Hainburg. . . 103

Peasant Wagon, Hainburg. . . 105

A Hungarian Ferry 107

The Wienerthor, Hainburg. . . 108

The Town Wall, Hainburg. . .

Hundsheim

Gossips, Hundsheim

The Watch-tower, Theben. . .

Peasant Girl, Theben

Hungarian Cattle

Gran (Esztergom)

Visegrad

Swineherd

A Family Wash

An Ark-boat

Country Market -boat, Budapest

Washer-women

Duna Foldvar.

Water-carriers, Duna Foldvar

Fishing-station

Peasant Girls at Mohacs

From Budapest to Belgrade. .

Schokacz Types.

In Sunday Dress, Monostorszeg

Hungarian Girls at Bezdin . . .

Erdod

Current Mills

Vukovar Watermelons

A Pig- wallow

A Gypsy Girl

Threshing Wheat

A Croatian Bivouac

O Szlankamen

Servian Women

Fortress at the Junction of the Danube and the Save — Belgrade

Bulgarian Bozaji, Belgrade. . .

Fountain in the Square, Belgrade

Semendria

PAGE PAGE

no Rama i8g

113 Golubaf 191

116 Roumanian Peasant Girl 194

117 The Kasan Defile 199

120 Remains of Trajan's Road

121 near Orsova 202

123 From Belgrade to Rustchuk. . 204

126 Remains of Trajan's Bridge,

127 Tumu Severin 207

130 Roumanian Peasants 209

131 Servian Fishing-canoes 210

Carrying Water for the Camp

134 — Brza Palanka 213

137 " Our Guard, " Servian Militia

142 Massing of Servian Troops on

143 the Bulgarian Frontier 217

147 Drawing Water for the Camp,

152 Brza Palanka 219

154 Servian Militia, Brza Palanka. 223

Building a House in Servia. . . 225

157 House at Radujeva9 226

159 Roumanian Picket Guard. . . . 227

160 Bulgarian Fisherman Basket- 162 making 232

166 Cann, opposite Kalafat 235

167 Bulgarian Peasant Types 237

171 Turkish Types 239

173 Turkish Quarter, Widdin. . . . 241

175 Turkish Vessels 243

176 Bulgarian Village 24s

177 Becalmed 247

On the Bulgarian Shore, near

Rahova 249

178 Turkish Flat-boat 252

iBo Turkish Women at Sistova .. . 253

Old Mosque, Rustchuk 257

182 Bulgarian Buffalo Cart 259

185 Market-place, Silistria 261

PAGE

Mosque in Silistria 264

From Rustchuk to Sulina. . . . 265 Roumanian Peasants Selling

Flowers and Fruit 268

Hirsova 270

Gura Ghirlitza 272

Loading Grain at Braila 274

Gipsy Camp at Galatz 277

Galatz 281

Peasants of the Delta 284

Dredging the Delta 287

Turkish Sailing Lotka, Sulina .' 288

Hills near Matchin 289

PAGE

Kilia 2go

Chatal Saint George 2gi

Toultcha 293

Windmills of Toultcha 294

Russian Picket Post 297

Fishing-hut among the Reeds 303

A Late Camp 307

Moldavian Peasants : A Windy

Day in the Delta 309

Vilkoff 313

Fishing Station on the Black

Sea 315

Roumanian Sailors at the

"Cordon" 319

THE DANUBE FROM THE BLACK FOREST TO THE BLACK SEA

Chapter I

T the head of a pleasant little valley high up among the bristling mountain - tops of the Black Forest, a tiny stream of clear water L* comes tumbling down the rocks, and, gathering strength and volume from an occasional spring or a rivulet, cuts a deep channel into the rich soil of the hayfields, and dances along gayly over its bed of glistening pebbles. To the north, west, and south the bold summits of the water-shed, heavily clothed in dark masses of coniferous trees, make a rugged, strongly accentuated sky line, and to the east delightful vistas of 5unny slopes and fertile intervales stretch away in enchanting perspective to the hazy distance. This little stream, the Brigach, with its twin sister, the Brege, which rises about ten miles farther to the south, are the highest sources of the mighty River Danube, the great water highway of Europe since earliest history, celebrated for ages in legend and song, gathering on its banks in its course of nearly two thousand miles to the Black Sea the most varied and interesting nationalities in the civilized world, and unfolding in its flow the most remarkable succession of panoramas of natural beauty known to the geographer. The Black Forest Railway, which crosses the mountains from the valley of the Rhine into the upper valley of the Danube by the way of Triberg, mounts the western escarpment of the range by a series of steep grades, curves, and short tunnels, in the midst of beautiful scenery of a semi-Alpine character, and, after the divide is reached, follows the course of the Brigach to Donaueschingen, a tidy little town in the Grand Duchy of Baden, usually called the source of the Danube, and, for the greater part of the year, the head of navigation for small boats on the upper river. A mile and a half below Donaueschingen the Brigach and

the Brege join, and the stream here receives the name of the Danube.

Our party of three was made up of ideal elements. The accuracy of this statement must be permitted for a moment to eclipse the habitual modesty of that member of '

y-^ J4.j2ai

PEASANT GIRL OF THE BLACK FOREST the expedition

whose duty it has become to tell the story of the trip. The originator of the enterprise was an expert canoist who had steered his frail craft through breakers of various seas and over shoals of countless rivers. On him was to devolve the literary part of the expedition — an arrangement which would have been carried out but for the ruthless interference of that all-powerful tyrant, Time. The other two members of the alliance expected to take elaborate notes of all attractive features of the landscape and all interesting types of humanity, the one meanwhile joyfully anticipating the pursuit of his favorite study of botany, and the other indulging in the exhilarating" prospect of explorations in the fascinating field of philology, and looking forward with no little interest to revisiting nnder the pleasantest of auspices old friends and familiar scenes. \\'e agreed to meet at Donaueschingen on June 22d. and made all our arrangements to have the canoes reach that point on or previous to that date. The experienre of old travellers with canoes was all against the successful consummation of this plan, particularly as two of the boats had to be shipped from New York, and would not be finished until the 3d of the month. The fate of the other canoe was more or less certain, for the owner decided to watch it himself all the way from London to the place of meeting, having learned after many disappointments that this process of transportation, although irksome, was the onlv one he could depend upon. On the evening of Saturday. June 20th. two of us left London in the wake of die Admiral of the fleet, who had paddled his canoe down the Thames to the Flushing boat some days before. 'J'hirtysix hours later, on the morning of the 22d. refreshed and cheered by the brisk air of the mountains after two feverish nights on the journey, we saw between the showers of rain the brilliant sunlight sparkling on a tiny mountain brook near the little hamlet of Sonimerau. on the eastern slope of the water-shed. Although we had no

A HAYMAKER map or guide-book, we knew at once that our acquaintance with the Danube had begun. The long-dormant sporting corpuscles in our blood took on a sudden and stimulating activity, and we were in a nervous quiver to begin our longdreamed-of cruise. The Rhine had failed to charm us with its majestic scenery ; we had seen only the hideous scars that modern man has made on the, fair face of nature there, with villas of carpenter's Gothic and summer hotels of repulsively mammoth proportions. Cologne, Mayence, Strasburg, which, under ordinary circumstances, would have been joys to us, had been on this journey aggravating impediments in the way of our progress,' for all the trains had seemed to combine viciously, to break connections at these points and to force us to (delay our eager flight. The charms of architecture and art, although always potent, had been but a meagre consolation to us in our impatience to .begin our intimate communion with Nature. Even the wonderful railway journey over the pass, while it had put us in a better mood and temporarily stirred our emotions, had not given us a tithe of the sensation that the sparkle of the rivulet caused as we caught sight of it after a great gray curtain of rain had been driven away by an all-powerful flood of sunlight.

The quaintest and strangest of costumes met our eyes as we leaned out of the window of our compartment when the train stopped at the station of St. Georgen, eager to see how the brook had widened there. The hurrying peasant women, in queer skull-caps with immense ribbon bows, stiff bodices, and short petticoats, seemed to be the supernumeraries in the prologue of an exciting drama now about to begin. The train rolled slowly on with that peculiar settlingdown motion that denotes a descending grade, and we watched the yard-wide brook gradually expand its channel and assume the proportions of a goodly stream. In the fertile valley near Villingen, where the country opens out

DONAUESCHINGEN GIRLS and the landscape becomes more extensive, the stream was now fully a half-dozen )'ards wide, and the recent heavy rains had filled it nearly to overflowing with a yellow flood. We had a sudden and strong temptation to stop and begin our cruise at this point, but the uncertainty of the fate of our canoes, of which we had received no item of information since they had been shipped at New York, made it imperative for us to push on to Donaueschingen, and our ambition to make the highest start on record in the Danube annals was forever crushed by the considerations of transportation. Donaueschingen was still dripping from a heavy shower when we arrived about noon-time, but the eloquently beaming face of our companion would have dispelled the gloom of the heaviest thunder-storm, and we heeded not the weather, for we understood at once that the canoes had arrived and were all right. Indeed, contrary to all precedent and all prophecy, they had turned up safe and sound the day before; and when we saw them for the first time, all sleek and shiny and dainty, resting on the flag-stones of the inn-yard

s as lightly as bubbles on a pool of water, we felt that kind and quality of elation that had been a stranger to us since the first happy day of school vacation. Graceful as violins, with sails whiter than the fresh whitewash of the tidy hostlery, with shining nickel fittings and every detail highly finished, they combined in their construction beauty and strength in a near approach to perfection.

Under the very wall of the inn-yard the Brigach, now quite a river and much swollen by the floods, rushed and foamed and filled the air with an inviting murmur. Donaueschingen has long been the starting-point for boating expeditions to Vienna, but, as we rightly conjectured, no craft similar to the American cruising canoe had ever before been seen there. Curiosity to examine the novelties, coupled with the knowledge of our plan to cruise as far as the Black Sea, which had been widely disseminated by our advance agent in his brief stay, made a ripple of excitement all over th^ town, and the inn-yard was constantly crowded with visitors, many of them skilled mechanics, for the neighborhood is widely famous for its clocks and wood-carvings. Only one of us, as I have already confessed, was acquainted with a canoe of this kind, but we were all experienced in the management of birch-barks and Canadians and other small craft. We efEectually concealed our ignorance from the spectators, however, and in the guise of testing the apparatus after its long journey, worked the sails, rudder, and centre-board, set up the tents, shipped and unshipped the hatches, until we became quite familiar with the working of them all. It may be as well at the beginning to show the result of our examination of the canoes and to describe them briefly, for the reason that our adventures will be better appreciated and our river life better understood if some adequate notion can be given of the craft that carried us by day and housed us for the night for three happy months.

THE SKETCH-BOOK

The three canoes were as nearly alike in dimensions, lines, weight, and fittings as the skill of an old and famous builder on the banks of the East River, New York, could make them. They measured 15 feet in length, 30 inches in width, and about 18 inches in extreme depth. A deck of thin mahogany covered the whole with the exception of an oval opening about 6 feet long and 20 inches wide, which was surrounded by an oak coaming about 2 inches high. A series of hatches was fitted to this coaming, and these could be adjusted in various ways, so that the canoe could be converted in a moment from an open boat into a modified Rob Roy, or entirely covered up and locked as securely as a jewel-box. Like all similar craft, a good strong oaken keel made the backbone, and a great many small ribs of riven heart-of-oak were copper-riveted to this keel, forming, with the stem — and stem-post and a few cross-timbers, a light, strong, and not too rigid skeleton. The sheer-strake was of mahogany, and the others of selected white cedar. All the fastenings were of the best copper, and the trimmings and fittings of nickel-plated brass. One peculiarity of the construction was that the deck-boards and all the strakes ran from stem to stem without a splice. The weight of each canoe, empty, was about eighty pounds, but with the nickel-plated drop rudder, heavy brass folding centre-board, two sails with masts and spars, paddles and general outfit, the whole weight in cruising trim must have been fully 200 pounds, but we never verified this estimate, judging only by the fact that at no time during the trip were they too heavy to be lifted easily by two of us.

\A'e were naturally quite as much interested in the practical working of the canoes as in their appearance, for we knew that the brilliant varnish would soon grow dim, the smooth surface of the mahogany become dented and scratched, and that the lines and proportions would alone remain to testify to the original perfection of the build. The two sails, a large leg-of-mutton main-sail and a mizzen of similar shape but much smaller, could be raised, lowered, reefed, and furled from the canoisfs seat on the floor of the cockpit. The mizzen-mast could be unshipped, the rudder raised out of the water or lowered below the keel ; the centre-board, which shut up like a fan into a long slot in the

T!.Z.M

BLACK FOREST COW TEAM keel, could be adjusted to any desirable depth ; the hatches could be shipped and unshipped, the canoe baled out, and all other necessary operations of navigation performed with the greatest ease and rapidity. A double -blade paddle 8 feet long, and jointed so that the blades could be turned at right angles to each other, was to be depended upon for the ordinary means of propulsion, but we anticipated using the sails as often as wind, weather, and the run of the river would permit. When paddling or sailing, the after-hatch of the cockpit was to be left on, and a movable bulkhead, upon which the forward part of the hatch rested, was intended to serve as a back-rest for the occupant, who also might sit upon the hatch and thus change his position at discretion. The length between the bulkheads was 8 feet, and on the cedar floor-boards of this space we proposed to make our bed for the night, trigging the canoe up on the shore for the purpose, and thus providing for ourselves a dry, sheltered, and tomfortable bed under all circumstances. A box-tent of good duck was made to be slung between the masts and to button securely along the gunwales. This was provided with flaps for ventilation and entrance, and with mosquito- proof curtains. The water-tight compartments fore and aft made excellent spaces for dry storage, and during- the day all articles for handy use were to be kept behind the back-rest where they could be easily got at. The spare paddle, unjointed for the sake of packing, the sketching apparatus, maps and note- books, and the footsteering gear and the fore-hatches, were to be the only encumbrances of the cockpit proper. When we came to experiment with our outfit we found that we had plenty of room and to spare, and subsequent experience proved to us the accuracy of our first plans for the stowage and arrangement of all our traps.

We naturally depended largely on the advice of the veteran cruiser of the party for the selection of our outfit, and we two novices had a consultation with him shortly after our expedition was decided upon. Knowing nothing about the canoes, we asked him what we should take along to make a bed with ; whether we should carry an air-pillow or one of the small cork mattresses we had seen advertised for such trips.

" Dear me, no !" he -said. " You don't need any blanket. Sleep in your clothes !"

" But a pillow ?" we urged.

" Just fold up your trousers for a pillow !"

" Then what do you cover yourself up with ?'

" That's simple enough. Pop your legs in the sleeves of your coat and your feet and ankles will be as warm as toast."

" What about your shoulders ?"

" Oh, well ; haul any old thing over your shoulders. You'll soon get used to that. The less you carry the better."

This unique method of making one's self comfortable for the night appealed more to our sense of humor than it did to the practical side of our nature, and we decided to carry a good thick woollen blanket, a rubber "one of extra quality, a canvas boat -bag with a suit of shore -going clothes, a sleeping -suit, various spare flannels, socks, boating - shoes, and other small articles. This bag would make, if packed with that end in view, an excellent pillow; and we proposed to trust to our constitutional endurance to become indifferent to the hardness of the canoe floor. A bicycle cape, a sketching umbrella and camp-stool, together with a sketch -bag full of materials, practically completed the personal outfit of the majority of the party. Of all these articles we found the rubber ones alone to be of no real use. The bicycle cape shed water for a few minutes and then converted itself into a complicated system of gargoyles which conducted the drip into the most intimate recesses of our clothing, and soon made the canoe floor a perfect swamp. As for the expensive rubber blankets, they were a fetich for many weeks. The hours and hours we waited for those dew-dripping sheets to dry ! 'I'he care we took of them lest they should get burned or torn, and prove worthless in the hour of need ! The trouble we took to pack them by day and to cover them up at night lest they should gather all the moisture of the neighborhood and communicate it to our clothing ! We never but once used them to shed the rain, and that was the third night of our expedition, but we conscientiously lugged them along with us the whole distance, and got only our bother for our pains. The sketching umbrellas and the camp-stools were, on the other hand, of the greatest use and a constant comfort.

When it rained we sat at our ease on the stools and comfortably cooked and ate and smoked under the spreading expanse of white linen. When a shower overtook us on the water we often hoisted the umbrellas and drifted along as sheltered and as dry as could be.

Our batterie de cuisine consisted of three spirit-lamps of different sizes and styles, a few plates and cups of white en amelled ironware, a tin kettle, coffee-pot, teapot, and watercan, knives, forks, spoons, and ladle. These necessary articles, together with the hatchet, a few tools and copper nails, medicines and general stores, we soon learned to distribute properly among the three canoes, and thus divide the weight and amicably share the trouble of transportation. It was astonishing how much the canoes would hold, and every time we unpacked them we always marvelled at their loading capacity. In addition to the outfit described we often had to carry fresh meat, vegetables, milk and wine, and a large store of burning spirits, to say nothing of a great

SPECTATORS many canned provisions. The limit seemed to be fixed only by the weight we were individually willing to struggle with. Our experiments with the canoes in the inn-yard and the rearrangement of our luggage occupied us most of the whole afternoon of the long summer day, but we had daylight enough left in which to see the town and stroll through the extensive park with its lakes and its sociable swans, and to gaze from afar on the inhospitable loolj;ing palace of the Princes of Fiirstenberg, who have arbitrarily declared for their own glorification that a large spring in their pleasuregrounds is the actual source of the Danube. They have surrounded the spring with expensive masonry, and erected a stone tablet with an inscription giving the information, among other things, that that spot is 678 metres above sea level and 2840 kilometres from the Black Sea by way of the Danube. The hotel where we stayed is at the southern end of the fine stone bridge connecting the two sections into which the Brigach divides the town. Conveniently near to the hotel is a large flight o^ stone steps leading down to the water, and here we proposed to launch the canoes early the next morning and make our start, a few yards above the source of the Danube, according to the prince's tablet, and about 2000 yards above the junction of the Brigach and the Brege, where the stream is first christened the Danube.

Chapter II

I HE final preparations for our cruise occupied more time than we anticipated, and it was quite eight o'clock before the canoes touched wkter at the foot of the slippery stone steps. A large proportion of the inhabitants of Donaueschingen gathered on the bridge and near the landing to see us off, and a dozen eager volunteers helped us carry our boats and launch them into the yellow stream. A few minutes sufficed to stow the traps, for we had sent the sails and tents and various other articles by rail to Ulm, thinking they would be more trouble than use on the upper part of the river, with its succession of dams and weirs. Then, amid the " Hochs !" and " Gliickliche Reises !" of the multitude, we scrambled in, each in turn, and pushed off. We firmly believe that no one in the great crowd of spectators detected that two of us were handling a double-bladed paddle for the first time — not even the two ladies from Massachusetts whom we met at the inn, for their hearty interest in our trip, and their enthusiastic admiration for the canoes, doubtless blinded them to the observance of our awkwardness. The swelling, curling stream bore us merrily out of sight of the town, and only an occasional paddle stroke was necessary to keep the bow in the right direction. Boys and girls ran along the shady path trying to keep pace with us, and we saw on the highway a carriage with our lady friends, who loyally kept sight of us for several miles. A very short time sufficed to familiarize us with the management of the canoes, so we could thoroughly enjoy the beauty of the landscape and indulge in the unalloyed feeling of satisfaction at our successful start, and we swept on through the great alternating patches of sunlight and shadow, under trailing boughs of large trees and past beds of tall rushes. In a few moments the Brege came in with a volume of water about equal to the Brigach, and then the real Danube rushed on, already quite majestic in aspect, through fields kaleidoscopic with myriads of flowers, reflecting in its pools the clear blue of the sky with brilliant summer clouds, adding new charms to the lan'dscape at every turn. A number of. swans from the park at Donaueschingen swam just ahead of us nearly to the first village, Pforen, with its dominating church edifice and huge wooden bridge. When they reached this self-imposed limit of their excursion they rose into the air with great flutterings and splashings, wheeled 'around and passed us so near at hand that we could feel the air from their great wings, then sailed away in graceful flight to their home in the secluded islands of the park. Large white wing-feathers danced along down stream ; and when, many weeks afterwards, we dismantled our canoes on the shores of the Black Sea, we found one of these carefully stowed away in an angle of the underpart of the deck, and, with mock ceremony of a message from the Swan of the Source to the Sturgeon of the Sea, threw it to the strong north wind.