[Illustration: Alfred Parsons F. D. Millet]
THE DANUBE
FROM THE BLACK FOREST
TO THE BLACK SEA
BY
F. D. MILLET
AUTHOR OF “A CAPILLARY CRIME” ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY
THE AUTHOR AND ALFRED PARSONS
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
Copyright, 1892, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
_All rights reserved._
“_Wenn ich dann zu Nacht alleine_
_Dichtend in die Wellen schau’,_
_Steigt beim blanken Mondenscheine_
_Auf die schmucke Wasserfrau_
_Aus der Donau_
_Aus der schönen, blauen Donau._”
--BECK.
CONTENTS
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 1
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 Hohenzollern--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 Höchstädt--Donauwörth--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 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
Dürrenstein, the Dungeon of Richard Cœur de Lion--Ruins and
Sentiment--A Gem of River Scenery--Canalization of the River--The only
“Blue Danube”--Tulln 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 102
CHAPTER IX
Pressburg and the River below--Monotony of Landscape and
our Introduction to Dust and Mud--Gran; Its Situation and
Attractions--Visegrád--Our Hospitable Reception--General Görgei--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 Földvár--A Surprise Picnic and a Severe
Storm--In the Heart of Hungary--Mohács 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--Monostorszég and a Peasants’ Dance--Curious Types and
Costumes--A Spectacular Sunday--First Signs of Oriental Life 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--Castle of Golubáç--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 1877-78--Exodus of Turks at Sistova--Trip
to Plevna--Echoes of the War--Rustchuk and Silistria--Monotony and
Mud 247
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 Bigelow
and F. D. Millet. _Frontispiece_
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--Neidingen 22
Max Schneckenburger, Author
of “Die Wacht am Rhein” 23
Below Mühlheim, Kallenberg 25
Wernwag 28
Wildenstein 29
The Monks of Beuron 30
Sigmaringen 33
Hohenzollern 34
Nuns at Riedlingen 35
Crossing the Weir--Rottenacker 37
Peasant Girls Mowing 39
Bridge at Rottenacker 40
Wood-sawyer at Ulm 43
From Strasburg to Ulm 44
The Bell Tower--Lauingen 48
Donauwörth 49
The Ferry 51
From Ulm to Straubing 53
Between Weltenburg and Kelheim 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 Dürrenstein 75
Grein, from the Camp, July 6, 1891 77
Pump at Pöchlarn 81
The Benedictine Monastery, Melk 85
Early Morning Opposite Dürrenstein 89
Dürrenstein 93
From Dürrenstein 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 110
Hundsheim 113
Gossips, Hundsheim 116
The Watch-tower, Theben 117
Peasant Girl, Theben 120
Hungarian Cattle 121
Gran (Esztergom) 123
Visegrád 126
Swineherd 127
A Family Wash 130
An Ark-boat 131
Country Market-boat, Budapest 134
Washer-women 137
Duna Földvár 139
Water-carriers, Duna Földvár 142
Fishing-station 143
Peasant Girls at Mohács 146
From Budapest to Belgrade 152
Schokacz Types 154
In Sunday Dress, Monostorszég 157
Hungarian Girls at Bezdán 159
Erdöd 160
Current Mills 162
Vukovár Watermelons 166
A Pig-wallow 167
A Gypsy Girl 171
Threshing Wheat 173
A Croatian Bivouac 175
Ó Szlankamen 176
Servian Women 177
Fortress at the Junction of the
Danube and the Save--Belgrade 178
Bulgarian Bozaji, Belgrade 180
Fountain in the Square, Belgrade 182
Semendria 185
Rama 189
Golubáç 191
Roumanian Peasant Girl 194
The Kasan Defile 199
Remains of Trajan’s Road
near Orsova 202
From Belgrade to Rustchuk 204
Remains of Trajan’s Bridge,
Turnu Severin 207
Roumanian Peasants 209
Servian Fishing-canoes 210
Carrying Water for the Camp--Brza
Palanka 213
“Our Guard,” Servian Militia
Camp 215
Massing of Servian Troops on
the Bulgarian Frontier 217
Drawing Water for the Camp,
Brza Palanka 219
Servian Militia, Brza Palanka 223
Building a House in Servia 225
House at Radujeváç 226
Roumanian Picket Guard 227
Bulgarian Fisherman Basket-making 232
Cann, opposite Kalafat 235
Bulgarian Peasant Types 237
Turkish Types 239
Turkish Quarter, Widdin 241
Turkish Vessels 243
Bulgarian Village 245
Becalmed 247
On the Bulgarian Shore, near
Rahova 249
Turkish Flat-boat 252
Turkish Women at Sistova 253
Old Mosque, Rustchuk 257
Bulgarian Buffalo Cart 259
Market-place, Silistria 261
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
Kilia 290
Chatal Saint George 291
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 Last Toilet in Camp 323
By the Black Sea 327
THE DANUBE
FROM THE BLACK FOREST TO THE BLACK SEA
CHAPTER I
At the head of a pleasant little valley high up among the bristling
mountain-tops of the Black Forest, a tiny stream of clear water 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 sunny 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.
[Illustration: PEASANT GIRL OF THE BLACK FOREST]
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 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
[Illustration: A HAYMAKER]
indulging in the exhilarating prospect of explorations in the
fascinating field of philology, and looking forward with no little
interest to revisiting under the pleasantest of auspices old friends and
familiar scenes. We 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 experience 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 only one he could depend upon. On the evening of Saturday, June
20th, two of us left London in the wake of the Admiral of the fleet, who
had paddled his canoe down the Thames to the Flushing boat some days
before. Thirty-six 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 Sommerau,
on the eastern slope of the water-shed. Although we had no 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 long-dreamed-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 settling-down 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
[Illustration: DONAUESCHINGEN GIRLS]
and the landscape becomes more extensive, the stream was now fully a
half-dozen yards 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 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 the 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 effectually 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.
[Illustration: 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 stern-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 stern 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.
We 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
[Illustration: BLACK FOREST COW TEAM]
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
canoist’s 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 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 comfortable 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 foot-steering 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! The
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.
[Illustration: SPECTATORS]
Our _batterie de cuisine_ consisted of three spirit-lamps of different
sizes and styles, a few plates and cups of white enamelled ironware, a
tin kettle, coffee-pot, teapot, and water-can, 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 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 looking palace of the Princes of
Fürstenberg, who have arbitrarily declared for their own glorification
that a large spring in their pleasure-grounds 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 of 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.