THE AUSTRIAN DANUBE
The Danube is the second largest river in Europe, its only superior
being the Volga. Out of its whole course of some 1750 miles about half
may be claimed by Austria-Hungary. Not only are the capitals of both
kingdoms situated on it, but the largest rivers in the Dual Monarchy
are its tributaries.
The general trend of the Danube in its course is fairly well known. It
enters Austria near Passau, and flows irregularly eastward to Vienna,
then, in something the same direction, on to Budapest, above which it
turns exceedingly sharply, almost at a right angle, and continues due
south.
On receiving the waters of the Drave on its right bank it reverts once
more to its original direction, continuing south-eastward. The Drave
is the northern boundary of Croatia-Slavonia, dividing it from Hungary
proper, of which at present it forms an unwilling part. The Theiss or
Tisza, which has crossed Hungary from the north in a roughly parallel
course to the Danube after Budapest, but with a much more irregular
course, now comes in on the left bank.
The Save shortly after runs in on the same side as the Drave, having
for the greater part of its course performed the useful function of
marking the boundary between the south of Croatia-Slavonia--which thus
lies between two rivers--and Bosnia, and then the reinforced Danube,
itself now the boundary between Hungary and Servia, flows to Orsova and
the world-famous Iron Gates, before passing on between Roumania and
Bulgaria to the Black Sea.
The Danube Steam Navigation Company, to say nothing of others, runs an
excellent series of steamboats, with reasonable fares, for all who care
to see something of the fine scenery through which the Danube passes in
part of its course. In winter the higher reaches are often frozen and
traffic is interrupted, but in summer the whole trip, from Passau to
the Iron Gates, is a delightful one, giving an insight into the heart
of the country. The danger from floods has been commented on, but this
is caused by melting snow and is not to be feared in summer. At one
time rapids made parts of the passage so dangerous that the sensation
surpassed mere excitement and became something worse, but by a steady
policy of clearing away difficulties and blowing up rocks much has been
done to render the passage safe without spoiling its fine effects.
Not the least interesting point of the trip is the strange medley of
nationalities one is sure to meet on the boat; Austrians, Germans,
Turks, Dalmatians, Jews, Slavs, and Hungarians are mingled in odd
disorder, and the clamour of tongues produces a veritable Babel. This
indeed gives a variety of life and colour often absent from other trips
which may have as much to offer in the way of scenery.
Passau itself, a quaint, old-fashioned, irregular place, is in Bavaria,
but as it is only a short distance from the Austrian border, it is
usually made the starting-place by those who wish particularly to
traverse Austria-Hungary. The river Inn, which flows into the Danube
at Passau, greatly increases its volume and gives another reason for
starting here. Not far below Passau, in mid-stream, standing out more
or less according to the state of the water, is the great rock which
breaks the current in twain and marks the meeting-place of the two
countries. This is called the Jochenstein, or Joachim’s stone. The
respective Governments have been careful to impress their insignia on
their own sides of it. There is something more impressive about an
unusual barrier like this, with the fugitive water speeding past it
from Bavaria into Austria at the rate of tons every second, than about
the more prosaic landmarks usually found.
The scenery, taken generally, is varied and beautiful; there are
sometimes stern cliffs standing out at an angle, so that the current
winds round to pass them, and sometimes they form a grand defile. Many
are bare and rocky, others fir-clad, and constantly the grey ruins of
an ancient castle may be seen perched on some boss, worn by age and
weather to a likeness of the rock on which it stands, an unconscious
manifestation that “protective” colouring is found elsewhere than in
living species and an argument against the theory associated with it!
Every castle has its own tradition, readily repeated and religiously
believed, like that of Schneiderschlossel, where a bishop and a goat
and a tailor are mixed in equal proportions, making up a capital story.
The unfortunate tailor attempted to throw a dead goat over a
precipice, but lost his balance and fell himself instead. His
mangled body, smashed up by the razor-edged rocks, was washed
down the stream. The country folk asserted that the goat was
no animal at all but the fiend himself playing the part of a
dead goat to tempt the tailor to his doom. To confirm this
it appeared that several of them had seen the goat leaping
up the precipices alive after the catastrophe. The bishop’s
chaplain thereupon sprinkled holy water over the precipice.
Now it happened that the tailor had been doing some work for
the bishop, and after his death it was discovered that he had
stolen at least a third of the glorious brocade which had been
given him to make the robe. Now, of course, the judgment which
had fallen on him was explained, for it was his impious theft
which had given the evil one this power over him. The offerings
of the pious to the bishop that year were doubled!
Englehardzell is the Austrian frontier house, for the real boundary
of the countries, otherwise than in the Danube, is marked by a small
stream a little below the Jochenstein.
Abrupt and steep, from either shore
The pine-clad precipices soar;
While oft, emerging from the wood,
In foam descends the mountain-flood.
At one point the river is contracted to half its usual width and
accordingly rushes onward with greater velocity than before; the hills
rise in varying heights from 600 to 1000 feet, and the turnings and
windings of the river are so complicated that one moment the steamer
heads north and some time later south, boxing the compass in her
ordinary course.
After the castle of Neuhaus, the original home of the Counts of
Schaumberg, the channel opens out and shows an entirely different
character, with numerous wooded islets and a more peaceful style of
beauty. We soon run past Mt. Calvary, the favourite pleasure-ground
of the people of the clean, prosperous, modern-looking town of Linz,
connected with an iron lattice bridge with the sister city of Urfahr.
Linz, however, is not by any means really modern, whatever its looks,
as its annals include the fact of its destruction by the Huns! It is
the chief town of Upper Austria, and was made a centre of occupation
by Napoleon in his octopus-like attempt to draw all Europe beneath
his sway. The great features of the neighbourhood are the hill of
Pöstlingberg, which can be reached by tram, and the massive castle
overlooking the Danube. It is interesting now in connection with the
observation cars put on to the Innsbruck-Salzburg-Linz-Vienna line as
an experiment in 1912.
The scenery below Linz, though attractive, lacks grandeur, and is
chiefly of the willow and lowland order, numerous osier-covered islands
appearing in every reach. The river Enns gives its name to the town
situated on it, and flows into the Danube nearly opposite to the
ancient castle of Spielberg. Before this we have passed the castle of
Tillysberg and the monastery of St. Florian--the former called after
Marechal Tilly, the terrible soldier who, before he was defeated at
Leipsic, used to boast he had never been in love, never been drunk, and
never lost a battle!
St. Florian, who lived in the time of the Emperor Diocletian, was
put to death by being flung into a river with a stone tied round his
neck, hence his peculiar fame for assistance in putting out fires.
The invocation to him ran, “O Florian, martyr and saint! Keep us,
we beseech thee, by night and by day from all harm by fire or other
casualties of this life!” The monastery dedicated to him is very large;
the greater part of it was rebuilt in the eighteenth century, but some
of it dates from the thirteenth.
Before reaching Grein, the scenery once more grows grand, and the town
itself lies above the Strudel and Wirbel, once places of great dread
owing to the rocks and rapids. But much of the danger has been done
away by blasting the rocks; though necessarily some picturesque effects
have vanished at the same time, still the increased safety has not been
too dearly bought. The real variety and beauty of the scenery cannot be
properly understood by those who merely rush through.
The island of Worth splits the channel into two. It has a ridge of rock
on the north side and this rises in contrast to the base of soft white
sand which forms a “silver strand” when the current is not swollen
unduly. The chief pinnacle is of course adorned by the inevitable ruin,
and this is further signalised by a large crucifix, at sight of which
the peasants cross themselves.
The tremendous task of cutting or blowing away masses of rock from
the river channel took about eight years, and during the winter the
workmen occupied Worth Island. The Horse-Shoe water-course, built of
freestone, skirting the north side of the island, was planned by the
engineer Liske, and the great undertaking was completed by blowing off
tons of the Kellerrock, a length measuring over 160 feet. The second
terror, the Wirbel, has now altogether disappeared. It was a whirlpool
occasioned by the meeting of the two streams which flowed fast around
a long tongue of rock 18 feet or so above water normally and 150 yards
long by a third as broad. This was less than three-quarters of a
mile below the Strudel, and boats and rafts just recovered from the
one had to plunge into the eddies and whirlpools of the other at very
great risk of being swamped altogether. The cause was in reality simple
enough and easily to be understood, being that one stream came up
against the impetuous force of the other almost at right angles, but
the peasant mind, revelling in the supernatural, invested it with all
the mystery of the unknown, and strange tales of weird wraiths rising
from unfathomable depths added to the terrors of the passage, and the
great circles of the eddying water, reaching sometimes to 50 feet in
circumference, were looked upon as a kind of trap peopled by sirens.
This was hardly wonderful, as at times the inside vortex was 5 feet
deep like a funnel or cup.
[Illustration: RUMANIAN CHILDREN BRINGING WATER TO BE BLESSED IN THE
GREEK CHURCH, DESZE]
The railway which we met at Linz took a curve to the south, and it is
not until after the junction with the river Ybbs we meet it again. The
white castle of Persenbeug stands up conspicuously near, with the town
of the same name close at hand. The castle of Weiteneck, the monastery
of Mölk, are both wonderful, but the latter compels the greatest
attention. It is huge and completely eclipses the little town attached
to it. The grandeur of its lines, the splendour of its interior finish,
mark it out as a palace among monasteries. Its cupolas and long ranges
of windows give it an individual note. Inside, the library is a truly
princely room, no less in its adornment than the valuable books and
manuscripts it contains.
Enough has been said to show that the stretch of the Danube between
Passau and Vienna fairly bristles with scenic and historic interest,
but two more castles at least must be mentioned, that of Aggstein,
standing aloof and remote on its towering pinnacle of rock, and that of
Dürrenstein, where Richard Cœur de Lion was imprisoned.
In the good old days, when might was right and opportunity
justification, these robber barons, perched on their mountain tops,
commanded the reaches of the river and levied toll to their liking on
the luckless men whose business compelled them to pass by water.
As to Dürrenstein, it has special claims to attention. Richard had
managed to offend Leopold of Bavaria in the crusades in the Holy Land,
and on his way home, being shipwrecked near Trieste, wandered through
his enemy’s country until he was seized, imprisoned, and held to
ransom. None of his unfortunate subjects knew where he was, and the
story goes that his minstrel Blondin, wandering for many months in
disguise, at length found him out by singing the first verse of a song
Richard had himself composed, to which the monarch responded by the
second verse. Whether this happened at Dürrenstein or at Trifels, where
he was afterwards removed, remains in doubt.
If Aggstein is fine, Dürrenstein is more so, because the crumbling
ruins, mounted on a peak and surrounded by torn and precipitous
fragments, appeal more peculiarly to English-speaking people owing to
the halo of romance. The walls are fast falling to pieces, the stones
and pinnacles that stand are hardly distinguishable from the curiously
vertical and narrow lumps of rock which rear themselves at all heights
around; the railway has driven a wedge through the very rock in which
the building was founded, yet a granite mass is pointed out still as
the chamber in which Richard was confined for fifteen weary months!
With the considerable market-town of Krems we end the bit of the Danube
known as the Wachau, which began at Mölk, and is the favourite “short
trip” of the citizens of Vienna, who are carried thence by rail and
river in hundreds during the fine-weather season. Happy they to have
such delightful scenery within such easy reach.
After Krems the scenery is again tame to Vienna and calls for no
special comment, except for the castle of Greifenstein with its
romantic story. From this castle there is a fine panorama of forest
and plain and of the island-bestudded Danube itself. Before reaching
Vienna, pass Klosterneuberg, and finally see the branch of the river,
known as the Danube canal, going off, only to rejoin the main stream
below the city.