Pass "jtJ.£ -i-pj Book Ell DESCENT OF THE DANUBE, FROM RATISBON TO VIENNA, DURING THE AUTUMN OF 1827. ANECDOTES AND RECOLLECTIONS, HISTORICAL AND LEGENDARY, TOWNS, CASTLES, MONASTERIES, &c, UPON THE BANKS OF THE RIVER, AND THEIR INHABITANTS AND PROPRIETORS, ANCIENT AND MODERN. By J. R. PLANCHE, AUTHOR OF (< LAYS AND LEGENDS OF THE RHINE," "^OBERON," AN OPERA, §C. Ye glorious Gothic scenes ! how much'ye strike All phantasies, not even excepting.mine : A grey wall, a green ruin, rusty pike, Make my soul, pass the equinoctial liner Between the present and past worlds, and hover Upon their airy confine, half-seas»over % — -Don Juan, Canto X» V LONDON: PRINTED FOR JAMES DUNCAN, PATERNQSTER-RQW MDCCCXXVIir. 9* LONDON • Printed by William Clowes, Stamford Street. SAMUEL RUSH MEYRICK, OF GOODERICH COURT, HEREFORDSHIRE, ESauiRE, LL.D., F.S.A., &c. &c. THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED BY HIS VERY SINCERE AND MUCH OBLIGED FRIEND, J. R. PLANCHE. Brompton-Crescent, July 1, 1828. PREFACE It appears rather surprising that, while our printshops teem with views on the Rhine, and the shelves of our booksellers groan with the weight of Tours in its neighbour- hood, no English pen or pencil should have been hitherto employed in illustration of the magnificent Danube. Captain Batty, it is true, in his beautiful work entitled " Ger- man Scenery," has three or four views upon the river, and one or two modern tourists have slightly mentioned a town or so, which, lying on the post-road to Vienna, as well as on the banks of the Danube, they have passed through on their way to the Austrian capital. But, with the exception of the translation of Baron Riesbeck's travels in Germany, published in the fifth VI PREFACE. volume of Pinkerton's collection, which contains a very brief but faithful descrip- tion of the river from Passau to Vienna, I am aware of few works in our lan- guage from which the slightest idea of its beauty and interest can be drawn, and of none absolutely dedicated to its history and illustration *. That the Danube should * While this volume was passing through the press, " A Summer's Ramble amongst the Musicians in Germany" appeared, in which pleasant book, a dozen pages are allotted to an equally brief and spirited notice of the banks of the Danube from Passau to Vienna. Upwards of one hundred years ago, Lady M. W. Montague descended the Danube from Ratisbon to Vienna, a voyage of which she dismisses her account, in a dozen lines. " We travelled by water from Ratisbon," says the fair writer, " a journey perfectly agree- able down the Danube, in one of those little vessels that they very properly call wooden houses, having in them all the con- veniences of a palace, stoves in the chambers, kitchens, &c." (I do not know what exertions might have been made for the accommodation of a British Ambassador, his Lady and suite, but the Danube, I suspect, has not seen such another boat during the last century.) "They are rowed by twelve men each, and move with such incredible swiftness, that in the same day you have the pleasure of a vast variety of prospects ; and within the space of a few hours, you have the pleasure of seeing a populous city, adorned with magnifi- cent palaces, and the most romantic solitudes which appear distant from the commerce of mankind, the banks of the PREFACE. Vll be so little known to our rambling country- men is the more remarkable, as Vienna — voluptuous Vienna ! is one of the points to which it leads, and the ease, pleasure, and velocity with which its stream may be descended, render, in commonly fair wea- ther, the passage by water considerably pre- ferable to the journey by land, though per- formed in the traveller's own post-chariot; and as by land he must return, he thus se- cures to himself the advantage of entirely new scenery, even if compelled by time or circumstances to retrace his line of route. The road from Frankfort to Ratisbon is replete with interest — the beautiful banks of the meandering Mein ; the battle-field of Dettingen ; the fine chateau and gardens of Aschaffenburg ; Wurtzburg with its splendid palace, its rich conservatories and rock-throned citadel ; Niirnberg, the birth- Danube being charmingly diversified with woods, rocks, mountains covered with vines, fields of corn, large cities, and ruins of ancient castles." — Letter to the Countess of Mar, dated Vienna, September 18th, o. s. 1716. V1U PREFACE. place of Albert Durer, with its fantastic buildings, and gorgeous cathedral, all tempt the wanderer on to the heights of Hohen- Sehambach, where the plain of the Danube bursts upon his view. The return from Vienna, by Salzburg and Munich, or through the Tyrol to the Lake of Constanz, and so down the Rhine home, leaves nothing to be wished for in point of scenery; while six weeks or two months, provided the tra- veller be not ensnared by the gaieties of Vienna, are amply sufficient, in fair wea- ther, for the whole of the journey. Having sought in vain, on my departure from England, for a book which would serve me as a guide and companion down the Danube, I was induced to take a few notes and sketches during my little voyage, in the hope that, when thrown, at my lei- sure, into something like a readable shape, they might become useful to future travel- lers, by at least standing in the gap till some abler hand should supply the deside- PREFACE. IX ratum. In the pursuance of this object, I was greatly assisted by a copy of Pro- fessor Schultes' Donau-Reise*, the best foreign guide down the Danube; but which is yet incomplete, and suppressed in Aus- tria on account of its political and reli- gious opinions. At the same time, how- ever, that I acknowledge my obligations to this work, from which I have gleaned much information on points that could only have been explained by a native, or one long re- sident in the country, I must take the liberty of expressing my objection to its style, which renders its perusal a task to Germans themselves, and must make it almost a sealed book! to a foreigner. Herr Schultes' prolix- ity, ^nd love of inversion, are enough to drive ^in English reader crazy. The latter, indeed! he carries to such an extent, that the waggish description of " the-in-general- strewed\with-cabbage - stalks-but-on-a-Sa- \ * Ein haikbuch fur Reisende auf der Donau. Von J. A. Schultes, M. W &c. Wien, 1819. Stuttgart, 1627. X PREFACE. turday-night-lighted-up-with-lamps-market of Co vent Garden" must hide its dimi- nished head. The learned Professor some- times keeps his inquisitive victim on the rack for pages, before he deigns to dis- close the word which solves the enigma of his apparently interminable sentence. He seems to glory in this species of mystifica- tion, and, like poor dear innocent Dog- berry, were he " as tedious as a king/' he would " bestow it all upon your worship/' Still, however, " there is matter in this madness," and the Professor has been a diligent digger. The list of German au- thors, both ancient and modern, who have written upon the antiquities, history, and natural productions of the towns and shores of the Danube, was invaluable to a stran- ger like myself, as it enabled me at once to lay my hands upon authorities ' pour veri- fier les dates, 5 &c. ' Die Burgvesten und Ritterschlosser der Oestreichischen Monar- chic, 4 T. Brunn, 1820,' is anotaer work, PREFACE. XI which has afforded me much curious le- gendary material ; as have also the ' Tas- chenbuch zur Geschichte verfallener Ritter- burgen/ &c, Wien, 1826, and other simi- lar publications. The Danube, whose waves have wit- nessed the march of Attila, of Charlemagne, of Gustavus Adolphus, and Napoleon; whose shores have echoed the blast of the Roman trumpet, the hymn of the Pilgrim of the Cross, and the " wild halloo" of the sons of Islam, whose name is equally dear to history and fable ; to him who, in fancy, sees the lion-hearted Richard of England languishing for his native land, or follows the beautiful widow of Siegfried to the " rich King Etzel's court," — that such a theme was worthy of being treated by the first writers in our language, was an awful consideration for one of the humblest ; that it had not been touched upon by any was the only encouragement. " You have often scribbled successfully for the stage," Xll PREFACE. said my friend , "why should you fear to write for the passage-boat ? " The joke was a vile one, but the argument was conclusive. Gentle reader, this is my first appearance in the character of a tourist. I have taken the part at a short notice, no one else having appeared to sustain it, and respectfully solicit the usual indulgence. CONTENTS, CHAPTER I, Page First View of the Danube and Ratisbon — Description of Boats on the Danube — The City of Ratisbon — The Cathedral— The Heide Platz— Church of the Scotch Benedictines — The Bridges — The Rath-haus — The Abbey of St. Emmeram — Story of Frederick von Ewesheim — Church of the Dominicans — The Neue- Pfarre-Kirche — Ober and Nieder Minister — Karmeli- ten Kloster— The Horses' Church — The Promenades — Unterhaltungs Haus — Maximilian Joseph Gasse — David and Goliath — Embarkation— Worth— Donau- stauf— The Dunkel-boden — Sossau CHAPTER II. Straubing — The Bridge — The Hauptstrasse — The Stadt- thurm — The Pfarr, or Collegiat Kirche — Story of Agnes Bernauer — The Ramparts — The Atzelburg — Ober Altaich — Bogenberg — Kloster Metten — The Natternberg — Deggendorf — The Gnade Zeit — Con- fluence of the Isar and the Danube — Rafts from Munich to Vienna — Nieder Altaich — Hengersberg — Osterhofen — Hoch-winzer — Hofkirchen — Kinzing — Hildegartsberg — Vilshofen — Collegiat Stift — The Sandbach — New Road to Passau — Maximilian Jo- seph I., late King of Bavaria — Louis I., the present Monarch — Statue of a Lion — Approach to Passau . , 32 XIV CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. Page Passau — The Inn-stadt — The Fair — The Cathedral — The Bridge — Fortress of Oberhaus — Celebrated View — Mariahilf— The Ilz-stadt — The Sword Cutlery- Present Manufactures and Commerce of Passau — Talismans — Goitres — Excursions into the Environs of Passau — Confluence of the Inn and the Danube — Krempenstein — Hafner Zell — Its Manufactories — ■ Fichtenstein — The Jochenstein — The Ruin of Ried . 77 CHAPTER IV. Engelhard' s-zell — Rana-riedl — Marsbach — WesenUrfar — Waldkirche — Hayenbach — The Schlagen — The Rhine and the Danube contrasted — Ober Michl — Neuhaus — Aschach — The paper-money of Austria — Castle of Schaumberg — Environs of Aschach — Ober Walsee — Story of Hans von Eschelberg — Sketch of the Insurrections in the Seventeenth Century 96 CHAPTER V. Efferding — Ottensheim — Kloster-Willering — Linz— The Platz — The Landstrasse — The Schlossberg — The Landhaus — The Theatre— The Bridge— The Pdst- lingberg — View on leaving Linz — Steyereck — The River Traun — Ebelsberg — Luftenberg — Monastery of St. Florian — Tillysburg — Spielberg — Mauthausen — Ens — Origin and History of the City — Antiquities discovered in its neighbourhood 137 CHAPTER VI. Nieder-Walsee — Castles of Clam and Kreuzen — Ardag- ger — Grein— The Strudel and the Wirbel — Mistakes CONTENTS. XV Page of various Authors concerning them — St. Nikola — Sarblingstein — Freystein — Hirschau — The Isper — Bosenbeug — Story of Bishop Bruno and the Lady Richlita— Ips— Gottsdorf 180 CHAPTER VII. Marbach — Maria-Taferl — Pechlarn — Wiedeneck — Molk — Lubereck — The Valley of the Wachau — Schonbiihel — Aggstein — The TeufePs-Mauer — Spitz, and the Ruin of Hinterhaus — Church and Village of St. Michel — Castle of Diirrenstein — Narrow escape of Marshal Mortier during the Campaign of 1805 — Mautern — Stein — Krems — Kloster Gottweih — Trasen-Mauer — Arrival at Tuln 217 CHAPTER VIII. Tuln — Langenlebern — Greifenstein — Story of Etelina — Korneuberg — The Bisamberg — Kloster Neuburg — Leopoldsberg, and the Khalenberg — A glimpse of the capital — Nussdorf — Arrival at Vienna — Bird's-eye View and Description of the Environs from the Temple of Glory in the Briihl . « 267 Directions for placing the Plates. View of Schloss Bosenbeug, to face Title. Map to face Chapter I. Common passage-boat from Ratisbon to Vienna. CHAPTER I. First View of the Danube and Ratisbon— Description of Boats on the Danube — The City of Ratisbon — The Ca- thedral — The Heide Platz — Church of the Scotch Bene- dictines — The Bridges — The Rath-haus — The Abbey of St. Emmeram — Story of Frederick von Ewesheim — Church of the Dominicans — The Neue — Pfarre Kirche — Ober and Nieder Minister — Karmeliten Kloster — The Horses' Church — The Promenades — Unterhaltungs Haus — Maxi- milian Joseph Gasse — David and Goliath — Embarkation — Worth — Donaustauf — The Dunkel-boden — Sossau. I believe it is Doctor Clarke who advises travellers never to see a mountain without going to the top of it. I should rather say, never see a river without following the course of it. One very extensive prospect too nearly resembles another, particularly BAVARIA, in the same country, to give additional gra- tification, and I have not unfrequently, like the celebrated King of France, " marched up a hill, and then marched down again," to about as little purpose. But never did I follow the course of a stream, however insignificant, without being surprised and delighted. Without water, the loveliest prospect is incomplete. Lakes and rivers are the eyes of the earth ; the want of them cannot be atoned for by the beauty of its other features, however exquisite. The formidable account of some friends who had made the voyage, backed, as it seemed to be, by a twaddling notice in a German Guide-Book, had nearly dissuaded me from descending the Danube to Vienna. But the first glimpse of its magnificent flood, rolling through the broad and fertile plain, in the centre of which the ancient city of Ratisbon rears its sombre cathedral, and winding away into the horizon amongst the shadowy mountains of the Bohmer-wald, renewed my original determination; and my first care, on finding myself safely de- posited in the excellent hotel, Das Goldene Kreutz, on the Heide Platz, was to make RAT1SB0N. 6 the necessary inquiries how, when, and where I should embark on the " thunder- ing river*/ 5 The regular passage-boat from Ratisbon to Vienna was to start on the following * Etymologists have squabbled as much over the name of the Danube, as geographers over its source, which some contend to be near the village of St. George, and others in the court- yard of the palace of the Prince of Fiirstenberg, at Donaueschingen. This mighty flood, the grandest in Europe, and the third in consequence in the Old World, was known to the Romans by the double name of the Danube, and the Xster- " Ortus hie in Germanise jugis montes abnobae ex adverso Raurici Gallise oppidi multis ultra alpes millibus, ac per innumeras lapsus gentes Danubii nomine, immenso aquarum auctu et unde primum Illyricum alluit Ister appel- latus, sexaginta amnibus receptis, medio ferme numero eorum navigabili, in Pontum vastis sex fluminibus evolvitur." — ' Plin. Nat. Hist/ iv. 24. The ancient Germans named it Done and Tona ; the Sclavonians, Donava. The Hungarians call it Tanara, or Donara, and the Turks, Duna. Its mo- dern German appellation is Donau. Some of the earlier writers would derive this name from Deus Abnobius, or Diana Abonbia, or Abnopa, to whom a temple was dedicated near the source of the river. Others deduce it from Thon, clay, and contend it should be written Thonau. Others again would find its origin in the words Ton, sound, or Donner, thunder ; and Reichard, indeed, gives the latter as the received derivation. Breuninger, however, proposes Tanne, a fir, and speciously enough, the river rising in the Schwarz-wald, of which fir is the distinc- tive character, and its banks being clothed with forests of the same tree, along nearly the whole of its course ; while Ni- kolai would have us seek it in the Keltic words Do, Na, which signify two rivers, and may either apply to its double name, " Binominem Istrum," or to the two sources which dispute the glory of its birth. b 2 BAVARIA. morning at eight o'clock, and for the very moderate sum of five florins, not quite ten shillings English, would have landed me in the Austrian capital in about five or six days, according to the weather. But as neither I nor my companion was willing, for a slight pecuniary consideration, to risk a serious diminution of the pleasures of the voyage by a crowded deck, a filthy cabin, bad company, and miserable fare, I applied to a Schiffmeister of Stadt-am-hof, the little fauxbourg of Ratisbon, on the left bank of the Danube, who agreed to furnish us with a boat, steersman, and crew for the sum of twenty ducats, about ten pounds sterling, and to assure our arrival at Vienna in four days, or four and a half at farthest. The boats on the Danube, though of various names and sizes, are nearly all of one shape. That which I hired is called, in the peculiar patois of the Bavarian boat- men, a Weitz-zille, and is the sort of con- veyance particularly appropriated to pri- vate travelling. It is about forty feet long, and composed of rough deal planks, nailed rudely together, the ribs being of natural branches, and caulked with moss. In the RATI SB ON. centre is a kind of awning, or rather hut, of the same unpretending materials. It is flat-bottomed, as are all the craft upon this river, and, in short, is little more than a large rude punt. Sails are unknown upon the Danube ; it is therefore rowed by two men, and steered by a third, with long clumsy-looking paddles, tied to upright posts, upon which every now and then water is flung to make them work easy, and avoid ignition. The Coche d'eau, or common passage-boat, is rather larger, and is called a Gamsel, or a Kellhaimer. Those used for the conveyance of merchandise, are known by the names of Hochnauen, Klobzillen, (facetiously termed vessels of the line by Professor Schultes,) Nebenbeys, Schwernmern, &c, all of the same fashion, keelless, sailless, their plain deal sides daubed with broad perpendicular stripes of black paint, their only ornament. Some of the larger are nearly one hundred and fifty feet long ; and, in ascending the river, are towed, four or five together, by from thirty to forty horses. The drivers are called Jodelen, and a more singular set of beings can scarcely be imagined. In ap- BAVARIA, pearance they are something between the English dustman and drayman, but the lowest of either of those worthies might pass for a scholar and a gentleman by the side of a real Jodel. From the moment the Danube becomes navigable, till it is again chained up in ice, these fellows never enter the humblest hovel, or mix with men of other callings, but even sleep upon the river's bank beside their horses. A miser- able superstition exists amongst them. They believe that some of their number must every year be sacrificed to the Spirit of the Waters, and, consequently, when an accident occurs, they all scramble for the drowning man's hat, but never think of stretching out a finger to save him, whom they look upon as a doomed and de- manded victim. Professor Schultes declares that he once saw five jodelen, with their horses, precipitated into the river, when their companions hastily cut the ropes, to prevent the rest of the team from following, and drove on, leaving the poor wretches to their fate. Before I step into my little bark, how- ever, the old city of Ratisbon, or, more RATISBON. 7 properly Regensburg, claims a few mo- ments' attention. The Regina Castra of the Romans has had twenty different names*, and, according to Giinther, owes that of Ratisbona, or Ratispona, to its conveni- ence as a landing place. " Inde Ratisbonae vetus ex hoc nomen habenti Quod bona sit ratibus, vel quod consuevit in ilia Ponere nauta rates" Near it, the little river Regen falls into the Danube, from whence its German ap- pellation of Regensburg. One of the chief towns on the Illyrian frontier, here the Roman merchant traded for furs, and the eagle of the " Legio tertia Italica" long glittered in the sight of the humbled bar- barians. From Regensburg the " furious Frank" rushed, beneath the banners of Charlemagne, to his Pannonian victories. Under Arnulph the Bastard, it became a flourishing commercial and manufacturing town. In 1106, the unfortunate Emperor Henry IV. here resigned his crown and sceptre to his unnatural son. In 1193, Richard Coeur de Lion was sent hither a * Vide * Gemeiner's Reichs-stadt Regenburgische Chronik.' 4to, Regensburg, 1805. 8 BAVARIA. prisoner to the Emperor Henry VI., who re-delivered him to his sworn foe and cap- tor, Leopold Duke of Austria. Here, on the 12th of October, 1576, expired the Em- peror Maximilian II., in whose favour Ger- many revived the surname of Titus, or the Delight of Mankind. No stronger proof of his great and amiable qualities can be given, than the concurring testimony of the historians of Germany, Hungary, Bo- hemia, and Austria, both Catholics and Protestants, who vie in his praises, and in representing him as a model of impartiality, wisdom, and benignity *. " It excites a melancholy regret," says Wraxall, " to reflect that the reign of so excellent a sovereign as Maximilian was limited to the transitory period of twelve years, while Philip II., the scourge of his own subjects and of Europe, occupied the throne during more than forty. The Romans might, with equal reason, have lamented that the tyranny of Tiberius lasted above twenty years, when the benign adminis- tration of Titus scarcely exceeded as many * Coxe's ' Hist, of the House of Austria,' 8vo. London, 1820, Vol. ii. p. ?35. RATISBON. 9 months*/' In 1633, Ratisbon was taken by Bernhard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, and retaken by the allied Bavarians and Aus- trians, commanded by Ferdinand King of Hungary, in the following year. In 1641, the Swedes, under the famous General Banner, cannonaded it; and on the 21st of April, 1809, it was taken by the French, after a desperate conflict, being the fourteenth time, in the course of nine hundred years, that this unfortunate city has been visited by the united horrors of war. Its grand but gloomy cathedral contains some curious sculpture, and some richly painted windows, the blues in which are re- markable for their brilliancy. The date, 1482, is upon the upper part of an angular porch ; but the fapade of the building, the sin- gular well, the richly ornamented canopies on columns, in various parts of the interior, and the equestrian statues of Saint Martin and another, are all of an earlier period.-)- * ' History of France/ 8vo. Vol. ii. p. 146. t From a wood-cut in the Numbers; Chronicle of 1493, it appears, however, that the towers were even at that time unfinished ; one being; represented a story shorter than the other, and with a crane upon it raising a stone. The author, Hartmann Schedel, in the text of the book, de- scribes the edifice as " yet incomplete." 10 BAVARIA. In the chancel, near the altar, is deposited the heart of the Emperor Maximilian I. ; and in a chapel on the south side of the chancel, within a glass case, is the recum- bent effigy, in wax, of Saint John of Nepo- muck, the celebrated confessor of the wife of Wenceslaus, king of Bohemia, who re- fusing to divulge the secrets of his royal penitent was thrown into prison, tortured, and, finally, flung over the bridge at Prague and drowned, by the king's order. His statue, in the habit of the Jesuits, is to be seen on nearly every bridge in the south of Germany ; he, who perished by water, being curiously enough selected from the list of saints as the protector of all who travel on that element. On an altar-tomb, in the nave, is a splendid bronze effigy of a Bishop of Ratisbon and Duke of Bavaria kneeling to a crucifix. On the Heide Platz, or Place of the Pagan, a terrible combat is said to have been fought, be- tween a gigantic Hun named Craco, who had flung forty knights out of their saddles, and Hans Dollinger, a valiant burgher of the town, during the reign, and in the pre- sence of Henry the Fowler. The emperor RATISBON. 11 crossed the panting champion twice upon the mouth, and to the virtue of these holy signs the defeat of the Pagan is princi- pally attributed*. draco's sword, measur- ing nearly eight feet, and his ponderous helmet, hung for some time in the choir of Nieder Miinster. The sword is now at Vienna, whither it was taken in 1542. On the side of a house, in the Kohlen-markt, is a representation of this combat ; and the square itself, I have little doubt, formed originally part of the Heide Platz, from which it is at present separated by a row of comparatively modern erections. The church of the Scotch Benedictines, near the Jacobs-Thor, has a fine portal, of ap- parently the twelfth century. There is a tragical story told of its last abbot, Gallus, who was compelled to see a beloved brother torn to pieces without daring to acknow- ledge him ; but I was not able to learn the particulars, though, Schultes says, they are of general notoriety. The celebrated * Vide ' Ausfuhrliche relation desjenigen wunderthatigen Kampfes, welcher anno 930, den 23 Januar, zu Regensburg zwischen Hannss Dollinger einem Burger daselbstund eiriem unglaubigen hunnischen Obristen Craco, vorgegangen/ 4to Regensburg, 1710, , 12 BAVARIA. bridge across the Danube is a clumsy-look- ing affair, and sadly disappoints the ex- pectant traveller : the honour of its erec- tion is hotly disputed between Henry the Proud and the Devil*! Their im- perial and satanic majesties have each their zealous partisans, but the proofs are in favour of the earthly potentate, who, in conjunction with the town of Ratisbon, commenced the work A. D. 1135. It was finished in 1146. It is of free-stone, sup- ported by piles of oak driven to a consider- able depth in the bed of the river, consists of fifteen arches, and is one thousand and ninety-one feet in length. Of the three principal bridges of Germany, that of Dres- den is said to be the most elegant ; that of Prague, the longest ; and that of Ratis- bon, the strongest. Besides this stone bridge there are two wooden bridges, one very small, connecting the stone bridge with a long island in the middle of the river, and another of larger dimensions, which leads from the island to the city * The legend tells us, that the Infernal Architect was sadly worried, during his labours, by a cock and a dog-. A cock and a bull would have figured with more propriety in such a story. RATISBON. 13 near the Nieder Munster. In the Kohlen- markt stands the Rathhaus, or Hotel de Ville, where from 1662 to 1806 the diet was held. Justice and Fortune have in- herited the building. The Tribunal of Police is established in one part of it, and the Lottery is drawn in the other. Its curious old gate and bay-window are in excellent preservation. Their arches and crocketted pinnacles are of the thirteenth century, and greatly resemble those of the monument of our Edward I. at Westminster. The two figures above the gate, one bear- ing a martel de fer, and the other in the act of flinging a stone, are of the close of the fifteenth century : beneath each is a shield with the arms of the city. The Abbey of Saint Emmeram is now the resi- dence of the Prince of Thurm and Taxis : his gardens are kindly thrown open to the public from six in the morning to six in the evening. Saint Emmeram was a French- man, a native of Poictiers, who, having visited the court of Theodo, was suspected of an illicit amour with the princess his daughter, and murdered by her brother at Helfendorf, A. D. 652. In the vaults of this 14 BAVARIA. building lie Childeric, the deposed king of France, the Emperor Arnulph, and his son Ludwig IV., the celebrated historian John Aventine, Saint Wolfgang, and Saint Dio- nysius, the Areopagite. The body of the latter saint is said to have been purloined from the Abbey of Saint Denis, in France, in the year 893; and Pope Leo XL, in a particular bull, absolutely threatened with excommunication all who dared doubt the genuineness of the holy corpse*: "not- withstanding which," says Keysler, " the monks of Saint Denys, near Paris, insist that the body of that saint is actually in their possession ; and his head is shown in the third shrine of their treasury. On the other hand, the monks of Saint Emmeram maintain, that the only part wanting in their relique, is the middle finger of the right hand. However, an entire hand of this saint is shown at a chapel in Munich. His head is also devoutly worshipped in the cathedral of Bamberg ; and at Prague another head of that saint is kept in the Church of Saint Vitus in the Castle -f." * ' Des Churbayer Atalantis, von A. W. Ertel/ 8vo. Nurn- berg, 1815. f * Travels through Germany, &c. 5 4 vols. 4to. London, RAT1SBON. 15 This abbey formerly possessed an altar of solid gold, a fine manuscript of the Gospels, written in gold, the cover ornamented with precious stones, and presented by Charles the Bald to the monks of Saint Denis ; another copy, said to have been written in 75 1 by a bishop, in the ninetieth year of his age, and many other valuable curi- osities. The MSS. are, I believe, still in existence*. Gemeiner, in his chronicle, has a story connected with the edifice, suffi- ciently illustrative of the period of its action to merit insertion; besides which I doat upon old stories, and fairly warn that " gentle reader," who may not have the same predilection, to lay down the book in time, as it is only when, like the Knife- grinder, " I have none to tell," that he has the slightest chance of escape from them. A certain worthy Bishop of Regens- burg, not contented with fleecing his flock, according to the approved and legitimate method, made it a point of conscience to waylay and plunder his beloved brethren 1757, vol. iv. p. 212. The saint must surely have been like Mrs. Malaprop's Cerberus — " Three gentlemen at once." * Yet I do not find them noticed by Mr. Dibdin, in his curious ' Bibliographical Tour.' 16 BAVARIA. whenever they ventured near the Castle of Donaustauf, in which he resided upon the banks of the Danube, a little below the town. In the month of November 1250, says the chronicle, tidings came to Donau- stauf, that, on the following morning, the daughter of Duke Albert of Saxony would pass that way, with a gorgeous and gallant escort. The bait was too tempting for the prelate. He sallied out upon the glitter- ing cortege, and seizing the princess and forty of her noblest attendants, led them captives to Donaustauf. The astonished remainder fled for redress, some to King- Conrad, and others to Duke Otho, at Lands- hut, who immediately took arms, and car- rying fire and sword into the episcopal ter- ritories, soon compelled the holy highway- man to make restitution and sue for mercy. Conrad, satisfied with his submission, for- gave him ; in return for which the Bishop bribed a vassal, named Conrad Hohenfels, to murder his royal namesake ; and, ac- cordingly, in the night of the 28th of De- cember, the traitor entered the Abbey of Saint Emmerams, where the king had taken up his abode, and stealing into the royal chamber stabbed the sleeper to the heart ; RATISBON. 17 then running to the gates of the city, threw them open to the bishop and his retainers, exclaiming that the king was dead. The traitors were, however, disappointed. Fre- derich von Ewesheim, a devoted servant of the king, suspecting some evil, had per- suaded the monarch to exchange clothes and chambers with him, and the assassin's dagger had pierced the heart, not of Conrad, but of his true and gallant officer. The bishop escaped the royal vengeance by flight ; but the abbot of Saint Emmeram's, who had joined the conspirators, was flung into chains ; and the abbey, the houses of the chapter, and all the ecclesiastical resi- dences, were plundered by the king's sol- diery. The pope, as might be expected, sided with the bishop and excommunicated Conrad and Otho ; but the murderer Ho- henfels, after having for some time eluded justice, was killed by a thunderbolt ! In the church of the Dominicans is a chapel where Albertus Magnus, Bishop of Ratisbon, the successor of his unworthy namesake, is said to have given his lectures. This great philosopher and excellent pre- late is reported by the ancient chroniclers 18 BAVARIA. to have possessed the accommodating but rather extraordinary faculty attributed to the Irishman's bird, viz. that of being in two places at once. It is asserted that, at the very moment he was holding forth to his attentive pupils from the chair still exhibited in the chapel, he was to be seen busily employed in his study at Donaustauf, about twelve miles off. For despatch of business this must have been an invaluable accomplishment, and accounts most satis- factorily for the magnitude and research of his literary and scientific labours. The Neue-Pfarre Kirche was formerly famous for a shrine of the Virgin called the Schone Maria, to which from ten to twelve thou- sand pilgrims frequently repaired at a time from different parts of Bavaria. The Ober Munster and the Nieder Munster were both convents, the abbesses of which alone were obliged to take the vow of chastity. Otto II. and his Empress Adelheid are buried in the latter, which was founded in the tenth century by Judith, daughter of Arnold, Duke of Bavaria, and wife of Duke Henry I. The Ober Munster was founded by Hemma, Queen of Louis the German, who RATISBON. 19 is buried here. The Karmeliten Kloster, founded by the Emperor Ferdinand in 1641, is now the custom-house and the town-jail. In Ratisbon, formerly, even the horses went to church ! On Saint Leonard's Day the peasantry of the neighbourhood brought their whole stud gaily caparisoned, and in- dulged each animal with a peep into theMal- theser-Kirche, a pious precaution, which was supposed to preserve them the year round from the staggers, and indeed every other disorder that horse-flesh is heir to. I had nearly forgotten the promenades. They are pretty, and run all round the town. The remains of an old cross are pointed out in them, as having once been the centre of the city. In another part is a temple to the memory of Keppler, the astro- nomer, who died here in 1630, and of whom, says Prof. Schultes, it may be said as of our English poet Butler, " He asked for bread, and they gave him a stone." A monument has also been erected to a M. Goertz, " par- cequ'il etoit assez riche," said our domes- tique de place, an excellent reason, and one which has justified many a more extraordi- nary proceeding. Then there are the Un- c 2 20 BAVARIA. terhaltungshaus, (a handsome building, which combines the theatre, the assembly- rooms, and heaven knows what besides) — the new Maximilian-Joseph-Gasse, which has risen upon the ruins of 1809, and the nearly effaced figures of Goliath and David upon the wall of a house, the work appa- rently of the sixteenth century. And now farewell, old Regensburg ! The Roman, the Vandal, the Frank and the Hun, the Bohemian, the Austrian, and the Swede, the ancient and the modern Gaul, have, by turns, besieged, stormed, plundered, and burnt thee. Thy air of gravity becomes a city that hath suffered and survived so many disasters ; and the antique gold and silver coifs that glitter on the braided locks of thy fair daughters, harmonize well with the Gothic glories of thy cathedral and the romantic interest of thy Turnier-Platz. I confess it grieves me to notice the gradual disappearance throughout the Continent of those distinctions of dress which have hitherto seemed, as strongly as language and countenance, to mark out the natural boundaries of nations and provinces : but I console myself with the hope, that Europe RATISBON. 21 may, with its old habits, fling off its old pre- judices, and that its millions will finally- become as much like one great family in affection, as they promise to look, shortly, from the uniformity of their costume. On Monday, September 9, about eight in the morning, having completed our simple preparations, and safely stowed away under the benches of our little cabin a hamper containing some eatables and a few bottles of excellent Rhenish and Austrian wines, we stept into our weitz-zille. which awaited us just above the stone bridge, and having shot through an arch of it where there is a fall something like that at old London at half-flood, and struggled a few moments with a strong eddy, occasioned by an island and some corn-mills, we passed under the wooden bridge, and commenced our voyage, a strong wind blowing unfortunately right in our teeth. The sky was however cloud- less, and the day, as it advanced, proving exceedingly warm, the wind was only un- welcome as it threatened to retard, in some measure, our progress, and prevent our making the proposed landing and resting- 22 BAVARIA. places in due time. The average depth of the Danube between Donauworth and Passau, according to H. von Riedl, is ten feet ; near Regensburg it is about eleven feet deep, and something broader than the Thames at Putney. The right bank of the river, nearly all the way to Straubing, is low, sedgy, and Dutch like. St. Niklas, Einhausen, Irl, Ober, and Unter Barbing or Barbling, are the names of the little old villages that are scattered along it ; but, on the left bank, the eye is soon attracted by the bold mountains which, abruptly rising behind the villages of Regenhausen, Weichs, Schwabelweiss, and Dergenheim, or Tegenheim, follow the windings of the flood in an almost unbroken chain to within a few miles of Vienna. The ruins of the castle of Donaustauf, cresting a round, bluff rock, having at its foot the little market-town of the same name, are the first interesting object that presents itself on approaching them. The great strength and commanding situa- tion of this fortress, anciently called Toum- stouphen, rendered it an object of con- siderable importance during the middle ages ; and many are the tales of the " Battles, DONAUSTAUF. 23 sieges, fortunes, it hath past. 59 Henry the Proud having taken it from the cathedral and chapter of Regensburg in 1132, the citizens invested it in the following year so closely, that the garrison, driven to extre- mities by hunger, set fire to the building, and sallying forth, cut their way through the besiegers. In 1 146 it was again taken ; and in 1159 again besieged. In 1250 it was the scene of that outrage which has already been related in the story of Fre- derich von Ewesheim. After the death of Albertus Magnus, who, in 1260, succeeded his notorious namesake, and here pursued his studies, Donaustauf was again snatched from its holy masters, and once more re- stored to them, through the assistance of Bavaria, in 1343. In 1355 it was pledged to the counsellor Ruger Reich for eleven thousand eight hundred and thirty-five florins, and sold afterwards to Charles IV. of Bohemia for five thousand. In vain did the holy fathers protest against the sale, and denounce spiritual as well as temporal vengeance against the purchaser. Charles was too shrewd and too powerful to fear either; and so long as he lived, Donaustauf 24 BAVARIA remained the barrier of Bohemia. Under his feeble successors, however, the chapter recovered its fortress, and in 1486 it was again pledged to Bavaria. Bernhard, Duke of Saxe- Weimar, took it, and reduced it to its present condition in 1634. The Prince of Thurm and Taxis, who bought the lordship of Worth, in which it is situated, keeps, if I may be allowed the expression, the ruin in repair, and bestows some care on the gar- dens, which clothe the eastern side of its mountain seat. From the ramparts, the view extends eastwards over Worth to Straubing and Bogen ; and westward, over Ratisbon, to the mountains of Abach. On either side, the eye traces the bright Danube, now flowing majestically right onwards, now boldly sweeping round some rocky point, or gracefully winding amidst large tracts of meadow land — here almost doubling itself by a sudden and unexpected curve, and, lost for a short time amongst groves and ham- lets, glittering again like a broad lake, where it resumes its eastern course far in the blue distance. Directly beneath lie the little market-town of Donaustauf ; the church of Saint Salvator, which was built, DONAUSTAUF. 25 according to Schultes, in expiation of the crime of some soldiers who dishonoured the Host ; the wooden bridge, said to be one of the longest on the river, and which is partially destroyed every year in order to give passage to the ice ; and below it, on the left bank, numberless gardens and vineyards, spotted with the white villas of the wealthy citizens of Regensburg, who, escaping from commercial cares, on a fine summer Sunday evening, look back through the smoke of their pipes upon the dusky towers of their cathedral with, no doubt, similar feelings of satisfaction to those with which the London tradesman observes from his retreat at Highgate, or Hornsey, the distant dome of Saint Paul's rising above the smother of our huge metropolis. Leav- ing Donaustauf, we passed the small village of Sulzbach, Demling, Bach, (celebrated for the mines in its neighbourhood,)Frenkhofen, Krukenberg, Oberach, Kirchkirfen or Kir- fen-holz, and Wisent, on the little stream of that name, on the left bank ; and those of Sarching, Friesheim, Ilkhofen, Auburg, El- theim, Saissling, and Seppenhausen, on the right, some of them consisting of scarcely 26 BAVARIA. half a dozen houses, their humble, white- washed churches roofed with shingles, and the little Kremlin-looking cupolas of their steeples painted a deep red. We now ra- pidly approached Worth, the chateau of the Prince of Thurm and Taxis, which had been visible from the time of our passing Kirfen- holz, but, from the extraordinary sinuosities of the river, appeared, at one moment, to have been left entirely behind us. The exterior is anything but prepossessing, re- calling to the mind of a cockney, like my- self, the dead walls and extinguisher-capped towers of the Penitentiary at Milbank. The dark firs that rise beside it, and the rich meadows that gently slope from its terrace wall to the water's edge, are, it must be confessed, infinitely more romantic and or- namental than the rows of cabbages and stunted willows that form the foreground to its inglorious likeness, — still the idea of a prison would, I think, be with any stranger the predominant one. Worth is, however, a palace, and, no doubt, handsome enough when you are in it. It has been, like most of the castles and palaces in this part of the world, bought and sold, pledged and re- WORTH. 27 deemed for all sorts of sums by all sorts of people. Those who wish to know the exact number of florins it was valued at during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, wall find them scrupulously set down by Prof. Schultes ; but, as no matters of historical or romantic interest are connected with its various transfers, I shall content myself by merely stating, that it was anciently the property of the bishops of Ratisbon, and came to Bavaria in 1809, shortly after which period it was bought by its present posses- sor. Nearly opposite Worth, upon the right bank, is the small town of Pfatter, or Pfada, as it is called in the dialect of the country, the first post-station from Ratisbon. A little streamlet of the same name falls into the Danube beside it. A dozen small vil- lages, remarkable only for appellations that would cost an untutored Englishman as many teeth to speak them — Gmiinden, Tie- fer-thal, Hochdorf, Stadeldorf, Niederach- dorf, Sinzendorf, Hunthofen, Kirchenroth, Ober and Unter Motzing, Kessnach, Hart- zeitdorn, &c, are scattered along the banks, both now exceedingly flat and uninterest- ing, the mountains on the left having re- 28 BAVARIA. treated from the river, which here winds and doubles like a hunted hare. My com- panion and I therefore landed, and leaving the boat to thread the mazes of this watery- labyrinth, strode forward at a good round pace across the fields towards Straubing, the tin-capped steeples of which were flash- ing back the rays of the setting sun. The great plain extending from the gates of Ra- tisbon, as far as Pleinting, is supposed to have been once a large morass, which, on being drained, has left a rich black soil seve- ral feet deep (the celebrated Dunkelboden.) The peasantry of this favoured district are exceedingly proud, and fond of all kinds of finery. The finest Swiss and Dutch linen, silk and satin kerchiefs of the gayest hues, Brabant lace, and gold and silver stuffs of all descriptions, are in constant requisition. The men wear gold rings, and generally two gold watches. The black velvet or embroidered silk boddices of the women are laced with massive silver chains, from which hang a profusion of gold and silver trinkets, hearts, crosses, coins, medals, &c. The custom of tying a black silk handker- chief round the neck, with the bow behind, sossau. 29 and the ends hanging down the back, is, I think, peculiar to Bavaria. A wedding here is a scene of great extravagance and up- roar ; many tables, accommodating at least a dozen persons each, are set out with all manner of good things, and the feasting continues for several days, all day long. Ignorant, however, as they are wealthy and luxurious, few even of the most respectable amongst them can either read or write, and are therefore, says Schultes, entitled in every respect to the appellation by which they are generally distinguished, i. e. "Bauern vomDunkelboden" — " Peasants of the dark earth." Sossau, on the left bank, shortly after you enter the Landgericht of Straubing, is celebrated for a picture of the Virgin, which, in 1534, the angels brought here in a boat, from a village where the doctrines of Luther had taken root, to the great indignation of the holy portrait. Those who are sufficiently sceptical to doubt the veracity of this story, may con- sult the account of the monks of Kloster Windberg*, (to which Sossau belonged,) * Kloster Windberg was originally a castle belonging to the Counts of Bogen. Albert of Bogen and Hedwig his 30 BAVARIA. printed " cum licentia superiorum," and illustrated by a fresco-painting on the walls of their house at Straubing. The whole angelic crew are there to be seen equipped in sailors' dresses, tugging away with " a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all to- gether," (the last pull, by the way, must have been an extra miracle on the Danube, the advantage of such unanimity never en- tering the heads of the honest boatmen), and having on board not only the offended picture, but the outraged church itself! — I have heard of a worthy enactor of old Ca- pulet, who, by a curious transposition of his prepositions, commanded the astonished Juliet to prepare To go to Paris with St. Peter s church. Now, however extraordinary this paternal injunction might appear to a modern here- tical London audience, it is obvious, upon due consideration, that the speech, being placed in the mouth of a Roman Catholic of the sixteenth century, was not so much out of character as might be imagined at wife founded the monastery in 1145. In the neighbourhood, two hermits are said to have resided, one of whom murdered the other. SOSSAU. 31 the moment. The chapel of Loretto and the church of Sossau had set a noble ex- ample of locomotion, and Saint Peter's of Verona could have no rational reason for refusing to follow it upon a proper occa- sion. Ainhausen, the property of Count Lie- belfing, on the high road to Rinkheim and Kagers, an old village from which the Lords of Kagers formerly took their title, are the last villages on the right bank of the river before you arrive at Straubing, the first town of consequence on the Danube after leaving Ratisbon* 32 CHAPTER II. Straubing — The Bridge — The Hauptstrasse — The Stadtthurm — The Pfarr, or Collegiat Kirche — Story of Agnes Ber- nauer — The Ramparts — The Atzelburg — Ober Altaich — Bogenberg — Kloster Metten — The Natternberg — Deggen- dorf — The Gnade Zeit — Confluence of the Isar and the Danube — Rafts from Munich to Vienna — Nieder Altaich — Hengersberg — Osterhofen — Hoch-winzer — Hof kirchen — Kinzing — Hildegartsberg — Vilshofen — Collegiat Stift — The Sandbach — New Road to Passau — Maximilian Jo- seph I., late King of Bavaria — Louis I., the present Mo- narch — Statue of a Lion — Approach to Passau. Straubing is pleasantly situated on the right bank of a small arm of the river, or, as it might be called, a canal, through which part of the noble stream has, of late years, been conducted to the very walls. In front of it, the mountains, which, as I have al- ready mentioned, have retreated from the left bank, form a fine amphitheatre, in the centre of which, the insulated Bogenberg rises like a pyramid. Like most cities of any size and antiquity in Germany, Strau- bing is divided into an Alt-Stadt and a Neu-Stadt. The old town is conjectured by some to have been the Serviodurum Augusti of the Romans, the seat of the STRAUBING. 33 Castra Augustana, &c, arid traces of some entrenchments, supposed to be Roman, are still to be seen just without the walls. The name of " Straubinga" (" Curtis Regia") first occurs in an instrument, dated A. D. 902. About forty years afterwards, we hear of the deeds of the noble knights of Straubing and Stein. At the latter end of the tenth century, Henry III. obtained the surname of Pious, by presenting Straubing to his brother Otto, Bishop of Augsburg, who left it to the cathedral and chapter of that place. It was governed by an officer called a Vice Dom, till the commencement of the thirteenth century, when New Strau- bing was built, and the old town re-annexed to the Duchy of Bavaria. Frederick the Handsome, of Austria, besieged and took it in 1319. In 1332, Louis the Bavarian lay before the town from the 4th of July till the 24th of August, when, provoked by its obstinate resistance, he threw a bridge over the Danube, by Kagers, and, making a des- perate assault at the Spital-gate, succeeded at last in carrying the place by storm. His son, Duke William, first husband of Matilda 34 BAVARIA. of Lancaster, built the castle on the Da- nube, A. D. 1356. It is now converted into barracks. In 1393, Straubingwas entirely destroyed by fire, and the conflagration having begun at a joiner's, no person of that trade was permitted to reside in the city from that time till the year 1540. It was most vigorously defended against the Duke of Saxe- Weimar, in 1633. The bur- gomaster, Holler, an excellent marksman, shot upwards of thirty of his best officers from the ramparts. In 1635, Straubing was visited by a dreadful pestilence. In 1704, it was taken by the Austrians, and, in 1780, the best half of it fell a second time a prey to the flames. The loss was estimated at more than a million of florins. Straubing in its present state is cheer- ful and tolerably regular, but more like a Dutch than a Bavarian town ; the bridge across the Danube is pretty, and the gate which terminates it fantastic. On entering the Hauptstrasse or High-street, the eye is attracted by a quadrangular tower, forming part of the Rath-haus or Guildhall, and much prized by the Straubingers, who con- STRAUBING. 35 sider it the most ancient relic in the place ; but it seems to have been a terrible annoy- ance to Professor Schultes, who neglects no opportunity of expressing his antipathy to it, and astonishment that any reverence for its antiquity should prevent the removal of a building, which hinders people from look- ing through the town like a telescope- This Stadt-thurm as it is called is two hun- dred feet high, and is now surmounted by a tin spire, with four smaller pinnacles at the corners. There are two Latin inscriptions upon it, one proclaiming its erection in 1208, and the other its renovation in 1783. The largest building in the town is the Pfarr, or Collegiat Kirche, commenced about 1432, and finished in 1512. In a small chapel in the churchyard of St. Peter's, in the Alt-stadt, is a red marble tablet, on which reclines the effigy of a female surrounded by the following in- scription, «* Anno Domini, mccccxxxvi, xii Die Octobris, Obiit Agnes Bernauerin. Requiescat in pace." D2 36 BAVARIA, ik-D-jy^^WW mm+m~> The fate of this unfortunate lady has furnished the subject for a tragedy to the Count of Torring Seefeld, and one more deeply affecting is scarcely to be found in the page of history. Albert, the only son of Duke Ernst of Bavaria, was one of the most accomplished and valiant Drinces of the age he lived in. His father and family had selected for his bride, the young Countess Elizabeth of Wiirtemberg. The contract was signed and the marriage on the point of taking place, STRAUBING. 37 when the lady suddenly eloped with a more favoured lover, John Count of Werden- berg. The tidings were brought to Albert at Augsburg, where he was attending a grand tournament given in honour of the approaching nuptials, but they fell un- heeded on his ear, as his heart, which had not been consulted in the choice of his bride, had just yielded itself, "rescue or no rescue," to the bright eyes of a young maiden whom he had distinguished from the crowd of beauties that graced the lists. Virtuous as she was lovely, Agnes Ber- nauer had obtained amongst the citizens of Augsburg, the appellation of " the angel :" but she was the daughter of a bather, an employment considered at that period, in Germany, as particularly dis- honourable. Regardless of consequences, however, he divulged his passion, and their marriage was shortly afterwards privately celebrated in Albert's castle at Vohberg. Their happiness was doomed to be of short duration. Duke Ernst became possessed of their secret, and the anger of the whole house of Munich burst upon the heads of the devoted couple ! Albert was com- 38 BAVARIA manded to sign a divorce from Agnes, and prepare immediately to marry Anna, daughter of Duke Erich of Brunswick. The indignant prince refused to obey, and being afterwards denied admission to a tournament at Regensburg, on the plea of his having contracted a dishonourable alli- ance, he rode boldly into the lists upon the Heide Platz, before the whole company de- clared Agnes Bernauer his lawful wife and duchess, and conducted her to his palace at Straubing, attended as became her rank. Every species of malice and misrepresenta- tion was now set at work to ruin the unfor- tunate Agnes. Albert's uncle, Duke Wil- helm, who was the only one of the family inclined to protect her, had a sickly child, and she was accused of having adminis- tered poison to it. But the duke detected the falsehood and became more firmly her friend. Death too soon deprived her of this noble protector, and the fate of the poor duchess was immediately sealed. Taking advantage of Albert's absence from Straubing, the authorities of the place arrested her on some frivolous pretext, and the honest indignation with which she as- STRAUBING, 39 serted her innocence, was tortured into treason by her malignant judges. She was condemned to die, and on Wednesday, Oc- tober 12th, 1436, was thrown over the bridge into the Danube, amidst the lamen* tations of the populace *. Having suc- ceeded in freeing one foot from the bonds which surrounded her, the poor victim, shrieking for help and mercy, endeavoured to reach the bank by swimming, and had nearly effected a landing, when a barbarian in office, with a hooked pole, caught her by her long fair hair, and dragging her back into the stream, kept her under water until the cruel tragedy was completed. The fury and despair of Albert on receiving these horrid tidings were boundless. He flew to his father's bitterest enemy, Louis the Bearded, at Ingolstadt, and returned at the head of an hostile army to his native * Professor Schultes says, the date on the tombstone is in- correct, and that it should be October 12th, 1435, as Albert married again 1436. The bridge from which she was pre- cipitated, was that which crossed the old arm of the Danube, and no longer exists. The present bridge passes over the new branch of the river, that washes the town and connects its northern side with the Island called the Donauwiese, in which the famous Sossau fair, which began on the Sunday after Michaelmas, and lasted eight days, was formerly held. 40 BAVARIA, land, breathing vengeance against the mur- derers of his beloved wife. The old duke, sorely pressed by the arms of his injured son, and tormented by the stings of con- science, implored the mediation of the Emperor Sigismund, who succeeded after some time in pacifying Albert, and recon- ciling him to his father, who, as a proof of his repentance, instituted a perpetual mass for the soul of the martyred Agnes Ber- nauer. Albert afterwards married Ann of Brunswick, by whom he had ten children. The ramparts of this town are now al- most entirely demolished, and the fosses turned into kitchen-gardens. The former were once planted with mulberry-trees, but they were destroyed during the late war, when Straubing, though not absolutely stormed or invested, suffered considerably from the constant passage of troops, and the skirmishing in its neighbourhood. The Straubingers are more celebrated for good living than hard work. " On y mange et digere Compere, compere ; On y fait bonne chere Voila tout le mystere !" is the quotation of Prof. Schultes, and may STRAUB1NG. 41 with great propriety be applied to many- bodies corporate, of more pretension than the humble one of Straubing. The whole country was lighted up by a glorious sunset as we entered the town to satisfy our curiosity and our appetite, and some time before we returned from those important occupations, the " twilight grey" had " in her sober livery all things clad." We had determined on passing the first night on board, in order to reach Vilshofen by breakfast-time the following day, as from that place we understood the scenery would become too interesting to admit of haste, or travelling after dark, and preparations had been accordingly made by our little crew. The sides of the zillewere boarded up, and straw and boat-cloaks so arranged as to make us a very comfortable couch, upon which we had no sooner stretched ourselves than the word was given, and by the light of the stars we dropped gently down the river, passing the Atzelburg and Hockstetter-hof on the right bank. The former, also called the Aciliusburg, is con- jectured by some to have been the retreat of the Eoman Consul Acilius, when exiled for 42 BAVARIA. the crime of Christianity, and originally named from him Acilia Augusta. In its neighbourhood are some entrenchments believed to be Roman. Reibersdorf, Klei- nau, and Ebling are villages on the right bank. Near the latter the small stream of the Aitrach joins the Danube. On the left is Lenach, remarkable only as having been purchased by the monks of Altaich in 1139, for ninety-five Pf. Pfennige, about five shillings, English. Notwithstanding the precautions we had taken, I was too cold as well as too curious to sleep ; and as the moon got up so did I, and, seating myself by the cabin door, looked on the gradually brightening land- scape, and listened to the songs of the boat- men who, as they lazily plied their un- wieldy paddles, warbled in their own pecu- liar style — a style rendered familiar to London ears, by the interesting " Rainer family/' for it is not confined to the Tyrol — several wild but pleasing melodies. It is very provoking that the English should be, perhaps, the only people who have no idea of singing in parts ; an untutored boatman, peasant, or soldier of almost any OBER-ALTAICH. 43 of the continental nations will suddenly strike in with an extemporary and very cre- ditable bass, though the air be led off by an utter stranger to him. On the banks of the Main at Aschaffenburg, and at Mcihd- ling in the Wienerwald, I was particularly struck with this pleasing talent, and have noticed it repeatedly both in France and Switzerland. The complaint that the Eng- lish are not a musical nation is in my opi- nion better borne out by this circumstance, than by the alleged deficiency of celebrated composers, or the want of taste in the mixed audiences of our Concert Rooms and Theatres. There is certainly no com- parison between "the native wood-notes wild" of a Devonshire ploughman, and those of a Bavarian bauer. We soon came in sight of Ober-Altaich, a celebrated Benedictine kloster. A Dru- idical altar is said to have been destroyed here by the holy Parminius, who, with his own hand, cut down the oak under which it stood, and caused a chapel to be erected upon the spot. The convent was founded by Duke Uttilo II. A.D. 731, who brought thither twelve Benedictine monks and an 44 BAVARIA, abbot from Reichenau, in the Lake of Con- stance. The Hungarians destroyed it in 907, and it was a ruin for nearly two hun- dred years, when Count Frederick of Bo- gen rebuilt it, and, with his wife and sons, so liberally endowed and patronised it, that in the thirteenth century there were no less than one hundred and eighteen monks here, most of them of noble birth ; and the dignity of prince was granted to its abbots by Louis the Brandenburgher. In 1634, Ober-Altaich was burnt by the Swedes, but shortly afterwards rose from its ashes, more magnificent than ever, — a circumstance, says Schultes, not at all sur- prising when you consider that, in spite of their vow of poverty, the holy brother- hood enjoyed an annual income of thirty thousand florins (between four and five thousand pounds sterling,) an immense sum for this part of Germany, where a florin in the hands of a native will go nearly as far as a pound in England. Pass- ing the mouth of the little Kinzach, and the villages of Saut and Hundersdorf, we at length approached the long-seen Bogen- berg. Upon its summit lie the last crumb- BOGEN, 45 ling relics of an old fortress, the Stamm- chloss* of the once-dreaded Counts of Bo- gen. Germany in the times they flourished was, as the Legate Cupanus described it in his letters to Rome — a den of thieves. The deplorable state into which the whole empire was plunged by the quarrels be- tween the popes and the house of Swabia, the almost total annihilation of the imperial power by the death of Conrad IV., and the interregnum that followed the death of Richard King of the Romans, in 1271, is vividly described by contemporary writers, one of whom, in the language of scripture, exclaims, " In those days there was no king in Israel, and every one did that which was right in his own eyes." " The earth (says another) mourned and languished, Mount Lebanon was shaken from its foundations, and the moon was turned into bloodf.' 5 The terms noble and robber were synony- mous, and the higher the rank the more * The original castle of a particular family — the cradle of the race. Schloss is, however, a most convenient word, as it not only stands for a castle or a palace, but for those build- ings which are both or neither The chateaux of France, and the seats or mansions of England. t The Archbishop of Cologne, in a Letter to the Pope. 46 BAVARIA. lawless and rapacious were the deeds of the titled ruffian. The castle of Bogen was admirably adapted for a bandit's hold. Seated upon the apex of a pyramidical rock, inaccessible but by one narrow pass on its eastern side, which a handful of determined men might keep against a host, and commanding a view over nearly half the dukedom of Bavaria, its lawless lord watched from its battlements, like a vul- ture, the approach of his unsuspecting prey, and, pouncing upon it, bore it up in triumph to his mountain eyrie, where he feasted at his leisure in security. The domains of the Counts of Bogen extended from Regensburg to the Ilz, and from the shores of the Danube far into Bohemia. Their friendship and alliance were sought by King and Kaiser, by the Dukes of Ba- varia, and the Markgraves of Austria ; and their feuds with the Counts of Ortenburg deluged the land repeatedly with blood. But bigotry and superstition lost them what rapine and murder had won. Their revenues filled the coffers of greedy abbots, and their castles were gradually trans- formed into convents. An image of the BOGEN. 47 Virgin was one day seen floating upon the Danube, and drifting ashore near the little market-town of Bogen, which lies at the foot of the mountain, on its western side, rested on a stone on the bank. Count Answin, struck with so miraculous an oc- currence, presented the castle of Bogen to the kloster of Ober Altaich, which his brother Frederick had founded. Forty years afterwards, Count Albert I. of Bogen was wheedled out of the castle of Wind- berg by another holy fraternity ; and about the middle of the thirteenth century the fa- mily became extinct, by the death of Count Albert IV., who had followed the unfor- tunate Emperor, Frederick II., to the Holy Land* Ludmilla, the mother of this last Count of Bogen, was a Bohemian Princess ; and, on the death of her husband, Albert III., Louis II., Duke of Bavaria, becoming enamoured of her from report, offered her marriage, provided, says the chronicle, he should like her upon a personal acquain- tance. Ludmilla consented to this propo- sition, and the duke visited her accord- ingly. Suspecting, however, the sincerity of his protestations, she one day requested 48 BAVARIA. him, as in a joke, to plight his troth to her in a tapestried chamber, and to consider the figures of three knights, worked in the hangings, as witnesses of the contract. The duke, to humour this apparently- childish fancy, smilingly held up his hand, and took the oath required of him, when, to his utter astonishment, three living knights, " good men and true," stepped out from behind the tapestry, where they had been purposely concealed by the cunning Bohemian, and compelled the ensnared potentate to ratify his pledge*. The church of our Lady of Bogen, erected in honour of the miraculous image before- mentioned, stands beside the ruins of the castle, and from six to eight thousand pilgrims have been known at one time to congregate about its far- famed shrine. It has been several times injured by lightning, and its roof carried away by the high winds, a natural conse- * Henry During has a ballad on this subject, entitled, " Die Zeugen," (the Witnesses.) Vide ' Ruinen oder Tas- chenbuch ziir Geschicte verfalener Ritterburgen und Schlos- ser, &c. Wien, 1826. 1 Sammlung.' One might be pardoned for supposing the proverb of " Walls have ears," to have arisen from this adventure. BOGEN. 49 quence of its exposed situation. A thunder- storm burst over it on Whit-Tuesday, A.D. 1618, during one of these meetings, and the lightning having fired the steeple, such confusion ensued, that fourteen persons were crushed to death*. The Bogenberg and its vicinity have been fertile in miracles. A ridiculous story is told by iEmilius Hem- mauer, a prior of Ober-Altaich, about a moving altar, and in the little market-town is shown a tooth of St. Sebastian, over which water is poured into a goblet ; and it is gravely asserted that whoever drinks of this water, need fear no infectious dis- order for twelve months to come. The little rivers Bogen and Menach join the Danube near this spot, and on the opposite * " Tausend sechs hundert zehn und acht, Am dritten Pfingstag, nach Mittnacht. Selling das Wildfeur oben ein, Lief aus dem Thurm in d'kirch hinein ; Die kirch gesteckt voll Kirchfarther war Der brennets viel : zwey sturben gar. In diesem Schreken, Strauss, und Brauss Drang alle welt zur Kirchen auss; Der gross Gewalt erdruekt ohnverschon Vier manns und zehen weibsperson Da liegn ihr in zwey Grabern todt Drey Mann, sibn Weiber : trust sie Gott." * Hemraauer,' a. a. O. 357. 50 BAVARIA. shore are the villages of Absam and Her- mansdorf. As the Danube approaches its confluence with the Isar, its banks become bolder and more interesting ; a crowd of villages pre- sent themselves, amongst which the most important are Pfelling, whence a consider- able quantity of wood is sent to Vienna ; Irlbach, the principal depot for the corn of the Dunkelboden, before the Danube washed the walls of Straubing; and Wi- schelburgh, on the site of the Roman Biso- nium, destroyed by the tremendous Attila. Kloster-Metten, on the left bank, accord- ing to the legend, owes its foundation to the following circumstances : A herdsman of Michaelbuch, named Gamelbert, awak- ing from a deep sleep, in which he had been indulging beneath a tree, found, to his surprise, a book lying upon his breast. On examination he found it was written in English, and, though he knew just as much of the language as the beasts that were grazing before him, he immediately commenced reading it, and was so edified by its contents, that he abandoned his flocks and herds, and, repairing to Rome, became KLOSTER-METTEN. 51 a Christian priest. On his way thither he baptised a boy, whom he named Utto, and desired his parents to send the lad to him when he became a man ; they did so, and Gamelbert made over to him the care of the souls of the worthy inhabitants of Michaelbuch. Utto, however, had no great affection for his new calling, and leaving the poor souls to take care of them- selves, crossed the Danube, and wandered into the Waldes, where he built a her- mitage, in honour of the Archangel Mi- chael, near a spring, which is still called Utto's Spring, and amused himself with sundry curious pranks, amongst which was the rather difficult one of hanging his axe upon a sunbeam ! Charlemagne, hunting in the neighbourhood, caught the holy hermit in the fact, and, astonished, as well he might be, by so extraordinary a per- formance, promised to grant him any boon he might be pleased to ask. Utto re- quested that a convent might be built on the spot, and Kloster-Metten was erected at the command of Charlemagne. On the opposite side to Kloster-Metten, E 2 52 BAVARIA. suddenly rises the remarkable Natternberg the only rock on the right bank from Prufening to Pleinting, a distance of up- wards of eighty English miles. It is nearly three hundred feet high ; and on its sum- mit are the ruins of another castle, which belonged to the Counts of Bogen, who made it their residence in 1232. The curious appearance of this mass of granite, standing in solitary majesty upon this ex- tensive plain, and cut off, as it were, from its giant brethren of the Bohmer-Wald by the bright and trenchant Danube, has given rise to many speculations amongst the geologists of Germany ; but while the learned are at loggerheads respecting this natural phenomenon, the honest people who reside in its neighbourhood, and who, therefore, surely have a right to a voice on the subject, have settled the ques- tion completely to their own satisfaction. The Devil, say they, hating the Deggen- dorfers, for their piety, determined to de- stroy them outright; and, with that in- tention, brought a rock from Italy, (none in the neighbourhood, I presume, being THE NATTERNBERG. 53 suitable to his purpose,) with the mali- cious intention of hurling it upon the devoted town of Deggendorf, and crushing- it, with all its inhabitants, into the Danube. Passing opposite to Kloster-Metten, " half flying, half on foot," with this formidable missile under his arm, the bells of the convent rang for the Ave Maria ! The virtue of the holy sounds was immediately felt by the arch apostate. " Gnashing for anguish, and despite, and shame," he dropped the mountain "like a hot potatoe," and there, where it fell, it stands to this day ; an immutable proof of the power of bell-ringing, and a monument of the piety and narrow escape of the Deggendorfers. In the castle, on its crest, Duke Albert of Austria besieged his faithless favourite Peter Ecker, A.D. 1347; and Henry of Landshut was educated within its walls, from which circumstance he obtained the additional sirname of the Natternberger. The castle was reduced to its present ruinous state by the Swedes, and now belongs to a Count of Preising. From the little place, called Fischerdorf, at the foot of the mountain, the town of Deggendorf 54 BAVARIA, is seen lying in a beautiful valley, sur- rounded by hills that rise in circles, each above the other, and having in front the Danube; here broader than in anv other part of Bavaria, (nearly one thousand two hundred feet,) across which is a wooden bridge, supported by twenty-six piers, but built so slightly, in order that it may be easily removed to give an annual passage to the ice, that Schultes says, it shakes under the curvetting of a single horse. Of the ancient history of Deggendorf very little is known, its records having been all destroyed; some by the Swedes, under Bernhard von Weimar, and the rest by fire, in 1638. Pilgrims, from all parts of Germany, flock to Deggendorf upon Saint Michael's eve, which is a celebrated Gnade-zeit, (time of grace,) when absolution is granted to all comers, in consequence of some miraculous circumstances that, in the year 1337, attended the purloining and insulting of the Host by a woman and some Jews ; who, having bought the con- secrated wafer from her, scratched it with thorns till it bled, and the image of a child DEGGENDORF. 55 appeared; baked it, vision and all, in an oven ; hammered it upon an anvil, the block of which is still shown to the pil- grim ; attempted to cram it down " their accursed throats," (I quote the words of the original description,) bat were pre- vented by the hands and feet of the vision aforesaid ; and finally, despairing to de- stroy it, flung it into a well, which was immediately surrounded by a nimbus, &c, I should not have noticed these disgusting falsehoods, but for the melancholy fact, that the circulation of this trumpery story was considered a sufficient cause, by the pious Deggendorfers, for the indiscrimi- nate massacre of all the wretched Jews in the place ; which infamous and bloody deed was perpetrated the day after St. Mi- chael, sanctioned by Christian priests, who, in grand procession, carried back the inde- structible wafer to the church, and solemnly approved, in 1489, by Pope Innocent VIIL, who issued his bull for the general ab- solution abovementioned*. Above fifty * The whole of these circumstances, from the stealing of the Host to the granting of the Bull, are represented in paintings on the walls of the church. Nearly the same story 56 BAVARIA. thousand pilgrims assembled here in 1801 ; and as late as 1815, so considerable were their numbers, that the greater part of them passed the night in the streets of the town, and in the fields in its neighbour- hood. The moon had set before we passed Deggendorf, but the night was light enough to see the " Isar rolling rapidly," through its many mouths, to join the mighty Danube ; and the spire of Plattling in the distance, a tolerably sized market-town, where there is a bridge across the former river, and the post-house, between Strau- bing and Vilshofen. Below this bridge, the raft-masters of Munich, who leave that is told at Bruxelles of three miraculous wafers, which were stolen and stabbed by Jews, in 1369 ; and for which imputed crime, several of that persecuted people were burnt alive, by order of Duke Wenceslaus. The author of ' Les Delices des Pays Bas' tells us, that, "Les hosties et les marques durent encore aujourd'hui, et ne souffrent pas qu'on les approche sans je ne sr:ai quelle horreur toute sainte. On les garde pour un gage particulier de la protection divine envers la ville de Brusselles." Vol. i. p. 121. It appears that the Deggen- dorfers owed the Jews a considerable sum of money ; it is, therefore, most probable that the story was got up to enable them, as the debt grew troublesome, to wash it out in blood. Vide 'Das obsiegende Glaubenswunder des ganzen Christl. Churlandes Baiem willsagen unlangbarer Bericht, &c.' 8vo. Deggendorf, 1814. THE ISAR, 57 city every Monday for Vienna, unite their rafts before they enter the Danube. They descend the Isar upon single rafts only; but upon reaching this point they lash them together in pairs, and in fleets of three, four, or six pairs, they set out for Vienna. A voyage is made pleasantly enough upon these floating islands, as they have all the agremens without the con- finement of a boat. A very respectable promenade can be made from one end to the other, and two or three huts erected upon them afford shelter in bad weather and repose at night. Isargemiind, situated in one of the many islands, at the confluence of the rivers, is the only village on your right till you reach Thundorf, where there is a ferry over to Nieder Altaich ; on the left are the Halbe-meile-kirche, and two or three small hamlets. Nieder Altaich, another Benedictine convent*, and, at one time, the most * " So soon another," says Schultes, " I think I hear the traveller and the reader exclaim, who may not be acquainted with the magnitude of this order." And then he proceeds to give, from Hemmauer, the following list of popes, priests, emperors, kings, &c. who had, up to tUat time, embraced the 58 BAVARIA. important that the order possessed in Bavaria ; its annual income being not less than one hundred thousand florins ; stands at the foot of the frowning Bohmer-wald, which here again bends its bushy brows upon the bright river. Saint Parminius is said to have acted the same scene here which has already been described in the notice of Ober Altaich. And Uttilo II., not contented with having founded that kloster, brought hither an equal number of monks from the same monastery of Reichenau, and established them in a like manner. Its abbot soon became the richest in Bavaria ; but the Hungarians, in the tenth century, ravaged the country with fire and sword, and Nieder Altaich suffered the fate of its prototype. In 990, how- ever, it was rebuilt, and still more richly endowed by the Emperor Otto, and Henry Duke of Bavaria. Saint Gotthard came barefooted from Reichersdorf, where he Order of Saint Benedict: viz. " Sixty-three popes, two hun- dred and twenty-three cardinals, two hundred and fifty-five patriarchs, sixteen thousand archbishops, forty-six thousand bishops, twenty-one emperors, twenty-five empresses, forty- eight kings, fifty-four queens, one hundred and forty-six impe- rial and royal children, and four hundred and forty- five sove- reign princes and dukes ! " Donaufahrten, torn. i. 8. 374. note. NIEDER ALTEICH. 59 was born in 965, of humble parents, and from a monk became abbot, and lastly, bishop of Hildesheim, where he died, A. D. 1035. The monks of Nieder Altaich, it appears, gradually forgot the pious lessons and fair example of Saint Gotthard ; which, daring his life, had materially improved the reputation of the community ; for in 1282, we find them making a riddle of their abbot with arrows, from an ambush^ on the river side, as he is crossing the ferry to Thundorf*. The abbots, them- selves, also, were many of them unworthy successors of that holy man. One of the last superiors of this kloster, for instance, by name Augustin Ziegler, not contented with expending annually upwards of ninety thousand florins, ran the fraternity into a debt of nearly one hundred thousand be- fore he was invited to retire from the cares of office, and live in peace at Straubing, upon a slender annuity. In the ' Topo- graphischen Lexicon von Baiern,' 2 s., 508., is the following account of this worthy * Memoriale, seu Altachise inferioris memoria superstes, ex tabulis, annalibus, diplomatis, &c. 6. Joan. Bapt. Lackner etc. Fol. Passavii, 1779. 60 BAVARIA. prelate, who seems to have formed a very tolerable idea of the " otium cum dig- nitate," which should bless an abbot of Benedictines. " Besides his valet he had two pages. On his name-day all the prin- cipal persons of the government of Strau- bing assembled in the grand refectory of Nieder Altaich. A band of trumpets and kettle-drums was in attendance, from day- break, facing his chamber window, and the moment his Excellency (for he had pur- chased the title of a privy councillor) opened his eyes, the pages undrew the curtains of cloth of gold, amidst a flourish from the trumpets and kettle-drums with- out, while a battery of small mortars proclaimed in thunder to the surrounding country, the dawning of the name-day of this important personage." His conduct, however, soon became so notorious that he was compelled to resign, and retire upon an annual allowance of two hundred ducats and ten eimers of wine. Ten times has this kloster been burned down, and rebuilt each time more magnificently ; till at last, if we may believe Lackners account, the HENGERSBERG. 61 very oxen of the community eat out of marble mangers — " pecora fecit in mar- more pabulari ! " A little beyond Nieder Altaich, upon the same bank, is the town of Hengersberg, with its old castle, given, in 1212, by Alt- nann von Helingersberg to Saint Mauritius, then abbot of that kloster. The Danube formerly flowed over part of the bank, and, what is now the lazzar-house, was, at that time, the river toll-house. At Hengers- berg, the Danube again turns from the Bo- hemian mountains, as wearied with its un- availing efforts to penetrate the giant line ; but the gentle eminences which still skirt its left bank are enough to preserve its su- periority to that of the right, which, all the way from Ratisbon, with the solitary ex- ception of the Natternberg, had not pre- sented one hillock to break the long, low line of shore, more in keeping with the sluggish stream of a Dutch canal, than with the rapid waves of the "boiling Danube/' an epithet, by the bye, more descriptive than any other of its singular current, which, whether running fast or slowly, 62 BAVARIA. keeps up a constant whirling, eddying, and bubbling, accompanied by a low hissing sound which (pardon, gentle reader, the humble comparison) reminded our English ears of nothing so much as the singing of a tea-kettle. After passing a handful of vil- lages, whose almost unpronounceable names shall be presented hereafter, in their due order, to the curious in consonants, we glided by Osterhofen, a little town on the side of a small hill, a short distance from the shore. It is one of the oldest towns in Bavaria, and was the site of the Castra Pe- trensia. TheAvars,who desolated the banks of the Danube during the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, here suffered a seri- ous defeat ; and the victory having been gained on an Easter Sunday, the town took the name of Oster-hofen, and still bears in its arms a Paschal lamb. In the meadow where the battle was fought, and named from that event, " Oster-wiese," stood Kloster Oster-hofen, erected in ho- nour of, and gratitude for, the defeat of the barbarians. Hither Uttilo II. brought some more of his friends, the Benedictines; but the barbarians returned in 765, thirsting HOCH-WINZER. 63 for vengeance, and gratified it by razing the Kloster to the ground. It was rebuilt, but the rest of its history is neither clear nor interesting. The indefatigable Uttilo is supposed to have been buried here, where also lie, according to report, which may be said to lie also, nine of the eleven thousand virgins who suffered martyrdom with Saint Ursula at Cologne. Below Osterhofen, on the left, are the picturesque ruins of the Castle of Hoch- Winzer, or Ober-Winzer, over the little town of the same name. Both town and castle received this appellation from the considerable vineyards which flourished here ; but who the Lords of Winzer were, or what feats they achieved, Schultes says he has not been able to discover : all that is known about them is, that they lie buried at Osterhofen. The Pandours reduced the castle to its present ruinous condition in 1741*. Flinschbach, built, in 1230, by the * Schultes says, in 1740 ; but this must be a mistake, as Maria Theresa was not crowned Queen of Hungary till the 25th of June, 1741 ; and it was after that ceremony that, clad in deep mourning-, with the crown of St. Stephen on her head, and the scimitar at her side, she made the affecting address to the Diet, which, rousing the whole nation, brought its 64 BAVARIA. Counts of Bogen, and three or four other villages of still less note, on each side of the river, enliven the scene, till the ruins of the Castle of Hofkirchen rise on the left bank; in the fourteenth century, the residence of the powerful Counts of Ortenburg, the sworn enemies of the Counts of Bogen, and the terror of all navigators of the Danube. numerous tribes from the banks of the Save, the Drave, the Teiss and the Danube, to the royal standard. These troops, under the names of Croats, Pandours, Sclavonians, Waras- dinians, and Tolpaches, exhibited anew and astonishings pec- tacle to the eyes of Europe. By their dress and arms, by the ferocity of their manners, and their singular mode of combat, they struck terror into the disciplined armies of Germany and France. Vide Coxe's ' History of the House of Austria,' 8vo. vol. iv. p. 442. — Baron Riesbeck, who also dates the circum- stance 1740, says, "When the Hungarian nobility took the field for their king Maria Theresa, the first sight of such troops struck the French army with a panic. They had, indeed, often seen detachments of these ' Diables d 'Hojigrie,' as they used to call them ; but a whole army, drawn up in battle array, unpow- dered from the general to the common soldier, half their faces covered with long whiskers, a sort of round beaver on their heads instead of hats, without ruffles or frills to their shirts, and without feathers, all clad in rough skins, monstrous crooked sabres, ready drawn and uplifted, their eyes darting flashes of rage sharper than the beams of their naked sabres, was a sight our men had not been accustomed to see." (It must be remembered that Riesbeck, though a German, writes in the character of a Frenchman.) " Our oldest officers still remember the impression these terrible troops made, and how difficult it was to make the men stand against them, till they had been accustomed to their formidable appearance." Pin- kerton's Collect, vol. vi. p. 112. KINZING. 65 What, with barefaced plundering, and the exercise of a self-erected right, called " grundruhr," which literally signifies grounding, scarcely a vessel escaped the clutches of these robber lords. This right of grundruhr entitled them to take posses- sion of every vessel, with its crew and cargo, that grounded upon any bank, shoal, or island, within their domain. If it but grated on the sand, or brushed the shore, it was immediately pronounced " grand- riirhrig" by the armed vassals of the noble bandit, who were continually on the watch, and who made no scruple of chasing the unfortunate schiffers till they drove them aground, and then coolly laid legal claim to their property. Nearly opposite Winzer is Kinzing, or Kinzen, the Castra Quintana, or Augusta Quintanorum Colonia of the Romans, upon a small height, from whence a little brook leaps into the Danube. Several miracles are related of Saint Severinus, who resided here during the fifth century, how he saved the place from inundation, by planting a cross on the river's bank ; how he brought his dead friend Sylvin to life again, in the 66 BAVARIA. wooden church that stood outside the walls, and how Sylvin took it in exceeding ill part, and insisted on dying again imme- diately. " I beg of thee, I conjure thee," exclaimed the indignant Sylvin, " not to rouse me from the rest which God has ap- pointed for me ! Why hast thou awakened me ? Why hast thou brought me back into a world, into which I never more wish to return ? " The Saint, I suspect, looked un- commonly silly on receiving this unexpected rap on the knuckles : his apology, if one he made, has not come down to us. The fact is related on the authority of a young- peasant girl, who hid herself in the church, on purpose to witness the miracle which she suspected was about to be performed ; and it would be the height of impertinence, under such circumstances, to inquire into particulars. By the time we had reached Kinzing, " Morn, her rosy steps in th' orient clime, Advancing, sowed the earth with eastern pearl;" And as we made the point which brought us in view of the fine old ruin of Hildegarts- berg, the sun rising immediately behind it HILDEGARTSBERG. 67 shot his glorious rays, like golden arrows, through the loop-holes and windows of its bare and blackened walls, that frowned still darker from the blaze of light behind them. It was a scene in which the spirit of that daring artist, Turner, would have revelled. My companion, who had given me tolerable proofs during our passage from London to Ostend, that he could " sleep in spite of thunder/' was awakened by my raptures ; and we stood, at the head of the boat, gaz- ing at the beautiful picture, and basking in the welcome beams of u the great lamp by which the world is blest," till the river, suddenly taking a new direction, brought us again into the shadow of the left bank, and showed us Vilshofen, with its long light bridge and pretty gardens laughing in the sunshine, at the farther extremity of the valley we had now entered. Little appears to be known about Hildegartsberg further than that it was like so many other castles on the Rhine, the Danube, &c, the hold of some robber knight, noble, or priest, of the middle ages, and destroyed by Duke Albert of Austria, in 1346. That most delightful of all chroniclers, F 2 68 BAVARIA. Froissart, who commenced his interesting annals shortly after this period, gives a la- mentable account of the brutality and ava- rice of the nobility and clergy of Germany. " When a German hath taken a prisoner," (says he,) " he putteth him into irons, and into hard prison, without any pity, to make him pay the greater finance and ransom. 3 '* Again, " They are a covetous people above all other. They have no pity if they have the upper hand, and they demean them- selves with cruelty to their prisoners. They put them to sundry pains, to compel them to make their ransoms greater ; and, if they have a lord or a great man for their cap- tive, they make great joy thereof, and will convey him into Bohemia, Austria, or Sax- ony, and keep him in some uninhabitable castle. They are people worse than Sara- cens or Paynims ; for their excessive cove- tousness quencheth the knowledge of ho- nour;'^ and Schmidt $ tells us, that an archbishop thought he had a fair revenue before him, when he built his fortress on the junction of four " roads/' * Liv. i. ch. 433. t Liv. ii. ch. 125. t Geschicbte der Deutschen. VILSHOFEN. 69 Nearly facing Hildegartsberg is Pleint- ing, a small market-town, at which the plain stretching from the gates of Regensburg, along the right bank of the Danube, at last terminates, and the beauty of the river really commences. The road from Straubing runs beside it, upon a sort of terrace, and the sight of a post-chariot whirling along, re- called our wandering thoughts from the dark but interesting ages into which the contemplation of ruined tower and cloister grey had led them, to the less romantic, but, in our situation, equally interesting prospect, of a good inn and a capital break- fast. -Alas ! it seemed as if neither were to be found in Vilshofen, or, at least, that it was decreed we should not meet with them. Gilt lions, red stags, white horses, and blue bulls ; apples and orange trees, as a herald would say, " proper;" crowns and coronets, and heads every way worthy of them ; suns, moons, and stars, " yea, the great globe itself," swung to and fro in the morning breeze, in every direction, and in endless variety; but in vain, from spot to spot, " with courteous action, they waved us to a more removed ground." The exte- 70 BAVARIA. riors of these caravanserais alone were pro- mising. If " houses of entertainment r they were, that quality seemed entirely restricted to the outside. Their newly white-washed walls, and neatly painted green doors and shutters, surmounted by one of the glitter- ing ensigns aforesaid, but served to make the dark gulf of the long, low-roofed, rambling, unfurnished, smoky speise-saal, appear more dreary, dirty, and uncomfort- able; and it was some time before even hunger, that least ceremonious of all sen- sations, could induce us to make the plunge. Having at last screwed up our courage to the sticking-place, we rushed into — the Moon, I believe ; made the hostess stare, by drinking four or five "portions" of coffee, which turned out better than we expected, and ate a most respectable quantum of to- lerable " butter brod" and half a dozen eggs; for the whole of which we paid twenty kreutzers (about sixpence English) each, being then charged at least double what would have been demanded of their own countrymen. Vilshofen was the Villa Quintanica of the Romans, and is situated at the confluence VILSHOFEN. 71 of the river Vils with the Danube. Rapoto, Count of Ortenburg, fortified it in the eleventh century ; and its history from that period is little more than an unbroken nar- rative of takings and retakings, plunder - ings and burnings, down to the end of the last war. Its principal trade is in beer; for a particular sort of which beverage it has been long celebrated : and its principal building is an ecclesiastical establishment, for which I cannot find an English name to my liking, that owes its foundation to the following circumstance :— Heinrich Tuschl, knight of Saldenau, upon ocular proof of his wife's infidelity, condemned the miser- able woman to be walled up alive, abjured the company, and shunned the sight of fe- males, and left the greater part of his pro- perty in 1376 to found this establishment. Upon the charter was written : "2?§untf attain 33am; M) Cusrfjl Utib allatn." " Two dogs to one bone ; I Tuschl bide alone. 5 ' * * The canons or prebends of this establishment have the word " allain," (" alone,") inscribed upon their arms, their clothes, and their houses. Schultes tells us that a wag La- tinised it " Solus cum sola." 72 BAVARIA. Having re-embarked and passed under the wooden bridge, on the centre of which is a crucifix, we passed by Hacheldorf, which forms a kind of suburb to Vilshofen, and the market town of Windorf, famous for boat- building. Near Hansbach the little Wol- fach falls into the Danube ; and below this spot the river boils over numberless sunken rocks, many of which show their white heads above the water, studding the stream in all directions. Shortly afterwards the river narrows, and a slight fall, or what our sailors call a race, ensues. The watermen, who magnify the little difficulties of this navigation into the most astounding dan- gers, call this " das gefurchtete Sand- bach !" The cottages on the banks now assumed a Swiss appearance, being all of wood, with galleries across their gables, and far-projecting roofs. A slight change was also perceivable in the costume of the women; the little black silk cap, with its long ribbon streamers, had given place to a dark- coloured cotton handkerchief, bound closely round the head, and tied in a knot behind, the ends hanging down. The impetus given to the current by the little fall now carried LOUIS I. KING OF BAVARIA. 73 us merrily along, to the great delight of our lazy boatmen, who made it a point of conscience not to wag a finger when they could possibly avoid it, past Gaishofen, where a small stream called the Gaisach joins the Danube, and Heining on the right bank, and Dobelstein (formerly called En- gelberg) on the left. For a new road cut through the rocks on the very brink of the river, by which nearly six English miles are saved in posting to Passau, Bavaria and its visiters are indebted to Maximilian- Joseph, the father of the present monarch, Louis I. who, treading in the footsteps of his excellent sire, inherits not only his crown but the affection of his people ; and by his unbounded kindness and liberality to the professors of the fine arts, has obtained throughout the continent the honourable addition to his style, of " the King of the Learned/ 5 In the tour, of which this descent of the Danube formed a part, I travelled nearly all over Bavaria, and had the gratifi- cation of hearing the praises of its king from all lips and in all places ; not the mere mouth-homage which betrays itself by the cold precision of the language in which it is 74 BAVARIA. couched, but the ebullition of feeling rush- ing pure from the heart, and leaping the barriers of ceremony in its honest ardour. " Our king is a good fellow/' is the homely but expressive phrase in which his character is invariably summed up by all who speak of him. Shortly after he came to the throne, he disbanded an expensive body- guard, and on being questioned as to the policy of the act, he replied, " We are at peace; why should I burden my people with an unnecessary expense ? as for my- self, I want no regiment to protect me, my fellow-citizens are my body-guard." In a very handsome new street erecting in Munich by his order, there is an unseemly gap occasioned by an antique isolated house standing edgeways in the centre of the modern buildings. On expressing our sur- prise that it was allowed to remain there, we were told that it belonged to an old general, who had resisted every proposal for its demolition, and it having been suggested to the king to compel him, his answer was, " No, no, let him have his way ; he is an old man, and has perchance but a few years to live ; I will not abridge their number by LOUIS I. KING OF BAVARIA. 75 annoying him." His majesty frequently takes a country walk alone, or with but one attendant, and, dressed like a farmer, chats freely and jocularly with the peasantry ; never leaving them, however, without some mark of his bounty. I cannot be expected to vouch for the truth of these anecdotes as far as regards their details or the exact expressions used, but they are amongst the many in general cir- culation ; and an excellent modern tourist has justly remarked, that *« an anecdote in general circulation, even though not strictly true in point of fact, will commonly be ac- cordant to the character of the person of whom it is related, and will thus be a cor- rect, though perhaps a fictitious illustration of his mode of acting." The person of Louis is worthy his noble character ; intel- ligence and spirit are visible in every line of his countenance ; a high forehead, large and deeply-set dark eyes, to which a pro- fusion of black hair, pushed carelessly off the temples, and dark upturned mustachios, would give something like an expression of fierceness, were it not for the benignant smile which plays about his mouth when 76 BAVARIA, addressing you. His queen, too, is renowned for her beauty and affability ; and, in short, a more handsome and deservedly popular pair never graced a continental throne. But to return to the Danube, from whence I have wandered to pay my humble tribute of praise to one of the best of monarchs. By the side of the new road before men- tioned is the statue of a lion-couchant upon a pedestal, and placed upon a jutting rock, with an inscription beneath it stating the chaussee to have been made by command of Maximilian- Joseph I., King of Bavaria. In a few minutes after you have passed this monument, the towers of the church of Ma- ria-hilf appear above the hills, and shortly afterwards the cathedral of Passau, and the old fort of Oberhaus on the opposite height, are seen rising over the foliage of an island in the centre of the river. The approach to the city between the island and the left bank is most beautiful ; and who- ever is acquainted with the scenery of the Rhine will immediately acknowledge, that it has not improperly obtained the appella- tion of " the Coblentz of the Danube," CHAPTER III. Passau— The Inn-stadt— The Fair— The Cathedral— The Bridge — Fortress of Oberhaus — Celebrated View — Maria- hilf— The Ilz-stadt— The Sword Cutlery— Present Manu- factures and Commerce of Passau — Talismans — Goitres — Excursions into the Environs of Passau — Confluence of the Inn and the Danube — Krempenstein — Hafner Zell — Its Manufactories — Fichtenstein — The Jochenstein — The Ruin of Ried. A spot where three rivers meet, amidst a quadruple chain of mountains, rising four hundred feet above the level of the water, was not likely to escape the notice of the ancient lords of the world, and consequently the Romans built, upon the promontory between the Inn and the Danube, their " Castra Batava/' The Inn-stadt, on the right bank of the Inn, and which is con- nected with Passau by a bridge across that river, was the Roman Bojodurum. In St. Severins time it was called Boitro. The saint saved the city from the wrath of Gibuld, King of Swabia, but it was de- stroyed by Chunimund, the successor of 78 BAVARIA. Gibuld, while Severin was at his kloster near Vienna, A.D. 475. Bibilo, Bishop of Lorch, flying from the destroying Avars, was received with open arms by Uttilo II., who built for him here, at the eastern end of the city, the Nonnen-kloster of Nidern- burg, A.D. 739. About one hundred and fifty years later, the successors of this bishop modestly laid claim to the whole city ; and kept it in defiance of king and kaiser, till the year 1802, shortly after which period it was secularized and given to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. The bishopric of Passau, under its ecclesiastical princes, included (besides the city of Pas- sau, the Inn-stadt, and the Ilz-stadt,) the castles of Marsbach and Rana-riedl, the market-towns of Ebersberg and Ips, the towns of Mautern, Amstetten, Greifenstein, Stockerau, St. Andre, and many other places in Austria, nearly the whole of the present bishopric of Linz, and a large por- tion of Bohemia. One of these sovereign prelates, of the family of Hohenloe, ran the bishopric, notwithstanding its immense revenues, into considerable debt, while, PASSAU. 79 with great affectation of piety and contempt for the pomps and vanities of this life, he caused to be inscribed on the walls of his palace, " O Welt ! bose Welt ! " (" O world! O wicked world !") upon which a waggish dean wrote under, as in continua- tion of the sentence, " Wie libel verzehrst Du des Hochstifts Geld !" (" How ill dost thou consume the chapter's gold !") At the same time let us not forget that we are, perhaps, indebted to a Bishop of Pas- sau for the preservation of that most in- teresting, as well as most ancient, speci- men of Teutonic romance, the Nibelungen Lied. Pelegrin, or Pilgerin, Bishop of Passau, who died in 991, collected the then current legends of the Nibelungen, which he committed to writing in the favourite Latin tongue, with the assistance of his scribe Conrad, whose name has occasioned the Swabian poem to be sometimes as- cribed to Conrad of Wurtzburg, who lived long after.* On the 2d of August, 1552, was signed here the celebrated treaty, or * Vide * Lays of the Minnesingers, or German Trouba- dours.' 12mo. Lond. 1825, p. 113, and the Appendix to the * Nibelungen-lied', called "Die Klage," i. e. the Lament. 80 BAVARIA. pacification of Passau, by the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, as representative of his brother, the Emperor Charles V., and Maurice of Saxony, in the name of the Protestant party. In 1610, the Emperor Rudolph raised a body of troops in the diocese of Passau, which, on his reconciliation the same year with his brother Matthias, he affected to disband, at the same time purposely with- holding their pay, in order to afford them a pretext for invading Bohemia. The troops accordingly, under the command of their leader Ramee, burst into Upper Austria, spreading themselves over the country beyond the Danube, and after com- mitting every species of devastation, passed into Bohemia, where they were at last defeated near Prague, after they had ex- torted three hundred thousand florins from the Emperor *. On entering the city we found it was fair time, and the square before the cathe- * Coxe's ' History of the House of Austria,' vol. ii. pp. 419, 20. I have mentioned these circumstances, as the devasta- tions committed by these troops, who are called by. the Ger- man writers the Passauer Volk, are still but too visible upon the banks of the Danube, and will be alluded to hereafter. PASSAU. 81 dral was filled with booths, and gay with peasantry in their holiday dresses. Prints and pipe-heads, cotton handkerchiefs of the most staring colours, and the splendid gold and silver caps worn by the women of the neighbourhood, amongst which we saw, for the first time, the magnificent and taste- ful Linzer Haube, were the principal articles for sale ; but it did not appear to us that there were many purchasers. The cathedral has nothing to boast of in the way of ar- chitecture or painting. The present build- ing dates from the year 1662, the for- mer edifice having been destroyed by fire. Not having much time to spare, we hast- ened across the bridge over the Danube into the Ilz-stadt, on the left bank, and ascended the winding staircase cut in the rock, to the fortress of Oberhaus, the Ehrenbreitstein of Passau. It was a broil- ing business, under a vertical sun, but we were told the view from the summit would amply repay us for any fatigue we might endure in the ascent ; and breathless with expectation, as well as exertion, we stood at length upon the brow of the mountain. But little was to be seen from that spot, 82 BAVARIA. except the tops of the towers, and the houses of Passau, and we walked on through ploughed fields, a curious sight in such a situation, to the fortress, from the walls of which we expected to realize our excited hopes. But though permitted to enter the building, sentinels at each angle checked every attempt to gain a command- ing situation, with their eternal " es ist ver- boden ;" and hot, weary, and disappointed, we prepared to " march down again, 5 ' when a fortunate chance led us to the wished-for spot. Whether it was not the right one, or that our previous annoyances had ren- dered us captious and discontented, I can- not pretend to say, but certainly the view, though extraordinary enough in character, fell woefully short of our expectations in point of extent and beauty. The Inn is seen writhing through its mountain gorge, to join the Danube, which at this point it much exceeds in width, and the church of Maria-hilf, on its bluff rock above the Inn- stadt, forms a fine object in the fore-ground. But the hills are too lofty, notwithstanding the elevation on which one is placed, to permit the eye to follow the windings of PASSAU. 83 the two rivers to any distance, and the view from the water, at the point of their confluence, is, in my opinion, far preferable. The old fort of Oberhaus was built in 1219, by Bishop Ulrich, to keep the citizens ofPassauin awe*. Maria-hilf was once, and I believe is still, a celebrated place of pilgrimage ; and here is the miraculous image of the Virgin, up to which the pil- grims used to crawl upon their knees. The infant Jesus is clasped to one breast, and from the other, water flows out of a little silver pipe, into the mouth of the pious votary. The image of the Virgin in the church of Maria-hilf at Vienna, was made from this model ; but the Viennese have had the good taste to dispense with the water-pipe. In 1781, a vessel, with two hundred pilgrims, was wrecked on the Inn, and one hundred and fifty unfortunate be- ings perished. Descending into the Ilz-stadt, (the suburb of Passau, on the left bank, so called from the Ilz, that rolls its dark waves into the * The Austrian commander Plantini was beheaded at Ingolstadt, in 1743, for delivering this fortress up to the Bavarians, without firing a shot, G 2 84 BAVARIA. Danube, beneath the fortress of Ober- haus,) we hailed a little market-boat that was just leaving the shore, and were speedily ferried over by a stout wench to the eastern end of Passau, where our bark lay moored while the passports of our- selves and crew were undergoing the re- gular inspection, &c. Notwithstanding it was fair time, there was little bustle either on the banks or in the town. Commerce, which once flourished so greatly at Passau, has of late years, from various circum- stances, sadly declined. Its sword-cutlery, celebrated as early as the thirteenth cen- tury for the famous Wolfs-klingen (i. e. Wolf-blades,) was destroyed by religious persecutions, about the close of the six- teenth, when nearly all the workmen, two hundred of whom lived in the Inn-stadt alone, sought refuge in Austria. At the beginning of the seventeenth century a ma- nufactory of striped paper was established, which supplied, in some degree, the loss of the sword- cutlery ; and Passau is still the stapel-platz, or principal depot for the salt of Bavaria, which is brought down the Salza and the Inn, from the works PASSAU. 85 at Hallein ; but the benefit which now accrues to the inhabitants from this privi- lege is little or nothing, compared with what the salt trade produced to them in the middle ages, when they carried it on, on their own accounts. During the thirty years' war, talismans were sold here, which the venders professed would render the wearers invulnerable. A safer speculation could scarcely have been imagined, as, until they had tried them, no one had a right to complain of imposition, and those who did try them and found them ineffec- tual, generally made the discovery too late to expose or punish the impostor. The people of Passau and its neighbourhood might be considered particularly good- looking, were it not for the hideous goitre, which is exceedingly common in this part of Germany. The appearance of this ex- crescence is most disgusting to the eye of the unaccustomed traveller, but the natives take no measures to prevent or to conceal it: and, indeed, both here, as in some parts of Switzerland, it is considered by many a beauty, instead of a deformity. Schultes recommends, to those who have 86 BAVARIA. the time tomake them, excursions to Form- bach, Wernstein, and several other places in the environs of Passau, and a ramble up the wild valley of the Ilz, to the ruins of the old castle of Halz, the seat of an ancient family, that, rising into fame through the deeds of Albert the Valiant, in the time of Rudolph of Hapsburg, became extinct with the death of Count Luitprand, in 1375. We, however, had too long a jour- ney in perspective to venture on including ourselves in that number, so late in the season, and with particular objects in view ; and as our steersman made his appear- ance a few moments after we returned to the boat with our papers w en regie," we were soon in the middle of the stream again, and rapidly bidding adieu to the Coblentz of the Danube. The view down the two rivers, (the Inn and the Danube,) from the point of their confluence, is, as I have already mentioned, in my opinion, far more beautiful though not so extraordinary as that obtained from the heights above them. Standing in the stern of the boat, and looking back on the too rapidly disappearing scene, on our PASSAU. 87 right arose the long walls and round towers of Qberhaus, upon a range of precipices richly hung with wood, and full four hun- dred fathoms high ; on our left stood the Maria-Hilf-berg, crowned with its church, and the houses of the Inn-stadt pictu- resquely grouped at its foot, — in the cen- tre, the town of Passau, forming a salient angle upon a plane of water, nearly two thousand feet in w T idth, and standing like an island between two of the noblest rivers in Germany. The time allowed us to con- template this lovely scene, was as brief as the enjoyment was exquisite. The Da- nube, reinforced by the waves of the Inn and the Ilz, rushes, with redoubled speed round a rocky cape, and presto ! your boat is gliding between banks so savage and solitary, that you can scarcely believe some necromantic spell has not transported you, in the twinkling of an eye, thousands of miles from that " peopled city," the hum of which still lingers in your ear. In its eccentric course, the river now forms itself, as it were, into a chain of beautiful lakes, each apparently shut in on all sides by precipitous hills, clothed with black firs that 88 BAVARIA. grow down to the very water's edge, while from amongst them peeps out, here and there, one of the little Swiss-looking cot- tages I have before mentioned, with perhaps a rustic bridge thrown across a small cleft or chasm, through which a mountain rivulet falls like a silver thread into the flood be- low. On doubling one of the abrupt points which produce this lake-like appearance, we came suddenly upon the chateau of Krempenstein, or Grampelstein, perched on a mass of rock, jutting out from a fir- clad precipice, that rises majestically be- hind it. It belonged, for nearly four hun- dred years, to the bishops of Passau, who, in conformity with the general practice of the time, levied contributions upon the passing vessels, translating the awk- ward term of robbery into the more legal epithet of toll. The peasantry and schif- fers in the neighbourhood call it the Schneider-Schlossel, and tell a story of some poor tailor who, in flinging a dead goat into the river from the walls of the building, fell over with it and was drowned, a circumstance which they think exceed- ingly comical. The age of the building, HAFNER-ZELL, 89 and the terrific beauty of its situation, deserve a more interesting tradition. On turning another sharp corner, — forgive, gentle reader, the unnautical expression, for I know of none other that will so well de- scribe the acute angles that present them- selves at almost every thousand yards upon this extraordinary river, — you per- ceive Biirnwang, or Birchenwang, with its mill ; and in the distance, on the left bank, the small market-town of Hafner or Ober- zell. Little would a traveller imagine, on looking at this unpretending town, that its manufactures have been, from time im- memorial, eagerly sought throughout the civilized world — that, from the banks of the Ganges to the Gulf of Mexico, from St. Petersburg to Peru, there are no articles of commerce more generally circulated and esteemed, than those which are fabricated in this sequestered nook by the hands of a few German potters. The famous cru- cibles, known by the name of Ipser or Pas- sauer-Tiegel, are all made at Hafner-zell. About three hundred persons are constantly employed in this manufacture ; but as the towns of Passau and Ips are of greater 90 BAVARIA. consequence in the map, their names have been connected with the ware ; and the goldsmith and chemist, while reaping the benefit of its industry, are ignorant pro- bably of the existence of such a place as Hafner-zell. There are also here manu- factories of black-lead pencils, and a par- ticular sort of black earthenware, the ma- terials for both of which are found in the neighbourhood, which is rich in mineral and other productions, worthy the atten- tion of the geologist and natural historian. Not far from Hafner-zell, on the right bank, stands the chateau of Fichtenstein, on the summit of a stupendous hill, clothed, like the rest of its giant brethren, with forests of pine and fir. A modern mansion is near it ; and at the foot of the hill are a few poor cottages, with a little church, the spire of which is just visible above the trees. Fichtenstein belonged anciently to the Counts of Wasserburg, another race of knightly plunderers. Conrad, Count of Wasserburg and Fichtenstein, on quitting Germany for the Holy Land, pledged this stronghold to Ulric, Bishop of Passau, in 1218, who advanced a considerable sum of FICHTENSTEIN. 91 money on the extra condition that the castle should be forfeited entirely if the Count did not return from Palestine. Con- rad, however, did return, and, dying soon afterwards, left his castle to his lady. Bishop Gebhard, the successor of Ulric, immediately set up some claim to the pro- perty, and declared war against the coun- tess. He was defeated, however, and taken prisoner by a gallant knight, upon which he proceeded to excommunicate the whole party. The spiritual weapon had consi- derably more effect than the temporal, and the unfortunate countess was obliged to surrender her castle to the bishopric of Passau, A. D. 1226*. Further on, a rock * Mr. Russel, in his tour in Germany, speaking of the number of abbeys, monasteries, &c, has taken up the cause of these holy locusts, and contends, with all that ingenuity and talent which characterize his excellent work, that it is wrong to accuse the princes, or pious individuals who endowed them of having been imprudently liberal to the church. "Thou- sands of acres were given, but they were acres of wood and water, utterly unproductive to the public, and which would probably have remained for centuries in the same wild state, if they had been the property of a quarrelsome baron, instead of belonging to the peaceful sons of the church. The monks though idle themselves, were not encouragers of idleness in their subjects. Their leisure allowed them to instruct, and their love of gain led them to aid, their vassals in agricultural science, rude as it was, while, at the same time, the sacred 92 BAVARIA, rises out of the middle of the river, and upon it stands a small building like a character which they enjoyed, placed their peasantry be- yond the reach of the oppressions practised by feudal nobles. It has long been a current proverb in Germany, ' Man lebt gut unter dem Krummstab .' It is true that one is apt to feel provoked when he is told that these fruitful valhes and the pasture hills which rise along- their sides, belong to a con- gregation of idle monks. But monks were the very men who made the vallies fruitful, and the hills useful. They received them covered with trees, and rocks — no very liberal boon 6 , and it was they who planted them with corn and stored them with sheep." This is all very true, as far as regards the benefits which mankind has eventually received from these establish- ments ; for we have likewise to thank the cowl and crosier, for much if not all the valuable information respecting the days of our fathers and " the old time before them,'* which the chronicles, written and illuminated in abbey and convent, contain. But let the praise be given to that Providence, " from seeming evil still producing good," in whose hands these monks were the unconscious instruments of spreading that very light and information which it was their constant study and employment to extinguish and contract. The hypocrisy and cupidity of these self-elected saints are far less pardonable than the brutal ferocity of the barons, whose pitiable ignorance and superstition, the roots of the evil, they fostered for their own advantage. Instead of employing the a " One lived well under the crosier." h No very liberal boon, Mr. Russel ! What ! In a country where wood is to this day the staple commodity ? where the greater part of the revenue of many of the nobles, and the entire incomes of thousands of the peasantry, are derived from the sale of the trees with which nature has so lavishly clothed the land ? from the produce of those very " acres of wood," which you, from some strange slip of memory, describe as " utterly unproductive to the public." The " peaceful sons of the church" amongst whom, of course, you number the warlike bishops of Passau, Strasburgh, Bamberg, Freysingen, Ratisbon, et hoc genus omne, knew uncommonly well the value of those unproductive acres. THE JOCHENSTEIN, 93 sentry-box. It is called the Jochenstein ; and, from the arms of the town of Passau influence which their superior education and sacred character gave them over the minds of these uncultivated men, in the truly Christian task of curbing their passions, enlightening their understandings, and bringing them to a sense of the folly and wickedness of their ways, they meanly exerted it for the purposes of self-aggrandizement, utterly careless of the pitiable state of destitution and degradation in which, by their rapacious demands and disgusting mummeries, they were daily sinking their poor, besotted, bigoted, but often truly noble benefactors. The knave who swindles a silly heir out of his property may wonderfully improve the estate and build an hospital with the money ; but he is no less a knave because the poor and the sick are eventually gainers ; nor is the folly of the unfortunate dupe an excuse, in the eye of honour and honesty, for his crime ; which is, on the contrary, aggra- vated by the advantage taken of the victim's imbecility. Avarice and ambition, however, sowed the seeds of their own destruc- tion. The Church of Rome might have flourished to this day, had not its grasping hand pressed so heavily upon its subjects, as at length to rouse them from their trance and open their eyes, not so much to its errors as to its wealth. Truly does Schiller remark, that " Had it not been closely backed with private advantages, and state interests, the arguments of theo- logiaus, and the voice of the people, would never have met with princes so willing to espouse their cause, nor the new doctrines have found so numerous, so brave, and so obstinate champions !". ..." The desire of independence, the rich plun- der of monastic institutions, gave charms to the Reformation in the eyes of princes, and strengthened not a little their in- ward conviction of its necessity". ..." Without the imposi- tion of the tenth and twentieth pennies, the See of Rome had never lost the United Netherlands." The question, " Why the Pope, who is richer than several Croesus's, cannot build the Church of Saint Peter with his own money, but does it at the expense of the poor?" was more staggering than that of his infallibility. The sale of indulgences first induced 94 BAVARIA. and those of the empire being cut on the sides of it, is generally considered by the Schiffers, the Granze, or boundary stone between Bavaria and Austria. Schultes, however, denies this, and tells us, that the real Granze is the old tower of Ried, upon a rock facing EngelhardVzell. Be this as it may, we considered ourselves, upon the faith of our steersman, entering the Austrian dominions as we passed men to inquire into the power of the Church to grant them. The heavy coffers of the abbots, and the glittering ornaments of their shrines and altars drew the swords of such adven- turers as Christian, Duke of Brunswick, who issued a coinage composed of church-plate, and bearing the motto — " A friend to God and an enemy to the priesthood." " Woe unto them,'* says the inspired Isaiah, " that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth. " Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him. " Therefore is the anger of the Lord kindled against his people, and he stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them, and the hills did tremble, and their carcases were torn in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still" Such were the crimes of the Church of Rome ; such has been its punishment, and " His anger," indeed, " is not turned away" — " His hand is stretched out still." Who can look upon its fallen state, and listen to the cry of its unfortunate remnant, without exclaiming in the words of Jeremiah, " How is she become as a widow ; she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces ! How is she become tributary !" THE JOCHENSTEIN. 95 the rock; and, accordingly, drank three bumpers of excellent Stein-wine to their imperial and royal majesties of Austria, Bavaria, and England, with the sincere wish that no mistaken policy might disturb the friendship so happily existing between the three nations, or the general peace and prosperity of Europe. We soon came in sight of Engelhard' s-zell, where the Aus- trian custom-house is established ; and op- posite to which rises the old tower already mentioned, upon the end of a long fir-clad hill. Nothing is known of the ancient history of this little ruin ; which, accord- ing to the peasantry of the neighbourhood, was reduced to its present state by the Swedes. The whole district from Mars- bach to this spot is called the Rieder- mark, and is supposed to have been, in the ninth century, the seat of the Rheadarii. 96 AUSTRIA. CHAPTER IV. Engelhard' s-zell — Rana-riedl — Marsbach — Wesen Urfar — Waldkirche — Hayenbach — The Schlagen — The Rhine and the Danube contrasted — Ober Michl — Neuhaus — Aschach — The paper-money of Austria — Castle of Schaumberg — Environs of Aschach — Ober Walsee — Story of Hans von Eschelberg — Sketch of the Insurrections in the seventeenth Century. No sooner had our boat touched the land, beside the little white-washed custom- house at Englehard's-zell, than it was sur- rounded by a swarm of officials, one of whom, in the uniform of the Austrian police, which is, I believe, the same as that of the customs, viz. grey with green facings, &c, desired us to land; and, at the same time, we were hailed from the shore by a gentlemanlike personage, in plain clothes and a foraging cap, with "Messieurs, parlez-vous Franeais?" On our answer in the affirmative, he requested us to follow him into his bureau. Having inspected our passports, he asked us if we had anything to declare : I replied, not ENGELHARDSZELL. 97 to our knowledge. Had we any snuff or tobacco ? Neither of us smoked or took snuff. Had we any almanacks, or sealed letters ? No. Had we any wine, or beer ? ■" Monsieur, nous avons fini tout ca en buvant a la sante de sa Majeste l'Em~ pereur." (Off went his cap ; the Austrians never mention, or hear mentioned the title of their sovereign without uncovering.) Bread, butter, &c. ? We had finished that too, and would be obliged to him if he would inform us where we could get some more. The catechism ended, he returned us our passports properly countersigned, and we concluded that we should be spared the trouble of unpacking. But, upon re- turning to the bank, we found our port- manteaus and sacs-denuit, with the bun- dles and knapsacks of our crew, spread out in awful array along a bench, in front of the Wirths-haus or inn, facing the landing-place. Our friend soon reap- peared, and the portmanteaus, &c. being opened, he inspected their contents very closely ; but with none of the rudeness which generally characterizes persons in his situation. He looked very suspiciously H 98 AUSTRIA. at our little travelling library, and ex- amined the title-page of nearly every book ; my papers and drawings were also glanced at, but no questions were asked. He seemed amazingly pleased with our English dressing-cases, upon the razors in which, particularly, he looked with a covetous eye. "Ah! messieurs, vous avezla des jolies choses ! " and, courteously bow- ing, he wished us a pleasant journey, and retired. Having replenished our basket of provi- sions, and re-embarked our baggage, we bade adieu to Engelhardszell. Its environs are very beautiful, and there was formerly here a Cistertian monastery, to which its inhabitants gave the name of Angelorum Cella, from whence probably its present ap- pellation. This monastery was founded A.D. 1293, by the wealthy and powerful House of Schaumberg. In 1571? the whole community died of the plague, and the building remained uninhabited nearly one hundred years. Shortly after its re-esta- blishment, it suffered from a fire that broke out in the kitchen, and was rebuilt at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The RANA-RIEDL. 99 old Pfarr-kirche, or parish church, was built as early as 1230. In 1551, another church was erected for the same purpose, apparently, as that to which the Maltheser- kirche was formerly applied in Ratisbon. The horses were here brought annually to the door of the church, and allowed a peep at Saint Pancras, whose effigy graced the altar. This sight, and a few oats at the same time administered, were supposed to preserve them from all disorders for a twelvemonth. Napoleon gave Engelhards- zell to the Prince of Wrede, who still pos- sesses the domain, and hunts here occa- sionally, In 1626, the revolted peasantry cast chains and ropes across the Danube here, to prevent the Bavarians from assist- ing Herberstorf at Linz. In 1703, the Ba- varians built here a small flotilla, with floating batteries, and threw a bridge of boats across the river to facilitate their communication with Bohemia. On the left bank, before we had entirely lost sight of Engelhardszell, the chateau of Rana-riedl appeared in the distance, on the ridge of a lofty mountain, its white and peaked turrets beautifully backed by the H 2 Qfr 100 AUSTRIA. deep blue sky. Beside the hill is a ravine, through which the Rana-bach brawls into the Danube, turning a mill, and bringing down firewood from the mountain forests of Bohemia. The name of this chateau first appears in some deeds of the fourteenth century, towards the close of which it be- longed to a lady of the Rana family, who married a knight, named Stephen von Schweinbach. Shortly afterwards, it be- came the property of the grasping Bishops of Passau. Gbllinger, Governor of Schar- ding, besieged it in 1486, in the name of the Duke of Bavaria, but was compelled to raise the siege by Hans Oberhaimer, the lord of the neighbouring Castle of Falken- stein, who reinforced the garrison. Two years afterwards, he returned and assaulted it with success. It was recovered by the Bishopric in 1490, and lost to it entirely in 1501, when it was taken by the Emperor Maximilian I., and pledged by him to Henry von Preuschenk. Rudolph II. gave it to the Lords of Salburg in 1591 ; at the extinction of which family, it became the property of the Counts of Clam, A. D. 1728. The villages of Ober-Rana and Nie- RANA-RIEDL. 101 der-Rana lie one on each side of the Danube, a little below this spot ; and the river then making a sudden bend to the north, you come in sight of the Castle of Marsbach, similarly situated to Rana-riedl. Otto of Marsbach, in 1268, dispossessed, by force of arms, his father Ortulph, of this castle, and declared war against the Bishop of Passau. Ortulph bought it from his unna- tural son, at the heavy price of four hun- dred talents, which so reduced his finances that he was compelled to give up the castle after all to Passau, in order to relieve him- self from his difficulties. In 1486, it came into the hands of the Lords of Oberhaimer, who carried on a desperate system of plunder against all unfortunate travellers, whether by land or by water. One of these Oberhaimers attacked the boat of a coun- sellor of Steyer, Valentine Rottenburgher, and carried off booty to the amount of seven hundred florins, a considerable sum in those days. In 1610, the castle was surprised by the Passauer-volk under Ra- mee; and, in 1626, Spatt, the famous pea- sant chief, attacked it suddenly, and put the garrison to the sword. Opposite to 102 AUSTRIA. Marsbach, on the right bank, is Wesen, or Wesen-Urfar, with its ferry. The family of Wesen became extinct in 1230, by the death of Erchinger von Wesen, who was captain-general of the province of Enns, and lies buried at Engelhardszell. There is a famous cellar here, hewn in the rock, by command of the chapter of the cathe- dral of Passau, in which, it is said, you can turn a coach and four. In 1626, Adolph, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, hastening with several thousand men to the relief of Her- berstorf, landed unfortunately near this celebrated cellar. The temptation, I sup- pose, was too great for poor human nature ; and the armed peasantry, descending from the hills before day-break, fell on the fuddled Swabians, as they lay " somno vi- noque sepulti," and slaughtered the greater part of them. The Duke himself narrowly escaped in his doublet, and with the loss of all his property. On the same bank, but on the ridge of the mountain, and half hidden by the dark firs that surround it, stands Waldkirche, with its crumbling ruins, which some call the Castle of Waldeck, and others the fortress of Wesen. The indefa- HAYENBACH. 103 tigable Schultes has been able to gain no information respecting it, except that it was bought some time ago by a farmer from the Prince of Wrede, most likely with the view of demolishing it, and building new huts with the old materials. Nearly facing Waldkirche rises the ruin of Hayenbach, or Kirchbaum, as it is called by the schiffers, upon the ridge of the long, lofty, and nearly perpendicular mountain, which terminates the chain on this side the valley, and forms a promon- tory, round which the river, suddenly and rapidly wheeling, completely doubles itself, and enters a narrow defile, the romantic, and I may say awful, beauty of which sur- passes all description. So acute is the angle here made by the Danube, that the ruin of Hayenbach, though consisting of only one quadrangular and not very lofty tower, now presents its northern side to the eye in apparently the same situation that it did its southern side scarcely ten minutes be- fore. Enormous crags, piled one upon the other, to the height of from three to four hundred fathoms ; their weather-blanched 104 AUSTRIA, pinnacles starting up amongst the black firs and tangled shrubs, that struggle to clothe each rugged pyramid from its base to its apex, form the entrance to this grand and gloomy gorge through which the mighty stream now boils and hurries, winding and writhing, till at length you become so utterly bewildered, that nothing but a compass can give you the slightest idea of the direction of its course. The Castle of Hayenbachj which seems to guard this extraordinary pass, belonged, in the fifteenth century, to the Oberhaimers, the Lords of Falkenstein and Marsbach, of whom I have already spoken, and who, no doubt, found it admirably situated for the prosecution of that predatory warfare in which they " lived, moved, and had their being. 5 ' Falkenstein, with which this Castle of Hayenbach, or Kirchbaum, is confounded, lies above Rana, and is not visible from the Danube, and the same vague tradition is attached to each ruin ; namely, that it was originally built by a knight of the thirteenth century, who, having slain his brother, passed the rest of HAYENBACH. 105 his days with an only daughter in that castellated hermitage*. For upwards of an hour we glided through scenes increasing in sublimity, and calling forth exclamations of wonder and delight, till my companion and I mutually confessed that we had exhausted our stock of epi- thets, and stood gazing in far more expres- sive silence on the stupendous precipices which towered above us, almost to the exclusion of daylight, their jagged sides " Horrid with fern, and intricate with thorn ;" and on the rapid stream that, like Milton's Fiend, "... Through the palpable obscure toiled out His uncouth passage" . . plunged in the womb Of unoriginal night and chaos wild." The pencil of a Salvator Rosa could alone do justice to these wondrous scenes. The grandest views upon the Rhine sink into insignificance, when compared with the magnificent pictures which the Danube here presents us at every turn. The two rivers would have admirably illustrated * Vide Baron von Schmidtburg's * Tagebuche einer Do- nau-Reise.' 106 AUSTRIA. Burke's < Essay on the Sublime and Beau- tiful.' Nature has contrasted them pre- cisely according to the rules he has laid down in the twenty-seventh section of his Third Part. " Sublime objects," says he, " are vast in their dimensions, beautiful ones comparatively small : beauty should be smooth and polished ; the great, rugged and negligent : beauty should shun the right line, yet deviate from it insensibly ; the great, in many cases, loves the right line, and, when it deviates, it often makes a strong deviation : beauty should not be obscure ; the great ought to be dark and gloomy : beauty should be light and de- licate ; the great ought to be solid, and even massive." The substitution of the words " Rhine" for " Beauty," and of " Danube' 9 for " great," is nearly all that is necessary to change his general compa- rison into individual portraits of these rival floods, if rivalry may be said to exist be- tween two opposite species of perfection. The ruins on the banks of the Rhine, thickly interspersed as they are with smiling villages, busy towns, and sunny vineyards, swarming with holiday tourists, THE RHINE AND DANUBE. 107 and echoing to the whips of Prussian pos- tilions, and the rattle of Prussian schnel- wagens, are more like modern antiques erected on the confines of some gentleman's park, than the bona fide relics of that truly- iron age, "the days of the shield and the spear." From Mayence to Cologne there is scarcely one mile of uninterrupted wild scenery ; and even if there were, the charm would be broken by some pert galley, with its white awning and gaudy flag, some lumbering Dutch beurtschifF, or, worse than all, the monstrous anachronism of a steam- boat, splashing, sputtering, and fuming along at the rate of twelve miles an hour. The mouldering towers that totter upon the crags of the Danube, on the contrary, are surrounded by scenery rude as the times in which they were reared, and savage as the warriors who dwelt in them. Nothing seems changed but themselves. The soli- tary boat that now and then glides by them, is of the same fashion as that on which their marauding masters sallied down, perhaps, three hundred years ago. The humble cottages that here and there peep through the eternal firs, and the 108 AUSTRIA. church that rears its dusky spire upon some neighbouring hill, are of the same age. The costume of the poor straggling fishermen and woodcutters around them is scarcely altered ; and, indeed, one cannot look upon their own walls, blackened by fire, and crumbling in the blast, as they mostly are, without conjuring up the form of their ancient lord newly returned from Palestine, and finding his mountain-fastness burnt and pillaged by some neighbouring knight or prelate, with whom he was at feud, and on whom he now stands meditating swift and bloody retribution. For hours and hours the traveller may wind through these rocky defiles without meeting one object to scare the spirit of romance, which rises here in all her gloomy grandeur before him. From Passau to Vienna there is but one city, Linz, where the glare of modern uni- forms, and the rumbling of modern vehicles, would dissipate the spell ; and, much as I admire convenient and expeditious travelling, I should almost weep to see a bustling post-road cut beside the lonely Schlagen * f or a steam-boat floundering * The remarkable gorge from Hayenbach to Neuhaus is NEUHAUS. 109 and smoking through the Strudel and the Wirpel*. At the mouth of a small opening on the left bank, through which the Kleine-Michl ripples into the Danube, stands Ober-Michl, the only village of any consequence in this wilderness. In 1809, the Bohemian land- wehr, under Colonel Hartman, took many of the French boats laden with provisions, near the spot. The Bavarian flotilla, un- der cover of the night and by dropping silently down the stream, escaped their notice. After passing two or three small groups of huts, another whirl of the river to the north-east brought us in front of the remarkable chateau of Neuhaus. Ranged along the brow of a perpendicular rock that seems to bar your further progress, stand three distinct buildings, (at least so they appear from the river,) giving you more the idea of a town than a castle. Far beneath them, but still at a consider- able height from the water, upon a ledge called by the peasantry of the district, " In den Schlagen," or Schlagleiten. * The Strudel and the Wirpel are a fall and whirlpool in the Danube, between Linz and Ips, of which hereafter. 110 AUSTRIA. of the rock, is perched a quadrangular ruin, the Toll-tower, no doubt, where the retainers of the Counts of Schaumberg, to whom Neuhaus belonged in the fourteenth century, were stationed to exact the tribute from the trembling schifFers. In one of the many quarrels between the Counts of Schaumberg and the Duke of Austria, Neuhaus fell into the possession of the latter, but it was subsequently reco- vered, and many of the first nobles of Upper Austria were Castellans of Neuhaus for the House of Schaumberg. In 1510 it was annexed to the empire by Maximilian L, and pledged, in 1536, by Ferdinand I., for eight thousand silver pfennings, to the Baron of Springenstein, to whose heir it was afterwards presented as a free gift by Rudolph II. When the Turks, during the reign of the Emperor Charles V. burst into Hungary, and threatened Austria with invasion, Neuhaus was the asylum to which the women and children flew from all quarters. In the war between Rudolph II. and his brother Matthias, the troops raised by the former at Passau threw two chains across the Danube at this spot, one NEUHAUS. Ill of which was forged at Steyer, and the other brought from Vienna, weighing not less than nine hundred pounds, and secured them with eight anchors, and a guard of armed boats. During the insurrections in 1626 also, the same measures were taken by the peasants, who ill treated the Countess of Springenstein, and made her a prisoner in her own castle. Neuhaus is at present, I believe, the property of the Prince of Thurm and Taxis. It is only on arriving at the very foot of the rocky wall, which forms an impene- trable barrier to the further progress of the Danube northward, that you perceive the outlet from this valley of precipices. A beautiful lake opens to the right near the point where the Grosse Michl disembogues itself from a woody ravine ; and the moun- tain chain gradually sinking on each side, the river widens and widens till the passen- ger would almost fancy it had completed its seaward course, and that he was enter- ing upon the broad and fathomless ocean. From the time we had entered the gorge at Hayenbach to the period of our passing Neuhaus, a passage of at least two hours, 112 AUSTRIA. we had never caught even a momentary glimpse of the sun. He now burst upon us in all the glory of his setting, and we seemed absolutely to breathe more freely as we emerged from between the stupendous galleries of granite and pine, which had imprisoned us nearly all the way from Pas- sau. The mists of evening were fast set- tling upon bank and stream, as the lights of Aschach began to twinkle in the distance ; and before we could reach the village on the opposite bank, where it was our steers- man's intention we should sleep, it was quite dark. On going ashore, we found the little inn, or rather public-house of the place, completely occupied by the passen- gers and crew of the regular boat, that left Ratisbon the morning before we did, and which our night's voyage from Strau- bing to Vilshofen had enabled us to over- take. On crossing the threshold, however, of the dirty vault that " served it for par- lour and kitchen and all," we blessed our stars that there was no room for us ; and feeling our way out again, for the clouds of smoke that rose around rendered it impos- sible for us to rely solely on our visual facul- ASCHACH. 113 ties, we intimated our intention of crossing the river to Aschach, where indeed we ought to have been originally landed ; but our pilot was either afraid of the sandbank in front of it after nightfall, or there was some understanding between him and the master of the public-house on the left bank, postillions and boatmen generally getting their own board and lodging gratis as a reward for bringing " grist to the mill," enough being invariably ground out of the said grist to indemnify the miller for any liberality he may have been guilty of to- wards the bearer. A lad soon made his appearance with a small boat, into which we jumped with our portmanteaus, and were ferried over to the end of a jetty, that has been thrown oat from the bank, in con- sequence of the sand deposited by the river, which has within the last few years receded considerably from the town. Here we found tolerable accommodation, and I lost no time in atoning to the drowsy god for the hours of which I had defrauded him, the previous night, upon the water. Aschach was a place of some import- ance, as early as the times of Charlemagne. 114 AUSTRIA. Thassilo, Duke of Bavaria, gave in the year 772, some vineyards at Aschach to the monks of Krems-Munster. In the eleventh century the knights of Aschach begin to be celebrated. The Counts of Schaumberg possessed it during the middle ages, from whom it passed to the Lords of Jorger. At present, as well as the lordship of Stauf, it belongs to the Counts of Harrach. The history of this little market-town, for nearly the two last centuries, is one unin- terrupted series of misfortunes. In 1626 it was not only taken and plundered by the revolted peasantry, but was for some time their head quarters. They endeavoured to chain up the Danube at this place, and obliged the town of Steyer, which they had taken at their first rising, to furnish them with a chain one hundred fathoms long, every link weighing twenty pounds. Besides this chain, they threw across three other, and a couple of stout ropes, trusting thereby to intercept the provisions and reinforcements for the relief of Herber- storf s troops at Linz. But the Bavarian boats broke through this barrier, as they had already done through a similar one at ASCHACH. 115 Engelhards-zell. In the second insurrec- tion, in 1632, the rebels surprised and plun- dered Aschach again, and remained there till Colonel Traun burnt their camp at Landshaag and dispersed them. In the contest with Bavaria, in 1809, Aschach suffered considerably both from friend and foe ; and the removal of the custom-house back to Engelhards-zell in 1819, from whence it had been brought at the com- mencement of the present century, was a severe blow to the trade, which had begun to recompense the inhabitants for their losses during the war. The extensive sand- bank which is yearly increasing before it, is an additional obstacle to its commerce, and Schultes indulges in melancholy pre- dictions respecting the ultimate fate of this unfortunate little town. The wine made in its neighbourhood, is remarkable only for its badness, and is the standing joke of the in- habitants themselves ; we must suppose, therefore, that it has either sadly degene- rated since Thassilo made the vineyards a present to his friends at Krems-Munster, or that the fraternity were in want of an imme- diate supply of vinegar. Aschach is the i 2 116 AUSTRIA. most northerly point, on the Austrian Da- nube, where grapes are cultivated for that purpose. But there is another piece of information respecting this place, which is of more consequence than any I have yet mentioned, to the modern traveller. The paper money (papier-geld) of Austria here first comes into play, and the unapprised foreigner is astonished at being apparently charged for his bed, supper, breakfast, or what not, about four times as much as he has been in the habit of paying since he entered the country of florins and kreutzers. The gold ducat also, which has passed throughout Bavaria for 4 fl. 54 L, and even 5 fl. in some places, here falls to its regu- lar value of 4 \ florins only; and this sudden change is exceedingly perplexing to the stranger who has but just become acquainted with the Bavarian standard, in time to find it of no use to him.* * As soon as you reach Frankfort, the Prussian dollars and groschen cease to circulate generally, and your bill is made out in the money of the empire, that is, in florins or gouldens and kreutzers. The florin, or goulden, is a mere nominal coin of the value of sixty kreutzers, and the silver pieces in circulation are those of 3, 6, 10, 20, and. 30 kreutzers each, so marked on the reverse. In Bavaria, the 10, 20, and 30 kreutzer pieces go for 12, 24, and 36 kreutzers ; so that the CASTLE OF SCHAUMBERG. 117 At day-break, after a hasty cup of coffee, we re -trod the jetty, and found the boat waiting to take us over to our weitz-zille, which lay moored besides the smoky wirts- haus before mentioned. We were soon aboard and afloat again, and gliding by the mouth of the little river Aschach that joins the Danube close below the town. By its side, on a small hill, stand the scarcely visible remains of the castle of Stauf, once the property, as indeed was, at that time, the whole surrounding coun- try, of the mighty Counts of Schaumberg, who have been already so often mentioned; and, as the sun rose, his earliest beams fell upon the splendid ruins of the cradle of that great and ancient family— the once strong and beautiful castle of Schaumberg — still beautiful in decay, — on a gentle ac- clivity, and backed by the finely wooded mountains, on whose precipitous sides we gold ducat, the real value of which is 4J florins, will, in Ba- varia, pass for 4 fl. 54 &., and sometimes five florins. In Austria, however, the silver coins pass for no more than they are marked, and the ducat drops to 4JI. 30 k. The Venetian ducat, which is frequently met with in Austria, is worth a few kreutzers more than the German ducat. The paper florin, or goulden, is two-fifths, or, as the Austrians calculate, four- tenths of a good or silver florin. 118 , AUSTRIA. had the previous day gazed so long with mingled awe and admiration. Nor were its picturesque white towers the only ob- jects of attraction in the magnificent scene which gradually expanded upon our sight, as the morning mist rose like a curtain from before it. The broad river lay gleaming like a sheet of burnished gold beneath us; before us a number of richly wooded islands divided the glittering stream into twenty different channels to the right and left. Looking westward, the mountains of Bava- ria and Bohemia stretched out their giant arms, as in despair at the escape of the flood they had so long held in thrall. At the mouth of the defile from which we had issued, stood the little town of Aschach. Still more to the south, the ruined castles of Stauf and Schaumberg, and, far away in the south-east, but clearly defined against the blue horizon, towered the Alps and Glaciers of the Steyer-Mark, their snowy and fantastic peaks alternately tinted with pink and purple, and gold, by the change- ful glories of sunrise. It was, indeed, a most exquisite panorama, and fully jus- tifies the heroics of Professor Schultes, CASTLE OF SCHAUMBERG. 119 though, in his enthusiastic admiration of the Danube, he is unjust to the really beautiful Rhine. '* An Englishman," says he, " who had often made the voyage of the Danube, and also that of the Rhine, from Mainz to Utrecht, in search of the pictu- resque, showed me his journal of the Rhine voyage. It contained only two words 5 'Toujours perdrix*.' " But to return to the Castle of Schaumberg. The picturesque ruins which formed so fine a feature in the prospect before us, were, as I have already said 5 the cradle and principal seat of the once terrible Counts of that name. In the twelfth century, their signatures appear to many deeds, spelt indifferently Schoum- bergh, Schowenberch, and Schawenberch. As late as 1548, the Schaumbergs were free counts of the empire,, and their names are entered in the Reichs-Matrikel, (the roll or register of the empire,) as bound to furnish six horse and twenty-six foot men * The remark does not say much for the taste or discrimi- nation of the Englishman, whoever he might be. There is an endless variety upon the Rhine, which yields to the Danube only in points of grandeur — in breadth, extent, and boldness of scenery. In variety, it quite equals the Danube, and, I should almost say, surpasses it. 120 AUSTRIA. at arms, — a slender contingent for a family that could, by lifting a finger, have brought thousands into the field. Their domains extended from the Bavarian frontier, be- yond Linz, and included the market towns and castles of Baierbach, Stauf, Aschach, Efferding 5 Neuhaus, Flayenbach, Ober and Unter Wesen, Fichtenstein, Weidenholz, Mistelbach, nearly the whole of the Do- nau-Thal, from Passau to Schaumberg, and farther inland, in the old Traun-gau,Kam- mer upon the Attersee, Frankenberg, Wil- deneck, &c. &c. Wilhelm, son of Wern- hard, Count of Julbach, a descendant of one of the thirty -two children of Babo of Abensberg, was the first lord of the castle who assumed the name of Schaumberg, A. D. 1161. His successor, forming alliances with the families of the Landgraves of Leuchtenberg, the Burggraves of Niirnberg, and the Dukes of Austria, became gradu- ally more and more powerful, exacted heavy tolls on the Danube, at Neuhaus and As- chach, plundered travellers, took their less powerful neighbours prisoners, for the sake of extorting ransom, or compelling them to CASTLE OF SCHAUMBERG. 121 join their league, and, in short, were wor- thy supporters of the famous U faust-recht" of Germany. # Sometimes, a twinge of conscience made them endeavour to propitiate heaven, by letting its servants share a little in the plunder ; and, with this view, they founded, in 1325, the Kloster of Saint Niklas by Passau, and, in 1323, the Convent at Baumgartenberg; and by degrees permitted the boats, &c. appertaining to most of the surrounding monasteries and convents, to pass Aschach toll free. Notwithstanding their alliance by mar- riage, terrible feuds were continually spring- ing up betwixt the Counts of Schaumberg and the Dukes of Austria; and the assist- ance which Henry of Schaumberg, in 1319, gave to Frederick the Handsome, against Louis the Bavarian, is almost a solitary in- stance of the families siding together in warfare. So much were their valour and influence dreaded by the principal poten- tates of Germany, that Albert II., Duke * Literally " fist-right," — the right of the strongest arm, — " The good (?) old plan, That they may take who have the power, And they may keep who can." 122 AUSTRIA. of Austria, surnamed the Lame, and Louis the Bavarian, entered into a solemn con- tract at Passau in 1340, by which they bound themselves never to make offensive or defensive league with the Counts of Schaumberg. In 1366, Albert IIL # , having made war upon Henry Count of Schaumberg, the latter appealed to the Emperor Charles IV., who appointed the Burggraves of Niirnberg and Magdeburg . umpires be- tween the parties. The Burggraves de- cided in favour of Albert, and the Count of Schaumberg and his descendants were de- clared subjects of Austria, and the castles of Kammer, Neuhaus, and Fichtenstein for- feited to the duchy, besides the immense sum, for that period, of twelve thousand florins. Henry, enraged at this heavy sen- tence, took the first opportunity of renew- ing the war with Albert, who in 1379 in * Called, in the chronicles of the times, " Albert with the tress," because he wore a lock of hair, which he received either from his wife, or from some other distinguished lady, entwined with his own, and formed a society of the Tress, not unlike the commencement of our order of the Garter : he was likewise called the Astrologer, from his fondness for judicial astrology. — Coxe's « History of the House of Austria,' chap. 10. CASTLE OF SCHAUMBERG, 123 person besieged the castle of Schaumberg; and the contest was carried on with great fury and bitterness, till Stephen, Duke of Bavaria, reconciled the parties and induced Count Henry to hold the castles of Neu- haus and Stauf, and the market town of Efferding, as fiefs of Austria. This peace, however, was, as might have been expected, of no long duration. The Counts again declared themselves independent, and the struggle continued with alternate success, till the church stept in out of pure charity, scandalized to see such a waste of treasure, and like the lawyer in the old story, settled the matter by swallowing the oyster and leaving the shells to the disputants. One by one the contested estates became the property of this and that kloster, till at length, in 1548, the family of Schaumberg became so straitened for means, that it could no longer defend the little that was left of its once immense dominions, and ac- knowledging the feudal sovereignty of Austria, became extinct in 1559 by the death of Count Wolfgang. — The castle of Schaumberg at present belongs to the Prince of Starrhemberg, an ancestor of 124 AUSTRIA. whose family married one of the last female descendants of the line of Schaumberg. There is a tradition that the Danube origi- nally ran beneath its walls,but there appears no foundation for such a belief. The chapel and two watch-towers are still tolerably perfect : on the walls of the former there are said to exist some paintings of the four- teenth century ; I regret exceedingly that my ignorance of the fact, when I was in the vicinity, prevented my inspecting them. If they really be of the date assigned to them, and in tolerable preservation, they would be worth a pilgrimage. A stone pillar near a brook, in the valley before the castle, is said to record the fate of a Count of Schaumberg, who, though in- vincible in battle or tournament, could not resist the charms of a fair maiden, " armed at both eyes," the daughter of a miller, in the valley of Aschach. One night as he was riding to a rendezvous, his horse started (as well he might) at the sudden appearance of a fiery dragon that rushed out of a thicket before him, became un- manageable, plunged at last with his mas- ter over a precipice into the swollen tor- QBER-WALSEE. 125 rent below ; and the first object that met the unfortunate maiden's sight when she opened her casement in the morning, was the floating corses of her noble lover and his favourite steed. Nearly facing Aschach, on the left bank, is the poor little market-town of Landshaag, formerly belonging to the con- vent of Niedernburg at Passau, but now, of course, to Austria. This little place suf- fered terribly during the insurrections of 1626 and 1632, from the rebels, who in the latter year had their camp in its neighbourhood. About half an hour's walk to the east- ward of this little town stands, on the top of one of the Klausberge, in a forest of fruit-trees, the ruin of Ober-Walsee. A castle was originally built here by the Schaumbergs, but it was most probably destroyed by the celebrated Ulrich of Walsee, governor of Styria, who sup- pressed the rebellion which had broken out in these districts during the absence of Frederick the handsome, Duke of Aus- tria, in 1309, and repelled Otto Duke of Bavaria, who attempting to profit by the 126 AUSTRIA. intestine commotion, had invaded Fre- derick's dominions ; Ulrich, before Fre- derick could hasten to his assistance, had already subdued the refractory, and ra- vaged their property with fire and sword. In return for this and other services ren- dered to the Dukes of Austria by the family of Walsee, Rodolph IV. gave per- mission to Eberhard von Walsee, in 1364, to build a strong fortress on the Klausberge, a permission which, while it had the appear- ance of a favour conferred upon the Lords of Walsee, furthered the views of the Duke, inasmuch as it placed a strong curb upon the neighbouring Counts of Schaumberg, the implacable enemies of the House of Hapsburg. The descendants of Eberhard possessed this castle, which received the name of Ober-Walsee, till the extinction of the male branch in 1485, when the last female of the family, Barbara of Walsee, in obedience to that power " Qui tient sous son empire Le genre humain les anes et les Dieux," gave her hand to Count Siegmund of Schaumberg, one of the sworn foes of her own house as well as that of Austria, and HANS OF ESCHELBERG. 127 added both Ober andNieder-Walsee, a castle lower down on the Danube, to the posses- sions of the Schaumbergs. In 1559 the family of Schaumberg became also extinct ; and Ober-Walsee, after passing through several hands, descended to the Princes of Staremberg, who were also Lords of the neighbouring castle and domain of Eschel- berg. Respecting one Hans of Eschelberg, Schultes has a rigmarole story, which (unless he be jesting, and there is nothing to leadone to such a conclusion) proves him, however well acquainted with the history of his own country, unaccountably deficient in infor- mation regarding that of others. This said Hans, who commenced his military career under Louis the Bavarian, at the siege of Lindau, and received the honour of knight- hood from that Emperor, for his valiant exploits therein, followed John, King of Bohemia, into Poland, and shared in the victory of that monarch at Cracow; not finding himself sufficiently recompensed for his services, accepted an invitation from Edward III. of England, who was then be- sieging Calais, and assisted him in the re- 128 AUSTRIA. duction of that place. So far so good ; but not contented with claiming these proba- ble services for his hero, Herr Schultes, upon the strength of a fragment of an old ballad, quoted by Hoheneck, makes him the bearer of the English standard at the battle of Cressy, where, " mirabile dictu," he took the French king prisoner with his own hand (at Cressy!). while his knightly companions slew John, King of Bohemia, and Peter, King of Navarre ! At a feast given on the field, in honour of the victory, Edward III. paid Sir Hans of Eschelberg the distinguished compliment of seating him between himself and the captive king, presented him with one hundred marks of silver, &c. &c. He afterwards returned to Germany, beat the Bohemians, became the champion of dukes, princes, and bishops ; flew back to his old friend Edward, when again investing Calais, who rewarded him with more money and honours ; returned again to his native land, and s after thirty years of battle and victory in all parts of Europe, died captain of the lands upon the Ens. The Professor seems quite heart- broken that this doughty warrior has never INSURRECTIONS OF THE 17TH CENTURY. 129 been mentioned by any historian, and per- fectly unconscious of the way in which the author of the old ballad, with the license or ignorance of most of the romantic writ- ers of the middle ages, has mixed up the two perfectly distinct battles of Cressy and Poictiers, confounding incidents, leaders, and periods, with the utmost sang froid and complacency. The banks of the Danube, from Aschach to Linz, witnessed the greater part of those bloody struggles between the two principal sects of a religion revealed for the beneficent purpose of promoting " peace on earth, good will towards men," which convulsed the provinces of Upper Austria during the seventeenth century ; and as the actors in them have already been mentioned more than once, and will be frequently named hereafter, I shall venture to give, in as few words as possible, a sketch of the in- surrections of 1626 and 1632, particularly as they have been merely alluded to by Schiller, in his history of the thirty years' war, and Coxe, in his history of the House of Austria, the two most elaborate works upon that period familiar to the English K 130 AUSTRIA. reader,— the deeds of aGustavus, a Wallen- stein, and a Tilly, having naturally occu- pied their attention, to the exclusion of all less generally important circumstances. The object which Ferdinand II., Empe- ror of Germany, had most at heart, from worldly as well as spiritual motives, was the extirpation of the reformed religion. The battle of Prague had no sooner decided the fate of Bohemia, than he tore, with his own hand, the memorable letter of majesty extorted from Rudolph II. by the states of the kingdom, in favour of the Protestants, and burnt the seal; and proceeded not only to the revocation of the privileges granted to them by his predecessors, which he had not confirmed, but even of those which had received his own unqualified approbation. He intimated to all the Protestants in his dominions, that they must either abandon their religion or their native country, — a bitter and terrible choice, which excited the most violent commotions amongst his Austrian subjects, and particularly in the district above the Ens. Upper Austria had been, for some time, held in pledge by the Elector of Bavaria, for the indemnification INSURRRECTIONS OF THE 17TH CENTURY. 131 promised him by the Emperor for his as- sistance against the Evangelic Union ; and Count Adam von Herberstorf, who com- manded the Bavarian troops at Linz, had been guilty of unnecessary severities to- wards its unfortunate inhabitants. On the 17th of May, 1626, the flame, which had been long smothering, burst into a sudden and terrible blaze, in consequence of some excesses committed by a straggling party of Herberstorf J s soldiery. The Protestant peasantry flew to arms, and, in two days, took and plundered the towns of Aschach, Grieskirchen, and Baierbach, and the strong fortress of Velden. On the 20th of May, Herberstorf marched against the rebels at Baierbach, with twelve hundred men and, some artillery, but was repulsed with great loss; and, after having two horses killed under him, retreated in confusion to Linz. The peasantry were now headed by one Stephen Fadinger, a hatter ; and, in about ten days from their first rising, mustered full seventy thousand men, and possessed a park of thirty cannon. Within the first eight days, Fadinger had made himself master of Wels, Kremsmunster, Voglabruch,, k 2 132 AUSTRIA. and Gmiinden, and in six more, with the exceptions of Freystadt, Ens, andLinz, the whole of Upper Austria was overrun, and subdued by the insurgents. Flushed with victory, Fadinger invested Linz on the 25th of June, and would most probably have succeeded in reducing it, had he not re- ceived a shot in the thigh from one of Herberstorf 's musqueteers, in violation of a short armistice agreed upon between the leaders, June 28th, of which wound he died in the beginning of the following month*. His successor, Achaz Willinger von Katterhof, a nobleman, had neither his talent nor his good fortune. Steyer and Freystadt, which had fallen just before Fadinger's death, were retaken, fifteen hundred soldiers dispersed twelve thousand peasants, in the neighbourhood of Ens ; and, in two assaults upon Linz, the Protes- tants were repulsed with terrible slaughter. The Austrian commissioner had nearly suc- ceeded in his charitable endeavours to re- store peace, when some fresh cruelty of * Fadinger was a strong fatalist. Upon his standards were inscribed, by his order, the words, ,J Es muss seyn ! " " It must be." INSURRECTIONS OF THE 17TH CENTURY. 133 HerberstorFs, or the soldiers under his copnmand, kindled anew the torch of dis- cord, and, by another change of fortune, the peasantry cut to pieces the troops of the Duke of Holstein-Gotton, at Wesen- Urfar, and successively defeated the Bava- rian general Lindlo, at Geyersberg, Count Preuner, at Haslach, Herberstorf, near Gmiinden, and even the valiant Lobel, at Wels. The celebrated Pappenheim, how- ever, whose mother Count Herberstorf had married, retrieved the fortunes of his party, by beating the rebels in three following battles at Efferding, Gmiinden, and Vogla- bruch, but not without considerable diffi- culty, as he himself acknowledges in a let- ter to Herberstorf. " It was/' he writes, " as if my cavalry had to combat the mas- sive rocks ; for these peasants fought not like men, but like infernal furies ! " These reverses decided the fate of the insurgents ; and, though the Imperial commissioner himself declared that the peasantry had not risen with treasonable intentions against the Emperor, but were goaded into the act by the severity of Herberstorf, nearly the whole of the prisoners were hung and 134 AUSTRIA. quartered, or impaled. Achaz Willinger, as he was a nobleman, was beheaded, and his body delivered to the Jesuits, who had not been the least important actors in this terrible tragedy. Six years had not elapsed before the continued persecution they experienced, stirred up the Protestants again to resist- ance. In 1632 a second rising of the pea- santry on the Ens was accompanied by the same slaughter, and the same devastation ; and in these two contests alone, which are but trifling episodes in the sanguinary his- tory of the thirty years war, upwards of fifty thousand subjects of Austria, upon a moderate calculation, were sacrificed to the childish superstition and inveterate bigotry of its ruler. " The victory of the White Mountain," says Schiller, "put Ferdinand in possession of all his dominions. He even received them with greater powers than his predecessors ; since their allegiance had been unconditionally pledged to him, and no letter of majesty now existed to limit his sovereign authority. The war was ended, if justice was his object; and if magnanimity was to be united with justice, INSURRECTION OF THE 17TH CENTURY. 135 so was the punishment. The fate of Ger- many was in his hands ; the happiness and misery of millions were dependent on his resolution. Never was a more important trust placed in a single hand ; never was the blindness of one individual productive of more fatal consequences." The barbarities committed on both sides, during these con- flicts, were horrible beyond description. The peasantry had treasured up the recol- lection of the cruelties they had suffered at the hands of Herberstorf and his soldiery, and now repaid them with dreadful interest. Once goaded over the line of legal autho- rity, their ferocity knew no bounds : nor did they glut their lust of vengeance upon the soldiery only ; those of their own class and sect who did not immediately gather round the standard of insurrection, were mutilated or slaughtered without com- punction. On the other hand the prisoners taken by the Catholic party, were tortured and executed with a horrid ingenuity, that might have edified a Sioux Indian, or a Spanish inquisitor. Ferdinand would only remember that the inhabitants of Upper Austria had risen seven times in thirty- 136 AUSTRIA. seven years , and would make no allowances for the provocations which had driven a naturally loyal people to desperation. He had been told by his Jesuits, that Protes- tantism and rebellion were synonymous terms, and to Ferdinand II. " the voice of a monk was the voice of God/' " Nothing on earth," writes his own confessor, " was more sacred in his eyes than the priest- hood. If it could happen, he used to say, that an angel and a clergyman were to meet him at the same time and place, the clergyman should receive his first, and the angel his second obeisance*." Gracious God ! for what wise purposes are men per- mitted to make Thy holy name a signal for butchery, to turn the manna of Thy word into poison, and sow with the brier and the thorn Thy " ways of pleasantness and Thy paths of peace." * And yet, as was most just, this poor weak bigot was condemned to see some of his dearest hopes frustrated by the treachery of one of his vaunted saints. " A Capuchin friar," exclaimed the deceived Emperor, when the duplicity of the celebrated Father Joseph became apparent, " has disarmed me with his rosary, and covered six electoral caps with his Cowl." 137 CHAPTER V. EfTerding. — Ottensheim. — Kloster-Willering. — Linz. — The Platz. — The Landstrasse. — The Schlossberg.— The Land- haus. — The Theatre. — The Bridge. — The Pdstlingberg.— View on leaving Linz. — Steyereck. — The River Traun. — Ebelsberg. — Luftenberg. — Monastery of St. Florian. — Tillysburg. — Spielberg. — Mauthausen. — Ens. — Origin and History of the City. — Antiquities discovered in its neigh- bourhood. From Aschach to Ottensheim is one la- byrinth of islands, through which few boats venture without a pilot, as the current of the river is continually changing its course, and the deep channel or ditch (Graberi) as the boatmen here call it, through which they have safely steered a few days before, may upon their second visit be transformed into a sandbank, or blocked up with trunks and branches of trees, washed into it by the floods that so frequently occur in this part of the country. "While passing through this archipelago, the banks of the river are seldom visible, but fortunately there is no- thing upon them tomakethat circumstance amatter of regret. The whole country be- tween Aschach and Willering is said to have 138 AUSTRIA. been formerly the basin of one vast lake, cradled amongst the mountains of Bohemia, Moravia, and Upper Austria, and the name of Ilmersee, which appears in the thirteenth century, is quoted in confirmation of the tradition. The White Tower of Hart- kirchen is shortly seen on the right bank. The Catholic minister of this church, and his cook-maid, were cruelly murdered here, by the revolted peasantry in 1626. Pup- ping, celebrated for a dead saint, and Ber- gheim for a beautiful breweress *, whose strong beer and bright eyes distracted the heads and the hearts of her customers, and might have sorely tempted the holy St. Otmar himself, had the good man been living at the time. — Waschpoint, Worth, and two or three other small villages on the same bank all passed, were ached Efferding, one of the oldest places on the Danube. The beautiful Chrimhilt, the heroine of the Nibelungenlied, is said, in that poem, to have rested here upon her journey into Hungary. One of the Schaumbergs bought * Our language is sadly off for feminine terminations The German, brauerinn, kochinn, gartnerinn, &c. are most badly translated by female brewer, cook-maid, and woman gar- dener. EFFERDIKG. 139 the little town from the Bishop of Passau in 1367, for four thousand florins ; and at the extinction of that family, it came to the Starrhembergs, who built a castle here, still called the Burg. A rich and valiant family, of the name of Schifer, founded and libe- rally endowed an hospital here, as early as 1325, and expressly commanded that, when there was not a sufficient number of sick and poor in the town of Efferding to fill the hospital, the governor should send out " into the highways and hedges, and com- pel them to come in." On the 1st of September, 1632, the com- bined peasantry burned the suburbs, and, on the 25th, defeated the nephew and namesake of the great and merciless Tilly, but, shortly afterwards, were themselves defeated by the Imperial troops with great slaughter. Upwards of three thousand of the unfortunate men, who fell at various pe- riods in this neighbourhood, lie buried here, as did also their leader, Fadinger, till Her- berstorf had the body disinterred, and car- ried to Seebach, where it was flung into a hole beneath the gibbet. The historian Kurz has preserved the receipt for the 140 AUSTRIA. money paid to the ministers of this paltry vengeance. The Bavarians plundered Effer- dingin 1704 and 1742, and it suffered con- siderably during the last war, from the continual fighting in its neighbourhood. A dozen small villages are scattered on each bank, between Efferding and Ottensheim ; and the Ihn, the Bosenbach, and the Rodel, wind amongst them to the Danube. At one of these little places, named Har- theim, dwelt in 1620 a lady of the family of Aspan, the fame of whose wealth, ac- cording to Hoheneck, determined a Prince of Saxony to make a personal proposal of marriage. Travelling incognito with only two attendants, he fell, near Efferding, into the hands of the rebel peasantry, who, taking the unfortunate suitor for a spy, put him and his domestics instantly to the sword. At length, we approached the square white tower, which had been for some time gleaming above the intervening islands ; and as we issued from amongst them, the little market town of Ottensheim, with its chateau and church, all grouped as with an eye to effect, upon a gentle eminence projecting into the Danube, gradually OTTENSHEM. 141 glided into view. On a house in the market- place, is the figure of a child in a cradle, surmounted by a canopy, and underneath it are the following lines : " Im 1208 Jahr. Da Ottensheim noch nicht genannt war, 1st Kaiser Otto Auserkohren Alhier in diesen Haus geboren." What Emperor Otto, the worthy com- poser of this distich intended us to be- lieve was born here in 1208, I cannot pre- tend to determine, as the fourth and last emperor of that name was elected as early as 1 197 ; and that the place was not called Ottensheim before that period, appears to be another equally unfortunate assertion. Leopold II., Duke of Austria, who died in 1194, sold Wechsenberg, Ottensheim, Grein, and Hartenstein, to Otto von Schle- ung, "mit leuth und gut,'' (with people and property,) for six hundred pounds of silver. In the fourteenth century, Heinrich vonNeu- haus, Peter von Sternberg, and Ulrich von Landstein, laid waste this part of the coun- try to the walls of Ottensheim, and began a feud, which desolated Upper Austria for upwards of one hundred years. In 1626, a body of the insurgents, under a leader 142 AUSTRIA. named Christoph Zeller, established their head-quarters at Ottensheim; and the French plundered the town, both in their disastrous retreat in 1742, and their victo- rious march to Vienna in 1809. Otten- sheim, however, has recovered from its many disasters, and drives a tolerably brisk trade in linen, wood and fruit, pit-coal and alum. Between Ottensheim and Kloster- Willering, which faces it, there is another rapid race of the river, that forms quite a little sea of billows. Kloster-Willering lies at the foot of the fir-crowned Kirnberg, which, rising on the right bank, extends its forest-covered masses as far as Linz. The Kloster was originally the castle of the Knights of Willering, descended from the old Counts of Kirnberg. Cholo and Ulrich of Willering, Barons of Werem- berg, established some Cistertian monks herein 1146. Ulrich went to Palestine, from whence he never returned. With him his family became extinct, and the whole of his great possessions fell to the fortunate monks of Willering. They soon wheedled themselves into the confidence and favour of all the noblest and richest families of Upper Austria, many of the heads of which KLOSTER-WILLERING. 143 joined their fraternity. The Archdukes of Austria themselves highly patronized this Kloster, and freed it from all tolls and taxes ; and it shortly became so powerful, that it assumed a species of jurisdiction over all the other establishments of its or- der, upon the banks of the Danube, as far as Engelhardszell. One of its abbots, in 1544, played it a scurvy trick. He was a Niirnberger by birth, and named Erasmus Villicus. Scarcely had he been raised to this enviable dignity, when he took unto himself a wife, and one fine night disap- peared with the lady, and all the jewels of the Kloster ! From that period, a chain of misfortunes seems to have attended it. It was twice or thrice plundered during the insurrections ; nearly burned to the ground in 1733 ; suffered in an action between the French and Austrians, in 1742 ; and by an inundation in 1787, when the Danube over- flowed its banks to the height of full seven fathoms. After washing the walls of Kloster Wil- lering, the Danube enters another beau- tiful valley, skirted on one side by the dark forests of the Kirnberg, and on the 144 AUSTRIA, other by groves of a lighter green, inter- spersed with cottages and gardens, over which, in the distance, rise the spires of Postlingberg, announcing to the traveller the vicinity of Linz. On the brink of each bank runs a carriage-road, the one on the right being the high post-road to Regens- burg and Niirnberg, and that on the left leading to Ottensheim, Grammetstetten, and Landshag. This beautiful valley is the favourite promenade of the Linzers, who flock on a fine summer afternoon through the woods on the right bank, to a hunting lodge in the Kirnbergerwald, near which stand the ruins of Helfenberg, the cradle of the old Counts of Kirnberg ; and in the winter go in sledges to Willering, and the neighbouring places, to drink wine, beer, and coffee, smoke, knit, and hear music. Having rounded the point of land over- looked by the lofty Postlingberg, — the city of Linz, — the capital of Upper Austria, — with its long wooden bridge, gradually makes its appearance. Beneath the rocks on the right bank, stands a long line of houses and chapels, some romantically situated in little clefts of the rocks, and LFNZ. 145 surrounded by firs and pines. This place is called the Calvarienberg (Mount Cal- vary), and is the scene of numberless pro- cessions and religious ceremonies of the Catholic inhabitants of Linz. Linz is a handsome, clean, and cheerful looking city, and the inhabitants may be said to partake the good qualities of their town. The Linzer women are famed for beauty, if we may believe the guide-books, and who would dare to doubt them upon such a subject? — honestly, however, I cannot say I remarked any extraordinary difference between the lasses of Linz, and their Bava- rian neighbours. The young females of the lower and middling classes, throughout the south of Germany, are in general plump, good-humoured looking girls, with florid complexions, large laughing blue eyes, snub noses, and light hair. Amongst the nobility and gentry, indeed, are some of the loveliest creatures I ever saw, and more resembling our own sweet countrywomen than the females of any other nation in Europe. But, as honest Cowley says : ■ " Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape, Who dost in every country change thy shape : L 146 AUSTRIA. Here black, there brown, here tawny, and there white, Thou flatterer, who comply'st with every sight: — Who hast no certain what nor where ; But vary'st still, and dost thyself declare Inconstant as thy she-professors are 1 — " Who shall define thee ?— Amongst the men a very visible altera- tion in person had taken place, even before we arrived at Linz. There appeared to me considerably more of the Greek and Italian than the German cast of feature in the Austrian countenance. Long aquiline noses, dark eyes and swarthy complexions were new objects to me in German faces. Civi- lity, kindness, and good humour, however, reigned in the hearts and manners of both sexes ; and after the gloomy pictures I have seen so frequently drawn in England, of the degraded and miserable condition of the people of Austria, it was curious enough to mark the content and gaiety that, at least, appeared to pervade every class of his Imperial Majesty's subjects. Having tasted nothing since our single cup of coffee at Aschach, we hastened to the Golden Lion, the best inn we saw upon the Platz, and made a capital breakfast, in an apartment on the first floor, fitted up pre- LINZ. 147 cisely like an English coffee-room, the windows commanding a good view of the Platz, which (it being a market morning) presented a lively and interesting appear- ance. It is a fine, spacious, oblong square, between eight and nine hundred feet in length, and upwards of three hundred broad *, surrounded on three sides by hand- some houses built of freestone, (some of these five stories high,) and ornamented with a twisted column, surmounted by a gilt glory, erected by the Emperor Charles VI., in 1713, in memory of a great plague. South of this column, the square was filled with market-people and purchasers. The ground was covered with their large flat baskets, containing all kinds of provisions. By the side of each stood the vendor, in his or her provincial costume ; and amongst the motley crowd moved the mistresses and maidens of Linz, the former dressed " a la Fran^aise," with the exception of short sleeves, and long gloves tied above the * The old rhyming chronicler, Bruschius, says, " Passibus in longum patet area tota trecentis, In latum centum passibus atque decern." * L 2 148 AUSTRIA. elbow, a fashion peculiar to Germany ; and the latter in their little jackets, coloured petticoats, and splendid caps of gold bro- cade, entitled " Linzer hauben," modelled, one would suppose, from the gorgeous crest of a Chinese or golden pheasant. Exactly- facing our windows was a large house, where, over the porte cochere, the Austrian Eagle (that " rara avis in terris, nigroque simillima cygno" with two necks) sprawled upon a yellow board, all legs and wings, like a bird of prey on a barn door, and under it paraded a tall mustachoed Austrian gre- nadier sentinel, in white and black uniform, black gaiters, and portentous bear-skin cap, while half a dozen soldiers of other regi- ments lounged about the gateway of the Kaiserlich, — Koniglich, — something or other, that I could not exactly make out, and added considerably to the picturesque effect of the whole scene. Breakfast over, we repaired to the po- lizey, to reclaim our passports, exchanged on landing for a printed paper containing, in German, French, and Italian, an injunc- tion, under certain pains and penalties, to present yourself to the police, within LINZ. 149 twenty-four hours after your arrival ; those secured, we rambled over the town, which has nothing particularly worth notice in the way of buildings. There is a tolerably handsome church near the post-office, and polizey-direction ; in a long airy street, (the landstrasse) that runs right out into the country ; for, unlike continental towns in general, Linz has no gloomy gateways or frowning barriers ; a light turnpike a little way out of the town on the high-road, painted, as they all are in Germany, with the colours of the empire or kingdom, and resembling, exceedingly, the now nearly exploded barber's pole, alone indicates the spot where the land-traveller must exhibit his passport and pay the little weg-geld or road-toll, to an officer stationed for that purpose at a neighbouring cottage. A little arch, under which you pass into the Platz from the bank of the Danube, is dignified by the name of the Wasser-thor ; and you are directed to the Haupt-thor, the Schmidt-thor, and the Land-haus-thor, as you might in London be directed to Lud- gate, or to Holborn-bars, but the Thor itself has long vanished. Eiesbeck, who travelled 150 AUSTRIA. through Germany in 1780, speaking of Linz, says, " the city is open on all sides, and the town and country seem so united, that if my spirit of knight errantry would allow it, I would pitch my tent, and lay my travelling staff up, here ;" and gives ho- nourable testimony to " the industry, hap- piness, and prosperity of the eleven thou- sand inhabitants who dwell in it." If the late wars have occasioned any decrease of its prosperity, they have either not had that effect upon its population, or the inhabitants have been singularly fortunate in repairing damages, since the peace. Their number is now, by two different accounts, estimated at sixteen, and twenty thousand. From the Schlossberg, on the west of the city, you have a fine view over the Danube and the surrounding country. Upon this rock anciently stood the citadel of Linz, in which Richard Cceur de Lion, it is said, w r as feasted as he returned from his long Aus- trian captivity. The Archduke frequently resided here, and Rodolph II. considerably enlarged it. The Emperor Ferdinand I. still further enlarged and beautified it. It was afterwards converted into barracks, LINZ, 151 and, finally , into an hospital, which was burned down in 1800. Upon its site a commodious workhouse has been erected ; and the poor now eat their crumbs upon the spot where formerly stood " the rich man's table." There are many charitable establishments * and public schools in Linz, as well for Catholics as Protestants, and some considerable manufactories, one of which (the Imperial and Royal Woollen Cloth Manufactory) is a little town in itself. The Landhaus, the Guildhall of Linz, (or rather, the Government House of Upper Austria, where the president and eight counsellors appointed for the administration of justice in the country above the Ens, hold their sessions,) stands on the prome- nade, and was originally a Franciscan con- vent, built, in 1287, by Eberhard von Wal- see. From a window of this building, the * A tailor of Linz, named Kellerer, established an asylum for thirty orphans ; and in 1734, another tradesman, named Adam Pruner, bequeathed one hundred and eighty-one thou- sand florins to the poor of the town, the interest of which supports twenty-seven children, twenty- seven men, and twenty-seven women. The Emperor Joseph II. and the Empress Maria Theresa have also founded charities here. . 152 AUSTRIA. shot was fired that mortally wounded the rebel captain, Stephen Fadinger. Near the Landhaus is the new theatre. The old one was destroyed by the fire in 1800, which reduced to ashes the greater part of this quarter of the town. The erection of the present building cost ninety-six thou- sand florins. Under the same roof, is the Redouten-Saal, or Assembly Room for mas- querades, balls, &c. The old chroniclers are not agreed as to the origin and foundation of Linz. Lazius would trace it to the Roman Lentium, or Lentia, destroyed by the Huns. Bruschius, in his rhyming panegyric, says, " Hanc quis condidit primus, quo tempore et anno, Nominis aut hujus quae sit origo vetus ; Vix poterit dici : siquidem Germania fastos Non tanta scripsit religione suos, Quanta vel Greeci feeerunt laude, vel ipsi Ausonii proceres Romuleique patres." Under Louis the Child, Linz was known as a toll-place on the Danube, and the seat of the Counts of Kirnberg. The last of this family sold, according to Lazius, the whole of his dominions to the Markgraves of Aus- tria. When the Emperor Frederick II., " the pupil, the enemy, and the victim of the LINZ. 153 church," was excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX. the second time, in 1236, Linz was besieged by the powers of the King of Bohemia, the Duke of Bavaria, the Patriarch of Aquileia, and the Bishops of Bamberg, Freysingen, and Passau. Frede- rick, however, assisted only by Albert, Count of Pogen, relieved the good city, and took one of the church militant, the Bishop of Passau, prisoner. During the reign of Rodolph of Hapsburg, Linz was plundered by Henry, Duke of Bavaria ; and, in 1335, the Emperor Louis the Bavarian here invested the Dukes of Austria with Carinthia and the Tyrol, and entered into an offensive and defensive alliance, to se- cure the succession of those countries against the pretensions of the King of Bo- hemia and his heirs*. In 1481, the whole city was destroyed by fire, with the excep- tion of the castle and one street. The Emperor Frederick III. caused it to be re- built and considerably enlarged, and de- clared it, in 1490, the capital of Upper * The Dukes of Austria were afterwards compelled to cede the Tyrol, but Carinthia has ever since that period continued in the possession of their House. Coxe's Hist. i. 155, Pel- zel, Schmidt, Struvius, &c. 154 AUSTRIA. Austria. He bought the village of Urfar, till then only inhabited by fishermen, and, flinging a wooden bridge over the Danube to it from Linz, it, in a short time, became a kind of suburb to the city. On the 19th of August, 1493, Linz lost its imperial be- nefactor. Frederick died in this city, of which he may almost be called the foun- der, at the advanced age of seventy-eight, and after a reign of fifty-three years, the longest of any emperor since the days of Augustus. He had been afflicted with a cancerous ulcer in his leg. As the only means of relief, he submitted to amputa- tion; but, from the unskilfulness of the surgeon, and the vitiated state of his blood, a second amputation was necessary. He bore these painful operations with extreme fortitude, and gave a singular proof of his characteristic phlegm. Taking the severed limb in his hand, he said to those who were present, " What difference is there between an emperor and a. peasant? or rather, is not a sound peasant better than a sick em- peror? Yet I hope to enjoy the greatest good which can happen to man: a happy exit from this transitory life." He seemed LINZ. 155 to be in a fair state of recovery, but his rigid observation of a fast, during which, in opposition to his medical attendants, he would take nothing but melons and water, brought on a dysentery, which, in his debi- litated condition, became fatal. I agree with Schultes in thinking that an equestrian statue of this benefactor of Linz would be a more handsome and appropriate orna- ment for its principal square, than the co- lumn before mentioned. In 1521-2, the Archduke Ferdinand, afterwards emperor and founder of the German branch of the House of Austria, solemnized, at Linz, his nuptials with Anne, Princess of Hungary and Bohemia. Thrice, during the remain- der of that century, was Linz visited with the awful scourge of pestilence. In 1620, the whole of Upper Austria was pledged to Bavaria; and, during the insurrections as already related, Linz was invested by the peasants under Fadinger, and its suburbs were reduced to ashes. Keppler, the fa- mous astronomer, who at that time resided in them, lost some valuable MSS. in the flames. Linz was thrice stormed during those disturbances. In 1741, Linz was 156 AUSTRIA. taken possession of by the allied French and Bavarian army, under Marshal Bellisle and the Elector, and in the three unsuccess- ful struggles of Austria against Napoleon in 1800, 1805, and 1809, it suffered, in common with other towns upon the Da- nube, the various razsfortunes of war. The wooden bridge across the Danube, I have already said, was first built in 1490, but there is mention made of a bridge as early as 1 106. It is conjectured, however, that it must have been a bridge of boats only, as the first regular bridge across to Urfar was certainly that thrown over by Ferdinand*. A stroll across this bridge, which is upwards of one thousand feet in length, through the little town of Urfar* (for though it merely looks like the suburb of Linz, it has risen to the dignity of a markt f,) and up the steep Postlingberg, to the church and observatory on its summit, would, no doubt, repay any one for the * Bruschius tells us of a capuchin, named Waltherus, " Qui nondum vinclis conjunctum aut pontibus Istrum Emensus sicco dicitur esse pede." Perhaps the river was frozen at that time. f In the campaign of 1809, damage was done in this little town alone to the amount of 1,326,621 florins. LINZ. 157 trouble if he could afford the time, as far as an extensive and beautiful view goes ; but, as my object was to travel through Austria, and not merely look over it, as a certain respectable personage is said " to look over Lincoln, 1 ' nothing but a view being to be gained by it, I declined the in- vitation ; and having revictualled our bark, for we always dined on board, about twelve o'clock, we " All got under weigh, And bade a long adieu to" — the capital of Upper Austria. The retrospective view, after we had left Linz about a quarter of a mile behind us, was exceedingly beautiful, as beautiful, perhaps, as the view on leaving Passau, but of quite a different character. The city lay on our left, the beach before it crowded with people, and piled with merchandise,— a regiment of infantry marching out of the Wasser-thor, drums beating and colours flying; the bridge, alive with passengers, stretched across the gulf, from whence the Danube rushed panting out, and then spread itself, right and left, like a calm bright lake before us. In front, gradually rising from 158 AUSTRIA. the water's edge, and spotted with the white straggling buildings of the little town of Urfar, towered the majestic Postling- berg, cultivated to its summit, and crowned by its church and observatory. More to the right arose the Pfenningberg, equally lofty, and similarly chequered with corn and meadow land. Between them, lay a soft green valley, in the bosom of which nestled the old village of Magdalena, the spire of its ancient church just peeping above the trees. A cloudless deep blue sky formed the back ground of this rich and laughing picture, that gladdened the heart, and filled it " almost to overflowing" with love and gratitude to that ineffable spirit, the Great Architect and " Author of this Universe, And all this good to man! For whose well-being, So amply, and with hands so liberal, He hath provided all things." Looking forward on our course, a crowd of little villages appeared on the left bank of the river, which again meandered amongst woody islands, and received, just below a small hamlet called Furth,thetiny stream of the Kitzelbach. Farther on, STEYERECK. 159 upon the same bank, rose the half burned chateau of Steyereck, upon a small hill, in front of the forest-covered mountains which again line that side of the river. The little market-town of Steyereck is hidden behind the poplars of an island close to the shore. Steyereck was formerly a place of some commercial importance*, but the Danube has receded of late years considerably from its walls ; and the large sand-banks it has left behind it, prevents the lading or unlad- ing of vessels, which now seek some more fortunate town. A little trouble and ex- pense would, it appears, remove the sand, and restore the Danube to its original channel, thereby not only greatly benefiting Steyereck, but all the surrounding coun- try, which is now, from the new course of the river, subjected to continual inunda- tions, disasters that this work would greatly diminish in number, if not entirely prevent. No measures have as yet, however, been taken to effect this desirable purpose. The worthy Austrian would be considerably * Steyereck was once famous for its potteries ; but the manufactories have fallen to decay, notwith standing the fine clay which is still to be found in its neighbourhood. 160 AUSTRIA. improved, could a little of the persevering industry of the Hollander be infused into his composition. Steyereck belonged ori- ginally to the monks of Kremsmunster, but, as early as 1136, it had fallen into the power of a family named Khuenringe, who lorded it over the greater part of the Nord- waldes. Albert, of Khuenringe, sold the Castle of Steyereck, in 1.280, to Ulrich von Kapell, surnamed " The Long," who, in the famous battle of Marchfield, between the Emperor Rudolph I. and Ottocar, King of Bohemia, rescued the valiant founder of the House of Hapsburg from a gigantic Thuringian knight, named Valens, who had unhorsed and wounded him, and, by his courage and exertions, decided the fortune of the day. "Terra Rudolphus hostium ductus globo Multorura, et unus jam pedes vim sustinet. Ulricus alis advolans Capellides, Ceu saeva raptis ursa pro catulis nova Irrumpit acie, ferro iter per inimicos seeat, Alio reservat Csesarem statuens equo, etc." Calaminus in Rudolpho Ottocaro. It remained in the family of the Kapel- lers till the extinction of the male branch in 1409, when the last daughter of that EBELSBERG. 161 house married Heinrich von Liechtenstein. In. 1569, one of the Lichtensteins sold Steyereck to Christopher Jorger, of Tol- leth; and, in 1635, the town and castle were given as a dower with Elizabeth Jorger, to David Ungnad, Count of Weissenwolf, who built the present chateau. In 1770, the lightning fired the building, and a valuable library and collection of pictures were ut- terly consumed. Nearly facing Steyereck, is the mouth of the green and beautiful river Traun, which, rising out of the Grundel-See in the romantic Steyermark, flows through the lakes of Hallstadter and Gmiinden, and swelled by the Ager, the Alben, and the Krems, hurries, foaming under the bridge of Ebelsberg, into the Danube. Ebelsberg, or Ebersberg, which lies on the right bank of the Traun, and is visible from the Da- nube, is a place of great antiquity*, and the scene of a desperate battle between the * In 1787, a stone coffin was dug up in the neighbourhood of Ebelsberg, five feet long, and one foot two inches wide. On the breast of the skeleton within lay a golden ring, of rather an oval shape, and rude workmanship ; at its feet was a drinking glass, which had contained some clear liquid, but it was unfortunately broken, and the liquid spilt, in the open- ing of the coffin. Vide Kurz Belrage, 3 Th. S. xvii. M 162 AUSTRIA. French and the Austrians, fought on the 3d of May, 1809. General Claparede's di- vision stormed Ebelsberg from the bridge across the Traun, under a tremendous fire of artillery directed against the bridge, by the Austrian Field-Marshal Hiller. Clapa- rede succeeded in carrying the place, but with dreadful slaughter. Another column of French, who had passed the river higher up, upon entering the town, revenged the death of their comrades most fearfully upon the Viennese volunteers who had so bravely defended it, three hundred of whom were burned alive in the castle, the town having taken fire during the assault, and the rest cut to pieces. From twelve to sixteen thousand men fell in this terrible conflict ; and the banks of the Traun, from Ebels- berg to the Danube, were literally covered with slain *. * General Jominy gives the following account of this san- guinary affair, in his Political and Military Life of Napoleon. " Hiller had abandoned the barrier of the Inn without fight- ing, but he resolved to defend the passage of the Traun at the formidable position of Ebersberg. A wooden bridge, thirty fathoms long, presented a more fearful obstacle than that of Lodi, it being terminated by a walled town, com- manded by a castle, and crowned by heights of very difficult access. To cross this bridge, in the face of thirty thousand EBELSBERG. 163 The Emperor Arnulph gave Ebelsberg, then called Eporesburg, to the monks of Kremsmiinster, A. D. 893, together with the confiscated property of a Count Engel- schalk, who carried off the Emperor's natu- ral daughter. Arnulph feigned forgiveness, men and eighty pieces of cannon, was not an easy matter. Massena was not ignorant of Napoleon's intention to turn this impregnable post by Lambach, but the impetuous valour of General Cohorn hurried him into a sanguinary enterprise. Three Austrian battalions, that had been imprudently left in front of the bridge, were overthrown, and driven, at the point of the sword, to the gates of the town, which were closed against them. Cohorn forced the gates, and penetrated into the principal street. Massena supported him first by the rest of Claparede s division, and then by that of Legrand. A des- perate conflict was kept up from street to street, and from house to house. Claparede had just possessed himself of the castle, when Hiller threw four fresh columns into the town, who opened themselves a passage with the bayonet. A hor- rible slaughter ensued ; several houses took fire that were filled with wounded and with combatants, whom the crowded state of the streets prevented from escaping. War never pre- sented a more cruel scene. At length, tired with carnage, the Austrians abandoned Ebersberg, and our troops de- bouched against the heights, where a still more unequal combat commenced. The arrival of Durosnel's division of cavalry by the right bank, and the certainty that his position would be turned by Lannes, decided Hiller at length to fall back with all speed upon Enns. . . . This vigorous blow was still more honourable to the French troops, as the greater part engaged in this business was composed of sol- diers who had never before seen a battle. It cost Hiller from six to seven thousand men. We had to regret the loss of from four to five thousand brave fellows, a great number of whom had fallen a prey to the flames." — Vie Politique et Militaire de Napoleon. 8vo. Paris, 1827, torn. iii. pp. 181 — 3. M 2 164 AUSTRIA. and luring the Count back from Zwenti- bold, whither he had fled with the Princess, delivered him over to the diet at Ratisbon, who condemned him to lose his eyes, and his nephew Wilhelm, his head. In the year 900, Count Sighard (whose name is handed down to the modern traveller, by the little post town of Sighardskirchen, near Vienna) built a castle at Ebelsberg, which was destroyed on the defeat of the Germans by the Hungarians in 993. A new castle was built shortly afterwards on the same spot, and destroyed by Frederick of Aus- tria in 1242, in consequence of the ex- cesses committed by Rudiger, Bishop of Passau, who, in conjunction with the Lords of a castle at Obernberg on the Inn, kept the whole intervening country in a state of terror. It was again rebuilt, and Rodolph of Hapsburg defeated here one hundred and twenty knights, previous to his battle with Ottocar. In 1586, this thirdcastle was destroyed by fire. Stephen Fadinger esta- blished his head-quarters here in 1626, and arrested the Imperial Commissioners. In the August of that year the peasants were defeated at Ebelsberg, with the loss of two thousand men. MONASTERY OF ST. FLORIAN. 165 Below Steyereck, the left bank alone is hilly ; the right resumes the flat, sedgy appearance it presented from Regensburg to Straubing. Luftenberg, an old place upon the left bank, commanding a fine view over the opposite country, is princi- pally remarkable as the spot where the fanatical visionary Laimbauer held forth in 1635-36. He entrenched himself, with the wretched enthusiasts who followed him, in the church of Frankenberg, and after wounding and killing many of the officers sent to apprehend him, from its windows, left his disciples to be burnt alive. He was, however, taken in his attempt to escape the flames, and executed at Linz. The monastery of St. Florian now ap- peared on our right, and shortly afterwards the chateau called Tilly's Burg. St. Flo- rian, to whose honour the monastery was erected, suffered martyrdom A. D. 303, at Lorch on the Ens, where, by order of a commander named Aquilinus, he was thrown from the bridge into the river, with a stone round his neck. His spirit appeared to a matron, and directed her where to find and where to bury his body ; 166 AUSTRIA. and over his grave, as the story runs, an altar was first erected, then a church, and lastly a kloster. Stephen Fadinger had his head-quarters here in 1626. Tilly's Burg is a large square building with four towers, and said to contain as many windows as there are days in the year, a peculiarity attributed to at least a dozen places in England, and I believe generally reported of every mansion with more windows than one would take the trouble to count. On the spot where this chateau now stands, once arose the tower of the castle of Volkerstorf, the seat of one of the most ancient and powerful families in Austria. Some warriors of that name fought at Constanz as early as 948. In 1146 a Volkerstorf accompanied Duke Leopold to the tournament at Zurich. Or- tolph von Volkerstorf stabbed Henrich Wittigo, secretary to the Emperor Fre- derick IL, in the monastery of St. Florian, for which deed he and his brother were banished, their property confiscated, and their castle destroyed. In the Diet of Augsburg, A. D. 1275, Bernhard von Vol- kerstorf spoke vehemently against Ottocar, tilly's burg. 167 King of Bohemia, whom he openly accused of attempting to poison his own wife, and of tyrannising over Austria. Under the protection of the House of Hapsburg, the Volkerstorfs returned to their native coun- try, and rebuilt their castle in 1331. In 1558 it suffered materially by fire, and the last of the family having embraced the Lutheran faith, the whole of his property was confiscated in 1620, and the castle given, three years afterwards, by the Em- peror Ferdinand, to the famous Count Tserclas von Tilly *. In 1630-32, he built * This extraordinary man, the founder of the Bavarian army, and the terror of the Protestants, used to boast before the battle of Leipsig, of three things — viz. That he had never known woman, never been drunk, and never lost a battle. " His strange and terrific aspect/' says Schiller, " was in unison with his character. Of low stature, thin, with hollow cheeks, a long nose, abroad and wrinkled forehead, large whiskers, and a pointed chin, he was generally attired in a Spanish doublet of green with slashed sleeves, with a small and peaked hat on his head, surmounted by a red feather, which hung down his back. His whole aspect recalled to recollection the Duke of Alba, the scourge of the Flemings, and his actions were by no means calculated to remove the impression." — Thirty Years' War, book ii. The author of L'Histoire de Gustave Adolphe gives a similar account of his dress and person, and adds, that the Marechal de Grammont, going to see him out of curiosity, met him at the head of his army, attired as described, and mounted on a little grey hackney, with one pistol only at his saddle-bow. " Lorsque le Marechal s'ap- procha pour lui faire la reverence, Tilly, croyant remarquer 168 AUSTRIA, the present chateau, on the site of the old castle, and in the appellation of Tilly's Burg buried all recollection of the ancient Lords of Volkerstorf, whose once dreaded name is now only known to the peasant of Austria, as that of a little insignificant vil- lage in the neighbourhood of Ens. The last female of Tilly's family, the Countess Montfort, sold the Burg in 1730, to the Bavarian Baron von Weichs. Near Tilly's Burg is the old village of Kronau, known as early as the times of Thassillo, Duke of Bavaria, by the name of Kranesdorf, and on the left bank lie Hof-im-Schlag, Himberg, Auwinden, St. Georgen, and two or three other small places, remarkable only for their great an- tiquity. To the north of St. Georgen lies qu'il s'etonnoit de le voir dans cet equipage, lui dit, Monsieur, vous trouvez peut — etre mon habillement extraordinaire • j'avoue qu'il n'est pas tout a fait conforme a la mode de France, mais il est a mon gre, et cela me suffit. Je pense aussi que ma haquenee, et ce pistolet tout seul, vous surpren- nent pour le moins autant que mon accoutrement ; pour que vous n'ayiez pas mauvaise opinion du Comte de Tilly, a qui vous faites l'honneur de rendre une visite de curiosite, je vous dirai que j'ai gagne sept batailles decisives, sans avoir ete oblige de tirer une seule fois le pistolet que vous voyez la ; et mon petit cheval ne m'a jamais abandonne et n'a jamais balanc6 a faire son devoir." — p. 173. SPIELBERG. 169 Frankenstein, where the miserable follow- ers of Laimbauer met their horrible fate. We now approached the old square tower of Spielberg, which, together with the steeples of the city of Ens, we had for some time seen in the distance, backed by the glittering and rugged line of the Styrian Alps. The ruin of Spielberg stands upon an Island near the right bank of the Danube, and just in the angle formed by the stream, which, having stretched away boldly to the south-east, here turns sharply off to the north, and washes the walls of the market town of Mauthausen, which is seen through a vista of islands at the extremity of a dis- tant point of land. Spielberg is admirably situated for a Raub-schloss, which was of course its original character. Otto and Eckbert von Spielberg were slain in Fre- derick Barbarossa's Italian expedition, A.D. 1156, and one Dittmar von Spielberg was present at the siege of Milan in 1158. In 1328, the family of Spielberg became extinct, the last of that name, Eberhard, having previously sold the city and castle of Ens to the Emperor Rudolph L, for six hun- dred marks. Reinprecht von Walsee pos- 170 AUSTRIA. sessed Spielberg in 1329, and after passing through several hands, it finally formed part of the dower brought by the Countess of Weissenwolf to her husband in 1635. There is a small fall of the river here, which was at one time considered dan- gerous by the timid boatmen on the Da- nube, and has been confounded by some writers with the celebrated Strudel, pro- bably from one of the names given to it by the schiffers, viz. Der Saurussel*. It is also called by some, the Neubruch : small boats seldom venture through it, though a slight tossing would, I should imagine, be the only consequence. My companion and I often laughed, to think how a smart English six-oared cutter would astonish the natives here, who are certainly the clumsiest and most fearful navigators in Europe. Mau- thausen is said by the boatmen to be half of Aschach, which, carried away by an in- undation of the Danube, floated with the current down to this spot, — a strange tra- dition, which it is supposed has arisen from a fancied resemblance between the two towns. Howsoever it came, it stands in a * There being a place so called in the vicinity of the Strudel. ENS. 171 very pleasant situation, directly opposite to the mouth of the Ens, and looking up that river upon the city of Ens, and the far-distant peaks and glaciers of the Sty- rian Alps. There was a bridge of boats here in 1809, but it was destroyed by the Bavarians. The neighbouring tower of Pragstein was occupied by the French in 1742. Mauthausen suffered severely in the war between Rudolph and Matthias, and in the insurrections during the reign of Ferdinand. There is a woollen-stocking and a leather manufactory here, a dye- house of some celebrity, and a salt-market, from whence the greater part of Bohemia is supplied. The city of Ens is supposed to have been originally constructed out of the ruins of the Roman Lorch, (indifferently called Laureacum, Lavoriacum, Blaboria- cum, Loriacte,) the station of the second Italian legion, upon the site of which is still a little village of the name. Ammia- nus Marcellinus is the oldest historian who makes mention of Laureacum. Brus- chius, Hansiz, and Aventine assert, that Lorch was destroyed by Attila, on his 172 AUSTRIA, march to Gaul ; but the biographer of St. Severin states, that two years after the passage of Attila, that holy person arrived at Lorch from the neighbourhood of Vi- enna, and found it flourishing, and a Chris- tian priest established therein. The Huns might have taken the left bank of the Danube, particularly as it was their nearest road. From an inscription on the walls of Ens, it would appear that two of the holy Evangelists themselves took the city under their especial protection, and converted the people to Christianity *. St. Peter himself is also said to have preached the gospel here in the year 49. In 454, Lorch is reported to have been preserved by the prayers of St. Severin, but was afterwards destroyed by the Bar- barians, according to his own prediction in 737, when Bibilo, bishop of Lorch, fled with his monks to Passau, as I have * Zu Enns St. Marx und Lucas lehrt Das volck zu Christi Glaub bekehrt. Hie ward versenkt St. Florian In D'Enns der edle Rittersmann, Maximilian da Bischoffwar, Mild gegen Armen immerdar ; Diess langt zu sondern Ruhm der Stadt Die Gott also bes;nadet hat." ENS. 173 already mentioned in my notice of that city. The authentic history of Ens, how- ever, commences during the reign of Charlemagne, when that Emperor, aware of the importance of such a situation, pitched his tents at the mouth of the Ens, which formed at that time the line of demarcation between Bavaria and the lands of the Avars or Huns of Pannonia, that people having, during the sixth and seventh centuries, " spread their permanent dominion from the foot of the Alps to the sea-coast of the Euxine*." Here, on the 5th of September, 791, he encamped, and, after fasting and praying for three days, proceeded on his expedition. The troops on the left bank of the Danube were com- manded by the Counts Thederich and Me- ginfried ; those on the right by the Em- peror in person ; and between the two hosts upon the river floated a third body, with provisions and necessaries for the whole army. In fifty-two days he penetrated * Gibbon, when speaking of this expedition, calls it " the triple effort of a French army that was poured into their (the Avars') country, by land and water, through the Car- pathian mountains, and along the plain of the Danube. " Decline and Fall, vol. ix. p. 184. 174 AUSTRIA. to the river Rab, destroying the rings or wooden fortifications of the Avars, the first of which he found upon the Riederberge, by Tuln ; and would have carried his vic- torious arms still farther, had not a con- tagious disorder killed nearly all his horses. In 805, we still hear of Lorch, which, under the names of Lorahha and Loracha, is designated as a villa regia, and mention is made of its market-place and of an imperial judge, one Warner or Warnhar. After the death of Arnulph the Bastard, the Hungarians burst into the country, and devastated it beyond the Ens. The Bava- rians rallied, and beat them back; and Leopold, then Grenz-graf, or Count of the frontier, in the year 900, slew up- wards of 3000 of them on the left bank of the Danube. In the same year, as a stronger check to their inroads, he erected on the Ens a strong fortress* which he called Ensburg (Anasiburgum.) Buildings gradually rose around it ; and in proportion as the old Roman city of Laureacum de- clined, its rival prospered, till their names * This building is still standing in the north-east quarter of the city. It is now the property of Baron Rumeskirchen. ENS. 175 became confounded, and that of the new city predominating, a small village, pro- bably on the actual site of the Roman town, alone retains the ancient appellation of Lorch. Richar, bishop of Passau, per- suaded Louis the Child, that the fortress of Ensburg stood upon ground belonging to the monastery of St. Florian, and it was consequently ceded by the sovereign to that establishment. The Hungarians snatched it from its holy possessors in 907, when they defeated Louis, and slew the valiant markgraf Leopold, brother-in- law to Carloman, the bishops of Salzburg, Freysing, and Seben, three abbots, and nineteen counts. Leopold's son, Arnulf, defeated the Barbarians on the Inn, in 912, and Conrad I. bribed them back over the frontiers in 918. After Arnulf 's death, the Barbarians again invaded Bavaria, but were ultimately, at the close of the tenth century, driven out of the country by the Markgraves, Leopold the Babenberger, and Burkhard, who carried the war into the enemy's territories as far as Krems and Mcilk. In a deed of the time of Otho II., Ensburg is still spoken of as distinct from 176 AUSTRIA. Lorch or Lorach, and mention is made in the same deed of the church of St. Laurentius, situated without the walls of Lorch. Now there is a church of St. Laurence standing to this day, within ten minutes' walk of the city of Ens ; and though it was built as late as the time of Maximilian L, it is not improbable that it stands upon the site of the ancient edi- fice*. In the important deeds by which Ottocar VI. made over the steyermark to Leopold of Austria, Ens is called by one party a markt, and by the other a village ; and it is asserted by some writers that Ens was first made a fortified town by Leopold, who built its walls with the ransom of Richard Cceur de Lion ! f How- ever this may be, and if true, it is a very * In the Niebelunglied, which was compiled about this period, we find Ens mentioned, by its present name, as one of the places visited by Chrimhilt, on her journey into Hun- gary. " Da sie uber dieTraun kamen, bey Ense auf das field." t According to an old German writer quoted by Schultes, Ens was a walled city as early as the year 900, and already of some consequence. " Bavari citissime in id ipsum tempus (a.d. 900) pro tuitioni illorum regni validissimam urbem in littore Anesi fluminis muro obposuerunt." But, in this case, why is it called a village by Leopold, in the twelfth cen- tury? ENS. 177 interesting circumstance, Ens certainly dates its existence as a city from some- where about this period, as, at the close of the twelfth century, the Enser-fair was almost as much celebrated in Germany as that of Leipzig is at present. Rudolph of Hapsburg received the keys of Ens from the hands of a lord of Sumerau, and afterwards bought the city, for six hundred marks, of Eberhard von Spielberg. Duke Albert the Lame concluded here, in 1336, the peace with John, king of Bohemia, which gave Carinthia to Austria, and the Tyrol to Charles, the son of that monarch, afterwards Charles IV. The vic- torious army of Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, penetrated as far as Ens during the war with the Emperor Frederick III., and in 1532, the Turks, who had burst into Hungary and Austria, headed by the Sultan himself, pushed forward some troops to the walls of this city, between whom and the burghers a desperate conflict took place upon the bridge. In the insurrections of 1624, Stephen Fadinger summoned the town, and another rebel-chief, named N 178 AUSTRIA. Wurm, cannonaded it, but it stood out against both till relieved by Colonel Lobel, who defeated the peasants, and burned their camp. In 1683, while Cara Mustaphalay before Vienna, several flying parties of the Turks scoured the country around Ens, and penetrated nearly to Linz. On the 4th of May, 1809, Napoleon had his head- quarters here, and received a deputation from the townspeople of Mauthausen, which place he had threatened with bom- bardment. In the centre of the Platz stands a tall bell or clock tower built by Maximilian I. Some years ago a rib-bone was shown in it as that of a giant. It had most pro- bably formed part of the stock in trade of an elephant, and was thought sufficiently curious to be removed to Cuvier's museum l a Paris. Many Roman antiquities have been discovered in Ens and its vicinity; some gold coins of the Emperor Probus, several marble busts, and inscribed stones. Some of the latter are still to be seen in the old Burg of Enseck. Two large stone coffins without any ENS. 179 inscription were dug out of the Aich- berg, a short distance from the town, in 1808. Some monumental busts were also found, but they had been cut out of very bad sandstone, and were much injured by time. N 2 180 CHAPTER VI. Nieder-Walsee — Castles of Clam and Kreuzen — Ardagger — Grein — The Strudel and the Wirbel — Mistakes of various Authors concerning them — St. Nikola — Sarblingstein— Freystein — Hirschau — The Isper — BOsenbeug — Story of Bishop Bruno and the Lady Richlita — Ips — Gottsdorf. After washing the walls of Ens, the river from which it takes its name hurries through several channels, into the Danube. In the time of Charlemagne it divided Ba- varia from the lands of the Avars or Huns of Pannonia. — " Ad fluvium venit Anasum Qui medius Bajvarios sejunxit et Humms." Saxo Poeta. T. II. p. 155. From the point of its confluence with the Danube, the latter is again studded with islands, sandbanks and sunken rocks as far as Nieder-Walsee ; and the history of the small market towns and villages upon its flat banks, is as uninteresting as their appearance. On the left, below the village of Nieder-Sebing, the little river Aust, formerly the boundary between the Slavi and the Bohemians, flows round an island, formed in its mouth, into the Danube ; and NIEDER-WALSEE. 181 on the right, above the rippling Erla-bach, stands Erla-Kloster, a convent founded by- Otto of Machland in the tenth century, and suppressed by the Emperor Joseph II. Our old steersman had been for some time complaining of illness, and now lay groan- ing upon some straw, having given up the paddle, by which the boat was steered, to the care of a lad who had joined us at Linz in the place of his son, an exchange which we had protested against at the time, as it was arranged at Ratisbon, that the same people should row us the whole way to Vienna, and the father and son were evidently the only persons who knew any- thing about the navigation of the river. The old man growing apparently worse every moment, we looked rather anxiously about for a place where we could land, and obtain some assistance, but none pre- sented itself before our arrival, in sight of Nieder-Walsee ; and therefore, although a mere group of huts, above which arose the old wall and curious tower of the Schloss, promised little in the way of ac- commodation, we determined to land there, and see what could be done to set our 182 AUSTRIA. poor pilot on his legs again. Nieder- Walsee stands perched upon a rocky point of land, on the right bank of the Danube, and behind it the mountains again rear their forest-clothed heads. Upon the summit of one of the nearest stands Strengberg, a post station, through which the high road runs to Vienna, and from whence we en- joyed a splendid view of the Danube on our return by land to Linz. The castle of Nieder-Walsee was built by the same Eberhard, who erected Ober-Walsee on the Klausberg near Aschach, and stands on the site of the old castle of Sumerau. After the death of Reinprecht von Walsee in 1483, the castle was bought and sold, pledged and redeemed, by various families, till, in the Seven Years' war, it became the property of the famous Field-marshal Daun, from one of whose descendants it was bought in 1810, by Count Wimpfer. A strong current runs round the point, and few boats, except those belonging to the inhabitants, approach the shore at this place, as there is considerable difficulty in getting back into the main stream, out of which one is aground every two minutes NIEDER-WALSEE. 183 upon the gravelly shoals that rise in all direc- tions in this part of the Danube, and can only be avoided by keeping in the middle of what the boatmen call the Graben (the trench or channel) of the river. Not aware, however, of this circumstance, and anxious to alleviate the sufferings of the old steersman, we directed his locum tenens to run into the shore, a business that was speedily effected, for we had no sooner come within the influence of the current, than round went the head of the boat, and in a few seconds we were brushing the bushes that hung over the steep bank, and hurried along it far beyond the proper landing-place. Two unfortunate discove- ries were made together. The offer of a dram to the steersman cleared up the mys- tery of his malady. He had had a few too many already, and had laid down in the boat for the most excellent of all reasons, his inability to stand; our second discovery was equally annoying. We had got out of the stream, and the only person who was capable of getting us cleverly back into it was hors de combat. The rest of the crew knew as little about the matter 184 AUSTRIA. as ourselves. As soon as we had escaped one current we found ourselves in the power of another, and with such force was the heavy, flat-bottomed punt we were in driven upon the shoals, that, with all the strength we could muster amongst us, we were sometimes ten minutes or a quarter of an hour before we could get her afloat again ; and when we had at last effected it, round she spun, and there was her stern as fast as a church within a dozen yards of the spot where her head had been similarly situated two minutes before. At least an hour and a half was lost in this amusing exercise, during which we had the grati- fication of seeing the regular packet-boat that we had gotten the start of at Aschach, pass us far to the left, and, steering clear of all obstacles, vanish into the valley which opened between the wooded mountains in the distance. At last, when our strength, our patience, and the reproaches we poured rather unceremoniously on our drunken steersman were just exhausted, and we had begun to calculate upon the probability of passing the afternoon and evening at least upon the shoals, we found CLAM, 185 ourselves by accident, but to our unspeak- able satisfaction, once more impelled for- wards by a gentle and properly behaved current, which promised, in the course of time, to lead us into the stream we had in evil hour deserted. On the left bank of the Danube below Nieder-Walsee, stand the village of Saxen, and the Castles of Clam and Kreuzen. Saxen is mentioned as early as 823, in which year Louis the Debonair gave to Reginhard, Bishop of Passau, two churches at " Saxina in terra Hunnorum." The towers of Clam rise above a forest of pines a little behind Saxen. It was anciently the seat of the Lords of Machland. The brother of Otto of Machland, who founded the kloster of Baumgartenberg, was the first of the family who signed himself " Chlamme/' A. D.l 156. On the extinc- tion of the family of Machland, this Burg came to the Preuschenks, and in 1487, the troops of Matthias Corvinus besieged and took it. The family of Perger bought it in 1524, enlarged it in 1636, and took the title of Barons and afterwards of Counts of Clamm. The great white castle of Kreu- 186 AUSTRIA. zen, far away upon the summit of a hill to the north-west, also belonged to the Lords of Machland, and in the twelfth century was called Croucen and Chrutzen. In 1334, it came to the celebrated Volkerstorfs. The Counts of Meggar bought it in 1523; and when the Turks were devastating Upper Austria in 1526. its walls were filled with fugitives of all ranks and ages. In 1701, it was bought by a Count Cavariani, who sold it again almost immediately to the Count of Salburg. The market-town of Ardagger, upon the right bank, was given by Charlemagne to the bishopric of Pas- sau. The Emperor Conrad III., when set- ting out on his unfortunate crusade, landed here on the 29th of May, 1 147, to make the necessary preparation for passing with his fleet the then much-dreaded Strudel and Wirbel. Seventy thousand knights, com- pletely armed, an equal number of foot- soldiers, a troop of females " in the armour and attitude of men," the chief of whom, from her gilt spurs and buskins, obtained the epithet of " The golden-footed dame*", * Gibbon. — William of Tyre and Matthew Paris reckon se- venty thousand loricati in each of the armies led by Conrad GREIN. 187 passed down the Danube under the ban- ners of Conrad. Two years afterwards, a few boats, principally filled with priests who had followed the army, returned to these shores ; all that treachery, battle, and disease had left of the mighty host that had so lately marched in full confidence to the conquest of Asia ! A sudden bend of the river near this spot, brought us again amongst the moun- tains, and in a moment we seemed shut out from the world by the craggy barriers that rose on each side of us, — the counterparts of those I have attempted to describe in the wild gorge of the Schlagen. After passing a few lonely huts, perched here and there amongst the masses of rock and forest, the chateau and town of Grein started at once into view, on turning a sharp and craggy point, cradled amongst the precipices which, opening behind the town, form a vista, ter- minated by the castle of Kreuzen on its and the French king", Louis VII. The light-armed troops, the peasant infantry, the women and children, and the priests and monks, swelled this swarm to an inconceivable extent. " It is affirmed by the Greeks and Latins, that in the passage of a strait or river, the Byzantine agents, after a tale of nine hundred thousand, desisted from the endless and formi- dable computation." — Decline and Fall, vol. xi. p. 107. 188 AUSTRIA. distant hill. Grein is one of the poorest and smallest towns in Upper Austria, and the chateau is a large, gloomy building, originally built by Heinrich von Chreine, in the twelfth century. Frederick the Handsome, Duke of Austria, pledged Grein for five hundred and sixty-two silver pfennige, to Albert von Volkerstorf, May 14th, 1308. The valiant Bernhard von Scherffenberg beat the Bohemians here twice, during the fifteenth century ; at the close of which it was bought of the Em- peror Maximilian by one of the family of Prueschenk. Heinrich von Prueschenk re- built the chateau, and from this circum- stance it received the name of Heinrichs- burg. The traveller now approaches the most extraordinary scene on the long Danube, from its source in the Black Forest, to its mouth in the Black Sea. As soon as a bend of the river has shut out the view of Grein and its chateau, a mass of rock and castle, scarcely distinguishable from each other, appears to rise in the middle of the stream before you. The flood roars and rushes round each side of it; and ere you THE STRUDEL AND THE WIRBEL. 189 can perceive which way the boat will take, it dashes down a slight fall to the left, struggles awhile with the waves, and then sweeps round between two crags, on which are the fragments of old square towers, with crucifixes planted before them. It has scarcely righted itself from this first shock, when it is borne rapidly forward to- wards an immense block of stone, on which stands a third tower, till now hidden by the others, and having at its foot a dangerous eddy. The boat flashes like lightning through the tossing waves, within a few feet of the vortex, and comes immediately into still water, leaving the passenger who beholds this scene for the first time, mute with wonder and admiration. These are the Scylla and Charybdis of the Danube, the celebrated Strudel and Wirbel. The passage is made in little more than the time it takes to read the above brief de- scription, and I could scarcely scratch down the outlines of these curious crags and ruins, before I was whirled to some dis- tance beyond them. I must beg my reader, however, to return with me, and repass them more leisurely, than the impatient 190 AUSTRIA. stream would permit us. The Danube, checked in its northern course at Grein, and driven unwillingly towards the east, vents its fury against the opposing crags on the left bank, and having broken down part of the barrier, rides over the ruins in triumph, forming what is called, by the boatmen, the Grein-Schwall. After this ebullition of anger, the stream appears to sink into sullen indifference, and slowly and silently pursues its way through a gloomy gorge of precipices, that rise higher and higher on each side of it, till it arrives within a few yards of the Worthinsel, an island, about four hundred fathoms long, and two hundred broad, surrounded by sand-banks on all sides except the north, where a perpendicular crag starts up, bear- ing on its crest the ruins of the Wother- Schloss, or Castle of Werfenstein *. From * This little square tower, which is generally called, from its situation, the Worther-Schloss, is described in several topo- graphical works indifferently under the name of the Castle of Werfenstein, and the Castle of Struden. But it being clearly apparent from various ancient documents that the Castles of Werfenstein and Struden were two distinct buildings, Herr Schultes has, I think, with good reason, designated this the ruin of Werfenstein, and that which overhangs the little markt of Struden, on the left bank of the river, the Castle of Struden. THE STRUDEL AND THE WIRBEL. 191 this island to the rocky shores of the Da- nube, which here open and form a kind of circle around it, run several chains of crags beneath the water, some indeed peering above it, over and through which the stream rushes right and left, with consi- derable violence and uproar. The right arm is called the Hossgang, and is only passable when the water is very high, by the smallest and lightest craft. The main body hurries round the northern or left side of the island, and boiling over the first chain of rocks, falls through three separate channels, a depth of three feet in a dis- tance of four hundred and eighty. This fall is called the Strudel; but the boatmen have a name for each channel, and call that one in particular the Strudel which is nearest to the north shore of the island: the centre channel is called the Wildriss ; and the third, nearest the main bank, the Waldwasser*. The three principal crags * The Waldwasser and the Wildriss, like the Hossgang, are never passable but when the water is very high, and then only by the lightest and smallest craft. The Strudel, though most studded with rocks, is the best, and con- sequently the general passage for all boats and rafts, either ascending or descending, and has therefore given its name to the whole fall. 192 AUSTRIA. which, standing in the entrance of these three channels, form part of the bank or bar, over which the water falls into them, have also their particular names; that in the entrance to the Strudel is called the Bomben-Gehakel, or Buma-G'hachelt ; the next, the Wildriss-Gehakel, and the third, the Wald-Gehakel, — the term Gehakel or G'hachelt distinguishing the crags, the points of which generally appear above the surface, from those which lie beneath it, and which are called Kogeln or Kugeln. There are nearly a dozen of these Kogeln in the passage of the Strudel, the principal of which are named the Marchkugel, the Wolfskugel, and the Maisenkugel ; and one, from its particular formation, the Dreyspitze. These lie in various direc- tions, in the entrance and middle of the channels. At the outlet of the Wildriss there is a reef of rock called the Ross, the principal crag in which is named the Ross- kopf ; another reef, called the Felsenge- lander, lies at the end of the Waldwasser, beside which are two rocks called the Keller and the Hute. Some of these, at low water, are not more than two feet THE STRUDEL. 193 beneath the surface, and impassable, of course, by a boat of any size or burden. It may easily be supposed that a stream like the Danube does not flow very quietly over so rugged a bed, and though consi- derable masses of rock have been blown up, and the channels otherwise much widened and deepened within the last fifty years, there are still obstacles enough to fret and agitate the river to a degree which gives at least an appearance of danger to the passage, if even there be not a little in reality. At the end of the fall, or Stru- del, on the left, and of the Hossgang on the right, the rocky shores again approach each other, and the river, uniting its cur- rents, sweeps rapidly round to the north beneath a jutting crag, upon which stands the ruins of the castle of Struden, and washes the walls of the little town of the same name. The castle belonged an- ciently to the lords of Machland, and after them to the Archdukes of Austria. In 1413, the Archdukes Leopold and Ernest gave the " Feste haus ze Struden" to one Hans Greisenecker, who already possessed the Castle of Werfenstein, for " a considera- 194 AUSTRIA, tion;" and in 1493, the brothers Heinrich and Sigmund Prueschenk bought both cas- tles from the House of Austria, to which they had reverted. About a thousand yards below Struden, but near the right bank of the river, rises the large block of stone called the Haus- stein, upon which are the ruins of the tower of the same name ; round the southern side of this block struggles a small arm of the Danube, called the Lueg, and navigable like the Hossgang, when the water is very high, by small boats only. On the northern side is the cele- brated whirlpool (Der Wirbel), formed most probably by the violence with which the two currents of the Danube are hurled against each other on leaving the Worth - insel, and again checked and divided by the Hausstein. This whirlpool measures sometimes nearly fifty feet in diameter ; but when we passed it, it did not, I should think, exceed fifteen. In the centre the water forms a perfect funnel, and a large branch of fir was whirling round and round in it, as if some invisible hand were stirring the natural cauldron, and making it "boil THE WIRBEL. 195 and bubble." All sorts of extravagant sto- ries have of course been circulated respect- ing this dreaded vortex, which is gravely affirmed by some of the old writers to have no bottom. Munster, in his Kosmographie, printed at Basle in 1567, says, " They have often sounded in this place, but the abyss is so deep that they can touch no ground. It is bottomless. What falls therein, remains under and never comes up again.' 5 — b. III. sam. 965. This writer also confounds the Strudel with the Wirbel.* Father Kircher vows there is a hole underneath the Wirbel, which sucks in the waters of the Danube, and a subter- * A singular ignorance of the true situation of these famous places is displayed by most of the German writers. Berckenmayer, in his Curiosen Antiquarius, carries the Wirbel below the town of Krems, and he is followed in his error by Strahlenberg, in his Beschreibung des Russichen Reiches, and Hiibner, in his Vollstandigen Geographic, who speak of the Wirbel as a waterfall near Krems. From Hiibner this mistake has been copied into several geographical works, and amongst others into the old Zeitung's Lexicon ; and many of the modern German, and even some English tra- vellers speak of the Strudel and Wirbel as one and the same thing, a confusion which nothing but utter carelessness could have created ; the first being distinctly a fall, and the second an eddy, each remarkable in itself, and at some little distance from the other. O 2 196 AUSTRIA. ranean channel connected with it, by which the said water is conveyed into Hungary, where it rises again, and forms the Platten- see or Lake of Balaton ! Others claim the same origin for the Lake of Neusiedle*, and to clinch the fable, which is still reve- rently believed by the Hungarians, assert, that a travelling cooper, who lost some of his tools in the Wirbel, absolutely found them again floating on the surface of the Neusiedler-see. Happelius, as in support of this hypo- thesis, says, " it is well known that the Danube loses a considerable quantity of its waters in the Wirbel, so that its flood is of much less consequence from that spot down to Vienna/' a falsehood which a glance at the river is capable at once of refuting. There can be no doubt that, in earlier ages, there must have been considerable danger in passing these falls and eddies ; * " Inter alios (vortices) famosus ille est, qui aspicitur sub Lincio. Creditur vulgo origo esse lacus Neusidel in Him- garia Cis-Rahabanti. Aspicitur etiam alter sed hoc minor, prope pagum Almas infra Commaronium, qui perhibetur esse origo lacus Balaton." — Marsigli Danubiani illustr. See also Herbinius de, Cataract. Fluv., and Kircher's Mundus subter- raneus. THE WIRBEL. 197 and even now, when the water is low, an inexperienced or careless steersman might easily get the bottom of his boat knocked out in the Strudel, or its side staved in by the crags of the Hausstein, under either of which circumstances the passengers would stand a very fair chance of being drowned. I cannot help thinking our own rather a narrow escape, for my readers will recollect that, on leaving Nie- der-Walsee, our worthy pilot was lying dead drunk in the stern of the boat. To our utter astonishment, however, upon approaching the Grein-Schwall, he ma- naged to get upon his legs, and, as if so- bered for the moment by a sudden sense of his own situation, snatched the rudder from the boy (who in a few minutes would cer- tainly have had us upon the rocks), steered us manfully and cleverly through the Stru- del and Wirbel, and then flung himself down again on his straw as drunk and in- sensible as before. Had we been aware of the vicinity of these places, we should certainly have taken a pilot on board at Ardagger, but we had no idea we were so near them, and the poor fellows who rowed 198 . AUSTRIA. us were altogether ignorant of the river, and merely working their way to Vienna. The passage was, however, made before we had time to think of our danger, almost in- deed before we knew where we were ; and absorbed in contemplation of the romantic beauty of the scene, nothing short of absolute foundering could, I believe, have distracted our attention from it. Riesbeck, after a brief description of this spot, says, " a great variety of circumstances concur to excite an idea of danger in both these parts of the Danube. Low mechanics are fond of speaking of them, and magnifying the danger, that they may increase their own importance in having gone through it. Others, more simple, who come to the place with strong conceits of what they are to meet with there, are so struck with the wildness of the prospect, and the roaring of the water, that they begin to quake and tremble before they have seen any thing. But the masters of the vessels are those who most effectually keep up the imposition. They make the passage a pretence for raising the price of the freight, and when you are past them the steersman goes round with THE WIRBEL. 199 his hat in his hand to collect money from the passengers as a reward for having con- ducted them safely through such perilous spots. When our master (who yet very well knew how much it was for his interest to keep up the credit of his monsters) saw how little attention I paid to them, he assured me in confidence that during the twenty years he had sailed the Danube, he had not heard of a single accident," This account was written in 1780, and yet only three years before, (on the 31st of October 1777,) two vessels struck, one on the Wolfs- Kugel, and the other on the Maisenkugel, and went to pieces. In 1749, a SehifF- meister of Passau, named Freidenberger, perished with his daughter in the whirlpool, and another SchifFmeister, Martin Beyerl, of Vienna, was drowned in it, at the com- mencement of the century. The danger has certainly, however, been much diminished by the exertions of the Austrian government, which, besides having considerably widened and deepened the channels of the Strudel and Hossgang, by blowing up the rocks and removing the sand, has instituted sundry prudent regu- 200 AUSTRIA lations respecting the navigation of this part of the Danube. All boats ascending the river when the water is only of a cer- tain height, are obliged to stop at the little town of Struden till information is sent to Grein and the Sauriissel, at both which places a flag is immediately hoisted to give notice to any vessels descending the stream, that one is coming up through the Strudel, and so prevent the collision that would be likely to take place should they attempt to pass it in contrary directions at the same time, the descending vessel being compelled, under a heavy penalty, to lay to, above the rock called the Rabenstein, till the other has passed. Also when the water is of a sufficient height to enable the ascending boats to pass through the southern channels of the Lueg and the Hossgang, the horses keep the towing- path on the right bank from Ips to Wies- sen, a small place facing Grein. But when the water is low, the horses are ferried three times across the river in the short distance of 1200 yards; first below the Wirbel, from the right bank over to the left ; then from the town of Struden to the THE WIRBEL, 201 Worthinsel ; and lastly, from the western end of that island over the Hbssgang, back again to the right bank, under the Raben- stein. As soon as you have passed the Wirbel, a boat puts off from the little town of St. Nikola on the left bank, and paddling along- side, a man holds out a box with the figure of the saint in it for the " voluntary con- tributions" of the passengers, who are ex- pected to drop a few kreutzers in acknow- ledgment of the protection that has been so kindly afforded them by his saintship. On board the regular passage-boat, money is also collected by the steersman as Ries- beck describes, and another ceremony like- wise takes place, something similar to that customary on board a ship when passing the line. The steersman goes round with the wooden scoop or shovel, with which they wet the ropes that bind the paddles to their uprights, filled with water ; and those who have never before passed through the Strudel and the Wirbel must either pay or be well soused with the ele- ment, the perils of which they have just escaped. 202 AUSTRIA. In 1144, Beatrix of Klamm founded an hospital at St. Nikola for travellers on the Danube, which she so richly endowed, that Albert of Austria, two hundred years later, found it only necessary to provide for the spiritual welfare of its visitants, and there- fore established a daily mass with the money collected on the river from Ardagger to Ips, in the manner above mentioned. There were formerly two other towers or fortresses in the neighbourhood ; the ruins of one still exist on the northern bank of the river, nearly facing the Wirbel, on the rock called the Langen-Stein. The other was, as early as the twelfth century, spoken of as " the ruined castle of the noble Lady Helchin," and not a fragment of it is now remaining. An old story, which I shall shortly have occasion to transcribe, speaks of the tower called " Der Teufels- thurm," (the Devil's Tower) but whether either of the four still standing have a claim to that respectable appellation or no, is a question at present undecided. It is accorded by some writers to the Castle of Werfenstein. The gorge through which the river now SARBLINGSTEIN. 203 flows calmly and silently as it had never been ruffled, is of the same description as that from Hayenbach to Neuhaus, but the mountains that line its shores are still higher, and often " Their lofty crests are capped with snow, While blossoms deck the vale below." So deep is the water, and so steady the stream, that boats of any burden may drift down it in the darkest night with perfect safety. We now floated past the old round tower of Sarblingstein, standing on a pedestal of granite, above a little group of houses, beside which the rivulet of Sarbling brawls through a woody ravine over the rocky bank into the Danube. The tower is all that remains of a fortress built by the Monks of Waldhausen in 1538, with the permission of the Emperor Ferdi- nand, upon the express condition that it should be considered an asylum for the in- habitants of the neighbourhood in case of invasion or civil war. Hirschau, close under Sarblingstein, is the last hamlet in Upper Austria* or Austria on the Ens. Opposite it on the right bank are the scarcely vi- sible remains of the castle of Hirschau, 204 AUSTRIA. and further east, upon the mountain top, lie the extensive ruins of Freystein, formerly one of the largest and strongest castles in Austria. At the close of the fourteenth cen- tury, it belonged to the famous Reinprecht von Walsee, and after him to the families of Preuschenk and Zinzendorf. The Prince of Starrhemberg also once possessed it. Near this spot two valleys open to the south-west, and from thence the granite is brought with which the streets of Vienna are paved. The labourers employed to blast the rocks and work the quarries live close by in the little village of Dorfel ; beside which the rivulet Isper, the Hys- pere of the middle ages, rippling through a narrow valley, forms the line of boundary northward between Upper and Lower Austria. The sun went down and the mountains seemed to sink with it, or melt into the mists that crept around them. The valley of the Danube widened, — a large building rose on the left bank, upon the end of a rocky promontory, throwing a deeper gloom over the darkening waters, its lofty tower piercing through the low vapours BOSENBEUG. 205 and soaring into the clear, star-spangled sky above them — it was Schloss Bosen- beug, the summer residence of the Emperor, and one of the oldest buildings in Lower Austria, though the alterations made during the last century by its then possessors, the Herren von Hoyos, have taken much from the antique appearance of its exterior*. Nearly facing it on the right bank stood the small chateau of Donaudorf, and be- yond these two buildings, the river opened to the right and left, in the same manner that it did below Neuhaus. A multitude of lights glimmering amidst a black mass of houses and huts, and reflected in long trembling lines upon the water, pointed out to us the town of Ips, similarly situated to that of Aschach. The Castle of Bosen- beug or Persenbeug belonged in the ninth century to that Count Engelschalk who carried off the daughter of Arnulph the Bastard, and afterwards lost his eyes and his estates by the sentence of the Diet at Ratisbon, as has been already described in * Vide Frontispiece. The view was taken from a hill on the right bank of the river, on our return by land from Vienna. 206 AUSTRIA. the notice of Ebelsberg near Linz. Nearly all the confiscated property of Engelschalk was given by Arnulph to the monks of Kremsmunster ; but, curiously enough, this Castle of Bosenbeug, by a train of circum- stances, eluded for a long time the clutches of « holy mother Church/' who laboured indefatigably, "by hook or by crook/' to get it into her possession. How it escaped her grasp in the ninth century is not clear, but it certainly did do so, and became the property of the valiant Bavarian Sieghart von Sempt, to whom probably it was given as a stronghold, that would enable him better to defend the duchy against the inroads of the Hungarians. Sieghart fell gloriously in the execution of his trust, A.D. 907, in the terrible battle fought be- tween Theben and Haimburg. To work of course went the monks, and at length so wrought upon the mind of one of his weak descendants, Albert III., that he be- queathed to them at his death " the strong castle of Bosenbeug," in despite of the en- treaties of his wife Richlinde, or Richlita, who strove to preserve it to the next male heir, her nephew Welf von Altorf. The BOSENBEUG. 207 breath was scarcely out of the body of Albert, when a desperate struggle ensued between his widow and the monks of Ebers- berg. The lady had taken up her residence in the castle, which she claimed as part of her jointure, with reversion to her nephew Welf, and refused to acknowledge the title of the church, which she contended had been fraudulently acquired. In the midst of this dispute, a circumstance took place which shall be related as nearly as pos- sible in the words of the old chronicler Aventine. " The Emperor" (Henry III. surnamed the Black) " departed from Re- gensburg and came by water to Passau : there he tarried during the Passion week, and till the holy feast of the Ascension. The next day after which he again took water, and journeyed into Lower Bavaria, as Austria was then called. There is a town in Austria by name Grein ; near this town is a perilous place in the Danube, called the Strudel by Stockerau # . There doth one hear the water rushing far and * Here is another error respecting the Strudel. Stockerau is nearly two days journey from it, in the neighbourhood of Vienna. 208 AUSTRIA. wide, so falls it over the rocks with a great foam, which is very dangerous to pass through, and brings the vessel into a whirl- pool, rolling round about. The Emperor Henry went down through the Strudel ; in another vessel was Bruno, bishop of Wurtz- burg, the Emperor's kinsman ; and as the bishop also was passing through the Stru- del, there sat upon a rock that projected out of the water, a man blacker than a Moor, of a horrible aspect, terrible to all who beheld it, who cried out and said to bishop Bruno, ' Hear ! hear ! bishop ! I am thine evil spirit! thou art mine own, go where thou wilt, thou shalt be mine, yet now I will do nought to thee, but soon shalt thou see me again *.* All who heard this were terrified. The bishop crossed and blessed himself, said a few prayers, and the spirit vanished. This rock is shewn to this day ; upon it is built Brutus. Speak to me what thou art? Ghost. Thy evil spirit, Brutus. Brutus. Why com'st thou? Ghost. To tell thee thou shalt see me at Philippi. Brutus, Well, Then I shall see thee again ? Ghost. Ay % at Philippi ! " Julius Caesar, Act iv. Scene 3, BOSENBEUG, 209 a small tower all of stone, without any wood : it has no roof, and is called the Devil's Tower. Not far from thence, some two miles journey, the Emperor and his people landed, purposing to pass the night in a town called Posenbeiss, belonging to the Lady Richlita, widow of the Count Adalbero von Ebersberg. She received the Emperor joyfully; invited him to a banquet, and prayed him, besides, that he would bestow the town of Posenbeiss and other surrounding places (that her husband had possessed and governed) on her bro- ther's son, Welforic III. The Emperor entered the banquet-room, and standing near Bishop Bruno, Count Aleman von Ebersberg and the Lady Richlita, gave the countess his right hand and granted her prayer. At that moment the floor of the apartment fell in, and the Emperor fell through into the bathing-chamber below it, without sustaining any injury, as did also Count Aleman, and the Lady Richlita, but the bishop fell on the edge of the bathing- tub, brokehis ribs,and died a few days after- wards." Other writers say, that the Count and the Lady Richlita both died from the 210 AUSTRIA. hurts they received ; but be that as it may, the right heir was, according to the Em- peror's promise, established at Bosenbeug, A.D. 1045, in spite of the intrigues and plots of the monks, whose agents had frightened and killed the poor bishop, he having, as it appears, spoken a good word for the lady, who is supposed also to have fallen a victim to the same scandalous trick, copied most likely from a similar tragical farce played off by the celebrated St. Dun- stan, about seventy years before, in Eng- land. Some time afterwards the monks re- newed their claim in applications to the Markgraves Albert I. and Leopold III., but without success, the latter, in 1096, giving the castle to his youngest daughter, Rich- ardis. Thus foiled, they went on a new tack, and managed to persuade the husband of this Princess, Count Stephaning, to join the first crusade, in the hope that he would never return, and that Bosenbeug would at length become their property. Half of the charitable wish was granted. " Audiit, et voti Phoebus succedere partem Mente dedit: partem volucris dispersit in auras." The bones of the poor crusader whitened BOSENBEUG. 21 1 the deserts of Syria, but his castle reverted to Jhe Markgraves of Austria. Ottocar, king of Bohemia, gave it in 1271 to the patriarch of Aquileia ; but in the reign of the Emperor Albert I. we find it again in the possession of the house of Austria. The Emperor Frederick IV. took posses- sion of it as guardian of Ladislaus, but he was ejected by force of arms in 1457, and the castle given back to Ladislaus. Ru- dolph II. pledged and afterwards sold it, with Rohreck, Weinberg, and the whole Isper- thal, to the Barons of Hoyos, from which family it was repurchased by the present emperor in 1801. The tilt-yard is still in good preservation, and the gardens are beautiful. His Majesty is very partial to the spot, and makes frequent excursions by land as far as the Strudel and Wirbel, from whence he returns in the boat of a schiffmeister at Bosenbeug of the name of Feldmiiller, whom he patronizes highly, and who is considered the richest man of his calling in Lower Austria. He builds yearly about twenty of the boats called kellheimers, and employs one hundred horses and three hundred men. Most of the P 2 212 AUSTRIA. inhabitants of the little markt of Bosenbeug have, as may be supposed, considerably benefited from its becoming an Imperial residence. The town of Ips or Yps, as it is indif- ferently spelt, on the opposite bank, is sup- posed by some old geographers to be the Usbium of Ptolemy, by others the Pons Isidis. It is seated at the confluence of a river of the same name with the Danube ; and, in the time of Charlemagne, appears under the name of Ibesse and Isebruch, as the property of the Counts of Sempt and Ebersberg. In 1275, Ips threw open its gates to Rudolph of Hapsburg ; and, in 1741, the Bavarian and French armies here formed a junction: its name has, however, become familiar to foreign lands, not from the deeds of arms done in its neighbourhood, but from its having shared with Passau the trade in the crucibles made at Hafner-zell, and which, as I have before mentioned, are distinguished through- out the world by the names of the places where they are sold, instead of that of the spot where they are fabricated. Imme- diately below Ips, the river forms a reach, ips. 213 which, from the difficulty of its navigation, obtained the appellation that has eventu- ally attached itself to the point of land at which it commences, — Die Bose-Beug, li- terally/ 6 the bad corner." Before we turned this corner, however, night had sunk down upon land and flood, and our crew be- gan to be clamorous for rest and refresh- ment. Our drunken beast of a steersman, whom we had now begun cordially to detest, insisted upon proceeding as far as Marbach ; and accordingly the men, who knew nothing of the river,pulled away again for a quarter of an hour rather sulkily ; when, having lost sight of the lights of Ips, and seeing none appear in the distance, they again expressed symptoms of impatience, and upon receiving from a passing boat the information that Marbach was yet " eine starke stunde" (a long hour) distant, they became outrageous, and vowed they would run the boat ashore, at the first village they could discover. Neither my companion nor myself much objected to their determina- tion, as there w r as every probability, from their utter ignorance of the river, the inabi- lity of the steersman to direct them, and the 214 AUSTRIA. heavy fog that was fast rising, that in the course of a few minutes we should go bump ashore somewhere, whether we would or no ; and therefore a hovel, where bed and supper might be procured, was certainly preferable to a sandbank without either. Two or three tapers glimmering above the fog through something like windows, at- tracting our notice on the left, the men pulled towards it, and our boat soon grated on the sand, under what first appeared a lofty wall, but which turned out, on exami- nation, a steep bank, upon the ridge of which stood half a dozen poor cottages. Up we clambered on all fours, dragging our cloaks and portmanteaus with us ; and a man making his appearance with a lantern, we followed him into an old crazy-looking hovel, which, by the outward and visible sign of a dead bush dangling over its door, too plainly indicated the miserable state of its inward and spiritual grace, though dignified by the title of a gasthaus *. Several sufficiently ill-looking fellows in jackets of undressed black sheep-skin, caps * A gast-haus is an hotel ; a wirths-haus, a tavern, or ale- house. GOTTSDORF. 215 of the same material, and high boots, each with a formidable clasp-knife, worn as an English carpenter wears his rule; two brawny, bare-armed, masculine wenches in similar jackets, with dark handkerchiefs bound round their brows in the Austrian fashion ; and an old hag, whose habits and person were equally indescribable, formed the rather startling group to which our guide introduced us. Our application for beds appeared to astonish them. They had no such thing ; there was plenty of straw. They had no coffee, no butter ; — the poor fellows who had rowed us sat down on a bench, and began to gnaw some dry bread, the only refreshment the hotel seemed capable of furnishing. On a sudden it occurred to us that a basin of boiled milk might be procurable, and sure enough half a gallon, at least, of delicious milk was in ten minutes smoking in two glorious wooden bowls, upon the long oaken table before us. Our host now entered w T ith one or two helpers laden with straw, which they spread all over the floor, and our crew, having finished their crusts, stretched them- selves out in a row, their knapsacks under 216 AUSTRIA. their heads, and soon commenced a nasal symphony, more powerful than harmonious. The company and the family having one by one withdrawn, with the exception of the old beldame, who waited to take away the solitary candle, we betook ourselves also to our portion of the straw, and never in my life did I enjoy a sweeter, sounder sleep than that which bound up my senses in the humble gasthaus of Gottsdorf till six o'clock the next morning. 217 CHAPTER VII. Marbach. — Maria-Taferl. — Pechlarn. — Wiedeneck. — Molk. — Lubereck. — The Valley of the Wachau. — Schonbiihel. — Aggstein. — The Teufel's-Mauer. — Spitz, and the Ruin of Hinterhaus. — Church and Village of St. Michel. — Castle of Diirrenstein. — Narrow escape of Marshal Mortier during the Campaign of 1805. — Mautern. — Stein. — Krems. — Kloster Gottweih. — Trasenmauer. — Arrival at Tuln. We had now been three days upon the water, during which time scarcely a cloud had speckled the deep blue of the sky. As thefirst light of morning, however, struggled through the litttle dingy casement of our humble hotel, we were disagreeably sur- prised at finding that the fog, which had risen the previous evening after sunset, still rolled heavily along the river, and threat- ened to continue the greater part, if not the whole of the day. We were still nearly two days' journey from Vienna, and a change of weather, which might be por- tended by this unwelcome visitant, would probably make it four, five, or even six, be- fore we could reach the capital, to say nothing of the disagreeables it would bring 218 AUSTRIA. in its train. At the risk of losing the beauty of the prospect, therefore, we urged our immediate departure, but here we were met by a new difficulty. Our drunken steersman, who had lain all night in the boat, was now ill in sober sadness, and quite incapable of steering us. A new pilot was to be found, and, after much par- ley and delay, our host of the gasthaus signified his consent to take the helm ; but the fog, instead of dispersing, as we had faintly hoped, with the rising sun, appeared to increase in density; and not one of our boatmen could be prevailed on to trust himself afloat in it. After at least another hour's delay, and considerable altercation, by dint of a little money, and promise of more, we induced three out of the four to venture on board, and, about eight o'clock, pushed off into the fog, by this time quite as thick, though not so yellow, as that which pervades Lombard Street on a No- vember afternoon. Fortunately this part of the Danube is not fertile in fine views. The small village of Barthub andMossling, on the left, and Hinterhaus, and the two Agens, on the right, have nothing to re- ST, LORENZ. 219 commend them, either in a picturesque or historical point of view; and the distant prospect of Maria-Taferl we had afterwards an opportunity of enjoying. The river, from Bosenbeug and Ips, makes a bold sweep to the south as far as Sausenstein, that stands on a small promontory on the right bank, round which its waters boil and foam, and form what, in earlier times, was called the Charybdis Pogica. The ruin here is of a very late date. It was a man- sion belonging to some ecclesiastic, and burned by the French in the last war. The Cistercian convent near it, called St. Lorenz in the Gottesthal, was founded by Eber- hard von Walsee, in 1336. In the fifteenth century, it was attacked and plundered by some of the knightly robbers who infested the neighbourhood, and who are termed " fr aires hostiles" in the old chronicles. The tombs of the family of Walsee, which became extinct in 1483, are still in exist- ence here. On that of Reinprecht, the last of his race, is simply his motto, " Thue Recht," with the words beneath it, " peri- isti amor," in allusion to the termination of the feud between the Houses of Walsee 220 AUSTRIA. and Schaumberg. All this, at least, says Herr Schultes, who had the advantage of visiting this spot in clearer weather — we saw neither ruin nor convent, nor tombs ; but what we did see near this place was equally picturesque and striking. The sound of voices chaunting a kind of hymn, stole faintly on our ears, and, as it became more distinct, a boat appeared, like a phan- tom, in the fog, crowded with pilgrims, on their way to Marbach and Maria-Taferl. They were principally women, and sat huddled together round a priest, who, bare- headed, supported a crucifix, and occasion- ally chimed in, in a deep bass voice, with the quavering trebles of his companions. For a few minutes, they floated beside us, and then gradually melted again into the mist, as though they had been creatures of it, the hymn dying away in the distance. Before we reached Marbach, the fog, to our great gratification, had evidently begun to disperse. It still covered the face of the water, but the blue sky was visible above it ; and the sun, occasionally breaking through it, gave us a glimpse of this or that bank, according to the situation of the boat. The MARBACH. 221 Markt of Marbach existed as early, at least, as the thirteenth century, as, in 1208, we hear of the Knights of Marbach. Almost every house in the place is an inn, as, lying under the lofty mountain, on which stands the most celebrated place of pil- grimage in Lower Austria— the church of Maria-Taferl, it is of course the place of rendezvous for the countless devotees who swarm from all parts of the empire to that holy shrine. The inhabitants of Vienna, in the middle of September, come on horse- back, in every kind of vehicle, and even on foot, hundreds in a day, and return by the Danube. A great traffic is also carried on with these pious personages in crosses, amulets, rosaries, and holy images, pictures and books of all descriptions, by the inha- bitants of Marbach ; besides which, a num- ber of beggars reside here, each of whom has his or her regular standing upon the path winding up the hill to the Maria- Taferl ; and spend duly every evening, in eating and drinking, the large sums they have collected during the day. It has been calculated that upwards of a million and a half of florins are annually expended here; 222 AUSTRIA. and the minister of the place told Herr Schultes that one year he himself had counted 135,000 pilgrims. A proverbial rhyme tends also much to the well doing of the inhabitants of Marbach : " Wer nach Maria Taferl ein Wallfahrt maken thut Diess ihm Maria Taferl macht aller wiederg-ut : " which may be rendered, — Who to Maria Taferl a pilgrimage hath ta'en, To him Maria Taferl shall make all good again. Expense, therefore, is the last thing con- sidered ; and the spirit of extravagance extends itself even to the townspeople, who lavish, in the pride of their well-filled purses, ridiculous sums upon the decoration of their houses, so that, according to another .German proverb, says Schultes, — " Was dureh das Pfeifchen kommt, geht durch die Trommel davon." What comes through the fife goes away through the drum. Our new steersman put into this little markt to buy some beer and bread ; and the fog now rolling off in broken masses, enabled us to get a peep at the town, which seemed a strange jumble of alehouses and chapels, MARIA-TAFERL. 223 signs and crucifixes, all very gaily and fan- tastically painted, and forming, in short, a most consistent trysting-place for " pub- licans and sinners." Maria-Taferl is to the pious Austrian what Maria-Einsiedel is to the Roman Ca- tholic Swabian, and Maria-Oetting to the Bavarian of the same persuasion. The lovers of an extensive and beautiful pros- pect may, for an hour's climbing, enjoy, from the summit of the mountain on which it stands, a splendid panorama of the Da- nube and great part of Lower Austria, the Alps of the Steyermark, and the whole chain of mountains from the lofty Schnee- berg in the Wiener- Wald, to the frontier of Bavaria. The history of this celebrated place of pilgrimage may be bought for two kreutzers, a great deal more than it is worth, but that it is amusing and instructive to see how grossly the Roman Catholic priesthood are yet permitted to gull an ignorant, and consequently superstitious people. The precious document sets forth with stating the well-known fact of the exist- ence, from time immemorial, of a venerable 224 AUSTRIA. oak-tree on the top of the mountain, in which was placed a figure of the crucified Redeemer. To this spot the inhabitants of Klein-Pechlarn, a small village in the neighbourhood, used to repair every Easter Monday to put up their petitions for a fine harvest, and, after hearing the service chaunted, sat down at a stone table before the church-door, and ate, drank, and were merry; from whence arose the name of Ma- ria- TaferU or Mary of the Table. In 1662, a herdsman, either from ignorance or wan- tonness, attempted to hew down the sacred tree, on which age had already heavily laid its withering and deforming hand. At the first blow, however, the axe recoiled so violently, that it sprung from his grasp and wounded one of his feet severely. Un- checked by this warning, however, he made a second blow, when it again re- coiled with still more violence, and despe- rately wounded his other foot*. The pro- * This prodigy will remind the classical reader of the punishment of the Amazons, who attempted to cut down the sacred grove that shadowed the temple of Achilles in the island of Leuce. At the first blows they struck, the axe- heads flew from their handles, and laid the impious wielders dead upon the spot. MARIA-TAFERL. 225 fane herdman, now lifting up his eyes in agony, observed the crucifix, and struck with remorse, craved pardon of God for his impiety ; upon which the blood stopped of its own accord, and his wounds healed immediately, without surgical or any hu- man assistance ! Ten years after this miraculous occurrence, a man named Alex- ander Schinnagel, who suffered under a deep and distressing melancholy, which he could not shake off, came, by heaven directed, to the house of a schoolmaster, who had in his chamber an image of the Virgin, called a Vesperbild. Schinnagel bought the image, and carried it home. In the middle of the night, he heard " a still small voice," say- ing, "Wouldst thou be cured, take the image, and place it in the oak at Maria- Taferl/' Accordingly, at day-break, up rose Alexander, and proceeded with his purchase to the mountain-top, where he placed it as directed, taking down at the same time the crucifix, which age and exposure to the weather had nearly de- stroyed. Immediately his melancholy left him, and he returned home a merry, and, we hope, a grateful man. Since that 226 AUSTRIA. period the angels themselves have fre- quently visited the sacred spot. On the 17th of June, 1658, a most credible (cre- dulous ?) personage saw a snow white and luminous apparition, in mid-day, before the holy effigy. In 1659, three persons, equally worthy of belief, saw a whole troop of angels, in white garments, and in processional order, on their way to the Vesperbild. Another time, when forty people were collected together in its neigh- bourhood, three of them saw an angelical procession in the air, and three bright stars of remarkable magnitude immedi- ately above the figure. Again, a proces- sion of white-clothed personages was seen by eight or ten people, the leading appari- tion bearing a red cross ; and shortly after- wards a wax taper was suddenly observed burning before the Vesperbild. In 1661, many other angelical phantoms were seen by sometimes thirty, and once by a hundred people at a time, all of them most respect- able and credible witnesses, whose testi- monies were registered, signed, and sworn to before the competent authorities !* * " Kurzer Bericht von dem Ursprung des wunder- MARIA-TAFERL. 227 As the vapours, which had till now enve- loped us, began rapidly to yield to the power of the sun, and were swept in masses by the fresh breeze of morning from the bright face of the river and the fair hills beside it, disclosing the rich and beautiful prospect that opened upon us with the widening valley, smiling in warmth and light ; it was impossible to suppress the remark, common- place as it may be considered, that, thus, at no very distant period, would the mists of error and superstition fly before the in- creasing influence of knowledge and truth, and man, awaking to the contemplation of the sublime paths they enlighten, " Look," full of hope, joy, and gratitude, "through Nature, up to nature's God !" Albert IV., Duke of Austria, whose journey to the Holy Land gave rise to so many romantic stories, that heobtained the appellation of the "wonder of the world/' resided for some time at Marbach, in the valley of All Saints, with the Carthusians : " with them," says a contemporary, " he thatigen schmerzhaften Gnadenbildes Maria-Taferl." There are numberless tracts of this description sold at Marbach to the pilgrims, who " hold each strange tale devoutly true." Q 2 228 AUSTRIA. attends matins, reads the lessons, makes inclinations, genuflexions, observes ceremo- nies, confessions and prayers. He not only joins them in the performance of divine service in the choir, but affords an example of humility by frequenting the Chapter- house. In a word, he calls himself brother Albert, and considers himself in every re- spect as one of the order*." So few travellers ever think of taking a boat to themselves, that we were hailed at Marbach, as an ordinari-schiff-f, by three poor women who wanted to go to Vienna. Having plenty of room to spare, we con- sented to their coming on board, which they accordingly did with their baskets and bundles sans ceremonie, imagining that they should have to pay the usual fare for their passage ; and with this accession of company and cargo we again set forward. Below Schelmenbach and Krumpen-Nuss- baum falls the mountain- stream called the Erlaf, into the Danube, named in deeds of the time of Charlemagne, and long the * Fragmentum Historicum de quatuor Albertis — apud Pez. vol.ii. p. 385. t The regular weekly passage-boats from Ulm, Regens- burg, and Stadt-am-hof, to Vienna, are called " ordinari- schiffe." THE ERLAF. 229 boundary between Bavaria and the Land of the Huns. At the mouth of the Erlaf, is a Rechen or Grate, where the wood col- lects that is floated down this stream from the forests in the neighbourhood of Maria- Zell, in the Steyermark, near which it takes its rise. It is customary in Germany to place one of these gratings at the mouth of any tributary stream, or in the bed of any river where a line of demarcation is drawn naturally or artificially between two kingdoms, two provinces or even two pa- rishes. So that the branches and trunks of trees blown down by high winds, and swept away by inundations into the current, should not be carried beyond the frontiers or boundaries of the state or property to which they belong, and which derives from them no inconsiderable portion of its revenue. The timber, also, regularly felled by the wood-cutters, is thrown thus carelessly on the mountain-streams of Germany, and floats down to the Rechen or Grate, where it is afterwards collected by its owners, who are thus saved the trouble and expense of land carriage ; and the drifting property is 230 AUSTRIA. protected from plunder by the severity of the laws relating to it. Before us now lay the two Pechlarns ; Great Pechlarn on the right, and Little Pechlarn on the left bank. At the first we determined to breakfast, were it only to feast where the fair Chrimhilt had feasted, in " Die Burg zu Bechelaren." No relics of the " Burg" itself, however, exist; but an old gateway, some round towers, and here and there a few feet of crumbling wall, attest the early grandeur of the place, and fancy fills up the chasms which time has made, with court and keep, buttress and battlement, crowded with fair damsels and fierce soldiery, "all, all abroad to gaze" at the advancing pageant. There, round that point of land, comes the royal fleet, the banners of Hungary, Bur- gundy, Bavaria, Pechlarn, and Passau, fling- ing their blazoned glories on the breeze, and proudly announcing to the admiring burgh- ers the rich freight of rank and beauty which the swelling Danube is wafting to their port. Five hundred " Kemps of Hungary," their bright hauberks glittering in the sun, PECHLARK 231 crowd the decks of the first vessels. On the prow of the foremost stands the valiant Markgraf, Rudiger of Pechlarn, than whom " A truer soldier never Was in this world yborn,*" bending eagerly forward to distinguish, amongst the bevy of beauties at " the open windows^" of the castle, the fair forms of his beloved wife and daughter. Beneath the rich canopy that shades the deck of yonder bark, with the gilded oars, now doubling the little promontory, sits the peerless bride of the mighty Etzel, but she hears not the shout of welcome that rises on the shore ; she marks not the gay multitudes that crowd to pay her homage. Her brow is clouded, her ruby lip quivers, tears like liquid diamonds tremble upon the long dark silken lashes of her downcast eyes ; the form of the noble Siegfried is constantly before her. She hears but the voice of her murdered champion calling for vengeance ; she sees but the ghastly wound which * " Nie ward getreuer'r Degen geboren auf der Erde." Nibelungen-lied. f " Die Fenster in den mauern, die sieht man offen stahn." Ditto. 232 AUSTRIA. treachery dealt, bleeding afresh at the ap- proach of the dark and deadly Haghen. Yet, passing beautiful is she even in sor- row, and still warrants the glowing descrip- tion of the old minnesaenger, Henry of Of- terdingen. # " From out her broidered garments Full many a jewel shone, The rosy red bloomed sweetly Her lovely cheek upon. He who would in fancy Paint that lady fair, In this world has never Seen such beauty rare. As the moon outshineth Every twinkling star, Shedding careless splendour From out her cloudy car ; So, before her maidens, Stood that lady bright, And higher swelled the spirit Of every gazing knight. t" By her side stands a venerable figure, clad in the gorgeous and sacred vestments of his office. The flowing stole of embroidered silk, the pallium of cloth of gold, the jewelled mitre, the "gilt shoon," and the massive but richly wrought cross and cro- sier, borne by two of his attendants, distin- * The supposed author of the Nibelungen-lied. t Nibelungen-lied, V. 1116 — 23. PECK LARK. 233 guish him as the holy Pilgerin, the wealthy and powerful Bishop of Passau, uncle to the queen, and related also to the noble Rudiger. The pale youth near him, his hands reverently crossed upon his bosom, is his clerk Conrad, who afterwards assisted him to write, in " the Latin tongue," the adventures of the Nibelungen. On the other hand of the lovely Chrimhilt, stands the faithful Duke Eckewart, who has sworn to escort his liege lady to Hungary; and the remainder of the flotilla bears the five hundred chosen Knights of Burgundy, who follow his standard. The vision is over, the airy castle has vanished — " The knights are dust, Their good swords are rust, Their souls are with the saints we trust." And a rude and solitary boat is rocking under the windows of a poor white-washed wirthshaus, which, with half a dozen hum- ble cottages and some mouldering walls, now marks the site of the once strong and gay burg of Pechlarn ! Rudiger of Pechlarn, as well as his kins- man, the Bishop of Passau, is an historical personage. He was Count of the frontier 234 AUSTRIA. during the reign of Arnulph, Duke of Bava- ria, and died in 916. His son, Markgraf Rudiger II., died in 943, and with him the direct male line became extinct. The little town of Pechlarn is now principally inha- bited by potters. Beyond Pechlarn, the river keeps still widening, till, on the left bank, rises the fine old Castle of Weideneck, which re- ceives its name from a neighbouring rivu- let, and is supposed to have been built by the elder Rudiger of Pechlarn. The Em- peror Frederick IV., and the famous Mat- thias Corvinus, King of Hungary, both be- leaguered Weideneck. The former twice won and lost it. But the eye has scarcely caught sight of Weideneck, before it is at- tracted by the distant domes of the magni- ficent Convent of Molk, that appear over the willows of an island, in the centre of the river. Gradually, the entire facade of the convent, upon its granite rock, and the little market-town beneath it, glide from behind the island, and complete one of the most imposing and beautiful pictures upon the river. The present splendid struc- ture was built in 1720-32, by an architect, MOLK. 235 named Prandauer ; but the rock on which it stands, once supported, not only a more ancient convent, but also a Roman fortress. Under the name of Medilke, it appears in the Nibelungen-lied, " At Medilke were the goblets Of costly gold, filled high, And the wine went gaily round Mid that noble company." But the authentic history of Molk com- mences apparently in the sixteenth century, when the Markgraf Leopold I., surnamed the Illustrious, made it his residence after wresting it from the power of the Hunga- rians. This valiant prince founded here a kloster, and was here interred after his murder at Wurzburg, as were likewise his wife, Richarde, his sons Henry and Al- brecht, and their wives, Mechthilde and Frowiza, Adelheid, Countess of Leopold the Strong, the Margraf Ernest III., sur- named the Valiant, and his lady Schwane- hild, Leopold III., surnamed the Hand- some, and many other noble Austrian and Bavarian knights and ladies. Saint Colo- manus, or Saint Colman, descended, ac- cording to the story, from the early Kings 236 AUSTRIA. of Scotland, was also buried at Mblk. This saint, travelling through Austria to Jeru- salem, was seized, at Stockerau, by some rebellious peasants, A. D. 1012, who, * taking him for a spy, hung him upon a tree, where his body remained a year and a half without putrefaction, and afterwards worked many miracles ! Leopold III., in the year 1089, established some Benedic- tines from Lambach in this Kloster; and his son, Leopold IV., who was born here in 1073, and here celebrated his marriage with Agnes, daughter of the Emperor Henry IV., and widow of Frederick of Ho- henstaufen, gave up his palace to them, and retired to the Khalenberg, near Vienna. The Kloster of Molk soon became prover- bial for its wealth, and its superior was the Primate of Lower Austria. In 1619, the in- surgents of Upper Austria besieged Molk for upwards of a month, as did also the Turks in 1684. Napoleon had his head- quarters here in 1805, and again in 1809; and a mark is shown upon the floor of one of the apartments in the Kloster, which ; he is said to have made in a passion. While a few monks inhabit this splendid palace, LUBERECK, 237 their sovereign, one of the most powerful monarchs in Europe, passes a considerable portion of his time in an humble wooden building, upon the opposite bank of the Danube. At Lubereck, a little below the Castle of Weideneck, beside a romantic waterfall, is a small edifice, built entirely of wood, and formerly the country resi- dence of the Baron von Fiihrenberg, post- master of Molk. Between this place and Bosenbeug, Francis I. divides nearly all the hours which, during summer, he snatches from the cares of empire. In his plain, domestic habits, and in the kindness and affability with which, in such moments of relaxation, he listens or chats to his humble neighbours, the present Sovereign of Aus- tria greatly resembles our own late vene- rable monarch, King George III., and, like him, has compelled his bitterest political enemies to acknowledge that, in all the private virtues of life, as a husband, a fa- ther, and a master, he is an example, not only to his own subjects, but to mankind. On the left bank,beyond Lubereck, is the markt of Emmersdorf, at the point of a narrow neck of land, round which the Da- 238 AUSTRIA. nube wheels to the north-east, and enters the romantic valley of theWachau. Emmers- dorf, like so many other places on the Da- nube, was formerly the seat of some power- ful robbers, who levied contributions upon the passing vessels, and blotted the page of history with such bloody deeds that, to use the expression of a modern German writer, the hand of a common executioner alone could steadily transcribe them. At the mouth of the Bielach, a little river that empties itself into the Danube nearly facing Emmersdorf, and over which there is a ferry, the celebrated district called the Wachau commences, and extends itself as far as the castle of Diirrenstein, some say as far as Mautern and Krems. The view from this point, either looking up or down the river, is exceedingly beautiful. The western prospect is enriched with the castle of Weideneck, the Palace-convent and markt of Molk, and the noble mountains of Upper Austria, which here you gaze on for the last time. Turning and looking into the mouth of the yawning gorge, the eye is first attracted by the castle and kloster of Schonbiihel, picturesquely si- SCHONBUHEL. 239 tuated on the brink of the precipitous right bank, behind which rise some gigantic mountains. On the left, a crescent of bold craggy hills, towering one over the other, checks the northerly inclination of the mighty flood, and bends it again eastward, while upon one of them the fine ruin of Aggstein glimmers white in the distance. Charlemagne, in the year 803, gave the whole valley of the Wachau (in terra Ava- rorum) from the Bielach as far as Tuln, Zeizelmauer and Perschling, (Tulna, Zy sen- murus et Bierstlinga,) to the Bishop of Passau, and it belonged to Bavaria, at least "in spiritualibus," till 1805. Schloss Schon- buhel stands, as I have before said, at the entrance to the valley, upon a wall of gra- nite, from which its own walls are scarcely distinguishable. Schultes calls it a ruin, but to me it had the appearance of an inhabited chateau in excellent repair. It is a singular-looking building, with a tall, square, but narrow tower, shooting up from the centre of its western front, more like a chimney than a turret. Its situation, however, is exceedingly fine and command- ing, and it has the reputation of being 240 AUSTRIA. haunted by no less a spirit than Lucifer himself, a circumstance which would alone render it interesting to the romantic tourist. A little beyond it stands an old chapel or kloster, belonging to the Schloss. In the fourteenth century this place belonged to the family of Starrhemberg. Having now fairly entered the valley, we perceived the markt of Aggsbach on the left bank, and facing it, Klein, or little Aggsbach. In a chasm behind the latter, Haderich von Meissau, the Kuenringer and marshal of Lower Austria, founded, in 1386, a convent for thirteen Carthusian Monks, which was suppressed by Joseph II. in 1782; and on the mountain top, a little beyond the former, stand the before-mentioned ruins of the Castle of Aggstein. There is a tradi- tion respecting this castle, of a peculiarly German cast, and which would work up well in " a tale of terror." It is said that it was anciently the hold of a robber knight named Schrekenwald, who, after seizing and plundering the unfortunate travellers on the Danube, thrust his wretched cap- tives through an iron door over the rocks into a deep abyss behind the castle, which CASTLE OF AGGSTEIN. 241 he called his " Little Rose Garden," and from which (even if by a miracle they were not dashed to pieces in their fall) the chance of escape was next to impossible. The tradition is preserved in an Austrian proverb ; when any one is in such a strait as to preclude all hope of extrication, he is said to be " in Schreckenwald's Rose- garden." The story, however, goes on to say, that, by some extraordinary chance, one of his intended victims did effect his escape, and with the help of his friends, who returned with him in arms, surprised, made prisoner, and hung the monster. In the year 1232, Hadmar, the Kuen- ringer, who was also lord of Diirrenstein, possessed this castle, and ravaged, in com- pany with his brother Heinrich von Weitra, the whole country as far as Stein and Krems. The trembling inhabitants called them " the Hounds," and Frederick, the last of the Babenbergers, in vain endeavoured to subdue and destroy them. A merchant, named Rudiger, at length suggested a ruse de guerre to the Emperor. " I will freight," said he, " a vessel at Regensburg, laden with the most costly merchandise : the 242 AUSTRIA. tidings will soon reach the robbers at Agg- stein. Thirty stout knights shall lie con- cealed in the vessel, and when Hadmar rushes down from his castle, and boards us with a few of his vassals, thinking to plunder some peaceable merchants, the knights shall rush out upon and overpower him, while I push off from the shore." The plan was adopted, and succeeded. The vessel was freighted at Regensburg, and stopped at Aggstein. Hadmar flung himself into the snare set for him, and Rudiger and his people, rowing off at the same moment, brought the robber prisoner to the feet of Frederick. In 1277, Luitold Kuenring possessed the castles of Aggstein and Durrenstein, but lost them both, with many others, in rebel- lion against Albert I., and was banished the country in 1291. From that period its history is a mere record of bargains and sales, which terminates with its purchase by a Count of Beroldingen, in 1819. The castle is finely situated on the crest of a conical hill, and the path up to it lies through a thick forest which affords a pleasing shelter to the noontide traveller, CASTLE OF AGGSTEIN. 243 whom curiosity leads to inspect the ruins. The keys are kept in the little wirths- haus on the bank below it. Great part of the castle is in tolerable preservation' at least as far as regards the bare walls ; and the date over the gateway, if Prof. Schultes have rightly copied it, (for I did not see it myself,) appears to me rather apocryphal. The inscription runs thus : — " Das Purkstall hat ange vangen tze pauen her Jo rig der Schektvon w aid der nachten montag nach unser Frauventag nativitatis, da von Crist gpurd waren ergangen mccxxviii Jar.*" Below Schwallenbach, a small markt on the left bank, a rude mass of barren crags * " The castle was begun to be built by Jorig der Schekt- von-wald, the Monday after the nativity of our Lady, from the birth of Christ, the year 1228." Herr Schultes remarks, that he may be mistaken in the date, and mentions that Petz, in his Chronicle of Molk, (Parti, p. 261) speaks of a Baron Schekh, whose deeds were as black as those laid at the iron door of Schreckenwald, and who, in 1467, was besieged, and brought to such a pass, that " he," says the chronicler, " who formerly was lord of six castles, perished in poverty." This Schekh or Sheckt-von-Wald, as the name appears in the inscription, and the famous Schreckenwald, were, most pro- bably, one and the same person ; and from the state of the present building I should imagine it is more likely to have been built in the fifteenth than the thirteenth century. R 2 244 AUSTRIA. has received the name of the Teufel's mauer (Devil's wall.) This busy " old gentleman" is said to have taken it into his head to block up the Danube at this spot, but, through some special interven- tion of Providence, a sudden stop was put to the infernal masonry. An echo slumbers here, which, waked by a pistol- shot, resents the impertinence in a voice of thunder. Having passed the villages of Ober or Schloss-Arnsdorf, and Mitter- Arnsdorf, we at length arrived before the markt and castle of Spitz, the towers of which had been visible from Schwallen- bach. Both town and castle belonged anciently to Bavaria, and they have been in turn the property of most of the eccle- siastical and lay robbers we have already heard so much of — the bishops of Passau and Salzburg, the monks of Nieder Altaich, the Margraves Burkhard and Leopold. Hansen the Kapeller, Hadmar the Kuen- ringer, &c. &c. In 1805, Marshal Mortier, who had narrowly escaped destruction near Diirrenstein, was glad to cross the Danube at this place by means of a bridge of boats. The old castle above the little ST. MICHEL. 245 markt is called the Hinterhaus, and is one of the most picturesque ruins on the river. The rock it stands upon is of an extra- ordinary form, black, rugged, and bare, a gigantic pedestal, worthy of supporting this fine monument of the middle ages. The church and village of St. Michel, with their old round towers and crumbling walls, are the next interesting objects. The pre- cipices upon both banks now assume the most fantastic forms. The vine has here again made its appearance. Its light green is beautifully contrasted with the dark firs and pines, and the white barren peaks that Nature seems to have fashioned in her most eccentric moods. As the valley narrows, the rocks rise higher and higher, and the wild scenery of the Schlagen is for the last time repeated. This savage glen has long been considered by the peasantry of the neighbourhood as the haunt of witches and evil spirits ; and about thirty years ago a poor little old woman, who was feeding her goat upon one of these precipices,, was absolutely shot with a glass bullet, for a wetter-hexe (wea- ther- witch,) a violent thunder-storm which 246 AUSTRIA. had unfortunately arisen being " charged to her account/' by the superstitious marks- man. On emerging from this gorge — the crowning glory of the romantic scene — the magnificent ruin of Biirrenstein presents itself on its stupendous rock. Language cannot do justice to the sublimity of this view, which might task the united pencils of a Claude and a Salvator Rosa. Indepen- dently of its beauty and grandeur, what recollections crowd upon the mind, as the splendid picture dawns upon the sight, — Richard Cceur de Lion ! — Six hundred years have past, and the name is still a spell- word to conjure up all the brightest and noblest visions of the age of chivalry. What glorious phantoms rise at the sound ! Saladin — the great, the valiant, the gene- rous Saladin, again wheels at the head of his Cavalry — Frederick Barbarossa, the conqueror of Iconium — the brave but politic Philip of France — the gallant but unfortu- nate Marquis of Montferrat ! The whole host of red-cross warriors — the knights of the Temple and St. John— start again into existence from their graves in the Syrian Deserts, and their tombs in Christian Eu- DURRENSTEIN. 247 rope, where still their recumbent effigies grasp the sword in stone. The Lion- hearted Plantagenet once more flourishes with a giant's strength; the tremendous battle-axe, whereon " were twenty pounds of steel # ," around the nodding broom- plant in his cylindrical helmet, while his impla- cable foe, Leopold of Austria, leans frown- ing on his azure shield ; his surcoat of cloth of silver " dabbled in blood," that terrible token of his valour at Ptolemais, which is to this day the blazon of his ancient house f. Yonder walls have echoed to the clank of the fetters with which his un- knightly vengeance loaded Richard of Eng- land — to the minstrel-moan of " the Lord of Oc and No J," and (for who can coldly * Matthias Prideaux. f The present arms of the Archduchy of Austria, viz. Gules, a Fess argent, are derived from the circumstance of Leopold's surcoat, which was of cloth of silver, being com- pletely stained with blood at the siege of Ptolemais (Acre), with the exception of that part covered by the belt round his waist. The original bearings of Leopold were azure, six larks, or. I " Yes and No," one of the many titles given to Richard by the Provencal poets : — " And tell the Lord of Oc and No That peace already too long hath been." Bertrand de Born. Lays of the Minnesingers, p. 233. 248 AUSTRIA. pause to separate such romantic facts from the romance they have inspired) to the lay of the faithful Blondel, which, wafted by the pitying winds to his Royal Master's ear, soothed his captivity, and brightened his hopes of freedom. Many are the castles on the banks of the Danube pointed out to the traveller as the prison of Cceur de Lion. Aggstein, which we have not long passed, Greifenstein, which we are approaching, both assert a similar claim to our interest, our veneration ; and it has been not impro- bably conjectured, that Richard was in turn the resident of each, being secretly removed from fortress to fortress, by his subtle and malignant captor, in order to baffle the researches of his friends and fol- lowers. Notwithstanding this dispute, Diir- renstein has by general consent, and long tradition, been established as the principal place of his confinement ; and no one who, with that impression, has gazed upon its majestic ruins, would thank the sceptic who should endeavour to disturb his belief. They stand upon a colossal rock, which rising from a promontory picturesquely ter- minated by the little town of Durrenstein, is DURRENSTEIN. 249 singularly ribbed from top to bottom by a rugged mass of granite indented like a saw. On each side of this natural barrier, a strip of low wall, with small towers at equal distances, straggles down the rock, which, thus divided, is here and there cut towards its base into cross terraces planted with vines, and in the ruder parts left bare, or patched with lichens and shrubs of various descriptions. On its naked and conical crest, as though a piece of the crag itself, rises the keep of the castle, square, with four square towers at its angles, and not unlike the fine ruin at Rochester. Had the accomplished Hemans beheld the scene, her muse could scarcely have better de- scribed it. " He hath reached a mountain hung with vine, The feudal towers that crest its height Frown in unconquerable might ; Dark is their aspect of sullen state, No helmet hangs o'er the massy gate, To bid the wearied pilgrim rest, At the chieftain's board a welcome guest ; Vainly rich evening's parting smile Would chase the gloom of the haughty pile, That midst bright sunshine lowers on high, Like a thunder-cloud in a summer sky. 250 AUSTRIA. Lingering he gazed — the rocks around Sublime in savage grandeur frowned ; Proud guardians of the regal flood, In giant strength the mountains stood; By torrents cleft, by tempests riven, Yet mingling still with the calm blue heaven *." The celebrated Denon had a sketch made of this castle and rock, and sent to Paris expressly for a scene in Gretry's well-known opera, " Richard Cceur de Lion/' The circumstances of Richard's quarrel with the Duke of Austria, and his subse- quent arrest and captivity, are too well known to require insertion here ; but, in the Chronicon Zwetlense, t. 1 5 s. 531, it is expressly stated that Richard was seized at Erpuch, near Vienna, (this Erpuch being the present Erdberg, one of the largest of its many suburbs,) and given, by Leopold, into the custody of Hadmar, the Kuen- ringer at Tyernstain (Durrenstein). The old chronicler, Haselbach, also says that * " The Troubadour and Richard Cceur de Lion." Mrs. Hemans, though she mentions ° the Danube's wave" in the same poem, has chosen to lay the scene of Richard's cap- tivity on the Rhine. Her vivid fancy, however, has actually depicted the rock and castle of Durrenstein. DURRENSTEIN. 251 Richard came to Vienna as a pilgrim, in a company of cooks, and acted as turnspit one evening in the kitchen of the Duke of Austria. But a cook, recognizing his fea- tures, informed Leopold, who immediately commanded Richard to be brought before him, and addressed him in these words, " Domine Rex Anglorum, nimis nobilis es- tis, ut sitis assator in coquina ducis;" after which he delivered him into " Honesta Custodia." According to the Chronicon Conradi Coenobitse Schyrensis, Richard, after suffering shipwreck at Aquileia, was betrayed to Leopold by the Duke of Carin- thia. The story of his having betrayed himself, in his passage through Austria, by his expenses and liberalities, is, how- ever, the most probable, as well as the best authenticated. Diirrenstein is first mentioned about the year 1170, when, in some deeds, are found the names of Gottschalk and Regenbert von Tirnstain. In 1192, the year in which Richard was made prisoner, the castle is known to have belonged to Hadmar, the Kuenringer, who was likewise the posses- sor of Aggstein ; and, in 1231, it was taken, 252 AUSTRIA. and partially destroyed by Frederick, the last of the Babenbergers. No events of consequence are recorded to have taken place in it from that time to the year 1645, when the Swedes are supposed to have reduced it to its present ruinous con- dition. The little town at its foot, with its handsome church*, is prettily situated; and when, in 1741, a party of French and Bavarian cavalry forded the Danube, in hopes to surprise it, the citizens hit upon a plan as novel as ingenious. They barred up their gates as well as they could, laid logs of firewood on the walls, in imitation of cannon, chalked the rims of their hats, to give them the appearance of being bound with white lace, according to the uniform of their troops at that time, and parading up and down the ramparts with much drumming and bustle, taking care that their hats only should be seen above the walls, absolutely induced the enemy to be- lieve that the place was strongly garri- soned; and they accordingly wheeled to * In the cliff upon which this church stands, it is reported that a cavern has been found, which is the mouth of a subter- raneous passage, communicating with the vaults of the castle^ DURRENSTEIN. 253 the right about without firing a shot, to the infinite joy and amusement of the cunning inhabitants, who certainly well deserved their escape. On the 11th of November, 1805, the de- files behind Durrenstein were the scene of a murderous conflict between the French, under Mortier and Dupont, and the Rus- sians, under Doctorof and the Austrian general, Schmidt. Mortier, who had in- structions from Napoleon to march upon Krems, and was anxious to prevent the Russians passing into Moravia, hurried forwards with Gazan's division, and a bri- gade of dragoons, being followed, at some distance, by Dupont' s division, and some Dutch regiments. Below Durrenstein, he encountered the advance guard of Milora- dowich, which he drove back to the gates of Stein, making a few prisoners : but this slight success had nearly led to his ruin, for, at the same instant, another strong corps of Russians, led by Generals Schmidt and Doctorof, descended the mountains in his rear ; and General Essen, having rein- forced Miloradowich, and thrown himself before Loiben, the French were between 254 AUSTRIA. two fires. Mortier had no remedy but to cut his way, if possible, through the column in his rear, and so effect a junction with Dupont, to whom he had, fortunately for himself, sent orders to quicken his march. Major Henriod, at the head of the 100th regiment, charged the Russians, and a hor- rible carnage ensued in the narrow defiles, crowded with infuriated soldiery. Two pieces of artillery, which Mortier had with him, decided the issue of the combat in his favour, his adversaries being destitute of cannon. The brave Austrian, Schmidt, fell at the first discharge ; and Doctorof, en- deavouring to withdraw his troops from the ravine, was suddenly attacked, in the rear, by the division of Dupont, and thus found himself, in his turn, between two fires. With much difficulty he effected his retreat over the mountain he had just descended ; and the desperate troops of Mortier rush- ing into the defile, as they imagined, on the bayonets of their enemies, found them- selves, before they were aware, in the arms of their friends and countrymen. From twelve to fifteen hundred men were lost on each side, and the allies received a MAUTERN. 255 terrible blow in the death of General Schmidt, the friend and companion in arms of the Archduke Charles*. Below Durrenstein, the river widens, and a new and cheerful prospect dawns upon the sight. Three small towns, Stein, Mau- tern, and Krems, the two first connected by a bridge, about six hundred and thirty paces long, across the Danube, present themselves at once to the eye ; and over Mautern, on the right bank, upon a finely- wooded mountain, rise the towers and cu- polas of Kloster Gottweih. Mautern was known as early as the time of Charlemagne, and in 898 was called the town of Mutarum, and fortified by Isanrich, the son of the Markgraf Arbo, when he rose against the Emperor Arnulf. Arnulf, though in the last stage of illness, laid seige to Mautern, and took it in the following year, a few months before his death ; but Isanrich succeeded in eluding his conqueror, and sought refuge in Mo- ravia. Eudolph of Hapsburg gave the same rights and privileges to Mautern as * Vie Politique et Militaire de Napoleon, par le General Jominy. 8vo. Paris, 1827, vol. ii. pp. 151—3. 256 AUSTRIA. were enjoyed by Stein and Krems in reward for its early declaration in his favour. In 1347, the burghers, having joined their neighbours of Krems in a cruel persecution of the Jews, were severely punished by Albert II., and their Lord, the Bishop of Passau, whose Christian zeal had been rather exuberant, was condemned to pay a fine to the Duke of six hundred pounds. Matthias Corvinus, the gallant King of Hungary, gained a victory here over the Austrians in 1484. In 1805, the Russians under Kutusof retreated before Murat, Lannes, and Soult, over the bridge at Mau- tern, and immediately burnt it. It was de- stroyed again by the Austrian Field°marshal Hiller in 1809, on the second advance of Napoleon to Vienna. With the exception of the old gate, through which the road leads to St. Polten and Gottweih, little re- mains to vouch for the antiquity of the town ; and the same may be said of Stein, under the walls of which we landed, — the gate facing the water, and the ruins of some old building near the bridge, being all the relics that " Goth and Time and Turk have spared" — I might add, Hungarian and STEIN. 257 Swede, as Matthias Corvinus stormed it in I486, and Torstenson in 1645. So exas- perated was the latter by the opposition he met with, that when he at length entered the place, he took most sanguinary ven- geance upon the brave citizens. Stein is little more than one long, rambling street, over the vile flints of which, as we entered it, half a dozen poor old women, nearly all upon crutches, were hobbling in ludicrous haste after a dirty little ragamufBn, who, bearing the banner of some Saint, very like a red pocket handkerchief, appeared to enjoy the fruitless attempts of the unfor- tunate cripples to keep pace with him. On the young rascal went, at a sort of hand gallop, while they, like Johnson's " Panting Time, 5 ' " Toiled after him in vain." Quitting Stein at the eastern extremity of this long street, a walk of about ten mi- nutes conducts you through a pretty pro- menade, planted with trees, and called the little Prater, to the gates of Krems, the most considerable of these three small towns. It is first mentioned in the reign of Otto III. In the year 1347, its kennels 258 AUSTRIA. ran with Hebrew blood. It was pretended that the Jews had poisoned the wells of the town ; and as any report, however ri- diculous, provided it afforded a pretext to insult and plunder that unfortunate people, was eagerly and implicitly believed by the brutal populace, an immediate slaughter took place of all who refused to acknow- ledge the divinity of Christ. Many wealthy Israelites being aware of the real motive of their persecutors, made their despair minister to their vengeance, and barring up themselves, their family, and their riches together, set fire to the building, and pe- rished exultingly in the flames that antici- pated the spoiler. The horrid frenzy ex- tended to Stein, Mautern, and many other places in the vicinity, and was only allayed by the arrival of the brave Erbschenk von Meissau who, by command of Albert II., hurried with a considerable force into the disturbed districts. Krems and Stein were heavily mulcted, and the neighbouring vil- lages, Loiben, Strassing, Rattendorf and Weinzierl, plundered by the soldiery of the blood-stained booty they had acquired. In the fifteenth century, Krems was twice be- KREMS. 259 sieged by Matthias Corvinus, the last time successfully. On the invasion of Austria by the Bohemian Protestants in 1619, a corps of the insurgents under their Colonel, Car- pizan, having cut off the garrison of Krems, which had made a desperate sally from the town, immediately advanced to scale the now defenceless walls ; but the women with one consent, seizing the first weapons they could find, rushed to the ramparts, and fought with such steady bravery, that the enemy were at length obliged to abandon the attempt. To this memorable achieve- ment Ferdinand II. was in great measure indebted for the preservation of his empire ; for Krems being thus relieved, General Dampierre detached a body of five hun- dred horse to Vienna, at that time closely invested by Count Thurn. The Emperor, reduced to the last extremity, the walls of his palace battered by the Bohemian can- non, and echoing the reproachful shouts of his disaffected subjects, had resigned him- self to his fate, when the sudden blast of a trumpet announced the arrival of succour. The little squadron of horse having secretly descended the Danube, and entered the 260 AUSTRIA. capital by the only gate unguarded by the enemy, was magnified into a mighty host by the fears of the malcontents, who dis- persed in every direction. The friends of the Emperor took courage, six hundred students flew to arms ; their example was followed by fifteen hundred citizens ; addi- tional succours arrived, and in a few hours all appearance of danger and discontent had subsided. Krems is the seat of what is termed in Austria a kreis-amtes, or council, having the government of one of the circles of the empire. Its jurisdiction extends over a fourth of Lower Austria, called the Viertel, or quarter of Ober-Manhardsberg. The principal public buildings are the Pfarre- kirche, built in 1464. the church of St. Ka- tharine, remarkable as having been origi- nally a residence of the knights-templars, a theatre, a gymnasium, and a cassino. The Austrian epicure is indebted to Krems for excellent mustard, and the sportsman for superior gunpowder; upwards of forty thou- sand florins worth of the former article is yearly made and sold in this town. The mustard is sent in its natural state from KLOSTER GOTTWEIH. 261 Znaym, Rausenbruck, and various other parts of Moravia, and boiled at Krems with unfermented wine, which gives it its peculiar flavour. In a vineyard near Krems was formerly a well, the water of which was believed a sovereign specific for all disorders. The neighbouring capuchins of Und, who were the respectable vouchers for its efficacy, sold the pure element at a so large a price, that the Emperor Maxi- milian I. suddenly discovered the neces- sity for enacting a law, whereby the re- venue arising from this traffic was trans- ferred from the coffers of the church into those of the state, which, at the commence- ment of his reign, were not so likely to overflow from the addition. Wandering beneath the walls of Krems and Stein, we gazed with delight upon the beautifully situated monastery of Gott- weih. A short distance from the right bank behind Mautern, this immense build- ing stretched itself along the brow of a lofty, isolated mountain, clothed with waving woods, in the rich liveries of au- tumn, its countless windows splendidly illuminated by the descending sun. It 262 AUSTRIA. dates no further back than the commence- ment of the eighteenth century, when it was built upon the site of an ancient kloster, originally founded by Altmann, Bishop of Passau, in 1083. There is a spring shown at the foot of the mountain, where this tur- bulent prelate, then only a student in theo- logy, entered into a compact with Adal- bert, afterwards Bishop of Wurzburg, and Gebhard, afterwards Bishop of Salzburg, by which they bound themselves to rise against the Emperor Henry IV., so soon as they should be appointed to their several sees ! — an extraordinary agreement which they religiously fulfilled ; and having suc- ceeded in stirring up his own son to re- bellion, compelled the unfortunate monarch, after a desperate struggle, to resign his crown at Ratisbon. Altmann, however, was not permitted to witness the triumph of his party ; the enraged Emperor deprived him of his bishopric in 1085, and he died six years afterwards in exile at Ziesel- mauer. Below Stein the Danube forms another archipelago, and during the remainder of a lovely evening, we glided between the TRASENMAUER. 263 thickly-wooded islands, catching at long intervals a momentary glimpse of the red- tipped steeple of one of the many insigni- ficant villages which here line the main banks of the river, now as flat and uninter- esting as they were between Aschach and Ottensheim. The current at length lead- ing us near the right bank, we passed the markt and ruin of Holenburg ; the latter, during the fifteenth century, the strong* hold of two redoubted pirates, named Frohnauer and Vettau, — Wagram, (not the famous Wagram, there are six Wagrams in Austria,) St. Georgen, where Ulrich, Bishop of Passau, in 1109-12, built a celebrated kloster called St. Georg auf der Insel and Trasenmauer, at the mouth of the river Trasen, where, according to the Nibelun- gen-lied, Etzel, " The King of Hunnen-land Had a Castle wide Ycalled Traisenmauer*." Nearly facing the mouth of the Trasen, the little river Kamp discharges itself into the Danube, and, on doubling a small point of land, the village of Zwentendorf * Nibelung;en-lied,V. 3533-5. It was the residence of his first Queen, Helke, a lady of incomparable virtue. 264 AUSTRIA. appeared on the right bank, and the moun- tains of the Wiener-Wald, arising in the distance, announced the vicinity of the capital. It was impossible, however, to reach it that evening, and therefore making for the little town of Tuln that lay directly before us in a sort of bay, we landed under the walls of a spacious building, the muti- lated colossal statues of saints, prelates, and monarchs, in front of which, bore testi- mony to its former grandeur, and groping our way through a narrow passage, emerged into the court-yard behind it, where stood the wretched auberge, in which our steers- man informed us we must pass the night. To our great relief, however, a red-elbowed, yellow-haired, blue-stockinged, round-about madchen, seizing a candle and a huge bunch of keys, recrossed the court with us to- wards the great building, and opening a postern door, which Mrs. RadclifFe would have worshipped, led the way up a winding staircase into a long gallery, hung with paintings of martyrdoms and miracles, fubsy virgins, and chubby cherubs, fat abbots, and fair nuns ; and ushered us into a wilderness of a chamber, furnished with TULN. 265 one table and sixteen beds ! The astonish- ment of our guide must be imagined when my companion requested yet another room. The idea of separate chambers never en- tering her head, she naturally enough sup- posed that sixteen beds would surely be sufficient for two persons. However, as there was no accounting for the whims of foreigners, and as no other travellers were likely to arrive, she found another apart- ment for my friend, containing nine beds, and, with a stare of amazement I shall not speedily forget, after furnishing us with some coffee and another candle, left us to sleep in any or all of our twenty-five beds, as we might eventually determine. On mentioning this circumstance afterwards to a Viennese, I was assured that, had a larger company arrived, the remaining fifteen beds in my chamber would have been unceremoniously occupied by men or women, as it might have happened ; for, as he remarked to me, with the greatest coolness, " how would the poor people, who possess but two or three good rooms, be otherwise enabled to accommodate forty or fifty persons of both sexes, as they are 266 AUSTRIA. frequently called upon to do ? " Whether the building itself was the Nonnen-Kloster founded by Rudolph of Hapsburg, in grati- tude for his victory over Ottocar, or the old Schloss, in which, every Monday, at midnight, the ghosts of a lady and her maid are in the habit of promenading*, I am to this moment ignorant. If the latter, it being Thursday, the ghosts were not on duty. TheLady-Moonalonepeeped through the long narrow casements ; the murmur of the stream that ran rapidly beneath them, was the only sound that mingled with my dreams. * I believe I should say were, for the Antiquary of the Danube informs us, that the lady's maid was exorcised by a " barefooted monk," and quietly, I presume, laid in the Red Sea. The ghost of quality alone was untractable. This spirit, it appears, had been dismissed from the body by an enraged husband, at the moment of an awkward discovery. The whole history, says the prudent antiquary, is to be found in the archives of a certain noble house ; but as it would redound to the prejudice of the descendants, should the name be made known, it has been passed over in silence. Some time ago an attempt was made to pull down the building, but the indignant phantom raised such a racket, that the workmen beat a retreat, and the project was abandoned. 267 CHAPTER VIII. Tuln. — Langenlebern.— Greifenstein. — Story of Etelina. — Korneuburg. — The Bisamberg. — Kloster Neuburg. — Leo- poldsberg, and the Khalenberg. — A glimpse of the capital. — Nusdorf. — Arrival at Vienna. — Bird's-eye view and de- scription of the environs from the Temple of Glory in the BrQhl. The chronicler Hagen says, that before Vienna was built, Tuln was the capital of Austria. There is no doubt it was a place of some consequence even in the time of the Romans. In the year 1813, a great number of silver coins of the reigns of Vespasian, Domitian, Nerva, and Trajan, were found in its neighbourhood. Attila is said to have experienced a defeat here, and upwards of forty thousand Huns in one battle to have found " the way to dusty death." Its authentic history commences, however, in the reign of Charlemagne, who gave the place to Passau in 803. Under the successors of Charlemagne, Tuln was the residence of their Grenz-Grafen, or Counts of the Border; and in 985, Henry II., Duke of Bavaria, held a Landtag or As- 268 AUSTRIA. sembly of the States at Tuln, at which the Duke of Carinthia, the Pfalzgraf Berchtold, the Markgraf of Austria, and the Counts of Bavaria, appeared, and decided the claim of the Bishop of Passau to a linn-fishery in the neighbourhood. The Hungarians, in the winter of 1042, surprised and burnt the town, but were, by the Markgraves Albert and Gottfried, repulsed and pursued over the Leytna ; and the whole tract of country between Khalenberg and that river, was wrested from them for ever. In 1592, Tuln became the asylum of those who fled before the triumphant Botskai, on whose head the minister of Achmet had placed the ancient diadem of the despots of Servia, and who, though he refused the prof- fered titles of King of Hungary and Prince of Transylvania, terrified the feeble Em- peror Rodolph by planting the victorious standards of those revolted provinces within sight of the walls of Presburg. In 1683, the celebrated Sobieski joined, with his twenty-six thousand Poles, the troops collected here for the relief of Vienna, then invested by the Turks under Kara TULN. 269 Mustapha. The Emperor Leopold, driven to despair, wrote himself to the King of Poland, imploring him to hasten to his assistance, without waiting for his army. " My troops/' said he, " are now assem- bling. The bridge over the Danube is al- ready constructed at Tuln, to afford you a passage. Place yourself at their head, however inferior in number ; your name alone, so terrible to the enemy, will ensure a victory ! " Sobieski, flattered by this en- treaty, issued orders to his army to follow him ; and, at the head of thirty-one thou- sand horse, traversed Silesia and Moravia with the rapidity of a Tartar horde, but, on his arrival at Tuln, found the bridge un- finished, and no troops, except a corps under the Duke of Lorraine. " Does the Emperor consider me as an adventurer ? " exclaimed the disappointed monarch. " I quitted my army to command his. It is not for myself, but for him, that I fight." Pacified, however, by the representations of the Duke of Lorraine, he awaited the arrival of his own army, which reached the Danube on the 5th of September, and the junction of the German succours was com- 270 AUSTRIA. pleted on the 7th. Eight thousand Swa- bians and Franconians, twenty thousand Saxons and Bavarians, led by their Elec- tors, swelled the allied German army to the number of sixty thousand men. On the night of the 11th, the preconcerted signals revived the spirits of the garrison and citi- zens of Vienna; and, on the morning of the memorable 12th of September, they de- scried, with rapture, the Christian standards floating on the summit of the Khalenberg ! To the romantic traveller, Tuln is en- deared as the spot where the mighty Etzel met his matchless bride. Four and twenty princes were in the train of this powerful monarch, and twelve of the noblest received the priceless guerdon of a kiss from the lips of Chrimhilt. Lances were shivered, and harps were swept, in honour of the day. A thousand marks rewarded the royal min- strels, Swemmel and Werbel, and the lar- gess, to herald and serf, was worthy the hand of the richest and most powerful so- vereign " From the Rhone unto the Rhine — from the Elbe unto the sea." With spirits elevated by a morning of un- LANGENLEBERN. 271 equalled beauty, and hearts throbbing with expectation, as every dip of the oar brought us nearer and nearer to the Austrian capi- tal, the spires of which, we fondly ima- gined, would rise to our view at each new bend of the river, we floated down the broad and glittering stream, now clear of islands, and hurrying to bathe the craggy feet of the advancing Wiener-Wald. Passing the long straggling village of Langenlebern, or, as it is otherwise called, Ober and Unter Aigen, where there was formerly a considerable establishment of gold-washers, (the waves of the Danube, like those of Pactolus, rolling sands rich with grains of the precious metal,) the splendour of sunrise appeared to change the whole flood into molten ore, and realize the wildest dreams of those modern Chry- sorrohee*. Below Langenlebern, on the * Much gold has really been found in the sands of the Da- nube, the Inn, and the Iser, and several gold-waschereys, as they are called, have formerly existed on the banks of these rivers. The peculiar wealth of the sands at Langenlebern has been accounted for, by the peasantry, from the circumstance of Draculf, Bishop of Freysing, being drowned off this bank, A. D. 926, and carrying down with him forty pounds weight of gold, which he had smuggled Out of the Kloster of Mos- burg, and had secured in his girdle ! 272 AUSTRIA. right bank, is the ancient village of Zeisel- mauer, (supposed to be the Cetia of the Romans,) and celebrated as the birth-place of our old acquaintance, St. Florian. Here, in 1092, the rebel Bishop of Passau, Alt- mann, died, as I have before mentioned, in exile. We now rapidly approached the Riederberge, or mountains of the Wiener- Wald, as the forest-covered hills, that here overlook the Danube and Vienna, are in- differently called. Fragments of this rocky chain now lined the right bank of the river, which, for the first time since our leaving Ratisbon, surpassed the left in boldness and beauty. On one of these fragments rose the ruin of Greifenstein, one of the oldest castles in Austria, now the property of Prince Lichtenstein, who, having a great fancy for ruins, expends considerable sums in keeping up such as yet stand upon his estates, and in building new ruins, where there is a deficiency of old. In the Priel, or Bnihl, near Vienna, are several of these modern antiques, on which the venerable pile of the old family castle of Lichtenstein looks down, with as much contempt, as a re- suscitated Norman crusader would upon his GREIFENSTEIN. 273 tinsel-clad theatrical representatives. Grei- fenstein was last ruined by the Swedes in 1645, and is one of the castles named as having been the prison of Richard Cceur de Lion; nay, they even show an iron cage here, in which he is said to have been cooped. The ruins are reported to be haunted by an old white woman, and a legion of " Black spirits and white, Red spirits and grey," who do her awful bidding. This tradition has probably arisen from the circumstance of its last inhabitant having been an ancient gentlewoman, the Lady Bountiful of the neighbourhood, who devoted all her time to the cure of disorders, and was so gene- rally successful in the treatment of her numerous patients, that she was at length suspected of possessing supernatural power. At her death, therefore, instead of canon- izing her, as in duty bound, the ungrateful peasantry have converted the kind-hearted old lady, who was certainly " a spirit of health," into " a goblin damned;" and they are less excusable, as the castle is not in want of such an attraction, the terrein T 274 AUSTRIA. being already occupied by as romantic a spectre as ever revisited " the glimpses of the moon, making night hideous !" The legend indeed attached to those venerable walls, is one of the most interesting on the Danube, and I cannot account for its omis- sion by the diligent Schultes. Thus it runs : — As early as the eleventh century the Lords of Greifenstein were famed and feared throughout Germany. One of the first knights who bore that name, lost his lady soon after she had presented him with a daughter, who received the name of Etelina. The dying mother, painfully aware how little attention would be paid to the education of a female by a rude and reck- less father, half knight, half freebooter, however fond he might be of his child, had recommended her infant, with her last breath, to the care of a kind and pious monk, the chaplain of the castle; and under his affectionate guidance, the pretty playful girl gradually ripened into the beautiful and accomplished woman. Sir Reinhard of Greifenstein, though stern, tur- bulent, and unlettered himself, was, never- GREIFENSTEIN. 275 theless, sensible to the charms and intelli- gence of his daughter ; and often as he parted her fair hair and kissed her ivory- forehead, before he mounted the steed or entered the bark, that waited to bear him to the hunt or the battle, a feeling of which he was both proud and ashamed would moisten his eye and subdue a voice natu- rally harsh and grating, into a tone almost of tenderness. On his return, weary and sullen, from a fruitless chase or a baffled enterprise, the song of Etelina could banish the frown from his brow, when even the wine-cup had been thrust untasted away, and the favourite hound beaten for a mis- timed gambol. So fair a flower, even in the solitary castle of Greifenstein, was not likely to bloom unknown or unsought. The fame of Etelina 5 s beauty spread through- out the land. Many a noble knight shouted her name as his bright sword flashed from the scabbard, and many a gentle squire fought less for his gilt spurs, than the smile of Etelina. The minstrel who sang her praises had aye the richest largess, and the little-foot page who could tell where she might be met with in the summer's T 2 276 AUSTRIA. twilight, clinging to the arm of the silver- haired chaplain, might reckon on a link of his master's chain of gold for every word he uttered. But the powerful and the wealthy sighed at her feet in vain — she did not scorn them, for so harsh a feeling was unknown to the gentle Etelina. Nay, she even wept over the blighted hopes of some, whose fervent passion deserved a better fate ; but her heart was no longer hers to give. She had fixed her affections upon the poor but noble Rudolph, and the lovers awaited impatiently some turn of fortune which would enable them to proclaim their attachment without fear of the anger and opposition of Sir Reinhard, who was con- siderably annoyed by Etelina's rejection of many of the richest Counts and Barons of Germany. Business of importance summoned the old knight to the court of the Emperor. His absence, prolonged from month to month, afforded frequent opportunities of meeting to the lovers ; and the venerable monk, on whom the entire charge of the castle and its inhabitants had devolved at Sir Reinhard's departure, was one evening struck dumb GREIFENSTEIN. 277 with terror, by the confession which circum- stances at length extorted from the lips of Etelina! Recovered from the first shock, however, his affection for his darling pupil seemed only increased, by the peril into which passion had plunged her. In the chapel of the castle, he secretly bestowed the nuptial benediction upon the imprudent pair, and counselled their immediate flight and concealment, till his prayers and tears should wring forgiveness and consent from Sir Reinhard, who was now on his return home, accompanied by a wealthy nobleman, on whom he had determined to bestow the hand of his daughter. Scarcely had Ru- dolph and Etelina reached the cavern in the neighbouring wilderness, selected for their retreat by the devoted old man, who had furnished them with provisions, a lamp and some oil, promising to supply them from time to time with the means of exist- ence, as occasions should present them- selves, when the rocks of the Danube rang with the well-known blast of Sir Reinhard's trumpet, and a broad banner lazily unfold- ing itself to the morning breeze, displayed to the sight of the wakeful warden the two 278 AUSTRIA. red griffins rampant in a field vert, the blazon of the far-feared Lords of Greifen- stein *. In a few moments the old knight was galloping over the drawbridge, fol- lowed by his intended son-in-law. The clatter of their horses' hoofs struck upon the heart of the conscious chaplain, as though the animals themselves were trampling on his bosom ; but he summoned up his resolution, and relying on his sacred character, met his master with a firm step and a calm eye, in the hall of the castle. Evading a direct answer to the first inquiry for Etelina, he gradually and cautiously in- formed Sir Eeinhard of her love, her mar- riage, and her flight. Astonishment for a short space held the old warrior spell bound, but when his gathered fury at last found vent, the wrath of the whirlwind was less terrible. He seized the poor old monk by the throat, and upon his firm refusal to re- veal the retreat of the culprits, dashed him to the earth, had him bound hand and foot, and flung into a pit beneath an iron * On some old weapons in the Riistkammer or armoury of the castle, the arms of the house of Greifenstein are yet to be seen so blazoned. GREIFENSTEIN. 279 grating in the floor of the donjon or keep of the castle*. Tearing, like an infuriated Pasha, " his very beard for ire," he called down curses on Etelina and her husband, and prayed that, if ever he forgave them, a dreadful and sudden death might overtake him on the spot where he should revoke the malediction he now uttered ! Upwards of a year had elapsed when, one winter- day, the knight of Greifenstein, pursuing the chase, lost his way in the mazes of a wil- derness on the banks of the Danube. A savage-looking being, half clothed in skins, conducted him to a cavern, in which a woman similarly attired was seated on the ground, with an infant on her knees, and greedily gnawing the bones of a wolf. — Sir Keinhard recognised in the squalid form before him his once beautiful Etelina. — Shocked to the soul at the sight of the misery to which his severity had reduced her, he silently motioned to the huntsmen, * A square hole in the earth with an iron grating over it is still shown here as the place of confinement of some clergy- man, who shared his crust with a young snake, that thrived so wonderfully upon prison allowance, that self-preservation at last compelled him to kill it while asleep with a stick, that is also shown in the dungeon. 280 AUSTRIA. who came straggling in upon his track to remove the wretched pair and their poor little offspring to the castle. Moved by the smiles of his innocent and uncon- scious grandchild, he clasped his repentant daughter to his bosom, as she re-crossed the threshold^ bore her up into the banquet- hall, and consigning her to the arms of her faithful Rudolph, hastened down again to release with his own hands the true-hearted monk, who still languished in captivity. In descending the steep staircase, his foot slipped, and he was precipitated to the bottom — his fall was unseen — his cry was unheard — dying, he dragged himself a few paces along the pavement, and expired upon the very spot where he had just em- braced and forgiven his daughter. Ru- dolph, now Lord of Greifenstein, restored the chaplain to liberty, and lived long and happily with his beloved Etelina ; but the spirit of Sir Reinhard to this day wanders about the ruins of his ancestral castle, and will continue so to do till the stone whereon he expired shall be worn in twain. " Alas ! poor ghost !" the very slight hollow which is at present perceivable in it, affords you KORNEUBURG. 281 little hope of its division by fair means previously to the general " crack of doom.'' Near the village of Hofelein, the river suddenly wheels to the south, and the last grand picture of the series opens before you. On the left is the little town of Korneuburg, backed by the vine-covered Bisamberg, and embosomed in beautiful groves and orchards. On the right, arise the gilded domes of Kloster-Neuburg, and far above them, in the blue distance, tower the colossal Khalenberge, " the watchmen of Vienna," crowned with their churches, and terminating a chain of alps and mountains, that, stretching across Southern Europe, links the Danube with the Gulph of Genoa. There was something peculiarly exciting in the scene. I was floating upon waves that were rushing to the Euxine, and gazing upon a line of hills that extended to the Mediterranean. I could almost fancy the clash of Turkish cymbals, mingled with the murmur of the water, while the sound of mandolin and castagnet was faintly wafted on the breeze from the land. The former flight may, at least, be forgiven me in such a situation ; for these shores have 282 AUSTRIA. but too often echoed the wild marches of the Ottoman, and the trembling waves re- flected the glittering crescent. The black horse-tails of many a proud Pasha have streamed insultingly from yonder heights, the sable heralds of death and desola- tion. The " high-capped Tartar" has here " spurred his steed away," and the shout of " God and the Prophet ! — Allah hu !" shaken like an earthquake the throne of the Caesars. Korneuburg is the seat of theKreis-amtes for the quarter of Unter-Manhardsberg. In 1306, it was the scene of one of those hor- rid massacres, which invariably, during the middle ages, cancelled the debts of Chris- tendom to the House of Israel. The same blasphemous falsehood, which thirty years afterwards deluged the streets of Deggen- dorf with Hebrew blood, was here made the pretence for burning alive all the un- fortunate Jews in the place. The Emperor Frederick IV. here met his deliverer, George Podiebrad, King of Bohemia, A.D. 1462, whose prompt assistance compelled Albert of Austria, the Emperor's brother, KORNEUBURG. 283 to raise the siege of Vienna, (in the citadel of which Frederick was shut up with only- two hundred men,) to restore the towns, fortresses and countries he had taken pos- session of during this unnatural contest, and pay an annual sum of four thousand ducats o theEmperor for the government of Lower Austria. In 1477, Korneuburg was be- sieged by Matthias Corvinus ; and the brave Austrian commandant, Enenkel, received his death-wound from an arrow that en- tered an embrasure through which he was reconnoitring the enemy. It was again be- sieged by Corvinus in 1484, and stood out till the very vermin of the town became the food of the famished garrison ; and in the seventeenth century, the Swedes, who had taken and shut themselves up in the place, after an equally stubborn resistance, capitulated upon honourable terms. On the Bisamberg, which rises behind it, are the finest vineyards in the neighbourhood of Vienna. The wine they yield is con- sidered the best of what are called the Danube wines ; the next in celebrity are Kloster-Neuburger, Grinzinger, (a very pleasant wine,) Maurer,. and Brunner, all 284 AUSTRIA. grown on the right bank. On the summit of the Bisamberg, formerly stood the old castle of the knights of Pucinperche, or Busenberge, and near it rises the little Busenbach, that ripples through three chan- nels into the Danube. At its foot is Lang- Enzersdorf, the first post station from Vienna on the road to Prague. Part of Kara-Mustapha's army crossed the Danube here during the siege of Vienna, and re- duced the place to ashes. Nearly opposite to Lang-Enzersdorf, stands the unfinished but magnificent Kloster-Neuburg, and the little town to which it has given its name*. The Kloster was originally founded by Leopold the Saint, in conse- quence of his wife's veil, which had been blown away as she was walking on the Khalenberg, being wafted to this spot, and discovered some time after, hanging on an elder-tree, by one of the Markgraf s hounds ! — So miraculous and interesting an occur- rence was deemed worthy of commemo- ration. A convent was immediately built and endowed by the pious Markgraf; and * It was originally called Neuenburg, Neuenburch, and Niwenburg, and appears to have been strongly fortified. LEOPOLDSBERG. 285 the monks enshrined the elder-tree in gold wire-work, and imitated its blossoms with pearls *. Our boat now passed under the precipices of the Leopoldsberg. The two last mountains of the Wiener- Wald have both received the appellation of Khalenberg or Kalte-Berg. But the ancient Khalenberg is now known by the name of the Leopolds- berg, and by the Khalenberg is generally understood the former Josephsberg, the second mountain from the bank of the Danube. On the summit of the present Leopolds- berg, originally stood the Castle of Leo- pold the Saint ; and from that castle, long before Vienna was built, the Markgraf is- sued to hunt in the neighbouring forests, and sometimes pursued his game over the plain whereon the capital of Austria now spreads its interminable suburbs. In 1291, Albert L, Duke of Austria, sought refuge in this fortress from the revolted citizens of Vienna ; and summoning reinforcements * Albert IV., Duke of Austria, died here on the 14th of September, 1404, in the twenty-seventh year of his age; and the Empress Wilhelmina Amelia, widow of Joseph I., also ended her days here in April 1742. 286 AUSTRIA. from Swabia, cut off all aid and provisions from the rebels, and compelled them at last to an unconditional surrender. The princi- pal magistrates came bare-headed and bare- footed, to his camp, and in their presence he tore up the charters of the city,and abro- gated all those privileges which he deemed injurious to his authority. During the reign of Albert III., the castle fell into decay, and lay in ruins nearly fifty years, when it was rebuilt by Albert V. Ruined again by the wars of the fifteenth century, the Emperor Leopold I. determined to erect upon its site a chapel, in honour of his an- cestor and patron. Before the work was com- pleted, however, the Turks had burst into Austria, and during the siege of Vienna, destroyed the unfinished chapel as well as the few remaining walls of the old castle. The Saxons, who fought in the left wing of the army of relief, carried the Turkish positions on this mountain by storm, and drove them with much slaughter out of the ruins in which they had entrenched them- selves. On the flight of the infidels, Leo- pold recommenced building his chapel, but it was finished by his son Charles VI., under LEOPOLDSBERG. 287 the superintendence of the Italian architect Beluzzi, who also built a palace near it by the Emperor's order, and twelve years afterwards erected the present church upon the site of the chapel. The monks of Kloster-Neuburg, who had installed them- selves in these edifices, were afterwards expelled by Joseph II. *, and the church and palace became the property of Prince de Ligne, the historian. His highness con- siderably improved the grounds about it, and it has become a favourite resort of the Viennese, who flock up the mountain on a fine summer day, to enjoy the magnificent prospect from its summit, or from the little Belvedere that overhangs the Danube. On * This Emperor, who, to use his own words, " with the best intentions, never carried a single project into execution," in his laudable attempts to purify religion from the dregs of superstition, reduced the number of convents in Austria from two thousand and twenty-four, to seven hundred. Vide Coxe's History of the House of Austria. The learned Archdeacon has justly and eloquently described the character of the kind- hearted but inconsistent Joseph ; but I am at a loss to know why a Christian minister should include the following ordi- nance amongst " the childish and ridiculous regulations" of the Emperor. " Thou shalt forbear all occasions of dispute relative to matters of faith ; and thou shalt, according to the true principles of Christianity, affectionately and kindly treat those who are not of thy communion/' (Ord. October 24, 1781.) 288 . AUSTRIA. the outside of the building in which the prince resided, are several inscriptions ; amongst others his favourite motto, " Quo res cumque cadunt, semper stat linea recta ;" and the words " Chateau de mon refuge." On the side facing the Danube are the following truly French lines, in allusion to the various fortunes which have attended the building. " Margraves, Polonais, Turcs et Saints, tour a tour, Rendirent autrefois celebre ce sejour ; C'est a present celui de la philosophie, Du calme de l'esprit, du bonheur de la vie. Notre ame s'aggrandit par des grands souvenirs, Mais la meilleure histoire est celui des plaisirs. Sans remords, sans regrets, sans crainte et sans envie La nature se montre en son bel appareil Et 1 on se croit ici favori du soleil." On the ceiling of the Belvedere is inscribed " Optimis Vindobonensibus Carolus Princeps de Ligne." On the Khalenberg, as the Josephsberg is now called, stands what was formerly a monastery, founded by Ferdinand II. in 1628. Leopold I. re-established it after the siege of Vienna; Joseph I. enlarged, and Joseph II. suppressed it. Like the building on the Leopoldsberg, it was pur- chased by the Prince de Ligne, and is a NUSSDORF. 289 point of reunion for the holiday makers of the capital. Below the Leopoldsberg, the Danube is divided into three large branches, and on entering the southern branch the great dark spire of St. Stephen's suddenly appeared between the trees on the left bank, and other spires and domes gliding gradually into view, we looked at length upon Vienna ! Impatiently did we pace the bank at Nuss- dorf, a little village on the right of the stream, about an hour's journey from the walls of the city, where all boats are obliged to stop till passports are examined, and permission given to proceed to what is called the Schanzel landing-place, near the Ferdinand's Briiche (Bridge of Ferdinand.) Nearly an hour and a half were we de- tained at this place, within sight of the goal we were burning to reach. The papers at length arrived; our crew once more plied their paddles, and through the crowd of boats moored on each side of the river, we advanced slowly, catching occasional glimpses of new buildings and towers, as they appeared between the tall stacks of firewood that line the banks of this arm of u 290 AUSTRIA. the Danube. Suddenly we found ourselves under the walls of the city, and about twenty minutes afterwards, having followed a custom-house officer to the mauth of the Schanzel, where our baggage underwent strict examination, we entered the gates, the way to our hotel being marshalled by a good-natured Italian, who had volun- teered his services at the custom-house. Previously, however, to quitting the boat, the three poor women, whom we had taken on board at Marsbach, perceiving their journey ended, requested to know what they had to pay. On being, with some difficulty, made to understand that they were perfectly welcome to their passage, their joy was extravagant. They clapped their own hands, and kissed ours repeat- edly, (the usual mode of expressing thanks in Austria,) and with a chorus of " Das ist schon! Das ist schon*!" shouldered their heavy bundles, and shuffled away in high glee. Preceded by our Italian guide, and fol- lowed by the two steersmen and their crew carrying our luggage, we bustled * s< That's fine ! 3 ' or, as we should say, " capital/' VIENNA. 291 through the crowded streets of Vienna, and crossing the square, in the centre of which stands the fine old cathedral of St. Stephen, entered the Weyburg Gasse, and were soon comfortably installed in the Hotel of the Kaiserinn von Osterreich (the Empress of Austria.) Gentle reader, I have now landed you, with myself, safely in Vienna. Do not imagine, because I have been, perhaps, tediously minute in my descriptions up to this period, that I am about to enter upon a long-winded geo- graphical, statistical, historical account of " the habitation of the Caesars." We are now upon beaten ground, and even pre- suming that you are unacquainted with it, there are dozens of guides much better calculated to do the honours and show the lions of Vienna than your humble servant. I shall therefore take the liberty, before I make my final bow, and hand you over to the acute Russel, the pleasant Ramblers in Germany, either military or musical — the caustic author of ' Austria as it is, 5 or any other intelligent tourist — to waft you at once to the pinnacle of a steep hill in that gorge of the Wienerwald called the Briihl u 2 292 AUSTRIA. or the Priel, behind the very ancient and picturesque little town of Mohdling. There you are — on the steps of the " Temple of Glory," a handsome Doric building erected by the present Prince Lichtenstein to the memory of the brave hussars who rescued him, at the expense of their lives, from the French in the battle of Wagram. On the wall of a vault, beneath the building, where their bodies are deposited, is the follow- ing affecting inscription : — " Softly repose upon this height, precious remains of the valiant Austrian warriors, who fell, covered with glory, at Aspern and Wagram. Your friend is ntft able to reanimate the lifeless bodies. To honour them is his duty*." As he turns from perusing these lines, as honourable to the dictator of them as to the brave men to whom they allude, the moistened eye of the stranger wanders over the immense prospect below him, and falls upon the very scene of their valour and their death. Yonder stretches the wide plain upon which the fate of Austria * " Ruhet sanft auf diesen hohen edle gebeine tapferer Oesterreichs Krieger ; Ruhm bedeckt bey Aspern und Wa- gram gefallen vermag euer freund nicht, die entseelten leichname zu beleben ; sie zu ehren ist seine pflicht." ISLAND OF LOEAU, 293 has been twice decided. Rudolph of Hapsburg, the founder of its noble house, there wrested the duchy and the crown of the empire from Ottokar, king of Bohe- mia, on August 26th, A. D. 1278. On the 5th of July, five hundred and thirty-one years afterwards, the descendant of Rudolph saw that duchy and crown at the mercy of an adventurer, who had, for the second time, driven him from his capi- tal, and now threatened the utter extinc- tion of his dynasty. There is the cele- brated island of Lobau, out of which, after its critical escape, the French army crossed the Danube amid night and storm, by the dreadful light of the blazing town of En- zersdorf, into the plain of Morava, the des- tined arena of that decisive combat. " All was prepared — the fire, the sword, the men To wield them in their terrible array. The army, like a lion from his den, Marched forth with nerve and sinews bent to slay,— A human Hydra, issuing from its fen To breathe destruction on its winding way. The night was dark, and the thick mist allowed Nought to be seen save the artillery's flame, Which arched the horizon like a fiery cloud, And in the Danube's waters shone the same — A mirrored Hell ! The volleying roar, and loud Long booming of each peal on peal, o'ercame 294 AUSTRIA. The ear far more than thunder, for Heaven's flashes Spare or smite rarely — Man's make millions ashes!" Don Juan, Canto 8, st. 2. 6. There are the little villages of Essling, Aspern, and Wagram, whose names, like those of the still more insignificant hamlets of Blenheim and Waterloo, are ineffaceably inscribed on the tablets of Fame, though scarcely to be distinguished in the map of Europe. Do you mark that white building a little on this side of the city, looking, from the height on which we stand, like the card-house of an infant ? The sun now falls upon something like a triumphal arch, on an elevation immediately behind it — that is Schonbrunn, with its well-known Glo- riette. In that palace, is a fair-haired boy, the son of the victor in that terrible fight, and of the daughter of the vanquished. To that fight he owes his existence. Its issue enabled a low-born Corsican to dictate terms to one of the most powerful monarchs in the world, and mingle his blood with that of a line of emperors. Let us turn from these scenes of strife and " vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself," to the forest-covered hills around, and the lovely vallies beneath us. At the foot of thatmoun- BADEN. 295 tain lie the sulphur-baths of Baden, and beside them opens the beautiful Helen-thai, at the mouth of which resides the brave and popular Archduke Charles, the gallant, though unsuccessful, opponent of Napo- leon. His chateau is named Wildburg, in honour of his Archduchess, a princess of the House of Nassau -Wildburg. There is scarcely any garden-ground belonging to it, and he, therefore, good-naturedly makes a garden of the whole valley, and gives the public the benefit of it. Every morning, during the season, the visiters of this fashionable watering-place flock by dozens to a farm-house, belonging to the Baron von Dopplehof, where they eat the best bread in Europe, and sip coffee, diluted with most delicious milk, furnished by fifty Styrian cows, all of that light dun colour which particularly distin- guishes the race. The day is divided between the bath and the shades of the Helen-thai ; and, as evening advances, the gay groups saunter back along the banks of the rivulet that brawls through this romantic glen, and drop leisurely into the pretty little theatre of Baden. Russel has 296 AUSTRIA. drawn an animated and faithful picture of this spot. I shall, therefore, only mention a ridiculous circumstance which occurred here a few years ago. The old wooden bridge over the rivulet I have just men- tioned, had been replaced by one of cast iron; and the completion of this work being an important era for the little town, a procession was formed to open the bridge, and the whole neighbourhood collected on and round it to witness the ceremony. One of the Archdukes (Anthony, I believe) headed the cortege, and, after it had passed over, the burgomaster, standing in the centre of the bridge, harangued the spec- tators. His speech was a model for suc- ceeding burgomasters, to fashion their ora- tions by. The crowd pressed nearer and nearer to listen, and be edified. The wor- thy officer warmed with his subject; he became absolutely figurative. " Our gra- titude, our attachment (exclaimed he, in a transport of loyalty) to the illustrious House of Hapsburg, shall remain firm and unshaken as this bridge ! !' but, before he had well finished his sentence, down went bridge, burgomaster, and audience, into CASTLE OF LICHTENSTEIN, 297 the water. Whether naturally sinking under the weight of the crowd, or kicked down by Lucifer himself, who, a rebel from the first, might have enjoyed the consternation attendant on so ominous a coincidence, remains to be determined. A clumsy bridge of stone now spans the little stream of the Schwachat. To the left, almost immediately beneath us, upon a green knoll, surrounded by gardens, stands the venerable ruin of Lichtenstein, the castle of the ancient princes of that name ; and, facing it, the modern chateau of their descendants. The old walls are in good preservation, and the various apartments clearly distinguishable. The chamber of justice, into which the criminal was drawn up by a rope from the prison beneath it, through a hole in the floor; the prison itself, with its iron rings and staples ; and the banquet hall, now hung with full-length portraits of the family, (none of them, by the way, painted earlier than the sixteenth century, though some profess to represent persons who lived in the fourteenth,) are all exceedingly interesting. Beyond it, on the bank of the river, lies the broad city, 298 AUSTRIA. the huge cathedral shooting up its dark spire in the centre. From a grated win- dow in that spire, the faithful Starrhemberg saw the sun rise every morning upon that vast plain, whitened with the tents of the Moslem, and watched night after night for the joyful signals of relief. They rose at length. From those heights, the gallant Sobieski rushed upon the panic-stricken Vizier, who, abandoning his camp and his treasures to the victorious Pole, fled like a tiger baffled in his spring. On the high road to Carinthia and Italy, that runs pa- rallel with this chain of mountains, you may observe a slender Gothic cross, that is to say, one of those crocketted pyramids, sur- mounted with a small cross, which are so called, and to be seen in many of our own market towns. It is the Spinnerinn-am- Kreutz, and, according to the legend, marks the spot on which a maiden vowed to sit and spin till her lover returned from the holy land. Smile not so contemptuously ; if you are proof against " a ballad in print," there is also an historical interest attached to that lonely monument. It commemo- rates the retreat of Solyman the Magnifi- LAXENDORF. 299 cent, and the valour of an ancestor of the princely House of Schwartzenburg. For thirty days, " Amid the vale below, Tents rose, and streamers play'd, And javelins sparkled in the sun, And multitudes encamped, Swarmed far as eye could follow o'er the plain ; There, in his war-pavilion, sat, In council with his chiefs, The Sultan of the Land!" Foiled in every assault by the skill of the commandant, Nicholas Count of Salm, by the courage of the garrison, and the loyalty of the burghers, the advance of winter, and the dread of approaching succours, com- pelled him to raise the siege, and to retreat toBuda, A.D. 1529. Still farther eastward lies the little village of Laxendorf, with the summer palace and gardens of Laxenburg, a favourite retreat of the Emperor, and something between the well-known Petit-Trianon at Versailles, and the grander Wilhelmshoe at Hessen- CasseL Inferior to them both in situation, it combines many of their separate attractions: there are the rustic bridges, and Swiss cot- tages of the former, and the modern antique castle of the latter. Instead of the splendid 300 AUSTRIA. waterworks of Wilhelmshoe, you must be contented, however, with the calm, clear lakes of Laxendorf, in which myriads of enormous carp battle for the large crusts flung to them by the guide, their scaly armour glittering in the sun, like " Mingled metal damasked o'er with gold." In the centre of one of these lakes rises an island fortress. At a given signal a boat pushes off from the Watergate, you are ferried over, and enter the court-yard of the building, which is fitted up in strict conformity to the taste of the middle ages. Like the Lowenburg at Wilhelmshoe, all the furniture of this fortress is really an- tique — the carved oaken ceilings and wainscots having been brought from sup- pressed monasteries and demolished castles. The beds, chairs, tables, &c, collected in a similar manner, are also extremely curious. Around the skirting-board of one of the apartments on the ground floor, is a most interesting painting of a procession to the lists, of the time of Maximilian L, and resembling in some degree the prints of his " Triumph" by Hans Burgmair. The he- ralds and pursuivants, habited alternately LAXENDORF. 301 in the colours of the empire and the duchy, are followed by the Emperor himself, armed at all points for the tournament, and twenty or thirty knights, riding in couples, their ponderous tilting helmets crested and garlanded in the elaborate German fashion, and their horses splendid with engraved chanfrons and emblazoned housings. The procession is closed by the priest and the surgeon, and the Todt- wagen, or hearse to carry away the slain champions ! A long narrow gallery, on the highest floor of the building, hung with the costumes of all the European nations du- ring the sixteeth century, leads to a dimly- lighted, unfurnished turret-chamber, the only ornaments of which are three small half-length portraits of Phillip II. of Spain, his queen Isabel, and his unfortunate son Don Carlos. The gloom of the chamber, its desolate appearance, so opposite to that of the other apartments, which are profusely decorated and furnished ; the three pale faces of the principal actors in that most dreadful of domestic tragedies, glaring at one another from the opposite walls, send a cold shudder through your frame ; and 302 AUSTRIA. you hasten from the spot, as though murder had been freshly committed there, and the dark shadow of the retiring assassin was yet gliding along the floor of the adjacent gallery ! The Knight's Castle, as that building is called, has also its state apartments ; its chamber of justice ; its prison with a puppet prisoner, (the only piece of bad taste about it,*) and its ar- moury. The latter contains some hand- some fluted and embossed suits, but no- thing particularly ancient -f; throughout Germany, the richest suit of armour, what- ever may be its date, is invariably appro- priated to the Emperor Maximilian, though in the same collection ; and standing next to it, is a suit which probably did belong to him, or, at least, is of the same period. From the Knight's Castle, you are led to * Yes, there is another. On the gates of the castle are daubed two sentinels armed cap h pied! Forcibly recalling to my memory the figures painted in the sentry-boxes, which were wont to delight and terrify me when an urchin, and cause many a clandestine expedition to Bayswater tea-gar- dens. t The oldest piece of armour I have seen in Germany, is in the collection at the Lowenburg, at Wilhelmshoe. It is a moveable visor of the close of the fourteenth century ; but both possessors and exhibitors are evidently ignorant of its value and antiquity. LAXENDORF. 303 the Knight's Chapel, his tilt-yard, and his farm ; the upper apartments of the latter are filled with ancient cabinets, paintings, and curiosities of every description, Laxendorf is first mentioned by old Minnesanger Tanhuser, who, having wandered from land to land, and from court to court, and seen, as he himself informs us, Crete, Jerusalem, Cyprus, Normandy, Antioch, Coblenz (!), Rome, and Pisa, came to Vienna during the reign of the Emperor Frederick II., who highly patronized him, and gave him a residence in the capital, and other pro- perty in its neighbourhood. " Zu Wiene hat ich einen Hof Der lag so rechte schone ; Lupolzdorf was darzuo min Das lit (liegt) bi Luchse nahen ; Ze Hinperg hat ich schone guot," &c. Laxendorf, lying close by Leopoldsdorf and Himperg, is evidently the Luchse of our fortunate Minnesanger ; and, towards the close of the thirteenth century, we find the name of one Pertold, of Lachsindorf. In 1330, Albert IL, surnamed the Lame, Duke of Austria, possessed a castle at Lachsindorf, and Duke Albert III., " with 304 AUSTRIA. the tress," built a new castle upon the site of the old one, and had the magnificent furniture and valuable antiquities which had previously adorned Saint Leopold's castle on the Khalenberg, removed to this place, which became his favourite resi- dence ; where, shaking off as much as pos- sible the cares of sovereignty and secular pomp, he worked in the garden with his own hands, and, studying Palladius on ru- ral economy, amused himself with planting and horticulture. Its marshy situation, however, is supposed to have shortened the life of this amiable prince. Seized, during an expedition into Bohemia, with a mortal disorder, of which he had here laid the foundation, he was conveyed back in haste to Laxendorf, and died on the 29th of August, 1395, aged forty-six, amid the la- mentations of the citizens of Vienna, who crowded round his corse, exclaiming, " We have lost our friend, our true father ! " In 1683, the Turks laid Laxendorf in ashes. It was rebuilt by the Emperor Leopold L; and his son Charles IV., in his brown surtout and bag-wig, here de- LAXENDORF. 305 lighted to " bait the heron." Joseph II. turned the old blaue-haus*, which was for- merly the falconry, into the imperial resi- dence. The Gothic toy on the lake owes its existence to a whim of the late Empress of Austria. But the sun is fast descending behind us — his last rays are lighting up the boundless prospect. Let me take advantage of them to point out to you the only remaining ob- ject of interest in the picture : on that gray conical hill, that, dimly looming on the verge of the horizon, might almost be mistaken for a cloud, stands the castle of Presburg ; at its foot lies the capital of Hungary, and past it hurries the broad Danube, widening, deepening, and strengthening, as it flows, wheeling to the south round the walls of Buda, washing those of Belgrade, and bear- ing the tributes of the Save, the Drave, the Teiss, and the Pruth, through the swamps of Bess-Arabia into the dark Euxine. At the moment I am speaking, the eyes of * " Blue-House," — this, however, is a corruption. The name of Blaue-Hausis derived, not from the ancient colour of its walls, as the vulgar suppose, but from the family of Plauenstein, its original possessors* X 306 AUSTRIA. all Europe are bent in the same direction. The cannon has been fired that may shake the peace of the world. The flames that are kindling on the shores of the Black Sea may spread to the mouths of the Mississippi. But I have neither the talent nor the ambition to be a politician or a prophet; and so farewell, gentle reader: the bugles of the peaceful herdsmen, salut- ing some returning visiters of Baden, shall M sing truce 9 ' to our warlike speculations, for " The night cloud has lower' d, And sentinel stars set their watch in the sky." It is time to hurry down from the Temple of Glory, and return to the gay city. Go lounge upon the bustling and brilliant Gra- ben — gaze upon the pyrotechnics of the Prater, or laugh in the little theatre of Leo- poldstadt— -seek the Glacis, the Volksgar- ten, or the Opera. I leave you with this conviction, that if I have only been fortu- nate enough to induce you to descend the Danube to Vienna, there is little doubt of obtaining your pardon for any failure in my attempt to amuse you on your way. NAMES OF THE CITIES, TOWNS, VILLAGES, CASTLES, MONASTERIES, &c. ON THE BANKS OF THE DANUBE, FROM RATISBON TO VIENNA. RIGHT BANK. LEFT BANK. Regensburg or Ratisbon. Stadt-am-Hof. i Reinhausen. Weichs. St. Nicola. Schwabelweiss Einhausen or Biirgelut. Tegernheim. Irlmauth. Kreuzhof. Donaustauf. (Ruin.) Barbing. Reifelding. St. Salvator. Sarching. Sulzbach. Demling. Nassenhart. Bach. Friesheim. Frenghofen. Ilkhofen. Kruckenberg. Ettersdorf. Altach. Auburg. Kirfenholz Eltheim. Gaissling. Seppenhausen. 1st Post Station from! "PfWto • Regensburg J ■Jriatier. 1 GiefFen. Oberachdorf. Wiesent, Worth. (Chateau.) Hungerdorf. Tiefenthal. X2 308 NAMES OF THE CITIES, TOWNS, RIGHT BANK. Griefau. Gmund. Herrfurt. Irling. Aholfinjr. (Ruin.) Ober and Unter Motzing Landersdorf. Breitenfield. Rinkheim. Einhausen. Eberau. Moosklagers. 2 te P ;ensbuf nfr ° m }STRAUBlNG. Aiterhofen. Ittling. and Unter Eblina: Atzelburg. Hochstatter Hof. Ober Hundersdorf. Saut. Absam. Hermansdorf. Einbrach or Kinbrach. Mitterdorf. Hindeldorf. I I I LEFT BANK. Keesel. Hochdorf. Heiligen Blut or Niederach. Bogen or Hagenhof. Sinzendorf. Pondorf. Zeitsdorf or Zeitlarn. Weihern. Beichsee. Kirchenroth. Pittrich. Neidau. Kossnach. Pfaffenmiinster. Hartzeitdorn. Sossau. Sossauer Beschlacht. Hormannsdorf or Hornsdorf Thurmhof. Ober and Unter Parkstetten. Reibersdorf. Lenach. Ober-Altaich. (Kloster.) Boffen and the Bog-enbenr. (Ruin.) Huttenhof, Holzkirch. Hofweinzier. Anning. Dorfl. Pfellms:. Linzing. Esper. Weichen- bers:. ON THE BANKS OF THE DANUBE. 309 RIGHT BANK. LEFT BANK. Endau or Zengau. Allkofen. J Albertskirchen. Petzendorf. Strasskirchen. Irlbach. Wallendorf. Loche. Rafer or Asperhof, Wischelberg. Aichach. Stephan-Posching. Maria-Posching. Uttenkofen. Hundeldorf. Steinfurt. Sommersdorf. Steinkirchen. Klein -Schwarzach. Bergheim. Ziedeldorf. Offenberg. Neuhausen. Himmelberg. * Metten. (Kloster.) Metten Ufer. s (Ruin) Natternberg*. Helfkam. Fischerdorf. Schaching. Deggendorf* ost Station from (Plattlillg Oil gensburg | the Inn. Deggenau. Halbe-Meile-Kirche. Isragemiind. Seebach. Reit. Helmdorf. Unter Schwarzach. Hengersberg. (Ruin.) Thundorf. Nieder Altaich. (Kloster.) Alten Ufer. Aicha. Gindlau. H aardorf. Kreuzberg. SSge. Munchsdorf. 310 RIGHT BANK. LEFT BANK. Osterhofen. Mulheim. Winzer. Hochwinzer.(Ruin.) Rockessing. Pockessing. l Loh. Kinschbach, Rossfelden. Guscherdorf. Mittau. Endsau. Nesselbach. Biflez. Leiten. Kinzing. Langenkinzing. Herzogau. Hofkirchen. (Ruin.) Pleinting. OberandUnter Schollenbach Eurode. Reif. Gelbersdorf. Hildegardsberg. (Ruin.) Wisbauer. U. L. Frau. Albersdorf. Schmelz. 4th Post Station from \ Vikhnten Regensburg, S Vlisnoien. l Wmkel. Witzling. Hacheldorf. Hannsbach. Windorf. Ottenham. Eglsee. Sandbach. Gerharding. Kotzing. Fisching. Leestatten. Deichselberg. Einod. Kling. Biberach. Geishofen. Schalding. Iring. Reit. Ord. Hof. Soldern. l Alaning. Donauhof. Dobelstein. Haining, Worth. Maierhof. ON THE BANKS OF THE DANUBE. 311 RIGHT BANK. Steinbach. 5th Post Station from Regensburg } Passau. Truckerheim. Achleiten. Parz. Aich. Schildbauer. Unter-Mitter-E Sternberg. Deitzendorf. Hetzmanns- dorf. (Chateau.) Krempenstein. Pirawang. Unter Schacha. Ober Hiitt. Hochleiten. Kasten. (Chateau.) Fichtenstein. (i SS££j} Engelhardszell. Ober \ Unter | Leitner. Ober-Rana. Kacher. Wesen Urfar. 1 l crq I LEFT BANK. StOlzel-hof. Freunde. Hain. Ilz-stadt. Oberhaus. Lindau. Aiehet. Leiten. Wingertsdorf. Schergendorf. Mazenberg. {(Bavarian Custom- House.) Ober Unter Grunau. Gottsdorf. Ried. (Ruin.) Rana-Riedl. (Chateau.) Rana-bach and Mtihle. Ufer. Nieder Rana, Marsbach. (Ruin.) Marsbach Zell, or Frey Zell. 312 NAMES OF THE CITIES, TOWNS, &c. RIGHT BANK. LEFT BANK. ? T b f Iwollmarkt. U nter J j (Ruin.) Waldkirchen. sj/ Pulhof. Kirschbaum, or Hayenbach. (Ruin.) rhe Sehlagen, or Schlag- leiten. Lidritzhueb. Lidritzhueb. Au. Im-Zell. Ob, Fadenau-Hof. si} schwend - Ober-Michel. Kirschberg. Hinter-Aigen. Dorf. \ Windberg. f Neuhaus. (Ruin and Cha- teau.) SchOnleiten. Rosengarten. Stauf. Aschach. Landshag. Hartkirchen. Dorsham. (Ruin.) Schaumberg. Pupping. Ober Walsee. Eschelberg. Mulhachen. Bergheim. Gstettenau. Hofham. Au. Auerdorf. Waschpoint. Worth. 8th Post Station from { Efferding. Regensburg j Schab. Taubenbraun. Gablau. • Mohrhausel. \ Raffolding. Ihndorf. Busenbach. Bach. ON THE BANKS OF THE DANUBE. 313 RIGHT BANK. Tratteneck. Sirass. Emling. Aham. Stoekod. Basleiten. Hartheim. Alkofen. Garderiener. Hagenau. Bergham. Gohbesch, Steger. Schwagen. Schohering. Im-Fall. Urfar. (Kloster.) Willering. Calvarienberg. Margarethen. 9th Post Station froml Regensburg. J LlNZ. j j > Rosenthal. I I I LEFT BANK, Goldwarth. Waldinger. Rodel. Hoflein, Ottensheim. ' (Chateau.) Buchenau. Hager Schloschen. Postlingberg. Urfar. Anhof. Pflaster. Harbarz. Bach, Furth. Magdalena. Dornach. Furtner. Katsbach. 314 NAMES OF THE CITIES, TOWNS, &c RIGHT BANK. LEFT BANK. Plosching. Kaufleuten. Binneshauser. Blankenreit. ' Spital. Zitzelau. St. Peter. Dorfl. Ebelsberg on the Traun. Steyereck. (Ruin.) Pulgarn. Traundorf. Reichenbach. Bosch. Luftenberg. Unger Bichling. Hof-im-Schlag. */r to . w .„( Fosterau. Monastery of bt. Flonaiv andMarkt. ( Fischau. Himberg. RafFerstetten. Auwinden. Asten. 1 (Chateau.) Tilly's Burg. N Kronau. St. Georgen. ' Gusen. Wirthshaus. Frank enberg. (Ruin.) Spielberg. Langenstein. 10th Post Station from I Ens. Regensburg j Urfar. Ensdorf. St. Lorenz. Lorch. Mauthausen. Pragstein. Enghazen. Tabor. Windpassing. Biburg. Reissersdorf. Albing. Albing. Albern. Niedersebing. Stein. Au. Berg. Auhof. Mitter- berg. Wagram. St. Pantaleon. ▼ Hartschlossel. Naarn. Erla Kloster. Anhausel. Strass. M. Lab. ! Arbinar. ON THE BANKS OF THE DANUBE. 315 RIGHT BANK. Breitfeld. Weinberg. Oberau. Engelberg. Engelthal. Mitterau. Lin. Unterau. Eck. Gersberg. Achleiten. th Post S tation from ) ~ , , Regensburg. JStrengberg. Haag. Staudins:. Hurling. Sindburg. Nie derwalsee. (Chateau.) Ober ) Unterj Sumerau. Leitzing. Im Briich. I l l LEFT BANK. Baumgarten. Stafling. Holzleiten. Starzing. Rupertshofen. Miinzbach. Windhag. Allerheiligen. St. Thomas. Langacker. Wagerhof. Gang. Weisching. Inzing. Hordorf. Hulting. Mitterkirchen. Menschdorf. Eizindorf. Froschau. Saxen. Dornach. Klam. (Chateau) Hofkirchen. 316 NAMES OF THE CITIES^ TOWNS, &c RIGHT BANK. Hagenauer, Bocksreiter. Ardagger. Winkling. Mayherhof. Wies. (Ruin.) Haustein. (Ruin.) Hirschau. (Ruin.) Freyenstein. Durfel. (Chateau.) Donaudorf. Ips. Hinterhaus. Ober ) . Sausenstein. Idersdorf. I 1 I LEFT BANK, Petzeldorf, Rinzenhof. Sauriisselleiten. Tiefenbach. Wies. Grein. (Chateau.) Giesenbach. Struden. (Ruin.) St. Nikola. Sarblingstein. Hirschau. Isper. Weins. Marhof. Kiernholz. Busenbeug. (Chateau) Taberg. Gottsdorf. Barthub. Motzling. Rohberg. Rosenbiihel. Loja. ON THE BANKS OF THE DANUBE. 317 RIGHT BANK. LEFT BANK. Thiimling. Auratsberg. 1 Kranz. Marbach. Maria-Taferl. Schelmenbach. Krumnussbaum. Krumnussbaum. Pechlarn. Klein Pechlarn. Worth. Ebersdorf. Lehen. Urfar. Weideneck. (Ruin.) St. Georgen. uth Post station J (Kloster) from Regenstmrg J Molk. I Hain. Emmersdorf. Hueb. Schall-Emersdorf. Gosam. Urfar. Grinzing. Schonbuhel. Sehonbuhelhof. Dorf Aggsbach Markt Aggsbach. Aggstein (Ruin.) Willendorf. Groisbach. St. Johann. Schwallenbach. Ober Arnsdorf. Hof Arnsdorf. I Erlahofe. Unter Arnsdorf. Spitz. Hinterhaus (Ruin.) Bach Arnsdorf. St. Michael n'terj Ktmlcck. Wesendorf. 318 NAMES OF THE CITIES, TOWNS, &c. RIGHT BANK. St. Lorenz. Ruhrsdorf. Rossaz. Hundheim. Mautern. Kloster-Guttweih. Palt. Brunnkirchen. Thalern. Angern. Wolfsberg. (Ruin.) Holenburg. Wagram. St. Georgen. Rittersfeld. Trasenmauer. Stollhofen. Frauendorf. Preiwitz. Bodensee. I 1 I LEFT BANK. Joching. Weissenkirchen. (Ruin.) Diirrenstein. Ober ) T .., Unter| Luben - Stein. Krems. Weinzierl. Lander sdorf. Ruhrendorf. Weidling. Neu-Weidling. Teiss. Schlickendorf. Donaudorf. Grunddorf. Jedtsdorf. Graf en worth. Wasen. St. Johann. Ober 1 und VLebern. Unter J Sachsendorf. Kollersdorf. ON THE BANKS OF THE DANUBE: 319 RIGHT BANK. Kleindorf. Berndorf. Zwentendorf. Erpersdorf. Klein Schunbuhel Kronau. Asp em. Tuln. Ober und Unter Aigen, or Langenlebern. Muckendorf. Zeiselmauer. Worten. St. Andre. Altenberg. (Ruin.) Greifenstein. Hoflein. Ober Kritzendorf, St. Veit. Unter Kritzendorf. Kloster-Neuburg. I l Weidlim Josephsberg, Leopoldsberg, sephsberg, Leopolds berg, XT^.f^l both called the Khalenberg. J uvl rei » I LEFT BANK. Altenworth. Gugging. Winkel. Frauendorf. Birnbaum. Urzenlaa. Mollersdorf. Neuaigen. Triebensee. Perzendorf. Ober Schmidabach. Zana. Schmida. Ober) und >Zeyersdof. UnterJ Stockerau. Spillern. Alt-Kreutzerstein. Korneuburg. Bisamberg. Tuttenhof. Dorf. Lang-Enzersdorf. Jetelsee, 320 BANKS OF THE DANUBE RIGHT BANK. Nussdorf. Heiligen Stadt. Dobling. Wien, I or Vienna, J I LEFT BANK. Gedlersdorf am Spitz. 19th Post Station, and 27 Posts from Regensburg, or 243 English miles. Distance by water about 300 English miles. THE END. Printed by William Clowes, Stamford Street. Speedily will be published, in illustration of this Volume, FORTY VIEWS ON THE DANUBE, DRAWN ON STONE by L. HAGHE, FROM SKETCHES MADE ON THE SPOT BY J. R. PLANCHE. No. I. will contain : 1. Ratisbon, from Hohen-Schambach. 2. Donaustauf. 3. Schloss Worth. 4. Straubing, /'