MASTER NEGA TIVE NO. 92-80822 MICROFILMED 1992 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES/NEW YORK 11 as part of the Foundations of Western Civilization Preservation Project 11 Funded by the NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES Reproductions may not be made without permission from Columbia Unrversrty Library COPYRIGHT STATEMEiNT The copyright Uiw of the United States -- Title 17, United States Code - concerns tiie rnaknig of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material.. . Columbia University Library reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order if, m its judgement, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of the copyright law. AUTHOR: BIGELOW, POULTNEY TITLE: PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE PLACE: NEW YORK DA TE : 1892 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IJlHvAlUES I'RHSEKVATION DEI'ARTMRNT Master Negative # 32r^22;Li^ JJIOUOGKArHlC MICROFORM 1 AKGET Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record mtf^mmmmutmmrm'^' Restrictions on Use: 943D2o E48 Bigelow, Poultney, 1855- 1954 Paddles and politics down the Danube. By Poultney Bigelow. With illustrations by the author. New York, C. L. Webster & co., 1892. XV, 17-253 p. front., illus. ISi*^". {Half-title: Fiction, fact, and fancy series) 1. Danube River. 2. Canoes and canoeing* Library of Congress ^"^ DR14.B59 5-7284 — .i.,» ^.,. -^ TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA FILM SIZE: ^ VI REDUCTION RATIO: IMAGE PLACEMENT: lA 10 IB IIB DATE FILMED: 1iW2'- INITIALS ^^j lU HLMEDBY: RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS. INC WOODBRIDGE. CT n Association for information and image Management 1100 Wayne Avenue, Suite 1100 Silver Spring, Maryland 20910 301/587-8202 Centimeter 1 2 3 4 5 6 ll|l|ll|Mll|lllMlllM|Mllli|lililiMl|>iii'iiiiliii)i I I I I I I I I I I I I i I I I I I I 12 13 14 15 mm Inches 1.0 I.I 1.25 UL 2.8 2.5 y^ ■ 56 3.2 2.2 |63 III ^^ iSA |40 2.0 u. •i u luuu 1.8 1.4 1.6 MflNUFRCTURED TO flllM STflNDFIRDS BY fiPPLIED IMAGE. INC. S?^-*.' .*- I' :#S#^ 9mms ms ixx tlj^ ffiitu of %Uw %)ovh. GIVEN BY pTof-BT^TTcleT JVbitthe vrfs. This book is due two weeks from the last date stamped below, and if not returned at or before that time a fine of five cents a day will be incurred. OCT 2 t933 MAR 1 7 133, I • • iTirtton, iTnct, anh iTancj) 0crie0 Edited by Arthur Stedman ; PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE 1 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •! • • • • • • •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •••••• ••• • • • • • • • • • •• • • • • •• • •• : •: . : , JTictioii, JTact, anlr Jancn Scries. ♦-♦-♦- MERRY TALES. By Mark Twain. THE GERMAN EMPEROR AND HIS EASTERN NEIGHBORS. By Poultney Bir.KLOW. PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE. By Poultney Bigelow. SELECTED POEMS. By Walt Whitman. AUTOBIOGRAPHIA: THE STORY OF HIS LIFE. By Walt Whitman. DON FINIMONDONE: CALABRIAN SKETCHES. By Elisadkth Cavazza. THE MASTER OF SILENCE: A ROMANCE. By Irving Bachkli.er. WRITINGS OF COLUMBUS. Edited by Paul Leicester Ford, Other Volumes to he Aiuioimcid. Bound in Illuminated Cloth, each, 75 Cents. *** yor Stiti' by all Booksellers, or sent post/>aid, on re- Ci'ipt of price, by the Publishers, OHAS. L WEBSTER & CO., NEW YORK. H • • •• • •• •! • • • !• •! • t • • • • • ••• • • • • • • • • • • •• :•••: • • • • • • ..:•..•• • • • . * • • • • • • .«. .•• • • , • • 2 • • • •:••: • • • 1 • • • • • • •-• ••• • •• • • • • • • • • • ?•? ••••• ••••• • . : , :•: . : ...•• ••• -~ _;- =» Caribee at visegrad castle. — Chapter XII. ■* * • • • • • Paddles and • ••, • • • • • •• • ••• • • • • • • • • • • • ••••• • ••• ••... I . :•: . : , DOWN THE DANUBE BY POULTNEY BIGELOW WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR NEW YORK CHARLES L. WEBSTER & CO. 1892 Sfe, •• • • • •• • • • • ••• •,, • •••••• • • • » • • • • ■ • • .!: v.: • • • • • • • • • • • •• •••••• :•: • • • • • • • • • • • •• • •• •-• • • • • •• • , • • • • • • •••••••• Copyright, 1892, CHARLES L. WEBSTER & CO. {All rights reserved.) PRESS OF Jenkins & McCowan, NEW YORK. ( 'J oi s-.- pa „1~ <2^ cr. CO K- o EDITOR^S NOTE The idea of cruising the whole length of the Danube in an American sailing canoe had for many years been cherished by Mr. Bigelow, but not until the summer of 1 89 1 had the opportunity presented itself to make the journey. His canoe voyages in this country, the West India Islands, and in parts of Europe other than the Danubian districts, had convinced Mr. Bigelow that the traveler who was able to carry with him his bed, his food, his library, and his clothing, without exhaust- ing his physical powers, was well equipped for learning something new. The canoeist, in his opinion, was the only traveler who could boast of the full combination of advantages thus enumerated. It was Mr. Bigelow's original intention to write a descriptive and historical book on this great interna- tional highway, and with that object in mind he invited an artist friend to accompany him for the purpose of making a series of drawings. When their whole voyage was completed other plans developed ; and Mr. Bigelow therefore abandoned his first purpose, and has limited himself to a briefer description of the trip and to dis- VI editor's note cussions of Danubian politics in the light of information gained at first hand. A few rough drawings which he made on the way were not intended for more than the diversion of his children, but he has been requested to allow these to be reproduced for the purpose of illus- trating this volume, and as giving remarkably lifelike pictures of the racial types along the river. The readers of Mr. Bigelow's companion-book on The German Emperor, and His Eastern Neighbors, and those who peruse the present work, will soon discover that their author regards the Danube as a European highway which, like its American counterpart, the Mississippi, can never attain full development until it owns but one master from source to mouth. The author's opinion as to who this master shall be is pretty clearly suggested in the following chapters. Credit is due the " Century Magazine " and " Harpers New Monthly Magazine "for portions of this book which have been reprinted from their pages. TO A DEAR HUNGARIAN FRIEND, GERSTER LAJOS vu CONTENTS 'i CHAPTER PAGE I. Incidental to the First Day on the Danube . 17 II. The Watch on the Rhine 26 III. Hohenzollern CasUe 34 IV. Dams and Rapids 42 V. The Fortress of Ulm 47 VI. A Rare Old Town in Bavaria 55 VII. One or Two Suggestions to the Canoeist . 63 VIII. The Danube Waterman 71 IX. The Capital of the Holy Roman Empire . 77 X. Priestly Miracles 82 XI. Caribee in the Strudel and Wirbel .... 98 XII. Why We All Love the Magyar 102 XIII. A Night of Revelry near Budapesth . . . 117 XIV. Entertained by Hungarian Peasants . . . 132 XV. Some Noble Gypsies 142 XVI. The Szegedin Harvest 154 XVII. Servian Public Opinion 164 XVIII. Caribee Shoots the Rapids of the Iron Gates 171 XIX. In a Bulgarian Water-Mill 193 XX. A Turkish Bit of River 204 XXI. My Friend, the Bulgarian Agent .... 217 XXII. The Jew from a Danube Point of View . . 226 XXIII. Russia at the Mouth of the Danube . . . 240 {X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Caribee at Visegrad Castle — Frontispiece Launching the Canoe Caribee 24 Portrait of Max Schneckenburger 28 Climbing to HohenzoUern Castle 39 Approaching a Dam 44 Caribee on Sliore with Tent Up 57 Plan of the Original Rob Roy Canoe 65 Plan of Canoe Caribee 73 Hungarians Dancing I34 Gypsies Dancing : I49 In the Whirlpools of the Iron Gate 173 CrtWi^t'^ at Trajan's Tablet ... 183 Servian Fisherman on Horseback 195 Turkish Sailor Paddling a Dugout 201 In the Kalafat Caf6 205 Angry Turkish Skipper 207 Caribee Borne by Bulgarian Porters 209 Water Carrier, Bulgaria 210 Greek Priest in Bulgaria 211 Girl in the Market, Widin 212 Turkish Porter 214 Bulgarian Gens d'Arme 215 Bulgarian Official 218 Bulgarian Loafer 219 Turkish Emigrant 222 Watermelons for Sale 223 xi Xll LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Jews at a Russian Railway Station 227 Russian Peasant 228 Roumanian Peasant 230 Herdsman of Moldavia 233 Russian Cab Driver in Galatz 235 Russian Railvva)' Conductor c . . 237 Roumanian Peasant and Her Baby ...... 241 Russian Sentinel 242 Home from Market 245 Roumanian Officer 248 Parish Priest in Roumania 251 PREFACE Such instruction or amusement as the reader is able to extract from these pages is due in the first degree to the kind friends who smoothed my social progress and gave me access to political opinions worth reflecting. Many of these gentlemen I cannot mention; for in Poland, Russia, and Bulgaria, people who think do so with great risk. The members of the Lia Rowing Club of Vienna, the Neptune Rowing Club of Buda- pesth, the Donau Rowing Club of Ulm — these three placed Caribee and her crew under pro- found obligations. Their members entertained us in the best spirit of fellowship, and gave us a new type of the well-trained oarsman and the high-bred gentleman. The Danube Steamship Company showed me many courtesies, thanks to Lieutenant- Colonel von Deines, the German Military At- tache in Vienna. Amongst the many to whom, in this regard, I am debtor, are Dr. Wm. Howard Russell, XIU XIV PREFACE the first of war correspondents ; the late Ser- vian Finance Minister, Myatovitch ; Professor Carl Abel, the Orientalist ; Messrs. Luther and Schlotterbeck, who are engineering the Iron Gates Works ; Demeter Ghika, the Roumanian diplomate ; Mr. Heinz, the chief engineer of the Franzens Canal ; Professor Waldstein, of the American School of Archaeology at Athens ; Professor James Bryce, M. P. ; George von Bunscn, of Berlin ; Dr. Bamberger, of the German Reichstag ; Colonel Frederick Grant, the American minister in Vienna ; Dr. Carl Schrader, member of the German Reichstag ; Professor Pultsky, of the Budapesth Museum ; Pultsky Agost, member of the Hungarian parliament — and a host more whose names it is a pleasure to recall as I write. P. B. The Century Club, Nezv York, May, 18^2, ' J J > »• > 3 ) J ) ) 1 1 J ) PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE XV e c c » » • •• c I < » t • < c « t • • c • • • I I ( a f • « I J > > I J » » «»•»•, ' -> • PADDLES AND POLlTiGS DOW.N ; THE DANUBE CHAPTER I REMARKS INCIDENTAL TO THE FIRST DAY ON THE DANUBE THE light had faded from the longest and brightest day of the year 1891 when three very tired men lay down to sleep upon the bottom boards of three well-thumped canoes. They had started that same morning from the place usually accepted as the source of the Danube, had tumbled their boats over seven dams or weirs, had escaped the rocks in the rapids, had feasted their eyes upon meadows glorious in wealth of flower color, had passed below grim ruins many of feudal castles, chat- ted with the people on the banks— and more cleanly, intelligent, and friendly population it would be difficult to find in Europe— and had finished the day a little below Tuttlingen, a 17 8 f t 'c » • •l »"e ' 15^" PADDLES AND POLITICS « » tov/j\ forevei'famdus in that here was educated , the,9yatho'r of thd.'* Watch on the Rhine." . ; . While 'our three canoeists are adjusting the angles of their anatomical structure so as to sleep sweetly upon a bare board, let me retrace the features of the first day's navigation of the Danube, the first of the many that are to carry us, we fondly hope, "from the Black Forest to the Black Sea." The little town of Donaueschingen, perched high in the invigorating air of the Black Forest, has been arbitrarily designated the source of the Danube. The prince who owns most of the land in the neighborhood has built an orna- mental stone basin for a very powerful spring that gushes out close to his palace, and has erected a portentous slab, notifying all th^ world that this is the genuine source of the greatest of European streams, that it is 2,840 kilometres to the Black Sea, and 6y8 metres above tide-water. I ventured to point out to an intelligent Black-Forester who stood with me by this monument that the real source of the Danube was higher up, but he regarded my statement as outrageous. '' Gott in Himmel ! " said he, piously. " Here lives the prince; here DOWN THE DANUBE 19 is his palace; here is the official statement cut in the stone. What more do you want ? " I was silenced, but could not help feeling that if an enterprising promoter could secure some other prince, get up a stock company, hire a spring further up, build a summer hotel, call the place -Danube High Spring," or -Danube Source Original," carve it in stone, and make the rival prince hold court at the summer hotel, in three seasons Donaueschingen would be bankrupt. Nevertheless, we rejoiced in considering this place the source, for even if there are others, none of them is more picturesque, more ven- erable, more clean, or more full of kindly peo- ple. The prince has given the town a park, every bit of which is full of beauty, and as the little town seems built upon it, one cannot move from the front door without feeling that here at least the delights of country life are joined with those of a little city. It is a place to spend a long summer with one or two friends addicted to pedestrianism or the bicycle, for the roads are excellent in all directions, and the scenery a little of all, from the grandest to the prettiest. To us, however, the value of Donaueschingen 20 PADDLES AND POLITICS consisted mainly in the fact that it held our three canoes, and that they were to be launch- ed here on their voyage down the Danube. And, for that matter, the people of the town appeared to share our feelings, for as we work- ed upon our tiny craft in the courtyard of the Gasthaus zum Schiitzen, we gradually became the centres about which a large proportion of the population, both male and female, hovered and asked questions. The host took great in- terest in our work, mainly, w^e hope, from per- sonal sympathy — perhaps, also, because, of those who came, many remained to talk it over in his beer-room. Among a people so famed for woodwork and clocks as those of the Black Forest it was not surprising that they should enjoy a novelty that appealed directly to their most widely practised craft. The three little boats were alike in dimensions, weight, and rig, all being made on the banks of the East River, New York. The weight of each is eighty pounds net, to which is added that of two masts and sails, a brass folding centre-board, a nickel rud- der that drops nine inches below the keel, camping kitchen, steward's pantry, tents, and clothing for day and night. When the canoe -nr~. DOWN THE DANUBE 21 is fully loaded it exceeds considerably the weight it represented on the stocks, but is never more than can be conveniently carried by any two of us for a reasonable distance, as, for in- stance, around a dam, or onto high ground when going into camp. This point of weight is the most vital one in a cruising canoe, for it is only by being so light that it can accomplish so many objects. We learned to value this element on the first day, for we had seven dams to pass, some of which forced us to " carry." Of course, had our boats weighed as much as some English sailing ca- noes, we might have procured the service of people living in the neighborhood, and thus achieved our object; but the carrying of canoes by inexperienced hands is not always well for the boats. . Our party passed twenty-one dams before reaching the navigable part of the river. We never accepted any assistance from the people on the banks, although it was generously of- fered We found that one of us at bow and another at stern were quite sufficient, and that we saved much wear and tear and gained enormously in time by carrying them ourselves. The canoes are fifteen feet long, thirty inches 22 PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE 23 wide, and leave a space of about one foot be- tween the bottom board and the deck. At bow and stern are water-tight compartments reaching about three and a half feet from each extremity, and giving space enough for the clothing and stores of any reasonable camper- out. The remaining eight feet of the boat means a clear space for him to stretch himself at night — two feet longer than a steamship berth, and quite as wide. Sleeping on wood seems discouraging work, but one's bones soon become adapted to it. The luxuriously inclined can spread a blanket or woolly garment in lieu of spring mattress. The sides of the canoe shelter the sleeper from the wind, and in case of a shower he has a series of deck hatches that fit nicely each to the other, and keep a large part of him dry. For the rest, he can pull a rubber blanket over the boat, and be quite sure that no harm will result. This is, however, a makeshift, which we adopted in order to avoid the weight of our tents until we had passed all the dams. For the same reason we sent on our masts and sails to Ulm, and proceeded in " light marching order." Our boats are entirely of wood — broad flat oak keel, an infinite number of little dainty oak ribs, on to which the sides are copper-riveted. The decks are of mahogany, and in general they represent an amount of elasticity and strength never before combined in boats of their weights and dimensions for a cruise of this kind. As to stores and dress, that question is easily solved in a country like Germany. We have the authority of the cook and of the purser of our party in saying that it is unnecessary to bring from home more than the mere boat. Any little town in the fatherland can supply the needs of our party as well as London or New York; and at Donaueschingen we bought an excellent spirit stove; pots, pans, plates, etc., of enameled iron; and of course a long sausage, coffee, tea, sugar, lemons, bread, but- ter. Germans make and use large quantities of preserved meats and soups, and it must be a small town indeed where a canoeist cannot fill his pantry satisfactorily. This item is the more important in that the intending canoeist who reads this may not merely save himself the customs duty on the frontier, but the freight as well. But come— an end to prefaces ! It is already past 8 o'clock, and we have been up since 5, 24 PADDLES AND POLITICS making final dispositions for the cruise. All Donaueschingen is gathered about the inn, on the bridge, and along the embankments of the stream — ay, even the uniformed representative of the military department is there to wish us God-speed, to say nothing of a clever young lady from Boston, to whom two of us are in- debted for hav- ing our nation- al ensigns neat- ly laced to our r^ i miniature flag- =j posts. ^ ^ ^ One shove of ^^^?t&i the paddle, and " ^ ~^ we are clear of the bushes and in the strength ofacurrentcar- rying us at the rate of two and a half miles an hour. The stream passes through the beautiful park, and we are for an hour or more starting up swans, whose headquarters are in the park lake, but whose enterprise carries them for many miles down the river. Our first day is crowded with the sensations Carihee WAS SLIU OVER THE IRON RAILINGS, AND INTO THE HEADWATERS OF IHK DANUBE, AT DONAUESCHINGEN IN THE BLACK FOREST. DOWN THE DANUBE 25 \ that contribute to happiness— a bright day, with just enough of passing cloud to save the skies from monotony; a body of clear, crisp, eddying water beneath, just lively enough to make one have an eye to the paddle lest one be caught foul in swinging around a sharp corner; banks of grass retreating from the river until they merge themselves in the leafy re- cesses that crown the distant mountain-tops of the Black Forest; and flowers !— who could do justice to the wealth of gorgeous coloring that sets its fragrant limits on the edges of this stream } From the decks of our boats we feast our eyes upon such an expanse of floral beauty as only California could match; and as our craft skirt the shore we can enjoy the charming details of this picture by picking our boats full of these sweet ephemeral treasures without so much as leaving our canoes, or even slacking their speed. 26 PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE 27 CHAPTER II THE WATCH ON THE RHINE AND OUR FIRST CAMP ON THE DANUBE NEIDINGEN, Gutmadingen, Geisigen, Immendingen, Mohringen, Tuttlingen — all these are passed before reaching our first camp. But of these Tuttlingen is our darling. We have not passed a village that could not have made us happy for many days; each with its ruined castle, its mediaeval tower, its steep gables, its colored tiles, its quaint belfry, its tidy and cheery peasants; but all this, and more too, is united in Tuttlingen. This little town also has its feudal castle, its ruined battlements, its legends, and its quaint gables; but it has more than this — it has the proud distinction of having educated the poet who made United Germany. The war-song that has made all Germans merge their local differences in one great purpose — the common fatherland; that united Bavarians and Prussians, Saxons and Wurtembergers in 1870; that brought victory over the French, and an imperial crown to the House of Hohenzollern — that song is ** Die Wacht am Rhein," written at the age of twenty- one, by a lad whose schooling was obtained in Tuttlingen. It is needless to say that his name is Max Schneckenburger. The people of Tuttlingen are now raising the money needed to place here a worthy monu- ment to the man who has made their town fa- mous. They have placed a square pedestal up- on the bank of the stream as a mute invitation to help on the noble work. Of course we brought our mite from across the Atlantic, and promised to stir our friends up also. In Tutt- lingen is a committee of the leading citizens, who are prepared to receive and acknowledge contributions. Little is known of Schneckenburger. He died in 1849, when only thirty years of age. His father blacked boots and lifted trunks in a village tavern near Tuttlingen, but was obvi- ously of superior character, for he eventually became a small merchant and married well. Max did not go to the university — his father was too poor — but in Tuttlingen he was thoroughly schooled, and then sent to Switzerland, where the post of errand-boy was given him in a gro- cery store. His short life was one of hard work 28 PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE 29 and small earnings, far from his beloved father- land, and seeing of the world only what ap- peared in the course of trips made as a com- mercial traveler. His widow assures us that a day never passed that Schneckenburger did MAX SCHNECKKNBURGEK, WHO WROTE " DIE WACHT AM RHEIN " IN 1840, WHEN TWENTY-ONE YEARS OF AGE. not kneel in prayer for his fatherland; and his motto, chosen at the age of fifteen, was this word alone, " Deutsch." In 1840 he wrote '' Die Wacht am Rhein" as an indignant protest against the French pretensions of that time, but the battles of Gravelotte and Sedan had been fought before his country was made to know the source of their inspiration. Schnecken- burger is another of the many names that hu- manity loves to honor, but which, alas ! human- ity discovers long after its honor has ceased to be of any material consequence. We supped in Tuttlingen while our boats were hauled up -by the river's bank; but as we supped, Tuttlingen assembled to see us start. We shall never know by what mysterious agen- cy we were made to become at once the creat- ures of fame— and in the very shadow of Schneckenburger ! Was it the contribution to his monument ? was it interest in the American canoes ? was it the hope of seeing us capsize at the big dam between the bridges ? I believe that the love of Schneckenburger made all Tuttlingen interested in us, although several kindly Tuttlingers warned us against the dam. At any rate, as we paddled off in the twilight toward the roaring that indicated the fall of wa- 30 TADDLES AND POLITICS ter, the two bridges were crowded with specta- tors, not to mention the sides of the stream and every window. We had. however, already passed five dams, and therefore felt more com- fortable than might have been the case had this been our first. The canoes were headed for a bunch of roots, snags, and reeds that had lodged on the crest of the fall about the middle of the stream: we jumped out here, having the snags to hold on to, so that we might not be carried away down the falls. The next thing to do was to select a clean bit of water down which to shoot the boats, while we held in our hand the end of a painter about forty feet long. The boats did their part well, dived prettily into the river below, drew^ up short w^hen they reached the end of their tether, waited patiently until we picked our way carefully from stone to stone down the ragged slope of the dam with trou- sers tucked above the knees, and finally jumped along merrily when we were safely aboard. The people waved hats and handkerchiefs when we passed the barrier, and wished us " GliJckliche Reise." We replied with an enthu- siastic cry of '• Schneckenburger soil hoch le- ben ! " and the hills rang with such cheers as had never before gladdened the valleys of the DOWN THE DANUBE 31 Black Forest. Men, women, and children ran along the banks after us, wishing happiness to the three strangers who had come many miles to worship at the shrine of Schneckenburger. That night we drank the health of Tuttlingen's great poet, and for many days thereafter our toast remained that of Tuttlingen: '' Schneck- enburger soil hoch leben ! " A few minutes below Tuttlingen we shot our boats over another dam — our seventh — then hauled them up in a fragrant meadow that formed a sharp point into the river, sponged out the few drops of water that had come into them, and lay down to rest in the bottom. A pair of boots rolled up in an odd pair of trou- sers made a very good pillow; an ulster was ready in case the night became colder; an In- dia-rubber blanket was also at hand in case of rain; the monotonous roar of the waterfall dinned pleasantly upon our tired senses, to which there came, later on, the prattling treble of maidens' voices wondering what manner of boats these were, and what manner of men could live therein. But we were too drowsy to note even what manner of maiden had come across the moonlit meadows. We fell asleep under the ruined battlements of three media;- 32 PADDLES AND POLITICS val castles — Wasserburg, Luginsfeld, and Hon- berg, of which the minstrel sings: " No bannc- floats upon its keep; No warders line its wall; The shouts of war and wassail sleep In Honberg's roofless hall. The furze and lichen flourish wild In love's neglected bower, And ruin frowns where beauty smiled In Honberg's lofty tower." Here was the place to dream of gallant knights and ladies fair, of bloody battlements and ghostly dungeons, for each of these three castles has legends enough to start a Walter Scott with raw material. We cared for noth- ing save close communion with the bottom boards of our several canoes until the sun burst upon us next morning from over the opposite mountains. One of us — this is no place for personalities, and I suppress names — rather favored the idea of cooking breakfast in the boat as being a com- pact thing to do, and one that prevented the cooking vessels from being lost. With this ob- ject in view^ he placed the spirit stove between his knees on the floor of the canoe, and it being a very powerful double-action one, he balanced DOWN THE DANUBE 33 the coffee-machine above and the pot of hot milk beneath, the idea being that both would come to the boiling-point at about the same time. Unfortunately they did, and with an ex- plosion that could not be escaped. The boil- ing coffee sputtered violently out at the top; the milk squirted as violently below. The bare legs of the experimenter, to say nothing of his arms and other parts of his thinly-clad person, were savagely scalded. His involuntary antics to escape the persistent torrent of boiling milk and coffee only endangered himself and boat still more, and had it not been for the timely intervention of the rest of the party, the spirits would have gone blazing from stem to stern, and made a bonfire of boat and cargo. That experiment resulted in filling every cranny of one boat with coffee grounds and milk, and im- pregnating everything about with a flavor of these misplaced ingredients, not to mention damage done by scalding the experimenter. Henceforth, it is needless to say, our kitchen was in the open air; a new cook was appointed, the old cook allowed to wipe the dishes, and all hands have gained by the results of that first at- tempt to cook breakfast for three between two knees in the bottom of one canoe. 34 PADDLES AND POLITICS CHAPTER III HOHENZOLLERN CASTLE BY 7 o'clock we had cooked another break- fast, disposed of it, washed and wiped our dishes, packed our boats, and entered upon the second day of the journey — an even more interesting one than the first, for now the mountains close in tighter upon the little river, the banks are rocky and run up sharp from the water's edge. Every bend is the opportunity for a castle, and as these were built about a thousand years ago, they are now highly pic- turesque if not practical monuments. The Rhine suffers seriously in comparison with the first five hundred miles of the Danube, but no- where more than in this neighborhood, for not only has the Danube ruins as striking and ex- tensive as those of the sister stream, but she has more of them. And what in our eyes adds still more to the charm of the Danube is the virginal character of its rock and forest — a rug- ged grandeur not yet vulgarized by villas and summer lodging-houses — and in addition the DOWN THE DANUBE 35 picturesque peasantry whom we see crowding the bridges at noon, laden with scythes, rakes, and forks, stalking like an army of rebellious rustics out into the hay-fields after their mid- day dinner in the village home. The most se- cluded part of the Rhine between Mainz and Bonn has about it the flavor of being prepared for Saturday afternoon visitors; is infected with suburbanism; is pretty, but painfully self-con- scious. The Danube, on the other hand, is more like a rustic and ruddy nymph, ignorant as yet of her charms. She disports herself where the average tourist does not pass; the Baedekers and Murrays have nothing to say of her many secluded nooks. It is only by water that her charms can be seen to advantage, for at times her banks are so steep and rocky that it is not possible to build a foot-path along the edge of the water. The day is bright, a pleasant breeze playing in the leaves as we paddle, or rather drift along; for so much claims our attention that even the current is too rapid for us. Kallenberg Castle is a fine square ruin, and we are thinking that it is better in its way than the Drachenfels of the Rhine, when Bronner Castle looms up more imposing still. Here we draw ashore for a 36 PADDLES AND POLITICS lunch under the trees, and the epicure may like to know that it consisted entirely of cold salmi sausage, black bread, butter, cold milk, and bottled beer. The dietarian may also care to to hear that we were none the worse in con- sequence. This is a day of castles; each turn brings us to one, and each is more striking than the other. Wildenstein, Wernwag, Hausen, Falkenstein — these are some of the more stiking ones that greet us, ending with the ruins of Dietfurt, be- low which we pitch our second camp. Each castle is in itself material for an exhaustive chapter. The fine elevation of rock and forest; the little clustering village; the old bridge, with the statue or image of a saint over the middle arch; the massive church, that seems to have been built originally as a fortress; the ruin itself, with its history of by-gone sieges and quaint childish legends— all these made us wish to stop for a week or so at each hamlet, sketch every courtyard, trace every legend, measure every stone. And most of all did we wish to stay in dear little Gutenstein, at the ''Gasthaus zur Sonne," with its jolly fat host, its round little panes of glass, its black-oak timbers, its low ceiling, its venerable benches DOWN THE DANUBE 37 and tables, the talkative locksmith, whose little daughter slept in his lap while he sipped his beer, and who told us that his wife was making hay while he looked out for the shop — a veri- table Rip Van Winkle, who no doubt got his deserts when his Gretchen came home. The fat host wished us ''Prosit!" as he banged each well-filled mug before us; his wife wished us a good digestion as she brought us three huge pancakes steaming hot from the kitchen. '' God greet you ! " was the welcome we had received on entering; and the good old man waddled all the way down to the water's edge to see us off and wave us his wish for a '' happy journey." Here was a host after our own heart; he treated us as part of his household, laughed at our jokes, and would have wept with us had we wished him to. Yet we had to leave. The next day we are up and off early again, after a refreshing sleep in our boats, a dip in the river, and a good breakfast cooked in camp. Yesterday's scenery seems to us too good to be matched, but the experience of our third day teaches us that the most beautiful is always one step beyond. Leaving the camp near Dietfurt at 7, the river hufries us along several exhilarating 38 PADDLES AND POLITICS rapids, then makes one or two sharp curves, passes between perpendicular rocks, and into what might be a very deep lake, surrounded by bold and bewitching banks, suggesting a little Yosemite Valley — a very little one indeed, but still impressive. Here and there is room for a patch of meadow, where bright peasant maidens are tossing the hay about, and these lend an agreeable contrast to the great rock walls and the forest-capped peaks that appear beyond. The boat drifts lazily along here, for the cur- rent has been mysteriously absorbed. The nooks in the rocks abound with flowers whose brightness is reflected in the water with ex- quisite effect. We are now on Prussian terri- tory, and here is the park of the HohenzoUern prince whose candidacy for the Spanish throne was made by France the excuse for war in 1870. A few miles more and we are at Sigmaringen, another imposing castle on a height of great strategic value, above a pretty little town, clean and picturesque. We have left behind us the Grand Duchy of Baden, and are passing through HohenzoUern, now associated with the present greatness of the German Empire. For a thou- sand years the name has been borne by a race of fighters whose lances and battle-axes have DOWN THE DANUBE 39 given way to magazine rifles and the methods X)f Moltke. The name has been carried far from the little Danube country — northward to the Russian border, I, ... /"l ii ^ ■■• ■'•».,..0«TT.^i / J ^,/ and to Holland ; to the west it has thrown its arms around Stras- burg ; and eastward it has driven the Holy Roman Empire to be- yond the centre of German influence. The castle to which all the branches of this much - divided stock look, as to the ancestral home, lies a few miles from Sig- maringen, the road winding along a tum- bling brook, whose mouth is near the foot of the ruins of Diet- furt Castle, to a point where the water on one side flows to the Danube, and on the other into the Rhine. In the broad valley shortly beyond this point THE DAY ON WHICH I CLIMBED TO THE TOP OF HOHENZOLLERN CAS- TLE WAS VERY WARM. 40 PADDLES AND POLITICS rises a solitary peak crowned with the battle- ments of Burg HohenzoUern. For miles on every side it is the most striking feature of the country, and rising as it does straight up out of a great plain, and commanding an unob- structed view of all surrounding approaches, it represented, down to our century, a military position readily appreciated. It has been twice in ruins, and twice built up again by the united efforts of all the family. The present castle was commenced in 1850, with a view not merely of preserving the cradle of the Prussian kings, but equally to represent in South Germany a military stronghold of some value. While, therefore, the architect has been given a free hand, in order to make the outward appear- ance harmonize with the geographical situa- tion, all the requirements of modern warfare have been taken into account in the construc- tion of the massive zigzag of defensive wall. A company of infantry were tramping out to drill as we came under the w^alls, which made us rather wonder where they could all find standing-room together for the purpose, until we discovered a little terrace cut out of the side of the slope, somewhat like the one on the Quebec citadel. DOWN THE DANUBE 41 The day was hot, our coats w^ere off, our waistcoats loose, and sleeves rolled up as we sought the public room of the castle, where a retired sergeant provided mediocre food at rather high prices. Of course the ''Kastellan" showed us the castle, but the rooms being modern, the in- terest is rather with historic association than with the objects themselves, precious as many of them are. The present Emperor has not visited the place since his advent to the throne, and it has never been much lived in by any of the royal family. A reason naturally suggests itself in the distance from Berlin, the smallness of the space available for an imperial suite, and the absence of entertainment in the neigh- borhood. HohenzoUern is by far the most complete and imposing castle on our line of progress, as well as the most interesting historically. Wiir- temberg had the audacity to occupy it with her army in 1866, supposing, of course, that Prus- sia was no match for Austria, and that Hohen- zoUern would ultimately fall to her share, but for this enterprise she has paid heavily. 4^ PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE 43 m CHAPTER IV DAMS AND RAPIDS FROM Sigmarin^ren on we have a rare treat in the way of exhilarating rapids, though at no time did we meet any water that could be called dangerous, or any rocks that were not readily perceived and avoided. Rapids and dams always give the canoeist fair warning by making great noise, and if there is any reason to anticipate difficulty it is wise to step ashore and reconnoitre before getting into the troubled water, unless, as occasionally happens, the whole situation can be taken in by standing up in the boat. None of us paddled over more than four dams, and at each of these the canoe attempting it got a bump or two on the rocks. As a rule we stepped out into the water on the edge, gave the boat a long line, and let her jump the dam where the water seemed freest from obstruc- tion. Perhaps this method is not quite free from risk, but it is sufficiently so for the canoe- ist. At Riedlingen (our sixteenth dam), for in- stance, one of the boats sticks fast half-way down, and threatens to swing around broad- side on. There is nothing to do but jump in to the rescue, which in this case means wading in water that is very cold and reaches above the waist. But the canoe is not hurt. Of course the canoeist wears no shoes and stockings in the boat, and is otherwise prepared for jumping into the water at short notice. Our third night is rainy, our camp in a mead- ow immediately below a picturesque little place called Zell. Although our tents are awaiting us in Ulm, we manage to spend a fairly com- fortable night by stretching a rubber blanket over the well of the canoe and protecting our heads with a straw hat. At four next morning our r//^/ member gives us a splendid breakfast of hot coffee, boiling milk, fried bacon, bread and butter, which, after a dip in the Danube, quite restores our spirits, and sends us merrily bobbing along down stream to revel once more in a day of rapids, castles, monasteries, dams, and haymakers. Near Zwiefaltendorf Castle, another massive ruin, a few minutes below camp, are a number of cascades that come tumbling into the Dan- 44 PADDLES AND POLITICS ube through a tangled wild of shrubberry, rocks and exquisite flowers — a mass of roaring foam about which the most delicate vegetation clus- ters as though quite used to the blustering of the waterfall. This little bit alone would make famous any neighborhood where tourists resort, ei,i, jj) 9 ■■jyiiy/Ay^-^f'^y ■ ^ v:>:.-4k. BY STANDING UP IN THR CANOR IT IS SOMKTIMKS POSSIBLE TO LOOK OVER THE EDGE AND JUDOK WHETHER IT IS SAFE OR NOT TO SHOOT THE DAM OR WEIR. but on the Danube it is only one of the hundred delights in store for the patient traveler. Our seventeenth dam is under the ruins of the castle of Rechtenstein, of which there still remain the walls of a massive square tower. One of us is intently admiring this castle while passing his boat over the dam, when his paint- DOWN THE DANUBE 45 er gives a tug that nearly carries him off his legs. The carioe has pivoted on a rock; the double-bladed paddle has been caught by the rush of the stream, torn from its fastening on tdeck, and is madly careering down the torrent. Here is another occasion when moments are precious, for that paddle must be overtaken be- fore the next dam, or be lost/orever. How, exactly, that canoeist righted his boat, got into her, and off, he can scarcely recall. The slope of the dam was made up of slippery rocks, difficult to find, and still more difficult to hold on to, yet the paddle was overtaken just in the nick of time. And this is an experience that has convinced our party, at least, that it is worth while carrying a spare paddle. In a few minutes, however, we are under another feudal castle, the well-preserved tow- ers of Ober Marchthal, and here, at our eight- eenth dam, one of us again narrowly escapes shipwreck, for we find the fall not an easy one. One of the boats took the plunge at the right- hand side of the dam, near the mill, and found the shoot so strong and steep as to bury not only her bow but a good part of the rest of her under water; and to add to the awkwardness of the situation, she was caught in an eddy and 46 PADDLES AND POLITICS jammed up against the side of the mill wall, from which issued several miniature cascades that played into the well of the boat. This could not be endured. Yet the dam was a bad one to creep down. Luckily two millers came* to the rescue. They brought a long pole that reached from the top of the wall to near the edge of the water; down this pole the canoe skipper dropped, while the millers held fast the upper end, and the canoe was rescued at the expense only of a good ducking to both crew and cargo. From our day's experience we de- termined henceforward never to shoot a dam without having our two forward deck hatches on and our paddles stowed below. But we are soon to have done with dams, for at noon of the fourth day we pass the last one at Oepfingen, marked as the twenty-fifth dam in some books of travel, but rated by us only as the twenty-first. We have obviously passed over several that we treated as rapids, for by repeated calculation we have been unable to discover more than the number mentioned. Let us add parenthetically that we had excel- lent high water. DOWN THE DANUBE 47 CHAPTER V THE FORTRESS OF ULM THE spire of Ulm minster is before us now; the river widens on receiving the cold, clear, pale green Alpine waters of the lUer close above the town; the outlying forts appear on our left; soon the town walls, with the concom- itants of a first-class German fortress — the bu- gle call, drum roll, march, march of a pontoon detachment. Wc rush under the railway bridge; one of us nearly runs down a bathing establish- ment; and at last, after four days of primitive Black Forest stream life, we pull up at the float of the first rowing club on the river, justly named the Danube Rowing Club. The committee of the club have made us their guests during our stay, and leave nothing undone to confirm in us our regard for the Ger- man sportsman. The club at Ulm has a dozen good racing and practice boats, singles, doubles and fours, some made in England, some in Frankfort. The quarters are adequate and tastefuUy^decorated, though the club suffers 48 PADDLES AND POLITICS from having no boat-builder in the town itself, being obliged therefore to send a long distance for repairs — at least as far as Frankfort. We discovered, however, that the president, in ad- dition to being one of the crack oarsmen of Ger- many, is no less famous as a mechanical genius, and we can never adequately express the grat- itude our party feels toward him for helping us put our boats into good shape after the batter- ing they had received in these past four days of dams, rocks, and rapids. Ulm is a most interesting town to explore — full of quaint steep gables, crooked little streets, houses that nod across the way to one another, five centuries crowded together in as many acres of stone and timber, and often crowded to death; for the town chronicle tells us that in 1635 15,000 of the people died, that in 1800 every eleventh man was carried away by disease, yet 100 years ago the town numbered less than 14,000, and to-day only about double that number. Now, with a Prussian command- er, the sanitary condition of the place is prop- erly attended to, although, from a commercial point of view, the town suffers considerably from having all the space before its walls sub- ject to the rules of war — no one can build with- DOWN THE DANUBE 49 in cannon range unless he promises to tear his building down when war begins. This is nat- urally discouraging to manufacturers. Before the voyages of Columbus, Ulm num- , bered 50,000 prosperous people, and she is the first town of the Danube that can say that her prosperity as a town was ruined by the discov- ery of America. It seems strange, at this day and in this place, to think of this little for- tress as being a great port for the trade of the East, and yet so it was. Cargo boats went down from here to the Black Sea, carrying the manu- factures of western Europe, and bringing back the treasures of the East, even from China; but all this came to an end with the discoveries of Columbus, and the diversion of Eastern trade around the capes. Ulm is famous also for having witnessed one of the most extensive and disgraceful surrenders in this century — a century, by-the-way, par- ticularly marked by great surrenders. On the 20th of October, 1805, the notorious Austrian commander Mack, followed by sixteen generals and 36,000 men, marched out as prisoners of Napoleon, who had on this occasion routed, killed, or taken prisoner 90,000 men, with a loss to him^self of scarcely 1,500. It was, I be- 50 PADDLES AND POLITICS lieve, in consequence of the number of prison- ers taken by the French in this campaign— over 50,000 — that Napoleon adopted the plan of dis- tributing them amongst the farmers in the in- terior of France, in order to make up for the conscripts he had called out. It would be interesting to know exactly how much Napoleon owed to his talent as a soldier, and how much to his good fortune in having had against him men of inferior capac- ity; for of Mack he wrote, six years before the campaign of 1805, " A man of the lowest medi- ocrity I ever saw in my life." He was never able to use such language of Wellington, Gneis- enau, Blucher, or Scharnhorst; and had he met them when First Consul, there would have been no Mack and no Austerlitz in 1805. But Ulm has another feature more glorious than any that war has created— a Protestant minster rising from out of this city of wars and sieges. For many miles around, this most grace- ful as well as most lofty spire is a conspicuous landmark, protesting as a sacred messenger against the barbarous battlements within which it is confined. We naturally spent much of our time in this splendid church, listening to the music of the great organ, entranced by the ar- DOWN THE DANUBE 51 chitectural illusion of the vast Gothic pile, the infinity of depth and height suggested by the multitudinous pillars, the soft caressing light from the stained-glass windows, the solemn re- pose that falls upon every object within its spell; and then ! — to step outside into the city of mines and counter-mines, of powder maga- zines and Krupp guns, to walk the streets where every fourth man is a soldier and the rest liable to service — the idea is revolting. And yet Ulm is not exceptional: are not Strasburg and Cologne two German fortresses ? In taking leave of Ulm we leave behind us the river of the dam and paddle, and enter upon the stream whose flow is interrupted by nothing more serious than a few rapids and whirlpools, and is consequently to us the Danube of sail as well as paddle. Our departure from the float of the Donau " Ruderverein " was attended with every circumstance calculated to stimulate the vanity of men less modest than canoeists. For the members laid aside their business, congre- gated at the club-house, raised their glasses collectively and individually in our honor, ex- pressed warm aflection for the President of the United States, joined in toasting the Queen of England, and drank perpetual concord among 52 PxVDDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE 53 the three nations we represented. The Royal Canoe Club of London, the New York Canoe Club, the Ruder-club Donau, each in turn was made the subject of enthusiastic eulogy and the pretext for another '' Krugerl "; and we are quite sure that if the sentiments expressed by the boating men who gathered together on that oc- casion are any test of the general feeling of the three countries they represented, then Germany has in England and the United States a triple al- liance compared to which that with Austria and Italy is as a bond of straw. We tore ourselves away; not that there was no more beer in Ulm, or that our list of toasts was exhausted, but it was already late in the afternoon, and time was precious. So, hoist- ine sail for the first time, and giving three hearty parting cheers, we turned our bows out into the swift current and shot down toward the middle arch of the stone bridge. We were accompanied by two members, who very cleverly paddled a square-sided, fiat-bottomed canoe, built only for one, and which rested dangerously low in the water. The supernu- merary paddlcr sat on deck immediately be- hind his mate, and both managed very skill- fully. Like all Germans, these two were expert swimmers, or the sport would have been risky in such a stream. At Giinzburg we went ashore for supper, and entertained our German escort. They sent their canoe back to Ulm at a cost of fifty pfennigs, or twelve cents, and had no more trouble until they got back to the railway sta- tion — a very convenient arrangement indeed, it struck us. For, so far as our experience goes, the canoeist is better treated in Germany than in America or England; the fares are low, and the boats carefully handled. We sent our boats, for instance, from Flushing to Donaueschingen — from the western edge of Holland to the Black Forest — a distance of about 450 miles, for 12.90 marks each, or about $3.25. The boats arrived without a scratch, although they were not crated. Giinzburg was our first landing in Bavaria; we left Wurtemberg behind with Ulm, to say nothing of Baden and Prussia before that. We seemed indeed to be doing quick work, to cross in four days as many frontiers, and in no quicker boat than a canoe. The change, too, was complete ; the peasants became more conservative in clinging to their broad hats and metal buttons. Every house had a niche ,^^ ffw 54 PADDLES AND POLITICS in which the gaudily painted image of a saint reposed ; and in the guest room of the tavern our beer was sipped beneath a crucifix that reached from the ceiHng to the window-sill. In the gateway of the town wall a lamp burned night and day before the Virgin Mary. On all sides was the evidence of complete devotion to religion. In this place, full of quaint bits of mediaeval architecture, we had supper of gulash and beer, a few more toasts to the pretty Kellnerin, to the ''Watch on the Rhine," to German oarsmen, and to the family of storks that had their well-poised nest on the steep gable over the way, and who peered curiously in the di- rection of three little canoes which three un- Bavarian-looking men had left in charge of the bathing-master of Giinzburg. We parted shortly before the last light had faded from the long day. Our German friends took the train to Ulm. We paddled out into the broad rushing stream, and pitched our camp on a little point of meadow-land just large enough to accommodate the boats comfortably, with a grove of trees between us and the world of possible disturbers. DOWN THE DANUBE 55 CHAPTER VI A RARE OLD TOWN IN BAVARIA WE had at last the luxury of tents. Not such as are used on shore, that smell of fermented grass and mud; that require a dozen pegs and awkward poles; that are clumsy to rig and clumsier still to stow away. No; our tents do not touch the ground at all; come in contact with nothing but what is clean. The top is hung between the foremast and the mizzen; the sides fall gracefully about the well of the canoe, and are buttoned at convenient intervals along the edges. The top is so high that the canoeist sits comfortably on his floor, can read and write, sketch, or mend his trou- sers, and when he lies down to sleep, secures such a pleasant circulation of air as no land- tenter ever had. Sleeping in his boat, the moisture of the ground does not affect him; nor need he feel nervous in regard to ants, beetles, earwigs, scorpions, and the many rest- less insects that delight in camps; not even a mosquito can get at him. For the sides of this S6 PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE 57 tent are of two different materials — one of *' cheese-cloth," that excludes mosquitoes and admits the air; the other of duck, that protects against bad weather. Each can be used in turn, or both together, according to circum- stances. From behind our tent we snapped our fin- gers at the murderous mosquito music, and fell asleep to wake at four next morning. And if ever the early bird found profit, here was a case in point, for on this morning we reached Lauingen — a place of importance when this stream was the frontier of the Roman Empire, and when Caesar's legions ruled along the Rhine and Danube as do those of England along the Indus and the Ganges. The place to-day pre- serves interesting traces of every century of our era, and that artist must be hard to please who could not spend a useful summer here with a white umbrella and a box of colors. The houses of the town have had difficulty in finding standing-room within the huge walls; many of the streets are narrower than our sidewalks, and even these have their sky obscured by many-tiered buildings, whose successive stories peach out foot by foot above one's head. The old town wall is almost hidden by the dwell- ings that have overrun it like creeping plants — the citizens living in it, under it, on it, and against it. Hardly a corner that is not worth a study, hardly a house that would not give material for a chapter. It was a very rich town once, and its burghers men of taste, who, like those of Venice, spent their wealth in Caribre is hauled up on shore for the night ; the canoe tent is RIGGED, AND THK SKIPPER IS MAKING A FEW NOTES BY CANDLE LIGHT BEFOUE LYING DOWN TO SLEEP. splendid houses and monuments that made their city famous. Lauingen suggests one of the once rich cities of northern Italy, the creation of merchant princes who thought no tax too heavy if it made their home more beautiful, and amidst 58 PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE 59 whom to be an alderman was to be an artist as well as a patriot. Facing the central square is a town hall of noble and harmonious propor- tions, fit to embellish a great capital; on one side, a lofty clock tower that would lose noth- ing of its effect were it in Florence and called a campanile. Ancient and noble mansions are here in abundance, each with its carvings and massive arches, reminding the spectator of a greatness that is past. And to complete this picture of beyond the Alps, there runs along one side a stone arcade, whose well-carved pil- lars and arches shield the pedestrian from the sun and rain. Lauingen gave birth, at the end of the twelfth century, to a man whose mechanical talent would to-day have led him to discover a simpler method of telegraphing or a cheaper fuel than coal, and have made him the honor- ary member of learned societies. This was Albertus Magnus, one of whose pupils was Thomas Aquinas. A mass of stories is still current of the extraordinary things he made; for instance, an automaton which could move and speak, and which one of his pious pupils afterward destroyed, thinking he was thereby serving God and spiting the devil. We know of him nothing but legends, and these prove only that he understood the forces of nature better than the people who denounced him. He once entertained his emperor with fruit produced in the midst of winter, which to his generation was abundant evidence that he was in league with the evil spirit. In our day, however, the town has sought to atone for past neglect by erecting in the beau- tiful market-place a bronze statue worthy of the first scholar of his day as well as of Lauing- en's early fame. The scenery from Ulm downward, though offering no striking elevations, is anything but dull. The effect of long flat reaches of water or meadow is always suggestive and full of varied color; the sky seems to unfold more of its mysteries to us then. Or is it that our at- tention is less diverted by nearer objects ? But no part of the Danube can be monotonous when moving in tiny canoes that feel the twist of every eddy, that dance to the music of every rapid, that rush with impetuous zeal down slopes of pale green shallows, and that narrowly escape being sucked into the back current at the river corners. Let us admit that the Danube can be grander at some points 6o PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE 6i than others, but uninteresting— never. Even with an overcast sky, the effect produced by moving; with a volume of water so vast, so ir- resistible, must be ever impressive — something like that produced by the never-changing, yet never the same, waves of the ocean. So one with the river had our canoes become that we scarcely noted the rapidity with which the landscape shifted, until we sought to mark down the features of a castle, or one of the huge water-mills, whose wheel hung between two anchored barges, and whose plash-plash paddle sound warned us against collision. The note-book of Alfred Parsons mentions that along this flat reach, ''for a long way above and below Ulm, the banks are lined with small willows and coarse grasses; oc- casional bunches of forgct-mc-not and some iris and valerian are the only flowers. On a hill-side below Donauworth, I saw bright pink dogroses, campanulas, geranium, veronica, epipactis, Turk's-cap lilies, pink coronilla, which is abundant, and a tall white composite with groups of daisy-like flowers and a leaf like the tansy; also a white erigeron." The river here, and all the way to the moun- tains of eastern Bavaria, is sought to be "reg- ulated " by the construction of stone dikes intended to keep the main channel clear, and prevent in a measure the consequences of floods. We were favored with fairly high water, however, and the dikes were therefore not so high but that we could occasionally get a glimpse of the meadows from our decks. From Hochstadt to Donauworth we passed ground which in 1704 was the scene of the bat- tle of Blenheim, so called after the little village of Blindheim, about two and a half miles north- east of Hochstadt. It "was a glorious vic- tory." It did Europe the doubtful service of propping up the Hapsburg dynasty for a few years, and made England forget all about treacherous Jack Churchill by directing her attention to the great Duke of Marlborough. The pompous lines of Addison have helped to make respectable the butchery of that day by exalting the " mighty soul " of the conqueror, and making the world believe that here was *' glory." The simple people of the neighborhood for many years after pretended that ghosts of the slain returned on the battle's anniversary to haunt this spot. " At Donauworth we stopped long enough to 62 PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE 63 admire its ruins of tower and wall ; the beauti- ful coloring of the old houses, that straggled back from the Danube along a sluggish stream that entered here; pretty gardens; black-tim- bered bridges — in short, another of the many- places from which we parted with regret. We staid here sketching and exploring until the sun had set, and then moved on reluctantly to find a place where we might go ashore and sleep comfortably in our canoes. CHAPTER VII ONE OR TWO CANOE POINTS WORTH NOTING NOW, to find a good camp site along the upper Danube requires presence of mind, quickness of decision, and, above all, knowledge of what is needed. The Danube is a swift stream, and while a camp-finder is making up his mind, his boat may carry him below his objective, whence it is not easy to paddle back. The camp must not be low, for fear of malaria; it must not be high, for we have to carry our boats; it must not be in the bushes, for we dislike insects — and yet a little shelter is a good thing. Fortunately in our cook we have combined not only the camping experience of two wars, but a genius for rapid selection, to which the rest of us are only too glad to pay tribute by appointing him a chooser of camps as well ^'s> chef de cuisine. When the evening shadows warn us that we are near tbe end of our day, our camp-finder paddles a bit ahead of the other two and reconnoitres for a landing-spot with an eye that sees not merely 64 PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE 65 height and depth, bush and beach, but intu- itively detects what is beyond. On landing there is but one feeling in every breast — to sacrifice everything to the comfort of the cook. His boat is first hauled out, carried up to the softest spot, carefully sponged, covered with its tent, and disposed for the night. While one of us helps here, the other, who is intrusted with carrying the pots and pans, quickly places the spirit stoves in position, spreads out a few deck hatches to serve as trays, disposes on these such articles as our cook may need, opens up the butter and milk, sees that the soup-stirring spoon is handy, that the salt- cellar is full, and that no ants are in the sugar. By this time cook's tent is in order, he enters the kitchen, and the remaining two hurry to attend to their canoes, animated by the cheer- ful rattle of the kitchen utensils. The three boats are drawn up close to one another, ac- cording to the nature of the ground, the stern being a trifle higher than the bow, as our heads are at the after end, and a little slope is good in case of rain. Clothing for the night is laid w4iere it can readily be got at, tents are raised, the boats propped so that they will not roll over; perhaps we have a swim, if the cook permits ; but eventually we are assembled around the flame on and over which our soup depends. Everything goes well with soup, as well as into it, but some things go better than others, particularly canned meats and ''ex- tracts." We found that of all our stores noth- ing did us so much good as our pan of soup along with a large piece of strong German bread. The utensils are all cleaned before turning SKETCH OF MAC GREGOR's ORIGINAL Roh RoV, \^(y<^. LFNGTH, 15 FEET; WIDTH, 28 inches; DEPTH, 9 INCHES; WEIGHT, 80 POUNDS. " The Rob Roy was built of oak with a deck of cedar. .... My bag- gage for three months was in a black bag, one foot square and six inches deep. A paddle seven feet long with a blade at each end, and a lug sail and jib were the means oi ^xo^MS^xon."' — Quoted from MacGregor's " One Ihou- sand Miles in a Rob Roy Canoe." in, so that cook may have nothing to complain of, and early in the morning he prepares us another meal — sometimes, by way of a special treat, making us a dish of genuine Yankee corned - beef hash in addition to the usual coffee ; then comes the washing up, furling of tents, stowing of baggage, a slide down the banks, and off for another day. 66 PADDLES AND TOI ITICS DOWN THE DANUBE 67 m Our camping-ground that night was on a clean meadow well situated above the point where the pale green water of the Lech runs its icy Alpine current into the darker and warmer Danube. We feasted here on eggs and soup, and curled into our sleeping-boxes shortly after 9. At 6 next morning we had our morn- ing swim before luxuriating in our breakfast of coffee and bread, to which was, on this occa- sion, added a mess of fried fresh fish. The Danube was full of interest next day. The song of the cuckoo greeted us. There was no steamship travel here, and the few barges that struggled up the stream drawn by horses appeared to be doing very hard work. The stream was carrying us at the rate of about six miles an hour, while we did not touch a paddle or hoist a sail, and we could hear the clinking of the pebbles as they rat- tled in the bottom of the stream. We might have fancied ourselves far from human life were it not for the flat-boats that ferried peas- ants, and also loads of hay and droves of cattle, from one side to the other, swinging across by means of a cable which spans the river, from which runs on a trolley a lighter line made fast to the boat. We frequently passed such ferry- boats containing, besides many people, two loads of hay, with teams complete, the horses enjoying the cool rest upon the river apparent- ly as much as the peasants, who saluted us with their pious *'God greet you ! " Toward noon we passed under the arches of a stone bridge at Neuburg, a town that is built about and upon a wooded bluff that runs up strikingly from the river, crowned by castle and towers, and betokening another mediaeval stronghold. Here our boats nearly met with disaster ; first, from the eddy, that caught one of the canoes below the bridge and swung it with such force against the stone quay of the town as to make a dent in the bow and a tre- mendous jangling amidst the kitchen utensils in the stern locker. The stream is furious, and no little care is required to make a landing on a narrow shingle beach below this wall. We succeeded, however, in getting ashore, and in pulling the boats' noses up a little, and were clambering up the stone steps to hunt up an inn, when down through the same bridge came a huge raft, the crew gesticulating wildly to the effect that they were going to make fast at this point. Had they come five minutes later, we would have been unconscious of the danger, 68 TADDLES AND POLITICS and our boats would have been torn away or ground to splinters by the irresistible mass that was hurrying down. We rushed to our boats by leaps and bounds, pulled them as far ashore as the narrow beach allowed, then plunged into the river to press against the raft, and help the crew in their efforts to clear our tiny boats. The situation was most critical. It was only a matter of a few inches more, but these meant life or death to the canoes. The crew worked with a will — we strained every muscle. The population on shore saw our peril, and gave us their sympathy : and, in short, the boats were saved. As we sat at dinner listening to the daughter of our host, who entertained us with Viennese waltzes, we determined never again to be pinched between a raft and a stone wall. Neu- burg detained us only long enough for a stroll amidst its old walls, in its many handsome but neglected buildings, with the traces of past greatness. The river bore us on again, and soon we passed Ingolstadt, the next Danube fortress below Ulm — a city of uniforms, pon- toons, guns, and drums — an interesting place historically, but choked with the spirit of mod- ern war. DOWN THE DANUBE 69 The first place we reached after breaking camp next morning was the prettily situated vil- lage of Vohburg, which still maintains the cus- tom of paying 50 guldens (about $25) to each maiden of blameless reputation upon her mar- riage. We passed from the water's edge through a dark passage under a massive tower of the old town wall, which is now in ruin, and climbed up through the crooked streets to what was once the citadel, and where now stands the church about which clusters the interest of Voh- burg to the outside world. The approach to this church leads under another ruined tower, the spaces of which are filled with pictures and figures of sacred character, before which are praying-benches that invite the faithful to pause. Below our pretty little Vohburg the river sud- denly parted company with the flat fields, and with a rapidity most surprising whirled us around a sharp mountain spur, hurried us be- tween steep, rocky, and thickly wooded hills. Another quick bend was made, and we paddled in betwixt eddies under the crosses and spires of one of the richest monasteries of Germany, devoted to the glory of St. Benedict, and called Weltenburg. The chapel was built at a time when everything that every art could furnish i V !| (■ J] :l! i ■ it 70 PADDLES AND POLITICS and money buy went to makin^c^ church edifices splendid. Clouds are built out above the altar, over which angel figures climb and look down with lifelike agility upon the spectator. What parts of the edifice are not ornamented with stained-glass windows, chapels, or costly col- umns, are covered with paintings. One of these represents Columbus discovering America, with the Virgin Mary on the forecastle, and a Ben- edictine monk marking the channel. The pro- fusely decorated altar is of course the central feature in this display of wealth; and it would be hard to exaggerate its impressiveness as a decorative feature — rich, harmonious in form and color, exquisite carving and modeling, a very palace of devotion. DOWN THE DANUBE 71 CHAPTER VIII DANUBE BOATMEN— GERMAN LIBERTY AFTER a too short rush down this splendid stretch, the river opened out, and we saw before us, perched on a hill above Kelheim, what looked like a Roman temple. It was the so-called '' Hall of Liberation," erected to the memory of the men who freed Germany from the domination of Napoleon in the beginning of this century. It was under a very hot sun that we climbed the steep hill above Kelheim in or- der to testify our sympathy with German inde- pendence. The temple is a very costly dome, inside of which are slabs bearing the names of such as the King of Bavaria recognized as the liberators of the fatherland. We were struck by the names of many Austrians and south Ger- man military mediocrities, and the absence of such as really did make their country free. Wellington is conspicuous by his absence; so the noble Boyen and Liitzow. The man whose far-sighted legislation lifted Prussia from out of the results of Jena is not to be found here— 72 PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE 73 we mean Stein — nor his able successor, Ilar- denbcrg-. The poets and thinkers, the patriotic spirits that stirred the people to heroic ex- ertion — these were the ones that fought Katz- bach and Leipzig; but they are not noticed on these pagan slabs. Schiller and Korner, whose songs of liberty fired the German heart and sent every school-boy into the army; Arndt and Jahn, Uhland and Fichte — names that in 1813 did more for German success than a fresh army corps — of these this Bavarian mau- soleum says nothing. We needed a glass of beer to wash away the effects of this hot climb, and this we enjoyed at a little water-side inn frequented by the boat- men of the river — an honest, intelligent, and hardy race of men, interesting to meet, for their life is full of change and not without dan- ger. The fact of our coming in canoes and not by land made us the more welcome, for, as one of them said to us energetically, " I am an old water-rat, and wish to be nothing else." It was therefore as ** fellow-craftsmen " that we invited them to share our beer and tell us of their life. And indeed it adds much to the charm of this river to see their great rafts curving around the bends, and kept in the current by a number of sweeps at bow and stern, so long as to reach beyond the eddies, and heavy enough to re- quire many hands to control them. Whole IB-cxu of C flRIBtE H H— Water-tight holds, with hatches on deck, to carry light freight only. W W \V— Open well, 8 feet long, covered when required by removable deck-plates. C Folding centre-board, like a fan. D— Rudder that lowers when sailing and is hoisted up when paddling. B-Back board, against which I recline and behind which is the pantry— the coolest part of Car i bee. families live on these rafts, and the rude frame huts knocked together for their shelter are hap- py homes to some for weeks and weeks during 74 PADDLES AND POLITICS the long descent. Many a traveling mechanic gets a lift, and his board besides, by volunteer- ing at the sweeps of one of these huge floating caravansaries, and this mode of traveling is much patronized, for it is obviously more agree- able than plodding along the dusty highway. Many of the flat-l)ottomed but sharp-nosed barges that go down this stream never return, being rudely built, and ultimately broken up for timber. Others that we passed are intended to last longer, and had in tow a second and smaller barge, in which were a pair of stockily built horses, at present enjoying the river view over a trough of feed, but who soon will be struggling up the tow-path, splashing through the mire, now floundering up to their bellies at points where the river is over the banks, now clambering like cats along the foot of the rocks, always keeping a tight strain on the long line that pulls their barge; and woe to horse and rider if any misstep hurls man and beast down into the dangerous current ! When many teams are pulling at one heavily laden boat, the effort to save one may endanger the lives of all. These river-side rough riders waste little time in prayer at such a moment, but whip out their knives and cut loose the rope of tlie fallen ones, DOWN THK DANUBE 5 quieting their conscience by the reflection that it may be their turn to-morrow. Loss of life in this manner is not uncommon, for, owing to the sudden swelling of the river after a rain, and the great difficulty of maintaining a tow-path in good condition, the work of man and beast along the Danube partakes much of picking one's way across a very bad and little known country, for the path is never twice the same to even a veteran teamster. But while these men have some of the cow- boy's recklessness and roughness, they have, too, the warm heart that usually beats in tune with courage. When our party boarded one of these great scows, they were immediately made the guests of the boat. Beer was brought forward; they were compelled to share in the noon-day dinner of beef, so generously dis- pensed that even a canoeist could not eat it all, and some of it had to be dropped secretly over the side, lest the feelings of our hosts might be hurt by the thought that their food had not been duly appreciated. From these people we borrowed a good idea in the way of protection against cold, wind, and rain— a garment good to sleep in, sleep on, stand in,^ or paddle in, falling below the knees; 76 PADDLES AND POLITICS one long piece, through which the head is thrust at the middle, leaving one half to fall in front, the other half behind. The sides are open, and there are no sleeves. It sounds as though the ventilation had been too generous- ly cared for, but such is not the case. On the contrary, it is the favorite overcoat of the Dan- ube watermen, and we promptly got the ad- dress of a tailor at the head-waters of the river Traun, in the Tyrolean Mountains, and had three sent down to us in every respect like those of our good friends the Danube raftsmen. We camped that night in sight of the spires of Regensburg Cathedral — an event that en- couraged us to wash our flannel shirts with great energy, for on the forenoon of the next day we made our entry into the whilom capi- tal of the Holy Roman Empire, called by the French Ratisbonne, and famous as the starting- place of many crusading columns who sought Jerusalem by way of the Danube. DOWN THE DANUBE n CHAPTER IX THE CAPITAL OF THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE *' There came a bold crusader, With fifty harnessed men, And he embarked at Ratisbon To fight the Saracen. This gallant knight. Sir Gottfried hight, Leads forth a noble band, Whose flag shall wave triumphantly In Judah's hallowed land." WITH the exception that the Saracen had rather the best of it as far as the flag-waving in Judah was concerned, this po- etic version is correct enough in illustrating the early importance of Regensburg as a ship- ping-point; it was, in fact, the first town above Vienna to send a regular packet once a week down the river (in 1696); and considering the state of the river then, and, above all, the moral view of highway robbery entertained by the landed gentry along the banks, this enterprise was no light one. Few towns, I fancy, combine within their 7^ PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE 79 walls so many buildings of interest, and so many memories dear to mankind. We sat down upon the pavement in the market-place to muse of these things, our backs to a church wall, and our hats full of freshly picked straw- berries from the basket of an equally fresh peas- ant lassie, who delighted in seeing us eat her fruit. But the monument most interesting to a canoeist is the stone bridge, claimed by Regensburgers to be the strongest in the world. At any rate, the span between the piers is no wider than the buttresses, and the river rushes through so turbulcntly as to create very risky- looking whirlpools and rapids below. The en- gineer troops of Ingolstadt have to take pilots when they pass this town, and we were strong- ly urged to do the same; but we had no room, and consequently determined to try for our- selves. We succeeded by choosing the right- hand arch, and our success was in spite of the devil; for his share in its construction was very great, as every Danube sailor will attest. The story runs that while the cathedral was in course of construction, the chief architect intrusted to a very clever apprentice the task of making this bridge. The young man felt so confident that he offered to span the Danube I I before his master had finished the cathedral. But he finally found that he had undertaken too much, for the sacred pile went up with great steadiness, while the bridge moved with great difficulty. The youngster finally vented his discouragement in blasphemous wishes that the devil might take over the job. No sooner spoken than a venerable monk appeared and offered to do the work. In his sandals were cloven hoofs, and a tail whisked under the sacred garb; but nevertheless a bar- gain was made, and it was agreed that when the bridge was done, the devil was to have the first three living things that crossed. The devil kept his word. All the material came to hand with such devilish rapidity that the morning broke upon a completed bridge. It was May-day, and of course a great crowd was present, each eager to be first in crossing so new and magnificent a thoroughfare. The devil, delighted with his bargain, rubbed his hands under the second arch from the shore, and waited for his victims. *'Stop!" said the architect to the crowd. ** Stand back ! In the opening of this bridge we have a solemn ceremony to perform before it can be pronounced safe. Jacob," said he, with 8o PADDLES AND POLITICS a wink to his foreman, " let the strangers take precedence." At these words a rough wolf-dog, followed by a cock and a hen, was set at large, and crossed the first arch of the bridge. At the same time a dreadful noise was heard under the piers. The mangled remains of the three ani- mals flew in all directions, and the devil was seen to disappear, screaming, "Cheated ! cheat- ed of my fee ! " The monks now sprinkled holy water on the bridge, and the happy people re- joiced. The second arch of the Regensburg bridge, as if to prove the legend, is still savagely bent upon destroying the boatman venturing be- neath it; and as we had no desire to measure the strength of our paddle with that of the devil's pitchfork, we carefully avoided it, and advise all others to do the same. The graceful Gothic spires of Regensburg cathedral now rapidly faded away behind us, and we passed down stream toward a rocky promontory on which has been built a temple to German fame, called the Walhalla. The proportions are those of the Athenian Parthe- non, and the situation is admirably chosen for the display of its striking beauty. All the DOWN THK DANUBE 8l branches of the German family are here united in one sentiment of pride and gratitude touch- in": the deeds of their ancestors, and it is emi- nently gratifying that Bavaria, of all German states, should set the example of honoring the work of Germans as citizens of a great empire rather than as subjects of petty princes. S2 PADDLTS AND POLITICS CHAPTER X PRIESTLY MIRACLES ONE of the most beautiful little towns in a country famous for such things is Deg- gendorf, nestling charmingly at the feet of the so-called Bavarian Forest, close to the mouth of the Isar and half-way between Regensburg and the Austrian frontier. Bavaria has few places so well adapted to amuse the stranger, and none that so singularly reflects the piety of her peasantry. Baedeker is strangely unin- teresting about it: he merely says, " 152 km. Deggendorf (322 m.); Friedrich, z. l^^ m.; (6,357 E.) etc.," adding drily that its trade and industry were flourishing. This by no means satisfied me, for I was in quest of a peculiarly picturesque trade and industry under the pat- ronage of the pope at Rome, the fame of which drew me ashore quite as much as the hope of a good dinner at the Friedrich. Caribee was sailing close to the shore, a sharp lookout being kept ahead for a good landing place, when a voice hailed me from DOWN THE DxWlJBE 83 what proved to be the boat-house of the local rowing club. There was a good float to it, and a member who was at that moment over- hauling a boat, invited me to make use of the club quarters. Nothing better could I have wished for. Caribee was comfortably stowed; I inspected the premises which at that time boasted of only two single scull shells, and after having answered his questions about the canoe, he began to answer some of mine about Deggendorf. I got from him this story — one which I had unearthed some time ago in the British Muse- um, but which became doubly interesting from being repeated by the lips of a Deggen- dorf citizen in the most modern of rowing costumes. *' Thousands flock here every year for abso- lution on account of the objects preserved in this little church which are supposed to work miracles." " Don't you believe they really work mira- cles ?" I asked. He looked at me quizzically — I thought he winked. His answer was evasive. "The peasants believe it." Then he pro- ceeded: 84 PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE 85 ''In 1337 there was a massacre of the Jews here. This is the way it happened : " The Jews were accused of having- bought of an old woman a sacramental wafer which she had stolen. This wafer they scratched, and punched and beat in every imaginable manner. One night the mother of God, so the people say, complained loudly about this out- rage. The night watchman overheard her, and he in his turn carried the news to the Elders of the town. " Of course the greatest indignation pre- vailed, because every one was bound to be- lieve the mother of God, particularly when she sent a message through the night watchman. The Christians swore, every man of them upon the crucifix, not to rest until every Jew in Deggendorf was destroyed. The very lord of the castle came down with his armed men and helped in the general murder. Not a sin- gle Jew escaped. The houses they inhabited were first thoroughly plundered and then burned to the ground." This seemed to me very wicked, and I said so to my boating friend. '* Yes, I suppose it was," replied he; "but then it was very popular, be- cause every man in Deggendorf, from the lord in the castle to the stone-breaker, was prob- ably deep in the Jews' debt — and this was a short way of settling all claims between debtor and creditor.* *It is curious in this connection to turn to the 7th chapter of Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella, about the persecution of the Jews in Spain and the founding of that devilish institution called the " Inquisition." On page 239 we read: " But all this royal patronage proved incom- petent to protect the Jews when their flourishing fortunes had risen to a sufficient height to excite popular envy, augmented as it was by that profuse ostentation of equipage and apparel for which this singular people, notwithstand- ing their avarice, have usually shown a predilection. " Stories were circulated of their contempt for the Cath- olic worship, their desecration of its most holy symbols, and of their crucifixion, or other sacrifice, of Christian- children at the celebration of their own passover. " With these foolish calumnies, the more probable charge of usury and extortion was industriously preferred against them, till at length, towards the close of the fourteenth century, the fanatical popi lace, stimulated in many in- stances by the no less fanatical clergy, and perhaps en- couraged by the numerous class of debtors to the Jews, who found this a convenient mode of settling their accounts, made a fierce assault on this unfortunate people in Castile and Aragon, breaking into their houses, violating their most private sanctuaries, scattering their most costly col- lections and furniture, and consigning the wretched pro- prietors to indiscriminate massacre, without regard to sex or age." S6 PADDLES AND POLITICS ** During the conflagration the sacred wafer rose from a Jew's house and dropped into the apron of a Christian blacksmith. Hereupon a newly ordained priest from a neighboring vil- lage bore the holy object with all honor back into the church whence it was originally stolen. " This massacre gave great satisfaction to the temporal and spiritual rulers of the time; particularly to the pope, who issued a special indulgence to all those who had helped mas- sacre the Jews on that occasion." A learned German professor writing of this place says that in 1815 he found here at one time 10,000 pilgrims, all seeking indulgence for sins committed. He states that the limit of years for which indulgence at that time could be purchased was only 387,560 years. To me that amount of time seemed quite enough for all practical purposes. At that time most of the people had to sleep in the open streets, so crovv^ded was every part of the town. "The first to enter the church after the pastor was believed to receive the greatest indulgence. Naturally therefore," adds the professor, "there was plenty of punch- ing in the ribs, bloody noses and blue bruises in the contest at the narrow door. The DOWN THE DANUBE 87 market-place reechoed with cries of pain and the cursing of those straining to get priestly indulgence; and much laughing there was when a peasant woman lost her fine head- dress in the scrimmage." This extract from Professor Schultes's classic little book suggests that the author was not " orthodox " at heart; particularly as he states that of two honest priests who subsequently sought to set bounds to the imposition, one was exiled and the other sent to jail. He points out that the money contributed to the Roman Church by the pilgrims is very con- siderable, and that the clergy would be very sorry to have the anniversary of this historic massacre celebrated in any other manner. My rowing friend said that thousands came even now, but he could not give me the exact number. The official figures that I have found recorded in odd books on the subject fluctuate between 60,000 in the year 1766, and 100,000 in 1837, which was of course an espe- cial feast, being the five-hundredth anniver- sary of the glorious murder. I was hungry by this time, and strolled up into the quaint little town looking for the inn. The old walls are still there and the huge 8S PADDLES. AND POLITICS gateway as well. The market-place looked as it might have looked on the day of the memo- rable massacre, and there was the identical church into which the holy wafer was carried. The building itself is not very striking, but there are very curious pictures on the walls depicting the story of the Holy wafer accom- panied by a running commentary that I shall seek to reproduce. But first my dinner, which is another mira- cle — for I had soup, two meats, game, vege- tables, pudding, coffee, segars, and beer ad libitum, the whole for two marks, being equiv- alent to fifty cents. And let me add that all this was of the best, for this part of Bavaria is fa- mous for high living. Now, once more to our miracle church, and let us make believe that we are profound archaeologists making a discovery. The sub- stance of the wall paintings has been embod- ied in an exceedingly rare little duodecimo volume, the preface of which indicates that it was written, if not published, in the great year 1776, when American independence was pro- claimed, and when Adam Smith published his " Wealth of Nations." It is properly equipped with the Censor's imprimatur and whatever else DOWN THE DANUBE 89 can heighten its importance with priest and people. It is so very convenient in shape, and so full of woodcuts, that it was doubtless in- tended as a pilgrim's pocket guide. The title begins thus: " Das Obsiegende Glaubens Wun- der des Ganzen Christ. Churlandes Baiern," etc. The curious can find a copy of it, care- fully protected in a venerable leather pocket, in the library of the British Museum, but so valuable is it that the reader must go into a special room before being allowed to open the precious volume. There are ninety-seven duodecimo pages, the first twenty-three relating the story of the miracle, the balance being prayers appropri- ate to the pilgrimage, a full list of the many authentic and officially registered miracles performed here in the years 1769 to 1775 in- clusive, and finally a list of all those who took the communion here in the first sixteen years of this century, thus proving that one edition at least is as recent as 1817. We can now appreciate the paintings on the walls of the Deggendorf church, for they are not only reproduced in our little volume, but there is along with the woodcuts an official account of how it all happened. 90 PADDLES AND POLl TICS Chapter I. is headed: *' How a God-forgetting Christian woman several times obtained the sacramental wafers by perjuring her soul, and afterwards sold them to the Jews." And the picture depicts her kneeling at the altar, but instead of swallowing the emblem she is slyly placing it in a handkerchief, " Schnupftuch." This we are told was done by her ten times in the year 1337. The next picture suggests five violently agi- tated men trying to stab with a knife one of four eggs. The legend explains it: "The sacramental wafers are being pricked by the godless Jews until the most holy blood flows. They prick it with a shoemaker's awl, that is still in existence." The third picture represents four men about a table, on which is a child, and the meaning of it is, according to the accompanying text, that "The holy wafers are scratched by the rascally Jews until the blood runs. This tor- ture produces a little child. One of these thorns is still preserved." The fourth picture represents four men standing near an oven with this legend below: " The holy wafer is shot into a baker's oven, but it preserves the form of a little child and is DOWN THE DANUBE 91 not injured. The stone door of this oven is still to be seen." Picture five represents four men hammering at four egg-looking objects. This is the le- gend beneath: " The hands of the cruel Jews seize the hammers and smite the holy emblems several times upon a smith's anvil, but without effect. The base of this anvil can be seen to- day." In the next picture one of four men has every appearance of seeking to balance upon his chin a doll. The explanation reads: " To bring their wickedness to a climax and to hide the sacramental emblems as well as their crimes, these Jews, in their accursed thirst for vengeance, try to swallow the holy wafers. But once more a little child opposes them, with hands and feet, for this bread was not in- tended for dogs." The seventh picture shows a woman stretched at full length on the ground, while in the back- ground four men are dropping something into a well. The story reads: "The holy wafers are thrown into a well. The water is poisoned, so that many Christians die in consequence." The eighth chapter is worth quoting in full: "These foolish fellows returned from the well in 92 PADDLES AND POLITICS glee, thinking they had done the business well. They thought they had trampled on the great and only God, but instead of that they were themselves trampled upon, from life into death; from death into Hell. *' For the God who knows all was able to free himself from the leather bag (into which the wafer had been placed), although it was firmly tied. He swung himself up and showed himself to the Christians, and in consequence the well was closely watched. " But the Christians who had taken an oath together, fell unexpectedly upon the Jews. And since these obstinate Jewish monsters could not be brought to any sense of modera- tion (Gelassenheit) by humane treatment, all of them, without exception, were put to death, some by means of daggers, some by means of knotty clubs. *' And now, after murdering the murderers of the sacramental God, and freeing the town of this race of God-stealers, these same Chris- tian citizens called a newly ordained priest, who was born in Nieder Altaich. He put on his priestly robes and went w^ith them to the well. . . . Andlo! the miracle! When the priest arrived with the enthusiastic citizens all DOWN THE DANUBE 93 I ten wafers flew up into the air, and thereupon each one settled upon the vessel which the priest held out for this purpose. ♦'In this manner did the sacramental God give himself up as a gift to the inhabitants of this place, for they had proved themselves the hearty champions of his Godhead and his true faith. "The sacramental God allowed himself to be carried into the small and poor church here, where he still abides to the present day in the midst of innumerable acts of mercy and as- tounding miracles." The interesting feature of this quaint little story is not so much that the Jews were mas- sacred to a man in the year I337» ^o^ ^^ that time the murder of a Jew was, all over the civilized world, as popular a pastime as killing an Apache Indian is sport to-day for the orthodox cowboy of Arizona. The fact that the high clergy and temporal rulers of the day relished the massacre is equally easy to understand. We can almost appreciate the reasons which induced Pope Innocent the VIII. to protect the Deggendorf pilgrimage by a special Bull signed in 1489 when the rumblings of the Reformation were already ominous. r^r" 94 PAr)t)LKS AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE 95 But it is somewhat surprising that such a book should receive official sanction as late as the year 1816, and that to the present day the Roman Catholic clergy should lend its counte- nance to a story calculated to intensify the Jew- baiting propensities of their communicants. The Jews of Germany, who represent a very large number of intelligent and industrious voters, surely have a right to demand that such prejudice as exists against them in all countries should not be heightened by ridiculous false- hoods propagated by the people's clerical leaders. My friend of the boating club regretted, he said, the spirit that prompted this pilgrimage, but added that it was to the town a source of such great pecuniary profit, that no one of its citizens dared criticise the institution in any way for fear of incurring unpopularity. He would be simply boycotted. While on the subject of miracles, I might mention, by the way, that I can scarce recall a place along the Roman Catholic Danube that did not enjoy some reputation of this sort, though few so completely as romantic little Deggendorf. A rival village, Ober Altaich, according to the learned Professor Schultes (p. 339) preserves some hay that fed the ass on which our Saviour rode; some crumbs from the last supper; some of St. Peter's tears; a section of the title upon the crucifix; some of the fish which our Saviour ate, and many other remarkable miracle-working relics. In Neustadt, between Ingolstadt and Re- gensburg, the staff of St. Magnus was credited with the miraculous power of frightening away rats, provided it was properly waved to the four quarters of the heavens. At Sossau is the Virgin Mary's picture which in 1534 miracu- lously escaped from the hands of the wicked Lutherans, and was rowed up against the cur- rent by a crew of angels. Near Niederachdorf is preserved a drop of our Saviour's blood, which attracts hosts of pilgrims. Bogen, not far above Deggendorf, has a miracle-working statue of the Virgin. It was discovered one fine morning swimming up the river, and w^as reverently conveyed to the chapel of the castle, where it showed its gratitude by performing no end of marvelous things. The pilgrims who flocked to Bogen were almost as numerous as those that sought Deggendorf: even emperors are said to have come to worship here. Pas- sau has a statue of the Virgin believed to shed 96 PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE 97 real tears— an object of enormous veneration. At Maria Taferl near Poeciilarn, in Austria, stood an oak-tree which a peasant sought to cut down, but ineffectually. At the first blow he cut off one foot, and at the next he cut off the remaining one. This was so discouraging that he looked up, saw the Virgin Mary, repented of his impiety, w^as promptly healed, and went off to tell the tale to his fellow-peasants. The result was a chapel, streams of pilgrims, and much profit to the clerical treasury. The traveler looks for these tales south of the Alps; but the degree to wdiich they flourish in Germany, to say nothing of Austria, I confess caused me some surprise. It marks a great in- tellectual gulf between Protestant Branden- burg and Roman Catholic Bavaria. The one sees in Luther the man who gave to Germans the right to think, at least in regard to the future life. The other regards the monk of Wittemberg as nothing more than a sacrile- gious beast. When Bismarck in 1870 attacked the Roman Catholic priesthood, he embarked upon a cam- paign compared with which that of 1870 w^as a mere skirmish. The Iron Chancellor had in the war against France only bodies and bayonets to oppose him, and a Moltke did his fighting. In the - Kulturkampf " or rehgious war which followed, he had against him the re- ligious traditions of a thousand years, actively o^^anized and manceuvered by a priesthood well trained for the fight to which they were invited. Bismarck was completely beaten after nearly ten years of struggle, and signal- ized his surrender by sending to the Vatican m 1882 a special Prussian Envoy with the white flag of truce. As I sailed away from the little boat-house of Deggendorf, Caribee remarked to me in confidence that Bismarck would never have made such a mess of his religious crusade had he first made a canoe cruise down the Danube with his eyes open. 9B PADDLES AND POLITICS CHAPTER XI CARIBEE SURVIVES THE WHIRLPOOLS CALLED STRUDEL AND WIRBEL FROM Deggendorf on, the scenery becomes mountainous, rocky, even wild; particu- larly between Passau and Linz, where the river reminded us forcibly of the Hudson Highlands between Haverstraw Bay and Newburgh. We have parted with the black soil and luxurious peasants of Straubing, and come now amongst people whose habits are more those of moun- taineers, where lumbering is the chief industry, and where settlements are few and far between. Every sharp river corner carries on its crest the remnants of a feudal castle, whose tower still remains in token of its former grandeur and political importance, and a picturesque protest against the free commerce on the Danube. At the frontier of Austria we were ordered to stop, to come ashore, to show our passport, and to pay sixteen kreutzers apiece — quite in the spirit of the castles whose ruins we were passing. None of our boats were searched, DOWN THE DANUBE 99 however, and we were assured that the tax was merely a formality connected with passing into Austria. No such tax was demanded on pass- ing into Holland or Germany. The tax is, to be sure, small in amount, but a grievous one in principle. In the midst of this wildest and most beauti- ful part^ of the Danube — a stretch that may be said roughly to include Deggendorf and Diir- renstein — is the strikingly situated village of Grein, in the midst of a cluster of ragged peaks, each overlooking the stream, each with a ru- ined tower on it, and each meaning that here once ruled a robber knight who lived by the wrecks on his shores; for here are the famous rocks that cause the eddies and whirlpools and rapids called Wirbel and Strudel. We slept the night opposite Grein — a rainy night, not calculated to raise our spirits. After a cheer- less breakfast, one of us floundered along the frequently flooded tow-paths in the hopes of getting a glimpse around the corner of this much-talked-of ground of danger; but it was useless, for an island (Worth) interfered. We jumped into our canoes, resolved to make the best of it, stopped our ears to the warnings of friends on shore — forgetting for the moment lOO PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE lOT that a party of recent canoeists transferred their boats to a Danube barge at this place — stuffed our most valuable papers inside our waistbands, and pushed out into the stream in search of the enemy. Our hatches were fastened on with particular care, our sails and spars carefully lashed to the deck. Nothing was omitted to prevent a capsize, or at least to render one harmless. As we reach the dreaded corner, around which we anticipate the gyrating monster to lie in wait for us, each grasps more firmly his trusty blade, plants his feet solidly, and watches keenly the signs of the stream. Grein disap- pears, with its castle, its spire, its many holy shrines, at which the Danube boatmen pray before venturing on these troublous reaches. The spire of St. Nikolai peers up ahead — the little church built by the offerings of such as have escaped the terrors of the Strudel. As we hold our canoes amidst the eddies here, and think of what is before us, a dismal boom- ing sound greets our ears, and convinces us that now at last our fate is present. Two reck- less members of our party made sketches of St. Nikolai as we bob up and down in the rapid stream before her rocky ledge, and the other notes the square tower of lofty Werfenstein, that stretches itself up and over the black water. An ominous word, this Werfenstein — the rock-hiirler — and one that has sunk many a good ship before its own ribs were cracked. The booming, muffled, roaring sound grows louder. Will this preliminary torture never cease .'* Surely the worst must soon be upon us; for we have passed St. Nikolai, and beyond us is another robber castle, that gives us another shiver as we think of the cruel wrecks it has caused. We pass another spire, another crucifix. The roaring still continues, and the water grows normally smooth. Can this be the lull before the storm t we ask ourselves. No ; we have, without knowing it, passed both Strudel and Wirbel, and the booming roar comes from the boiler of a powerful tow-boat blowing off steam against the bank! I02 PADDLES AND POLITICS CHAPTER XII WHY WE ALL LOVE THE MAGYAR IT was a hot day, but not disagreeably so. A light breeze swelled the sails of Caribee as I glided wing and wing at the rate of about eight miles an hour down the Danube which is here three miles wide. It was my first day in Hungary; I seemed to have suddenly jumped into a country thousands of miles different from anything else in Europe. Every bend of the river furnished an agreeable surprise, and the day was too short for the many different things I had to do. In one hand was my tiller, in the other note-book and pencil; between my knees were my big ordnance maps, and my toes handled the main sheet. At such times as this I felt the value of toe training, for with- out other crew than myself hands are too few for the duties that fall upon one person. The weather was fortunately of the most propitious, and I found little difficulty in managing every- thing in the boat without shifting my comfort- able seat. Indeed, when cruising in the West DOWN THE DANUBE 103 Indies, where 'the trade wind blows steadily and softly I have had to do all this and hold besides a sun umbrella over my scorching head — all of which indicates that canoeing may be regarded as one part of a liberal education. Huge water mills, sometimes as many as thirty in a row, were notable features, though in the Hungarian stretches villages are so rare or at least removed so far back from the stream, that these noisy mill wheels appear often to be the only landmarks of civilization. The mill- ers speak German, of course, though their names are now well magyarized; that is to say, the Bamberger and Neumann of Austria be- come here Vambery and Nemenyi. These mills are constructed by hanging a huge wheel between two barges anchored in the swiftest part of the current. The main barge contains the grain and machinery for grinding and is the dwelling of the miller and his family. At a distance the whole thing looks much like the nursery version of Noah's Ark with an improve- ment resembling Fulton's original steamboat. They are at any rate picturesque features of the stream, and, what is more to the point, as- sist the canoeist in finding the strongest part of the channel. 104 PADDLES AND POLITICS { DOWN THE DANUBE 105 Nature conspired with man to make my first day in Hungary one of happy memory. The shores were never dull — here a group of dam- sels in gay colors have come down to the stream for a swim and perhaps some laundry work; further on I hear the plaintive music of the shepherd's pipe, and steal up behind him as he stalks meditatively along playing with all his soul, unconscious of the pleasure he is giving to others besides himself. At intervals are seen great herds of cattle, horses, hogs; sometimes they are in the water, and we sail under their very noses to the great amusement of their keepers. Music is in the air wherever there is a Hungarian, and when we come upon a little group, their presence is made known first by their bursts of song or speech. How can there be criminals in a country where every one makes music from the heart } Surely, thought I, no Hungarian can be in prison for a sordid offence, and the further I sailed on this happy stream the more did I feel confidence in this thought. Lazying along in this fashion I approached a group of men at a point where there was no other sign of a village. It was obviously a holiday of some sort, for these Hungarians had i \ an extravagant number of bright buttons on their jackets ; they were not barefooted, but wore very handsome top boots which were obviously not for comfort, as the thermometer abundantly proved. On their heads were little round black felt hats, clean and tidy ; their trousers were so loose and short that I mistook them for skirts— particularly as they are made of white cotton. Their eyes were strikingly brilliant and small. They had done their best to make their long, straight, black hair lie smoothly. Their fierce little mustaches were trimmed with military precision and sharply waxed. They looked soldierly, manly, enter- prising, independent — a good sort to be with — and so I ran my bow ashore. They spoke to me in their own tongue, and finding that I was not Hungarian, one w^as soon discovered who knew German. With him I spent a couple of highly interesting hours. He piloted me to a little settlement called Do- burgaz, I believe, where there was an inn — at least a public house capable of furnishing cheese, bread, sausage and excellent rough country wine. My host of the riverside, for he treated me with characteristic Hungarian kind- ness, proved to be something of a local swell, io6 PADDLES AND POLITICS and wore trousers and boots of the national Hungarian Hussar pattern, with twisted braid- ing down the front of the thigh. He confided to me that he was chief of the local fire com- pany and had command of thirty-eight volun- teer firemen — a number suggesting a probabil- ity thatthe whole male population of the village must be enrolled in this excellent service. The public house rapidly filled as I sat, for the news had gone abroad that a canoe had just arrived from America. Here was a wine room packed full of peas- ants on a hot day in August. Here was in their midst a stranger waif knowing not a word of their language. I could not help thinking, with some mortification, how different my re- ception would have been had I been a Hun- garian seeking refuge in a country tavern in either England or the United States, under similar circumstances. In the first place the smell would have been offensive — here I noticed nothing of the kind. Half of the pa- trons of our Anglo Saxon tap-rooms would have been stupid from drink — here not a man suf- fered; in fact my peasant host had his three clean and well-dressed little daughters about him at the table. The peasants in Doburgaz DOWN THE DANUBE 107 f treated me with obviously natural politeness, showed not the slightest disposition to bore me with impertinent questions, and above all, exercised well-bred restraint in criticising the stranger within their gates. Tell me, ye canoeists, ye cyclists, ye pedestrians of my native land, which one of you can match my story! And when I tell you that the good people of Doburgaz are a sample of all the people along the Hungarian Danube in their courtesy to the stranger, will you not agree with me that it is a very paradise for the canoeist ? In parenthesis I may as well say that the cyclist and pedestrian had better try some other place, for the roads are too bad alto- gether, not much better than the dirt roads of America, chokingly dusty in dry weather, un- fathomably muddy at other times. Before leaving the village community my Hungarian host asked me to come and inspect his fire department, to which I of course cheer- fully agreed. The key was sent for, and soon the whole village marched in procession to a little shed which contained the old-fashioned hand-pumping fire engine. My opinion was kindly asked upon this machine, to which I io8 PADDLES AND POLITICS was able honestly to reply that, after an in- spection of the best fire engines of London and New York, nothing in my opinion could surpass the one of Doburgaz for finish, beauty, and cleanliness. The chief and his staff seemed satisfied with this, and as it was now time to start, the good people escorted me to the place where I had left Caribee. and bade me good-bye amidst many manifestations of good will. Here is one little glimpse of the Hungarian — my first one. • • . . Not many days afterward another glimpse was offered me, this time in a different social class. Caribee was sailing along pleasantly through the magnificent mountain gorge above Visegrad, and I was reading in my note book about the splendid ruin that rears its rugged head above the pretty place. It is one of the many medieval strongholds that revive tales of savage conquest, Christian slaughter, and final desolation. The Austrian Emperor — I beg most humble pardon, I should have said the King of Hungary — has extensive shooting forests near here; and the late Crown Prince Rudolf, whose tragic death was then on every DOWX THE DANUBE 109 one's lips, had occupied his last moments in re- storing the grand old pile for a summer resi- dence. Its commanding position in the midst of scenery that eclipsed everything that I had so far seen on the Danube made me wish to climb up these rocky sides. As though my very wish had been divined, I had not more than formulated this desire in my own mind than I noticed in my path a Thames skiff rowed by a young man in boating flannels, and an exceedingly graceful young lady correspondingly attired. The coxswain was a lady who proved to be the mother of the gallant crew, and she, as spokesman of the party, greeted Caribee, invited its crew ashore, urged us to partake of refreshments in a charm- ing villa by the water's edge, introduced us to a party of most attractive acquaintances, pressed us to spend the night under her hus- band's roof— at least to stay to supper; in short, behaved toward us as to a long-lost son returned again. It would have been breaking faith with Caribee to have spent a night anywhere but on the bottom boards of her floor, and we naturally declined all conflicting engagements. It was also against our principles to sup any- no PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE III where but in camp. But what we could we did; we begged to see the mighty ruin under the most favored conditions, that is to say, in the company of such kind hosts. So off we trudged up the steep mountain side, chatting, singing, laughing as though we had known each other for years instead of minutes. In the party were several young ladies from Budapesth, obviously high bred, beautiful in face and figure, charming in manner, clever in conversation, women who had spent the win- ter in the round of court entertainment, and now climbed rocks with the agility of ante- lopes. There was something unaffectedly jolly about this impromptu party, something rompy, and at the same time thoroughly " correct." In America the type is known, the girl who forsakes formal conventionality in summer and captivates ballrooms in the winter; who drives with her male friends, canoes with them, flirts with them, does everything she chooses, but never chooses to do anything which either could regret. This type still lives in America, the despair of the British matron, the bugbear of the Faubourg St. Germain. Her innocent and charming co- quetry I found again on the Danube; the same "•race of movement; the habit of free inter- course ; ease in conversation ; piquant yet modest banter — all this and much more— for these young ladies of Hungary were accom- plished to a degree that would have made a Boston blue-stocking envious. Arrived at the top, a picnic was improvised by roasting some ears of corn that had been brought along. The rambling ruin was ex- plored; and this afforded another good oppor- tunity for the display of agility. The story of the castle was retold, but I shall not refer to a guide-book at such a moment as this. Coming down the mountain I found myself bounding through the thickets, leaping from rock to rock, dodging rotten branches with two companions who were bent upon demonstrat- ing the unquestioned fact that man is inferior to woman in all exercises requiring grace and speed. Fortunately I had been brought up in an equally mountainous and rocky country, or I should have been hopelessly disgraced in their eyes. But it was delightful to watch them fly through the underbrush, every step inviting a catastrophe. Their hats hung at their backs, their long tresses waved behind them, their »*: h 112 PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE 113 skirts got many a rent, their faces glowed with exhilaration — they were very living wood- nymphs sporting with a clumsy mortal whom they were leading to destruction ! Our wild dance soon brought us to the rendezvous near the base, and we found ourselves alone, evi- dently far in advance of the main body. To reconnoitre, I climbed into the branches of a tree; but this my graceful partners could not stand, so they too climbed with me, racing for the top brancn. They climbed like middies, and enjoyed it vastly more. Soon we heard the voices of the others, and decided to stay where we were in order to give them a surprise. Imagine the situation, my dear chaperons of sober latitudes; two beautiful leaders of fash- ion perched with me in the top of a forest-trcc calmly awaiting their chaperons, for the pleas- ure of giving them a pleasant little surprise. In my ignorance of Hungarian good sense I thought the older ladies of the party would faint with the shock when the surprise struck them. They did nothing of the sort; on the contrary, they thought the young people rather clever for having climbed so well. We had rather a time of it getting down, as one partner caught in a broken branch, and at I I one moment threatened to remain a prisoner. She managed to get clear, however, and all the way to the river's bank we kept up the race, laughing and joking over the day's adventure. Just one more little glimpse of Hungary — the subject is so pleasant ! Nor let the reader imagine that these examples I cite are ex- traordinary — I can duplicate them indefinitely. Japan gave me my first idea of what Hungary might be, and Herman Melville has left an immortal tribute to nature's gentlewoman in his delicious tale of the South Seas, called Typee. But the best of the far East is tame compared with the Hungarian Danube. Wo- man may be physically and spiritually an an- gel; but she cannot people one's heaven if her mind cannot furnish intellectual companion- ship. The Magyar maiden is as graceful, as refined, as gentle as the Daimio damsel; she is as proud, as active, and as stately as the choic- est of Melville's Happy Valley. She is all this and vastly more, for her mind is richly stored, and her accomplishments reflect centuries of artistic training. But this is a digression. I was sailing lei- 114 PADDLES AND POLITICS surely along the river below Budapesth, the evening my heart-strings were wrung by part- ing with the good fellows at the Neptune Club. The soft light of the waning sun was dancing in the little waves about my bows; pretty peasant girls were pounding linen along the shores with skirts gracefully tucked up above the knees; I was sighing over my desolate state, and wonder- ing if I should ever again dance as I had danced once before, when hark ! the strains of a gypsy band greeted my excited ear. Yes, it was the real gypsy music, and it was dance time at that. I quickly passed the point that had concealed the object of interest from me, and saw ahead a picnic in full swing; such a picnic as only Hungary can create. Handkerchiefs waved, as I came nearer. I fumbled in my side-pocket, pulled out an American ensign as big as my mizzen, and hoisted it with as much speed as was consistent with considerations of safety. The waving on shore continued, not merely with handkerchiefs, but shawls, napkins, aprons, anything that promised to attract at- tention. I sailed close along shore, wondering what the excitement meant, and, when near enough, was hailed by a gentleman of the party. He said that he was deputed by the DOWN THE DANUBE 115 rest of the company to invite me ashore to share in the picnic ! Politeness made me feebly protest against invading their happy entertainment, but in the end I lowered my sails, made Caribee fast, and was shaking hands with my new-found host. He was a barrister from Budapesth. The com- pany consisted of intimate friends, also from the same city, celebrating together some anni- versary. I presented him with my card, he pre- sented me with his. Then followed formal pre- sentation to the ladies, commencing with the most venerable, and descending to Miss , who was to make her debut in society the next season, and who, no doubt, made a huge suc- cess. At any rate I shall never forget her dancing. We had not known each other five minutes when away we flew with the gypsy music under our heels, stamping, shouting, spinning, reeling, swaying, singing, turning, and twisting in the dance of dances, the elixir of perpetual youth, the inspiring Tschardasch. Little Miss danced like an angel, and overlooked all my blunderings. But I had almost forgotten the feasting in the pleasure of the dance. There was of course a splendid lunch: cold chickens, salads, fruit, and ii6 PADDLES AND POLITICS plenty of good wine. The host rose hi the midst of the meal, and, with raised glass, referred to the pleasure they felt at having a stranger amongst them to whom they could show Mag- yar hospitality. It was then my turn, but what could I say .^ My heart was too full for speech. I told them that their big table, strong as it was, would break into splinters did it have to sustain the weight of gratitude I felt for all the kind- ness I had received from the brave and beau- tiful Hungarians; that I was carrying home with me memories of a land where all the men were manly, all the women angels; that heaven must be full of Hungarians, and that I could imagine no greater beatitude than cultivating the friendships I had formed amidst so happy a people. A cynic might think I was rhapsodizing. But then who cares what a cynic thinks ! I need not give any more illustrations of the hospitality I met with amongst these generous Magyars. To have the key to one Hungarian heart is to have the key to all. You approach them as a chance stranger; you part from them in tender friendship. DOWN THE DANUBE 117 CHAPTER Xni A NIGHT OF REVELRY NEAR BUDAPESTH WHEN a stranger comes from a far coun- try with a bare card of introduction the man to whom he presents it is apt, if he dwells in this part of the world, to see how little he can do in the way of entertainment and yet not ap- pear mean. He probably consults his wife, and in the end gets up a little dinner in his guest's honor. He may, in addition to this, send the stranger a few complimentary cards to func- tions of questionable interest ; and heaves a sigh of relief w^hen a card of farewell is left at his door. So much for our latitudes ! On arriving in Budapesth for the first time in my life, I had the meagrest possible card of in- troduction to a Hungarian gentleman. It was given me by a friend in Vienna who had but a slight acquaintance with either of us. I have no right to publish private names and will therefore affectionately call him Lajos, which is ii8 PADDLES AND POLITICS the Hungarian equivalent for Louis. Now I must not fail to add that Lajos is a man over- burdened with official cares ; of enormous social duties — that I had no claim of any kind whatsoever upon him excepting the universal desire of the tourist to plague the good-natured native. As I look back upon those marvelous Dan- ube days from the confined workshop in which I am sorting my notes, Magyar faces crowd upon me— strong, manly, liberty-loving types of high-bred and courteous gentlemen. It is a proud recollection, that of having known such men in such a part of the world, where the future of Europe and civilization is at stake, and where the battle with Russian barbarism may some day be fought. And from this throng of worthies one stands out with particular prominence— the genial, rotund, joyous Lajos; always worried, always joking ; always work- ing, always singing ; the one who. never dic- tates and whom all love to follow. Am I wrong ? If I am, Lajos himself is the only one who will accuse me of my error. Every hour of every one of the happy days I spent in the Hungarian capital is associated with the goodness of Lajos. I will only refer DOWN THE DANUBE 119 to one day, however, by way of illustrating what the Magyar means by hospitality. Under date of Aug. 2, 1891, I find this memo- randum in my note book: — "Started at 11 o'clock for an excursion up the river with Lajos and his guests. He says we shall be back early this evening." We did not get back until the following morning at 7, but that by the way ! Lajos had secured a beamy and comfortable steamer, had invited about fifty, had loaded his craft with luxuries of cellar and pantry, and had provided a band of gypsies capable of fid- dling the very conscience out of a bishop. There were old and young in the party ; fa- thers and sons, mothers with daughters as beautiful and graceful as themselves — and that is saying a great deal in a country where beauty increases with years, and youth is born with beauty. Muscular members of the famous Neptune Rowing Club were with us and one or two gallant officers who had won laurels in '48 fighting for the liberties of their country. The gathering was one which for grace and beauty on the dancing floor could not have been equaled at the hops of Newport or West Point — can one say more ? I never for a moment I20 PADDLES AND POLITICS siifTcred for my ig-norance of the melodious Magyar, for everyone appeared to speak with ease at least three languages besides their own. If I have one of the gentle sex looking at this page, permit me to say that the fashionably dressed dames of Piccadilly and Fifth Avenue appear dowdy — postively behind the times — compared with the ladies of Budapesth. Here, at least, every woman is an artist in dress. This being a subject on which I am apt to get out of my depth, I hasten to add that I know a very competent authority on this point — a woman at that, and one not at all biased, as I may be. No sooner on the boat than at once com- menced the music and the feasting. Lajos did not tell me so, but I learned subsequently that all of the catering for this large and very hungry party was personally superintended by his sister, a young lady who embodies all that is national and lovely in the Hungarian character. As I have mentioned no names, and no one knows to whom I refer, I may explain what the Hun- garian young lady counts as the usual ac- complishments of her sex. Of course the com- mon education of the ordinary schools, the smattering of literature, history, etc. Then she DOWN THE DANUBE 121 is invariably a good musician — not a piano strummer, but one who grows up in an atmos- phere where music is the interpreter of daily feeling. The Hungarian sings as we dull mor- tals talk. Some sing better than others, but none sing as badly as our performing amateurs. Then as a housekeeper, what a treasure is the Hungarian ! She can teach her cook every- thing worth knowing, relieve her when neces- sary, manage the house into the bargain, and never once let her guests suspect that she ever gives it a thought. Where the Anglo-Saxon mistress retires to her bedroom to cry with vexation, the Hungarian lady fills the house with her melody, and concocts a new sauce to the tune of a tschardasch. It makes my blood boil to hear my countrywomen speak of such women as household drudges because they manage their own houses ! They would be put to the blush could they see some of those they thus allude to on the floor of the ballroom. Indeed, nothing, I am convinced, would con- duce so much to making our girls happy and physically vigorous, as to give them some of the useful occupation enjoyed by their own sex in Hungary. The feast was, like all Hungarian feasts, de- 122 PADDLES AND POLITICS licious. It was the breakfast, to be followed by many more meals before finally separating. How Mile, de Lajos possibly managed all these spreads, especially as she danced every minute that she was not superintending the service, remains still a mystery to me — but that she did this is well attested. The gypsy band was composed of three vio- lins, a 'cello, a basso, and the famous national instrument that looks roughly like an enor- mous zither, and is played by striking the strings with soft hammers. The music made us impatient, even at such a feast. One after the other, feet began to pat, and before the meal was done couples were adrift amongst the tables, carried away by the musical magic. Here was the first triumph of the gypsies, a people who care nothing for money — and everything for success. They commenced by dragging us from well-filled tables, and for the whole of that day, and the whole of the night they played at us, around us and into us with- out a sign of weariness, resting only at inter- vals for food and drink. The gypsies were playing, it seemed, for the very love of their art more even than for the dancers. They warmed up to a condition of DOWN THE DANUBE 123 mental intoxication as the wailing violin led them in cadences from one mood to the other. One moment the measure was martially heroic, the next the leader's eyes half closed as the harmony floated away into a love song; again it awoke to a ballet-like movement, then it changed once more to the despairing cries of a rejected lover; after this, perhaps, a savage hymn would weave itself across the time of the motive; but in the end there was always one conclusion — the capriciously regular, the sav- agely tender, the buoyantly plaintive, the way- wardly winning, the most captivating of har- monies, the most maddening of ecstasies — the rapid, surging, swaying, tossing, inflammatory tschardasch ! It is all this, and vastly more. What a poor, cold-blooded wretch like myself can feel is small, of course; but that little something is an ocean beside the puddleof exhilaration rep- resented in the average ballroom of our fash- ionable life. Why, the very players in Hungary succumb to the spell they themselves create. Their eyes speak the emotions they are invoking upon their listeners; they burst into song like happy children, and sway in unconscious 124 PADDLES AND POLITICS rhythm to the cadence of their instruments; their faces lighten and darken as the mood sweeps over their strings. Can dancers tire while the players are putting their very life into the sounds that stir their blood ? At last, however, the gypsies themselves leave their seats; they can no longer keep themselves down while twinkling feet are flashing before them. First, the leader is seen moving amidst the couples, singing, swaying, fiddling madly, drawing his intoxicating bow up to the very ears of those he selects for this much-coveted distinction. The second and then the third follow, keeping all the while perfect accord one with the other, yet none apparently conscious of the other's presence. All are animated by the same spirit, and that to a gypsy appears to be sufficient. What is the tschardasch ? I do not know- save that it is the most completely satisfactory dance in the world. The lady rests her hands lightly upon the cavalier's shoulders, he in turn holding her at the belt. Otherwise the two dancers do not come into personal con- tact. Fortunately for me the muscular activity incident to canoeing the Danube from Donau- eschingen to this point made me feel fit for a DOWN THE DANUBE 125 boat race; and a. tschardasch being only one degree more wearing that a four-mile pull in twenty minutes, I was able to enter into the dance with less chances of mortification than most outsiders. Gentle hands and engaging language little by little overcame habitual shy- ness, and before I knew it my feet were nim- bling about as freely and happily as those of the rest — myself recklessly indifferent as to how far my movements were in accord with the best traditions of the masters in this art. From the dancing I saw, it seemed to me that the Hungarian national dance is one that can be danced in a hundred different ways, accord- ing to the strength, agility, age or fancy of the performer. The couple may move sedately from beginning to end, their feet working as methodically as in a common waltz; if they please, however (and they generally do), each couple soon finds elbow room necessary, and makes energetic use of it. As the music becomes more exciting, the spirits of the dancers rise; they break away from one another, and dance off and on with the prettiest of fancy steps, each as it were coquetting with the other, the lady eluding and then approaching her cavalier. They 126 PADDLES AND POLITICS 1 dance, now demurely, now wildly; hands are raised; hats and handkerchiefs are waved; shouts ring out; the steps are sometimes like those of a reel, at other times like any kind of a jig; but throughout most perfect time is kept; that is to say, perfect harmony with the mad music of the gypsies. If my recollection serves me I danced every dance without exception from beginning to end, and I have already said that we danced the day and night. Under no other condition could I have done such a thing. At some time in the afternoon an elaborate dinner was served, at which much was eaten, more was drunk, and many speeches made. The Hungarians never drink excepting to a senti- ment, and hence it is that I never saw a drunken man during the many days I spent in their company. Many were the toasts pledged, and some that touched me deeply because of the kindly things said by my host, to which of course I was expected to answer as best I could. We bumped to the glory of Hungary; the friendship of our respective countries; the memory of the immortal George Washington; the brave Kossuth, and his fellow-patriots of '48; the Triple Alliance and the King of DOWN THE DANUBE 127 Hungary (who is sometimes known as the Em- peror of Austria). All who spoke did so with grace and fluency, and it w^ould be indeed a fortunate gathering in my own country that could have brought forth better after-dinner speeches under corresponding circumstances. There wasplenty of singing, of course, much merriment, and no end of private toasts to in- dividual good health. In any other country it might be expected that half at least of the company would be overcome — but here was nothing of the kind. Strange as it may sound, not a single Hun- garian showed the slightest trace of the wine consumed; not a w^ord or action was out of harmony with the habitual good breeding and delicacy of the true Hungarian. The dancers might shout and laugh and sing and commit the most extravagant steps, but not one was guilty of offending any of the ladies present. After the dinner wc had segars, brandy and coffee, and then more music — but there were some who thought that we might find a larger dancing space on shore. It was already dark, bnt our Lajos promptly had the boat brought to land, and one of the party was deputed to hurry to the nearest village to see what 128 PADDLES AND POLITICS I III dancing space could be secured More music and dancing followed until he returned with the news that he had secured a peasant's threshing floor for our use. So then we all marched to the village, pre- ceded by torches and the gypsies. The way was not easy to follow, but by the help of ship's lanterns we at length reached the barn- yard, and were welcomed not only by the pro- prietor, but by no less personages than the mayor and chief judge of the place. Here was another evidence of the popularity which Lajos enjoyed in the neighborhood of his native town. The gypsies ensconced themselves cozily at one end of the room; boards spread on bar- rels were soon loaded with flagons of good honest red wine, and in a trice the whole party was once more spinning about as though this was the first dance of the evening, and time was verv short. Our floor was but dirt well beaten down by generations of bare feet; the sides of our hall were open to all the world, and for that matter the whole village had turned out to watch the revels, and listen to the beloved music of the gypsies. The scene was weird in the extreme — trees, houses, peas- DOWN THE DANUBE 129 f ants, gypsies, dancers, all glinting in the wavy light of the fitful candles that were disposed at intervals. Of course the magnates of the vil- lage were called upon to drink by the hospi- table Lajos; they made us a speech of welcome to which we responded in terms of friendship. On my part I could but say that the boundless hospitality I had enjoyed at the hands of Magyars was a type of the good relations ex- isting between their government and mine, a friendship which I ventured to hope, without committing our foreign department, would never be disturbed. The justice and mayor treated the ceremony as seriously as though peace and war hung in the balance, and when the last drop was drained there could have been no native of that village who did not feel that peace had been reestablished in spite of the McKinley Bill. Dance, dance, dance — there was no end to it; nobody wanted a seat, nobody wished to stop, except now and then to pledge his part- ner in a bumper. At last, however, I do not know at what o'clock, the signal was given to return on board the steamer; whether the hour was too late for the village, or that the wine was exhausted, I shall never know. I30 PADDLES AND POLITICS With the gypsies at our head, the whole vil- lage carrying lanterns on our wings, and the prettiest partner in Hungary on my arm, we once more threaded our way to the river bank, and amidst singing and cheering and many kind messages, pushed off into the stream. Another supper was awaiting us on deck; once more the music put wings to our feet — in short, when we touched the landing stage of the capital it was only in time for breakfast of the following day. We separated — I at least did — with the feeling that henceforth my hap- piness must be made up of memories; that never could so much exhilaration be crowded into the same space of time anywhere else in the wide world. All whom I knew on that eventful night had become dear friends, and to part from them was hard, very hard. But part I had to, and within a few hours I was once more at the float of the Neptune Rowing Club. The lockers of Caribee were stored, and with ensign flying, and sails spread to the fresh breeze, we sailed away once more down the mighty stream out amongst the un- certainties of another day. Some of the mem- bers of the club escorted us a short distance and left us after giving three hearty cheers. DOWN THE DANUBE 131 Sadly I worked my way down through the bustling shipping of this restless port, almost regretting that I was not capsized by one of the many tugs dashing about me. I wanted an excuse for putting back. So good-bye, Budapesth, Queen of the Dan- ube, and mistress of every heart ! Good-bye, my jolly oarsmen of the Neptune, and, finally, God bless the roof that shelters the family of our good Laios ! 132 PADDLES AND POLITICS CHAPTER XIV HOW THE HUNGARIAN PEASANTS TAINED US ENTER- IN the southwesterly corner of Hungary, near the Slavonian border, and not far from the meeting of Bosnia and Servia, Can- bee was stowed comfortably away in a shed at the mouth of the Franzens Kanal, while her skipper danced for ten hours with the most graceful peasant girls that he had so far en- countered. The good Lajos of Budapesth once more turned up as guardian angel, and under his chaperonage I made the acquaintance of Monostorszeg, a village whose people are not Hungarian, not Turkish, not Bosnian, not Servian, but who illustrate the good qualities of all. Lajos says they are Szokaz, whatever that may mean. I hope it is complimentary, for they dance like angels, have beautiful olive complexions, dress to perfection, are as active as antelopes, speak in melodious notes, wel- come the stranger with every manifestation of good will, and behave with tact and good breeding. What more can I say? DOWN THE DANUBE m Our particular host on this occasion was a prosperous peasant who had spent twenty years of his life in jail for brigandage, a hand- some, soldierly looking man. who seemed to command great respect, and who, I was as- sured, was an ornament to the society in which he now moved. Lajos, at any rate, spoke well of him, and that was enough for me. We invaded his ranch shortly after noon, but as it was harvest time, old and young of both sexes were out in the fields. Swift mes- sengers were, however, immediately despatch- ed to announce our arrival, the gypsy band was summoned, wine and food was ordered, and, before the news of the day had been ex- changed and digested, the spacious courtyard began to fill with the honored guests of our brigand chief. Wine, food, and music arrived as if by magic. With the first strain of the fiddle nimble feet commenced to pat, and soon the great earth floor was waving in a mass of gorgeous coloring, for no one in Monostorszeg cared a fig about the harvest as compared with a dance on the threshing-floor. As the time wore on toward evening the great gates of the yard swung open for pigs. 134 PADDLES AND POLITICS cattle, and other animals seeking the accus- tomed shelter at sundown. Great was the sur- prise they manifested at seeing the transforma- THK PRASANTb CUMMKNCF.D TO DANCK. tion that had taken place. The dancers were, however, not in the least disconcerted; they danced to one side as the beasts crossed the DOWN THE DANUBE 135 ballroom floor, then closed up again, and went on to the merrv time. At last arrived the landlord's daughter, perched on top of a huge load of hay drawn by oxen. She was of rare beauty, and about eigh- teen years old. She was greeted with enthu- siastic welcome, being evidently a favorite; and from her lofty perch she smiled down upon the upturned faces with the frank smile of a child accustomed to receive worship of this kind. To describe her is to describe all of the beauties who danced on that memorable Satur- day until the first hour of the following Sabbath. She was barefooted, but then all the Szokaz girls have beautiful little feet, as well as hands. She tripped down from the top of the hay with remarkable agility, and immediately shook hands with her father's guests. Her dress consisted of a single piece of mus- lin or cheese-cloth, that draped her splendidly moulded form with classic elegance, and in no wise hampered the native grace of her motions. A girdle about six inches wide sat loosely about her, and served to heighten, if possible, the statuesque character of her attire. The garment as a whole was diaphanous, at first perhaps startlingly so, but was worn with such complete^ 13^ PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE : I innocence and artless grace as to excite only admiration in the impartial critic. Along the hips from the belt downward was a broad band of open work revealing the delicate skin be- neath, and suggesting somewhat the garment of Cleopatra, as exhibited recently by fashion- able actresses. Her appearance was the more interesting to me as she was obviously in her every-day field-dress, and not even a boating- man could have wished anything more untram- meled. On the day following she went to church in a costume bewildering from the mul- tiplicity of barbarous adornments of a costly nature; but such an array inevitably produces self-consciousness, even in a beauty of Hun- gary. The dancing here was, if possible, a trifle more wild than on any previous occasion; the peasant girls had finished their work for the week, were full of rollicking spirit, and danced with an energy and grace simply irresistible. It was after midnight when we said good- night to our partners. From high noon to that hour the fiddling never flagged; nor, for that matter, the eating and drinking. It seems to me now, as I look back on that tropical sum- mer, that I danced myself through the heart of 137 \ Hungary, and was a faithless partner to Car- ibee. The ball was opened by six maidens who, with hands on one another's shoulders, formed in line and danced a jig time in unison, sway- ing back and forth, to one side and the other, pattering their little bare feet with exquisite effect — in fact, reproducing a picture of Japan, probably the only country that can match Hungary for grace in woman. Pretty soon men took their partners, and the national tschardasch was struck up. Ah, what a dance that is ! Wilder and wilder grew the music; more and more madly moved the little feet; hands were clapped; happy shouts pierced the air; the couples separated, and returned, cut- ting fancy figures of the most coquettish nature in mock efforts, the one to elude, the other to win the partner back again. All were happy as children in the delight of the moment, and Mrs. Grundy, for the time being, appeared to have taken a back seat. No one was drunk on that night, though the generous Lajos made wine free to all, from the brigand chief to his emptiest guest. The in- toxication that seized upon old and young alike sprang entirely from the naturally enthusiastic il 133 PADDLKS AND POLITICS nature of all who live under Hungarian influ- ence. Some people think they know what excite- ment means, when they have heard college boys after a foot-ball match; there w^as a time when 1 thought no enthusiasm could match that which burst out at the corner of the old fence " 'neath the elms" when dear old Yale beat Harvard in the four-mile boat race. I have seen reverend dignitaries of the Church shouting themselves red in the face, as they encouraged their college boats in bumping matches on the Isis or the Cam. But these manifestations of feeling, compared with what I saw on the Danube, were as the efforts of a night-light to the full blast fires of a trans- atlantic steamship. In one very effective dance a large ring was formed by both sexes and all ages. The mai- dens placed their hands on the men's shoulders, these in turn holding the belts of the fair ones. The music played a lively national reel, and all danced the measure in perfect time, though the greatest freedom prevailed as to the par- ticular steps permitted. At times the whole circle closed with a rush, and again flew apart to its greatest extent. Now the dancers swayed DOWN THE DANUBE 139 around in one direction and then back in the other. The clever dancers became at once conspicuous by the variety which they intro- duced into their steps, and some would have done credit to the corps de ballet. The fashionable dancing-floor of modern life is to me rather a sad picture of mistaken en- joyment. No one but the very young appears to be having a good time, and not all of these. Here, hovv^ever, everyone seemed happy as happy could be, and nimble Lajos the happiest of them all. I could not resist the contagion of spontaneous joy on all sides of me, and, so far as I know, made no particular efforts in that direction. When darkness came on a few candles were disposed here and there, two on the table where the food and wine wxre displayed, two under the narrow veranda which ran along one side of the house, and perhaps one or two more. Compared with the spaces requiring illumination, the light was not strong, and for much of the time we were dancing in the dark amidst the different articles of husbandry usu- ally collected about the threshing-floor of a peasant estate. Around the circle of revelers stood fathers I40 PADDLES AND POLITICS and mothers holding babies aloft, for, appar- ently, there was here no jfixed age of coming out. When the mother joined in the dance the father held the chick, and he in his turn danced when his wife was through. The best of good nature prevailed, and the courtesy between peasant and peasant was as noticeable as that toward the invading stranger. When the formal feast took place late in the evening healths were drank with vociferous enthusiasm. Our ex-brigand host poured out his soul in a welcoming speech; we drank to his prosperity, his beautiful daughter, to Hun- gary, to Kossuth and to many others that I cannot remember. In what other country could strangers in- vade a village of free peasants, invite them to a ball, treat them to wine, dance with their sweethearts and wives for ten hours, behave with reckless indifference to every considera- tion save the enjoyment of the moment, and say good-bye at midnight without having been able to notice the faintest trace of undue famil- iarity, let alone rudeness, on the part of any- one present? Each peasant appeared to un- derstand perfectly what a well - bred host expected of him, and I felt, when parting for DOWN THE DANUBE 141 the night, that I was leaving behind me a so- ciety more enlightened on what pertains to the amenities of social intercourse than I have been able to find at the average of '* crushes " in the large cities of either hemisphere — excluding, of course, always Japan. It is almost impertinent to add that the Hun- garian lady is modesty itself, and that every woman in Hungary is a lady in this regard. The so-called "smart" world has much to learn from the peasants of the lower Danube, for there are girls who do not have to be **fast" in order to show the glories of their sex to the best advantage. For real style and good company I will back my Szokaz angel on the load of hay against the belles of a New York or London drawing-room; and for manly graces the Piccadilly buck is a baby compared with my ex-brigand of Monostorszeg. Good-night, then, sweet girls of Hungary. Happy are the Magyar husbands, and if they are not it must be that they are strangely un- grateful ! 145 PADDLES AND POLITICS CHAPTER XV SOMi: NOBLE GYPSIES T T was at the close of a glorious day in Au- A gust, somewhere near the junction of the Francis Canal and the Hungarian Danube, that I first made the acquaintance of a gypsy family. Of course I had seen plenty of them in other parts of the world— who has not ? But on the occasion I now speak of, the gypsies were, so to speak, at the height of their civic existence, I might almost say at the headquarters of their tribal organization. The gypsies, like the Laplanders, the North American Indians, and other strange families of the great human race, do not like to be stared at. They are proud and shy in their own way; and to the stranger apt to be offensive. When I was first allowed to enter a Lapp hut; hold a Lapp baby in my arms; bask in the crackling smile of a Lapp maiden, and extract autographs from Lapp chiefs, I felt that I had not visited in vain the Arctic regions of Norway. In the British northwest territory of Mani- DOWN THE DANUBE 143 toba I once was so fortunate as to draw a noble red man into forensic argument. His speech I did not understand; but in so far as sonorous language, dignified carriage, dramatic gesture, modulated inflection and flashing eyes can as- sist an orator, I am quite sure that for once at least I had to do with one of nature's Glad- stones. I prized my experience highly be- cause the American Indian hates the white man instinctively. For that matter the Lapp shares this feeling of animosity, and for the same reason. Both have been for generations crowded slowly but surely out of the territory they consider as their property; both are always in the wrong when seeking justice at the hands of their white despoilers; both have come to look upon every white man, whether Norwegian or American, as one of the enemy. The gypsy sympathizes with the Lapp and the Indian, for he too is a prowler — I mean a nomad. He hates every government that does not spring from the consent of his immediate family. Policemen, tax-gatherers, game-keep- ers — all such parasites of civilization are to him odious. He needs plenty of room, he likes to pitch his camp where he chooses, light his fire M4 PADDLES AND POLITICS without intciTcrcnce, live his own hfe in his own way. In the closely settled states of Europe he cannot do this in a dignified manner; all the conditions under which he is obliged to move force him into the category of tramps and vaga- bonds; the people he meets look upon him askance as one who steals anything he can lay hold of, from children to chickens. His love of liberty is not understood — and what savage can sustain the reputation of dignity when he is only seen through the dust of suburban roads ? In Hungary the gypsy is understood and by no means despised. His music the Magyar adores. There is land enough for all here, and camping out in the open is not treated as a crime against society. The Magyar is a fight- ing man, a sportsman, a lover of out-door life; to him the gypsy is a rational creature; and in return the gypsy of Hungary shows nobler qualities than in those countries where he is the object of constant and petty persecution. We drove to this settlement, and here I must again tell how much I am indebted to my dear Lajos. His real name I have con- cealed, for he shares with most good men the quality of shyness. Lajos had already done DOWN THE DANUBE H5 more than the kindest of friends when he piloted us amidst the pleasures of Budapesth. But he was not content to stop there, and when I reached the mouth of the famous canal that joins Danube and Theiss, whom should I see at the first lock but the happy face, the sparkling eyes, the laughing mouth of Lajos ! Remember, please, that Lajos is a very im- portant official in the Hungarian capital; that he is an overworked director in a great steam- ship company ; that his time is golden. But then there is but one Lajos ! He had chartered a wagon to drive to the gypsies. There were no roads to charter, or we should have had one. There was, how- ever, plenty of soil, and no proprietary rights obtruded themselves. Our wagon had four wheels and a wickerwork body, somewhat like the country wagon in vogue all over Austria and Germany — much used for hunting parties. Our driver wore the little national round black felt hat; his dress was a loose cotton shirt, very open in front, a broad leather belt, short white cotton trousers, loose enough to make two skirts. Like the rest of the Magyar na- tion he wore fierce little mustaches, and looked fit for a crack cavalry troop. 146 PADDLES AND POLITICS Our horses took their own line across coun- try, for it made little difference to us whether our wheels were off or on the trail. Our jour- ney reminded me of some excursions I once made on the edges of Dakota, when we steered by compass over the virgin prairie. The har- ness of our team was very light — Dutch collars and rope traces. The animals took their own gait, now trotting, now galloping, for they seemed to have a perfect understanding with their driver that they were going as far as the gypsy settlement, and that the sooner they covered the distance the better for them as well as for us. During the whole of my Danube cruise — at least as far as the Turkish part — I have noticed so much gentleness and willingness on the part of the horses, that I am disposed to con- clude that they are cared for in a particularly humane and sensible way. In spite of the fact that Englishmen and Americans appreciate a good horse, there is an enormous amount of unconscious cruelty practised in those coun- tries, the result of which is seen in the large proportion of spiritless or vicious beasts that were once promising colts. Whether this cruelty springs from ignorance or heartless- DOWN THE DAXUBE 147 1 ness, the results are the same. There are few big stables in England or America where the visitor has not to be warned against kicking or biting beasts — in the army as well as elsewhere. Here, and all over Germany, the stranger can go amongst horses as securely as amongst cows and sheep. Often as I have entered groups of cavalry horses in the German army, never yet has anyone thought it necessary to suggest that I should take precautions against kicks or bites. We bounced along over the Hungarian fields, floundering through hog wallows, dodg- ing holes, and at last drew up on the edge of a grove. Here we alighted, and in a few mo- ments noticed a cluster of rudely made huts — this was the gypsy camp. The king of the tribe, with his queen, greet- ed us in the most solemn and gracious man- ner. Each kissed my hand in turn, pressing it afterward to the forehead. The other mem- bers of the family recognized in this a sign that we were to be treated as guests, and im- mediately manifested a disposition to gratify all our legitimate desires. The huts were not interesting. They were such as any squatters, provided with a few 148 PADDLES AND POLITICS boards, would have built under similar circum- stances. The people themselves absorbed my attention — first of all, the little baby asleep in the kneading-trough, surrounded by self-satis- fied geese, who ducked their heads all around its cradle, picking up the crumbs from the last meal. Near by was the proud father with a huge axe like an executioner's. He was en- gaged in shaping another wooden trough. In fact, the whole village was engaged in this in- dustry, for a large number of wooden troughs were heaped up ready for the market; and lumber was piled near by, out of which more troughs were to be carved. These gypsies, at least, had a visible means of support, and a very useful one at that. They were not horse traders, and obviously had stolen no children — or if they had, the latter were of their own race. And what splendid children they showed me ! Strong, sinewy, graceful little boys and girls, with beautiful big eyes, features of re- fined classic mould — little people such as we loved to see in fairy books as princes and princesses, and how they could dance ! I asked the gypsy king if he would not favor us with some music and dancing. No sooner DOWN THE DANUBE 149 was my request made known than, as though by magic, the penetrating note of a violin was heard. It was quickly tuned; a venerable gyp- sy minstrel took his seat on the stump of a tree; a few bars were struck; the children be- gan to pat the floor; the music quickened; the v-^^-:^'/- ^^c c r\4 .s r t THE KING OF THE GYPSIES MADE HIS PEOPLE DANCE FOR US. ISO paddles; and politics children paired ofT; boys and girls faced each other; the time was a weird jig measure — soon the little settlement was dancing madly, ab- sorbed in the intoxicating delight of the fierce movement. Eyes snapped, muscles played, feet flew in and out. The crazy reel became contagious; one after the other the older mem- bers forgot the dignity of the host, and whirled away with twinkling feet to compete with the little ones for the white stranger's ap- plause. Wilder and wilder fiddled the old man; more and more madly danced the young- sters. They clapped their hands; they burst out into cries of triumph and encouragement, the boys slapped their legs, then clapped their hands over their heads as though they were beating tambourines; they knocked their heels together as they flew about; they slapped their feet on either side; they indulged in every acrobatic eccentricity consistent with main- taining the dance rhythm — in short, they did all that a negro clog-dancer does and vastly more. Nor did the little girls fall behind the boys in grace and agility. Their behavior was less boisterous, but their legs flew up and about with a dexerity and ease seldom surpassed on the serio-comic stage. They trod the most DOWN THE DANUBE 151 complicated of step measures with delicious assurance and rapidity — and when, at last, the fiddle ceased, the applause from the spectators was most vociferous and prolonged. For my part I was simply amazed by the marvelous dancing I saw in this gypsy encamp- ment. Looking about at fathers and mothers, however, I found no occasion to wonder that the children were beautiful and well-shaped. A young mother with whom I had a chat here was ooe of the finest creatures I had ever seen — not mere common beauty, but features of ab- solutely classic symmetry, lines which we con- sider the embodiment of high breeding in womankind. Du Maurier has reproduced the queen of the London drawing-room, and ideal- ized the highest product of modern good so- ciety. Even he, a man of the world and a thorough gentleman, has not put on paper a type of woman more beautiful in expression, more classic in lines, more sinuous in move- ment, more erect in carriage — and lastly — more aristocratic in bearing than the mothers of the little urchins who danced for me in the most savage corner of Hungary. It was delightful to see the loving interest taken by the brothers and fathers in the women I 152 PADDLES AND POLITICS and children — and they were men worth look- ing at. Not one appeared to be less than six feet high. Their figures were slight but strong; their features were marked by the same signs of breeding and beauty characterizing the women; they were pictures of good health. They wore their hair flowing in waves upon their shoulders; slight mustaches curled to the corners of their mouth, and a short wavy beard shaded the lower line of the face. Their ex- pression was full of dignity and gentleness, blended with melancholy. Several of them might have been studied from the life and treat- ed as the ideal Hamlet. The Christs of Ary Scheffer and Dore were suggested to me as I looked into these interesting faces. From another point of view the features of these gyp- sies were those of the Arab chief as we know him on canvas at the highest stage of his civilization. Had I met these men in the halls of a seat of learning, dressed in academic gowns and surrounded by the insignia of their ex- alted profession, I should have exclaimed: *' How fortunate the college that has drawn to its support men whose face and bearing so amply reflect the calm of philosophic in- I DOWN THE DAVUBE •53 / I \ quiryand the wisdom of accumulated knowl- edge ! " Yetheretl:ey were, cutting kneading troughs, dressed in a single piece of home-made stuff, living like the native of two thousand years ago, and ignorant of conventional knowledge to a degree that suggests the Egyptian dark- ness that gave them birth. Such are the contradictions of life. Gypsy sages who do not know the alphabet; Oxford dons living for the sake of their stomach. Latin and Greek do not give a man wisdom, and around the fire of these gypsies were heads that belonged to philosophers and prophets. • / 154 PADDLES AND POLITICS CHAPTER XVI HUNGARIAN HARVESTERS SPORT ALSO A LITTLE LAJOS, like most generous spirits, is so modest, that it was only indirectly that I learned of his heroism during the great floods of the river Theiss, near Szegedin, in 1879. When the news of the suffering reached him in Budapesth, he did not wait for committees or subscription lists, but, loading a steamer with meat, drink, and blankets, away he puffed for the scene of disaster, and for days and nights exposed his life in saving others, ministered to their wants and brought sunshine into scores of families living in the valley of the shadow of death. Lajos thought I might like to look at Szege- din, that being a thoroughly typical center of Magyar life, whereas Budapesth is rather cos- mopolitan than Hungarian. So away we steamed from the Danube to the Theiss by the famous Francis Canal. \ DOWN THE DANUBE 155 On the first night we were the guest of the governor of the district. I mention this to il- lustrate the hospitable disposition of the peo- ple. The night following we spent at the house of the chief engineer of the canal, a Hungarian gentleman, who spared no pains in ministering to our happiness. His charming wife and amiable daughters received us like members of the family; the evening meal, an elaborate dinner, was served on the veranda, looking out upon a fragrant garden full of many varieties of luscious fruits and fragrant flowers. Our health was drunk in wine of ex- quisite quality. Our host had in his house ample evidence of his skill as a sportsman — heads of bears, wolves, deer, and many others. In his stables I found horses of excellent blood. A feature of his establishment that impressed me most pleasantly was a bath-house located beneath the overflow, at the side of the canal lock. Here the bather worked his way with an effort into the rushing waterfall, and held on tight to the wall of rock, while his whole frame tingrled with the shock of the cascade. Swimming has its charms, but for exhilaration, and at the same time an appetite-provoking 156 PADDLES AND POLITICS J tonic, nothing I know of can exceed the buffet- ing I got under the weir of this Hungarian lock. On the following morning our host of the night before became the guest of Lajos on board of the steamer, but, hearing that I was fond of shooting, he brought along some fowl- ing pieces and an ample supply of cartridges. The guns were ranged at the forward rail; we sat and chatted under the awning under the hurricane deck. Our boat made scarcely any noise, a light breeze was against us, and we had a capital view of the broad stretches ahead of us. The country was full of wild fowl, and the guns were rarely idle. We popped away from morning till night, scarcely stopping for the noble lunch which Lajos provided. At every bend new sport greeted us — hawks, herons, coots, wild duck, loons, hell divers, gulls of many kinds— these were some of the game we bagged. Our spry little steward was kept busy in the dingey rowing off to find what we had brought down. Before the day closed I made up my mind that this canal was worth revisiting — with a canoe, a gun, and a re- triever. Szegedin is more Hungarian than Budapesth, DOWN THE DANUBE 157 as Kieff is more Russian than St. Petersburg. It spreads itself over the great alluvial plains of the Theiss valley in squares and streets as broad and long as those of a Western town. The streets of Szegedin are, however, kept clean, the buildings show much taste, the shops indicate widely distributed prosperity, and the noble river looks as though it never could have behaved otherwise than as a docile transporter of produce through the heart of this splendid granary. Szegedin appealed to me most sympathetic- ally, how^ever, when my good Lajos drove me a few miles away to what appeared to be a town of golden domes, from the midst of which rose vast clouds of incense. The inhabitants one might imagine to be engaged in Oriental worship from the humming sound that wafted toward us in the morning stillness. The scene reminded me of a visit I once paid in Pekin to the great Lama Temple, the sacred city of Buddhism, in w^hich a vast multitude of crouch- ing priests drone away their lives in repeating monotonous nonentities. The great plain of Pe- kin is like that of Szegedin— the gilded domes of both countries appeared to me veiled in atmospheric density— but there the parallel 158 PADDLES AND POLITICS ceased. As we came nearer to the golden city I saw that great stacks of straw were here congregated; that the prayerful hum proceeded from steam-threshers, and the cloud of incense from the chaff of the winnowers blending with the engine smoke. My dream had passed, but left a still more pleasing reality. We jumped out and wandered from dome to dome, from stack to stack. Here the govern- ment maintains a large threshing tract, which serves in a measure as an agricultural ex- change. Peasants drive to this point from many miles, bringing with them their families and as much grain as their teams can haul. They camp out here for the busy season, and combine with their own work as much more as can add to the profit of their stay. First of all, they reserve their threshing- ground by driving a distinguishing stake into it, their right being respected as completely as that of a passenger leaving his satchel on a railway seat. The next thing is to thresh and winnow their load, which they may do either by paying one of the great steam-threshers, or, if they cannot afford that, by acting in the pa- triarchal manner: that is to say, the pair of horses is driven round and round over the grain DOWN THE DANUBE 159 until the berries fall out. These are then swept up and tossed into the air by the shovel- ful. The chaff blows away while the berries fall in a clean shape to the ground. These are then put into sacks, and are ready for market. The steam operation is of course the one an American prefers when he runs a farm for profit. But the Yankee doing Hungary in a canoe is happy to take an object lesson in agri- culture as practiced in the days of Pharaoh. And, in truth, in a country where horses are as abundant as in Texas, where father, mother, sisters and brothers work together in the fields, where labor is very cheap and machinery very dear, there is much to be said for the patri- archal system. I questioned one group, consisting of two men, one woman, one boy and two horses. This party, working together, earned six gul- dens (say three dollars) a day. If each of the group shared equally, that would give fifty cents apiece for the day's work — a moder- ate reward, to be sure. Yet, considering what fifty cents will buy them there, I am not sure that they would be happier if transplanted to New Jersey or Long Island. The woman wore but a single piece of cot- i6o rADDLES AND TOLITICS ton belted at the waist — a garment which did not materially interfere with the free swing of her graceful body as she tossed the red berries aloft. All were of course barefooted, and the men wore a garment only a shade less simple than that of the women. Here, by the way, and for that matter along the lower Danube in general, the women share the outdoor work of men. They do not, how- ever, show to disadvantage in consequence— on the contrary, I venture to think that the hand- somest of the continent are to be found along this great waterway — handsome not merely in feature and expression, but exhibiting in every movement of their graceful and erect figures the evidence of wholesome physical exercise. In North Germany there are too many good women bent in the back, pre- maturely wrinkled and dragged to the earth by drudgery. Such spectacles did not force themselves upon me during this journey, I am happy to say. How much is due to education, how much to blood, how much to climate, I dare not determine. There is, however, in the woman of this neighborhood a something which makes man unwilling to see her harmed. She works in the open air because such work DOWN THE DANUBE l6l develops her physical powers, but no Hunga- rian would like to see her burdened to a point where toil begins and elasticity ends. Every traveler visiting the West Indies notes the elastic tread and excellent physical pro- portions of the black women there, due princi- pally to the constant open-air exercise they get. And as this exercise is of a light and wholesome kind— largely that of carrying sugar-cane upon the head, the result is as splen- did as could be desired. But the poor black of Barbadoes can never vie with her white sis- ter of the Danube in one of the qualities that appeal to the highest grade of civilized man. The negro mouth, nose, eye, hair, finger-nails, and a hundred other distinguishing features will remain as they have been, and make her a poor competitor at best in an international beauty show to which Magyar maidens are admitted. The peasant group we interviewed had finished their own load, and were now doing work for another by contract. The steam- threshers, two of which I noticed as being of English make, appeared to be fully employed as well, showing that the relative merit of steam and man power here was not deter- mined. In Roumania and Russia I saw steam 1 62 PADDLES AND POLITICS power likewise in close competition with that of men and horses. In Russia the sight struck me more than elsewhere, because the famine was well appreciated by the dealers. It was early in September of 1891; prices were high, and the farmers might be regarded as directly interested in securing the fullest possible crop at the earliest moment. At Reni, or the Russian Danube, harvesting was in full swing when I ar- rived; the town was full of Jews, who pounced upon the incoming peasant's wagon like chick- ens on a cockroach, and from the violence of their gesticulation appeared to be insisting either upon his life, or his load of grain. Here I saw peasants driving round and round over their wheat an empty cart with three horses harnessed to it abreast, a very slow and labo- rious way indeed. At another peasant's en- closure, the head of the family had harnessed three horses abreast to a "stone boat" or toboggan-shaped sled. On this vehicle was seated his pretty wife who held in her arms a baby about six months old. Round and round they went, the baby enjoying it hugely. The husband was probably too poor to afford a steam machine, and was probably owing his present crop for unpaid taxes. DOWN TIIL DANUBE 163 We strolled amidst the golden hay stacks of the Szegedin threshing fields until noon, when the peasants lit their camp-fires and pre- pared their dinner like the gypsies; we too felt hungry, so bidding good-bye to the bare- legged men and the untrammeled maidens, we jumped aboard our light wagon, flew back over the bumpy roads to the Hotel Tisza, had a royal meal, drank a farewell bumper, and then once more joined Caribee and the Danube. Here it was that I said good-bye to Lajos, God bless him ! 164 PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE 165 CHAPTER XVII SERVIAN PUBLIC OPINION AT Semendria I went ashore, for the sake of meeting a Servian banker recommended to me as a good judge of the present condition of his country. As every one knows, Semen- dria is the Chicago of Servia, and as grain is one of the principal items in the trade of the country, the bankers of this town fix the quo- tations for all the rest. But first let me recall once more the beauty of the stream all the w^ay from Belgrade to this place — the beautiful slopes covered with vines; the fields of grain; the horses, cows, pigs, and sheep that trooped to the water for a bath; the melodious peasantry who seemed always sing- ing or piping. Judging only from the canoe deck, I seemed to sail along a land full of all that makes a nation prosperous and happy. As I landed at the Belgrade swimming bath, and handed my passport to an official, I was met by these proud words: ** The stranger needs no passport — the Serbs are a free people." Belgrade being the first city which the stranger sees coming from up the river, and, besides that, the capital of the country, this proud speech made a deep impression on me. From the river, too, Belgrade is one of the most imposing cities in the world in both strength of position and beauty. It rises from the water's edge in terraces of roofs, gardens, towers, battlements, and minarets. The gor- geous light of the rising sun was bathing it in a soft embrace of gold and orange as I paddled toward it from Semlin, and I could not but fancy myself approaching an oriental paradise. But I should have done better to paddle on, for the town itself suggests the rule of a Servian Tammany Hall. The streets are bad as bad can be; some pretentious modern buildings are to be seen, but they only .serve to make the remnants of Turkish rule more squalid; prices are very high; soldiers appear to own the place — I was glad to get away. I had some of the same feeling in Greece — that I would have enjoyed the Acropolis more had I known Athens less. To gaze at its glori- ous proportions from the sea is pleasure pure; 1 66 PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWxX THE DANUBE 167 to approach it through the brick and mortar of a sham civilization is to me almost blasphe- mous. In Belgrade a friend holding official position told me that western Europe was wrong in thinking the Serbs under Russian influence. As a rule, it is well to be shy of all people in official position, because such people acquire a certain professional bias which compels them to seek, not the truth, but the views of their superiors. This opinion, then, I thought little of until I reached Semendria, and had a talk with my banker friend. He was a patriotic Serb, a man who had seen the world, who knew the people worth knowing, and talked freely with me. ** Do you look upon Russian influence as dangerous ? " I asked. " It is a constant source of anxiety to us, but the Russian generally overdoes his part. He is so sly as to overreach himself. His ruble can do much in a country that has been for generations demoralized by Turkish misrule; but, thank God, it can not do everything ! " *' What is to oppose it ? " " Our national spirit is very strong, strange as this may appear. Our people are free and independent peasants — you may travel into every corner of Servia, and wherever you go you will find a peasantry living comfortably, jealous of their liberty, and enthusiastic in the cause of Servian nationality. The Greek Church is strong, but the national spirit is stronger. " The Eastern question, in my opinion," con- tinued he, '' will not be settled until the Serb has fought with Greek and Bulgar, and recov- ered national sway over the Serbs, now forced to submit to the rule of enemies. We do what we can to keep the national spirit alive — we have organized societies in neighboring states, particularly in the Turkish provinces, all de- voted to fostering Servian life and literature. Our work is not easy, for our people are not all as well educated as we could desire, but still we do make progress, and are ready to fight for what we deem a holy cause." " But as to Russia, what is it that checks their propaganda ? " I asked. " The best of all checks," he answered, '' our pockets. Our trade interests lie up the river toward Austria and Germany. We send each year from Semendria about two hundred big barges, each holding three to five hundred tons of grain, up toward Germany. Our sales are ! I I 1 68 PADDLES AND POLITICS made up there. Our trade demands that Ger- man be our language. The Austro-Hungarian Empire treats us well; we have everything to hope from that quarter, and nothing to fear. "What could Russia do for us? She will not trade. She does not represent liberty. The up-river countries represent trade, and Ser- vians need not feel sorry at the prospect of being as liberally governed as Hungary." "If that is the case," I asked, "why this constant intrigue on the part of Russia ? " " The Russian intrigue continues because our people are haunted by the dread of Russian conquest along the lower Danube. Many of them believe that Russia will eventually cap- ture Constantinople and that she will then be the mistress of all this part of the world. Her friends she will reward — her enemies she will enslave. If Servia help Russia, think they, then Russia will give us back our great na- tional territory. " Personally, I do not believe in Russian gratitude of this kind. Moreover, I do believe that if Servia could see some clear sign from Vienna or London, or, better still, from Berlin, it would have a very good effect. If the Ger- rnan Emperor once for all proclaimed his de- s DOWN THE DANUBE 169 termination to maintain the status quo on the Danube, as against Russia, he would at once put an end to the intrigues now undermining our vitality. Germany and Austria together are clearly entitled to the chief voice in Dan- ubian matters, and when this voice is raised all the little states will promptly recognize the side on which their interests lie. Russia will crawl back across the Pruth, or, if she chooses to con- test, very well— all the Danube countries will then know under which flag to range them- selves." My friend assured me that he spoke for the material interests of Servia, and that Germany was losing a splendid opportunity in not doing all in her power, at this time, to assure every Danube state of her protection. This is only one Serb, to be sure, but his language I have heard repeated often and often by different people in corresponding positions along the shores of Bulgaria and Roumania. They, one and all, dread the invasion of Rus- sian barbarism; they long for vigorous utter- ances from Berlin; they hesitate— they negotiate with the Czar's agents— they do what they can to gain time, and preserve in the meantime ap- pearances of at least official friendship. But i I/O PADDLKS AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE 171 (I during this anxious period enormous military forces are raised and maintained; trade is much hampered by protectionism carried to barbarous extremes; capitalists seek safer fields for in- vestment — in short, the poor people could not be much worse off in actual war. CHAPTER XVIII CARIBEE SHOOTS THE RAPIDS OF THE IRON GATES THE 1 8th of August was a very hot day in the year 1891, at least to me. There was scarcely a breath of wind; I had been paddling from 7 in the morning until nearly noon; the Servian shore seemed as uninterest- ing as the Hungarian, and even the singing and piping of the peasants on the banks failed to stimulate me. Two frontier soldiers on the Hungarian side promised a momentary diver- sion. They shot out at me from behind a reedy island, one rowing, the other steering. Oh ! for a fair wind I prayed, what a dance might I then have led them— though when they had headed me off, and I noticed two rifles within convenient reach, I remembered that frontier guards along this river have a reputation for shooting on slight provocation. Our conversation was as follows; Guard: Where from .^ CarIBEE: Budapesth. i.l \J2 PADDLES AND POLITICS Guard: Where going ? Caribee: Black Sea. The guards gave a few suspicious and dis- satisfied grunts, pulled away to their island, and left me to work along as before. Fortunately not for long, for a sharp turn in the stream brought mc face to face with one of the grandest bits of scenery in the world. A spur of the Transyl vanian Alps crosses the Dan- ube here, between Bazias and Turn-Severing, and forces the stream between rocky sides that spring precipitously to the sky. I felt as though entering some cavernous region of which this was the portico. So lofty are the rocks, and so narrow the river, that light fails, and the vista appears to end in blackness. The very threshold of this mighty pass is suggestive of disaster, for here is a lofty solitary rock in mid-stream looking like a stony warning to those venturing beyond. Its very name— Babakai— in Turkish means '' warning." On my right are the extensive ruins of a once mighty fortress which hundreds of years ago protected Chris- tian Hungary from the inroad of the Moslem. In fact there is scarce a point of military ad- vantage between Vienna and the Black Sea that does not mark the desperate efforts made I DOWN THE DANUBE ^73 in time past to shut out the Mohammedan in- vasion. I was able to count nine splendid towers, still standing, to attest the importance of this once mighty stronghold. The wind blows fresh and fair as Caribee en- Caribee IN THE whirlpools and rapids of the iron gates. ters the passes; and although as a rule it is better to furl sail when surrounded by steep mountains, this seemed an occasion when an exceptional risk might be run. So with both wings spread we flew into the Iron Gates. The sailing warmed my blood, and nature '74 PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE 175 h i once more spoke sympathetically to me; the music of the cattle and the shepherds' pipes on shore seemed delicious ; the boys and girls swimming out to meet me seemed like creat- ures of a pleasing mythology. On we sailed, looking now at Servia, now at Hungary, and feeling that with so much beauty between them they surely ought to be good friends. But the defile into which we sailed is about seventy- five miles long: darkness overtakes us before we are more than over the threshold; we there- fore pull Caribec ashore, camp for the night and dream of a glorious morrow. At 7 on the following morning Caribee moved once more out into the '* Iron Gates." The ninety kilometers to Orsowa would have been easy ones but for the wind, which came out dead ahead and rather strong. It made the water of the rapids very lumpy, so that it was almost impossible to detect the channel. On this day I carefully furled my sails and pro- posed to rely wholly on my paddle. As I had not heard of any canoe which had ever run these rapids, and could get no information on the subject from the secretaries of the principal English and American canoe clubs, I went ashore at Trenkowar, on the Hungarian side, and made inquiries in regard to them of the resident agent of the great Danube Steamship Company. This company maintains a very large fleet of excellently equipped steamboats, trading the whole navigable length of the stream— that is, between Regensburg and the Black Sea. The Iron Gates are a source of great concern to them, for the whirlpools here are the result of the very shallow water, which necessitates a transfer of goods from large to small boats— indeed, at some stages no boats can pass at all. For some years efforts have been making to blast the rocks which encumber the channel, and to make it navigable at all times. It is greatly to be hoped that these efforts will be successful. To-day, however, the most enthu- siastic engineer can only hope— he can hardly be confident. The Vienna manager of this steamship com- pany had kindly given me a letter of introduc- tion to his different agents along the river, and as Trenkowar was a point where vessels bound eastward usually took pilot, it seemed proper to go ashore and reconnoitre. The agent was most polite, but for some time failed to grasp what I wished. To my question 176 PADDLES AND POLITICS whether 1 could get down in safety, he said he thought so; there would he a steamer along soon ! Then I told him that I had my own boat; to which he said he would furnish me with a pilot. But I had to protest that there was barely room for me, let alone another. This he could not believe, so I took him to the shore and let him admire the beautiful lines of Caribee. " Then," said he, " you must wait for the freight boat, and place your canoe on her." This was shocking. Had I come so far to get upon a coarse freight boat ? I told him that I wanted to paddle my own canoe through the rapids. " Gott bewahre!" was his pious ejaculation. *' It has never been done, it can never be done. It is ' toll kuehn.' You will be drowned, and your body never recovered ! " He offered to let me go dow^n and back for nothing on one of his steamers, in order to con- vince me of my folly; but that would have consumed the best part of the day. The water was not far below normal height, and as I had taken Caribee through many ap- parently desperate places in safety, I felt per- haps too confident at the prospect of Danubian whirlpools. DOWN THE DANUBE 177 The good agent shook me warmly by the hand, gave me his blessing, and gazed sorrow- fully at me as the swift current hurried me away. It was after 9 in the morning when I bade good-bye to Trenkowar. In less than fifteen minutes Caribee had safely passed through the rapids of Kozla and Doika without particular difficulty. There w^as something delightful in the sensation of battling with the turbulent water, especially to feel that the buoyancy of a little canoe was more than a match for the snatching eddies of the furious current. On both sides of me the great black mountains went up from the river 1,500 to 2,000 feet, add- ing gloom to a landscape already forbidding enough. The scene was very lonesome, and where I happened to catch sight of a human dwelling it seemed as though the inmates must have strayed here by mistake. The poet Ovid, according to some accounts, spent part of his exile in these regions, but this I cannot believe after having paddled down this portion of the river. It is as desolate and majestic as the far- famed Saguenay, which flows into the lower St. Lawrence. At half an hour before noon I was approach- 178 PADDLES AND POLITICS ing the Izlas rapids, which are said to be very bad, particularly as they are followed immedi- ately by a series called Tachtalia-velika, Tach- talia-mala, and the Greben, all of them coming within a stretch of only two or three miles. And with a stream running about ten miles an hour, there is not much time to think between leaving one set of rocks and jumping into the next. For these rapids are formed by a mass of jagged rocks scattered over the bottom with so little reference to the convenience of the traveler that it is extremely difficult to find a channel, however small. The moment you have luckily passed between two threatening rocks you are pretty sure to find another straight ahead, and when you look around for a channel in some other direction, you can see nothing but a confused mass of foam bubbling up savagely all about. Just before pitching into the Izlas rapids I went ashore in a back eddy on the Hungarian side, and climbed to a point from which I had a bird's-eye view of the stream. It was inter- esting as a picture, and when I came down I fancied that I had in my mind a satisfactory chart of the rocks to be dodged. It was exactly noon when I pushed off from DOWN THE DANUBE 179 this point, nibbling some sausage and black bread by way of lunch. I struck out boldly for the first opening in the rapids, and when the downward rush seized me I thought it most exhilarating sport. In the next moment, however, I had before me a line of foam stretching across my path on either side as far as I could see; though for that mat- ter so swift was my descent that it was out of the question to work far to either side. There was nothing to do but ride a straight line for it, rise to the fence at all hazards and trust to luck for the issue. The counterpart to stick- ing close in the pigskin was having my toes snug and fast on the little ribs of the canoe, my back well planted for hard work when the strain came, being balanced for quick dodging, and, above all, keeping a cool grip on the paddle. At the first great wave of foam Caribee rose superbly. No hunter could have made a more splendid lift, and as her bow rose I sought, by throwing my weight aft, to make her work easier. For just a moment she hung trembling on the top of the broken surge, then down she plunged on the other side, burying her pretty forward skin up to the waist and spraying me II \ it 1 80 PADDLES AND POLITICS with foam. The idea of seeking a channel was now quite lost sight of, and my efforts were di- rected to keeping out of the centre of the whirl- pools. Of mere rocks I was not afraid, for the canoe was so light and the pressure of water so great that she could almost be trusted to take care of herself on this score. The whirlpools are, however, dangerous. They seem infinite in number, their circles overlap at times, and nothing but the most anxious care kept Caribee from being nipped by one. My plan was always to play off one eddy against the other — a good rule in the stream of politics as well. I sought to force my boat between the whirlpools, or, if that was impossible, then across their points of intersec- tion. In that way I managed to neutralize much of their spite, and, thanks to the excel- lent training of Caribee, I never once failed. A very nasty feature of the rapids was the large amount of broken water that sprang up into sharp and high waves which attacked the canoe so savagely as to suggest that they were shot up from the bottom of the river by some devilish sprites who have a grudge against boats. These waves do not extend themselves DOWN THE DANUBE 181 any more than the whirlpools, but they are, in their sphere, quite as bad. At one time I was caught in a mass of turbulent water while a paddle steamer was passing, and the effect was such that I did not enjoy the movement in the least. By 2 o'clock I pass some more majestic ruins overlooking the Danube at the very southernmost point of Hungary, and immedi- ately afterward am struggling with the Juc rapids, the only ones between Greben and the Khasan Pass, a distance of four hours as I traveled. On this day I paddled only when it was necessary, and the rapids gave me plenty to do. For long stretches I had com- parative rest and the very height of happiness, for I was then stretched out comfortably in the bottom of my boat, marveling at the beau- ties of nature so prodigally bestowed. No puff- ing railway snorts along either bank of this grand river, at least in this neighborhood. The magnificent roadway on the Hungarian side is not only a great monument to engineering en- terprise, but calculated to throw into stronger relief the ruggednessof the surrounding mount- ains. But time spins on rapidly under such condi- : l82 PADDLES AND POLITICS tions. My ship's watch in the bottom of the boat marks half-past 4 before I am aware of it, and the river, contracting suddenly to a few hundred yards between perpendicular cliffs, calls me to my duties as navigator, for now comes the worst bit of the day. We have at last reached the Khasan Pass, through which the water rushes and boils at the rate of eleven feet to the second, the fall being seven and a half feet in every five hundred fathoms (Aus- trian Klafter). This section is, really, not so bad as the Iron Gates proper, which are to follow, but the black walls are close and for- bidding; the wind at the time was blowing sharply against me and making the channel difficult to find; a storm of some sort was brewing up in the mountains, and to add to my work the wash of a mail steamer made the other waves worse than usual. But Caribee proved as faithful here as further up, and with nothing worse than a wholesome drenching I passed the worst of the rapids in safety. I now coasted close along the Servian shore, admiring the remains of the military road which the Roman Emperor Trajan carved out of the rocks here about one hundred years after Christ. The sketch I made shows the holes from which DOWN THE DANUBE 183 heavy beams propped up the wooden planks which reached out over the black stream. The wooden parts have long ago been used up at fishermen's fires, but the arched roof of rock still remains overhanging the stone pathway \^ Caribee at trajan's tablet. beneath to prove beyond question that in the days of Trajan the Danube was regarded as of vast commercial, as well as strategic, impor- tance; in fact, that the Rome of two thousand years ago was willing to make greater sacri- fices for the development of commerce along 1 84 PADDLES AND POLITICS r this stream than the Europe of to-day. An exception must be made in favor of Szechenyi, the generous Magyar, who in 1830 began the highway which does to-day for Hungary what the work of Trajan did for the people of his time. The remains of this work of Trajan's help us to realize that there was a time when, from the Black Sea to the head of the river, the whole Danube country was under one strong government, and that its whole shore-line was policed by the legions of Rome as jealously as England to-day guards her Indus. Sensual vice in later centuries made cowards and idiots of the Roman leaders, and when that time came the Danube was lost. Barbarous mobs broke through at one point and then another; Roman civilization was rooted out of existence as though in one night, and at points where it had been growing for hundreds of years. A few marble arches and scraps of household utensils are now about all that remain to mark the site of cities which in the days of imperial Rome were as important in their way as Liverpool and New York are to-day. Caribce stopped awhile at a point on the Ser- vian shore by the side of the great Roman DOWN THE DANUBE 185 roadway, where a long inscription carved in the living rock commemorated the finishing of this noble enterprise. The letters are largely obliterated, for the fishermen have in centuries gone by built their fires on this convenient ledge, and it is but within recent years that public action has rescued what remains. A masonry buttress now prevents any further de- struction, save that caused by time. A peasant, with a shaggy lamb's-wool hat on his head, and clothed in the single tunic and wide trou- sers of the country, was preparing his supper as I passed. His dress is similar to that which his ancestors wore when Trajan cut his name on the rocks here. His fishing implements most likely have not changed in the last two thousand years. He probably felt much ag- grieved when forbidden to cook his supper against the precious tablet of the Roman em- peror — not that he objected to Trajan's person- ality, for he may never have heard the name — but because he was prevented from doing what his ancestors had regarded as their right for a thousand years. This man had probably never seen a rail- way train, or been aboard a steamboat. The chances are that his ancestor in the days of 1 86 PADDLES AND POLITICS Roman rule enjoyed larger advantages of an educational nature than he to-day in an age that pretends to pity the poor heathen of ante- phonographic times. If we can call to mind a picture of the West Indies when they shall have been handed over to a negro govern- ment, or of India when the last redcoat shall have been withdrawn, we can understand why Servia to-day may have to look back twenty centuries to recall that she was once a pros- perous and a civilized country. The Khasan pass is short, narrow, and swift, and we are too soon done with it. Its dark walls are monuments that speak to us of the past, the present and the future of this inter- esting part of the world. The day of Trajan is past, because in Rome the politicians were without patriotism, the citizens without energy. Servia has not yet roused herself to rebuild this road, for she has not yet recovered from her period of Turkish slavery. On the other side of the river, however, is a land full of fire and young blood, patriotism and courage. Hungary has taken up the^work which Rome abandoned, and her people are to-day the guardians of the lower Danube. The Szechenyi road is a symbol of their enterprise. We see DOWN THE DANUBE 187 it again in the strong efforts they are now making to render this reach of the river safe at all times of the year. The work would move more rapidly did Servia see her way to co- operate more effectually, but a beginning has at least been made — and those who are im- patient at the slowness with which the work proceeds must bear in mind that Servia, in common with the other Balkan states, is so preoccupied with questions of self-preservation, that anything beyond that can receive scant attention. It is nearly dark when Caribee emerges from this long pass. The lights of Orsowa soon show themselves; I slip in behind a steamboat that is moored to the embankment; hurry up to an open-air restaurant of which I have heard; get a table close to the gypsy fiddlers who are here making a temporary paradise of an otherwise uninteresting place; order dinner; meet some good friends; in short, after twelve hours of pretty hard river work, enjoy a most welcome rest. The Iron Gates proper are below Orsowa, and constitute the grand finale to the seventy- five miles of dangerous navigation in this part of the Danube. It was at 7 o'clock in the morn- It ' 1 88 PADDLES AND POLITICS ing that Caribce pushed off for the final strug- gle. There was no companion of any sort on this occasion — not even a pilot. Her rigging was made fast so that nothing should wash off into the water. I had been up since 5 o'clock, stowing away stores and arranging my affairs with a special eye to campaigning amidst the outer barbarians. All heavy luggage I shipped back up the river, carrying with me nothing but a sailor's bag, and carefully putting out of the way any book or letter likely to be em- barrassing to a police officer. Immediately below Orsowa is Turkish terri- tory, the island of Ada-Kaleh; a perfect bit of Moslem life separated from all the world by the rushing Danube at the junction of three states. At Orsowa were Hungarian troops pacing the frontier. Within half an hour Rou- manian pickets appear, guarding their territory as though from a plague, while immediately across the stream, which is here comparatively narrow, a Servian sentinel is marching up and down before his guard tent. Before many hours I shall be greeted by the military uni- form of the Bulgarian police — but that is antic- ipation. About two miles below the Turkish island is DOWN THE DANUBE 189 a frightful reef across the stream, called the Prigrada. There is an exceedingly narrow channel through this bed of rock, well defined upon my government map, but impossible for me to find as I hurry along. The speed at which I am traveling must be very great, to judge by the shores, but to calculate exactly under the conditions existing was neither practicable nor safe. The official books say that the water passes here at the rate of fifteen feet in the second — and such water ! My first intimation of the great obstruction here was a white line of angry foam extending apparently entirely across the stream. The first wave was so high that I could get no general view of the whole rapid, and had I desired to alter my course it was impossible to do so now. There being, so far as Caribee was concerned, no channel, we had to take our own line. We rushed down, past the point where Trajan threw his great bridge across the stream; past the colony of workmen engaged in blasting out the projected channel. I could plainly see some of my friends on shore who waved their hats to the big national ensign I had hoisted on my mizzen. One plunge into the foamy crest, one shiver, one toss, and once again I 190 PADDLES AND POLITICS was in the midst of whirlpools, tossing and gy- rating in a confused tangle, creating counter- currents and dashing the blinding spray furi- ously into my face. The whole forward deck of Caribee was constantly washed, and my paddle had to leap quickly from one side to the other to prevent getting from bad into worse water. The waves here were very much higher than elsewhere, and altogether the work was, if possible, more difficult. Fortunately, however, as in so many difficult situations, the danger passed away just when I thought it was really becoming serious. The worst being over, and the wind fair, sail was hoisted, and away we flew in the strong current; but not for long. There were other whirlpools ahead which had to be faced, but I concluded to run through them with all sail spread, as they were not in the midst of high waves and broken water. I judged that with the smooth skin and the very light draft of Caribee great speed would insure safety, and that I might skim across the top of a whirlpool and be out on the other side before the savage monster could make up its mind to swallow me. This view proved sound, and though at each one there was always an uncomfortable DOWN THE DANUBE 191 deviation from the course, suggesting an in- cipient rotation, my speed and build carried me, in each case, triumphantly through. I did run aground on one of the many shal- lows below the rapids, and had to be very spry in order to prevent her getting broadside to the current, but in the end I was once more aboard and sailing along peacefully. I hope Caribee felt proud of herself— at any rate I did for her. She was the first of all canoes to pass the Iron Gates, and did it handsomely. I doubt if a heavier boat could have managed so well, unless going, as I did, without reference to any channel. In parenthesis I may add that, after having gone down the rapids of the St. Lawrence, I am satisfied that they bear no comparison with those of the Iron Gates for difficulty to the canoeist. The canoeist who proposes to follow in the wake of Caribee must hurry, for work is now going on here which has for its object the blasting out of a deep channel along the Ser- vian shore, through which ships may pass at all seasons. At present no locks are contem- plated, and the stream in this channel will be necessarily so swift that great power will be 192 PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE 193 needed to haul the vessels up; probably steam engines on the banks. The chief engineer, Mr. George Luther of Brunswick, has under- taken an enormous job, largely influenced by the glory of achieving success in an enterprise promising so much prestige to his country. Contractors who know, assure me that the work has proved so much more expensive than was at first anticipated, that the parties now engaged upon it will lose money, even if they succeed. The more honor, therefore, to Mr. Luther and his backers. s CHAPTER XIX IN A BULGARIAN WATER-MILL THE previous night I had spent on the Roumanian shore, a night made hideous to me by the frontier police, who had first sought to carry me off to the station house; then vociferously ordered me away from their shores, and finally, after drinking everything I had, including my methylated spirits, had taken themselves away. I left that camp at half-past 5 in the morning, after a refreshing swim. Breakfast I concluded to postpone for fear of attracting the police and exposing my larder to a raid; so, with a crust of bread in my hand, and an open tin of sardines in the bottom of the boat, I hoisted sail, skimmed disdainfully past the guard hut of my torment- ors, steered for the Servian side of the channel, and went ashore at a spot called Kusjak. There are only six houses here, but one of them was an inn, where presided a handsome Servian woman, who invited me to make my- self at home. All the Servian women I have (\ 194 PADDLES AND POLITICS so far seen are handsome — this one singularly so. Her table was in the shade in front of her house; the cloth was of a pretty red and white pattern, with napkins to match. Everything about the place was clean and neat — yet who could her customers be but peasants ? As I sat at her door, cart after cart passed, each one drawn by a yoke of oxen, and commanded by an erect, dark-browed and handsome Serb, wearing a huge black lamb's-wool hat copied from Robinson Crusoe. A coarse white cotton shirt fell from his shoulders, exposing a strong neck and hairy chest; loose trousers of the same material came to below his knees; a broad red belt encompassed his waist; on his feet were sandals. There was nothing in the whole ** outfit" that was not, in all probability, raised or made on his farm; and for that mat- ter it is equally probable that the peasant who passed this spot in the days of the Emperor Trajan wore a hat and tunic, belt and sandals similar to those of the one that passed me on a very hot morning in August, in the year 1891. The pretty landlady soon brought me a mess of deliciously fried fish, and a big bottle of excellent red wine. My second course con- DOWN THE DANUBE 195 sisted of a cup of black Turkish coffee. Be- fore parting she presented me with three big bunches of luscious grapes, and a jug of wine. Her bill, including everything, was only two francs — yet to hear her talk was worth more than that. As I sat here enjoying ON THE SERVIAN SHORE, NEAR KUSJAK. THE FISHERMAN ON HORSEBACK HAS JUST CAPTURED A STURGEON, AND IS GALLOPING FROM HOUbE TO HOUSE, LOOKING FOR A PURCHASER. the novel oriental life about me, a fierce Serb rode up on his pony. He had a huge sturgeon lashed to his saddle, behind, and was hurrying to find a customer before it was too late. He was evidently well up in the pretty landlady's graces, for though she did not buy his booty, she gave him a little glass, which he raised 196 PADDLES AND POLITICS gallantly to her good health; then off he dashed at a mad gallop, followed by tender glances from a pair of Servian eyes. I rather envied that fellow; he looked so proud, as the tail of his sturgeon flopped up and down be- hind him— and then he would be back here again some day, while I — After a short hour here I was again afloat; soon passed the Servian frontier for good, and coasted along the Bulgarian shore. At this point of transition my attention was diverted from the dreary-looking quarantine buildings by two pretty maidens, who tripped lightly down to the edge of the water, smiled pleasantly, and wafted a kiss to Caribee. As though by a common impulse, each tossed off her little red jacket; then two red skirts slipped to the ground. The young ladies stood then in gauzy chemises — but not for long. With a quick motion of the shoulders, these two final garments disappeared at their feet, and they posed like two triumphant models inviting ad- miration. Then out they skipped toward me, waving their arms, tossing their hair, laughing merrily. They made straight for Caribee, with the obvious intent of capturing ship and cargo, and might have succeeded in doing so DOWN THE DANUBE 197 had I not sternly turned my face the other way, and paddled furiously toward the Black Sea. On I paddled, for the wind that helped me in the morning was dead ahead now, and at half-past 6 I concluded to camp, having been twelve hours in my boat. The shores were not propitious — they looked marshy. A huge water-mill was clappering away by the Bul- garian shore; the miller hailed me good even- ing, as I came near; he spoke German; looked like a good fellow — happy thought! Why go ashore at all } Why not hitch Caribee to the water-mill } The miller gave permission; I pulled up on the land side — I had nearly said the port side —of his craft; he helped me to unload my kitchen arrangements, and in other ways, as well, showed his friendliness toward the stranger. He was a Bulgarian, but spoke some German, and we got along famously to- gether. First, however, I must have my swim. So, with a run I take a header aft of the wheel, and strike for shore. But I had miscalculated my powers in a six-mile current, and was carried far down the stream into the darkness before I 198 PADDLES AND POLITICS finally succeeded in getting ashore, a long dis- tance from the point where I made my proud plunge. Of course, there was nothing to do but to trudge back along the mud — a simple thing in itself. On this occasion the news of my arrival had apparently spread, for I found that many Bulgarians of both sexes and all ages had come to the shore since my plunge, for the sake of seeing the stranger and his craft. The situation was very embarrassing, but what could I do ? and besides, the inno- cent sportiveness of the maidens I had seen further up reminded me that the awkwardness of the situation sprang wholly from a social bias contracted under a false system of educa- tion. In Japan I had been forced to counte- nance situations that were shocking at first to me, but wholly innocent to that most refined race of people. Here was I now amidst a peo- ple apparently as natural, in some respects, as those of Japan or the South Sea Islands. So on I trudged through the curious throng, answering their greetings with corresponding good humor, and seeking to create the impres- sion that this was the costume in which I habit- ually took my evening stroll. It was not so easy getting aboard again, on DOWN THE DANUBE 199 account of the swiftness of the current and the distance of the mill from the shore. I started well up the stream, however. The miller threw me a rope as I came abreast of him, and soon I was once more dressed and making my even- ing meal of bread and soup. Seven more fierce-looking Bulgarians arrived while I was cooking on the floor, and my host explained that they, too, were his guests, who lodged on the water with him. They all wore high Robinson Crusoe hats, loose cotton tunics and trousers, broad belts, but nothing on their feet. They sat cross-legged in a circle about a huge iron pot which hung over a bed of char- coal. The fire was built in a wooden trough filled with sand. These men were probably very peaceable members of society, who were profiting by the excellent harvest; but the most exemplary must look wicked when they wear black lamb's- wool high hats in a Bulgarian mill which is lighted by a single candle only strong enough to reveal gleaming teeth and shifting eyeballs. There was a little boy in this mill— the son of my host. He had a burning fever, and was restlessly turning from side to side upon a pile of corn-sacks. His mother had gone for a 200 PADDLES AND POLITICS doctor, who must have lived far away, for she did not return until the following morning. Unfortunately, I had no medicines with me, but the boy relished my fragrant vegetable soup as a change from his daily mess of corn-meal. This Bulgarian miller must have been very poor indeed, for he had no bed or separate room for his wife and child; they and their seven lodgers all slept in the same room, mak- ing themselves as comfortable as possible on the empty bags, and, of course, not changing their garments. The noise of the mill-wheel made conversation next to impossible within the house, and the vibration was such that I could not imagine myself sleeping there. However, I made a good meal, sharing my luxuries with my host and the little boy, and at eight o'clock left the seven fierce lodgers crouched on their haunches about the gypsy pot. With the aid of my host's lantern I work- ed my way cautiously along the boards to where Caribce was moored. Giving her twenty feet of painter, I slipped down into her well, bade good-night to my Bulgarian friend, and quickly dropped astern through twenty feet of oriental darkness. The miller pressed me to Stay on board of his house-boat, vainly seek- DOWN THE DANUBE 201 ing to make me feel that I should there be safer and more comfortable than in my canoe. Politely but firmly I declined his offer, my ostensible reason being that I should be crowd- ing his guests to no purpose. As a matter of fact, I could not have been coaxed by any amount of per- suasion to spend a night in that floating mill. The heat there was op- pressive, and _ my skin invol- ^ untarily itched at the thought ofthe fleas that undoubtedly had come aboard with the seven fierce lamb's-wool lodgers. Nor was rigging my tent such an easy thing as it looked, for Caribee kept slewing from side to side, forced by the eddies that formed be- hind the mill. I had to half stand up to reach the mainmast and fasten the forward end, and SEAMAN FROM A TURKISH SHIP PADDUNG A DUGOUT CANOE. '.'! 202 PADDLES AND POLITICS the after end was nearly as bad. Then to over- haul sleeping-gear, make room in the well for my legs, and yet spill nothing in the water — all this required some care. Of course I knew, when I lay down at last to sleep, that there were such people as river pirates, and that all Bulgarians were not as humane as my miller. It would have been easy enough for a malevo- lent wretch to cut my painter while I was asleep, and cut my throat, too, if it seemed desirable: it had been done before, and with less prospect of booty than Caribee promised. So I tucked my long-bladed knife in my sleeve, as I turned onto my right side, and fell asleep as peacefully and happily as though brigands existed only in picture-books. My back rested gently against the tender ribs of the little craft, the motion of the water rocked me, and as the waves lapped along her sides, the sweetest of lullabies could not have had more magical effect. I slept like a tired child until the next day's sun burst through my cur- tains, and the miller's wife greeted me with an invitation to breakfast. She had returned in the small hours of the morning, fondly believing that she had brought with her the dose that would heal her little DOWN THE DANUBE 203 boy. Her face shone with happiness as she told me of her success in finding the doctor and securing his medicine. 204 PADDLES AND POLITICS CHAPTER XX A TURKISH BIT OF RIVER THE pale little boy with the big helpless eyes haunted me as I steered Caribee out into the current, a fair light breeze swelling my sails toward Kalafat. The very name sug- gests the Arabian nights, but I was too hun- gry to think of anything else as I approached the town. It seemed as though the whole population of the interior had formed an en- campment of ox-teams at the river's edge, and was occupied exclusively with freighting ships with hard red wheat. Here, at least, was no famine, whatever might be the case in Russia; and it was natural for me to conclude that most of these ships were chartered for the starving people of the great Czar — but in this I was much mistaken. The bullock carts I saw here, as elsewhere in Roumania, creaked very much as they mov- ed, for they had no tires. They carried very big loads, however, and in a country without rocks wear very well. DOWN THE DANUBE 205 Seeing Kalafat in the height of the shipping season is deceptive, for the ships along shore instinctively made me anticipate paved streets and a good hotel. I gave my canoe over to the keeper of the floating bath, an mstitution i^WlM ,N THE CAFE AT KALAFAT : A BIG TURK GIVING ORDERS TO A SLIM AND IN THE CAFE A I K j^jQgciLE-LOOKlNG WAITER. where I always found German spoken, and then, smoothing my dress out for the sake of appearances, struggled up a high dirt bank. On the edges of this I found ruins of batteries that reminded me, for the first time, that I was on a battle-field of the late Russo-Turkish War. 2o6 PADDLES AND POLITICS Once on this plateau, I stumbled about over very irregular ground, hoping to reach the heart of the city. Finding, after passing through the settlement from end to end, that I was in a straggling village, I inquired for the best hotel, and was told, in German, that Lloyd's had that reputation; and to Lloyd's I accord- ingly hurried. It was a very dirty house, but as I took a seat at one of the out-of-door tables I did not mind that. Near me sat a homesick- looking gentleman, and to him I appealed when I discovered that the waiter and I had no speech in common. My lonely friend was an Italian grain merchant. He ordered a very bad breakfast, but that was no fault of his. He told me all I ever knew or expect to know of this dirty place. The population appears to be, according to him, made up of three-fourths Jews, one- fourth Greeks, and the balance " Europeans." His arithmetic confused me, but he left no doubt as to his opinion regarding Jews and Greeks. His use of the word *' European " manifestly suggested that he did not regard the countries east of the Adriatic as worthy of serious treatment; in fact, we have a counter- part of his feelings in the way Americans of i| DOWN THE DANUBE 207 the South and West draw the line sharply be- tween "white men" on the one side, and negros, greas- ers, Canucks, In- dians, and Dagos on the other. I remember a lit- tle girl of half Italian, halflrish ^fg parentage who "^^ protested once in regard to her choice of par- ents: ''Myfather was a ' Dago,' but my mother was ' white ! ' " This *' dago " friend of mine was, neverthe- less, a charming companion, who exiled himself here once a year for the sake of the grain trade, as many another lives the life of a cowboy or miner in Nevada or Mon- TURKISH SKIPPER AT KALAFAT, WHO IS ANGRV AT HIS CONSUL. 208 PAD1)IJ:S AND POLITICS tana, praying in his heart for the day of de- liverance. As we sat and chatted, there walked in the captain of a Turkish ship, a fine fellow indeed, with a tremendous turban on his head and a sash of gorgeous red. Near him was a tall, bony savage from Montenegro, whose dress reminded me of Albania — short, spreading white skirts, a red loose fez, long and elabor- ately worked leggings, and a big belt bristling with pistols and dirks. He would have made a panic on the New York Produce Exchange, yet his business here was simply to buy grain. All were not so picturesque as these two, for the Jews and Greeks dressed for the most part after the western fashion. It was a motley crowd, however, that jostled about the river- side, as I made my way back to the bath- house. Each nationality seemed to havg a representative, although the cosmopolitanism that resulted smacked more of Castle Garden than of Paris. The economic importance of Kalafat to Roumania seems to be in the fact that it loads thirty big barges here every year, in which respect it has just twice the importance of Cetate a few miles further up the river. But DOWN THE DANUBE 209 when the vessels have floated away, and the peasants' wains have creaked off to the villages, and the corn brokers fled to seek other victims, then must Kalafat be indeed a desolate village, populated principally by tax-gatherers, sol- diers, and customs guards. Smoking is a bad habit, but I am sorry for the man who cannot indulge himself occasion- Caribee BORNE BY BULGARIAN PORTERS. ally. This reflection was mine on that beauti- ful morning of August, 1891, as I reclined lux- uriously upon the floor of Caribeey crossed my bare feet upon the upper deck, gazed out upon miles and miles of glassy river and meditatively smoked myself into a Turkish paradise. Behind me Roumania with its frontier pickets and bad breakfast was quickly forgotten as the 2TO PADDLES AND POLITICS Danube current bore me nearer the shores of the Sultan's empire, to the Bulgarian fortress called Widin. Through the merciful medium of smoke there rose before me from the bosom of the stream a city of transcendent beauty, of palaces and castles ; minarets and towers; strange battlements and oriental cupolas. I -^^^zzl CARRYING WATER FROM THE RIVER, WIDIN, BULGARIA. counted eight mosques shining in the golden sunlight; in fact, the city seemed at every angle brilliant with color and precious stones. I have seen descriptions of Pekin, Stamboul, Damascus, and other oriental cities, which ap- peared enormously exaggerated when tested by actual residence; but none that I have read DOWN THE DANUBE 211 is too highly colored to match my first impres- sion of Widin. In the dancing sunlight every outline sug- gested neatness, cleanliness, prosperity. The people of both sexes disporting themselves in the water beneath the walls of the citadel, sug- gested a simpler and perhaps more innocent state of society than that of to-day. Deep- sea vessels, with high prows and poops and enormous topsail yards, such as an Othello may have commanded in the days of Venetian splen- dor, were moored in a picturesque cluster un- der the guns of the town, as though still anticipat- ing a sudden attack from the enemy across the river. I was floating toward what appeared to be the Turkey of 400 years ago — the Turkey of conquest, the Tur- key whose Pashas were the dread of P^urope, whose cavalry scoured the plains of Vienna, PRIEST OF THE GREEK CHURCH. SKETCHED AT WIDIN. ^ 1 .torf PADDLES AND POLITICS whose fleets held the Mediterranean as part of the Sublime Porte. But I pulled in under the overhanging spars of the Turkish ships (Krelasch is, I believe, the local name), and found, as I almost ex- pected, a floating bath-house kept by a Hungarian gypsy who spoke German. She told me her hus- band had gone away on business, but that she would take good care of my boat. She did — but I did wrong in coming ashore. From the midst of a cigarette cloud and far out on the Danube I should have remained con- tent with the sunlit minarets, the frowning battlements, the flitting caiques, and dimly seen forms of oriental maid- ens. All this at least made a picture of ro- mance when seen from a distance — when close- ly inspected all was ragged, dirty and smelly. SKETCHED IN THE MARKET, WIDIN. DOWN THE DANUBE 213 The town is a gathering of wretched huts, planted indiscriminately all over the space within the walls. A few thoroughfares wind through the place, on which the shops front — shops which represent little more than a board shelter, one side completely open to the street. In these hutches sit the cobblers, tailors, tin- smiths, and other tradespeople, carrying on every variety of local manufacture in the open air, in sight of all their customers. Widin still remains oriental in form, though Bulgaria struggles bravely to cast off Turkish allegiance and enter the family of European nations. One of the mosques I peeped into suggested either poverty or indifference on the part of the congregation, for the only evidence of comfort, to say nothing of wealth, was in a few rugs on the floor. The shops contained only what was needed in the daily life of the town and neighborhood, obviously very primitive needs. I looked par- ticularly for oriental carving or decoration, any work of art that I might take home as a keepsake, but could discover nothing better than cheap stuff of French or German manu- facture. Russia has set the fashions for the military H PADDLES AND POLITICS of Bulgaria, though the peasantry and towns- people cling to the dress of their ancestors. The native cafes were full of picturesque Turks, and some of the peasants whom I met coming in to market, were not only highly picturesque, but of fine figure as well. The troops here seem to be very dirty and badly dis- ciplined, though physical- ly of good proportion. Their barracks were in keeping — the yard dirty, fence-palings down, many windows smashed. :s-^>- However, far from -fi^ TURKISH VOKTER AT WIDIN. blaming the Bulgar- ians for the generally shiftless appearance of their troops, one might rather wonder that they produce even what they do ! At the restaurant ** Eiffel," which I learned was the Delmonico of Widin, I saw some Bul- garian officers, dressed almost exactly like those of Russia. They had more swagger about them than those of Germany or France, but I did not mind that, for I notice that the DOWN THE DANUBE 215 weaker the government the more swagger it seems to expect from its representatives. Roumania and Servia keep Bulgaria company under this head. The " Eiffel " restaurant in Widin is perhaps even worse than that of Kalafat; democracy seemed to have made some headway since 1877, for the waiters puffed tobacco smoke as they took the guests' orders, and re- clined at full length on a bench in the lull of business. When the Danube steamer is announced, however, there is considerable life in the place. A file of troops march- es to the landing stage, ac- companied by a detail of cus- toms officers; the agents of the steamship company ap- pear in full uniform ; the Turkish porters and steve- dores are on hand to assist, and the balance of the popula- tion looks on. The trade here should be considerable, for it is the first depot of the Austrian steamship company where the A BULGARIAN GENS-D'- ARME SKETCHED IN THE STREET AT WIDIN. 2l6 PADDLES AND POLITICS up-river stuff is transferred to deep-sea vessels; then, too, here is a population officially stated to be about 14,000. In spite of all this, the place is not able to support an inn fit to sleep in, and the passengers who left the boat ap- peared in a minority as compared with the warlike customs guards, who demanded their passports and rummaged their luggage. Per- haps trade would improve here, if there were fewer custom-house obstructions and more security. The place was well fortified during the war of 1877 between Turkey and Russia, but the works are not now kept up. I saw some pieces of artillery lying about on the walls, but no evidence that any one attached a value to them. In fact, the wandering tourist here can scarcely feel that war raged here as late as 1885, when the Servians*sought to take the town by storm. To-day the signs of decay and decrepitude are so many, that it is start- ling to be told that Osman Pasha made this his base when marching to occupy Plevna in July of 1877, leading 30,000 men to that mem- orable fighting ground. DOWN THE DANUBE 217 CHAPTER XXI THE POLITICAL AGENT OF BULGARIA SAYS SOMETHING ABOUT RUSSIA WHEN I made arrangements for cruising down the Danube, I was under the impression that Turkey included Bulgaria, and that my passport must therefore be stamped with the Ottoman seal. The geographies, almanacs, and encyclopedias fortified my view, and the Turkish Consul in London told me that Bulgaria was to Turkey what Texas is to the United States. This seemed conclusive, but it was not. In Paris, or Petersburg, or Vienna, or Ber- lin — it is not well to be too positive at this moment — at any rate let us say that it was on the way to Turkey, I was so fortunate as to make the acquaintance of a most able and amiable Bulgarian. He was acting as the diplomatic representative of his country, and during the time which I spent in one of the four indefinite capitals I had many instructive hours with him. 2l8 PADDLES AND POLITICS Russia has of late taken to kidnapping or assassinating Bulgarians who express opin- ions at variance with those of the "commit- tees " which she *' unofficially " supports. As I write, the pa- pers are indig- nantly com- menting on the murder of Dr. Vulkovitch, at Constantinople, under circum- stances which leave little doubt that Mus- covite money from police headquarters did the dirty job. My Bulgarian f r i e n d , there- fore, took no pains to advertise his whereabouts. His name was not in any directory, nor was his address known at the United States Legation. We dined frequently together, but he took pains THE BULGARIAN OFFICIAL WHO DRESSES LIKE A RUSSIAN AND EXAMINES PASSPORTS. DOWN THE DANUBE 219 that it should be at a different place each time. My acquaintance with this interesting diplo- mate I owed to a mutual friend in London, whose letter I bore, and whose name ensured for me a generous wel- come. When he learned that I was about to visit his country, he said: '* Have you a pass- port ? " I answered that I had. "Is it Bulgarian .^ " I answered no. ''Then," said he, "it will be of no use to you." This opened my eyes, for the first time, to the real and not merely im- aginary weakness of the Turkish rule. I asked him what I should do. He told me not to wor- ry, he would write me a letter that would pro- tect me where a Turkish seal would be laughed at, and he did so, to my great comfort. One night he proposed, as a toast, "The A COMMON SIGHT ALONG THE BULGARIAN SHORE. n 220 PADDLES AND POLITICS German Emperor." He drank it with obvious sincerity; so plainly so, that I begged him afterward to explain to me how it happened that he emptied his glass with such fervor. He looked at me closely for a moment, leaned forward on his elbows after the manner of a man suspicious of eavesdroppers, then told me a story sounding something like this: " I am a Bulgarian, and love my country. My education I owe to Americans, that is to say, Robert College in Constantinople, where most of the leading men of my country go to study. •'We have achieved, after many years of struggle and bloodshed, something that passes for national independence — at least so far as Turkey is concerned. She has kept us in slavery for centuries, and as a consequence our people are far behind what they should be in educa- tion and enterprise. But in spite of the mis- rule and social demoralization we have suffered — a demoralization, by the way, common to Servia and Roumania as well— the Bulgar has preserved the tradition of an honorable ances- try, and awaits with confidence the dawn of national liberty. DOWN THE DANUBE 221 *'We are few in number — perhaps two mil- lions and a half — of which only one and a half millions are real Bulgars. The other million are a wild medley of Tartars, Turks, Jews, Circassians, Armenians, Roumanians, gypsies, Greeks, Serbs, Russians. Amongst these peo- ple there is of course plenty of bad feeling, based upon antagonism in race and religion. For instance, Turks, Tartars, Circassians, and Albanians are Mohammedans — that is, about 750,000. The gypsies are Heaven knows what ! The balance is principally Greek Church, but by no means united. *' The country has no network of railways, roads, or canals. Our taskmasters, in days gone by, did not build them, or even allow us to build them; we have, therefore, to begin at the beginning: build schools, roads, bridges; es- tablish secure government; maintain our integ- rity as a people; and, above all, pray that no war may check the beginnings of national prosperity. *' If there were no Russia, our task would be light. The Turk does not frighten us, and we have no fear of our other neighbors — Roumania and Servia. They both have their hands full, and are not likely to meddle with us at present. 222 PADDLES AND POLITICS ** Russia, however, is a daily and a serious menace. She treats our people as though we were already subjects of the Czar: Russians talk of occupying- the lower Danube as though it were already ,V^i decided in the ^ "^ cabinet of St. Petersburg; the priests of the Greek Church are suspected of being under the influence of Kieff. *' I know that my movements are watched, and I know that Russian spies are busy preparing Bulgaria for Panslavism. ''It is natural that the Czar should look with extreme displeasure upon any efforts made in Bulgaria to establish national inde- pendence. If we are to become Russian, he does not wish us first to cultivate the love of liberty. He has one Poland; he cannot wish to have another. TURKISH EMIGRANT AT HIkSOVA, ROUMANIA. SKETCHED AT THE STEAMBOAT WHAKF. DOWN THE DANUBE 223 ** Our people realize that Russia means to fight her way to Constantinople. She was balk- ed in 1877, a"d her pride is enlisted in erasing that mortification. Russians, speaking of the Ivl ^^ II 'II / 1,,' (' ' OFFERING US A WATERMELON, CZERNAVODA, ROUMANIA [DOBRUDZA]. march to Stamboul, are as violent as French- men talking of recapturing Metz and Strasburg. " If they march to Stamboul it must be across Bulgaria. If they succeed, they hold the lower 224 PADDLES AND POLITICS Danube, and merge us into their great con- glomeration of subjugated states. We know what Russian government means, and, after trying that of Turkey, we are pretty well agreed that a Pasha is no worse than a Cos- sack. *' Do not be deceived by the noise and dust of Bulgarian politics. Behind it all there is a patriotism which will be worth something to the leader who can rouse it. Just now it is little noted — our people do not care to shout on the housetops language which may to- morrow send them to jail or— Siberia. So long as we are in doubt as to the power of Russia, so long must we struggle along as we have. *' Our country needs capital and mercantile enterprise. But who will come here, when our government can give no assurance of protec- tion ? We have fertile soil and a splendid climate; we are on a great European river, and our people are industrious, yet we live as rudely as did our ancestors in the days of Caesar. ''All this can change. There is one man who can give us new life. That man lives far away, but he has a long arm. DOWN THE DANUBE *• Now you understand why I raised my glass to William II., German Emperor, Protector of the Danube." 226 PADDLES AND POLITICS CHAPTER XXII THE JEW FROM A DANUBIAN POINT OF VIEW ONE night I was the guest of a large larnded proprietor in the richest agricultural dis- trict of Hungary. He held a high professional position in the country, and was altogether what is called a leading man. Being myself about to inspect the Jew of Russia, and feeling a righteous indignation against persecution of any sort, I was struck by hearing him refer to the Jew in Hungary as an " unmitigated pest." This characteriza- tion seemed very harsh. I took the first op- portunity of drawing him out on the subject, and made a note immediately afterward of the conversation. "I speak only for Hungary — for the great majority of the people here. The Jew to us is a pest. What he is to Russia, to America, or to other countries, I cannot measure. Here he is not desirable, and, in my opinion, our gov- ernment would be doing a wise thing if it shut him absolutely out of the country. DOWN THE DANUBE 227 " The Germans do not suffer as we do from the Jews; they are more thrifty, more mercan- tile in their habits than we are. In the parts of Hungary where the people are of German JEWS AT A RUSSIAN RAILWAY STATION. extraction the Jews do not thrive so well as in the rest of the country. Our Magyar people are generous, unsuspicious and confiding. The Jew comes to them with a smile upon his face, 228 PADDLES AND POLITICS promises to help them when they get into debt, sells them the goods they fancy, tells them to never mind about payment at the time, coaxes them to run up an account, gives them a great RUSSIAN PEASANT SELLING HIS LOAD OF WHEAT TO THE JEW, RENI, MOUTH OF THE DANUBE, 1892. deal of credit in the beginning — then, after the poor people have been wheedled into a fool's paradise of credit, the Jew presents his big bill. DOWN THE DANUBE 229 His debtors cannot meet it in ready money: they have not kept even a record of it. In con- sequence, they must sell their cattle or crops to meet the obligation to the Jew. *' This is his grand opportunity. He has now got the peasants where he wants them. They are now easily induced to pledge their cattle, their crops— aye, their very homesteads— to meet the accumulation of little debts marked against them at the Jew's store. The peasants who once fall into the Jew's clutches by giving mortgages rarely get out. They have to keep on trading at the Jew's store; they are exposed to every form of veiled usury, and lead the bal- ance of their lives in serfdom— not to an aris- tocratic Magyar, but to the Jew." Of course I protested that the Hungarian must learn thrift in order to elude the wiles of the Hebrew. *♦ That may be, but meanwhile our country is suffering. You in America have driven out the Chinese because you disliked them. You will soon protect yourself against the Jews: if you do not it will be because you dare not. The Jews have got now the whole of your ne- gro population in debt to them, and hold them Tn a slavery quite as complete as any exercised 2^0 PADDLES AND POLITICS by their former masters. The Jew is prac- ticing in all your Southern States the same wiles that have made him the bond creditor of the peasantry here." ROUMANIAN PEASANT, NEAR THE RUSSIAN BORDER. I was forced to admit that the Jew was flour- ishing in America to an amazing extent, par- ticularly amongst the negroes, and, of course, DOWN THE DANUBE 231 if we maintained the right to exclude the prod- uct of alien labor, it was but logical to ex- clude the foreign laborer into the bargain. *' Aside from the mere money aspect of the question, the Jew is disliked in Hungary be- cause he appears exclusively in a mercenary role to the great mass of the people. His only object is money. He has no other interest in the community that he invades but to extract from it what money he can, and then move some- where else. The great national questions that agitate our people fall coldly upon Jewish' ears. If we go to war, the Jews get rich on contracts while the Magyar spills his blood in the line of battle. The Jews evade military service as they seek to evade legitimate taxation. They shift about; they do not identify themselves with the community. The gypsy also shifts, but he is full of generous qualities. The Jew shifts only to plague some other spot." *' But would you seriously advocate anti- Semitic legislation in Hungary V I asked. *' Most decidedly — and most radically. I would do nothing for love of revenge, but sim- ply determine that after a reasonable period no Jew should be seen in Hungary. Of course, I do not expect to see this happy day. The -0- PADDLES AND POLITICS Jews control most of our newspapers; they are also well represented in influential positions, and the very generosity of temperament which makes the Magyar an easy prey to his credit- or, makes him play the humanitarian to a fatal degree. The great ambition of a Magyar is to pretend that he is a cosmopolitan superior to prejudice. This works in the Jew's favor at present." My host told me many more things about the race he detested. I had heard similar ex- pressions from other quarters, but attached lit- tle importance to them. Coming, however, from the mouth of a serious, responsible and capable Hungarian patriot, under such circum- stances, they led me to compare notes with others. Strange as it sounds, I found no Chris- tian in Hungary who did not express himself as forcibly as my host. Lawyers, merchants, men about town, soldiers, traveling agents, officials— with one accord they spoke of the Jews as a pest, an injury to their country, call- ing for strong governmental interference. In Russia I heard the Jew characterized by American and English merchants— to say nothing of consuls. Their language, when boiled down, left as residuum the opinion that DOWN THE DANUBE 233 the Czar had done but one good thing since he came to power— namely, abating the Jewish nuisance. This view struck me very much, for I was not prepared for such language, except- ing in the mouth of a Russian official. In the course of my .,^ ^ ,, ,3 _v'^ /, Russian wan- [l^fu^:- ^ '-■^V)^^^ ._\/\ derings I talked with plenty of Jews, for they crowded all the railway trains and seemed the only prosperous people along my line of trav- el from Reni through Odessa and Kieff. As a rule they wore a lock of hair in front of each ear, be- sides allowing the hair to grow long else- where. Their head dress was a uniform cap of cloth with an extensive vizor. A long black alpaca ulster came to the ankles. On SKETCH OF A ROUMANIAN COWBOY. 234 PADDLES AND POLITICS their feet they wore riding boots. Seeing them uniformly crowding the railway stations I might have been pardoned for suspecting them of being emigrants seeking a neighboring country. But in conversation they proved de- void of any desire to leave Russia. They spoke to me freely of their hard lot, the cruelty of Russian law, the hope of the future. When I told them of the grand prospect Baron Hirsch held out to them of having land of their own in the other hemisphere, they promptly repudiated all desire to enter into any such enterprise — in fact, none of them showed any particular in- terest in the Hirsch colonization scheme. What they wanted was to stay where they were, move about among the Russian peasants, live the life of itinerant brokers — anything but settle down to the hard life of the colonist. Not one could I induce to talk politics. The moment I referred to the prospect of war, the condition of the Russian troops, my Jewish friend, hitherto so communicative, immediately closed his mouth tight, drew his open palms up under his ears, rolled .his eyes, and said: "Excuse me — that is forbidden;" ''The police do not expect us to discuss this" — and no ef- forts of mine could move him. DOWN THE DANUBE 235 One of the leaders of the Russian revolu- tionary party, a friend of George Kennan, told me that the Jews were of no use to them. They were unreliable. Their love of money was such THE CAB-DRIVER AT GALATZ, WHO DROVE ME TO THE RUSSIAN BORDER. that they would make a trade of selling secrets. They would take no risks in the cause of lib- erty, and gave no assistance to the patriotic band working in all parts of the world for their 2^6 PADDLES AND POLITICS country's deliverance. ''Jews did most of the smuggling," he said; "and it was easy to hire Jews to take goods into the country — every- thing but printed matter. "The Jew knows the law," added he. "If he is caught smuggling silk he goes to prison. If he is caught smuggling a revolutionary pam- phlet he goes to Siberia." I found the same distrust of the Jew amongst the Polish patriots of Warsaw. All admitted their cleverness, but none would employ them for fear of being betrayed for money. They gave me several instances to justify their feel- ing, and assured me that the Jews were doing nothing to strengthen the hope of reform in the minds of earnest Russians; on the contrary, they felt sure of profiting, whichever party pre- vailed, and were incapable of any patriotic emotion. In these latter days thousands of dollars have been paid by foreign governments for alleged information furnished by Jews — but officers in charge of secret service funds have assured me that such information is rarely well founded. What the Russian thinks of the Jew we know too well. Two papers are printed in London alone publishing to the world the intolerance DOWN THE DANUBE 237 in this regard that animates the government of the Czar. I did not quite realize the full force of this until one night I took my seat in a rail- way carriage, prepared to make a night of it. THK RUSSIAN RAILWAY CONDUCTOR AT RENI, ON THE DANUBE 238 DOWN THE DANUBE 239 PADDLES AND POLITICS A Jewish trader was preparing for the same form of enjoyment w^hen a Russian traveler en- tered. He looked around, saw that he could not get a good stretch for his legs without dis- turbing one of the passengers, noticed that one of these passengers was a Jew, and ordered him out of the carriage. Tne Jew ventured to pro- test; the Russian seized him by the collar, promptly kicked him out on to the platform, seized his gripsack, dropped it after him, then bowed to me politely and spread his blanket for the night, cursing at the impudence of the late occupant. The whole proceeding occupied but a few seconds, and seemed to call for no comment on the part of the officials. The ejected Jew made no complaint. He picked up his traps and was soon seen climbing into another compartment, where I hope he found a more friendly reception. Now, it is of course very dangerous to gener- alize from the little experience that a traveler can hope to acquire when only passing through the country. In my case I do not pretend to more than relate a brief episode for w^hat it is worth. But it seemed to me odd, not that I met people prejudiced against the house of Is- rael, but that amidst all classes and all peoples — Poles, Russians, Hungarians, Roumanians, merchants, officials, Nihilists, patriots — even amongst English and Americans doing business in the country, I could find no one who cham- pioned the cause of the Jew. I write only what I saw and heard. # 240 PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE DANUBE 241 CHAPTER XXIII RUSSIA AND GERMANY IN THE BALANCE THE German Emperor shares, with the best-informed men in his army, the be- Hef that Russia intends to attack him at the earliest convenient opportunity. It is not the Czar who is urging war. Those who know that monarch well scout the idea. He loves peace and quiet, and does not wish to be disturbed. How long he can make his personal wishes pre- vail we cannot say,for he may have to choose be- tween war and disquieting agitation. His min- isters, who see more clearly than their master, realize that the economic condition of Russia has been going from bad to worse under a sys- tem of protection and repression that has no parallel in modern times. Commercial enter- prise is hampered by a swarm of police, who are able to levy blackmail upon any tradesman who is not '* protected." Inquiry of every kind is carefully stifled, and even French newspa- pers are ''blacked out" by the censor if they contain news contrary to police wishes. Pop- ular discontent exists, and it is the object of the government to divert attention f^om do- mestic affairs to the enemy beyond. Rus- sia's active hatred of Germany dates from 1878, and is one of the many legacies of the Bismarck era. Every one remem- bers that the Russian army was in sight of Constantinople, and w^as prepared to take possession, when England interfered. The Russians re- turned from the war expecting to receive at the Berlin Con- gress, in a diplomatic way, all that they had given up on the battle-field. In this they were mistaken, and their ambassador returned from Berlin to tell his people that the fruits of the war of ROUMANIAN PEASANT WOMAN. i] 242 PADDLES AND POLITICS 1877 had been lost to them through German perfidy. From that day to this, hatred of Germany has been preached as the national gospel of Russia, and in this hatred have been ..-alrti^****^^^!^^'^*^ ^1 THE RUSSIAN FRONTIER included Jews, Poles, Swedes, Finns— in short, all the unorthodox whose civilization draws inspiration from the western neighbor. '' Rus- DOWN THE DANUBE 243 sia for the Russians ! " is now the cry, and the orthodox Russian Church shouts louder than any one in the congregation. The famine which spread over part of Rus- sia last year does not abate this cry of revenge. On the contrary, there is not a peasant who does not believe that in some mysterious way the heretic Jew or German is responsible for his misery; and for that matter German and Jew are one to him, for both are unorthodox, both un-Russian. With this aspect of the case in mind, it seems strange indeed that the gov- ernment of Russia should be acting in a man- ner to alienate the sympathy of subjects on her western frontier. It is possible that the Czar's ministers disapprove of the extreme measures taken in the Baltic provinces to expunge the German language and the Lutheran faith, but they know the power of the orthodox clergy, and dare not resist the only expression of what has to pass for public opinion. The famine in Russia was, after all, real, al- though it is equally true that there is always a failure of crops somewhere in a country so vast. I lost no opportunity, during the height of the newspaper discussion of the subject, to make inquiry in proper quarters regarding the nature 244 PADDLES AND POLITICS and extent of the alleged distress. The gov- ernment seemed incapable of giving friends of Russia any satisfactory idea of the situation, and, worst of all, did not inspire any great con- fidence in the breasts of sympathizers. One day a minister reported that the famine was of no serious character; soon afterward the press announced that twenty millions of people were perishing. In any event, the situation is not cheering, famine or no famine. If, however, a famine really exists on a large scale, then is there all the more reason to ex- pect war. The peasant suffers first; next suf- fers the storekeeper, who supplies the few things the peasant cannot make himself; next suffers the wholesale dealer, who gets no more orders; next suffer the merchant and the banker of the capital and the seaport; at last suffers the only one worth considering — the government, which feels it finally in the con- fession of hundreds and thousands of police officials that the peasant has been taxed to his last copeck. At this point the news becomes serious, for the government is a costly one, and only money can sustain it: money for the interest on a huge public debt; money for the huge military machine; money for the police; DOWN THE DANUBE 245 money for the imperial family; money for secret service; money to maintain political jails; money to guard prisoners on the way to the mines of Siberia. When the government finds that money is wanting to sustain its prestige. A ROUMANIAN MAIDEN CARRYING HOME FROM THE FAU« A ROLL OF MATTING. and that empty stomachs are growling, it may choose war as the lesser evil. Germany^is not blind to the dangers that threaten her, particularly from France. She will have one army on the Rhine, another on 246 PADDLES AND POLITICS the Vistula. Von Moltke clearly foresaw the intention of Russia to attack, and never failed to urge upon William I. the military necessity of forcing the war as soon as possible. His reasons, of course, were purely military. *' Rus- sia," he argued in 1875, " is arming against us; each year she becomes more formidable. We, on the contrary, remain stationary. Our duty is to fight now, while the heroes of 1870 are still fresh, and not wait until they are retired from active service." Von Moltke saw more clearly than Bismarck. William I. was old, and relied on his prime minister, who kept telling him. that Russia was Germany's natural ally; that Russia must be humored at any cost. On the part of the venerable William I. there were strong family reasons dictating friendship for the Russian Czar; but this does not explain Bismarck's apparent indifference to the fact that, for the last fifteen years, Russia has been cultivating hatred of Germany, second only to that prevailing in France. The present German Emperor foreshadowed Russia's attitude of to-day three years before became to the throne. He has-been nearly four years in power, and has not only not de- clared war, but has not made a single warlike I DOWN THE DANUBE 247 demonstration of a practical kind. His mili- tary family, if I may use the expression, are ready to anticipate the blow of Russia; but Germany keeps the peace because her Emperor is too conscientious to precipitate the conflict. Personally he is deeply pained by the hostile attitude of the Russian government; his efforts in the direction of closer commercial inter- course have been met by sullen objection; he has been treated with personal discourtesy by the Czar; his own people are outraged by the daily account of persecution to which Germans in Russia are subjected; he knows that the line of the Narew, the Niemen, and the Vistula is fortified by a chain of strong forts, and that Kirghis Cossacks patrol all the roads crossing his frontier. He is perfectly well aware that France is ready to cooperate with Russia, and that her forces are better organized than ever before. The German Emperor is not unpopular in Germany. This fact cannot be too strongly presented, because many important conse- quences flow from it. He has done many things to disquiet moderate Liberals; has done things indicating a disposition to assume re- sponsibility which might better be shared with 248 PADDLES AND POLITICS Parliament. He has made many impromptu speeches which a prime minister would cheer- fully have recalled; he has written texts which a strictly constitutional ruler would wish rele- gated to privacy. Granted all this and much more, for the sake of argument, let us come to what he has positively done, in order to understand why, in spite of this, he is Em- peror in the German heart as well as in the German army. He has shown himself accessi- ble to complaints from all classes of the com- munity, and has inter- ested himself in reme- dies; he has abolished the special laws against socialism with most ex- cellent results; he has removed much of the irritation on the French frontier; he has met the grievances of the Polish Prussians in the JN THK COKSO AT GIURGEVO: ROU MANIAN OFFICER PROMENADING. DOWN THE DANUBE 249 same spirit; he has shown a liberality in dealing with the press and platform agitators unknown in Bismarck's day; he has inaugu- rated a commercial policy which, if not free trade, is a complete denial of the principle that one class has a right to enrich itself at the ex- pense of another; he has drawn together the trade relations of Germans so wisely that Vienna, Budapesth, and Berlin seem now like sister cities of a free federation, and has spread the blessing of commercial freedom more widely than was ever before known in Europe; he has instituted legislation for the benefit of wage-earners and wage-payers, not as a social- ist, but in the spirit of arbitration and fair play. In' all of this he has moved independently, fearlessly, moderately, and in opposition, not merely to the teachings of Bismarck, but to the school of politicians created for him by that master of mediaevalism. Not only this, but he has interfered energetically on behalf of the soldier in the ranks; has insisted upon his troops being treated with proper respect by officers, and particularly by corporals and ser- geants. He has vigorously put down gambling and fast living among his officers; he has at last interfered on behalf of the overworked 250 PADDLES AND POLITICS school-children, and is the first to say that a teacher shall not cram the pupil's brain at the expense of general health. AH this sounds as though a stroke of the pen could make such reforms real, but it is not so. All academic Germany sets its face against school-reform, and the utmost exercise of tact and persistence is necessary on the part of the Emperor to make his proposals bear fruit. These instances suggest some of the reasons why Germans respect their Emperor. There are others of a negative kind. For instance, we have yet to hear of anything he has done for the gratification of selfish tastes. He is a plain liver; he has never indulged in the vices sometimes associated with royalty; no officer in his army can say that the Emperor taught him to gamble; in his family he is exactly what a German would wish him to be, and the keenest sportsman could not wish a better companion. Finally, he is a thorough soldier: he has served from the ranks up; he can do sentry duty with a guardsman, and can also manoeuver combined army corps according to the principles of strategy and modern tactics. He has his faults, and none sees them so well as the German general and the German par- DOWN THE DANUBE 251 liamentarian. But he has elements of strength and popularity which vastly outbalance any faults so far discovered— and this is what out- side critics are apt to ignore. He has sources of strength totally closed to the Czar. The Kaiser is a man of flesh and blood; he feels as a German; his work is in harmony with the spirit of German prog- ress; his failings, such as he shows, are Ger- man. There is no Ger- man who does not ad- mire him in his private relations, even though differing from him in matters official; and we all know that in times of political danger the people are drawn to the man of strong personal character rather than to the cautious and color- less figurehead. The forces behind William H. are such as have never been cultivated in Russia, whose Czar lives in hourly dread of assassination, and whose people are so many items of an official A PARISH PRIEST IN ROUMANIA. 252 PADDLES AND POLITICS budget, SO many units in a military report. The German Emperor walks about the streets of his town as fearlessly and naturally as £\ny other man, although the life of his grandfather was twice attempted. One day, in November of 1891, he was walking with a guest through the narrow and crowded thoroughfare of a city not far from Berlin. The sidewalks were narrow, and, as the Emperor is a fast walker, he fre- quently had to step out into the street to pass other pedestrians, and especially clusters of people who stopped for a chat. His companion, who had been in Russia, was struck by the democratic manner in which the German Em- peror rubbed in and out amongst porters, fish- wives, peasants, and the rest of the moving crowd, chatting the while, and acting as though this was his usual manner of getting about. He was struck still more by the fact that no precautions against a possible murderous fanatic appeared to have been taken, and ventured to speak of this. The Emperor laughed heartily, and said : ** Oh, if I had to stop to think of such things, I should never get through with my day's work." It is with this man that Russia will have to reckon when her Cossacks start for Berlin; and DOWN THE DANUBE 253 this man is strong, not merely because he rep- resents a strong army and a strong political administration, but because in him center the feelings of unity and development, of pride of achievement, and of promise of a still greater future which lie dormant in the hearts of those who regard Germany as the bulwark of civiliza- tion against barbarism— Europe against Asia. THE END. ■ 1 it CO LUMBIA UNIVERSITY I I lllll !l I II till III 0032211481 OloH^i02)