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 LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 F. VON BOSCHAN 
 
 
 
 
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 THE 
 
 WATEE LILY ON THE DANUBE 
 
 BEING 
 
 A BRIEF ACCOUNT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PEBILS OF A PAIR-OAK DUE1NG A VOYAGE 
 
 LAMBETH TO PESTH. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 AUTHOR OE THE ' LOG OE THE WATER LILY.' 
 
 AND 
 
 Illustrate frg ©iw ai % fefo. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JOHN W. PARKER AND SON, WEST STRAND. 
 
 MDCCCLIIT.
 
 LONDON: 
 8AVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS, CHAND08 STREET, 
 COVENT GARDEN.
 
 TO 
 
 HIS DEAREST MOTHER, 
 
 THIS SLIGHT RECORD OF 
 THE CRUISE OF THE 'WATER LILY,' 
 
 ORIGINALLY WRITTEN IN LETTERS TO HER, 
 BY HER MOST AFFECTIONATE AND DUTIFUL SON, 
 
 THE AUTHOR.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Our expedition last year in the Water Lily — Change in the crew 
 
 this year — and of the boat 1 
 
 Chapter II. 
 
 THE VOYAGE BY STEAMER ON THE MAIN FROM 
 FRANKFURT TO KITZENGEN. 
 
 The Main Lust — "We embark on board the steamer — Familiar 
 scenes — Wurzburg — We make an acquaintance there — his 
 discomfiture — The cellars in the palace — Ochsenfurt . . 6 
 
 Chapter III. 
 
 THE MAIN FROM KITZINGEN TO BAMBERG. 
 
 We launch the boat — The Inn at Kitzingen — Rapidity of the 
 stream Markt — Volkach — Schweinfurt — Railway — Has- 
 furt — Luxurious bed-room at Eltmann 16
 
 VI CONTENTS. 
 
 Chapter TV. 
 
 BAMBERG. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Professor — The Orthopaedic Hospital — The castle of 
 
 Altenberg 24 
 
 Chapter V. 
 
 THE CANAL. 
 
 Its formation and traffic — Bathing establishment — We pull on 
 
 to Forcheim 31 
 
 Chapter VI. 
 
 THE FRANCONIAN SWITZERLAND. 
 
 Streitberg — The Riesenberg — Rabeneck — Gosweinstein — Jahr- 
 markt — Costume — Sophien's Hohle — Rabensteiu — Potten- 
 stein — Uncomfortable drive back to Forcheim .... 35 
 
 Chapter VII. 
 
 THE CANAL BETWEEN FORCHEIM AND KELHEIM. 
 
 Eslangen — Fiirth — Nuremberg — Trial of a prisoner — Feucht — 
 Curious echo under the Canal bridge — The summit level 
 of the Canal — German method of calculating distances — 
 Smith's mistake at the lock — Astonishment of natives — 
 Quaint Inn at Dietfurt — The Altmiihl — Smith's treachery 
 towards Coxswain — Kelheim — First sight of the Danube — 
 Kelheim a good point for tourists 43
 
 CONTENTS. VU 
 
 Chapter VIII. 
 
 THE DANUBE FBOM WELTENBURG TO 
 DONAUSTAUF. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Danube, its general features and peculiarities — The Teufel's 
 Wand — Monastery at Weltenberg — Smith's unfortunate 
 header — Ratisbon — Dangerous rapid under the bridge — 
 Torture Chamber — Accounts [of our proceedings in the 
 Newspapers — Donaustauf — Walhalla — The Princess of 
 Thurn and Taxis — Wild boar and deer — The Jager's stories 
 — Leap frog — We take the Princess out in the boat ... 58 
 
 Chapter IX. 
 
 THE DANUBE FROM DONAUSTAUF TO 
 ENGELHARDZELL. 
 
 Windings of the river — Straubing — Agnes Bernauer — Deggen- 
 dorf — Legend about the Nattenberg — Thunder storms — 
 Vilshofen — Dangerous rocks in the river — Passau — 
 Account of us in the newspaper — British tourist — View 
 from the Red House — Junction and colour of the Danube, 
 Inn, and Ilz — Pilgrimage Church of Maria Hilf — The Ilz 
 — Bow's bath 77 
 
 Chapter X. 
 
 THE DANUBE FROM ENGELHARDZELL TO LINZ. 
 AUSTRIA. 
 
 Remarks on Austria — Custom house at Engelhardzell — Splendid 
 defile — Rough water — Gale of wind — The Islands — Another 
 defile — Linz fortifications — Difficulty in landing — Linz — 
 The Erzherzoa; Karl 91
 
 Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 Chapter XI. 
 
 THE SALZKAMMERGUT. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 We leave the boat at Linz and start by railway — The Pole — The 
 Norwegian — The American — The Frenchman — The Falls 
 of the Traun — Lake of Gemiinden — Traunstein — Ebensee 
 — Ischl — Wirer's Strubb — St. Wolfgang — Ascent of the 
 Schafberg — Boating expedition on the Wolfgang lake — St. 
 Gilgen— We are obliged to walk to Salzburg — We meet 
 our old Stroke of last year's expedition — Weather — Eccen- 
 tric Englishman — The Salt mines of Hallein — Log spearing 
 — We leave Salzburg in disgust — Vbcklabruck — Jahrmarkt 
 — Hat beating — Linz 100 
 
 Chapter XII. 
 
 THE DANUBE BETWEEN LINZ AND VIENNA. 
 
 Mr. Bauer in difficulties among the islands — Defile — Grein — 
 Excitement among the natives — The Pole — The Strudel 
 and Wirbel — How we passed through them — The Pole's 
 account of it — Pilgrimage Church of Maria Taferl — The 
 monastery of Molk — Castles of Aggstein and Diirrenstein 
 — Stein — Krems — Monastery of Gottweih — Pilgrims — 
 Archipelago of Islands — Greifeustein — Kloster Neuburg — 
 Kahlenberg — Nussdorf 126 
 
 Chapter XIII. 
 
 VIENNA. 
 
 We put up at the Kaiserin von (Esterreich — Cheerful appear- 
 ance of the people — Au English family lionizing — The 
 Wasser Glacis — Accounts of our proceedings in the Viennese
 
 CONTENTS. IX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 newspapers — Service at the ambassador's chapel — The 
 steeple of St. Stephen's — Bow and Coxswain are un- 
 fortunate as to their hats — The Leopoldsberg — Baden — 
 Laxemberg — Schonbrunn — A drive in the Prater — The 
 Opera — Ungar's Casino — Various costumes in the streets 
 of Vienna 150 
 
 Chapter XIV. 
 
 THE DANUBE BETWEEN VIENNA AND PESTH. 
 HUNGARY. 
 
 Large crowd assembled to witness our start — The roof of a 
 barge broken in by the weight of the spectators — We are 
 nearly upset — Islands — Boundary between Hungary and 
 Austria — Presburg — Directions in the hotel to visitors — 
 Massacre of English names in a German newspaper — 
 Heroic undertaking of a native — Great archipelago of 
 islands — The great and lesser island Schiitt — Gold washers — 
 Sailing — We continually run aground — Steamers at Gonyo 
 — We are driven on shore by the wind, and taken for robbers 
 — Fortress of Comorn — Costumes — Hungarian driving — 
 Visit to the fortress — The Austrian General — The Cathedral 
 of Gran — Grand defile— The Magyar barge — Castle of 
 Vissiegrad — Waitzen — Island of St. Andra — Pesth . . . 170 
 
 Chapter XV. 
 pesth. 
 
 View from the Blocksberg — Comparison of Pesth with Edinburgh 
 — The crown of St. Stephen — Hotels — Museum — Austrian 
 camp — The suspension bridge — Turkish Mosque — 
 Ausbruch — Count Szechenyi — Magnate's Casino — Our
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 kind reception there — Confusion of languages in Hungary 
 The revolution of 1848 — The National and German theatres 
 We go to see a gathering of pilgrims in the country — The 
 Zigeuner music — We sell the boat — Our inglorious return 
 to London 193 
 
 Chapter XVI. 
 Conclusion 213
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 MAP — ROUTE FROM FRANKFURT TO PESTH ; WITH EN- 
 LARGED SECTIONS OF THE FEANCONIAN SWITZERLAND, 
 AND OF THE SALZKAMMEEGUT, ETC, . . facing p. 1 
 
 HALTING FOE LUNCH 18 
 
 ASTONISHMENT EXHIBITED BY THE NATIVES ... 52 
 SOUVENIBS OF THE SALT MINES OF HALLEIN . . . 120 
 
 THE EAPIDS BELOW LINZ 130 
 
 YOUNG VIENNA 166 
 
 NOTES BY THE WAY 182 
 
 THE MAGYAE BARGE 190
 
 THE 
 
 WATEB LILY ON THE DANUBE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Phaselus ille quern videtis, hospites 
 Ait fuisse navium celerrimus, 
 Neque ullius natantis impetum trabis 
 Nequlsse prseterire. 
 
 Catullus Carm. 
 
 I 
 
 TN case this book should fall into the hands of any 
 person who has never heard of, or read, the ' Log 
 of the Water Lily/ and as there may be some 
 allusion to that remarkable work in these pages, I 
 think it expedient to give a short account of the 
 expedition which led to its publication. 
 
 Last year, a party of five of us left London 
 about the end of July, and taking with us a four- 
 oared Thames gig, went by steamer to Mannheim, 
 and there launching our craft, we pulled up the 
 Neckar to Heidelberg, and then returning the 
 B
 
 Z INTRODUCTION. 
 
 same way, we rowed down the Rhine to Mentz, 
 where we put our boat on board a steamer, and 
 went up the Main to Wurzburg ; from thence we 
 returned down the Main and the Rhine to 
 Coblentz, where we again put our boat on a 
 steamer to go up the Moselle to Treves, and from 
 thence rowed down the Moselle and Rhine to 
 Cologne, from whence we sent our boat back by 
 steam to England. 
 
 It is to the kindness with which the journal of 
 our travels on that occasion was received by the 
 public, that they are indebted for the infliction of 
 this second series. While we were at Wurzburg 
 last year, a paragraph appeared in a newspaper 
 there, informing its readers that five Englishmen 
 had come from London in a little boat, and were 
 going through the Danube- Main Canal, and down 
 the Danube to the Black Sea. We had no 
 thoughts whatever of doing this, but it struck us 
 that on some future occasion, we might go by that 
 route as far as Vienna, or perhaps Pesth; below 
 which town, for some four hundred miles, the 
 Danube scenery is flat and uninteresting. 
 
 This idea we have this year carried out, and 
 these pages are a transcript of letters written 
 by one of us during the voyage. As in the ' Log
 
 INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 of the Water Lily/ so in this slight narrative of 
 our personal proceedings, ' it is not intended to 
 attempt any description of the well known towns, 
 such as Wurzburg, Bamberg, Nuremberg, Ratis- 
 bon, Salzburg, Vienna, Pesth, &c, through which 
 we travelled, or in which we stayed during our 
 expedition; for such information, I beg to refer 
 my readers to Mr. Murray's excellent Guide-book 
 to Southern Germany, which contains a far better 
 and fuller account of them than any which it is in 
 my power to offer, and which for the purposes of this 
 narrative may be deemed to be incorporated here- 
 with/ To tell the truth, lionizing was not our 
 strong point, and after we had walked through 
 two or three churches, and a mile or two of palace 
 or picture gallery, in any town, we generally 
 longed once more for the freedom of our river life. 
 ' Indeed, any one who has taken up this book in the 
 expectation of finding anything of that kind, or of 
 obtaining any information about the politics, com- 
 merce, statistics, or literature, &c, of the countries 
 through which we passed, had better at once 
 throw it into the fire, as it is merely intended to 
 suggest to such of my readers who have some 
 leisure in the summer time, and a love of life and 
 exercise in the open air, combined with the most 
 B 2
 
 4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 perfect independence in travelling, how they may 
 see some of the finest river scenery in Europe in 
 an economical, novel, and delightful manner; but 
 even to these I have no hairbreadth escapes or 
 dangers to relate, but a simple narrative of what 
 certainly was to us a most delightful excursion/ 
 
 I must remind those of my readers who accom- 
 panied us on our travels last year, that our crew 
 then consisted of five, namely Bow,* Smith, our 
 Artist, Stroke, and Coxswain ; we had hoped to have 
 been able to have started all once more together 
 on this our somewhat more adventurous expedition; 
 we were however doomed to be disappointed; cir- 
 cumstances prevented our Artist, Stroke, and Cox- 
 swain from joining us. So far as such a loss could 
 be compensated, it was, in the addition to our 
 forces of our new Coxswain, who possessed all that 
 cool judgment for which his predecessor was so 
 distinguished, and was a most prudent oar : and 
 whether he is not also a most accomplished draughts- 
 man, we leave to the reader's impartial judgment, 
 most confidently anticipating a favourable verdict. 
 Messrs. Noulton and Wyld of Lambeth fur- 
 
 * For the information of those unlearned in boating, I beg to 
 mention that ' Bow' is the name given to the individual who 
 pulls the bow oar ; and ' Stroke,' to him who pulls the stem oar.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 nished us again with a most beautiful boat, built 
 of mahogany ; for owing to the diminution of our 
 crew, we were obliged to give up the old 'Water 
 Lily/ which served us so well last year, and which 
 had been kept for us in anticipation of our want- 
 ing her for this trip, and were forced to be content 
 with a pair oar ; but I hope the reader will take 
 the will for the deed, and forgive my foisting a 
 stranger on him under cover of the name of a 
 former acquaintance.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE VOYAGE BY STEAMER ON THE MAIN 
 FROM FRANKFURT TO KITZINGEN. 
 
 Meine Burgen zerfallen zwar, doch getrostet erblick ich, 
 Seit Jahrhunderten noch immer das alte Gescblecht. 
 
 Schiller's Fliisse-Main. 
 
 A T eleven o'clock, p.m., on Wednesday, the 
 -*-*~ 20th of July, we, together with three friends, 
 whom we had picked up on the road, found our- 
 selves seated at one of the little tables in the 
 garden of the Main Lust at Frankfurt on the 
 Main; the scene was not altogether so lively as 
 when we were there last year, on the occasion of 
 the anniversary of the Emperor of Austria's birth- 
 day, when the place was full of ladies, soldiers, 
 dancing, music, and feasting; inasmuch as at this 
 hour we were the only denizens of that spacious 
 garden; perhaps it was owing to its somewhat 
 dismal 'theatrical rehearsal' kind of expression,
 
 THE MAIN LUST. 7 
 
 that we fancied that our bottle of Hocheim had 
 not quite the exquisite flavour that it used to have 
 before Mr. Ried removed to the Hotel de Russie ; 
 but don't let us be too critical; the Main Lust 
 is still an excellent establishment, and will, I 
 hope, flourish as well under the auspices of Mr. 
 W. Ried as it did under those of his polite and 
 accommodating brother. 
 
 Were I a popular author, I might give a stirring 
 account of those exciting incidents which occurred 
 to us in our voyage from Lambeth to this place, 
 by the Fyneoord to Rotterdam, and by the 
 Niederlander up the Rhine; but not being so, I 
 must leave the events of that perilous journey to 
 the imagination of the reader ; and will take up the 
 thread of my narrative from the time of our- 
 departure from Frankfurt by the steamer, which 
 took place at five, a.m., on Thursday, the 21st of 
 July. As we were stowing the boat on board the 
 steamer, one of the persons who were watching our 
 proceedings asked us what we intended to do 
 with it, and on our informing him of our plans, 
 he said that we should find no difficulty in 
 accomplishing them, as five Englishmen had had 
 a similar boat on the Rhine last year, and pulled 
 from Mannheim to Mentz (fifty miles) in one
 
 8 THE MAIN. 
 
 hour ! This, he said, he knew was a fact, as he 
 had heard it on board a steamer ; he little thought 
 that he was addressing two of the very crew who 
 had found it tolerably hard work to accomplish 
 that distance in six hours. 
 
 The river Main, from Frankfurt to Bamberg, 
 runs a course of about two hundred miles, but, 
 owing to the very circuitous bends between 
 Aschaffenburg and Schweinfurt, the road by land 
 is not much more than half that distance. The 
 scenery from Aschaffenburg to Wurzburg is ex- 
 ceedingly beautiful; much superior, in our opinion, 
 to the Rhine; and steamers pass up and down 
 every day. 
 
 From Wurzburg to Schweinfurt the scenery is, 
 for the most part, of the most dreary description, 
 the river being bounded on both sides by low, 
 round, monotonous hills, covered to the top with 
 regular rows of hideous vineyards ; from Schwein- 
 furt to Bamberg it is most agreeable. According 
 to the German guide-book that we had with us 
 (the very remarkable production of a certain 
 Menck Dittmarsch),* ' The waters of the Main 
 
 * As during our voyage up the Main frequent reference is 
 made to this eccentric work, whenever it is quoted the letters 
 M. D.] will be prefixed.
 
 ASCHAFFENBURG. V 
 
 give a shining polish to the cuticle of bathers 
 therein ; and vessels coming into it from the Rhine 
 draw several inches more water than they did in 
 that river/ The lower part of the Main is sin- 
 gularly destitute of animal life. Almost the only 
 wild birds we saw were large hawks ; where they 
 found sparrows enough to keep themselves in 
 condition we could not imagine. In the upper 
 part of the river, however, we saw numbers of 
 storks, sand-pipers, herons, plovers, gulls, and 
 terns ; indeed, we saw plenty of these latter 
 birds along our whole voyage to Pesth, which 
 surprised us much, as our course ran through 
 the very centre of Europe. 
 
 We soon came in sight of Aschaffenburg, con- 
 spicuous from the tower of the fine old palace, 
 with its Pompeiian villa and magnificent avenue 
 of poplars ; having shortly before passed, on our 
 left, the battle field of Dettingen. Every turn 
 of the river now brought some incident of the 
 jolly expedition of last year to the minds of 
 Bow and Smith; and frequent were their ejacu- 
 lations : 
 
 ' It was on the raft under that tree that Smith 
 smashed the bargee's beer jug/
 
 1 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 'There was the quarry where Stroke swopped 
 his china pipe for a potato one/* 
 
 * Look ! Look ! there is the earnest Colossus/ 
 [M.D.] 
 
 ' There the turnip field where our artist showed 
 his agility in such a surprising manner/ 
 
 ' Here we were nearly upset by the towing- 
 rope of the barge/ 
 
 'And it was at this beautiful spot, opposite 
 Freudenberg (perhaps the most beautiful point on 
 the banks of the Main), where Christiana smashed 
 the soft boiled egg over her new polka, on the 
 occasion of that memorable picnic ;' but let us 
 not talk of that. Christiana is going to ' marry a 
 market gardener/ and will be off to the diggings 
 in the course of the year. Poor Smith ! it was 
 ever thus with him. 
 
 We arrived at Wertheim about six o'clock in 
 the evening, and renewed our acquaintance with 
 our Irish friend of last year and his kind wife. 
 The gentleman is still without any language, and 
 
 * There are pipes which are universally said to be made of 
 potato ; but whatever they are made of, their properties are 
 peculiar ; they look, when new, exactly like white china, but when 
 smoked, they colour in waving lines all round, something like 
 the landscapes in the bottles of Alum Bay sand.
 
 WUKZBURG. 11 
 
 his capacity of imbibing beer has not in the least 
 diminished.* The next day we started for Wurz- 
 burg in a carriage, having previously sent our boat 
 on by steamer to that place.f 
 
 We soon fouod ourselves driving under the 
 splendid old fortress that crowns the hill opposite 
 to the town, and over the old bridge, between the 
 rows of bishops and saints who took such a lively 
 interest in the start of our four-oar last year. One 
 of these venerable gentlemen, perhaps owing to 
 the inclemency of last winter, now wears his glory 
 round his neck, instead of its being suspended 
 over his head as heretofore. We put up at our 
 old quarters, the Swan, and were heartily received 
 by our host. He had, however, no vacant bed for 
 us, but found us sleeping accommodation in a 
 neighbour's house. That evening, at supper, a 
 native doctor, in barnacles and hair about a quarter 
 of an inch long, stuck up like a worn out scrub- 
 bing brush all over his head, was very inquisitive 
 about our proceedings; and having pumped us to 
 his satisfaction, informed us that he would take 
 
 * He once drank thirty-six Bavarian glasses of beer (one pint 
 and a quarter each) in one day. 
 
 f It is about one quarter the distance by road that it is by 
 water.
 
 12 THE DOCTOR. 
 
 a passage by the steamer up the river the next 
 day, in order that he might enjoy the felicity of 
 our society. When we went to bed we left him 
 over a bottle of wine, and under the impression 
 that we had gone to bed in the house. Shortly 
 after this, as we were looking out of window at the 
 stars, and Coxswain was pensively blowing a few 
 notes on his cornopean (on which instrument he 
 is a distinguished performer), he was hailed by a 
 voice : 
 
 Drunken Individual. — ' Don't make a larm up 
 dere/ 
 
 Coxswain. — ' Geh zum henker/ 
 
 Drunken Individual. — ' Voici une jolie dame qui 
 me regarde, et pourquoi pas V 
 
 Coxswain. — ' Va t'en, pauvre gris. Sie sind toll 
 und voll.' 
 
 Drunken Individual. — f Wie meinen sie, I am 
 Englis, I am wid two friends from England come 
 in my own chaloup, and go in steamer to hill to- 
 morrow. Caum down from de troisieme etage ; 
 laches ! sacres mangeurs de chou-croute/ 
 
 Smith. — ' Parlez Anglais, done ; we are Russ, 
 and can understand/ 
 
 Bow. — 'Cia mar tha sibh an diugh? Eirich 
 suas, agus thoir dhuinn do naidheachd/
 
 MAKES A MISTAKE. 13 
 
 Drunken Individual. — ' Naunsense ; I have been 
 at Auehsfort, and am baccalaureus and doctor/ 
 
 Smith. — ' How moch is that V 
 
 Drunken Individual. — ' Moch, you must not say 
 moch ; you must say mush ; em — oo — say — ha/ &c. 
 
 To make an end of a long story, we arranged 
 a hostile meeting for ten the next morning, ducked 
 him with a jug of water, and turned in. I need 
 hardly mention that this was our friend whom we 
 had left in the inn ; and who had sallied out, taken 
 us for German students, and tried to pass himself 
 off on us as one of ourselves. The next morning 
 we met this disciple of Esculapius, all smiles, in 
 the coffee room, little thinking that we were the 
 individuals with whom he had had the polyglot 
 altercation the night before. When we informed 
 him that a drunken man had rather disturbed us 
 last evening, he beat a precipitate retreat, and we 
 saw him no more. 
 
 Wurzburg is a picturesque old town, full of nar- 
 row streets, with overhanging houses and pointed 
 gables. [M. D.] 'At this moment west and at 
 the gates of a little earth Paradise. Yes, if Fran- 
 conia is the pearl-bedecked costly girdle of German 
 Fatherland, so maintains this town the rank of the 
 noblest of these stones full of worth/
 
 14 THE PALACE CELLARS. 
 
 There is a very handsome palace here, built by 
 a bishop, in 1720, the cellars of which are very 
 well worthy of a visit ; far more so, indeed, in my 
 opinion, than the tiresome suites of *rooms in the 
 building above, although they are adorned with the 
 paintings of ' the divine Tiepolo.' [M. D.] The 
 produce of the royal vineyards is stored here, and 
 there is a public auction of the wine once a-year ; 
 our host told us that he was going there to make 
 a purchase, and invited us to accompany him. 
 The cellars were indeed very fine, with lofty, 
 vaulted roofs, and files of enormous casks full of 
 the choicest Franconian wines. The Leiste and 
 Stein wines are the best, and the most productive 
 vineyard is the one on the side of the hill under 
 the fortress. The cellars are lighted by chande- 
 liers made of the hoops of wine-casks, and the 
 burners are formed of bottles and glasses very 
 tastefully arranged. 
 
 The ' Hofkellermeistei^ was very polite to us, 
 and insisted on our tasting all his best taps ; which, 
 as the Franconian wines are much stronger than 
 those of the Rhine, and we were all nearly tee- 
 totallers, we found rather trying. 
 
 On starting from Wurzburg we were horrified 
 to find that, owing to dry weather, the river was
 
 OCHSENFURT. 15 
 
 so low that the steamer could only go as far as 
 Kitzingen, and that from thence we should have 
 to tug up against the stream to Bamberg, about 
 one hundred miles, which was rather disagreeable 
 to us rather lazily disposed travellers ; however, it 
 turned out to be for the best, as it got us into 
 good training for the rest of our voyage. The 
 banks were (as before- mentioned) exceedingly un- 
 interesting, though [M. D.] ' supremely Idyllic/ 
 The town of Ochsenfurt (Oxford) f that bewitch- 
 ing little city/ [M. D.] was an agreeable interlude ; 
 it has some fine buildings, and is well situated in 
 a most fertile district, and is said to be the granary 
 of Franconia. We left it, joining in the wish of 
 M. D., ' that it may grow to vie with its sister in 
 Great Britain/
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE LAUNCH — THE MAIN FROM KITZINGEN 
 TO BAMBERG. 
 
 Ignotis errare locis ignota videre 
 Flumina gaudebant : studio minuente laborem. 
 
 Ovm, Met. 
 
 A BOUT a mile below Kitzingen, ' that town with 
 ■*--*- the thin-sounding name/ [M. D.] a weir runs 
 across the river, below which the steamer stopped ; 
 and on Friday the 23rd of July we disembarked 
 our craft, and hauled her up the bank with the in- 
 tention of carrying her round, but we found a con- 
 siderable expanse of water on the other side of the 
 bank, varying in depth from one inch to a yard ; 
 so to save time Bow and Smith carried the luggage 
 through the water, while Coxswain punted up the 
 boat. We speedily launched her again above the 
 weir, and with the union-jack fluttering gaily from 
 our bows, went merrily on to Kitzingen, where we
 
 KITZINGEN. 17 
 
 fastened up the boat* and proceeded to our hotel; 
 the entrance to which establishment led through 
 a cow-shed, and an avenue of bull-dogs, up a ladder 
 to the first floor. The upper part of the house, 
 however, was good enough, and after a hearty 
 supper on beefsteaks, and pancakes stuffed with the 
 skins of pickled walnuts, we turned in to rest. 
 
 The next morning, when we were preparing to 
 start, we found that one of the natives (' who are 
 [M. D.] a speculative race, and on that account 
 ill-adapted to spiritual life') had robbed us of our 
 rudder-ropes. We were delayed some time in pro- 
 curing others, which was the more annoying as 
 we had a severe tug of twenty-five miles before us 
 against a most uncomfortable stream. We were 
 not sorry to arrive at Dettelbach, a queer little 
 village on the right bank,f with a handsome Rath- 
 aus, and a large Franciscan monastery on a hill 
 near, where there is a much-frequented pilgrimage 
 
 * "We always covered up the boat with canvas, when we stopped 
 for the night ; a very necessary precaution, as it prevented the 
 natives from getting into her, and shielded her from the heat of 
 the sun. 
 
 t It need hardly be mentioned, that when speaking of the right 
 or left bank of the river, the right or left going down stream is 
 meant.
 
 1 8 LUNCHEON. 
 
 church, with a miracle-working statue of the "Vir- 
 gin. Here we stopped to take in stores, it being 
 always our custom to take an hour or two's rest 
 on some pleasant spot during the heat of the day, 
 eating, drinking, sketching, and consuming to- 
 bacco ; our fare generally consisted of hard-boiled 
 eggs, bread, cheese, fruit and milk. The next ob- 
 ject of interest was the shell of a very large monas- 
 tery called Schwarzach, opposite to which we 
 lunched. Just before we arrived at Markt Vol- 
 kach, our resting-place for the night, we passed a 
 modest-looking farm-house, with a little chapel at- 
 tached, with a humble [M. D.] f tower, stretching 
 sorrowfully up to the blue dome of heaven' — (it 
 was about six feet in height). 
 
 We left Markt Volkach early, having another 
 stiff pull of twenty-five miles before us, and soon 
 passed several barges fast aground. How these 
 vessels manage to navigate this stream at all in dry 
 weather puzzled us considerably, as even our little 
 vessel, which only drew four or five inches of 
 water, touched ground continually. The scenery 
 began to improve after luncheon, and we passed a 
 lofty pillar erected by Count Schonborn, in 1825, 
 in honour of the Bavarian constitution ; then a 
 cheerful-looking little watering place called Lud-
 
 -4# 

 
 K $t** ft ; :
 
 SCHWEINFURT. 19 
 
 wigsbad, and soon after got into a long straight 
 reach with a gentle stream, bordered by magni- 
 ficent oaks down to the water's edge, some of 
 them covered with splendid herons, stretching out 
 their long necks in astonishment at the out- 
 landish craft which was invading their domains. 
 Not far from this point the Main is said to 
 have altered its course considerably, and to have 
 once run by a village called Heidenfeld, where 
 there is an old monastery, in the walls of which 
 rings are fastened, said to have been formerly used 
 by the bargees to moor their vessels to. It is now 
 more than a mile from the bank. 
 
 We were not sorry to arrive at Schweinfurt, 
 which we did just before dark. [M. D.] 'Can 
 this city, with its numerous towers and countless 
 magnificent villas, the arches of whose bridge 
 swing so proud and bold over our Franconian 
 stream, be that unknown city with the hideous 
 name, at the sound of which every one thinks of 
 the grunting, unclean, bristly beast, but whose 
 hind leg, nevertheless, one seldom despises/ It 
 is a thriving, busy town, without any object worthy 
 of particular remark, but its quaint, irregular 
 architecture, and the varied colours of the houses, 
 as in all the towns in Franconia, amply repay the 
 c 2
 
 20 HOLZHUMPLERS. 
 
 passing traveller for a stroll through its lively 
 streets. 
 
 There is a considerable fall in the river at 
 Schweinfurt, which is avoided by a lock, through 
 which we sent our boat under charge of a bargee. 
 We had a trifle to pay for this, and in the printed 
 receipt that was given us, our boat was described 
 as a ' Humpelschelch/* In a note in M. D., it is 
 said that the proprietors of these boats are called 
 ' Holzhumplers f so, accordingly, we always in- 
 scribed ourselves as such in the police sheets 
 (handed to us by the landlords of the different 
 hotels), to their no small astonishment ; a Holzhum- 
 pler being, I conceive, somewhat equivalent to a 
 Mississippi lumberman. 
 
 There is (or was when we passed) a railway in 
 process of formation between Schweinfurt and 
 Bamberg, which runs for a considerable distance 
 along side of the river ; crowds of navvies, as many 
 female as male, were busily at work, i. e. } they 
 were so till we hove in sight, and then every 
 mattock and spade was dropped, and they re- 
 
 * Our boat passed by all manner of designations, such as 
 Nache, Boot, Kabn, Bootcben, Scbiff, Scbifflein, Waidzille, 
 Zille, Cbaloup, Scbinakel, "VVerri, &c.
 
 ELTMANN. 21 
 
 mained staring with eyes and mouths open till we 
 were round the next corner out of sight, which, 
 the reaches being long and the stream stiffish, 
 was generally a considerable time. I am afraid 
 that the railway company must have suffered con- 
 siderably by our transit; and should any crew 
 ever follow in our track, and be prevented, as we 
 were, from going up in the steamer, it would 
 decidedly be to the interest of the company to 
 forward them to Bamberg free of expense. 
 
 On a spur of a hill overhanging the river, a 
 few miles above Schweinfurt, is a handsome old 
 chateau, now used as a carpet manufactory, the 
 view from it is one of the finest on the Main; 
 indeed, the scenery from Schweinfurt to Bamberg 
 is all agreeable, and the stream being much 
 milder, and the distances that we had to pull not 
 so great, the disagreeable part of our journey was 
 here ended, and the rest of our trip was unmiti- 
 gated enjoyment. At the end of a very pleasant 
 day we arrived at Hassfurt, and proceeded merrily 
 on our way, next day, to Eltmann, where our 
 arrival, as usual, occasioned great excitement, and 
 I am much afraid that we considerably disturbed 
 the family arrangements at the little hostelry 
 where we put up; for, they not being accustomed
 
 22 OUR HOTEL. 
 
 to receive such distinguished visitors, gave up 
 their private sitting-room for us to feed in, and 
 made up three beds for us in the public saloon. 
 As Smith was going to bed, he descried a kind of 
 trap-door in the wall close to his head, and deem- 
 ing an investigation expedient, he opened it, and 
 looked through. The first object that met his eyes 
 was a pair of shoes, and a pound of dips, on a ledge 
 ust under his nose: in the dim perspective beyond 
 various objects 'loomed' faintly, which suddenly 
 resolved themselves into the apparition of an 
 affrighted Boots, who flung himself out of bed in 
 a state of great excitement at this sudden and 
 mysterious illumination of his apartment; this cir- 
 cumstance, and the discovery of the remains of an 
 animal looking something like a squashed currant, 
 and about the size of a fourpenny piece, on Cox- 
 swain's pillow, induced us, (fearing a visit from the 
 relatives of the now deceased) to desert the bed- 
 steads, and sleep on the floor. 
 
 On a height above Eltmann is a lofty round 
 tower, the only relic of a once extensive castle; the 
 view from the top is splendid, embracing all the 
 windings of the Main from Bamberg to Schwein- 
 furt. At and above Eltmann, the river winds 
 very considerably, and many canals have been cut
 
 THE REGNITZ. 23 
 
 for the convenience of the navigation. About 
 four or five miles below Bamberg the Regnitz falls 
 into the Main, when, as it is on this river that 
 Bamberg lies, we bid adieu to our old friend, on 
 whose bosom we had floated for so many days, 
 and turned up the stream of its tributary, which is, 
 however, the most considerable stream of the two, 
 as the Main is not navigable above the junction 
 for heavy vessels; and we had a hardish grind up 
 it, the stream being exceedingly strong, so that we 
 were not sorry to arrive at Bamberg; nor were the 
 inhabitants apparently sorry to see us come, if one 
 may judge by the numbers of them that rushed 
 along the banks.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 BAMBERG. 
 
 Accurrit quidam notus mihi nomine tantum, 
 Arreptaque manu, Quid agis, dulcissime rerum ? 
 Suaviter, ut nunc est, inquam ; et cupio omnia quae vis. 
 Cum assectaretur, Numquid vis ? occupo. At ille 
 N6ris nos inquit ; docti sumus. Hie ego : Pluris 
 Hoc, inquam, mihi eris. Misere discedere quaerens 
 Ire modo ocius interdum consistere . . . . ut illi 
 Nil respondebam : Misere cupis, inquit, abire 
 Jamdudum video : sed nil agis : usque tenebo : 
 Persequar : bine quo nunc iter est tibi ? 
 
 Hob. Sertn. I. 
 
 rpHE branch of the river by Avhich we entered 
 Bamberg is exceedingly picturesque; the quaint 
 old houses have rows of alcoves in each story, 
 something like opera boxes, painted bright red, 
 blue, and green. We pulled on under a bridge, 
 the approach to which goes under the Rathaus, 
 a handsome building, covered from the water 
 to the roof with fresco painting, and bas-reliefs
 
 THE PROFESSOR. 25 
 
 curiously blended together, till we arrived at 
 the Canal, where we were received with much 
 excitement by the superintendent of the works, 
 who told us that he had been daily expecting us 
 for a year (alluding, no doubt, to the paragraph 
 in the Wurzburg paper last summer); we left the 
 boat in his charge, and proceeded to our hotel. 
 Two gentlemen called on us the next day, one of 
 whom, Popp by name, had been in Ireland for a 
 long time, spoke English well, with an Irish 
 accent, and was to us a most agreeable and useful 
 cicerone; the other, a professor of something, who 
 had seen us arrive the night before, had been down 
 to the boat to take a sketch of the rudder, and now 
 came to inquire what that extraordinary machine 
 was, that was attached to the stern of the boat by 
 ropes, and which caused us to move with such 
 marvellous velocity. Heaven save us from our 
 friends! this worthy man seemed to think it his 
 mission to take us under his wing. Poor fellow, I 
 believe he meant it most kindly ; but of all the 
 intolerable bores that ever were inflicted on any 
 unfortunate victims, surely this individual was the 
 most intense. Providentially he was engaged 
 during the greater part of the day with his pupils,
 
 26 HIS MUSEUM. 
 
 but at every spare moment he swooped down on 
 us with the most unrelenting kindness. Among 
 other things that he insisted on our seeing, was a 
 collection of rubbish that he had amassed during a 
 life of some sixty years ; he had it all spread out 
 in his lecture-room, and for an hour we had to 
 admire a mass of trash, of which the most interest- 
 ing article, by far, was an old ground-plan of St. 
 Paul's. His pupils were waiting at the door to 
 come in, and we implored them by signs to do so, 
 and put an end to our torture. At last they took 
 compassion on us; but it was of no use; they 
 were bundled out immediately ; and it was only 
 when he found that we were all yawning out of a 
 window, having left him simpering by himself 
 over an old number of the Illustrated News, that 
 he suffered us to depart. Peace, and a cleaner 
 shirt be with him ! 
 
 Bamberg is situated nearly in the centre of 
 Germany, and is built somewhat in the shape of 
 the letter K or X; part of it is built on some 
 rising eminence and part on the flat country, on 
 the right bank of the Regnitz, several branches of 
 which river run through the town. [M. D.] 
 ' Therefore one is in doubt whether to call it the 
 German Rome or Venice/
 
 MR. wildberger's. 27 
 
 Under Mr. Popp's able guidance we walked 
 over this most interesting town, admired its splendid 
 old cathedral, and saw the window in the palace 
 from which Marshal Berthier either fell, or threw 
 himself, on the advance of the Russians in 1815. 
 We were very much interested, also, in a visit that 
 we paid to the private orthopaedic hospital for 
 children, of Mr. Wildberger, which is situated on 
 the Michaelsberg, being a part of the vast pile of 
 buildings of the old convent of St. Michael ; it has 
 a private entrance to the church, and a beautiful 
 garden, which commands a fine prospect over the 
 town and fertile plain beyond it, with the hills of 
 the Thuringer Wald in the distance. As we walked 
 through it, we observed several of the patients, 
 some lying on their couches in the shade, others 
 playing about, working, reading, &c. ; all seemed 
 happy, and fond of their kind protector; nothing, 
 indeed, could exceed the tenderness with which he 
 treated them. We were shown over the whole 
 establishment ; everything was beautifully clean 
 and neat ; it is conducted on the principle of a 
 school; French, German, geography, writing, and 
 arithmetic being taught; the yearly charge for 
 everything, including board, is something under
 
 28 ORTHOPCEDIC HOSPITAL. 
 
 fifty pounds.* Mr. Wildberger is not a medical 
 man himself, but his establishment is daily visited 
 by an experienced physician, who attends to the 
 ailments of the children. He was originally a 
 surgical-instrument maker, and being dissatisfied 
 with the orthopaedic instruments in use, he has 
 constructed them on an entirely new principle, 
 which has met with the most unexampled success. 
 We saw some of his patients, whose cures were 
 effected, straight limbed and upright, and he showed 
 us casts of their distorted figures as they had been 
 when they came under his care eighteen months 
 before. We saw other poor little creatures who 
 had just come ; these he expected to dismiss cured 
 in about two years. They suffer no pain by his 
 method of treatment, and their health is generally 
 good ; we were not surprised to find patients there 
 from all parts of the continent ; indeed he has had 
 two from England. After this we strolled out to 
 the lofty tower and ruined walls of the Altenberg, 
 an old castle, formerly the stronghold of the Counts 
 
 * If a private servant is sent with the child, about <£25 is 
 charged extra ; something, also, is expected for the use of the 
 orthopaedic instruments and baths, if required. English, music, 
 and singing are also taught.
 
 ALTENBERG. 29 
 
 of Babenberg. ' The last of them, Adalbert (a 
 robber knight), was executed by the Emperor, 
 Louis the Child, into whose hands he was deli- 
 vered by the treachery of Bishop Hatto, of Mentz, 
 who persuaded him to visit the Emperor, by making 
 him a solemn promise to conduct him back to his 
 castle in safety. They accordingly set out, but had 
 not proceeded far when Hatto complained of faint- 
 ness, and they returned to the castle for refresh- 
 ments ; they the nstarted again, and on their arrival 
 at the Emperor's camp, Adalbert was immediately 
 seized and executed ; Hatto declaring that he had 
 conducted him once in safety to his castle, and 
 that it was his own folly to start again/ The 
 view from the top of the tower is superb ; the 
 neighbouring hills are covered with orchards, hop- 
 gardens, and vineyards; at their feet extends the 
 city, with the huge convent on the Michaelsberg, 
 and the venerable cathedral, with its four towers. 
 From the south-east flows the Regnitz, along the 
 side of which is the canal, with the towers and spires 
 of Nuremberg glittering in the horizon ; while, 
 for a considerable distance in the north-east, he 
 Main is seen winding through a country fertile as 
 a garden, till it is lost to sight among the hills, 
 near its junction with the Regnitz. The hill on
 
 30 BAMBERG. 
 
 which the castle is situated is slipping down in a 
 very remarkable manner ; indeed, part of the 
 building has been already carried away, and there 
 is much reason to fear that the rest, with its 
 splendid old tower, will ere long share the same 
 fate. 
 
 Bamberg is famous for its beer, and the neigh- 
 bouring hills are planted extensively with hops; 
 the citizens are in the habit of repairing in the 
 evening to the rock cellars (Felsenkeller) — which 
 are cheerful gardens, without any rocks or cellars 
 visible to the naked eye — to imbibe their favourite 
 beverage. We assisted them on one occasion in 
 this pleasant occupation, and 'laughed and quaffed' 
 for some time to the music of an excellent band, 
 with which these establishments are generally 
 provided.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE CANAL FROM BAMBERG TO FORCHEIM. 
 
 Bauer. Siehst Du ! sind neue Volker herein 
 Kommen frisch von der Saal und dem Main. 
 Marketenderin. Gliick zur ankunft ihr Herren. 
 
 Schiller's Wallenstein's Lager. 
 
 HP HE engineer of the canal took much interest in 
 our expedition, and kindly presented us with 
 an excellent map,* containing the most minute in- 
 formation, topographical, statistical, &c, concerning 
 this splendid work. The canal is about one 
 hundred and fifty miles in length, and there are 
 
 * "We unfortunately lost this map ; and, as I have now no 
 means of information concerning the canal to refer to, I am 
 unable to give such an exact account of it as I could wish. In 
 Murray's Guide-book (written before the completion of the canal), 
 it is said that there is a tunnel at Nieder-CElsbach nine hundred 
 feet long, and that there are only ninety-four locks ; this is not 
 the case, as, in the course of the work, it was found expedient to 
 make six additional locks, by which means the necessity of a 
 tunnel was avoided.
 
 32 THE CANAL. 
 
 one hundred locks on it ; it enters the beautiful 
 valley of the Altmiihl at Dietfurt (which is ren- 
 dered navigable by locks), about twelve miles above 
 Kelheim, where it joins the Danube. It is about 
 fifty-four feet wide at the top and thirty-four at 
 the bottom. The summit level of the canal is at 
 Neumarkt on the Sulz, three hundred feet above the 
 Danube at Kelheim, three hundred and sixty above 
 the Regnitz at Bamberg, and one thousand three 
 hundred above the sea. At all the principal towns on 
 the banks there is a good-sized harbour for the barges. 
 It was originally planned by Charlemagne, and ex- 
 ecuted, after the lapse of one thousand years, by the 
 ex -king of Bavaria, in honour of whom it is called 
 the f Ludwig's Canal ;' so that the junction of the 
 German Ocean with the Black Sea is now accom- 
 plished, though I believe that we were the first 
 travellers who have been from London to Pesth by 
 water.* In a commercial point of view, it is, I 
 am afraid, a failure, owing partly to the great un- 
 fitness of the Main for navigation, on account of 
 the numerous shallows, want of water in summer, 
 
 * Last year we rowed over all the water between Cologne and 
 "Wurzburg ; and this year from Kitzingen, a few miles from that 
 place, to Pesth. So we have pulled some 1000 miles of the whole 
 journey from London to Constantinople.
 
 ITS TRAFFIC. 33 
 
 and the rapidity of the stream; partly to the 
 great difficulty found in supplying the canal with 
 water at the summit level in dry seasons; and 
 last, but not least, to the similarity of the pro- 
 ductions at either end ; indeed, we were told that 
 it barely paid the working expenses, and we saw 
 but few barges in it; it is, however, exceedingly 
 handsomely constructed, and has a most efficient 
 and numerous staff of officers. 
 
 The re-arrangement of the Zollverein, which is 
 now pending, will probably make a vast difference 
 in the traffic of this canal, either for the better or 
 the worse. Should Bavaria coalesce with Austria, 
 all the produce of the Danube, from the Black 
 Sea, may find an outlet through it ; while, on the 
 other hand, should she separate from Prussia, and 
 not unite with Austria, the canal would probably 
 lose what little traffic it now has. 
 
 We were furnished with a printed pass (' Fahr- 
 schein^), for which we had to pay about five 
 shillings, and which had to be endorsed by the 
 superintendent at each lock; a most convenient 
 arrangement, as we had nothing further to pay ; 
 and as information was sent on of our coming, 
 the gates were opened, without any delay, at the 
 first sound of Coxswain's cornopean. 
 D
 
 34 SWIMMING BATHS. 
 
 Our start from Bamberg, on Friday the 30th of 
 July, caused no small excitement in that quiet old 
 town ; indeed, during all our stay there, our little 
 boat was the object of unabated interest, and some 
 of the natives wished to purchase her at the end of 
 our trip. We stopped, shortly after we had left 
 the town, at the military bathing school, where 
 we bathed. These public bathing places in 
 Germany are admirable institutions; a space of 
 about fifty yards by thirty is partitioned off from 
 the river by hoarding, and inside are numerous 
 little dressing rooms. There are douche and shower 
 baths; scaffolds of various heights to jump from; in 
 short, everything that can be required by bathers. 
 The charge is generally about threepence. The 
 consequence is that almost every German can 
 swim, and it is by no means an unusual accom- 
 plishment for ladies. 
 
 Pulling along the canal was delightfully lazy 
 work, after our hundred mile tug up the Main, and 
 we were agreeably surprised to find that we had 
 an uninterrupted view of the country (which was 
 very pretty) on each side, owing to the canal being 
 generally raised on an embankment, and the water 
 flush with the top. Alongside of the canal from 
 Bamberg to Nuremberg run the river Regnitz, the 
 high road, the railway, and telegraph.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE FRANCONIAN SWITZERLAND. 
 
 KoXXai, (piXopvtiQ, Saijji6vo)v avaorpotydi. 
 
 jEschyl. Ewmen. 
 
 K T Forcheim, we put our boat into dock, and 
 took a carriage to Streitberg, in order to spend 
 a few days in the Franconian Switzerland.* This 
 remarkable district is situated about fifteen miles 
 from Forcheim, and consists of a high table land 
 intersected by a number of beautiful gorges ; the 
 streams that run through which emptying them- 
 selves for the most part into the Wiesent, which 
 joins the Regnitz at Forcheim. We did not get to 
 Streitberg till it was dark, but we were conscious 
 
 * This name is quite a misnomer ; the style of scenery in the 
 two places being radically different. There is a railway station 
 at Forcheim. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 STREITBERG. 
 
 that we were passing through a very picturesque 
 country, and we longed for morning, to commence 
 our explorations. Streitberg is on the Wiesent, 
 and with its old castle on the one side, and that of 
 Niedeck on the other, forms a sort of portal to the 
 district ; though really the limestone rocks are 
 arranged in such fantastic shapes, and are so similar 
 in colour to the castle, that (as the old Northamp- 
 tonshire woman said of her twins) ' each is so like 
 both, that you can hardly tell t'other from which/) 
 This little village is a kind of a watering place, 
 not much frequented by English ; and the correct 
 thing is to drink whey of a morning. Our landlord 
 insisted on our having some, but I am afraid that 
 we did not appreciate it, as he brought it up hot 
 and without curds. 
 
 We got up early in the morning, and leaving 
 our luggage with strict injunctions that it should 
 be forwarded immediately to Gosweinstein, where 
 we intended to sleep, we started for a walk of 
 about five miles over the hills to the mill at Doos, 
 which is situated at the junction of a brook called 
 the Aufsees with the Wiesent. After a most deli- 
 cious bathe in the clear cold stream, we strolled up 
 the valley to the castle of Rabeneck, which owes 
 its beauty more to its situation than its architecture.
 
 THE RIESENBERG. 37 
 
 It stands on a lofty eminence, commanding a view 
 down the exquisite valley, with a most picturesque 
 mill nestling at the foot of the rocks. We 
 returned to the mill at Doos, where we lunched, 
 and then started for the Riesenburg cave. This is 
 one of the most singular and beautiful of the very 
 numerous curiosities of the district ; ' it is some- 
 thing like a cone with the top taken off, so as to 
 leave two arches standing, forming, as it were, 
 natural bridges over a dell or glen, scooped out on 
 the right side of the valley. As you enter and 
 look up the broken vault through which the sky 
 appears, you might fancy it indeed to be, as its 
 name implies, a giant's castle/ We ascended by 
 a flight of steps to the high ground, and walked on 
 to the Adlerstein, from whence the best and most 
 extensive panoramic view of the district is to be 
 obtained. We then descended again to the valley 
 of the Wiesent, opposite to Gosweinstein, and find- 
 ing that there was no bridge, we took off our 
 clothes and swam to the other side, carrying them 
 on our heads. Bow and Smith accomplished this 
 successfully, but unhappy Coxswain slipped, in 
 stepping out, and just as he thought that all risk 
 was over, rolled back, clothes and all, into the 
 water, to the no small delight of his companions.
 
 38 GOSWEINSTEIN. 
 
 But he soon had the laugh on his side, for Smith, 
 finding that he had landed his shirt some hundred 
 yards higher up the river than the rest of his clothes, 
 thought that the quickest way of bringing it down 
 would be to swim with it, but as he was careering 
 triumphantly down the middle of the stream, he 
 was wrecked on a rock and his shirt reduced to the 
 same condition as that of Coxswain's. This was 
 about the fifth time that we had bathed on this day. 
 Bow, indeed, had crossed the river seventeen times, 
 dressed and undressed, sometimes on all fours, 
 sometimes swimming, now diving, and occasionally 
 on his head. 
 
 On arriving at Gosweinstein, which is situated 
 on the top of the cliff over the river, and to which 
 an exceedingly steep carriage road leads, we found 
 that our luggage had not arrived, so we had to 
 borrow garments of the landlord, and send off a 
 special messenger to Streitberg to endeavour to 
 recover it. 
 
 Gosweinstein is, I think, the best head quarters 
 for any one intending to explore this district; there 
 is a very tolerable inn ; and for trout fishing, 
 beautiful scenery, fossils, and geological investiga- 
 tions, these diggins are extremely convenient. There 
 is a castle here, from which the prospect is very
 
 THE JAHRMARKT. 39 
 
 singular : it commands a view up three of these 
 curious valleys, which radiate from under it like 
 the spokes of a wheel. 
 
 The next morning we regained our luggage, and 
 found the little town in a state of great excitement, 
 owing to its being the 'Jahrmarkt/ a kind of 
 quarterly fair, to which all the peasants of the 
 neighbourhood flock in great quantities. The one 
 at Gosweinstein is very popular, owing to there 
 being a celebrated pilgrimage church there. It 
 was an amusing sight, and the dresses of the 
 Bavarian peasants were very striking. The men 
 wear low crowned beavers, with enormous brims 
 looped up on three sides, making a kind of flat 
 cocked hat ; some wear a high-crowned one, much 
 bigger at the top than the bottom, and generally 
 with a bunch of artificial flowers, or a piece of gilt 
 gingerbread, stuck in the band. Their coats are 
 cut straight and very long, and their waistcoats 
 very short, with rows of enormous metal buttons 
 (sometimes of silver) overlapping each other, and 
 high Hessian boots; their presence altogether 
 savours somewhat of the Greenwich pensioner, 
 with a slight alloy of the British bishop. The 
 ladies wear generally red handkerchiefs round 
 their heads, bright coloured short petticoats, with
 
 40 THE SOPHIEN'S HOHLE. 
 
 a stripe round the bottom, yellow gaiters, and 
 hare feet. The women in Bavaria, apparently, 
 do all the hard work in the fields, the men gene- 
 rally contenting themselves with looking on and 
 smoking, and occasionally condescending to drive 
 a cart. 
 
 The next day we walked up the Ahornthal, 
 watered by the Essbach,to the Castle of Rabenstein: 
 it is even more romantic in its situation than that 
 of Rabeneck. Not far from it is the most cele- 
 brated cave of the district, the f Sophien's Hohle/ 
 which, having provided a guide and lights, we 
 entered. It is well worth seeing ; the fossil bones 
 are very numerous, bears and hyaenas' skulls, deer 
 horns, &c. &c. They are not allowed to be re- 
 moved. There are three or four chambers in the 
 cavern, and the stalactites and stalagmites are most 
 beautiful; some formed into groups like human 
 figures, others like folding drapery, which were quite 
 transparent, and when struck gave out a tone like a 
 bell, &c. &c. Before we emerged from the cavern, 
 we were much struck by the beautiful and peculiar 
 effect of the valley in the bright sunlight, as seen 
 through the mouth of the cave, we ourselves 
 standing back in darkness. The whole of this 
 valley abounds with caves, one of which we found
 
 TUCHERSFELD. 41 
 
 to be useful as well as ornamental, as we took 
 refuge in it during a thunder storm. We had one 
 more valley to explore, the one which leads from 
 Gosweinstein byTuchersfeld to Pottenstein. It is of 
 the same character as the others, a beautiful trout 
 stream running through meadows of the brightest 
 green, and bounded on each side by precipitous 
 rocks, three hundred feet high, broken up into every 
 imaginable fantastic form, like a party of colossal 
 idols picnicing in the valley.* Bow and Smith, 
 in ascending the hill side, almost dreaded to look 
 behind them, for they shuddered, as the old tale 
 in the Arabian Nights rose to their minds, lest, 
 like the Princes Bahman and Perviz, they too 
 should be turned into stone, Coxswain being no 
 
 The rocky summits split and rent, 
 
 Formed turret, dome, or battlement, 
 
 Or seemed fantastically set 
 
 "With cupola or minaret, 
 
 Wild crests as pagod ever decked, 
 
 Or mosque of eastern architect. 
 
 Nor were these earth-born castles bare, 
 
 Nor lacked they many a banner fair ; 
 
 For, from their shivered brows displayed, 
 
 Far o'er the unfathomable glade, 
 
 All twinkling with the dew-drop sheen, 
 
 The briar rose fell in streamers green, &c. &c. 
 
 Scott's Lady of the Lake.
 
 42 OUR DRIVE BACK. 
 
 Parizade, either in look or action, to bring them 
 back to their original forms. He was generally 
 indeed rather averse to mounting a hill, being of 
 opinion that if it was a high one, it would probably 
 be covered with clouds, and if low that it would 
 not be worth the trouble. 
 
 We hired a carriage at Pottenstein, to take us 
 back to Forcheim. The vehicle was a kind of straw 
 tray, without springs, and with a board across it, 
 furnished with a pole, and one horse. With a nail 
 or two in the bottom of it, it would have been 
 admirable training for Regulus. What an awful 
 drive that was ! and what a relief it was when we 
 came to a steep hill, and could get out and walk. 
 However, to Forcheim we did get at last, though 
 not a little sore.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE CANAL BETWEEN FOECHEIM AND 
 KELHEIM. 
 
 By means of this canal one might embark at Tower Stairs 
 and go by water to Constantinople. 
 
 Murray's Southern Germany. 
 
 f\N our return to Forcheim, we found an Eng- 
 lishman waiting for us, who had come over ex- 
 pressly by railway from Bamberg, when he heard 
 of our being in these parts, in order to make a bid 
 for our boat ; we told him that he could have it 
 if he communicated with us at Vienna, but we 
 never heard any more of him. We left Forcheim 
 at nine, a.m., and the people who collected to see 
 us start were highly amused at the idea of our 
 attempting to get to Nuremberg the same 
 evening. On our saying that we should be there 
 by six, one individual observed, that if we did, he 
 would cut his throat. I hope he did not commit
 
 44 FURTH. 
 
 suicide ; but at Nuremberg we certainly arrived be- 
 fore that hour, and stopped three hours by the 
 way. One of the places at which we halted was 
 Erlangen, a town of 12,000 inhabitants, and pos- 
 sessing a university. Just before arriving at 
 Nuremberg, we passed, at a little distance from 
 the canal, the manufacturing city of Fiirth, con- 
 taining 15,000 inhabitants, about one quarter of 
 whom are Jews, who, not being allowed to settle 
 in Nuremberg, have started an opposition city 
 here, which bids fair to become a formidable rival 
 to its ancient and illiberal neighbour. Near this 
 place one of the most celebrated battles between 
 Gustavus Adolphus and Wallenstein took place. 
 
 Our entry into Nuremberg was not very im- 
 posing. We chartered a porter to wheel our bag- 
 gage into the town, which is some little distance 
 from the canal. The bottom of his barrow was 
 formed of cross bars, so wide apart that our bag- 
 gage kept continually falling through ; so, after 
 stopping some dozen times to collect the scattered 
 articles, we were ultimately obliged to carry them 
 ourselves. The "Wittelsbacher Hof, at which we 
 stayed, Mas the worst hotel that we were in during 
 our whole expedition. 
 
 This grand old city is surrounded by ramparts,
 
 NUREMBERG. 45 
 
 and what was formerly a moat, but is now a 
 garden, with numerous turrets, which at one time, 
 it is said, were three hundred and sixty -five in 
 number; and I should think that there must be 
 as many still, as, in a space of three hundred 
 yards, we counted eighteen. The fortifications 
 were planned by Albert Durer, who was a native of 
 the town, and whose house still remains. The Peg- 
 nitz, crossed by fourteen bridges, divides the town 
 into two nearly equal parts, named after the two 
 great churches situated within them ; the northern, 
 St. Sebald's side; the southern, St. Lawrence's 
 side. The large forests to the north and south 
 of the town are also called, for the same reason, 
 the Sebaldi and Lorenzi Wald. Not far from 
 Nuremberg this river joins the Rednitz; the 
 united streams then bear the name of the Regnitz, 
 which runs alongside of the canal, and joins the 
 Main below Bamberg. I will not attempt any 
 description of the objects of interest in this the 
 most interesting city in all Germany, if not in 
 Europe ; even if there were not already so many 
 accounts of it written, I should shrink from a 
 task for which I feel myself so incompetent. 
 The two grand churches, the Rathaus, the 
 citadel, the church of St. Giles, and that of the
 
 46 A CRIMINAL TRIAL. 
 
 Virgin, the fountains, the old burial ground, &c., 
 were all in their turn visited and thoroughly ap- 
 preciated. 
 
 Nuremberg appears to be a very flourishing, 
 as well as beautiful town, if one may judge from 
 the number of handsome houses that were being 
 built in the suburbs, most of them in very good 
 taste, and in the same style as the houses in the 
 old town. As we were walking one day down 
 the corridor in the Rathaus, the ceiling of which 
 is so quaintly adorned with the representation of 
 a tournament, in full relief, . the size of life, and 
 gaudily painted, we saw many people passing and 
 repassing through a door, and thought we would 
 look in and see what was going on. It turned out 
 to be a trial, and hoping to pick up some idea 
 which we might turn to advantage on our return 
 in Westminster Hall, we stopped for a short time 
 and listened to the proceedings; but I can't say 
 that it was particularly interesting. The main 
 point, it appeared, was for how long a period the 
 prisoner should be incarcerated, and the judges, 
 counsel, and prisoner, were talking the matter over 
 together in a very business-like and amicable 
 manner, and I have no doubt ultimately settled it
 
 FEUCHT. 47 
 
 to their entire satisfaction ; but we did not wait to 
 hear the result. 
 
 We left Nuremberg at three p.m. for Feucht : 
 it was a very short distance, and we accomplished 
 it in about two hours. It was the first rainy day 
 that we had had; indeed, the weather had all 
 along been so hot, that Smith's wrists were much 
 burnt and swollen, so that we found the rain rather 
 an agreeable change than otherwise ; being clothed 
 entirely in flannel, and not formed either of salt 
 or sugar, we were quite indifferent to being wet, 
 as the sun always dried us completely in about 
 ten minutes. We left our boat in care of the 
 lock-keeper, with orders to send it on by the next 
 barge, through a series of about thirty locks 
 that come one after the other at this place, and 
 walked to Feucht, which is about one mile and a 
 half from the canal. Feucht was formerly in the 
 direct road from Nuremberg to Ratisbon, and we 
 found the little inn there (the Post) particularly 
 comfortable. The landlord told us that he used 
 generally to have four or five English families 
 there every day in the season, in the old times, 
 before the rail was opened, but that now he never 
 sees any. In one of our bed-rooms there we
 
 48 THE AQUEDUCT. 
 
 found a most remarkable implement : it consisted 
 of a straight piece of wood, about four feet in 
 height, with a box attached to one end of it, and 
 a mystic spring to the other. Opinions were 
 divided as to whether it was a prie-Dieu, an elabo- 
 rate boot-jack, or some other sort of device more 
 useful than ornamental. On inquiry, we found it 
 to be a spittoon. 
 
 Our host who was a most intelligent, well edu- 
 cated man, told us that there was a bridge on the 
 canal which we should on no account miss seeing, 
 and volunteered to be our guide ; so he conducted 
 us to a place where the canal was carried by 
 a very handsome aqueduct with one bold arch 
 over a gorge of considerable depth. The scene 
 was very pretty, but it was not that which he had 
 brought us there to see. On one side of the arch 
 there was a considerable extent of apparently solid 
 masonry, with a door in the centre, through which 
 we entered, and then, aided by the light of torches, 
 which were brought on purpose, we found that we 
 were in a vaulted apartment of considerable extent, 
 with an arched roof, like the aisle of a miniature 
 cathedral : the walls were incrusted with a coating 
 of stone, formed by the dripping from the roof. 
 The coup-d'ceil was exceedingly striking, but the
 
 THE SUMMIT LEVEL. 49 
 
 chief wonder of the place was the marvellous echo, 
 which repeated more than fifty times. On 
 emerging from this, we took leave of our host, and 
 walked on about six miles to join our boat, which 
 we found all right at the other side of the furthest 
 lock. 
 
 We were now at the summit level of the canal, 
 and had a long stretch without any locks, the 
 water behind us flowing into the German Ocean, 
 and that before us, into the Black Sea ; we soon 
 entered a deep cutting, about one mile long, (where 
 the tunnel was originally intended to have been,) 
 and when we. had passed this, we found that we 
 had got out of the Lorenzi Wald, and were in a 
 picturesque valley, with castles, villages, and spires 
 scattered about on every side. The country 
 people in Germany generally have the most vague 
 ideas of distances, owing partly to their seldom 
 moving above a mile from their own homes, and 
 partly to their reckoning by the c Stund/ which 
 sometimes means half a German mile, sometimes 
 the distance that a man could walk, or a carriage 
 or stoam-boat traverse in an hour, according to the 
 opinion of the individual asked ; and as they would 
 sometimes reckon what they thought that we 
 could do in an hour, (and some thought that we 
 E
 
 50 NEUMARKT. 
 
 could not go faster than a man could walk, and 
 others that we could beat the fastest steamer,) we 
 were not much the wiser for being told that such 
 a place was ' one Stund off/ or ' half a strong 
 Stund, or ' five quarters of a little Stund/ We 
 had a narrow escape this day of breaking an oar, 
 owing to Bow's forgetting to ship as we passed 
 through a bridge, against which it accordingly 
 caught ; had it not been a most wonderful piece of 
 wood it must have smashed, for it bent nearly 
 double ; if it had broken, we should have been in 
 an awkward predicament, for we could not have 
 got it replaced, oars not being used on the canal, 
 the Main, or the Danube; and on the Rhine 
 their idea of an oar is confined to a piece of board 
 nailed on to the end of a pole. We stopped at 
 Neumarkt, and intended to have walked out to 
 the castle of Wolfstein, a conspicuous object on a 
 hill about four miles off; but it commenced 
 raining, so we gave it up and played skittles 
 instead. This German game of skittles is a 
 great improvement on that indulged in commonly 
 in English pothouses ; it is similar to the American 
 game, except in the number of the pins, the 
 German game having only the legitimate nine, 
 while the Yankees use ten ; the tenth having been
 
 SMITH AT THE LOCK. 51 
 
 added to shirk a law which was passed against 
 the game of mraepins. The German alleys are 
 laid out with great care, and it is deservedly a 
 very popular game with all classes. The Prince of 
 T. had one in his grounds at Donaustauf. 
 
 The next day we began to descend, and arrived 
 at a place where there were two locks very near 
 together, and as a barge was coming through the 
 lower one, the lock-keeper was not in attendance 
 to open the other for us ; so Smith thought that 
 he would usurp his office, in order to save time, 
 and accordingly opened the sluices, and then dis- 
 covered that the lower ones were not closed, and 
 that he was not up to the trick of shutting them ; 
 so the water made a clean sweep through, soon 
 filled up the space between the two locks, and then 
 ran over. This quickly brought up the missing 
 lock-keeper, as well as the one from the lock 
 above, and they began to quarrel, calling each 
 other ' Sacramente Colfactor/ which may be 
 strong language in German, but, as I don't know 
 what it means, I suppose there is no harm in my 
 quoting it. Smith, in the mean time, finding the 
 dispute in such good hands, and thinking it a pity 
 to disturb them, left them to fight it out, and 
 strolled on to the next lock. As we descended, 
 E 2
 
 52 OUR HOTEL 
 
 the people appeared to get more and more 
 astonished ; even the pigs and oxen began to stare, 
 and to judge by the faces of tl^ people who were 
 at work in the fields, and who could only see our 
 heads mysteriously gliding along, I should imagine 
 they thought that we were spirits ; that is to say, 
 if they ever trouble themselves to think at all, 
 which I am rather inclined to doubt. 
 
 We passed two tolerable sized towns, called 
 Beilingries and Berching,* before we arrived at 
 Dietfurt, which is at some little distance from the 
 banks of the canal, which at this point enters the 
 Altmiihl, and where we put up for the night. The 
 lock-keeper, who hadbeen one of the Bavarian volun- 
 teers under King Otho in Greece, offered to carry our 
 luggage to the best inn in the place, which he told 
 us ' was a very bad town, inhabited only by old pea- 
 sants/ It was certainly not a very imposing city, 
 nor was the public to which / our guide directed us 
 particularly inviting. However, it was the best in 
 the place; in which I believe no foreigner ever before 
 set his foot. On the appearance of Boniface, a fat 
 
 * Should any party ever follow in our track, it would be better 
 for them to send on the boat from Nuremberg to the summit 
 level, drive out in a carriage to meet it the next morning, sleep 
 that night at Beilingries and the next at Kelheim


 
 AT DIETFURT. 53 
 
 little man with winking eyes, and a skull cap on 
 his head, and who combined in his own dignified 
 person the functions of landlord, waiter, cook, 
 chambermaid, and boots, we inquired what we 
 could have to eat ? to which he laconically replied, 
 ' Nothing/ However, we ultimately managed to 
 procure some pancakes, bread, cheese, butter, 
 cucumbers, and milk. Our beds were made up 
 for us in the ' Saal/ which, in these out of the way 
 caravanseries, seems generally to be considered the 
 chamber of honour. In the morning our plump 
 little host paid us a visit in our room, for no 
 ostensible purpose, unless it was to see how we 
 got through the mysteries of the toilet. We 
 asked him from what part of the world he thought 
 we had come, he said, Nuremberg, which place 
 he probably considered to be at the extreme limit 
 of the civilized world. We told him that we were 
 from Russia ; to which he grinned acquiescence, as 
 he most likely would have done, had we told him 
 that we were from Patagonia, or the North Pole. 
 Smith, happening to have a tooth brush in his 
 hand, shewed it to the little man, and asked him 
 if he had ever seen such an instrument before, or 
 knew its use; which soft impeachment he repu- 
 diated ; and on learning that it was a newly
 
 54 COSTUMES. 
 
 invented instrument for coaxing corks out of 
 bottles, he observed with the air of a connoisseur : 
 ' Sehr zweckmassig/* Our bill at this remarkable 
 establishment for dinners, beds, and breakfasts, 
 amounted in all to the sum of one shilling and 
 fivepence a head. 
 
 We were here on a Sunday, and the costumes 
 were most curious, those of the men for the most 
 part similar to those at Gbsweinstein (p. 39); but 
 the disguise of the ladies was very peculiar : they 
 wore gowns very short in the waist, with the 
 sleeves wadded out to an enormous size, making 
 their shoulders about three feet across, and render- 
 ing it impossible for them to put their arms down 
 to their sides ; the boys had similar sleeves, enor- 
 mous beaver hats, and knee-breeches, and were 
 altogether the most extraordinary looking little 
 beings it is possible to conceive. 
 
 The valley of the Altmuhl, between Dietfurt and 
 Kelheim, is most charming ; the scenery reminded 
 us much of that of the so-called Franconian Swit- 
 zerland, but the cliffs are much higher here, and 
 the castles better worth looking at ; those of Ra- 
 benfels and Prunn are perched on the tops of very 
 
 Exceedingly well adapted to the purpose.
 
 smith's treachery. 55 
 
 lofty cliffs, and are exceedingly striking. But 
 what delighted us most was the exquisite clearness 
 and rapidity of the stream, after the turbid waters 
 of the Main, and the stagnation of the canal. Of 
 course we took advantage of the first convenient 
 place to bathe. After swimming about for some 
 minutes, the treacherous Smith crept out, and hav- 
 ing stealthily arrayed himself in Coxswain's shirt, 
 proceeded to the bank, and inquired of that unsus- 
 pecting victim, ' What he would bet that he 
 (Smith) would not jump in as he was?' He, 
 (Coxswain) not knowing the designing character 
 of the proposer, responded : ' One gulden f when 
 in a moment Smith disappeared under water, and 
 then getting out resumed his own dry garments. 
 
 We stopped for a short time at Riedenburg, and 
 Smith went out with the basket to collect pro- 
 vender. At the inn to which he directed his steps, 
 the landlord was very curious to know how the 
 flannel apparition before him had arrived in 
 those parts. After Smith had, at great expense, 
 explained to him all about it, he said : f I 
 suppose you are freighted v.ith coffee and sugar, 
 nicht wahr V When Smith left the inn with his 
 booty, he found the streets, which were tolerably 
 lively as he had passed through before, absolutely
 
 56 KELHEIM 
 
 deserted, but when he came to the river the phe- 
 nomenon was explained; every individual had 
 poured down to the bank to see the Britishers' 
 mahogany boat, and some of them, with whom we 
 entered into conversation, laughed us to scorn 
 when we said that we were going down the 
 Danube in her. When we started, a regular 
 scramble took place along the side, like the rush 
 at the boat-races at Oxford. However, we were 
 not long in tailing them off; but one young lady 
 kept up for such a time that we thought she would 
 like to come with us, so we stopped and proposed 
 to take her in, but without effect. 
 
 We made a triumphant entry into Kelheim" 
 about five in the evening, and immediately started 
 off to investigate an enormous round mass of scaf- 
 folding on the top of the Michaelsberg, the hill be- 
 tween the Danube and Altmuhl ; this proved to 
 be a rotunda temple, called the ' Befreiung's Halle/ 
 now in course of erection, and commenced by the 
 ex-king of Bavaria, to commemorate the War of 
 Liberation. As we were ascending the hill, we 
 had our first view of the majestic old Danube, 
 with whom we were soon to become so intimately 
 acquainted, just emerging from between two ab- 
 rupt walls of rock, and pursuing its silent and
 
 AND ITS LIONS. 57 
 
 rapid course through an extensive plain till lost 
 sight of among the hills about ten miles off to the 
 east. 
 
 It would be well worth any traveller's while to 
 visit Kelheim, there being several objects of interest 
 in the neighbourhood, such as the valley of the 
 Altnmhl, along whose picturesque banks there is a 
 delightful drive or walk ; the ' Befreiung's Halle/ 
 commanding a beautiful and extensive view; the 
 Devil's Wall, or Pfalgraben, an earthen ram- 
 part, built by the Romans, and faced with stone, 
 to protect themselves against the invasion of the 
 Germans, and carried directly up hill and down 
 dale from the banks of the Danube to those of 
 the Rhine. Immediately above Kelheim also, the 
 Danube passes through a defile called ' Lange 
 Wand/ about a mile in length; it is the finest part 
 of the river from its source to the Black Sea ; and 
 the cliffs in the neighbourhood abound with caves, 
 one of which, the ' Schuler Loch/ was, we were 
 told, a very roaring lion : but we did not venture 
 into its mouth, as we had seen the ' Sophien 
 Hohle/ which must certainly be superior, and we 
 were impatient to commence our descent of the 
 Danube.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE DANUBE FROM WELTENBURG TO 
 PONAUSTAUF. 
 
 Sonci appariti tre fieri giganti, 
 
 Non so di quel paese o di qual regno 
 
 Ma molto son feroci tutti quanti. 
 
 Pulci's Morgante Maggiore. 
 
 T3EFORE we embark on the Danube, it may 
 not, perhaps, be amiss to say a few words about 
 general features and peculiarities, between Wel- 
 tenburg and Pesth.* It is, after the Wolga, the 
 largest river in Europe. Its course is (for the 
 most part) from West to East, passing through 
 the finest river scenery in this continent. Number- 
 less castles and several magnificent monasteries 
 adorn its banks ; and, in our opinion, there is no- 
 thing on the Rhine that can be compared with the 
 finest parts of the Danube.f 
 
 * About four hundred and fifty miles, 
 f In justice to the Rhine, however, it should be mentioned 
 tbat the castles on its banks are in most cases far superior, in 
 picturesque beauty, to those on the Danube : three-fifths of those
 
 THE DANUBE. 59 
 
 After passing through the defile above Kel- 
 heim,* it traverses a plain for about ten miles, and 
 then passes for about the same distance between 
 low hills to Ratisbon ; just below which town the 
 hills of the Bohmerwald rise on the left, while an 
 extensive and fertile plain occupies the right bank. 
 At Kinzing it enters the hills, and continues amid 
 scenery more or less grand to Aschach ; from 
 thence to Ardegger, near Grein (with the excep- 
 tion of a defile about eight miles in length imme- 
 diately above Linz), it passes through an archi- 
 pelago of islands, its branches extending themselves 
 occasionally over an expanse of country more than 
 three miles in width. It then enters another de- 
 file which reaches, with the exception of a few 
 miles above Molk, to Stein ; from thence to Ko- 
 morn (with the exception of a few miles immedi- 
 ately above Vienna and Presburg) it traverses 
 another wide archipelago ; then with low round 
 hills on the right, and a plain on the left, it pur- 
 sues its course for about twenty miles, to Gran, 
 where it enters another defile ; the mountains on 
 
 the right continuing all the way to Pesth, those 
 
 on that river being nothing but large white chateaux, with little 
 windows and tall roofs, which would never attract the slightest 
 notice if it were not for their commanding position. 
 * See Map.
 
 60 TRAFFIC AND BRIDGES. 
 
 on the left ceasing at Waitzen, where the river 
 takes a sudden turn to the south. 
 
 The Danube is navigated by steamers from 
 Ulm to the Black Sea ; the principal traffic carried 
 on above Vienna is in wood, of which vast quan- 
 tities are sent down its water from the Tyrol, the 
 forests on its banks, and those of its tributaries. 
 The stream is so strong that it requires an enor- 
 mous number of horses to drag even empty barges 
 against it. 
 
 Below Gonyo, in Hungary, the navigation is 
 not nearly so intricate as above, nor is the stream 
 so rapid; and as the use of steam-tugs is rapidly 
 increasing (we heard that engines for thirty had 
 been ordered from England last year), it is to be 
 hoped that this magnificent stream will be turned 
 to some other use that turning the wheels of the 
 multitudinous floating water-mills, large fleets of 
 which are continually seen below Vienna. Except 
 near Pesth we saw no rafts, and never an oar or a 
 sail. 
 
 There are stone bridges at Ratisbon, Straubing 
 Passau, and (over one branch) at Vienna, where 
 a railway also crosses the river. There are wooden 
 bridges of slight construction, but perfectly secure, 
 and which are removed in winter, at Kelheim,
 
 CURRENT. 61 
 
 Donaustauf, Deggendorf, Vilshofen, Linz, Stein, 
 and Vienna; bridges of boats at Presburg, Komorn, 
 and Gran, and a magnificent suspension bridge at 
 Pesth. 
 
 The current of the Danube is very strong, and 
 in some places, especially between Vilshofen and 
 Aschach, and in the neighbourhood of the Strudel 
 and "Wirbel, very turbulent; and in the broader 
 parts, when the wind is high, the waves rise to a 
 considerable height, breaking into white horses at 
 the top like the sea. However, we were gradually 
 initiated into all these variations of the stream ; 
 though had we come upon them all at once, 
 we might have hesitated before attempting them ; 
 we soon, however, found out the capabilities 
 of our little craft, and that if we sat quietly 
 in her, and pulled steadily, with careful steering, 
 we could pass all the so-called dangers of the 
 Danube with the most perfect security. The 
 shallows among the islands were much more 
 awkward than any of the places that the natives 
 make such a fuss about, as we were several times 
 obliged to jump out of our boat to save her bot- 
 tom from being broken through when we touched 
 ground. 
 
 The waters of the Danube emit a peculiar hissing
 
 62 BREADTH OF THE STREAM. 
 
 simmering noise, something like the sound heard 
 when the ear is placed just over a glass of soda 
 water recently poured out, but, of course, infinitely 
 louder ; this we first observed at Passau after the 
 influx of the Inn, and we thought it was the sound 
 of the wind among the leaves of the trees; but as 
 it did not cease, even when there were no trees 
 near, but, on the contrary, was heard more dis- 
 tinctly, we were convinced that it came from the 
 water alone : this continued for a long way down 
 the river, but we did not observe it below Pres- 
 burg. The breadth of the stream varies ex- 
 ceedingly; we thought it to be narrowest at 
 Weltenburg. Its broadest parts, where it is con- 
 fined to a single stream, are at Deggendorf, just 
 below Aschach (where it is nearly half-a-mile 
 in breadth) before it enters the islands, and the 
 reach immediately above Pesth, at which city, 
 however, it is no broader than the Thames at 
 Hungerford Bridge. Of course this does not apply 
 to those parts where the river flows among the 
 islands, as just below Presburg, for instance, 
 where there is one island of itself twenty miles 
 broad. 
 
 As above mentioned, the grandest part of the 
 Danube is immediately above Kelheim ; and as
 
 WELTENBURG. 63 
 
 the current was too strong for us to pull up 
 against it, we took the steamer at nine a.m., and 
 proceeded in her on our upward voyage. We 
 soon found ourselves entirely surrounded by per- 
 pendicular walls of grey limestone, rising from the 
 water's edge, without the vestige of a ledge be- 
 tween their bases and the stream, which whirls 
 round the sharp turns among the cliffs in tumul- 
 tuous eddies. So steep, indeed, are the walls of 
 rocks, and so rapid the rush of water, that the 
 only way that barges can make their way against 
 it is by hooking on to iron rings, which are for 
 that purpose driven, at intervals, into the cliffs. 
 The scenery continued increasing, if possible, in 
 grandeur, till we arrived at Weltenburg, where the 
 rocks recede from the river on the right bank, 
 leaving an open space on which the monastery of 
 Weltenburg is built ; we descended here and took 
 our breakfast in the courtyard of the building: there 
 are not above six or seven monks there now, the 
 greater part of it being appropriated to farm pur- 
 poses, and part is an hotel. After breakfast we 
 adjourned to the bank, and, to the great edification 
 of the monks, proceeded to measure the river, by 
 trying to throw stones across; this we at last 
 succeeded in doing, though it was about the top 
 
 *
 
 64 FIRST BATHE IN THE DANUBE. 
 
 of our work ; we calculated, therefore, the distance 
 to be about one hundred and twenty-five yards. 
 We thought that this was the narrowest point of 
 the river that we passed. 
 
 We took our first bathe in the Danube at this 
 place. Smith's header was not a propitious one, 
 inasmuch as he came against the rocks at the 
 bottom. Had his head not been protected by his 
 hands, the damage might have been serious ; as it 
 was, he escaped with the loss of a considerable 
 amount of cuticle from his fists and muzzle. For 
 our return we engaged a punt, navigated by a 
 woman and her son, and so dropped down stream 
 to Kelheim in about half an hour. 
 
 On Monday, the 9th of August, we embarked 
 in our little boat, for the first time, on the waters 
 of the Danube, and proceeded merrily on our way 
 to Ratisbon, which is about twenty miles distant. 
 The road runs alongside of the river as far as 
 Abach, near which place there is a tablet in the 
 cliff to commemorate the blasting of the rock and 
 formation of the road, with two stone lions, one 
 looking into the river, and the other apparently 
 trying to make out the inscription. The scenery 
 is agreeable, but not exciting, and we passed no 
 particular objects of interest. The stream carried 

 
 THE BRIDGE AND RAPID. 65 
 
 us along at the rate of seven or eight miles an 
 hour without much exertion on our part. When 
 we arrived at Ratisbon, we debated whether we 
 should halt above or below the bridge. Most for- 
 tunately we decided on the former; for the next 
 morning, when crossing it, we found the rush of 
 water through the arches so tremendous, that we 
 could not have shot it in safety; and even if we 
 had escaped being capsized by the waves, we must 
 have been smashed, as immediately below there 
 were a quantity of piles, which we could not pos- 
 sibly have avoided. The passage of the bridge is 
 so awkward, that passengers coming by water from 
 above, and going beyond Ratisbon, have to dis- 
 embark here, as steamers cannot pass. It is a 
 very picturesque old structure, and one would 
 regret to see it pulled down; yet we could not 
 but agree with the remark of Napoleon, — " Votre 
 pont est tres desavantageusement bati pour la navi- 
 gation." 
 
 Ratisbon' is an interesting old town. The 
 streets are narrow, and rather gloomy; that of 
 the ambassadors is remarkably striking. The old 
 palaces in it (now shops and offices) are still 
 adorned with the insignia of the different coun- 
 tries that their former occupiers represented.
 
 66 RATISBON. 
 
 Many of the houses have lofty towers (our hotel, 
 the Golden Cross, had one) from which a fine 
 view can be obtained; and some are decorated 
 externally with frescoes : one we observed with a 
 representation of Goliath and David, the figure of 
 the former reaching from the ground to the top- 
 most story of the house. The cathedral, one of 
 the finest Gothic churches in Germany, has been 
 lately restored in exceedingly good taste by the 
 ex-king; a flying buttress is thrown out from its 
 portal, so as to form a double archway, the effect 
 of which is very good. The ascent to the top is 
 by the 'Esel's Thurm' (asses' tower), so called 
 because the materials for building the cathedral 
 were carried on asses' backs up it by means of a 
 winding inclined plane. There are two other 
 cathedrals of even more ancient date closely 
 adjoining. 
 
 The architecture of the old Scotch Benedictine 
 church is very quaint, and the doorway is sur- 
 rounded with figures of all kinds of eccentric 
 griffins and crocodiles. In the Rathaus is con- 
 tained the Torture Chamber, the most painfully 
 interesting remnant of former customs that it has ' 
 ever been my lot to behold. It is minutely 
 described in Murray, but I cannot resist mention-
 
 TORTURE CHAMBERS. 67 
 
 ing some of the horrid instruments we saw. In 
 the upper part of the building were the rooms 
 formerly used by the Diet; below are the dun- 
 geons, some about six feet square and five feet high ; 
 and others, like wells, about twelve feet deep. The 
 Torture Chamber is divided into two parts by a 
 wooden grating, on one side of which the judges 
 sat, gloating over the agonies, and jotting down 
 the confessions, of their miserable victims. Then 
 in the other room is the horizontal rack, with a 
 windlass for stretching the criminal, and a spiked 
 roller with which he is rubbed down during the 
 process ; the vertical rack, a triangle to which 
 the arms of the sufferer are tied backward, and 
 then run up to the ceiling, with a heavy weight 
 attached to his heels; an arm chair, full of blunt 
 spikes in the seat, on which the criminal is made 
 to sit with weights in his lap; a ladder, with 
 revolving wooden prisms instead of rounds, up and 
 down which he was hauled with his back-bone 
 against the sharp edges; a wooden horse, with a 
 narrow, sharp, and jagged edge, on which he was 
 forced to ride, with fifty pound weights, instead of 
 spurs, attached to his heels, &c. &c. All these 
 instruments are in perfect preservation, and are 
 worn with use. They certainly bring the old 
 F 2
 
 68 ASTONISHMENT OF 
 
 stories of the horrors of the Inquisition vividly 
 before one's mind, and it really was a relief to 
 find ourselves once more with sound limbs in the 
 open air. 
 
 We never knew what heroes we were till we 
 arrived at Ratisbon; dropping down a river in a 
 pair-oar is certainly an easy way of gaining immor- 
 tality, but here we found out that we had crossed 
 the Channel and pulled up the Rhine and Main 
 in our boat, that we intended to go down the 
 Danube to the Black Sea in her, and then to return 
 by the Mediterranean, the Straits of Gibraltar, and 
 the Bay of Biscay. It appeared that the news- 
 papers had been singing about us to this tune for 
 some time, but we had heard nothing of it before. 
 We had hard work to contradict all these reports, 
 and quite without effect, for we found that they went 
 the round of the continent, and were even published 
 in the English papers. Rowing, or any kind of 
 exercise or enterprise, which is not directly lucra- 
 tive, is so utterly incomprehensible to the Teutonic 
 mind, and the idea of any one's venturing on the 
 Danube without a regular pilot, or in anything less 
 than a steamer, is considered so wildly rash (so 
 many of the natives having never seen the sea), 
 that I verily believe they did not think it the least
 
 THE NATIVES. 69 
 
 unlikely (now that they saw us really on the 
 Danube) that we had passed the Channel ; nor that 
 any boat or crew that would brave the terrific 
 dangers of the Strudel* and Wirbel, would hesitate 
 for an instant in crossing the Bay of Biscay ; and 
 when they discovered that the marvellous boat was 
 built of mahogany, and that none of the crew had 
 ever set eyes on the Danube before, thousands 
 flocked down to the bridge and banks of the 
 river, to see us meet with the punishment due to 
 our presumption, in the breakers below the bridge. 
 But I fear that we disappointed them sadly. 
 Having previously examined the spot, we found that 
 the arches of the bridge nearest to the left bank 
 were separated from the others by a dam of masonry, 
 which runs obliquely up stream for some distance 
 to a mill ; to this breakwater we pulled, and hoist- 
 ing our boat over it, launched her again in the 
 calm water below. Immediately below the bridge 
 is the island of Worth, where is the depot for the 
 steamers; opposite, on the left bank, the river 
 Regen (rain) falls into the Danube, from which 
 Ratisbon takes its name ; it being called Regens- 
 burg in German, which certainly is a very appro- 
 
 * See page 61.
 
 70 DONAUSTAUF. 
 
 priate denomination as far as our experience went. 
 Next day the newspapers were full of yarns about 
 us. A messenger was sent to ask us the length of 
 our boat, in order to decide a wager ; some Ratisbon 
 wiseacre having bet that it was not twelve feet in 
 length. "We dropped down the river to Donau- 
 stauf, about six miles, near to which is the cele- 
 brated Walhalla. As we were backing and filling 
 about the bank in front of the village, uncertain 
 where to put up our boat, a gentlemanlike priest, 
 tutor to the young princes of T., whose father 
 has a handsome palace here, came down to us with 
 a message from the Princess (her husband being 
 absent at a watering place), inviting us to put up 
 our boat at their bathing place. This we did, and 
 found it a very great convenience ; the young 
 princes then showed us through their father's very 
 pretty garden, to the hotel. The people at the 
 inn were quite non-plussed at our appearance, 
 coming as we did through the palace gardens, 
 and arrayed, or rather disarrayed, in boating cos- 
 tume, and were not particularly surprised when 
 we told them that we had arrived in a balloon. 
 We visited that evening the castle of Donaustauf, 
 originally belonging to the bishop of Ratisbon, 
 and destroyed in the thirty years' war. and which
 
 THE WALHALLA. 71 
 
 is situated on a height over the village. The view 
 from it is fine ; the ruins carefully preserved ; and 
 the hill and approaches to it tastefully laid out in 
 the style of an English park by the prince whose 
 property it now is. 
 
 The next morning we started for the Walhalla, 
 which is about a mile and a half distant, on the 
 summit of a hill, above the Danube, along the 
 winding course of which, from Ratisbon to Strau- 
 bing, and over the extensive plain on the opposite 
 side, there is a splendid view, with the snowy peaks 
 of the Tyrolese Alps in the extreme distance ; but 
 it was too hazy to see them when we were there. 
 The Walhalla, I need hardly mention, is a colossal 
 Grecian temple, built by the ex-king as a national 
 temple of fame for Germany, in which are placed 
 busts of the worthies of German origin, from the 
 time of Arminius (or Hermann), the vanquisher of 
 Varus, to the present day. It is as perfect in 
 taste as it is in form, the marble mosaic pavement, 
 the beautiful statues of Victory, sculptured by 
 Rauch (a cast of one of which was in the Great 
 Exhibition last year), the arabesques and caryatides 
 harmonize so well together, that the more one sees 
 the more one appreciates its beauty and exquisite 
 proportions. There are no busts of those of whom
 
 72 PRINCE OF T.'S PALACE. 
 
 no authentic portrait is preserved; in their places 
 are tablets with the names attached in letters of 
 gold. Among them are Alfred, Egbert, Hengist, 
 and Horsa ; other two are inscribed to the architect 
 of Cologne Cathedral and 'the author of the 
 Niebelungen Lied/ whose names are not known. 
 The bust of Luther was for a long time refused 
 admittance, but has been recently placed there. 
 
 On our return, we found the princes and their 
 tutor waiting for us. They invited us to come and 
 see the chateau, where we dined: it was extensive, 
 and handsomely furnished, and, what was better, 
 it seemed exceedingly comfortable. We after- 
 wards went through the stables, which were very 
 well appointed, with a riding-school attached • and 
 many of the horses, and some of the carriages (of 
 which there was a complete regiment of different 
 sorts), had come from England. Indeed, the 
 prince seemed to be rather bitten with Anglo- 
 mania, his private den being hung with Landseer's 
 engravings and sporting prints, foxes' brushes 
 and hunting-whips. "We were much struck by 
 the numerous splendid stags' heads which adorned 
 the entrance-hall of the palace — many of them 
 royal. The princess, observing our admiration, 
 told us that if we would stay another day, she
 
 THE THIER GARTEN. 73 
 
 would send us up with the head forester to see the 
 deer and wild boar in the preserves — which offer 
 we accepted with great pleasure. Accordingly, 
 the next day we went up to the forester's lodge ; 
 he received us with all honour, and conducted us 
 through the ' Thier Garten/ as the forest set apart 
 for game is called. We saw some deer, and great 
 numbers of wild boar — gaunt, hideous long-legged 
 pigs, with white tusks, with little brindled young 
 ones, called ' flusslingen •' but, although they were 
 so ugly in appearance, their pace was exceedingly 
 rapid, and the moment they perceived us, they 
 twisted their little tails in the air, and, with a 
 grunt, vanished like lightning through the trees. 
 I imagine that the shooting of these animals is not 
 attended with any very great difficulty or danger, 
 as at certain places there are strong barriers of 
 wood, with holes through them, on one side of 
 which fodder is laid for the animals, and through 
 which they could be (I don't say that they are) 
 shot by the sportsman. On our return from our 
 walk, we sat down with the Jager on a bench before 
 the lodge, and whiled away the time, till the 
 arrival of the princes, who were coming up for 
 us with a carriage, in listening to his stories of 
 adventure by flood and field. The spear is seldom
 
 74 BOAR HUNTING. 
 
 if ever used now for killing the boar, — he falls 
 ignominiously by the fatal bullet. The prince has 
 occasionally large hunting parties, which the ladies 
 sometimes join ; the last time, however (the Jager 
 told us), the fair portion of the field gave forth such 
 an odour of pommade and Macassar, that they 
 spoilt all the sport — for no one could get within 
 half-a-mile of the boar or deer, whose olfactory 
 nerves are particularly sensitive. There is a great 
 quantity of game in the prince's enormous pro- 
 perty, and it costs him nearly £3000 a-year in com- 
 pensation to the farmers for damage done to the 
 crops. We then entered into a learned discussion 
 on the comparative merits of German and English 
 sports. By the time we (or rather our entertainer) 
 had finished a considerable amount of beer, and 
 smoked about a dozen pipes, and settled — to our 
 own satisfaction, at any rate — that a stump over 
 the turnips after partridges in England, or ten 
 minutes with the jelly dogs, would afford more 
 real sport than shooting all the pigs in Fatherland, 
 we heard the trumpet of the princess's fat coach- 
 man, sounding forth the notes of ' God save the 
 Queen/ and saw the carriage slowly coming up 
 the hill, with our friend the tutor inside, and two 
 of the princes riding a-head. On our return, we
 
 LEAP FROG. 75 
 
 went into the gymnastic school; and after indulging 
 in all kinds of exercises, initiated the young 
 gentlemen into the mysteries of leap-frog, the 
 result of which was, that Smith damaged the 
 muscles of his right thigh, so that he could not 
 stand at ease without either bending his body or 
 lifting his leg ; fortunately, however, it did not pre- 
 vent his pulling, inasmuch as the position necessary 
 for that exercise, was the most comfortable in which 
 he could place himself. 
 
 The next day Coxswain presented our kind 
 entertainer with a sketch of the scene at our 
 reception at Donaustauf. I need hadly tell the 
 reader that it was most spiritedly executed, and 
 will, I am sure, be much prized by its possessor. 
 Another of the crew also gave one of the boys 
 (who understood English) a copy of a work that 
 last year made much sensation in our own country, 
 and the name of which I would tell the reader, 
 only it is now out of print ; and I would not 
 willingly raise hopes in his mind which could only 
 be doomed to disappointment. We then invited 
 the princess to take an excursion with us in the 
 boat, little thinking that she would accept the 
 offer, but, to our surprise, she seemed delighted 
 with the idea, and stepped in with far greater
 
 76 A STEERAGE PASSENGER. 
 
 pluck than most English ladies would into a boat 
 in the Thames, and just as if she had been accus- 
 tomed to it all her life; indeed, we were much 
 more nervous about it than she was, for the stream 
 was very strong, and our passenger not much 
 under twelve stone, which with Coxswain standing 
 up behind, brought down the stern of our little 
 craft to within a few inches of the water, and its 
 bows proportionately up ; but I suppose her 
 Highness is reserved for some other death than 
 drowning, for we landed her again in safety. We 
 took leave of this agreeable family with much 
 regret (I think the boys imagined that we were the 
 nearest approach to angels that have hitherto 
 visited the banks of the Danube), and pulled off 
 for Straubing, the ladies waving their handker- 
 chiefs, and Coxswain playing ' God save the Queen/ 
 till we lost sight of each other.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE DANUBE FROM DONAUSTAUF TO 
 ENGELHARDZELL. 
 
 Ein Ungewitter zieh sich iiber Ihnen 
 Zusammen, noch weit droheuder als jenes 
 Das Sie vordem zu Regensburg gestiirtzt. 
 
 Schiller's Piccolomini. 
 
 TTTITH the hills of the Bohmerwald on our left, 
 sometimes close to the banks, and sometimes 
 at a little distance, and on our right the flat, fertile 
 plain stretching far away to the south, to the bases 
 of the distant Alps, we continued our way. The 
 river winds in the most remarkable and provoking 
 manner; at one time we thought that we had 
 arrived at Straubing; then, again, we were far 
 away; now it appeared to the right, and now to 
 the left; but I believe these twists saved us a 
 ducking, for a thunder-storm was chasing us, and 
 at one time we came under the edge of the cloud
 
 78 STRAUBING. 
 
 and felt a few drops, but we turned away from it 
 again, and got dry into Straubing. The Danube 
 did not originally run under the walls of this 
 town, but the inhabitants, in a.d. 1480, by dam- 
 ming up the old bed, have turned it to its present 
 course ; on this account they are said to ' have 
 ploughed* the Danube, and the city bears a 
 plough in its arms. There is another old stone 
 bridge here, which hinders the navigation very 
 much ; and there is a rapid under it almost as 
 bad as that at Ratisbon, but without any piles 
 below, and we shot through without any difficulty. 
 There is a melancholy story attached to this 
 bridge : — ' Albert, son of Duke Ernest of Bavaria, 
 secretly married Agnes Bernauer, a girl of low 
 birth, but great beauty. When this came to his 
 father's ears, he caused Agnes to be seized in her 
 husband's absence, and cast into the Danube from 
 this bridge. She, however, succeeded in strug- 
 gling to the bank, when a wretch caught her by 
 the hair, and held her under water till she perished. 
 She was buried not far from the place.' At this 
 place, as well as at some others, we were taken for 
 Hungarians. This was also the case last year, 
 when we were on the Rhine. It puzzled us much 
 to ascertain the reason; perhaps it may be owing
 
 DEGGENDORF. 79 
 
 to the very striking similarity of the dress of the 
 Hungarian gentlemen to ours in England. 
 
 The plain still continued on our right as we 
 went on to Deggendorf; but on the left, the hills 
 are very beautiful, with several conspicuous build- 
 ings ; such as Ober Altaich, a Benedictine convent, 
 whose church is decorated with fresco paintings ; 
 where monks are drawn exorcising Straubing ; and 
 Luther is seen running away in the shape of an 
 unclean spirit, riding on a hog, with the Bible 
 under his arm, a sausage in one hand, and a 
 beer glass in the other; the pilgrimage church of 
 Bogen, containing a hollow stone image of the 
 Virgin, which is said to have floated up stream, 
 and to have stopped at this place ; Metten, 
 founded by Charlemagne, in pursuance of the 
 request of a hermit named Hatto, who rather 
 astonished the monarch by hanging up his hatchet 
 on a sunbeam. 
 
 Deggendorf, where we slept, is beautifully 
 situated under the hills, at the junction of a little 
 stream with the Danube ; and, nearly opposite, the 
 Isar also 'rolls in rapidly/ Our landlord conducted 
 us to the top of a hill, where we had our first 
 view of the mighty Alps, far away in the horizon 
 to the south. It was a magnificent prospect, and
 
 80 DEGGENDORF. 
 
 the light of the setting sun made the Danube, 
 which was flowing at our feet, shine like a stream 
 of molten silver. The only eminence on the right 
 bank is a solitary hill, called the Natternberg; 
 dropped there, tradition says, by the devil, who 
 brought it from Italy, intending to throw it into 
 the river, and so destroy Deggendorf, against whose 
 inhabitants he had a grudge on account of their 
 piety, but, hearing the monks chanting, a panic seized 
 him, and he let it fall in the wrong place. We re- 
 turned through the churchyard. In the church are 
 a series of paintings representing the tradition of 
 the theft and desecration of the holy wafers by 
 the Jews, which led to their massacre in a.d. 1337. 
 Our guide was very enthusiastic about the beauties 
 of his native place; and told us that he had tra- 
 velled all over Switzerland, and that, in his 
 opinion, it was not to be compared, in beauty, to 
 the country about Deggendorf; and he took to 
 heart dreadfully the want of traffic on 'his 
 beautiful Danube;' saying, how sad it was to see 
 such a splendid stream flowing on, day after day, 
 with scarcely a vessel on its bosom. If Austria 
 was to join the Zollverein, then we could send 
 down wood in quantities, — there being scarcely 
 any in that country. I am afraid that his know-
 
 A THUNDER STORM. 81 
 
 ledge of Austrian products was about on a par 
 with his appreciation of Swiss scenery ; for I think 
 there is as much wood cut and standing on the 
 banks of the Danube in Austria as in all Bavaria 
 put together. 
 
 We left Deggendorf in a tolerably stiff shower ; 
 nevertheless the town turned out to a man to see 
 us start; we got wet and dry again two or three 
 times, till at last a thunderstorm came on, with 
 rain such as I never before saw : it tore up the 
 water, filled the boat, and nearly flattened us; in 
 the midst of it I have reason to believe we passed 
 the Castle of Hildegardsberg, according to Murray, 
 one of the most picturesque on the Danube ; and I 
 beg, reader, that you will take his word for it, for 
 we are quite unable to add the weight of our 
 testimony. The Danube now enters the hills of 
 the Bohmer Wald, and we stopped at Vilshofen, 
 for lunch, — the bank not being particularly well 
 adapted for a dining-table on that day. Smith 
 turned into bed; and with two German feather- 
 beds over him, a cup of coffee, and a cigar, made 
 himself tolerably comfortable while his clothes 
 were drying ; Coxswain and his clothes, having had 
 a mackintosh over them, required no cooking, — 
 and as for Bow, he has an amiable weakness for 
 G
 
 82 THE BREAKERS BETWEEN 
 
 sitting in wet clothes, and so was quite in his 
 element on this occasion. 
 
 We were now approaching one of the great 
 bugbears of the Danube boatmen, the rocky pas- 
 sage between Vilshofen and Passau. At Vilshofen, 
 the people at Straubing and Deggendorf told us, 
 ' You possibly may arrive, but then you must go to 
 ground/ These consolations waxed still louder 
 at this place; they told us the boldest Danube 
 boatmen took in pilots here, and one man actually 
 tried to get into the boat ; but we were obdurate, 
 being determined never to have a pilot, knowing 
 the utter ignorance of the people as to the con- 
 struction and capabilities of such a boat as ours ; 
 indeed we never paid the slightest attention to any 
 advice given us by the natives, and in many cases 
 acted directly in opposition to it ; for they gene- 
 rally thought that we could do what was utterly 
 impossible, and could not do what was perfectly 
 easy, and to this self-reliance we probably owe our 
 safe arrival at Pesth. 
 
 So on we went alone, and found that it was 
 just what we had expected, a most exceedingly 
 dangerous place for a heavily laden boat, but by no 
 means so for our little cockle-shell that only drew
 
 VILSHOFEN AND PASSAU. 83 
 
 a few inches of water ; rocks were scattered about 
 the bed of the river in every direction^some above 
 water and some below; the white breakers sur- 
 rounded us on every side; we came rather unplea- 
 santly near one, but with steady pulling, careful 
 steering, and quick obedience to the word of 
 command, we came safely through. We had one 
 more thunder storm, but just before we arrived at 
 Passau the sky cleared up, and the sun shone out 
 brightly, gilding the white towers of the cathedral 
 which stood out in bold relief against the deep 
 purple of the retiring thunder cloud. 
 
 The people of Passau were exceedingly surprised 
 to find that we had driven safely down the dangerous 
 avenue that leads to their town: and the next morn- 
 ing, the following paragraph edified the readers of 
 the Passauer Zeitung : — 'The three young Britons, 
 Messrs. Manfilt, Comprest, and Tonsom,* yesterday 
 afternoon at four o'clock, arrived here, after they 
 had passed the whole day in storm, tempest, and 
 rain, and afterwards, totally wet through, landed 
 here. They celebrate, according to rigorous 
 
 * This is the German rendering of ' Smith, Bow, and Cox- 
 swain.' 
 
 G 2
 
 84 PASSAU. 
 
 English customs, to-day (the Sunday) in quiet and 
 stillness*, and will to-morrow or the day after set 
 forth their from London begun adventurous expe- 
 dition to Constantinople. Form and architecture 
 of their boat are worthy of particular remark, when 
 one considers, that it is only built as an oar-yacht, 
 and no sail can be spread out, although they must 
 already have passed the Channel, and must here- 
 after traverse the Black Sea, when naturally they 
 can only trust themselves to a coasting voyage ! ' 
 
 Of all the towns it was ever my lot to be in, 
 Passau is by far the most dispiriting and dreary ; 
 there is a kind of ghastly smartness about the 
 houses in the principal street, like the preserved 
 body of a saint ; while those in the back ones are 
 almost as damp, seedy, and dissipated -looking as 
 
 * Our neighbours on the continent cannot at all understand 
 the reverence with which the Sabbath is regarded in England : 
 may it be long ere that feeling fades away from amongst us. 
 But I must enter my protest against the insinuation, that we 
 abstained from continuing our quiet course down the majestic 
 river, on that day, from any idea that such a proceeding would 
 be in any way offensive to Him, to whom it is peculiarly conse- 
 crated ; for I can conceive no temple, built with hands, where 
 the mind could more naturally and sincerely rise to the contem- 
 plation of His greatness, than among such scenes as these, where 
 the mightiness of His handiwork is so abundantly displayed.
 
 PASSAU. 85 
 
 those hanging over the out-of-the-way canals in the 
 Queen of the Adriatic. The streets are as badly 
 paved as they are forlorn. It is said that the 
 women in this town are particularly beautiful, but 
 really we had to pay such attention to our feet in 
 walking about it, that we never had a moment's 
 leisure to raise our eyes to their countenances, so 
 we escaped with hearts unscathed by their allure- 
 ments. 
 
 Soon after we had taken up our quarters in the 
 hotel, our eyes were greeted with a glimpse of the 
 first British tourist that we had come across since 
 the commencement of our travels ; there was no 
 mistaking his nationality as he sauntered up to the 
 door of the inn, with that happy air of indifference 
 that is generally worn by our countrymen, and a 
 guide-book bound in red under his arm ; a porter 
 carried in his luggage ; and the landlord came out 
 and bowed profoundly, when the Briton stared 
 him steadily in the face for a few seconds, and 
 then strolled off leisurely in another direction, and 
 we saw him no more. 
 
 Although I have given Passau such a bad 
 character, yet the country in the neighbourhood is 
 as delightful as the town is unprepossessing, and 
 no traveller should omit a short sojourn there.
 
 86 THE CONFLUENCE OF THE 
 
 The morning after our arrival, we started off to 
 breakfast at a little inn called the Red House, 
 situated on an eminence a little below the town, on 
 the left bank of the Danube, and from which the 
 finest view is to be obtained. The parlour where 
 we had our meal was ornamented with a series of 
 pictures, illustrating the life of the Prodigal Son, 
 who was represented in the first in knee breeches, 
 with a pipe in his mouth, and a glass of brandy 
 and water by his side, and the rest of the series 
 were continued in the same style. 
 
 On stepping out on the terrace in front of the 
 house, we found a most enchanting scene before 
 us : two rivers, the Inn and the Ilz, here fall iuto 
 the Danube ; Passau is situated on the promontory 
 between the former and the Danube; while between 
 that river and the latter rises a precipitous rock 
 with the Oberhaus fort on its summit ; the heights 
 on the right bank of the Inn being crowned with 
 the pilgrimage church of Maria Hilf. The town, 
 with its white towers, and large public buildings 
 rising one above the other, has a very imposing 
 effect from this distance. The Inn, where it joins 
 the Danube, is both broader and has had a longer 
 course than that river, and it overcomes with its 
 murky yellow colour the milky tint of its sister.
 
 DANUBE, ILZ, AND INN. 87 
 
 After their union, however, the main course of the 
 stream follows that of the Danube, and not that of 
 the Inn, so the former justly retains its name to 
 the Black Sea. The Ilz is a beautifully clear 
 mountain stream, but of the most inky blackness. 
 We passed over the point where it joins the 
 Danube in a boat ; their waters do not mingle for 
 a considerable distance, and as we looked over the 
 gunnel, we could see that of the Danube far down 
 in the depths below, rolling about in masses 
 similar to yellow round clouds, in the clear dark 
 stream of its little tributary, like rich cream just 
 poured into strong tea. We walked up the hill on 
 the opposite side of the Inn to the pilgrimage 
 church of Maria Hilf, where there is a miraculous 
 image of the Virgin with the Saviour at one 
 breast, and a stream of water flowing from the 
 other. The church was crowded with devotees, and 
 the walls were hung with pictures presented by 
 the simple-minded poor people, as offerings after 
 deliverance from some danger or sickness. The 
 execution of these tablets was always miserable, 
 and the subject generally absurd, but the feelings 
 which prompted their being placed there seemed 
 to me to be more deserving of respect than ridicule. 
 We descended by a flight of two hundred and
 
 88 THE ILZ. 
 
 sixty-four steps, up which, streams of people were 
 proceeding, stopping at each step to say an Ave or 
 Paternoster. 
 
 We afterwards walked about two miles up the 
 Ilz to the castle of Hals, situated on the topmost 
 ridge of a narrow neck of land (see map), so nearly 
 surrounded by the river that when on the top we 
 could throw a stone into the stream on either side. 
 Immediately above, there is just such another pro- 
 montory, with the castle of Reschenstein on it ; 
 the hills at the side of the river are very steep and 
 well-timbered, and the banks piled with stacks of 
 cut wood, masses of which, indeed, covered a con- 
 siderable portion of the lower part of the river, 
 and were prevented by a barrier (withdrawn when 
 required) from being carried into the Danube. 
 Underneath the hill on which the Castle of Reschen- 
 stein stands there is a tunnel cut, which connects 
 the upper part of the river with the lower, to 
 save the wood the two miles unnecessary bump- 
 ing it would get by rolling down the rocky bed of 
 the stream round the promontory 7 . Wishing to 
 proceed by this route, we asked a native how we 
 could pass the river? He told us that it was 
 quite impossible, as it was a feast-day, and the boat 
 locked up on the other side ; so we quietly walked
 
 bow's martyrdom. 89 
 
 through, while he looked on in speechless horror 
 at our audacity. 
 
 The scene that met our eyes when we emerged 
 from the tunnel was very curious. The valley 
 was similar to the one we had left, but the whole 
 course of the stream, as far as we could see, was 
 entirely blocked up with logs waiting for the first 
 flush of water to be sent sweeping through the 
 tunnel on their downward voyage ; while across 
 ran a barrier of poles, moveable at pleasure, suf- 
 ficiently near together to prevent the wood from 
 passing through, but allowing the water free pas- 
 sage. Below these hatches there was an inclined 
 plane of boards, ending in some rough stones which 
 formed the edge of a deep pool. It looked a 
 tempting place for a bathe, so in we went. Bow 
 then clambered up the slanting boards, and 
 squeezing himself between the poles started for a 
 walk across the floating logs on the upper stream, 
 but not finding that species of locomotion particu- 
 larly pleasant, after a few plunges he returned, 
 and, before we knew what he was about to do, he 
 laid himself down on the slippery planks, and 
 quietly rolled down, entirely forgetting the jagged 
 rocks which were waiting to receive him at the 
 bottom, and over which he was hurried ; experi-
 
 90 THE DEFILE. 
 
 encing sensations I should think not unlike those 
 that must have been felt of old by the poor 
 wretches reclining on some of those ingenious in- 
 struments that we saw at Ratisbon. It would 
 have torn most people to pieces, but he seemed 
 rather pleased than otherwise, though his back pre- 
 sented the appearance of having been combed by 
 a powerful harrow. Almost immediately after 
 leaving Passau, the river takes a sudden sweep to 
 the left, and enters a grand but somewhat gloomy 
 gorge. The hills on each side now rose higher than 
 any we had yet seen, and were clothed with pine 
 forests from the top to the bottom. The castles 
 of Krempenstein and Fichtenstein are the first 
 objects worthy of notice, on the right bank • the 
 former is also called 'Das Schneiderschlossel/ 
 from a story of a tailor, who fell from it into the 
 river. Not long after we passed a rock rising out 
 of the stream, called the Joachimstein, which bears 
 the arms of Austria on one side, and those of Ba- 
 varia on the other.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE DANUBE FROM ENGELHARDZELL TO LINZ. 
 AUSTRIA. 
 
 The behaviour of others is but an echo of our own. 
 
 If we behave well towards them, they will also behave well 
 towards us ; but if we use them ill, we must not expect better 
 from them. 
 
 Ollendorff's Italian Grammar. 
 
 T) EING somewhat inclined to be a radical myself, 
 I was prepared to find the Austrians groaning 
 under those miseries and oppressions that some 
 stay-at-home people consider inseparable from what 
 we call despotisms ; but certainly we have come 
 away from the country under the impression that, 
 of all the nations in Europe that we have seen in 
 this, or in any former travels, the German subjects 
 of Eranz Joseph are the happiest and most con- 
 tented ; so that if they are, as we are occasionally 
 told, shamefully oppressed, they must be either a 
 most undaunted set of Mark Tapleys, or else so 
 grossly blind to their own unhappiness, that Mr.
 
 92 AUSTRIA. 
 
 Cobden should lose no time in sending out a 
 special mission to have them couched, and so open 
 their eyes to their wretched position. Of course, 
 I except the Hungarians from this category ; to 
 them, being, as it were, a recently-conquered 
 people, things are certainly not made quite so 
 pleasant. 
 
 The papers now are daily filled with the ac- 
 counts of the indignities committed upon travellers, 
 about their passports, by the Austrian police. Of 
 course we can only speak for ourselves, but most 
 certainly from the first moment we entered the 
 country till that of our departure, we never expe- 
 rienced the slightest hindrance or incivility of any 
 kind ; and T cannot help thinking that in many of 
 the cases where such loud complaints are made, 
 that the traveller has entered the country totally 
 ignorant of the forms and rules which must be 
 observed by everybody ; in which case he cannot 
 expect to be treated with much more mercy than 
 is shown to the natives themselves. Just at the 
 present time, certainly, Englishmen are looked 
 upon with some suspicion ; indeed we were nar- 
 rowly watched by the police in plain clothes at 
 Linz, Salzburg, Ischl, and Vienna, and our move- 
 ments -were from time to time telegraphed on to
 
 AUSTRIA. 93 
 
 that capital. No doubt that was owing to our novel 
 method of travelling ; but I think that before we 
 left the country they were pretty well satisfied that 
 our mission was not to assassinate the young em- 
 peror, or to overthrow his government. Beggars 
 are hardly ever to be seen in Austria; indeed, I 
 believe that in a five minutes walk between Ox- 
 ford-street and the Strand, one would see, notwith- 
 standing our free institutions, more apparent 
 misery and wretchedness than met our eyes dur- 
 ing the whole course of our expedition. 
 
 On the whole then, notwithstanding former pre- 
 judices, we were rather inclined to throw up our 
 caps for Austria ; though we are not prepared to 
 endorse the Emperor Frederic III.'s unassuming 
 motto — 
 
 A. E. I. O. U. 
 
 Alles Erdreich 1st Oesterreich Unterthan 
 Austria? Est Imperare Orbi Universo. 
 
 which may be expressed in English by 
 
 Austria's Empire Is Over (the) Universe 
 
 At Engelhardzell, the Austrian frontier police 
 and custom station on the Danube, we were hailed, 
 and rowing up to the office, we speedily had our 
 small quantum of luggage examined, though they
 
 94 AUSTRIA. 
 
 took care also to take up the bottom boards of the 
 boat, to see if we had anything under them con- 
 traband : our passports were vised ; Smith's had 
 been specially indorsed by the Austrian ambas- 
 sador in London, ' to travel on the Danube in his 
 own boat/ 
 
 We soon found that we were in a new country; 
 the houses are more scattered about, and we saw 
 several detached gentlemen's villas. At the first 
 inn we stopped at we got a handful of banknotes 
 for a halfpenny, or rather halves of banknotes for 
 a penny, in change for a gulden. The people in 
 general appeared more lively, and the women 
 prettier ; while the bills and beds waxed decidedly 
 longer. An improvement also was perceptible in 
 the beer, but that was principally in the large 
 towns ; as in an out of the way country place, the 
 Bavarian beer would be much better than in a 
 similar location in Austria. Plum-trees (called 
 Squetschen) and logs of wood garnish the banks of 
 all the streams ; and at every hotel you have veal 
 cutlets brought to you for a certainty, unless you 
 give orders to the contrary. In Murray's Guide- 
 book the traveller is warned against veal; but I 
 must say that, although one gets tired of seeing it 
 so often, it is far superior to their beef or mutton,
 
 ENGELHAKDZELL. 95 ' 
 
 and much to be preferred, in my opinion, to our 
 veal in England. In the markets we observed all 
 kinds of hideous toadstools on sale, doing duty as 
 mushrooms ; and we ate queer-looking things that 
 they dignified by that name, which tasted well 
 enough, though if we had seen them raw, I think 
 we should have pronounced them to be unfit for 
 Christian food. 
 
 But we must be moving on, and that quickly, 
 for we have a pull of sixty miles before us ; but 
 the stream is like a mill-race, and no doubt that 
 we shall be into Linz before dark. 
 
 Below Engelhardzell the castles of Rana Riedl, 
 Marsbach, and Hayenbach or Kirschbaum, are 
 passed one after the other on the left bank, the 
 scenery continually increasing in grandeur ; and on 
 turning the sharp corner at Schlagen, where the 
 river almost runs back in the contrary direction to 
 that which it did immediately before, we found our- 
 selves in the most imposing part of this splendid 
 pass, the hills on each rising nearly one thousand feet 
 from the water's edge; the water was boiling and 
 seething, as if over a fire, which imparted a motion 
 to our boat, somewhat like that which one feels 
 when sitting in the back seat of a dog-cart, with 
 the horse-galloping ; which is a peculiar sensation,
 
 96 SCHLAGEN. 
 
 I assure you, fair reader; and if you have a 
 brother, and be has such a vehicle, make him take 
 you a turn in that fashion, and you will understand 
 how we felt as we swung round the rocky corners 
 of the confined and tortuous defile. Suddenly the 
 wind sprung up, and blew dead against us, and 
 the waves rose so that it was impossible to con- 
 tinue our course ; so we pulled in to the shore, 
 and waited for half an hour till it abated, and we 
 could start again. At the prettily situated village 
 of Ober Muhl, it is said in Murray's Hand-book 
 that the Danube is contracted to the width of 
 seventy-six feet ; this is, of course, a misprint ; but 
 even if seventy- six yards is meant, I think it is 
 considerably under the mark, for I very much 
 doubt if it is at all narrower than that part of 
 the stream at Weltenburg, which we calculated to 
 be about one hundred and twenty-five yards wide.* 
 The huge castle of Neuhaus, quite upon the top of 
 the hills, is the last building of any interest before 
 Aschach ; and here the valley begins to open out, 
 and the stream to increase in width, but the 
 scenery still continuing very beautiful. 
 
 At Aschach commences the first archipelago of 
 
 * See page 63.
 
 THE ISLANDS. 97 
 
 island, through which again we were told that we 
 could not pass without a pilot, owing to the shift- 
 ing banks of sand and gravel ; however, we stuck 
 to our principle, and plunged into the labyrinth. 
 The river just before the commencement of the 
 islands was of a greater width than any part that 
 we had yet seen ; it could not have been much 
 less than half a mile across. The banks were now 
 flat, and far away in the horizon we could see the 
 chain of Alps in the Salzkammergut ; one of them 
 appeared so lofty and steep, that we thought that 
 it could not be a mountain, but a cloud of sin- 
 gular formation; it turned out, however, to be the 
 majestic Traunstein. 
 
 The majority of travellers who pass among 
 these islands in a steam boat, must, I have no 
 doubt, find them exceedingly dull and tiresome ; 
 but with us it was far otherwise; the interest de- 
 rived from steering our way through the intricate 
 channels, where our only guide was the strength 
 and direction of the current, the constant recur- 
 rence of shallows (when we prepared to jump out 
 at the first sound of the grating of the boat's keel 
 against the bottom), and above all the feeling of 
 perfect independence and freedom in those exten- 
 sive solitudes (where a human being scarcely ever 
 H
 
 98 THE ISLANDS. 
 
 sets his foot, and where the silence was only broken 
 by the dull roaring of a rapid, the booming of the 
 bittern, or the rattle and rush of the wings of the 
 wild geese, as our little boat came suddenly round 
 some corner, and disturbed them in their usually 
 unmolested haunts), rendered our navigation of this 
 and similar portions of the Danube by no means 
 the least interestiug part of our expedition. 
 
 Yes, I have loved thy wild abode, 
 
 Unknown, unploughed, untrodden shore ; 
 
 "Where scarce the woodman finds a road, 
 And scarce the fisher plies an oar ; 
 For man's neglect I love thee more. — Campbell. 
 
 And the scenery among these islands, though 
 sameish, is by no means devoid of a peculiar beauty; 
 indeed, on this day, just as we were emerging from 
 them, we never beheld a fairer scene than they 
 presented, each little eyot, with its fringe of wil- 
 lows, seeming doubled by the reflection in the 
 glassy stream, and the setting sun behind tinging 
 the whole landscape with its fiery glow. 
 
 We now entered another grand defile, the hills 
 on each side descending almost vertically to the 
 water's edge, and were soon made aware of our 
 neighbourhood to Linz by the round towers of the 
 fortifications* (distant about two miles from the 
 
 * These fortifications were planned by and executed at the 
 expense of Prince Maximilian d'Este : there are thirty-two forts
 
 LINZ. 99 
 
 town) connected by loop-holed walls, which de- 
 scend the steep bank on both sides to the water's 
 edge. We had a fine race with the 'Eilwagen' for 
 the last three or four miles into Linz, and beat it 
 fairly, arriving there just at dusk, having rowed 
 the sixty miles from Passau in somewhat less than 
 six hours (exclusive of stoppages). We got into 
 a dreadful mess in endeavouring to put our boat 
 up at the quay ; but after nearly getting her car- 
 ried under the paddle-wheels of a steamer, and 
 leaving Coxswain hanging by himself from the 
 anchor thereof in rather critical circumstances 
 (during which time the crew of that vessel stood 
 staring at us as if entranced, without once offering 
 the slightest assistance), we tied her up safely at 
 last, and started off for the Erzherzog Carl. 
 
 Mr. Bauer, the landlord of this establishment, 
 is a most polite, agreeable, and accommodating 
 little man, and speaks English perfectly ; though 
 perhaps he may charge a trifle extra for these 
 accomplishments in his account. 
 
 connected by a covered way, and surrounding the town, from 
 which the nearest tower is one, and the farthest three miles 
 distant. Twenty-three stand on the right, and nine on the left 
 bank of the Danube. They are thirty feet high, but partly sunk 
 in the ground, and one hundred and eight feet in diameter : 
 their interior is arranged like a man-of-war. 
 H 2
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE SALZKAMMERGUT. 
 
 Aus Juvaviens Bergen, strom ich da3 Erzstift zu salzen 
 Lenke dem Bayern zu, wo es an Salze gebricht. 
 
 Schiller's Flusst-Salzach. 
 
 EAVING our boat under the care of Mr. Bauer, 
 -^ we determined to start off for a tour in the 
 Salzkammergut. There is a tramroad from Bud- 
 weis in Bohemia, which crosses the Danube by the 
 wooden bridge at Linz, and is continued to 
 Gemunden, on the Traun lake. On Tuesday the 
 17th of August, we took our places and started off 
 by this line : the difference between the open 
 first class carriages and those of the second con- 
 sists in the fact that the one arc yellow and the 
 other green. We were driven tandem-fashion, 
 and the pace is not tremendous, for we could get 
 down, trot alongside, and get up again at any 
 time, without the slightest difficulty.
 
 OUR COMPANIONS. 101 
 
 As the journey from this place to Lambach by 
 this rather slow apology for a railway occupies 
 about seven hours, I will take the opportunity of 
 introducing to my readers some of our travelling 
 companions whom we fell in with on our road. We 
 found ourselves a party of seven in one carriage, of 
 whom two were English, one Scotchman, a Pole, a 
 Norwegian, an American, and a Frenchman ; but, 
 although in Germany, there was no representative 
 of Fatherland. The Pole was not a tempting 
 morsel; he had evidently not been to bed the 
 night before, or if he had, certainly with his 
 clothes on, and I am by no means certain that he 
 had not a touch of his national Plica. He got out 
 at one station to get something to eat, and re- 
 turned to the carriage with a lighted cigar in one 
 hand and a hot sausage in the other. 
 
 The Norwegian was an intelligent young man, 
 with a cast in his eye and a dagger in his trousers 
 pocket, which he called a ' Tollo/ or something 
 of that sort, and which word he said no one but a 
 Norwegian could pronounce ; he spoke English 
 perfectly, but not a word of French or German. 
 The American was a very agreeable gentleman- 
 like man ; he was an opulent landed proprietor in 
 the Southern States, and we had the pleasure of
 
 102 THE AMERICAN. 
 
 his society for several days. He knew not a 
 word of any language but English, so when he 
 wished to communicate with an individual of any 
 other nation he used to speak English with what 
 he considered to be a foreign accent. While we 
 were stopping at a station, a neat looking servant 
 came and spoke to him ; we made some remark 
 on the man's appearance, when, to our no small 
 astonishment he remarked : ' He's a slave of mine, 
 that fellow; I raised him myself in Kentucky; but 
 I heartily wish he'd run away; he costs me some 
 four dollars a day, and he ain't a bit of use. I took 
 him to England for a couple of months, to give 
 him a chance ; but, confound him, he wouldn't go.' 
 And we certainly thought that he was about right, 
 for he had an easy berth of it, and a kind and in- 
 dulgent master ; but who can say what the next 
 may be, poor fellow ! He appeared to be perfectly 
 white, and without any visible signs of his Negro 
 origin. But the Frenchman was the most won- 
 derful man : he was, he said, an engineer 
 and architect by profession, and now had an 
 establishment at Berlin for making marble mo- 
 saic on a new principle invented by himself. He 
 was a short, bald-headed little man, with a broad - 
 brimmed hat ; and was as staid and quiet in his
 
 THE FRENCHMAN. 103 
 
 manner, as modest and unassuming in his conversa- 
 tion, as Frenchmen usually are. He had (accord- 
 ing to his own account) been engaged in the battle 
 of Waterloo, had served in Spain under Sir de 
 Lacy Evans, had formed part of Louis Napoleon's 
 expedition to Boulogne, and had lived four years 
 in America, in which time he had built Gerard's 
 Hospital and the Bank of Philadelphia ; he was at 
 the present moment conveying a mosaic pillar as 
 a present from the king of Prussia to some other 
 potentate, and intended shortly to visit England, 
 to endeavour to sell a carriage which he had in- 
 vented, in which a man could drive on water as 
 well and as fast as on land. He had not been in 
 France for a long time (I fancy all the successive 
 governments have declined the pleasure of Ins so- 
 ciety), and spoke French but indifferently. Ger- 
 man and English he understood, and could speak 
 a little, but when excited, as he w r as when ha- 
 ranguing us, in what he meant to be English, it was 
 the most amusing mixture of all three languages. 
 He was actuated by the most rabid hatred of 
 perfide Albion. At first, I fancy, he thought 
 we were all Yankees, as we were talking about 
 America, and were so highly delighted at hearing 
 him abuse England and the English ; but I am 
 afraid we betrayed ourselves at last by attempting
 
 104 THE FRENCHMAN. 
 
 to draw him out too much. I will just give a 
 specimen of his discourse, as near as I possibly 
 can, but the words are nothing, the running ac- 
 companiment of sighs, shrugs, winks, shiverings, 
 and manual action, which were the most piquant 
 part of the entertainment, I must, alas ! leave to 
 the reader's imagination.' We were talking (or 
 rather he was declaiming) about Louis Napoleon. 
 
 {Frenchman loquitur). — ' Yes, I bin 1 in England 
 for two mont gewesen, 1 and I have also in Ireland 
 viled, 2 and so I can tell what de leute 3 tink; dey are 
 all for Louis Napoleon, and so is de Wells, and 
 de many Scots, and de Ituss, and de Pruss, and 
 ven de temps is come, he say ' Here V and Eng- 
 land is to him. Oui, c'est la verite, je vous assure 
 sur ma parole d'honneur. De Englis armee is all 
 Iris, oui, tous, tous; dat is, les soldats is; les 
 officiers sont Englis, dass ist so ; but vat are 
 dey ; dey shine out very bootiful, yes ; deir rocks* 
 is gold ; yes, deir bottes is polis ; yes, but ven 
 dey fight, denn dey run. Ha ! ha ! ha ! he ! he ! 
 he ! Now the officiers Francais are vari different/ 
 
 [Smith, with difficulty squeezing in a word.) — 
 ' Oh, yes ! I've always heard that the French 
 officers are devilish ugly, and ' 
 
 Have been. * Stayed. * People. Coats.
 
 LAMBACH. 105 
 
 (Frenchman cuts in again) — ' Oui, dass ist ja. 
 And Vaterloo ! how can de Englis talk of vidout 
 blush, it vaunders me. Dat vos sixty to vaun, and 
 ven Blucher vas not da, vere vould Vellington 
 have been ? Ho ! o — o — o — o — o ! And Eng- 
 land, how dey must be sorry dass dey have Louis 
 Napoleon so infame handelt/ 
 
 (Here we began to be rather curious.) 
 
 ' Yes, it is notorious dass Louis Napoleon vas to 
 Boulogne by de Englis government sent, dey lent 
 him de gold, and den ven he was misfortuned, den 
 dey know nothing davon. 5 But now he has dem 
 like money in his pocket, &c. &c. kc. } 
 
 But we have arrived at Lambach ; and as we 
 wished to see the falls of the Traun, which are 
 not far from this place, and the train did not stop 
 there, we took a special engine of one horse power 
 to ourselves, which would drop us at the Falls, 
 wait for us, and take us on to Gemiinden. 
 
 Near Lambach is the very singular church of 
 Baura, dedicated to the Trinity, and built in the 
 shape of a triangle, with three fronts, three doors, 
 three windows, three altars decorated with marble 
 of three colours, three organs and three sacristies. 
 It cost 333,333 gulden. 
 
 5 About it.
 
 106 FALLS OF THE TRAUN. 
 
 A descent from the railway, of about a mile, 
 brought us to the Falls ; they are forty-two feet 
 in height, and about as many yards in breadth ; 
 a considerable body of water pours over the rock. 
 They reminded us much of the Falls of the Clyde, 
 but the surrounding scenery here is finer, though 
 the cataract is not so high as the Scottish one. 
 The wonderful transparent emerald green colour of 
 the wateris most striking ; indeed, in the beauty of 
 tint of its stream and foam it may vie with any 
 waterfall in Europe. 
 
 To enable the salt-barges to pass this very 
 serious obstruction to the navigation, a canal has 
 been built, partly cut in the rock, and partly 
 made of wood and supported on props, which is 
 conducted on a slope to the stream below ; it is 
 about four hundred and twenty yards long, and 
 the barges sweep down it at a terrific pace. 
 
 Having regained our locomotive, we rattled down 
 an inclined plane into Gemunden, where we arrived 
 just as it was getting dark. The railway descends 
 to the shore of the lake, just in front of the 
 ' Golden Ship/ but there was a long train of salt- 
 wagons coming up, so we had to get out at the 
 station and walk to that hotel. We found the 
 whole town arrayed in green, flags flying, triumphal
 
 LAKE OF GEMCTNDEN. 107 
 
 arches, &c. ; the young emperor Franz Joseph 
 had passed through that morning to Ischl, and 
 it was in his honour that all these preparations 
 had been made. 
 
 We embarked early the next morning on 
 board the little steamer that runs on the lake of 
 Gemunden (or Traunsee). The lower part is very 
 pretty indeed ; the cheerful-looking little town, 
 with its brightly-painted doors and windows re- 
 flected in the glassy mirror of the lake, and the 
 undulating hills covered with woods, with villas 
 peeping out here and there, afford a most enchant- 
 ing prospect. But these quiet beauties were soon 
 superseded by grander objects, as we approached 
 the upper part of the lake, and the magnificent 
 Traunstein came fully into view, rising up almost 
 perpendicularly from the water. "We found our- 
 selves now surrounded on every side by precipitous 
 mountains, and it puzzled us to imagine how the 
 pine trees that were scattered about their sides 
 could find sufficient space to cling to with 
 their roots. Just before arriving at Ebensee, we 
 passed over a boom which extends across the 
 upper end of the Traunsee, to prevent the logs of 
 wood which are brought down by the Traun river 
 from passing further down the lake. At Ebensee
 
 108 ISCHL. 
 
 we took a carriage for Ischl, the road lying along 
 the banks of the green rushing Traun, and up a 
 magnificent glen. The tops of the mountains on 
 eaca side were bare, black, and serrated, with occa- 
 sional patches of snow ; while the lower parts were 
 thickly covered with the forest, with here and 
 there the white line of a cascade glittering among 
 the trees. As we were driving on, we observed 
 in several places a long range of wooden pipes, 
 carried along the sides of the mountains ; these 
 were for conveying the brine from the mines, 
 which are twenty-four miles distant, to the salt 
 pans at Ebensee; and also other troughs of wood, 
 carried down the hills, by which logs are shot into 
 the Traun. 
 
 We only stopped in Ischl to lunch, as we in- 
 tended to go on to St. Wolfgang to sleep. I should 
 conceive that Ischl must be rather a dear place — 
 at least they charged us a gulden for half-a-dozen 
 rotten pears. The town was very full indeed, 
 owing to the emperor's presence there. Kings, 
 queens, princes, and archdukes were as thick as 
 peers in Pall Mall. It appeared to be de rigueur 
 here with the gentlemen to wear steeple-crowned 
 beaver hats, covered half way up with green silk, 
 and with blackcock's feathers stuck in them. You
 
 ISCHL. 109 
 
 would never guess that that fat old fellow with a 
 red face and a seedy white shooting jacket is the 
 Prince of Mangel Wurzel, the richest subject in 
 the Austrian dominions. And here comes a well- 
 appointed mail phaeton, with an officer in full 
 uniform driving, — that is one of the sons of our kind 
 entertainer at Donaustauf. There goes a four-in- 
 hand, and here comes a Bath chair with an invalid, 
 and now an archduchess on a donkey. It seemed 
 to be an amusing place, and it certainly is charm- 
 ingly situated ; but we had eight miles before us, 
 and a mountain to ascend ; so, as we intended to 
 come back by Ischl, we determined not to leave 
 our cards on the emperor till our return, and off 
 we started. 
 
 Our road lay up the banks of a river which 
 runs out of the St. Wolfgang lake, and joins the 
 Traun at Ischl. The scenery was similar to the 
 glen leading from Ebensee to that place. About 
 two miles before Ebensee, we turned up the moun- 
 tain side to see the Schwarzensee (a little lake 
 embosomed in the pine forest), and the f Wirers 
 Strub ;' this is a fine cascade of very considerable 
 height, but with little water, owing to the lake above 
 being kept dammed up till a sufficient quantity 
 of cut wood is collected, and the water has risen
 
 110 ASCENT OF THE 
 
 several feet ; the hatches are then drawn up, and 
 the logs are carried with irresistible violence by 
 the flood over the cascade into the river far below. 
 This, we were told, is a very grand sight, and we 
 determined to witness it before we left the district. 
 The pass through which this stream rushes is one 
 of the grandest conceivable ; it is exceedingly 
 narrow, and the distant purple peaks of the lofty 
 Alps are seen as if set in a picture frame, between 
 the pine-fringed precipices on each side, which are 
 many hundred feet in height. The descent runs 
 along the face of the rock, in which steps have 
 been cut for the convenience of travellers. 
 
 We got into St. Wolfang in time for dinner, 
 and found a gentleman who had just returned 
 from the ascent of the Schafberg; he pictured it 
 to us as being an almost superhuman effort, and 
 strongly advised our not attemping it ; we asked 
 him if it was possible to go up without a guide, 
 and he seemed quite aghast at the idea. However, 
 as we never asked anybody questions of this sort 
 for the sake of advice, but merely to see what 
 kind of an answer we should get, we took the 
 liberty of starting the next morning to ascend the 
 mountain without a conductor; it is about six 
 thousand feet high, and a tolerably good road
 
 SCHAFBERG. Ill 
 
 (which, if a person took great pains he might 
 mistake) leads to the summit ; indeed, those people 
 whose feet are tenderer than their consciences, do 
 not hesitate to ride all the way up on the backs of 
 mules or human beings. There is a house at the 
 top, where, if you wish to see the sun rise, you 
 can sleep, and procure coffee, wine, &c. ; a 
 stranger's book is kept there, into which we looked; 
 there were hardly any English names, but we 
 discovered that Germans, French, and Italians 
 can write quite as abominable nonsense, and draw 
 just as absurd cartoons, as the most industrious of 
 our own countrymen in that line of literature and 
 art. 
 
 The view from the top is superb ; unfortu- 
 nately, the weather being exceedingly hot, the 
 haze prevented our seeing for any considerable 
 distance over the great plain which stretches away 
 to the banks of the Danube; but in the direction 
 of the mountains, all was perfectly clear, and our 
 eyes wandered over peak beyond peak, till they 
 rested on the jagged cones of the Dachstein, 
 gloomily emerging from its shining fields of snow 
 and ice. Far down, at our feet, lay the lake of 
 St. Wolfgang, with its little boats creeping along 
 its surface like flies on a mirror ; and all was so
 
 112 ST. WOLFGANG LAKE. 
 
 hushed and still, that we could almost fancy that 
 we heard the splash of the paddles. * 
 
 We descended at a great pace, and after 
 luncheon, engaged a boat to take us to St. Gilgen 
 (St. Giles), at the other end of the lake ; we told 
 the men particularly, that, as we intended to 
 bathe by the way, we would not have a lady for 
 one of the crew, which is generally the arrangement 
 on these lakes; but when our equipage came 
 round, we found that the stroke paddle was 
 welded by a fair Tyrolese. On our remonstrating 
 at this arrangement, both she and the gentleman 
 who assisted her said that it was of no conse- 
 quence, and that such objections on our part were 
 quite childish ; however, we declined starting till 
 a substitute was procured, and the damsel seemed 
 quite disappointed as she made way for him. 
 We had a glorious bathe in the deep clear water 
 of the lake, the bottom of which could be dis- 
 cerned at a very great depth. This, as well as all 
 the other lakes in this district, abound with the 
 
 * I remember once being on the top of Ben More, in Mull 
 whence, by the bye, the view is far finer than from the Schaf berg), 
 on a lovely and perfectly calm day, when we could distinctly 
 hear the grating of the oars in the rowlocks of the boats in Loch 
 na Keal, which lay beneath us.
 
 a trout's rib. 113 
 
 most delicious trout, and anybody is allowed to 
 fish with the rod and line to his heart's content. 
 Smith did not carry away a very pleasant remi- 
 niscence of them, however, for the rib of one stuck 
 across his gullet, and remained there for a couple 
 of days, rendering his life a burden to him for 
 that time, and giving him a veiy fair idea of the 
 sufferings endured by the finny tribe, when ruth- 
 lessly dragged from their native element. His 
 pangs were aggravated by a malicious waiter, 
 who assured him that if he was to eat some raw 
 sour crout, he would be speedily relieved from his 
 annoying companion. In a weak moment Smith 
 listened to his blandishments. Did you ever 
 taste cooked sour crout, reader? That is not 
 particularly choice feeding ; but raw ! the thought 
 and taste of it haunted the wretched victim for 
 many days; and he would have been thankful 
 even for a slice of the cheese of Limburg, to take 
 the taste out of his mouth. 
 
 When our crew had brought us about half-way 
 to St. Gilgen, they mutinied, declaring that the 
 wind was so high that it was impossible to pro- 
 ceed; so we mulcted them of a portion of the fare, 
 and walked on by the road, which they assured us 
 was excellent, and the scenery beautiful ; just as 
 
 I
 
 114 A DAMP WALK. 
 
 the waiter at one of the gigantic hotels on the 
 continent consoles you, as he leads you up to a 
 den on the fifth story, by saying that there is 
 1 soldi' eine schone Aussicht/* 
 
 When we arrived at the little town, we began 
 to make inquiries about hiring a carriage to take 
 us to Salzburg, where we intended to sleep that 
 night; but we might as well have attempted to 
 hire a balloon, the ' old empress ' and the queen 
 of Prussia having engaged every horse; so we 
 were obliged to sleep there. The next morning we 
 found that there were two or three more kings 
 and queens on the road, so such small fry as we 
 were must go to the wall. Having, however, 
 had enough of St. Gilgen, we got a charitable 
 postilion to bring on our baggage, and started off 
 on foot for Salzburg (twenty miles). We had 
 hardly gone half a mile, before it began to rain in 
 a steady, soaking stream, which continued almost 
 incessantly for four days and nights. However, 
 we stumped steadily on. I have no doubt the 
 scenery through which we passed was very beautiful; 
 if the reader will refer to Murray he will doubtless 
 find out all about it ; I can only inform him that 
 
 * Such a beautiful view.
 
 OUR OLD STROKE. 115 
 
 we found the square yard of mud before our feet 
 to consist of a solution of pounded limestone, more 
 sticky than interesting. When we were about 
 half way, we were suddenly roused by shouts 
 (proceeding from a passing carriage) of f Hallo, 
 Bow/ c By Jove, there's Bob Smith V On looking 
 up we saw — could it be possible — yes — no — yes, 
 by all that's happy, it is Stroke, our old Stroke of 
 last year, gentle reader. (I hope you have not 
 forgotten his exertions on the Neckar.) We 
 thought that he was at the top of Vesuvius, or in 
 the cave of Capri, or anywhere in the world but 
 in the Salzkammergut ; but there he was, having 
 come up to Munich to join another good friend of 
 ours, who had recently married, and was on his 
 wedding tour with his beautiful bride, and they 
 were all travelling on together to Vienna. 
 
 When Bow, Stroke, and Smith parted last 
 year in the aisle of the glorious cathedral at 
 Cologne, they little thought that the next time 
 ( they three would meet,' would be under circum- 
 stances affording such an undeniable illustration of 
 the last of the three trite alternatives. It certainly 
 was not exactly a convenient opportunity for 
 indulging in social intercourse; so, after a short 
 parley, we, poor c demn'd moist unpleasant bodies,' 
 i2
 
 116 SALZBURG. 
 
 trudged on to Salzburg, while the more fortunate 
 
 Stroke, in a comfortable carriage, with H and 
 
 his charming little wife, rattled on, indifferent to 
 the rain or the weather, on his route to Vienna. 
 
 At Salzburg we remained three days, eating 
 our heads off — with our noses for the greater part 
 of the time flattened against the panes of the 
 window in the ' SaaF of the Golden Ship ; our 
 greatest excitement being an occasional sight of 
 the 'old empress' (whose palace was hard by), 
 who regularly turned out at three for a constitu- 
 tional drive in an old barouche, and the continual 
 arrival and rejection of British travellers (the hotel 
 being crammed full), fifteen lots of whom were 
 turned from the door in one day. 
 
 Our fame had preceded us here ; and whenever 
 there was a new arrival, the landlord used to point 
 out, as the chief attractions of his hotel, ' the three 
 Englishmen/ 
 
 Another countryman of ours had been here a 
 short time before us, who had also left a very distin- 
 guished reputation behind him. It appears, that he 
 went up a mountain in the neighbourhood, near the 
 top of which was a hut ; being caught in the rain, he 
 entered it ; not finding any fuel there, and it being 
 exceedingly cold, he asked the proprietor if he
 
 SALZBURG. 117 
 
 would sell it, and for how much ; the man said he 
 might have it for 300 gulden (about 24/.), so the 
 Briton paid down the money, set fire to the house 
 and warmed himself to his satisfaction. 
 
 It left off raining once, for half an hour, and we 
 rushed out to the Monchsberg, and had the con- 
 solation of seeing the lower hundred feet of the 
 splendid chain of mountains that come nearly up 
 to the walls of this magnificently situated town. 
 It is said to have the most picturesque site of any 
 city in Europe ; and as far as we could judge, from 
 the view of it which we had at Burford's Pano- 
 rama, in Leicester Square (whither we went, and 
 paid our shillings immediately on our return to 
 England), we thought the praise not exaggerated; 
 so our sojourn at Salzburg was not remunerative 
 — for certainly, for all purposes of enjoyment of 
 scenery, we might just as well have been looking 
 out of the solitary window of Smith's chamber in 
 Graveyard Court, Temple, the view from which, 
 gentle reader, as you well know, is neither extensive 
 nor beautiful. 
 
 As it does not much signify what kind of 
 weather it is when one goes underground, we 
 thought that this would be an admirable opportu- 
 nity to investigate the salt mines of Hallein, which
 
 118 THE MINES AT 
 
 are about eight miles from Salzburg, in a spur of 
 the ' Hohe Goll/ called the Durrenberg. So we 
 started ' diligently/ for that place and proceeded 
 with the celerity for which German coaches are so 
 remarkable ; the horses walking when we were not 
 actually going down hill, and the drag being put on 
 when not actually going up. We got there at last, 
 however, and walked, for three-quarters of an hour, 
 up the hill, among waterfalls and chalets, to the 
 house of the head -miner, where we put on, over our 
 own dress, the regular miner's costume ; (which is 
 exactly the same for gentlemen and ladies, and 
 many of the latter visit this mine,) with a leather 
 apron behind to sit upon, and a cap to protect the 
 head from blows against the roof; then, with candles 
 in our hands, like Jane Shore, and in Indian file, 
 we entered an aperture in the mountain's side, 
 something of the shape of a coffin set on its end. 
 
 But before I describe our proceedings in the 
 interior of the mountain, it may, perhaps, be as 
 well to say a few words about these salt mines in 
 general. The limestone mountains of this district 
 abound in deposits of salt, and the mines in the 
 neighbourhood are very numerous. It is not, in 
 general, found in rock, but dispersed in veins of 
 crumbling clay or gypsum ; galleries are cut
 
 v/> i 
 
 * 'i 
 
 
 */>

 
 HALLEIN. 119 
 
 through the solid rock as far as these soft beds ; a 
 small chamber is then excavated, into which fresh 
 water is conducted by pipes till it is filled; the 
 water gradually eats away all the sides of the 
 chamber, dissolving the salt, and disintegrating 
 the clay, which falls to the bottom. The void 
 thus created is continually filled up with water 
 until it is saturated with brine; this is accom- 
 plished in three weeks in the mine at Hallein, but 
 it requires a much longer time in others. In that 
 mine there are eight of these galleries, and about 
 thirty chambers; the galleries are connected by 
 eight shafts. The brine is carried off by other 
 pipes to the salt-pans — sometimes thirty, and in 
 one case as much as sixty, miles distant. The 
 brine is placed in large flat pans, and evaporated 
 over a hot fire. About a hundred pounds of brine 
 produce twenty-six pounds of salt. 
 
 This mine belongs to Austria, but it penetrates 
 into the Bavarian territory ; by a treaty, arranged 
 in 1829, the Austrian government undertakes to 
 supply Bavaria with a certain quantity of salt from 
 the mine every year, at the labour-price, and to 
 employ a certain number of Bavarians on the 
 works. Ninety -nine Bavarians and 199 Austrians 
 can claim as a right to be employed. St. Rupert,
 
 120 THE MINES AT 
 
 Bishop of Salzburg, is supposed to have first opened 
 this mine in a.d. 580, and he is now considered as 
 its patron saint. 
 
 On each side of the gallery that we entered 
 were pipes for the supply of fresh water, and for 
 carrying off the brine ; the bottom is boarded for 
 the carts to run on; for some distance it runs 
 through the solid limestone, and then enters the 
 marl, in which the salt is seen, now in glittering 
 crystals, now in pink veins, and now mixed with 
 the clay. After about nine hundred yards from 
 the entrance we arrived at the second shaft ; these 
 shafts are about three hundred and fifty feet deep, 
 and slant down at about an angle of forty degrees ; 
 the descent is made by two poles, like balusters, 
 placed obliquely side by side, about one foot and a 
 half apart. In order to descend we placed our 
 legs over these balusters, and holding a rope in 
 one hand and the candle in the other, down we 
 shot one after the other into the depths below, we 
 could quicken or retard our speed by leaning for- 
 wards or backwards ; it is perfectly safe, and num- 
 bers of ladies descend in this way every year (the 
 descent occupies about a minute) ; but you must 
 be careful not to remove your legs from the place 
 where the guide directs you to place them, or per-
 
 HALLEIN. 121 
 
 chance you may find yourself on your head at the 
 bottom, with a sprained or broken leg, if not 
 something worse, as indeed happened on this very 
 day to a friend of ours in this shaft. After going 
 along several of these galleries and descending 
 three of these shafts, we suddenly found ourselves 
 on the borders of a subterranean lake, about two 
 hundred and twenty feet square ; it was lighted up 
 all round with lamps which seemed doubled by 
 the reflection of the water, and the effect was very 
 striking ; this was one of the above-mentioned 
 chambers, which is kept half empty in order to 
 give visitors an idea of the way the salt is ob- 
 tained : here we found a boat waiting for us, and 
 were ferried across. After this we were shown a 
 place where the rock salt is blasted ; it is not very 
 valuable, and is used principally for cattle ; then 
 an apartment with busts of the Emperor Franz 
 (who had visited the mine), Franz Joseph, and the 
 patron saint, St. Rupert ; and a museum where 
 specimens of the different kinds of salt are kept ; 
 and old tools, &c, supposed to have been used by 
 the Romans in times gone by. Presently we were 
 informed that our carriage was ready to take us out 
 of the mine, and we found a kind of wooden horse 
 on wheels, capable of accommodating about six per-
 
 122 THE SALZA. 
 
 sons, with a boy in the shafts, and another push- 
 ing behind. The temperature of the mine had 
 been up to this time very pleasant, but it now 
 began to be rather cool. Before we had gone far, 
 our attention was directed to a bright glimmering 
 star in the distance, which turned out to be the 
 daylight at the entrance of the gallery, and gra- 
 dually got larger and larger, till we shot out like 
 ' ridiculous mice ' into the open air and a warm 
 shower. We found that we were at the bottom 
 of the hill just over the town, and our hats and 
 sticks were waiting for us at a miner's cottage. 
 The whole expedition took about two or three 
 hours; it was very interesting, and exceedingly 
 amusing. 
 
 We had about half an hour to spare before the 
 return diligence started, so we strolled down to the 
 bridge over the Salza, to look at the stream, which 
 was exceedingly swollen ; we found that some 
 stacks of wood had been carried away higher up 
 the river, and that logs were continually coming 
 down with the rapid torrent ; numbers of people 
 were on the bridge, armed with long spears, which 
 they stuck into the logs, and then hauled them 
 up ; it was by no means an easy job, and many 
 of the clumsy hands lost their spears altogether;
 
 OUE GOOD INTENTIONS. 123 
 
 sometimes a man would get his into a log that 
 was too heavy for him to lift, when several would 
 come to his assistance, and about a dozen spikes 
 would be thrust into the weighty billet, and then 
 it would be hauled up ; often, just as the successful 
 spearer had got his hand on his piece of wood, it 
 would break off, and fall back again into the 
 stream. 
 
 On our return to Salzburg we found the wea- 
 ther as bad as ever, so, with great reluctance, we 
 determined to give up our tour in this beautiful 
 district, and return at once to our boat. You may 
 congratulate yourself, gentle reader, that such was 
 the case, for otherwise we should have dragged 
 you over I know not how many lakes, through 
 numberless glens, up to the glaciers of the Dach- 
 stein, and, finally, swept you down to Lambach 
 like lightning, past the falls of the Traun, in a 
 salt-barge. Had we only done so, Coxswain would 
 have transferred our adventures on the snowy peaks 
 of that mountain to canvas, and he would have 
 set up in opposition to Albert Smith, in Exeter 
 Hall; indeed, as it is, I am not sure if he were 
 to paint a few hundred miles of Danube for 
 a revolving picture, and, with boat-hook in hand, 
 relate our feats and perils with his accustomed
 
 124 OUR DRIVE BACK TO 
 
 eloquence, Smith to grind the handle, and Bow 
 to take the money at the door, that it might not 
 turn out a far better investment than attending 
 quarter sessions. 
 
 So we left the Salzkammergut ' paved with our 
 good intentions/ and took a carriage for Lambach; 
 we slept that night at Vocklabruck. It is super- 
 fluous to mention that the weather cleared up 
 immediately after we had left Salzburg, and we 
 saw no more rain for a month. 
 
 When we got up the next morning we found 
 a Jahrmarkt going on, with its usual assemblage 
 of quaint costumes. During a stroll through the 
 lively scene, we continually heard a noise as if 
 of blows on some hard resounding substance, pro- 
 ceeding from various quarters; and deeming the 
 matter worthy of investigation, we strolled up to 
 one of the booths from whence these hearty 
 whacks appeared to come, and found that a vendor 
 of long-napped beaver hats was belabouring his 
 articles, by way of advertisement I suppose, or 
 perhaps on the same principle (the rhyme or 
 reason of which, I confess, I could never under- 
 stand) that guns are loaded to the muzzle, covered 
 with sand, and discharged — i. e., to prove that they 
 had been once able to stand rough usage.
 
 LINZ. 125 
 
 On our road we gave a lift to a pedestrian, 
 who was also pursuing his course to Lambach ; 
 he was a young man, and apparently a devout 
 Catholic, as at every one of the numerous cru- 
 cifixes that were planted at the side of the road, 
 he crossed himself, and took off his hat ; though 
 (certainly without reason) he appeared to be some- 
 what ashamed of exhibiting his devotion before us, 
 lest we should laugh at him ; for on each occasion 
 when crossing himself, he feigned to be engaged 
 in scratching his chest or his nose, and whenever 
 he removed his hat, he passed his hand through 
 his hair, in a nonchalant manner, as if it was for 
 that purpose that he had uncovered himself. 
 
 We just got to Lambach in time to catch the 
 train, and rumbled back to Linz, where we took 
 our old quarters at the Erzherzog Karl.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE DANUBE BETWEEN LINZ AND VIENNA. 
 
 Be ruled by me and go back ; go back, go back and be wise. 
 
 BuNYAJf's Prilgrim's Progress. 
 
 A S we were stepping into our boat at Linz to 
 resume our downward journey, on Wednesday, 
 the 25th of August, our landlord came up, and 
 entreated us to take him with us for a short dis- 
 tance; accordingly we placed him squatting in the 
 bows, with strict injunctions to sit still. Another 
 archipelago of islands commences immediately 
 below Linz, and continues nearly to Grein. After 
 we had proceeded a few miles, our passenger re- 
 quested us to put him down at a house which he 
 pointed out, the approach to which lay between two 
 islands. On looking in that direction, we at once 
 perceived that there was not sufficient water for our 
 boat; but on Bauer's absolutely assuring us that 
 barges continually went by that channel, we re-
 
 THE SHALLOWS. 127 
 
 luctantly yielded; the result was as we had antici- 
 pated — in a few moments the boat's keel began to 
 grind against the bottom, when we instantly sprung 
 out ; the stream was so very strong that we were 
 nearly carried off our legs, just as a person who 
 jumps out of a carriage going at full speed has 
 some difficulty in avoiding a fall. On looking 
 towards our little man in the bows, we saw him, 
 with clenched teeth and pallid cheeks, sitting up- 
 right, and clinging, like grim Death, with one hand 
 to each gunwale. We could not resist laughing 
 (which rather reassured him), especially when he 
 said, f Oh, this is interesting, very interesting ; 
 yes, I may say this is very interesting, indeed !' 
 Poor victim! how he must have cursed the hour 
 in which he trusted himself in the clutches of the 
 rabid islanders; but it was certainly entirely his 
 own fault that he got into this mess. It was 
 nothing very serious, however, for we soon led the 
 boat (which, relieved of our weight, floated easily) 
 into deep water again, and jumping in, proceeded 
 to the house in question. This we found to be a 
 little inn situated at the junction of the Traun 
 with the Danube, where the best Traun crawfish 
 (celebrated all over Austria) are to be had. 
 Mr. B. persuaded us to land and taste them ; and I
 
 128 MR. BAUER FINDS HIMSELF IN 
 
 am afraid to say how many dozen of these delicious 
 little animals we devoured : I think they must have 
 some inebriating powers, for, after our repast, our 
 little passenger said that he should much like to go 
 on to Grein with us ; so having sent a messenger 
 to Linz to inform Mrs. B. that her lord and 
 master would not be home that night, we started 
 again. Poor deluded man! he little knew what 
 was coming. We pulled on for a short distance 
 quietly enough, when we passed a barge, one of 
 the men on which, knowing Bauer, hailed him 
 with these encouraging words : ' Farewell, farewell, 
 Mr. Bauer, we shall never see you again alive V 
 Presently we heard a dull roaring sound, which 
 gave us to understand that something unpleasant 
 was going on ; it got ominously louder, and we 
 soon discerned a line of white breakers, stretching 
 quite across from one side to the other of the 
 channel in which we were. There was no time 
 for a council of war, as we were in the middle of 
 the stream, which was rapidly hurrying us onward, 
 so we pulled straight in for the bank as hard as 
 we could, and reached it about fifty yards above 
 the reef ; and very formidable it looked, the foam- 
 ing waves rising about four feet high, with a con- 
 siderable fall on the other side. While we were
 
 A PREDICAMENT. 129 
 
 considering what was now to be done, we saw a 
 loaded barge coming down the stream. 'Now/ 
 we said, ' we have only to watch where she goes, 
 and we can follow, inasmuch as for every inch of 
 water we draw, she draws three/ so we marked 
 her progress with considerable interest. She came 
 steadily on, being steered for a part of the rapid 
 which lay nearly in the centre of the stream, and 
 where the waves were considerably less than in 
 any other place, and passed safely through. 
 'That's our line of country!' we shouted, and im- 
 mediately proceeded to get the boat ready for a 
 fresh start, when we were interrupted by a plaintive 
 voice saying: 'You will excuse my accompanying 
 you, gentlemen, but I have a wife and family, and 
 I can't swim ; I think I will find a passage home 
 by land.' There was no answering this pathetic 
 appeal, so we determined to see Mr. Bauer on his 
 way home, and then start by ourselves ; but lo ! 
 when we came to investigate matters, we found 
 that we were on a small island, with another rapid 
 on the other side. As it was impossible to leave 
 the wretched man there, as he might have been 
 starved long before any human being would have 
 approached such a spot, we were left to the choice 
 of three alternatives — viz., either to pull back again 
 K
 
 130 bow's investigations. 
 
 the way we had come ; to carry the boat across 
 the island to the other channel, or farther down 
 the side we were now on, beyond the rapid. We 
 soon came to the conclusion that the first should 
 be avoided by all means, if either of the other two 
 were at all practicable; for it would have taken 
 us all the rest of the day to pull back against the 
 stream which had swept us down here in less than 
 an hour. So Bow volunteered to go out as dove, 
 and investigate the stream on the other side, and 
 stripping off his clothes he plunged into the 
 torrent at the upper end of the island; he was 
 carried under three or four times, and twice nearly 
 snagged, but he ultimately rolled out unhurt on a 
 bank some way below; he came back, however, 
 without an olive branch, and the information that 
 all progress in that quarter was hopeless, so we 
 hauled the boat down as near to the breakers as 
 we could, and then, after carrying, punting, and 
 dragging her alternately, through swamp, rushes, 
 and willows, we finally launched her again below, 
 in comparatively calm water. But Mr. Bauer was 
 still in difficulties ; the idea of getting his feet wet 
 was most depressing to him ; and as he looked at 
 the course that it was necessary for him to take to 
 regain the boat, his countenance was so piteous
 
 MR. BAUER TAKES A NAP. 131 
 
 that Bow took him on his back and trotted off 
 •with him through the reeds, and deposited him 
 in safety once more on terra firma. We then 
 started again. For several miles the water was 
 exceedingly agitated, the current was deep and 
 rapid, but it heaved and fell, twirled round, ran 
 this way and that, in such an eccentric manner, 
 that it rendered Coxswain's duty by no means an 
 easy or agreeable task. I must do Mr. B. the 
 justice to say that he behaved with the most 
 undaunted pluck; for after telling us that, after 
 what he had seen of us, he didn't care if the Falls 
 of Niagara were close at hand, he quickly laid down 
 and went to sleep as calmly, or, perhaps, more so 
 than if his head been laid on the pillow by the 
 side of Mrs. B. I really believe there is not 
 another German, from the sources of the Danube 
 to the frontier of Hungary, who would have done 
 the same for all the beer and tobacco in Europe. 
 
 According to Murray, we ought to have passed, 
 about this time, the castle of Spielberg, with a 
 dangerous rapid near it called Saunissel, but we 
 saw neither the one nor the other; we did, how- 
 ever, see the castle of Nieder Wallsee (inhabited, 
 I believe, by a countess of that ilk), situated on a 
 commanding eminence, where the Danube takes a 
 K2
 
 132 GREIN. 
 
 sudden turn ; there was a great commotion in the 
 river just here, but we left it to our right, and 
 passed on. We soon after emerged from among 
 the islands, and entered a magnificent defile, after 
 pulling through which for about half an hour, we 
 reached Grein. 
 
 Here we found a steamer just starting for 
 Linz, of which Mr. Bauer took advantage for his 
 return home, after, as he told us, the most 
 exciting day he had ever spent in his life. He 
 was very anxious to buy the boat, and said he 
 would write to Vienna about it to us; and so he 
 did, to the effect that, owing to the wonderful 
 stories that were current iu Linz about our voyage 
 to Grein, Mrs. Bauer had put her solemn veto on 
 any such transaction. Grein, together with the 
 castle called Greinberg, situated on an eminence 
 above, belongs jointly to the Duke of Saxe Coburg 
 and Prince Albert ; it is beautifully situated, just 
 where the river takes a sudden bend, and com- 
 mands a splendid view both up and down stream. 
 
 A thunderbolt could not have created more 
 excitement than our arrival did in this town ; they 
 had heard vague reports, and read extraordinary 
 lies in the newspapers for some time previous, 
 about the marvellous expedition cf the three
 
 OUR RECEPTION. 133 
 
 Englishmen, who, without guide or pilot, had 
 rowed across the channel, &c. &c, and now that 
 we had really arrived, they flocked to the hotel to 
 gaze and be satisfied. Our progress hitherto had 
 been rather an amusing ovation, but at this place 
 our honours became somewhat a bore. The singing 
 club turned out and commenced a concert, with a 
 song in compliment to us, which, I believe, was a 
 German translation of ' Fm afloat f they sung 
 very well, and if this had been all, we should not 
 have been so much to be pitied; but we were 
 hemmed into a corner, bothered with questions, 
 pestered with advice, and implored to go no farther 
 on account of the ' Strudel and Wirbel/ These 
 names, as terrible to the ear of a dweller on the 
 Danube as Scylla and Charybdis to the sailors of 
 old, designate a rapid and a whirlpool which occur 
 in the river a few miles below Grein. The Strudel, 
 they admitted, was not so dangerous now as it used 
 to be, and we possibly might get over that; but 
 the Wirbel (the whirlpool), oh ! if we had any 
 regard for our lives, we should go in the steamer 
 or a barge, or carry our boat round, or do any 
 thing rather than venture within its terrific vortex ; 
 there was a funnel thirty feet across, which went 
 straight down to nowhere, and logs of wood
 
 134 THE POLISH 
 
 thrown in,* if they appear again at all, must be 
 looked for somewhere about the Black Sea. 
 
 One of these people, a Polish doctor named 
 Mobinski, considered us peculiarly his prey. He 
 was a very short wiry-haired man, who could not 
 keep his tongue or his body quiet for a single 
 moment; his attentions to us on the evening of 
 our arrival were alarming, and we dreaded some 
 further acts of civility the next morning ; and not 
 without reason, for he made his appearance in our 
 bed-rooms before we were up, for the purpose, he 
 said, of presenting us with a copy of a puff that 
 he had written about some wretched watering 
 place in the neighbourhood — 
 
 "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes," 
 
 and of which he told us he had already presented 
 one to Prince Albert. He then asked us if we 
 were going to breakfast in our bed-rooms ; we said 
 no, but quickly changed our mind, at his answer — 
 ' Oh, that is beautiful ; then we can look at you.' 
 
 * This reminds me of an anecdote I once heard in Scotland. 
 A nervous Englishman was once crossing Connal ferry on Loch 
 Etive, near Oban, where the tide rushes out with great violence, 
 and observed to the ferryman : ' Surely many people must be lost 
 here?' when the consolatory answer was — 'No, no! we always 
 find em doon aboot Dunstaflhage,' (a castle a few miles distant).
 
 DOCTOR. 135 
 
 He appeared to be as minutely acquainted with 
 the different localities in London as the most 
 thoroughbred cockney ever born within the sound 
 of Bow bells ; yet he had never been there, but 
 intended to go shortly. We endeavoured to throw 
 a little cold water on this enterprise, by saying 
 that London was a very dreary town to foreigners, 
 unless they had friends there, or could speak the 
 language; but he was not so easily discouraged; 
 for, he told us, he had only to call on Prince 
 Albert, and everything then would be arranged 
 for him by his highness. After breakfast he 
 pounced upon us (like our old friend the pro- 
 fessor at Bamberg, but providentially he had no 
 museum) and led us off in triumph through the 
 town, and up the hill to the Schloss, the interior 
 of which we had to stump over. The rooms were 
 very similar to most whitewashed and unfurnished 
 apartments in our country, so I will spare the 
 reader a description, only remarking that there 
 were some very fine stags' heads stuck up on the 
 wall of a gallery that ran round the court yard. 
 Before describing our passage over the Strudei 
 and Wirbel, I will just give a slight description 
 of the position and appearance of those fluvial 
 humbugs.
 
 136 THE STRUDEL 
 
 Immediately below Grein, there is an apology 
 for a rapid, called the Greiner Schwall, which we 
 were told was a foretaste of the Wirbel. The 
 scenery then increases in grandeur, and about a 
 mile and a half below Grein, the rocky island of 
 Worth, with a castle, on the top of which is 
 a stone cross twelve feet in height,* divides the 
 stream into two branches ; the one on the right is 
 called the Hessgang ; — it is too shallow for large 
 vessels, and was originally formed by a farmer, who 
 cut a ditch to irrigate his meadow, which was scoured 
 out to its present size by the violence of the cur- 
 rent; — that on the left, the Strudel. Two rocks rise 
 from the water in this channel, when it is low, 
 making three passages; that to the right is called 
 {par excellence) ' the Strudel ;' the centre one, ' the 
 Wildriss," and the one to the left, "the Wild- 
 
 wasser/ When we passed, we saw nothing of 
 
 •> 
 all these divisions, as the water was high. Before 
 
 the time of Maria Theresa, this place perhaps was 
 
 dangerous, but during her reign, and continually 
 
 * It is said that a Tyrolese nobleman, going down the Danube 
 with his wife, in 1 540, was wrecked here ; he got on to the island, 
 but his wife was carried down, and rescued some distance below. 
 The husband, thinking his wife lost, set up here as a hermit ; but 
 after twelve years his wife found him out, and they erected this 
 cross in commemoration of their escape.
 
 AND WIEBEL. 137 
 
 since, up to 1845, the bed of the stream has been 
 so altered by blasting, that I should not in the 
 least mind now going through it in an outrigger. 
 After passing the Strudel, the tall tower of the 
 castle of Werfenstein is seen on the left, with the 
 village of Struden close to it ; another rock now 
 again divides the stream, — this is called the 
 Hausstein — with the ruins of an old castle, 
 called Burg Werfel, and a tower, called the 
 Devil's Tower, about fifty feet in height, said to be 
 haunted by the black monk; the stream on the 
 right of this rock is called the f Lug Canal ;' it 
 is about thirty feet across. The water rushes 
 through, with a considerable inclination, at a 
 tremendous pace ; on the left of the Hausstein 
 rushes the stream that forms the Wirbel, which is 
 in fact nothing more than the backwater be- 
 tween these two torrents ; there was a consider- 
 able rushing of water backwards and forwards, 
 and several eddies, but we saw no symptoms of 
 funnels, or anything at all like a whirlpool. 
 The Strudel is supposed to be most dangerous 
 when the river is low, and the Wirbel when it is 
 high. 
 
 To return to our proceedings. Just as we were 
 starting, the chattering Pole came and implored
 
 138 THE STRUDEL 
 
 leave to go with us down the stream for a short 
 distance : in a weak moment we consented, im- 
 ploring him only to sit quiet, and hold his tongue. 
 We might as well have asked him to jump over- 
 board ; he writhed about like an eel, and nearly 
 sunk the boat with his eternal jaw. We did not 
 pay the least attention, however, to his advice, his 
 fears, or his information, but pulled steadily on, 
 by the Hessgang, and landed on the island, Worth, 
 to look at the Strudel, and saw nothing more 
 dangerous than what we had passed some half- 
 dozen times every day. We then dropped down 
 about three hundred yards further, and landed 
 just above the Wirbel, to inspect it. As we were 
 sitting on the rock, between which and the Haus- 
 stein the Lug Canal runs, we saw a barge coming 
 down; this sight roused the uneasy Pole (he had 
 been quiet for a few seconds) to a state of the 
 wildest frenzy; he rushed about the rocks, squealing 
 like a wounded hare, clapping us on the shoulder, 
 pointing out the boat (just as if it was utterly 
 impossible to see it without his assistance), and 
 shouting ' Ach! Gott! sieh! boum! boum! bourn! 
 bourn V finishing up, as the vessel glided quietly 
 down, quite undisturbed by the Wirbel, with a 
 prolonged ' S-o-o — o-o-o — o-o-o.' We had now
 
 AND WIRBEL. 139 
 
 made up our minds to shoot down by the Lug 
 Canal ; the Pole declined to come with us, but got 
 a Danube ferryman to take him through in one of 
 the boats used for that purpose ; so off we started. 
 Our torment, however, made his conductor stop 
 just at the entrance of the passage, the conse- 
 quence was that we were carried up against him 
 by the stream, just in the most awkward part of the 
 rush, by which collision, Bow's oar was knocked 
 out of the rowlock, and we were nearly upset. 
 We came through, however, safely, and continued 
 our course without stopping again to take up our 
 chattering companion. We were rather surprised 
 a day or two after this, to see the following para- 
 graph in a newspaper (communicated, of course, 
 by the modest and truthful Pole). 'The three 
 
 young English gentlemen, Messrs. M , C , 
 
 and T , who, &c, were piloted through that 
 
 dangerous part of the Danube below Grein, by the 
 Imperial Royal Apostolic District-Physician, Herr 
 Doctor the Chevalier * Joseph of Mobinski, who 
 is quite at home in the Strudel and Wirbel, and 
 is, besides, a distinguished swimmer : and that was 
 the manner in which they passed safely over the 
 
 * Germanice, Ritter.
 
 140 PILGRIMAGE CHURCH 
 
 raging waves, and successfully reached again still 
 water.' An equally veracious paragraph also 
 appeared in another paper, concerning our passage 
 of these places, here it is : ' The pilot who guided 
 the Englishmen over the Strudel and Wirbel 
 wished to race with them from Grein in a Danube 
 skiff, and for that purpose hired the skilful boat- 
 man, Joseph Ludwig; but the Danube boat could 
 make nothing of it, while the English boat shot 
 forth like an arrow/ 
 
 After this little excitement we continued our 
 course through the defile for some miles, till at 
 length the hills on the right bank began to recede, 
 and we could see the Styrian Alps in the distance 
 to the south. On the left we passed a chateau, close 
 to the water side, which was a favourite retreat of 
 the late Emperor Francis ; it was a charming spot. 
 It is called Bosenbeug, from a ' dangerous bend ' 
 which the river is supposed to make here : below 
 this, on the right side of the river, was another 
 rapid, with the ruins of an abbey near, called 
 Saiisenstein (Roaring rock). The pilgrimage 
 church of Maria Taferl, on the top of the hill, 
 above Marbach, is, owing to the windings of the 
 river, visible for a long time before it is reached. 
 ' It derives its name from a miracle-working image
 
 OF MARIA TAFERL. 141 
 
 of the Virgin, which was attached to an old oak, 
 beneath whose branches the peasantry used to 
 feast once a year at a stone table. When the 
 tree was decaying, a peasant is said to have 
 attempted to cut it down, but the first blow of the 
 axe struck his own foot. Looking up, he saw the 
 image, and repenting of his sacrilege, was immedi- 
 ately cured/ In the month of September, multi- 
 tudes of pilgrims swarm in from all parts of 
 Germany, sometimes as many as 130,000. 
 
 Passing the ruins of Weideneck, and a modern 
 imperial chateau, we came in sight of a stately and 
 magnificent palace, situated on a rock about two 
 hundred feet in height, on the right bank of the 
 river; this turned out to be the Benedictine 
 Monastery of Molk, by far the finest building on 
 the banks of the Danube, and I should think 
 equal if not superior in beauty of architecture 
 and position to any other ecclesiastical foundation 
 in Europe. And it is not only externally splendid 
 and commanding, but it is also handsomely 
 arranged within. We were shown over suites of 
 rooms occupied by the abbot, and any archbishops 
 or bishops who might happen to come on a visit : 
 they were like such apartments in most palaces, 
 except that perhaps the pictures were rather above
 
 142 THE MONASTERY 
 
 the average palatial standard. There were nume- 
 rous other rooms neatly and comfortably furnished 
 for the use of more humble visitors. The re- 
 fectory was arranged exactly like the hall of a 
 college at our universities, with a high table on a 
 dais at the upper end, for the dons, and a long 
 table down the middle for the rest : it was laid out 
 for dinner when we went in, and a very comfort- 
 able kind of spread it seemed to be. The church, 
 though rather too much overlaid with marble and 
 gilding for English taste, is a truly magnificent 
 building, and the treasury attached to it contains 
 many objects of great value. The splendid 
 library, containing more than 20,000 books and 
 1500 manuscripts, is arranged in an apartment of 
 exceeding beauty. We were conducted over it by 
 a very gentlemanlike and agreeable brother, who 
 walked with us for some time in the cloister garden, 
 and afterwards conducted us to the top of one of 
 the church towers, which commands a magnificent 
 view of the mighty river, with numerous castles 
 and villas on its banks, the little town immedi- 
 ately below us, and the snowy range of the 
 Styrian Alps raising their peaks against the 
 southern horizon. The Hungarian Archbishop of 
 Erlau is at present obliged to reside here ; he was
 
 OF MOLK. 143 
 
 compromised in the late Hungarian revolution. 
 The high road from Linz to Vienna skirts the 
 river at this point. 
 
 In the evening, after dusk, we amused our- 
 selves hy going down to the river bank, taking a 
 seat near our boat, which was, as usual, sur- 
 rounded by a crowd of gaping wonderers, and, 
 unseen ourselves, listening to their remarks. One 
 gentleman, who appeared to think that he knew 
 all about it, regaled his audience with some rich 
 stories about our passage of the Channel, and our 
 future route by the Black Sea, &c. ; while others 
 handled the boat, which they pronounced to be 
 made of copper, the oars, which they took for 
 masts, and the canvas cover which they thought 
 also did duty as a sail. 
 
 We left Molk the next day ; crowds of people, 
 among whom were several of the brethren of 
 the cloister, assembling to see us start, and 
 pursued our onward course. The mountains now 
 again hemmed in the river on either side, and 
 we passed on our right the castles of Schonbuhel 
 and Aggstein, and then, on the left, a curious 
 natural dyke of stone, about six feet high, called 
 ( the Devil's Wall/ running from the top of the 
 hill into the river, and the castle of Spitz. These
 
 144 DURRENSTEIN. 
 
 last-mentioned three castles, Aggstein in particular, 
 equal, if they do not exceed, any of the castles of 
 the Rhine in point of individual beauty as well 
 as commanding position. When we arrived at the 
 castle of Diirrenstein, on the left bank of the river, 
 we deemed it our duty to land and examine it 
 more closely, as it is here, as the reader, doubtless, 
 is well aware, that Richard Coeur-de-Lion is sup- 
 posed to have been confined in 1192, by Leopold, 
 and to have been rescued by means of BlondeFs 
 minstrelsy. Its name, which signifies barren 
 rock, is a very appropriate one, for a more bare, 
 inhospitable looking spot it has seldom been my 
 lot to see. It is situated on a rugged spur of the 
 mountain, about three hundred feet in height, and 
 there are walls running down from it on both 
 sides, to the river. There is an excavation in the 
 rock which is supposed to have been the actual 
 dungeon of the brave king. If it were not for the 
 associations connected with it, it would hardly repay 
 one for the trouble of climbing up the steep hill 
 side, as it has a fine appearance from the river, 
 but certainly does not improve on closer in- 
 spection. 
 
 The village below is surrounded by ruined for- 
 tifications, and in the church is preserved a list of a
 
 STEIN. 145 
 
 small body of the townspeople, who, in 1741, are 
 said to have repulsed a large force of French and 
 Bavarians, by means of water-pipes cut and 
 painted to look like cannon, which they planted 
 on the walls, by which means and the vigorous 
 beating of a drum, they managed to make the 
 enemy believe that the place was strongly gar- 
 risoned. 
 
 The river below this emerges from among the 
 hills, and we soon arrived at Stein, situated on 
 the left bank. The steamer having shortly before 
 passed us, conveyed the information to the inha- 
 bitants, that the lions would soon be among 
 them; accordingly, on our arrival, we found the 
 natives mustered in considerable force on the 
 bank, the British colours being hoisted on a flag- 
 staff in our honour. The landlord of the hotel 
 where we put up was so agitated at the honour we 
 were about to confer upon him, by condescending 
 to take up our quarters at his establishment, that 
 he could barely articulate. 
 
 Stein is a town of about 4000 inhabitants, and 
 consists of one long street running along the river 
 bank ; between it and Krems (which is about a 
 mile further down the river), stands a solitary 
 building, once a monastery, now a military hos- 
 L
 
 146 KREMS. 
 
 pital, called Und; which has given rise to the 
 rather mild joke, that ' Krems, Und (and) Stein, 
 are three places/ 
 
 Krems is a town of about 5000 inhabitants, 
 and famous for the manufacture of mustard and 
 gunpowder. Perhaps it was in order to impress 
 this more deeply on our mind that the landlord, 
 on our asking at dinner for a supply of the former 
 article, charged us for three portions of it in our 
 bill. At this dinner, also, we partook of a bird, 
 which tasted like a pheasant, but was not so large, 
 though bigger than a partridge; we inquired 
 what it was, and were told that it was a " Hasel 
 huhn." Never having heard this name before, we 
 asked if they could favour us with a sight of 
 another ; they said it was a very rare bird, and that 
 they had not one ; but they brought us some of 
 the feathers of that which we had devoured : we 
 could not, however, recognise in them the costume 
 of any game bird of our islands. 
 
 The next day we started on in a carriage, and 
 crossed the bridge, in order to see the Benedictine 
 monastery of Gottweih, another of these splendid 
 palatial edifices, inferior only to Molk, situated on 
 a lofty eminence seven hundred feet high, about 
 four miles inland from the right bank of the river.
 
 GOTTWEIH. 147 
 
 It is a large square building, with a tower at each 
 corner. The road up to it is exceedingly steep. 
 It has a splendid staircase and library, and the 
 internal arrangements are similar to those of Molk, 
 so need not be again described. One of the rooms 
 into which we went was decorated with excellent 
 paintings of different game-birds, on panels. We 
 thought our new acquaintance, the Hasel huhn, 
 might, perhaps, be there delineated, so we in- 
 quired of our conductor; he pointed out two, 
 a cock and a hen ; their plumage resembled that 
 of a partridge, but was somewhat gayer, and the 
 cock wore feathered leggings, so they probably are 
 of the grouse species. There was also a very 
 comfortable-looking billiard-room for the 'ghostly 
 gentlemen/ which seemed by no means likely to 
 decay for want of use. 
 
 As we were passing over the bridge on our way 
 back to Stein, we heard the solemn strains of the 
 chanting of a band of pilgrims who were returning 
 down the river in a line of barges; it was a pic- 
 turesque sight, and the sound of the distant 
 melodies floating over the water was very impres- 
 sive, but the illusion was sadly dispelled, on closer 
 acquaintance, when certainly neither did the pil- 
 l2
 
 148 GREIFENSTEDT. 
 
 grims look particularly interesting, nor did their 
 hymns sound very harmonious. 
 
 Immediately below Krems another archipelago 
 commences; we started early, as we wished to get 
 into Vienna in good time. It was a magnificent 
 day, and as we had not time to stop to bathe, we 
 tried the experiment of jumping out of the boat, 
 and letting her float down while we swam along- 
 side, or hung on behind; in this manner we lost 
 no time, and before we were dressed and ready to 
 pull again, we were some five or six miles below 
 the point we had started from. Beavers are said 
 to have their dwellings among these islands; but 
 we looked in vain for any traces of them. We 
 had an annoying wind directly against us for some 
 time which raised uncomfortable waves, and de- 
 layed U3 considerably. 
 
 On emerging from among the islands we passed 
 on our right the Castle of Greifenstein, so called 
 from the supposed mark of a griffin's claw im- 
 printed in the rock near the keep-door ; and fur- 
 ther on the large Augustine monastery of Kloster 
 Neuburg. The ducal bonnet of the regents of 
 Austria, with which the emperor is crooned on his 
 accession, is kept here, and on the summit of one of
 
 THE DANUBE CANAL. 149 
 
 the towers is a gigantic facsimile of it, made of 
 copper. 
 
 Passing under the Kahlenberg (a favourite re- 
 sort of the Viennese on Sundays), we entered the 
 branch of the Danube that runs through Vienna, 
 (which is not more than forty yards across, and is 
 generally called the Danube Canal,) and were soon 
 summoned to bring-to by the officials at the cus- 
 tom-house and police-station at Nussdorf, about 
 four miles from the centre of the town.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 VIENNA. 
 
 Ich muss dich nun vor alien Dingen 
 
 In lustige Gesellschaft bringen, 
 
 Damit Du siehst wie leicht sich's leben lasst 
 
 Dem Volke hier wird jeder Tag ein Fest. 
 
 Gothe's Faust. 
 
 "TT7E were not delayed very long at the custom- 
 house, and our passports having been vised 
 — we paid two-pence duty for our flag, and 
 rattled down to Vienna at a great rate for the re- 
 maining three miles. An individual who was very 
 polite to us during our short halt at Nussdorf, 
 volunteered to go up in a boat to show us the 
 police-station in the town, at which it was neces- 
 sary for us also to present ourselves ; but we arrived 
 there before him. We afterwards had reason to 
 believe that he was an emissary of the police, as
 
 VIENNA. 151 
 
 we saw him from time to time hanging about in 
 the neighbourhood of our hotel, and dogging us in 
 the streets. When we arrived at the Schanzel, 
 hard by the chain bridge, we committed our boat 
 to the care of a friendly bargee who had witnessed 
 our start from Ratisbon and Linz, and drove to the 
 Kaiserin von OEsterreich, a quiet and comfortable 
 hotel in the Weihburg Gasse, not far from St. 
 Stephen's. 
 
 Vienna is indeed a delightful town ; it is hand- 
 somely built, but is more remarkable for its 
 general liveliness, cheerful appearance and clean- 
 liness, than for any very striking buildings that it 
 possesses ; indeed, St. Stephen's, with its magnifi- 
 cent spire, is almost the only edifice that of it- 
 self rivets the attention of the stranger. Every 
 one, of course, knows that the city is the fashion- 
 able part of Vienna, where the palaces, public 
 offices, best shops and hotels, are situated, and 
 that it is separated from the suburbs by a dry 
 moat and a broad glacis. It takes its name from a 
 dirty little stream called the Wien, about twelve 
 feet wide, and which is generally nearly dry in 
 summer. 
 
 There is a cheeriness and hearty goodhumour 
 about the inhabitants that make it quite a pleasure
 
 152 THE STREETS. 
 
 to stroll through the streets or sit in the public 
 gardens of an evening and see the crowds of merry 
 people who swarm to them to eat ices, dance, or 
 listen to Strauss's band. Music and dancing, in- 
 deed, appear to be meat and drink to the Viennese, 
 and uncommonly nourishing food too. 
 
 The streets are narrow, and without any foot- 
 pavement, but they are so clean that one might 
 dine off them, and so slippery, that it is wonderful 
 how the horses manage to get round the sharp 
 corners at all : a London horse would be as badly 
 off as on our wood pavement after a frost. 
 
 I think Vienna is the only place out of the 
 British dominions where, in driving, carriages keep 
 the same sides of the road in passing each other 
 that we in England are accustomed to; and I be- 
 lieve that this is only a very recent alteration; I 
 know not for what reason the change was made, as 
 the old continental fashion is still the rule in the 
 rest of Austria. 
 
 The numerous signs attached to the shops have 
 a very gay and pleasing effect ; they are by no 
 means wretched daubs, being often paintings of 
 considerable merit, but the subjects of some of 
 them seem strangely out of place (to use a mild 
 expression) to the English eye. We observed a
 
 LIONIZING. 153 
 
 tobacconist's shop to the sign of the Black Mother 
 of God ;* several apothecaries to that of the Holy 
 Ghost, and one beer-shop to that of the Trinity ! 
 
 There is this special advantage about Vienna, 
 that with the exception of its splendid picture- 
 gallery, and the noble cathedral of St. Stephen's, 
 there are no lions that it is absolutely necessary to 
 go and see. For seeing sights by wholesale is the 
 most dreary of occupations ; and I am convinced 
 that the greater number of people who start for a 
 month's trip, with the laudable intention of seeing 
 as much as they can in that period by spinning 
 from town to town by rail as hard as they can go, 
 are, for at least one half of their time, supremely 
 miserable. 
 
 See ! here comes a laquais de place, leading along 
 in triumph a band of our countrymen ; they are in 
 his hands for the day, hopeless and helpless. Can it 
 be ? — yes, it is Sir Arthur O'Limpus and the Lady 
 Cecilia, with Jemima and little Plantagenet. You 
 know their place (gentle reader), with its little 
 ivy-covered lodge, the rookery, and the old red- 
 
 * This alludes to the black image in the wandering chapel of 
 Loretto. The individual who kept this establishment rejoiced 
 in the name of Patent Slander.
 
 154 AN ENGLISH FAMILY. 
 
 brick house pointed with white stone. When I 
 dined at the manor-house some months ago, her 
 ladyship hinted to me that some conspiracy of this 
 sort was on foot ; but I did think that the worthy 
 baronet was too wide awake to be so entrapped. 
 But he is in for it, and will go through with it 
 like a man. Look at him, as he walks along with 
 his hat well down on his head, his teeth clenched, 
 and his coat tight-buttoned: there is no surrender 
 about him ; he will go up to the top of that tall 
 tower, and down into the crypt, over three other 
 churches, a museum, a picture-gallery, and two 
 palaces, and will see the same again, with slight 
 variations, every day for the next three weeks ; but 
 he knows that it is for the last time in his life, and 
 armed with this consolation he marches calmly on. 
 Clinging to his arm, but about half a step be- 
 hind him, trots poor Lady C. She is diligently 
 studying Murray, totally forgetting to look at the 
 gorgeous carving over the old Gothic portal of the 
 cathedral which she is about to enter. And 
 Jemima, she is, however, not utterly miserable; 
 she has her brief moments of triumph ; having 
 taken six lessons in German before starting, she 
 turns round now and then, and proudly translates 
 some remark of the consequential commissionaire;
 
 LION HUNTING. 155 
 
 f He says we are to go to the right f ' This is the 
 place from which we must look at the Madonna/ 
 &c. &c. But Plantagenet,what has he done that he 
 should be torn from his cricket and his pony to 
 stump, loaded with guide-books and shawls, over 
 the pavement of a series of towns glowing with 
 the heat of a German sun? He is utterly miserable, 
 and his only consolation is the thought of the 
 adventures with which he will astonish his com- 
 panions on his return to Rugby, and which he 
 invents as he tosses sleeplessly about at night, 
 half smothered under an enormous feather-bed. 
 
 But we wont follow them through all their 
 peregrinations, till they come back in the evening, 
 worn out and dispirited, to their enormous hotel, 
 drag themselves up three pair of stairs to a bed- 
 room without a carpet, at last obtain what the 
 waiter dignifies by the name of tea, and then 
 tumble into bed with a vague idea that Rubens 
 built the splendid old cathedral on the other side 
 of the Platz, and that the ladies that Canova 
 painted must have rather stronger constitutions 
 than the degenerate females of the present age. 
 But it will be some satisfaction to them at any 
 rate, when they give the first grand dinner-party 
 on their return, to astonish those of their friends
 
 156 ACCOUNTS OF US IN 
 
 who have not yet gone through the same penance. 
 ' Only think, we have been only three weeks 
 away, and we have been to Paris, and Strasburg, 
 and Baden, and Heidelberg, and Frankfort, and 
 Homburg, and Wiesbaden, and down the Rhine to 
 Cologne, to Aix, and Liege, and Malines, and Ant- 
 werp, and Ghent, and Bruges, and Brussels/ 
 
 The morning after our arrival, we went to 
 breakfast at the Wasser Glacis, where there is 
 a sort of garden with a pump-room annexed, and 
 an excellent band of music. As we were turning 
 over the newspapers, we found that we were, as 
 usual, the heroes of the day ; for in nine different 
 papers there were paragraphs about us, almost 
 every word of which was false. I will just give a 
 literal translation of some of these rather amusing 
 inventions ; the reader will of course see what is 
 correct, and what is not. 
 
 ' At last, they are come ; namely, the three 
 so much talked of young Englishmen, Messrs. 
 
 M , C , and T , who have undertaken 
 
 the voyage from London to Constantinople in a 
 boat of mahogany (a thin but strong West Indian 
 wood) ; it is set in motion by two of the adven-
 
 THE NEWSPAPERS. 157 
 
 turous travellers, and guided by the third by 
 means of a miniature rudder. The boat of which 
 these undaunted sons of Albion avail themselves 
 for their perilous journey is, at the most, twenty- 
 five feet long, and something over three feet broad. 
 It weighs not more than seventy-four pounds, and 
 can therefore easily be carried by a single man. 
 The entire adventurous voyage is undertaken for 
 a bet of £3000, which is to this effect ; that the 
 young gentlemen travel from London to Constanti- 
 nople, across the Channel in their own boat. Up 
 to this moment, they have kept their wager to the 
 letter, and have on that account, during their voyage 
 across the Channel — where their nutshell would have 
 been decidedly rather unsafe — certainly remained 
 in their little boat, but have comfortably placed 
 this on board a common large sailing-vessel, and so 
 crossed the Channel with a double keel under them. 
 They bought their boat in London last year for £15, 
 sent it to Cologne, and therewith made the voyage of 
 the Moselle, the Lahn, and the Neckar. It is 
 much to be wished that our people would study 
 the build of this English vessel, for our boats are 
 in real circumstances of childhood. 
 
 'These celebrated travellers made their entry 
 into the Danube Canal yesterday at half-past three,
 
 158 EXTEACTS FEOM 
 
 when they hoisted up the English flag* — the world- 
 known Union Jack — and having cast anchor at the 
 Schanzel, there made fast their boat; but it is 
 not now to be distinguished by any flag, it is 
 covered over with canvass, and only the crowds of 
 curious people who swarm around point out the 
 presence of this wonderful thing. 
 
 ' The landing-place there is indeed at this 
 moment unusually crowded ; but it is not the proud 
 three-masted ships which bring us the riches and 
 choice productions of distant lands that attract the 
 general attention ; but, in a far higher degree, the 
 unusually elegant and slim-built boat which these 
 bold Englishmen have made use of for their 
 voyage. They will proceed on their course to Con- 
 stantinople to-morrow, or the day after, at the same 
 time as the steamer, which took them on board at 
 the passage of the Strudel and Wirbel, and other 
 dangerous places' 
 
 This was getting rather too strong ; so we wrote 
 a letter to the Vienna Illustrated News, explaining 
 that we had not pulled across the Channel, but 
 
 * It had never been down ; we afterwards learnt that this was 
 the first time that the Union Jack had ever been seen in Vienna 
 on an English vessel.
 
 THE NEWSPAPERS. 159 
 
 started from Kitzingen; nor had we undertaken 
 our trip for lucre, but for pleasure — and that we 
 never had the most remote intention of going 
 farther than Pesth. Coxswain also sent them an 
 exceedingly clever sketch of our boat, &c., as when 
 we arrived at Vienna, for the use of the paper ; and 
 it appeared in the next number, but ruthlessly 
 raseed into a most uncomfortable kind of dingy, 
 with its crew sitting on the gunnel, with their 
 legs on the seats. 
 
 But it is not required to do anything very 
 heroic in order to be held up for admiration in 
 the Viennese papers; for the censorship of the 
 press is so strict, that nothing that has the slightest 
 political tendency, unless proceeding from govern- 
 ment authority, is allowed to be inserted in them ; 
 so that they are sometimes driven to great shifts 
 to fill up their pages. Thus, if they wrote a 
 dozen lines about us one day, on the next might 
 be seen a paragraph of double the length, contain- 
 ing some such entertaining story as the following, 
 which I copied from one of the papers, and of 
 which I will give the briefest abstract; it was 
 written in the most dry matter-of-fact style. 
 
 'Yesterday, a young gentleman was walking in 
 the Jagerzeil, when he was overtaken by heavy rain;
 
 160 THE NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 he sought refuge under a portico ; suddenly remem- 
 bering that a friend of his lived in the house, he 
 borrowed an umbrella of him, and sallied out again; 
 but he found that he could not open it, so he had 
 to go back to get his friend to do it for him/ 
 
 Another day I read a long yarn about a fight 
 between a porter and a crossing-sweeper ; the great 
 joke in which was that the latter broke his pipe, &c. 
 Of the many different notices of our proceedings 
 that appeared in various languages, the only accu- 
 rate one that we saw was one sent by the foreign 
 correspondent of the Morning Chronicle to that 
 paper, which did contain a true matter-of-fact ac- 
 count of our start from Vienna. 
 
 It being Sunday, we went to our ambas- 
 sador's chapel; and as this was the first oppor- 
 tunity, since we left England, that we had had of 
 attending divine service according to our ritual, 
 we looked forward with some pleasure to hearing 
 again the old familiar sound of our beautiful liturgy : 
 but we derived but little satisfaction from it, 
 owing to the manner in which the service was 
 performed. The gentleman who officiated seemed 
 to be so sleepy that he could with difficulty get 
 the words out of his mouth ; and then suddenly — 
 as if remembering that time was valuable — he
 
 st. Stephen's. 161 
 
 would hurry rapidly through a few sentences, and 
 then once more relapse into his former cadence. 
 In fact, we never sat out a service with less edifi- 
 cation, and derived far more satisfaction from an 
 eloquent sermon that we afterwards heard in the 
 Cathedral, and of which we understood about one 
 word in ten, than from the discourse in our own 
 tongue that we had endeavoured to listen to in 
 the morning. 
 
 The beautiful steeple of St. Stephen's commands 
 a very extensive view; but as it can only be seen 
 through narrow and inconvenient apertures, it 
 loses much of the effect that it would have, could 
 the eye range over a larger expanse at a time. In 
 a chamber in the tower is the Fire Watch, and 
 there is a telescope fixed in each window, on a 
 graduated scale, so contrived that the exact spot 
 where a fire breaks out can be ascertained with 
 the most exact precision, and information is im- 
 mediately sent to the fire offices. The roof is of red 
 tile, with an enormous Imperial eagle made of 
 black tiles, which stretches out its wings almost 
 from end to end of the edifice. While up in the 
 spire a gust of wind whirled off Bow's hat, which 
 disappeared among the sloping roofs and buttresses, 
 and never was seen again. Indeed, this day was 
 M
 
 162 THE KAHLENBERG. 
 
 rather an unfortunate one for our headpieces ; for 
 as Coxswain, who sported a brown wide awake, 
 was quietly walking up the Karnthner Strasse, he 
 was stopped by a police agent in plain clothes, and 
 informed that these hats were considered revolu- 
 tionary, and strictly prohibited in Austria, and that 
 he must immediately return to his hotel, and change 
 it. He was not altogether unprepared for this; 
 as a French hair-dresser had told him that morn- 
 ing that it was ' defended ' to wear such hats in 
 Austria. 
 
 We made several excursions into the environs : 
 to the Leopoldsberg, and Kahlenberg, which com- 
 mand a splendid panoramic view of Vienna, and the 
 islands of the Danube; with the Styrian Alps, far 
 away in the south ; and to the east, over the plain of 
 Marchfeld, to the range of the Carpathians which 
 forms the boundary between Austria and Hungary. 
 The Leopoldsberg forms the last of the chain called 
 the Wiener Wald, which unites with the Alps. We 
 also went to Baden, a watering place, in a pretty 
 valley, crowded with the gay citizens on holidays, 
 with bands of music playing in every direction; 
 to the palace at Laxenburg, where there are ex- 
 tensive and well-laid out pleasure grounds; in a 
 lake in which is an absurd modern imitation of an 
 old castle, with a miniature dungeon, and a dummy
 
 SCHOKBRUNN. 163 
 
 prisoner, whose chains were connected with the door, 
 and rattled when it was opened. In the garden at 
 this place there are lists, where tournaments are 
 sometimes held. 
 
 Schonbrunn, the emperor's usual residence, is a 
 handsome and imposing edifice, in the beautiful and 
 extensive gardens attached to which he may often 
 be seen strolling about with a cigar in his mouth, 
 among his happy subjects. It is very striking to an 
 Englishman to see the familiar way in which Aus- 
 trians walk about and through the dwelling of their 
 monarch.* In England, our gracious Queen has 
 had but little encouragement to throw open her 
 palaces and private gardens to the people, even if 
 it was consistent with the customs of our country. 
 But though the emperor mixes in this way with 
 his subjects, yet, on the other hand, he always 
 dines alone, or with only his nearest relations ; no 
 subject, however high his rank, being deemed 
 worthy to sit down at his table : while even you 
 or I, kind reader, might find ourselves one of these 
 days with our legs under the mahogany at Wind- 
 
 * When we were at the palace of the Laxenburg, there was 
 « wagon of hay drawn up under the principal entrance to avoid 
 a shower of rain. 
 
 M 2
 
 164 THE PRATER. 
 
 sor, without detracting from the divinity that hedges 
 round our beloved monarch. 
 
 Hansom cabs have lately been introduced into 
 Vienna; we had a delightful drive in one all 
 about the Prater, which is in some respects much 
 superior to Hyde Park, being nearly four miles in 
 length, and broad in proportion ; so that even at 
 the fullest time of the season, one can plunge into 
 solitude, far away from the gay crowd, where the 
 deer are grazing, and the pheasant and partridge 
 start from under your feet. There are six prin- 
 cipal drives, which all meet at one point, at the 
 end of the Jagerzeil : and though perhaps the 
 show of carriages may be inferior to that of 
 London, no other country in Europe has such a 
 magnificent public park within the immediate 
 vicinity of its capital. When we were there it was 
 deserted, the season being ended; but the stand- 
 ards for fireworks, the circus, the theatres, and 
 the cafes, withmountai ns of piled-up chairs and 
 benches, showed how enormous must be the popula- 
 tion that avail themselves of its attractions. 
 
 We were rather unfortunate in a visit that we 
 paid to the Opera, since on that night there was 
 no play, but only a dreary ballet, which lasted, I 
 believe, for about five hours; we did not wait to
 
 ukgar's casino. 165 
 
 see it out, however, but very soon left, and went 
 to Ungar's Casino, where there was to be a grand 
 ball, on the occasion of some church jubilee. This 
 turned out to be a better investment, as it was a 
 most lively and amusing scene. There was a large 
 garden, numerous little tables scattered about, at 
 each of which sat a party of citizens, eating supper, 
 or drinking coffee, beer, &c. In a handsome 
 ball room, opening into the garden, Strauss' band 
 was playing, and after each dance the room was 
 emptied, and the dancers returned to their family 
 circle in the open air. Coxswain, being as expert 
 with his fantastic toes as he is skilful with his 
 fingers, thought that a waltz with a little black-eyed 
 Viennese, who was sitting with her papa not very 
 far off, would be not an unpleasant arrangement, 
 and I fancy that the little black eyes were some- 
 what of the same opinion. But a glimpse into the 
 ball-room, when the next waltz was going on, dis- 
 suaded him from carrying his idea into execution. 
 The instant the band struck up the room was 
 filled, and with great difficulty the masters of the 
 ceremonies made a path round the room, in the 
 centre and at the outside of which the spectators 
 were crammed; those who intended to dance, 
 lining the path, the gentlemen on one side and
 
 166 COSTUMES IN THE STREETS 
 
 the ladies on the other. At a given signal each 
 gentleman made a dart at his partner, and rushed 
 off with her round the room : it was evidently the 
 great object to do as much dancing as was possible 
 in two minutes, which was about the time that 
 elapsed before they were stopped by the masters of 
 the ceremonies locking up the path and holding 
 out their arms, so that in a few seconds all the late 
 dancers were heaped up into a confused mass to- 
 gether, like the carriages of an express train that 
 has just run into an embankment ; then another 
 lot were started, and so on. 
 
 Amongst the most remarkable things in Vienna 
 to an Englishman, are the numerous and varied 
 costumes that are continually passing in the streets. 
 Let us take our stand under this archway, and 
 watch them for a few minutes. There are two 
 ladies just gone into a shop opposite; they are in 
 what we should call low evening dresses, with 
 bare arms, polkas of the thinnest cambric, and 
 wide flat bonnets; their parasols have elaborate 
 handles, and a fringed circle of silk at the top, 
 about the diameter of a saucer, and are calculated 
 when unfurled to give shade to one eye at a time. 
 A gentleman bows to them as they come out, and 
 takes off his hat after he is well past them; he
 
 ,PF PM .' ^:tj
 
 OF VIENNA. 167 
 
 has a large white hat, small shooting coat, and 
 painfully tight trowsers, which, with a short cane, 
 form the costume of young Vienna. Now come 
 a pair of Austrian officers in their white uniforms 
 and cavalry swords clanking along the pavement ; 
 or some Hungarian grenadiers in their tight blue 
 pantaloons. Our eyes are next attracted by two 
 romantic looking monks, in chocolate coloured 
 robes and hood, white ropes for girdles, and bare 
 feet incased in patriarchal looking sandals. What 
 a beard one of them has ! chocolate coloured too, 
 and down to his waist ; he is evidently proud of 
 it, and spends half an hour every morning over its 
 cultivation. Now comes a true believer in a Fez 
 cap, or a turban, with green satin terminations, 
 and a dressing-gown lined with fur ; and close on 
 his heels a wild shaggy -looking Hungarian peasant, 
 with his loose white shirt, and vast white trousers 
 terminating in a foot of fringe; his embroidered 
 Bunda on his arm, and a brown felt wide awake 
 on his head some three feet in diameter. But 
 whom have we here? Surely we know that peculiar 
 head-piece; those long locks of grisly curls on 
 each side of the hooked beak ; and that beard ! 
 Oh, it's Shylock! There is a street full of Shy- 
 locks here, and Jessicas too, if one could only see
 
 168 QUEER FISH. 
 
 them. But who can those three individuals be ? 
 They are evidently not at home in this gay capital; 
 they are staring at us as if they thought us good 
 subjects for electro-biology. Number one is a 
 sturdy looking young fellow, with a broad-brimmed 
 white hat, overshadowing a jolly bulldog looking 
 face, and trousers into which he has perhaps 
 stepped a little too far ; he looks good for some- 
 thing, but there is a twinkle about the corner of 
 his little grey eyes that makes me think it would 
 be inexpedient to pull his tail. Well, I can't find 
 much fault with number two's looks either ; but 
 the back spring of his Gibus hat is broken, and he 
 does not altogether stand at ease in those shirt 
 collars of his. But number three, — what an ap- 
 parition ; we can see nothing of his face but hair, 
 the glowing end of a cigar, and a pair of eyes, the 
 whites of which are red. From head to foot, he is 
 clothed in dirty brown, and seems as if he had 
 been just dragged out of a muddy ditch, and then 
 partially rubbed over with chalk to obliterate the 
 stains; round his head, and neck, and wrists, 
 down his legs, and across his stomach, run those 
 mysterious stripes. But the people are crowding 
 round us. What is that that I hear ?
 
 A DISCOVEKY. 
 
 169 
 
 « Siehst Du, Fritz, die drei Englander/ 
 <Wo, Wo?' 
 
 < Hier dicht bei dir, die drei beriihmten R ei- 
 senden/ 
 
 < So— 0— o— o— c— c— c— o— o.'* 
 
 Gracious goodness, we have been staring into a 
 
 mirror ! 
 
 ****** 
 
 * ' Look here, Fritz, the three Englishmen. 
 'Where, where?' 
 
 ' Here, close by you ; the three celebrated travellers.' 
 ' No ; you don't say so !'
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE DANUBE BETWEEN VIENNA AND PESTH. 
 HUNGAKY. 
 
 Adieu the woods aDd water's side, 
 
 Imperial Danube's rich domain ! 
 
 Adieu the grotto wild and wide, 
 
 The rocks abrupt, and grassy plain ! 
 
 For pallid autumn once again 
 
 Hath swelled each torrent of the hill, 
 
 Her clouds collect, her shadows sail, 
 
 And watery winds that sweep the vale 
 
 Grow loud and louder still. 
 
 Campbell. 
 
 A T ten o'clock a.m., on Tuesday the 31st of 
 August, we left the Kaiserin von (Esterreich, 
 and drove down to our boat, which, as we had 
 read in the papers, had been moved to the other 
 side of the Danube canal, to a point not far 
 above the Ferdinand's bridge. The newspapers, 
 which, as usual, got on the wrong scent about the 
 time of our departure, had fixed upon some other 
 day for that event, so we hoped to get off quietly ; 
 but the landlord of our hotel had diligently spread
 
 START FROM VIENNA. 171 
 
 the news amongst his friends, and when we got 
 down we found a very considerable assemblage 
 of people. We were delayed some time in start- 
 ing, and the crowd increased till the banks on 
 both sides, and the bridges above and below, were 
 covered with spectators. Some of them thinking 
 that they could obtain a better view from the roof 
 of a barge* which was anchored there, clambered 
 on to the top ; but before they had been there 
 long, it fell in with a crash; fortunately, no one 
 was much damaged, but after some minutes had 
 elapsed, and while we were looking at the con- 
 fused heap of planks that formed the remains of 
 the bargee's house, the boards began to move, and 
 the owner of the vessel slowly emerged from be- 
 neath, in an overpowering rage, with a very sore 
 head, and amid roars of laughter from the assem- 
 bled multitude, when, behold, again the rafters 
 were seen to move at the other end of the vessel, 
 and his partner writhed out, trying to look as if 
 it wasn't him; but he was perceived, and greeted 
 in a like manner. 
 
 A kind Viennese friend of ours had consented 
 
 * The Danube barges have often wooden houses built on them, 
 in which the sailors and their families live.
 
 172 NEARLY UPSET. 
 
 to give us the pleasure of his society for a short 
 distance, and was accordingly accommodated with 
 a seat in the bows, and so we shot through the 
 bridge amid the cheers of the concourse of spec- 
 tators; and not the least encouraging amongst the 
 parting salutations were the waving of the hand- 
 kerchief and bright glances of the eyes of our fair 
 countrywoman who had once before thrown a gleam 
 over our path, on the occasion of our dismal walk 
 from St. Gilgen to Salzburg. "VYe had not gone 
 very far down the Canal before an incident occurred 
 which very near put an end altogether to our expe- 
 dition ; it happened as follows. We were gliding 
 quietly down the stream, when Coxswain suddenly 
 ejaculated: ' There's a rope across the water which 
 we can't pass under.' On looking round, we saw 
 a rope, one end of which was fastened to a barge 
 and the other to the shore, and which alternately 
 sank to the surface of the water, and sprang up 
 about three feet above it. Seeing that there was 
 not a moment to be lost, Smith shipped his oar, 
 rushed to the bow end of the boat, thrust our 
 astonished friend down on his back, and kneeling 
 on his chest, bent over the bows, caught the rope 
 in his hands, and threw it over his head ; Bow 
 followed his example, and then Coxswain ; but he
 
 THE MARCHFELD. 173 
 
 did not throw it quite high enough, for it caught 
 him on the head, and sent him spinning into the 
 stern ; no damage was done, however, and having 
 landed our passenger at the end of the Prater, we 
 presently emerged into one of the principal branches 
 of the river, which is here again divided by a mul- 
 titude of islands. 
 
 On the left bank of the Danube, as far as the 
 frontier, extend sa vast plain, called the Marchfeld, 
 one of the great European battle fields ; the scene of 
 the victory of Rudolph of Hapsburg over Ottocar, 
 and the battles of Aspern and Wagram, &c. 
 
 We also passed the island of Lobau, which is 
 of considerable size ; where Napoleon, after his 
 defeat at Aspern, remained encamped for several 
 weeks; then on our right, Deutsch Altenburg, 
 with a curious old Gothic church and a very 
 ancient circular chapel, on an adjoining eminence; 
 and soon after, Hamburg, the principal imperial 
 tobacco manufactory, with its huge warehouses. 
 We next passed a regiment of soldiers occupied in 
 throwing a pontoon bridge across the Danube, 
 who stared not a little at our appearance. Not 
 far below this, the river March falls into the 
 Danube, on the left ; it forms the boundary between 
 Austria and Hungary. On a high rock at the point
 
 174 PRESBUKG. 
 
 of junction stand the extensive ruins of the castle 
 of Theben, and below it a tall solitary tower called 
 ' the Nun's Tower/ occupying the point of a pin- 
 nacle of rock ; so called from a tradition that 'one 
 of the lords of this castle having taken refuge 
 here, with a nun whom he had carried off from a 
 convent, from the pursuit which followed them, 
 finding that escape was hopeless, threw themselves 
 together from the summit of the tower into the 
 river/ 
 
 "We grounded not far below this, and had to 
 walk alongside of our boat for some distance, 
 before we got into deep water again; and soon 
 after arrived at Presburg, and shot through the 
 bridge of boats that here crosses the Danube. 
 The bridge was under repair, owing to a steamer 
 and three barges having run up against and broken 
 through it, a few days previously. 
 
 Presburg is a dull, uninteresting town, neither 
 Hungarian nor German, and remarkable only for its 
 wine biscuits, and its having been the place where 
 (till the late revolution) the Austrian emperors 
 were crowned kings of Hungary. There is an 
 artificial mound, called the Konigsberg, near the 
 banks of the river, whither every new king of 
 Hungary repaired on horseback after his coronation,
 
 THE HOTEL. 175 
 
 and made the sign of the cross in the air with the 
 sword of St. Stephen, which he waved towards the 
 four points of the compass. The Hungarian Diet 
 used also to hold its sittings here. On a command- 
 ing eminence over the town, from which there is 
 an extensive view as far as the eye can reach over 
 the lesser Hungarian plain, stands the shell of 
 a large palace with a tower at each corner; 
 it was destroyed by fire, in 1811 (it is said), by the 
 soldiers of an Italian regiment, who were quartered 
 there, to avoid the labour of carrying wood and 
 water up the hill. 
 
 The hotel at which we put up was a huge 
 edifice ; in former times, I dare say, crowded, 
 during the sittings of the Diet, with the Hungarian 
 nobles, in their gay costume, but now deserted and 
 forlorn. On the walls of each landing were 
 painted directions for the visitor, as to the number 
 of times he should ring the bell for any particular 
 object, — viz., 
 
 1 for the Chambermaid. 
 
 2 — Waiter. 
 
 3 — Messenger. 
 
 4 — Porter. 
 
 5 — Water for bath. 
 
 6 — Stove to be lighted, &c. &c.
 
 176 A PENNY-A-LINER. 
 
 This appears at first sight rather intricate, but 
 the practice is very simple : you have only to take 
 the bell rope in your hand, and pull any given 
 number of times, and you may be quite sure that 
 no one will come at all. 
 
 A Presburg paper, which we saw a day or two 
 after this, gave an account of our departure from 
 Vienna, which is worth repeating, as it may give 
 an idea of the wild way in which the Austrian 
 penny-a-liners get up their news. There were, 
 while we were staying at the K. von CEsterreich, at 
 Vienna, three other Englishmen at the same hotel; 
 we did not see them, but only saw their names, 
 
 Messrs. C , T , and L , in the 
 
 stranger's book; one of these gentlemen (Mr. 
 
 C ) rejoiced in the same name as our Bow. 
 
 I hope they will excuse my giving their names the 
 following airing, but I do not think their best 
 friends would discover them under the designations 
 that the Presburg Zeitung gave them on this 
 occasion. 
 
 ' The three young English landed proprietors, 
 
 and dilettante sailors, Messrs. M , Comprest, 
 
 and T , took their departure in their light 
 
 boat this morning ; the brother of Mr. Comprest, 
 Messrs. Tremutt and Lascallar, have, together
 
 A BOLD RIVAL. 177 
 
 with them, also at the same started for Pesth, 
 where the boat will be sold, and then the whole 
 company will return to Vienna together, to see 
 the objects of interest there. Countless numbers 
 of spectators were present to gaze at the mahogany 
 boat with its skilful and courageous crew, and 
 some of them posted themselves on a barge which 
 was anchored near, when the covering broke 
 through with the weight, but fortunately no one 
 was injured. Many hundred persons went down 
 to the river in the afternoon to see the boat, but 
 could not gratify their curiosity/ 
 
 We also saw, in another paper, an article too 
 long to give word for word, but which amused us 
 much, and of which I will give a brief abstract : — 
 
 'The English are naturally so proud, and 
 think that feats performed by them cannot be 
 equalled by those of other countries, that we 
 think the undertaking of our townsman, Herr 
 Antal, should not be passed over in silence. He 
 has engaged a vessel manned by two sailors, in 
 which he is going from Presburg to the mouth of 
 the Gran,* and from thence up that river to its 
 
 * A river ailing into the Danube opposite to a town of the 
 same name, about eighty miles below Presburg. 
 
 N
 
 178 NATIVE INTREPIDITY. 
 
 source. When one considers the dangers to which 
 he will be exposed, from frightful storms, attacks 
 from herds of oxen, the difficulty of procuring 
 food in that wild district, &c. &c, one cannot 
 but wonder at his courage, which is by no means 
 inferior to the boldest undertakings of the English.' 
 
 A Vienna paper observed on this: — 'The three 
 bold Britons have found a mighty rival at Pres- 
 burg (Mr. Antal's route is then described as above). 
 We confess, to our shame, that we are not ac- 
 quainted with this, perhaps beautiful, part of our 
 Fatherland ; if, however, we can give belief to the 
 dangers there to be incurred by Mr. A., as 
 pictured in the Presburger Zeitung, then an ex- 
 pedition up the Mississippi or Amazon is, as com- 
 pared with his, a mere trip to Greifenstein' (a 
 castle on the banks of the Danube, about ten 
 miles from Vienna. — (p. 148.) 
 
 Immediately below Presburg commences the 
 most extensive archipelago of islands in the whole 
 course of the Danube ; two of which are of very 
 considerable size, and are called the greater and 
 lesser island Schutt ; the former is forty-six miles 
 long and twenty broad, and is one of the most 
 fertile districts in Hungary, and thickly inhabited. 
 We anticipated some difficulty in finding our way
 
 THE ISLANDS. 179 
 
 through them, as the people at Presburg had told 
 us that it was impossible that we could mistake it, 
 — at all the other similar places, where we had 
 been told it was impossible to go without a guide, 
 we had never had the slightest difficulty. Accord- 
 ing to the maps, there ought to have been some 
 one principal channel, but we never found it out ; 
 even to the steamers, the course appears to be 
 most intricate ; one passed us taking one side of 
 an island while we took the other, and when we 
 had got to the other end we were ahead of it 
 again, though she went half as quick again as we 
 did. We grounded several times, and had to 
 jump out. We continually saw groups of the 
 wild-looking natives, with their long ringlets, 
 glittering eyes, and enormous hats, engaged with 
 their cradles and ladles, in washing the sands of the 
 Danube for gold. This is generally the business 
 of the gipsies (Zigeuners), who furnish the govern- 
 ment with a certain quantity at a very low price, 
 as a kind of tribute : they obtain about the value 
 of nine shillings out of ten cubic feet of sand. I 
 fancy that it will be some time before our gold 
 currency is much depreciated by their exer- 
 tions. Long fleets of floating water mills con- 
 tinually stretched across the stream, and along the 
 N 2
 
 180 GONYO. 
 
 banks; in the course of the day we must have 
 seen many hundreds. We kept on our course, 
 now down a rapid, now grinding on a bank, now 
 wading in the water, now dodging about a number 
 of little islands about an acre in extent, now sail- 
 ing with a plaid stretched out instead of a sail, 
 now steering across a lake-like expanse of water, 
 without having the most distant idea which side 
 we were of the great or the little island Schiitt, 
 till we ultimately turned up at Gonyo, a town of 
 some size, on the right bank of the river, and 
 where the principal steamer traffic of the lower 
 Danube commences. The river is here only divided 
 into two branches by the greater island, at the 
 extreme eastern end of which stands Comorn. 
 Inland from Gonyo, on a lofty eminence, stands 
 the splendid Benedictine Abbey of Martinsberg j 
 it is the richest and finest establishment of the 
 kind in Hungary. A few miles above Gonyo, the 
 river Raab falls into the Danube, and there the 
 lesser island Schiitt ends. 
 
 Immediately below Gonyo the river spreads out 
 to a noble breadth, and for a considerable dis- 
 tance runs nearly straight. Just as we were 
 entering this reach, a tug steamer passed us, and 
 we were saluted, by the voice (I suppose) of the
 
 HALF A GALE. 181 
 
 engineer, with the words 'Well pulled, gentlemen.' 
 The wind all day had been very high, and at 
 some periods of our voyage we had been among 
 waves of such a height, as, had we not gradually 
 become accustomed to them, would certainly have 
 alarmed us not a little. Just as we were in the 
 centre of the broadest part of the river, the wind 
 begun to rise to almost a gale, and the water was 
 soon lashed up into white crested waves, some 
 four feet in height. Fortunately the wind was 
 directly behind us, or certainly we should have 
 been in rather unpleasant circumstances; as it 
 was, we found that our gallant little craft cut 
 through and rode over the menacing waves (which 
 actually seemed to rise up, look into our nutshell, 
 and then to shrink back as if ashamed), without 
 staggering, or shipping a single sea. Presently, 
 however, we came to a bend of the river, and 
 found that it was impossible to change our course, 
 for if we had attempted to ride through the waves 
 in any other way than directly at right angles, we 
 should have been caught in the trough, and rolled 
 over immediately; so we followed the direction 
 of the wind, and went straight in for shore. 
 When we were about twenty feet off, we sprung 
 out, lifted the boat lightly on to, and then dragged
 
 182 THE GALE CONTINUES. 
 
 her up, the beach, and then sat down and looked 
 at the great waves as they came rolling in long 
 lines on to the shingle, with a sullen roar like the 
 sea. Seeing that there were no signs of any 
 abatement of the wind, we thought that we would 
 make an expedition into the interior, and see if we 
 could get a native to tell us our latitude and lon- 
 gitude. So we climbed up the steep bank which 
 rose from the sloping beach, and found ourselves 
 aoout a hundred yards from a road, on which a 
 peaceable traveller was pursuing his quiet way. He 
 was awfully alarmed, poor fellow, at the sight of the 
 three forms running towards him, clothed in large 
 white wide awakes, flannel shirts and trousers, 
 barefoot, without the vestige of a coat, and who 
 seemed to have been blown out of the bed of the 
 Danube ; and it was with inexpressible relief that 
 he wished us good evening, after having told us 
 that we were eight miles from Gonyo, and as 
 many from Comorn, and found himself allowed to 
 continue his journey with uninjured skin or purse. 
 About seven o'clock the wind appeared to have 
 abated a little ; so, as it was just sun set, and we 
 didn't much want to sleep on the beach, we thought 
 that we would attempt a start. It was rather 
 ticklish work, I confess. We launched our boat,
 
 *6" 
 
 %

 
 COMORN. 183 
 
 arid then waded out with her, keeping the bows 
 well up against the wind. When we had got her 
 out as far as we could, Coxswain jumped in, and 
 kept the rudder in the right direction ; then Bow, 
 who at once got his oar out and pulled as hard as 
 possible to keep her head up ; and lastly, Smith, 
 and then we pulled back in the wind's eye, till 
 we got under the lee of the opposite bank; we 
 then turned round and went speedily on to 
 Comorn, where we arrived at eight o'clock, just as 
 it was getting dark. 
 
 Comorn is said to be one of the strongest for- 
 tresses in Europe; at any rate, it has never yet 
 been taken ; it is situated at the extreme eastern 
 end of the greater island Schutt, and is connected 
 by bridges with the main land. The Waag falls 
 into the Danube, on the left side, just above 
 Comorn, and that branch of the river is generally 
 called the Waagdonau. It is strongly fortified, as 
 is the right bank of the Danube, with a tete du 
 pont. In the inner fortress there is the figure of 
 a Virgin placed on one of the walls, with the 
 inscription ' Kom morn' (come to-morrow), sup- 
 posed to be addressed to an enemy. 
 
 There is nothing very astonishing to the eye of 
 a civilian in the fortifications here. Comorn is
 
 184 HUNGARIAN 
 
 situated on a dead flat; I have no doubt there 
 were plenty of ravelins, curtains, counterscarps, and 
 bastions, &c, about which I know nothing, and will 
 therefore hold my tongue : indeed, the only idea 
 of strength that Comorn conveyed to our minds 
 was through the medium of our sense of smell. 
 
 Comorn suffered very much from fire during 
 the siege by the Austrians in 1848 ; it was, how- 
 ever, not set on fire by the besiegers, but by the 
 Hungarians, who set fire to some houses that 
 hampered them in their defence, and were then 
 unable to check the spreading of the flames. We 
 here first perceived that we were among a different 
 people ; it was a market day, and the open space 
 between the town and the river was crowded with 
 Hungarians and Slovacks ; the former with 
 hats, hair, and trousers, as above-mentioned, 
 and the Slovacks with their ample blanket 
 cloaks. Great stacks of water and sweet melons* 
 
 * These water-melons are about one foot and a half in diameter, 
 shaped like an orange, and of a bright green colour. When cut 
 through, they have no hollow, with seeds in it, in the centre, as 
 ours have, but are full of a pink spongy substance, in which the 
 seeds are stuck at intervals, like the plums in a pudding ; they 
 are watery and insipid ; what taste they have is like a bad 
 cucumber. The sweet melons are very good. These water-melons 
 are said to be not uncommonly sixty pounds in weight ; and there 
 are gourds that weigh nearly two hundred pounds ; but we did 
 not see any such monsters.
 
 DRIVING. 185 
 
 are to be seen on every side, and groups 
 of fine white oxen with enormously long horns, or 
 of black hideous looking buffaloes with flat and 
 rugged ones lying back along their scraggy necks. 
 Presently a Hungarian peasant comes driving 
 up from the bridge, his hair flying about his 
 shoulders, yelling cracking his whip, and urging on 
 his active little nags, on one of which he sits, 
 while from his back he drives the other three, into 
 a sharp gallop, which they will keep up for some 
 fifty miles, with but little rest. If you hire a 
 vehicle in Hungary, or travel by the ' peasant's 
 post/ you no longer have to implore the coachman 
 to go a little faster, as in Germany, but cling to 
 the sides of your vehicle with clenched teeth, 
 while your Jehu dashes at full gallop through the 
 sand, and over the blocks of stone that lie about 
 the (usually) abominable roads. 
 
 We entered into rather a lengthy discourse 
 with a Maygar here (the first with whom we had 
 spoken) ; he was indeed an 'ill bird/ for he 
 reviled his own race in the most unsparing terms. 
 He said the Slovacks, the Croats, and the Austrians, 
 were all superior to them; that they had brought 
 their misfortune on themselves, and that it served 
 them right. 
 
 Smith had a Hungarian friend, whose acquaint-
 
 186 THE FORTRESS. 
 
 ance he had made in London, and whom he had af- 
 terwards met in the Highlands of Scotland, who, he 
 had heard, was imprisoned for sixteen years in 
 some fortress in Hungary, having been implicated 
 in the late revolution; thinking it just possible 
 that he might be here, and that we might catch a 
 glimpse of him, we determined to stroll into the 
 citadel about the time that the prisoners were, we 
 were told, allowed to walk out to take the air. 
 Accordingly, in we marched, over the drawbridge. 
 As we walked through the first archway, a sen- 
 tinel stepped forward, and was just going to speak, 
 when one of us electro-biologised him, and we 
 were round the corner before he could get his 
 mouth open; the next sentinel and the next, 
 seemed rather surprised to see such queer-looking 
 fishes as we must have seemed to them, swimming 
 about in the inner citadel ; but as we were there, 
 thought that it must of course be all right. 
 Having walked as far as we could, we began to 
 consider how we could find out where the prisoners 
 were; when all of a sudden we were pounced 
 upon by the general officer in command, a soldier- 
 like looking gentlemanly man, with a chest full of 
 orders. He asked if we had especial permission 
 to visit the fortress; we said no, and he then told
 
 THE COMMANDANT. 187 
 
 us to clear out at once. Just as we were retiring 
 with our tails between our legs, he called after us, 
 and asked us to show our passports. On looking 
 at Smith's (which, as before-mentioned, was 
 specially vised), he said : e Why, are you the same 
 Englishmen of whom we have heard so much?' 
 We looked very innocent, and said we did not 
 know. When he found out who we were, he was 
 very civil indeed, and told us that he was sorry 
 that he could not take us over the fortress, but 
 that his orders were strict to allow no foreigners, 
 without a written permission, to enter therein. He 
 turned out to be a very pleasant and agreeable 
 companion, and asked us to show him the wonder- 
 ful boat, and came down to see us start, and we 
 parted most affectionately. Indeed, I believe, if 
 it had not been for Smith's beard, he would have 
 kissed him. 
 
 Just before we started, Coxswain was sponging 
 out some water that was in the bottom of the boat, 
 when he dropped the sponge overboard, and it 
 immediately sank. A boy on the bank, seeing 
 this, stripped to the skin, dived in, and brought it 
 out for us, totally indifferent to the presence of 
 the many spectators who were assembled to wit- 
 ness our departure.
 
 188 GRAN. 
 
 After leaving Comorn, a chain of low hills 
 approaches the right bank ; we pulled on without 
 seeing or doing anything very wonderful till we 
 got to Gran. 
 
 Gran is a large straggling town, consisting of 
 houses, for the most part, of only one story; it is 
 the residence of the Primate of Hungary, and is 
 said to be the richest see in Europe, its revenues 
 amounting to £100,000 per annum. The cathe- 
 dral, the most splendid modern edifice in Hun- 
 gary, is built in the Italian style, in the form of a 
 cross, faced with a handsome portico of thirty-eight 
 pillars, and surmounted by a dome eighty-two feet 
 in diameter. It occupies a very commanding po- 
 sition, on a precipitous rock, overhanging the 
 river. The interior is not yet finished, being 
 filled with the scaffolding for the artists employed 
 on the frescoes, -with which the walls will be 
 covered. It was commenced by the late Primate 
 Rudnay, in 1821, at his own expense, and he con- 
 tracted enormous debts in carrying out his mag- 
 nificent plans. There is a bridge of boats across 
 the river, which we had no difficulty in passing 
 under, as there was an arch on the right side, made 
 sufficiently large to allow the passage of barges. 
 
 A gentleman came up to Coxswain, as we were
 
 THE MAGYAR BARGE. 189 
 
 starting, and addressed him ; Coxswain not under- 
 standing what he said, and thinking that he was 
 speaking German, replied: f Wie meinen Sie?' 
 when the sentence was again repeated. Coxswain 
 being still ignorant of what he said, and supposing 
 that he was speaking Hungarian, said that he 
 did not understand that language ; when the poor 
 man retreated, amid the laughter of his friends ; 
 and it turned out that he had been speaking what 
 he meant to be English. 
 
 Immediately below Gran, the mountains again 
 close in upon the river, and the Vienna and Pesth 
 Railway runs not far from its banks from this 
 point to the latter town. The scenery is very 
 fine indeed, the hills on each side having more 
 the appearance of mountains than any we had 
 hitherto seen on the banks of the Danube. 
 Before we had gone very far, we saw that a tre- 
 mendous thunderstorm was coming up, and seeing 
 a barge coming down the stream, we pulled up to 
 it, tied our boat to the stern, and just got into the 
 little house (that is generally built upon the deck 
 of these vessels) as the lightning flashed out, and 
 the rain descended in torrents. The crew of the 
 barge were not a little surprised at our appearance 
 as we clambered up the side of their dwelling.
 
 190 THE MAGYAR BARGE. 
 
 They consisted of an old woman of about eighty, 
 a middle-aged and a young man. It was a curious 
 group; we had not a word of any language in 
 common ; so we sat down on barrels, and divided 
 our bread, peaches, grapes, and hard-boiled eggs, 
 with our hosts. The scene was very striking. 
 Through one end of the hut we could see a space 
 of dark purple thunder-cloud, occasionally lighted 
 up by a blinding streak of forked lightning, and 
 two horses that were on board, tossing their heads, 
 and shaking with fear; while through the other 
 could be seen the wiry form of the Magyar lad 
 at the helm, with his enormous trousers strained 
 tight to his legs, and his long locks streaming in 
 the wind. The storm soon passed over, and we 
 bade adieu to our new-made acquaintances, and 
 betook ourselves again to our own vessel. We were 
 now in the finest part of the defile ; and the towers 
 of Vissiegrad, situated on the top of a precipitous 
 hill, had a most imposing effect : it is connected by a 
 battlemented wall, with a tower, six stories high, on 
 the water-side. Vissiegrad was formerly the favourite 
 dwelling of the kings of Hungary, and attained 
 its highest splendour in the reign of Matthias 
 Corvinus, who spent enormous sums in embellish- 
 ing it, and converting the barren hills around into

 
 V1SSIEGRAD. 191 
 
 gardens. The Papal Legate, who visited him, de- 
 scribed it as an earthly paradise. It is no paradise 
 now, however, and only the Magyar goatherd, or 
 some inquisitive strangers, disturb its roofless 
 solitudes. 
 
 Not far below Vissiegrad, the river is divided 
 into two branches, by the Island of St. Andra, about 
 fourteen miles in length, and it also here turns sharp 
 round to the south, in which direction it runs for 
 about three hundred miles. We were told that we 
 must take the left branch, because the steamers did 
 — so of course we took the right, and thereby saved 
 a considerable distance. The hills continue on the 
 right bank of the river as far as Pesth, but on the 
 left they recede at Waitzen, a town situated at the 
 angle where the river takes the sudden bend to 
 the south above mentioned. There is a very 
 splendid modern cathedral in this town ; and here 
 Gorgei obtained a victory over the Austrians; 
 during which engagement, when some of his own 
 troops retreated under shelter of a bank from the 
 enemy's fire, he turned his own guns on them, 
 and forced them again into action. 
 
 Below the Island of St. Andra, a magnificent 
 reach of the Danube, more than half a mile in 
 breadth, leads straight to Pesth ; we passed down it
 
 192 PESTH. 
 
 just at sunset, and it was one of the most delight- 
 ful pulls we had. There were several small islands, 
 covered with fine timber-trees, and as we passed 
 along, large flocks of wild geese rose into the air, 
 wheeled about for a short time, and then settled 
 down again. Several steamers passing up and 
 down, and long lines of water-mills and barges, 
 proclaimed our near approach to Pesth; and we 
 shot under the magnificent suspension-bridge, and 
 finally pulled up at the mouth of a sewer, just 
 opposite the vast and excellent hotel, the Konigin 
 von England, at seven p. m., on Friday, the 3rd of 
 September. 
 
 The entire distance that we pulled from Kit- 
 zingen to Pesth, was about seven hundred miles ; 
 we were twenty-five days on the water, so that we 
 rowed, on the average, about twenty-eight miles 
 a day.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 PESTH. 
 
 Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 "T)ESTH is situated on the plain on the left of the 
 Danube, and Ofen among the hills which 
 border the right bank. From the top of the 
 Blocksberg the best view is to be obtained ; it is a 
 lofty hill, precipitous towards the Danube, on 
 the summit of which there is an observatory, and 
 a strong fortress is now being built there. The 
 Blocksberg is almost the last of the range of hills 
 which cross the Danube at Vissiegrad, and con- 
 tinue on the right bank of the river to this point : 
 as far as the eye can reach, to the east and south, 
 stretches the great Hungarian plain. The po- 
 sition and appearance of Pesth and Ofen is com- 
 pared in Murray to that of Edinburgh, to which 
 it certainly has some resemblance, though it re- 
 

 
 194 THE CROWN OF 
 
 quires a considerable amount of mental engineer- 
 ing to imagine it, and, after all, it is vastly inferior 
 to the Modern Athens. If the reader can fancy 
 himself standing on Arthur's Seat, and the Danube 
 pouring down Princes Street and the railway, 
 (having swept away the Calton Hill,) and then 
 round the base of Arthur's Seat to the east, and 
 the new town to be built on a vast uninterrupted 
 plain, he will have a tolerable idea of the position 
 of Pesth and Ofen. On a rock rising out of the 
 middle of Ofen (like the Castle at Edinburgh) 
 stands the fortress, from which Henzi bombarded 
 Pesth in 1849 ; it was, however, stormed by the 
 Hungarians, and he was killed in the assault. On it 
 stands the palace of the Palatine; in the chapel 
 attached to which the famous crown, and the regalia 
 of St. Stephen, to which such peculiar veneration 
 is paid by the Hungarians, were formerly kept. 
 " Sacra regni corona cum clinodiis suis," it was 
 called; and no emperor was considered king of 
 Hungary, till he had actually had this very crown 
 placed on his head, and till then he was never 
 called ' His Most Sacred Majesty;' so that the 
 king did die in Hungary. This crown was regarded 
 almost as a saint ; it was kept, with the sword 
 and mantle of St. Stephen, in a room by itself;
 
 ST. STEPHEN. 195 
 
 they were watched by a body guard of Hungarian 
 soldiers, called the crown watch, two of whom 
 never left the iron doors, the keys of which were 
 kept by the Primate, the Palatine, and the two 
 guardians of the crown (who were two nobles of 
 the highest rank and influence). The crown was 
 kept in an iron chest, sealed with the five seals of 
 the King, the Primate, the Palatine, and its two 
 guardians. When wanted for a coronation, it 
 was packed up in the presence of the guardians, 
 and sent to Presburg under the care of its guard. 
 At the coronation it was placed on the king's head, 
 but only on the right shoulder of the queen. The 
 circlet of the crown was given by the Byzantine 
 Emperor Ducas to the Hungarian King Geysa I. 
 in 1076. The upper portion, and the arched ribs 
 of gold, which were parts of a crown supposed to 
 have been made by angels, were given by Pope 
 Sylvester to St. Stephen in 1000. On the one 
 half there is a Byzantine, and on the other a 
 Latin inscription. No crown in Europe has seen 
 so many changes as this. It was once mortgaged 
 to a German emperor; afterwards for some time 
 kept in the castle of a noble in Transylvania; 
 then it fell into the hands of a band of rob- 
 bers; then it was taken by force into Bohemia. 
 
 o 2
 
 196 HOTELS. 
 
 Joseph II. removed it, to the great indignation of 
 the Hungarians, to Vienna ; and when, during the 
 reign of Leopold II., it was brought back to Ofen, 
 its progress was like a triumph. It disappeared 
 during the late revolution, and whether it is in 
 the hands of the Hungarians or Austrians, is 
 known, probably, to some few individuals alone. 
 
 The long line of handsome houses which forms 
 the river front of Pesth, and extends for nearly 
 two miles along the left bank of the Danube, has 
 a very fine effect ; they retain but little trace of 
 the severe bombardment that the town underwent 
 in the late war. The finest of these houses are 
 hotels, and they are perhaps the best as well as 
 largest in Europe; they generally inclose a spacious 
 court-yard, with two entrances into which carriages 
 can drive. On the ground floor is a cafe with 
 billiard rooms, while above is the saloon for those 
 staying in the hotels ; the dining hour is generally 
 from three till five, and there are no table-d'hotes. 
 There is a very excellent and interesting museum 
 in Pesth, well worth seeing both within and with- 
 out. During the revolution, the Diet held its 
 meetings here. The historical part is particularly 
 interesting — especially to any one who has the good 
 fortune, as we had, to go over it with some genuine 
 Magyars, who told us of the feats of their
 
 SUSPENSION BRIDGE. 197 
 
 ancestors, and pointed out the swords and armour 
 of Rakotzy, Bathory, Palfy, &c, with heartfelt 
 eloquence and flashing eyes. 
 
 On the plain of Rakos, to the west of Pesth, 
 where the great national assembly of the Magyars 
 was anciently held, and where now the horse races 
 take place, we saw long lines of white tents form- 
 ing the encampment of the Austrian army, which, 
 to the number of some 50,000, were to be reviewed 
 here in the course of the month. 
 
 The magnificent suspension bridge which con- 
 nects Pesth with Ofen is twelve hundred and 
 twenty-seven feet in length, and, as is well- 
 known, was the work of an English architect, 
 the late Mr. Tierney Clerk, who also built 
 Hammersmith Bridge. It was commenced in 
 1840, and finished in 1848 ; and the first time it 
 was opened was for the retreat of the Hungarian 
 army. The Austrians afterwards endeavoured to 
 blow it up, but providentially failed ; and the 
 engineer officer who directed the attempt was him- 
 self destroyed by the explosion. In the time of 
 the old boat bridge, only the shabbily-dressed 
 had to pay toll — as in Hungary the nobles 
 used to be free from all taxes whatever ; but when 
 this bridge was built, it was determined that for the 
 future all should pay alike. It is said, that some
 
 198 TURKISH BATHS. 
 
 of the high Tories decline, on principle, to cross the 
 new bridge under these circumstances. 
 
 There are but very few Hungarians in Ofen, 
 which is, for the most part, a German settlement. 
 In Alt Ofen, a suburb about one mile and a half 
 above Ofen, the inhabitants are principally Jews. 
 The steep sides of the Blocksberg are covered with 
 the squalid houses of the Raitzen, or Servians, a 
 despised race ; of whom the Hungarians say, that 
 they are such blackguards that one Servian is as 
 bad as four Jews and five Gipsies. 
 
 At the foot of the Blocksberg, and along the 
 side of the Danube, up to Alt Ofen, are several 
 hot sulphureous springs, which were used in the 
 time of the Romans ; and the baths, which still 
 exist, and are in constant use, were built by the 
 Turks : they are most extraordinary institutions. 
 On entering one, you are at first almost suffocated 
 with the heat and fumes of sulphur; when your 
 eyes are accustomed to the subdued light, you per- 
 ceive that you are in a lofty stone hall, supported 
 by large round pillars, with a steaming tank in the 
 middle, and dimly lighted by small apertures in 
 the roof. Splashing in the water, or stretched out 
 on the marble floor, may be discerned the naked 
 forms of men, women, and children, who remain
 
 AUSBKUCH. 199 
 
 sometimes for the whole day in a kind of torpid 
 enjoyment of the heat and steam. There are 
 similar private baths attached. 
 
 There is still a memento of the Turkish rule 
 here, in the shape of a small octagonal mosque, 
 erected to the memory of the Sheikh Gul Baba, 
 who died here some two centuries ago ; and some 
 poor dervish even now occasionally toils hither on 
 foot from Turkey or Syria, and occasionally even 
 from the confines of Persia, to offer up a prayer at 
 the neglected shrine. 
 
 The wines of Hungary are much superior to 
 those of Austria. A peculiar sort is made, called 
 'Ausbruch;' the best are the well known Tokay 
 Menescher, Ruster, and Oflner ; the method of 
 preparing it is peculiar, and not generally 
 known. The best grapes are allowed to hang on 
 the trees till they are almost dry like raisins ; 
 they are then gathered, and some good wine 
 is poured on them, and after being pressed, 
 the juice is allowed to ferment ; this is the first 
 Ausbruch: the grapes are sometimes subjected to a 
 second and a third similar process, the produce of 
 which is of course inferior. In indifferent years, 
 when there are not sufficient good grapes in a 
 vineyard to make it worth while to the proprietor
 
 200 COUNT SZECHENYI. 
 
 to make Ausbruch himself, he reserves them for 
 some other wine manufacturer, who has given out 
 that he intends to make it. On these occasions, 
 the price of a cask of the dry grapes has been 
 known to fetch as much as £15. The meaning of 
 the word ' Ausbruch' is perhaps derived from the 
 fact that the grapes from which this wine is made 
 are ' picked out' from the others. 
 
 The great Hungarian patriot Count Szechenyi, 
 to whom the Magyars are so much indebted for 
 his indefatigable exertions in the cause of progress ; 
 who founded the casino, instituted the steam navi- 
 gation company, was the originator of the suspen- 
 sion bridge, set on foot the national theatre, and 
 by his admirable writings continually urged on 
 his countrymen to works of utility, or bitterly re- 
 buked them for their faults, is now, alas ! overtaken 
 by madness. In the year 1848, Avhether in despair 
 at the prospects of his country, or from some other 
 cause, he attempted to commit suicide, and has 
 ever since been hopelessly insane. 
 
 We were admitted as honorary members to the 
 Magnate's Casino, an establishment exactly on the 
 same footing as a London club. Nothing could 
 exceed the kindness with which we were received 
 by our warm-hearted and spirited entertainers.
 
 THE HUNGARIAN NOBLES. 201 
 
 Most travellers would no doubt think they had 
 seen enough of Pesth after two or three days ; but 
 we had brought letters of introduction, and we 
 found ourselves at once among friends, who would 
 have made our time pass quickly and pleasantly 
 had we been able to remain in Hungary for a 
 year. Most of our kind friends had in some way 
 or other suffered by the late revolution; some had 
 lost half their estates, others had been imprisoned, 
 condemned to death, and pardoned, made to serve 
 as privates in the Austrian service, &c. &c. ; but 
 their misfortunes have not made them less hos- 
 pitable to strangers. Unlike other continental 
 nations, they seem to have a decided partiality for 
 the English. Most of our friends' horses and 
 grooms came from England,* and their style of 
 dress is exactly that of Bond-street, quite different 
 from the prevailing fashions in Germany and 
 France : one of them told us that everything he 
 had on, from his hat to his shoes, was made in 
 
 * Their grooms, if not all English, were at any rate turned 
 out in the most correct style ; not such servile imitations as I 
 have heard of in Paris, where a French gentleman of fashion, 
 
 having seen a groom of Lord C 's, who had a slight hump on 
 
 his shoulder, padded out that of his own tiger to correspond, 
 because he thought that it was la mode en Angleterre.
 
 202 LANGUAGES SPOKEN 
 
 London, where he had his tailor, shoemaker, 
 saddler, &c. Indeed, as we were sitting in the 
 club, we could not help remarking that Smith was 
 the only individual there who did not present the 
 appearance of an Englishman. They planned 
 something for our amusement every day, and one 
 gentleman had arranged that we should visit him 
 at his country house; but, unfortunately, circum- 
 stances occurred which prevented us carrying that 
 plan into execution. The Hungarian nobles are 
 certainly the most extraordinary linguists it has 
 ever been my lot to meet ; they could all speak 
 Hungarian, Latin, German, and French; most of 
 them in addition to these Italian, English, and 
 some other dialect of the country, such as Wal- 
 lachian, Slovack, or Servian. 
 
 Hungary is indeed a paradise for philologists. 
 The German language prevails in certain districts 
 of the west and south, and in parts of Transyl- 
 vania, and is much spoken throughout the country, 
 being often used by the shopkeepers and townsmen 
 where the lower orders are Magyars or Slavonians. 
 The true Hungarian, or Magyar, is spoken in the 
 greater part of the plain in the centre of the king- 
 dom, and the "Wallachian in the east. Languages 
 of the Slavonic family are spoken in the north and
 
 IN HUNGARY. 203 
 
 south, extending into Russia on the one hand, and 
 Turkey on the other; of these the principal are 
 the Slovack, in the north-west, an uncultivated 
 dialect of Bohemian; Rusniack (the language of 
 South Russia) in the north-east ; Croatian in the 
 south-west ; and Servian in the south-east. When 
 we add to this that isolated colonies of Bulgarians, 
 Albanians, French, and Italians still maintain their 
 original languages ; that the boundaries of the 
 different tongues are rarely if ever sharply marked ; 
 that the common language formerly used in the 
 Diet,* and therefore familiar to all the educated 
 
 * Kohl, in his hundred days of travel in the Austrian dominions, 
 gives an amusing Latin conversation which he heard in a billiard 
 room, which I have given below, with the English, for the benefit 
 of the unlearned. 
 
 'Ibi incipiamus.' 
 
 ' Dignetur prsecedere. ' 
 
 ' Now let us begin.' 
 ' Have the goodness to play 
 first.' 
 ' Dolendum est ! si cseruleus ' What a pity ; if the blue 
 
 hue venisset.' J ball had only come here.' 
 
 ' Fallit ! fallit !' 'A miss ! a miss ! ' 
 
 ' Nunc flavus recte ad ma- ' Now I have the yellow all 
 
 num mihi est.' j right.' 
 
 ' Bene ! bene ! nunc Hanni- j ' Well played ! Well played ! 
 bal ad portam.' now there's the devil to pay.' 
 
 ' Fallit iterum ! si homo ! ' Another miss ! O if man 
 nunquam falleretur, esset in- ! never was to fail he would be 
 vincibilis.' invincible.' 
 
 ' Reverende pater ! Nunc j ' My game is [a difficult one.
 
 204 THE HUNGARIAN 
 
 men, is Latin; that the gentry in the Slavonian 
 and Wallachian districts are frequently Magyars ; 
 and that Jews, Gipsies, Greeks, and Armenians 
 (especially the two former) are to be met with in 
 considerable numbers in most of the towns, some 
 idea may be formed of the linguistic confusion that 
 prevails. Even the passing traveller can soon dis- 
 tinguish the guttural German from the nasal French 
 sounding Slovack, or the rattling polysyUabic 
 Magyar. 
 
 Although the Liberal party in England have 
 taken up the Hungarian cause with such great 
 zeal, the revolution certainly appears to me to 
 have been in its essence entirely an aristocratic 
 movement. I do not profess to be acquainted 
 with the intricacy of Austrian and Hungarian 
 politics; indeed, till I came into the country, I 
 
 tota positio difficilis est. Nil I see nothing but a cannon off 
 
 video, nisi cseruleum et rubrum the blue and red. 
 percutere velles.' 
 
 ' Ah ! ah ! subtiliter volui, ' Ah ! Ah ! my design was 
 
 et nil habeo.' crafty,' but I have got nothing 
 
 I b y »*• 
 
 ' Bene ! bene ! nunc si adhuc ' Good ! good ! now, if you 
 
 ilium feceris.' can only manage this.' 
 
 ' Fecisti ! finis ludi.' ' You have done it, the game 
 
 is over.'
 
 REVOLUTION. 205 
 
 •was totally ignorant about the cause or effects of 
 the late unfortunate disturbances ; and I dare say 
 that many of my readers will think that I have 
 returned to England knowing less about it than 
 before. But my impressions are at any rate un- 
 prejudiced, for our kind friends at Pesth, from 
 whom I principally derived my ideas on the subject, 
 would not, I think, entirely coincide with the 
 conclusions I drew from them. I will briefly jot 
 down in a few lines what I understand to have 
 been the cause of the events which led to that 
 unhappy war, and the effect that it has had on its 
 people. 
 
 The Hungarian Diet, in 1848, persuaded the 
 Emperor Ferdinand to consent to a new constitu- 
 tion, which made them much more independent 
 than before ; some of the clauses in which, com- 
 bined with the old feuds between the two nations, 
 irritated the Croats to such a degree, that they 
 made war on the Hungarians, and were joined by 
 many of the "VVallachians and Servians. The 
 Hungarians were countenanced in the quarrel by 
 the Austrian Government, whose decrees they were 
 in fact supporting, and the Ban Jellachich was 
 declared a rebel. Afterwards, the advisers of the 
 Emperor represented to him that he had impru-
 
 206 THE HUNGARIAN 
 
 dently yielded to the pressing claims of the Hun- 
 garians, and that he should withdraw his support 
 from them, and assist the Croats. The kind- 
 hearted Emperor long objected to this treachery, 
 hut at length yielded, and shortly after abdicated. 
 The Hungarians had now clearly law and justice 
 on their side, as they were fighting in defence of 
 their constitution, which had been ratified by their 
 king, and which could not be annulled without 
 their own consent. But Kossuth* rose, and by 
 his eloquence succeeded in persuading them to 
 throw off all allegiance to the Emperor, and appoint 
 a provisional government. The war was carried 
 on by the Hungarians with vigour and success, 
 till the appearance of the Russians compelled 
 Gorgeif to yield. The position of the nobles is 
 now vastly inferior to what it was before the revo- 
 lution ; they have lost all their privileges, are liable 
 
 * Kossuth was not spoken of by the Hungarian nobles that we 
 met at Pesth in very complimentary terms ; the}' would not allow 
 that he was a real patriot, but said that he was more actuated by 
 personal vanity : they dated the downfall of their cause from his 
 throwing off the allegiance to the emperor. 
 
 f Gorgei, on the contrary, they praised exceedingly, and said 
 that he had no choice but to surrender to the Russians, who were 
 quite fresh, while his army had neither money, ammunition, nor 
 clothes.
 
 REVOLUTION. 207 
 
 to taxation, narrowly watched, and if at all com- 
 promised in the late revolution not allowed to 
 travel, and have been deprived of half their pro- 
 perty, or at any rate have got only a nominal com- 
 pensation for it. But the inferior classes, on the other 
 hand, have received [what may be to them) consider- 
 able benefit ; being now in a far better position 
 than they were before the revolution, inasmuch as 
 they hold their land free from the feudal conditions 
 to which they were formerly subject, being con- 
 verted into freeholders. I said it may be beneficial 
 to them, because at present, we were told, being 
 relieved from the duty of cultivating their lord's 
 land, they, like the cottiers in Ireland, till only 
 just sufficient to keep themselves, and spend the 
 rest of their time in idleness ; while large tracts of 
 fertile soil are suffered to lie waste and uncultivated. 
 We visited the National Theatre, where we 
 appreciated the acting, which was very good, 
 though we did not understand a word of what was 
 said ; the applause of the Magyars was vociferous. 
 Szekely, the celebrated Hungarian pianist, who 
 was in London during the Great Exhibition, per- 
 formed on the piano. We also went to the 
 German Theatre, which was a very inferior affair, 
 and the performance was carried on in the open
 
 208 A PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 air. As it seemed likely to rain, the heroine came 
 on with an umbrella, which she put up when the 
 first drops began to fall. 
 
 We started off one morning, accompanied by 
 one of our friends, to a chapel about six miles 
 from Pesth, among the hills on the west side of 
 the Danube, where there was a large gathering of 
 pilgrims to the shrine of Maria Einsiedel. This 
 little building was situated by itself in the midst 
 of an open wood, which was full of booths, and 
 many groups of people dancing, playing at games, 
 and eating and drinking on the grass. There 
 were a number of crippled beggars, the most dis- 
 gustingly distorted objects it is possible to con- 
 ceive, who had been brought out here by their 
 friends, and laid under the trees to receive the 
 donations that were lavishly bestowed on them ; 
 indeed, I should think that such an unfortunate 
 creature must generally be a fortune in a Hunga- 
 rian peasant's family. It was a very amusing 
 scene, but there was a most enduring smell of 
 garlic, onions, and tobacco, which certainly do not 
 improve by being mixed. 
 
 But the chief attraction was the music of the 
 Zigeuners. These gipsies are the musicians of 
 Hungary ; they play on the violin, and an instru-
 
 ZIGEUNER MUSIC. 209 
 
 ment called f the cymbals' [Hungarice Tzimbalom), 
 not the brass dishes that we call by that name, but 
 a kind of flat harp, shaped like a triangular box, 
 with a number of wires running across it ; it is 
 played on with two little sticks tipped with leather. 
 This national music is very peculiar and inspirit- 
 ing, generally commencing with a slow-measured 
 air, then darting off into a wild quick measure, 
 and then again subsiding into a melancholy 
 cadence. We had often heard these Zigeuners in 
 the coffee houses at Pesth, when they would, if we 
 came in with any of the Magyar nobles, come and 
 stand round us, and play at us, and the excitement 
 that it produced among our friends showed how 
 deeply these national airs moved them ; after 
 some time they would spring eagerly from their 
 seats, and going in among the musicians, would 
 move about, stamping time to the measures, and 
 giving them handfuls of money. We asked them 
 why they did not dance, but they said that if they 
 did the police would not allow the Zigeuners to 
 play, and that they would then lose almost the 
 last pleasure that was left to them. The Rakotzy 
 March (the Hungarian Marseillaise) is forbidden 
 to be played at all. On this day, when we were 
 far away from the town, music was going on in 
 
 P
 
 210 DANCING. 
 
 every direction, and dancing too : the dance is 
 almost exactly similar to a Scotch reel, except 
 that each couple start independently, — the gentle- 
 man with his arm round his partner's waist, as 
 in a waltz, and occasionally emitting a yell as in 
 the Highlands. We stood looking on for some 
 time, but our Magyar friend could not stand that 
 long, and presently seizing a bright eyed lassie by 
 the waist, he plunged into the thickest of the 
 fight. 
 
 On our way back we stopped at a road-side inn 
 to dine; the place was crammed full of people, so 
 a table was laid out for us in the open air. Just as 
 we were going to sit down, a thunder storm came 
 on; it was impossible to get into the house, so 
 great was the crowd, so we held our chairs over 
 our heads, and when they were wet through, got 
 under the table, and so managed to keep tolerably 
 dry. 
 
 But I had almost forgotten our boat in talking 
 about Pesth and the Magyars; indeed, I fear that 
 I must have tired out the reader's patience; though, 
 for my own part, I confess I feel so much interest 
 in this brave and unfortunate nation, and am so 
 thankful for their kindness and hospitality to us, 
 that I have not been able to avoid this somewhat
 
 SALE OF THE BOAT. 211 
 
 lengthened digression. I earnestly hope I have 
 not seen them for the last time. Our boat, which 
 the Pesth newspapers told the public we had 
 carried up into our room, was all this time an 
 
 object of great interest, and Count K wished to 
 
 buy it for duck shooting. We told him that it 
 was quite useless for such a purpose, and offered 
 to take him up in her to the Margarethen-insel, 
 a little island in the Danube, about two miles above 
 Pesth, formerly the property of the Archduke 
 Stephen, and laid out as a pleasure ground; he 
 soon saw that she was about as much suited for a 
 man-of-war as for duck shooting ; so we sold her 
 to the director of the • steam-boat company, who 
 wanted her for a model, for twelve pounds, and 
 the last time we saw her, was as we were driving 
 over the suspension bridge, when she was being 
 laboriously tugged up against the stream by two 
 men, who each individually had a wonderfully 
 good idea of pulling for a dweller on the banks of 
 the Danube ; but when pulling together (or rather 
 alternately), imparted a motion like that of a 
 rocking-horse to the little boat. Whether she 
 ever got through the bridge, I cannot say, but T 
 should think it doubtful, as the unhappy crew 
 stopped about every fifth stroke, and looked behind 
 P2
 
 212 RETURN TO ENGLAND. 
 
 them in despair at the little progress they were 
 making. As for ourselves, we returned humbly to 
 Vienna, heroes no more, but reduced to the proper 
 level of our own insignificance, and from thence, 
 unnoticed and unregarded, by way of Prague, 
 Dresden, Berlin, and Hamburg, we slunk back to 
 London, two briefless barristers, and a Cambridge 
 undergraduate . * 
 
 'Hi nostri reditus exspectatique triumphi.' 
 
 * Since our return to England, I have met a gentleman, who 
 was naturally rather surprised at finding himself sitting next to 
 me at a dinner party ; inasmuch as he had, during his travels in 
 the United States, read in a Yankee Newspaper (either Harper's 
 Magazitie, or the New York Tribune), a touching description of 
 the melancholy and premature end of Albert Smith, by drowning 
 in the Rhone; which concluded by informing the public — 'that 
 the same party of English, whose voyage down the Rhine in a 
 little boat they had recorded last year, had this year attempted 
 the descent of the Danube, in the same way, but had been over- 
 whelmed and lost, fragments of the boat having been found in 
 the stream ; but that the bodies of the adventurers had, up to 
 that time, not been discovered. '
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Est natura hominum novitatis avida. 
 
 Plin. apud Liliwni. 
 
 HP HE last fathom of my yarn is spun, the last 
 *- entry of our log completed. I have come to a 
 safe anchorage myself, and it only remains to me to 
 turn my craft adrift, to weather the gales of 
 criticism, or sink with its own unnoticed weight. 
 If it should be of itself unworthy of any but the 
 latter fate, I trust that it may yet be saved from 
 it by Coxswain's share in its construction, and that 
 his illustrations may be the corks that will keep 
 it afloat, if they should not prove top- gallants to 
 catch the breeze of public favour. 
 
 I have already said that this little account of 
 our expedition would not aspire to afford the 
 reader much information or instruction ; may I
 
 214 CONCLUSION. 
 
 venture to hope that it has amused or interested 
 him by its novelty; for let philosophy say what 
 it may of the beauty of a scene being undiminished 
 by the number of eyes that have looked at it, and 
 such like truisms, still human nature does delight 
 in doing, seeing, and being what its fellows have 
 not done, seen, or been before ; and I think that 
 the claims of our expedition to this desirable 
 feature of novelty are at any rate not likely to be 
 called in question; nor is the independence of 
 our mode of travelling less decided than its novelty. 
 Instead of being the slaves of the time-table of a 
 railway company, here we are starting, stopping, 
 lounging, hurrying, retracing our steps, or pro- 
 gressing, diverging from our track, and resuming 
 it, just as circumstances or our own fancies 
 dictate. Our posters are always at command, and 
 never need bait or halt but when we are inclined 
 to such indulgence ourselves. Armed with a suffi- 
 cient stock of good temper (which is indispensable 
 to the success of a scheme involving such close and 
 unbroken companionship), and with a constitution 
 indifferent to an occasional ducking, I am certain, 
 that should any of my readers ever be tempted to 
 follow in our track, they will acknowledge that, of 
 all methods of travelling that they have hitherto
 
 CONCLUSION. 215 
 
 tried, this is infinitely the most agreeable; and 
 when I add that our united expenses from the 
 15th of July, the day that we left London, till our 
 arrival at Pesth on the 3rd of September, were 
 not more than £60 (inclusive of the carriage of 
 our boat to Kitzingen, and the difference between 
 the price that we gave for it, and that for which it 
 was sold), I think it will be admitted that a long 
 purse is at any rate not absolutely necessary. 
 
 It only remains to me to answer an objection 
 which has been often made to me by some of my 
 friends, of the hard work undertaken by us under 
 the guise of relaxation. The fact is, that although 
 it is possible to expend any amount of strength in 
 rowing,* in the descent of a rapid river like the 
 Danube or Rhine, it is not only unnecessary, but 
 would be utterly thrown away. Indeed, I dare 
 say, that many of the travellers who passed us 
 in the steamer, must have thought us a very lazy 
 set of fellows, as they saw us lying down in our 
 boat, reading and smoking; or swimming and 
 
 * Of course I do not take our pull up the Main into account ; 
 that was owing to the unforeseen circumstance of there not being 
 sufficient water for the steamer, which we had calculated on for 
 our voyage up to Bamberg.
 
 216 CONCLUSION. 
 
 floating by her side, while the rapid current was 
 hurrying us down to our destination. 
 
 But now, kind reader, I have said enough, if 
 not to make you get up a crew and build a boat 
 immediately, at any rate, to weary your patience 
 almost unpardonably ; so I bid you farewell, with 
 the repeated assurance, that no pleasure can afford 
 anticipations less liable to be disappointed, a 
 present less fraught with care, or retrospections 
 more devoid of alloy than such an investigation of 
 the watery nooks and corners of old Europe. 
 
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