CHAPTER IV

CROSSING THE WEIR—ROTTENACKER

PEASANT GIRLS MOWING

inconvenience. The Admiral of the fleet, trusting too much in his knowledge of river navigation, swamped his canoe in a weir, and would have been in a sad strait but for the timely assistance of some mill hands. The canoes got some heavy bumping at times while we were shooting rapids below the weirs; but there was little or no injury done to them, and the only actual loss of property was one favorite brierwood pipe—a loss which will appeal to the sympathy of every smoker who has tried the pipes of central Europe. We happened to reach Rottenacker at noon, when a great procession of rustics, armed with every imaginable kind of haymaking implements, was crossing the bridge to their labors after the mid-day meal. They halted on the bridge, looking for all the world like a detachment from Monmouth’s army, and watched us run the canoes over the weir. They gave a hoarse shout of approval of our skill, and after we had dashed down under the great wooden bridge they marchedoff in almost martial array, and scattered over the broad meadows like skirmishers. An hour later we reached the last weir on the river at the village of Oepfingen, and, confident from the appearance of the water that the canoes would float on it with our weight, we triumphantly paddled over the crest and shot safely into the boiling pool below. We had counted in all only twenty-one weirs and dams, although the different accounts of expeditions in the upper river give the number as twenty-five between Donaueschingen and Ulm. In all probability the unusually high water covered some of the smaller ones, and we consequently failed to make a record of them.

BRIDGE AT ROTTENACKER

Below the last weir the river is monotonous and the country not particularly interesting. Turnip-topped church-spires rise above the red-tiled roofs of villages clustered on the hill-sides, and but for these features of the landscape the river might be the Thames or the Avon. Soon, however, several vigorous streams add their waters to the main current, its speed and strength rapidly increases, and its course is regulated into a straight and canal-like channel. Not realizing the speed of our progress as we floated along, wecame in sight of the village of Erbach on the hills to the left of the river much earlier in the afternoon than we expected, and at the same moment saw, far beyond in the blue distance, as faintly outlined as a delicate cloud-form, the great tower of the Cathedral of Ulm breaking the low horizon line. We at once took to our paddles and increased our pace, urged on by the sight of our goal for the night and the beginning of our cruise in the navigable river. In full sight of the city, some two miles away, we passed the Iller, rushing in with a broad, pale-green flood and a strange hissing noise like the escape of gas from soda-water, and then the Danube, reinforced in strength and in volume, tore along with almost angry speed, and showed great swirls where the pale waters of the Iller wrestled with the opaque yellow of the larger stream. We saw by the white waters at the buttresses of the railway bridge as we dashed past that we had to deal with a current far more powerful than any we had yet navigated, and accordingly approached the left shore with some caution, as there was a high wall along the water’s edge and only an occasional practicable landing-place. With all our efforts to stop our head-way we found ourselves obliged to turn the bow up-stream and paddle hard to keep from being swept past the town. In this way we came alongside the float of the Donau Ruder Verein (Danube Rowing Club), and landed, welcomed by a delegation from the committee of the club, who had heard of our intended visit. They gave us a hand to carry the canoes up to the boat-house and made room for them on the padded trestles.

The club boat-house is a fair-sized building, well enough constructed for the purpose, and conveniently fitted up with quarters for the crews and stowage room for the boats, which number nearly a score, several of them from famous makers in England, but mostly of German build. Notwithstandingthe disadvantages of rowing in so rapid a current, and the difficulties of launching and landing the boats, the members practise with great enthusiasm, and the club has a remarkably good record in the boating annals of Germany. The committee placed all the resources of the institution at our command, and not only gave us every assistance in repairing the slight damages which our canoes had suffered in the rough treatment they had received at the weirs, but made other generous offers of hospitality. The president, who is a mechanical genius of considerable fame as well as an enthusiastic sportsman and a traveller, was devoted to our interests, and made every moment of our stay agreeable. Before we departed our ex-cook presented the club with his famous coffee machine as a slight acknowledgment of their kindness to us. We have never learned how much the ranks of the Donau Ruder Verein have been decimated by the use of this dangerous invention.

Ulm, whether it be approached by land or by water, has the uninteresting external appearance of any modern military stronghold, for it is surrounded by great fortifications, and an elaborately constructed citadel occupies the whole of a flat point opposite the town on the right bank of the river. The old town itself, once the military barrier is passed, is a marvel of architecture and a maze of narrow, crooked thoroughfares, many of them scarcely worthy to be dignified by the name of streets. The wonderful cathedral, next in size to that at Cologne, with the loftiest stone tower in the world, is not to be adequately described within the limits of this narrative, nor was it, indeed, thoroughly examined by us on this hasty visit. The town offered so much to occupy our attention and command our admiration that we could only pause to study briefly each superb monument of ancient art and hurry on to the next. The restless river with its rushing current had communicated its nervous hasteto our spirits, and within twenty-four hours we had seen the town, repaired and repacked our canoes, adjusted the appliances intended for use in the large river below, and were waiting only for the farewell festivities in the boat club to come to an end in order to launch our canoes to the “Hip! hip!” of our sporting friends.

The president of the rowing club, with an enthusiastic young friend, accompanied us in our start from Ulm, in one tiny, home-made canoe which floated scarcely an inch above the water. Their scorn of the dangers of the curling flood filled us with admiration, but we could not affect the indifference which is born only of long familiarity with the Danube, and proceeded with our usual care. Great yellow billows surged against the stone piers of the old bridge as we shot with dizzy speed through the shadow of the arch out into the broad stream below. It began to rain, but we paddled all the harder in order to reach the village of Günzburg as early as possible, so that we might have time to dine and afterwards make camp before dark. The rain did not in anywise diminish our ardor for sleeping in the canoes, for we had passed a feverish night in a stuffy hotel bedroom and longed for the air and freedom of our camp.

WOOD-SAWYER AT ULM

The stork’s nest on the highest gable of the interesting old town was scarcely visible in the twilight when we paddled away after a jovial dinner with our friends, who were to ship themselves and their canoe back to Ulm by train. As wepushed out into the stream the distances were so exaggerated by the dim light that the Danube now looked like a broad lake or an arm of the sea, and the strongly eddying current twisted our paddles with a vicious persistence that warned us to be circumspect in choosing a landing-place in the uncertain light. Luck more than judgment directed us to a pretty little secluded meadow where, for the first time, we made camp in regular order, tents and all.

FROM STRASBURG TO ULM

The question of choosing camp was, as we now fully understood, a more or less difficult one, for, as the three canoes were seldom very near together on the river, it would be practically impossible to fix on a desirable place by common agreement at the time of camping. We therefore appointed the most experienced camper a committee of one to choose the camp in the future, and agreed to abide by his decision. A special instinct, or at least an accurate and ready judgment, must be the absolute qualification of the one who chooses halting-places along a river like the Danube, for the current,running as it does from three to six miles an hour, makes it impossible to make the selection at leisure. Before there is time to weigh the reasons for and against the spot the stream has carried the canoe past the landing-place, and return is practically out of the question. We demanded of our camp grounds more and at the same time less than the ordinary cruiser. First, they must be in as agreeable a landscape as possible, for as we spent several hours of daylight there we wanted to sketch and to enjoy the scenery. Then they must be so situated that the canoes could be drawn up readily and prepared for the night without carrying the traps too far. On the other hand, sand, turf, or smooth surface of the ground, though desirable, was, fortunately, not an absolute necessity, as they would have been if we had not slept in our canoes. Further, as we used spirits for cooking, we did not have to consider the question of wood, and the absence of fire made our camps very little objectionable to the farmers. Indeed, we were made welcome to temporary occupation in every instance but one, and on that occasion the farmer evidently thought we intended to remain all summer long, for he began to talk about the second crop of grass. A largess of German coin of the value of ten cents made him waive all objections and give us the freedom of his meadow.

IT was on Saturday, June 27th, at about five o’clock in the afternoon that we left Ulm, and the following day about noon we reached Lauingen, having spent most of the forenoon in camp rigging our sails, properly adjusting the tents, and doing a hundred other odd jobs which the ownership of every boat entails. The Admiral, who had preceded the rest of the fleet by an hour or more, was in the centre of an interested group of natives when we hauled alongside at the landing, and all Lauingen in its Sunday best was lounging near by, happy in the entertainment which the arrival of the strange craft offered. The old town walls are half hidden by excrescences of modern construction which cling to them for their whole extent, sheltering a notable proportion of the inhabitants. With this exception the place is not materially changed since the sixteenth century, and still has to a very remarkable degree the character of an old Dutch town both in details of construction and in the general character of the domestic architecture. Most of the large buildings are warehouses and residences combined, and there are few front doors which are not provided with a little side window or squint set in at an angle so that the street can be seen without opening the door. All distinctive costume has been modernized out of the place. The people look cheerful, active, and prosperous to a degree unusual in such a remote town, and we were fain to believe that thisvitality was due to the leaven of those of the inhabitants who had been to America, not a few of whom greeted us with an exaggerated Hoboken dialect. But the modern spirit has not obliterated all the queer old customs, and Sunday was busy with parades of turnvereins and sporting clubs with all the pageantry common to the ancient guilds. In the midst of the festivities a stately carriage drove into the market-place where the statue of Albertus Magnus, the famous scholar of the thirteenth century, was erected ten years ago in the shadow of the great tower with its sixteen stories. It was a wonderful old vehicle, with broad leathern springs and great hood, a huge rack behind piled high with luggage, a seat in front occupied by a servant—a buxom country girl—and with a long pole like a single shaft, to which one horse was attached in a sort of casual fashion by a harness of the most antiquated and peculiar pattern. Under the hood sat a young man who held the lines and guided the horse across the square towards the inn, while the servant-girl, with folded arms, occasionally nodded and smiled at friends in the multitude. We fancied this must be some local dignitary, such was the grandeur and stateliness of the turnout, but we found on inquiry that it was only a conveyance from a neighboring town bringing a commercial traveller with his packs. Truly, even this much-derided occupation has its agreeable features in Bavaria.

It was an exceedingly hot day, and the river for the next dozen miles or so was not very interesting, as its channel had been confined between dike-like banks through a great steaming marsh. Every two hundred metres of the distance is marked by a numbered post, and from our low position these were often the most prominent objects in view. The hissing of the water, which began at the confluence of the Iller, was always plainly heard, but the water was so muddy that we could not discover whether or not the cause of thesound was, as it is said to be, the rolling of pebbles on the river-bed. The reaction from our brief but busy visit to Lauingen put us in rather a quiet frame of mind. The drowsy heat was not stimulating to the ambition for sight-seeing, and we scarcely looked at the hills where the battle-fields of Höchstädt and Blenheim are located, they were so far away from the river and the events seemed so very long ago. We had more interest, moreover, in the near foreground with its occasional clusters of brilliant bloom. Alfred Parsons says of this region: “For a long way above and below Ulm the banks are lined with small willows and coarse grasses; occasional bunches of forget-me-not and some iris and valerian are the only flowers. On a hill-side near Donauwörth I saw bright pink dog-roses, campanulas, geranium, veronica, epipactis, Turk’s-cap lilies, pink coronilla, which is abundant, and a tall white composite with groups of daisy-like flowers and a leaf like the tansy; also a white erigeron.”

The Bell towerLauingen.

The Bell tower

Lauingen.

The glorious, lazy afternoon was well on the wane whenwe came to Donauwörth, a blaze of richly-colored roofs and lichen-stained walls and with an enchanting skyline of gables and towers. We left it with reluctance before we had seen half of its beauties. The restlessness of the Danube had begun to eat into our souls and, without our knowing it, had created in us a new appetite—a craving for constant motion.

Donauwörth.

Not far below Donauwörth the Lech contributes its pale-green waters, flowing northerly from the water-shed of the distant Alps beyond Lake Constance, and it brought down to us for our entertainment several rafts with cheery river folk, and we began the next day in their company. They ran ashore at the upper end of the town of Neuburg, where the Danube is crossed by a large stone bridge, and we stopped there as well. Finding, however, that we were uncomfortably far from the centre of the town, we soon paddled off again, shot the seething rapids under the bridge and, hurried along by the current, landed after some difficulty and serious bumping against the perpendicular stonewall, at a broad flight of stone steps opposite a cheerful-looking hotel with a formal row of standard roses all along in front, tied to neatly-painted sticks surmounted by gilded balls. We had already gone ashore when our attention was called to our canoes by the excited shouts of the crowd hanging over the stone parapet. To our horror we saw one of the long rafts swinging down under the bridge with irresistible momentum directly upon our canoes, and the raftsmen making frantic gestures at us. We understood that in order to check the raft they were obliged to beach her in the shallow water near the steps, and, indeed, she was headed for that point, and no human power could stop her. For a moment it seemed as if our canoes must be ground to splinters, but we rushed down and promptly dragged them a few yards up-stream, utilizing the noisome mouth of a sewer for a harbor for one, and lifting the others bodily out upon a narrow ledge of broken rock. Then, dashing into the water, we put all our strength against the raft and she ground along within a foot of our precious boats, and we were saved from our friends.

It took an unusual quantity of beer to cool us off after this exertion, and our afternoon cruise was not further remarkable except for the sight of various immense ferry-boats swinging across the stream attached to wire guys and bearing two great loads of hay, cattle and all, and for a visit to Ingolstadt, a military post of great importance and correspondingly unattractive aspect. We camped that night on the beautiful point of a low meadow where our shadows fell in long lines towards the neighboring town of Vohburg, almost too picturesque to be real, and were promptly and unwillingly introduced to our first Danube mosquitoes, who kept us diverted if not very much amused during dinner, and until we had crawled into our curtained berths and let them buzz and pipe in futile rage against the impenetrable gauze.

THE FERRY

Vohburg is said to be the most virtuous town in Bavaria, the reward of virtue there being a dowry of 50 guldens ($25) to each maiden of unblemished reputation when she takes the marriage vows. One of the notable results of this bounty is the encouragement of intermarriage, for the youths are of frugal dispositions, and fifty guldens are fifty guldens here quite as much as anywhere. Our first visitors the next morning were the storks of the town who solemnly sought the early worm and the casual frog, and they took flight at the approach of a troop of the ugliest children to be found where the German language is heard—and that is saying a great deal. They stood a long time in a circle around our camp, either too much astonished or too stupid to reply to our volley of questions. We couldn’t help thinking, as we looked at their unintelligent faces, that it would be much better for the race if the dowry fund should be embezzled by the town-clerk and vice rule triumphant for a while. Our curiosity was not satisfied by this slight glimpse of the inhabitants of Vohburg, and besides, the ancient town gates, the massive ruins of the burgh—which was destroyed, like everything else about here, by the Swiss in 1641—and the old church-tower, stuck full of great stone cannon balls, tempted us to land. Possibly theimpression gained from a brief visit was not a just one, but although we found the architecture interesting and the people friendly and courteous, we could distinguish nothing of the charm which our imaginations had pictured to us as the result of generations of prosperity, peace, and domestic virtue.

The Danube is never really monotonous, for, apart from the ever-changing landscape, the life on the bank offers endless interest to the observer. We had drifted for a couple of days through a broad, flat country, and never had experienced a dull moment. Although we were not impatient for a change of scenery, we began to look forward with pleasant anticipations, soon after leaving Vohburg, to the chain of hills that formed the horizon to the east and north, promising narrow gorges and rapid water. Except for our increasing eagerness for progress as the hills began to take definite shape in detail towards the middle of the forenoon, we should have undoubtedly landed at Eining, a little cluster of houses on the right bank, near which are the remains of the great Roman frontier station Abusina, which, from its topographical situation, and also from its geographical position near the most northerly point of the river’s course, was chosen as the chief outpost of the Danube provinces against the German barbarians. This station was maintained with two or three interruptions from its establishment in 15B.C.until the end of the fifth century. Across the river are distinctly visible the outlines of Trajan’s wall, which extended from this point to Wiesbaden on the Rhine. We were much interested by what we could see of these remains, for we knew that to be but the first in the long series of similar monuments along the Danube to the Roman occupation, which never fail to excite the wonder of the traveller at the enterprise and persistent courage of the great Roman general. Near at hand, too, is Vergen of the “Niebelungenlied,” where King Gunther and his Niebelungen crossedthe Danube on their way to Budapest and the court of King Attila. It was at this spot that Hagen tried to drown the priest of the expedition because the water witches had predicted that the holy man alone out of the 10,000 in the expedition should return safe to Worms. The facts of history and the fascinating figments of tradition seemed to draw for us across this smiling valley a frontier clearly defined in our imaginations, beyond which limit we were to enter upon a new phase of our journey.

FROM ULM TO STRAUBING

The Benedictine abbey of Weltenburg, with its crenellated walls and extensive façades, placed in exactly the right spot on the river-bank, like the composition of the theatrical drop-curtain, stands at the head of a narrow, rocky gorge, about four miles in length, more grand and impressive than any on the river above. Weltenburg is an easy excursion from Kelheim, and divides the attraction of the neighborhood with the Befreiungshalle, or Hall of Liberation, near the latter place. Knowing this fact, we were not surprised to find in the midst of the mournful relics of past grandeur the liveliest kind of a beer-garden, with a half-acre of tables under shade trees in the court-yard, and regiments of stone mugs waiting to be filled at the convenient tap of

Between Weltenberg Er Kelheim.

a great brewery in one of the monastery buildings. The clock struck twelve as we entered the enclosure. Every one rose and uncovered his head, and stood like the scattered supernumeraries on the operatic stage. The peal of the organ in the adjacent church added to the dramatic effect, and if the whole company had burst forth in a chorus we would have been little surprised at it. The gorgeousness of the church interior contrasts painfully with the poverty of the establishment, only too plainly indicated by the

AN EARLY VISITOR

ill-kept grounds and the general air of neglect on all sides. Excursionists frequently take the short trip through the gorge in small flat-boats rowed by women, and there is another monastery on the left bank, half-way down, so there need be no more than thirty minutes between jorums of beer, the important adjuncts of these trips. The river, narrowed to one-third of its width above, winds between perpendicular limestone cliffs so smooth that it has been necessary to attach iron rings to the rock at intervals near the water’s edge for the use of boatmen, and the women rowers often tie up their boats to these rings to rest during the upward trip. The heavily-wooded hills overhanging the left bank at the lower end of the gorge are crowned by the Befreiungshalle, a huge, circular building in classical style, begun by Lewis I. of Bavaria in 1852, and inaugurated on October 18, 1863, the fiftieth anniversary of the battle of Leipsic. This monumental structure is of imposing dimensions, the dome rising nearly 200 feet above the great stone platform, reached by a noble flight of steps. On the exterior the different provinces of Germany are represented by eighteen colossal female figures, with corresponding trophies and candelabra, and the interior, which is lined with polished marble of various colors, is surrounded by white marble angels symbolical of victory, with tablets bearing the names of famous German generals, bronze shields made from captured French guns, and inscriptions celebrating various battles.

Landing at Kelheim we toiled up the steep hill in the hot sun, and then cooled ourselves in the twilight of the interior, skating in felt slippers over the mirror-like pavement, and listening to the remarkable echoes which magnified the slightest sound into thunder. We were waylaid on our descent from the hill by a garrulous ex-citizen of Brooklyn, whose fulsome praise of Americans andeverything American finally drove us out of the cool shelter of a river-side beer-garden and into the blistering cockpits of the canoes. We set forth with the vague intention of passing the night somewhere above and near Ratisbon. Even before we came in sight of the town we looked everywhere for a camp ground, but a high-road on either side left not an acre of ground at the water’s edge where we could land without becoming the focus of observation from a dozen farm-houses. We therefore pushed on until sunset, and just as the beautiful twin towers of Ratisbon cathedral loomed up across a wide open valley to the east, we landed on a quiet meadow, carpeted with sweet grass, and there we slept until the peasants trudging to market along the bank in the early morning awoke us with their voices.

THE busiest part of Ratisbon is the twelfth-century stone bridge which, from daybreak until dark, resounds to the tramp of heavy-footed peasants, and to the clatter of farm wagons and other vehicles. A narrow street plunges from the end of the bridge under the archway of an old city gate into a maze of narrow thoroughfares with towering mediæval houses and a jumble of small shops of all kinds. One of the houses near the bridge has a startling decoration covering the whole of its front—a colossal figure of Goliath painted on the stucco—and there are preserved in some of the other streets the only specimens extant of the fortified dwelling-houses of the Middle Ages. The Cathedral of St. Peter, with its exquisite Gothic details, is one of the chief architectural glories of all Germany, and in its solemn interior are forgot for the time the Danube, its hurrying current, and the impatient canoes. The fact that we were not in the ordinary costume of travellers gave us immunity from the annoyances of guides, and this freedom added wonderfully to our enjoyment of Ratisbon. We sat on the clean pavement of the great market-place, in the shadow of church walls, and nearly made ourselves ill with quantities of wild strawberries from the baskets of the friendly market-girls close by, paying a ridiculously small sum for a quart of the luscious fruit. We wandered in and out of the churches, stood and gazed at our ease on the architecturalbeauties of the town, and never were we once spoken to, or even, to our knowledge, once stared at with curiosity. Even our presence in the crowded tavern, where the crowds of market-people took their mid-day meal, did not excite any comment, and during the few hours we passed in Ratisbon we had the supreme satisfaction of passing unnoticed, which rarely comes to any one in a foreign country. It is said that 17 per cent. of the 35,000 inhabitants of the city are Protestants, but we concluded that we did not come in contact with any of the choice minority in religious belief, for we saw on all sides shrines and crosses and other indications of the strict adherence of the people to the observances of the Roman Catholic faith.

The old stone bridge has been saddled with a bad reputation among river-folk ever since some one started the legend, long ages ago, that the devil had a hand in its construction. It crosses the river at the upper end of a rocky island which divides the stream into two unequal parts, the one on the town side alone being navigable. Four narrow arches, springing from immense boat-shaped piers, confine the current into a very narrow compass, and cause the water to rush under the bridge with great velocity. We had listened to a long description by our boating friends at Ulm of the dangers of shooting this bridge, and all the river-side people we had talked with for the previous day or two had warned us of the perils of the passage. But we saw from the parapet what we had to encounter in the shape of rapids and whirlpools, and did not hesitate to trust ourselves and our canoes to the mercies of the current. The first of the series of bugbears which were in turn presented to us by the Danube river-folk, and by the accounts we had read, was disposed of in such an easy manner that the mention of it is scarcely warranted by its importance as an episode of our journey.

RATISBON FROM THE BRIDGE

Opposite the lower part of the town the Danube receives the turbid waters of the Regen (hence the German name Regensburg) coming in from the north, and then the great river settles down into a gently-flowing, well-behaved water highway, at times lively with steam tow-boats, barges, and rafts. It skirts the hills on the left bank for five or six miles, and then lazily meanders away through the great plain of Straubing, the chief grain-growing district of Bavaria. The point where the river leaves the hills is the most northerly limit of its whole course, and here it changes its general north-easterly direction—which it has held with many minor variations since Donaueschingen—and bears away in a south-easterly course towards Vienna. This angle is not far from midway between these two places, which are 535 miles apart by the river channel. On one of the great rounded hills, fully 300 feet above the water’s edge, the great German Temple of Fame, the Walhalla, makes a conspicuous landmark. Lewis I. of Bavaria, who, it will be remembered, was the founder of the Befreiungshalle, saw the completion of the Walhalla the very year he laid the corner-stone of its fellow monument, thirty miles away, in 1842. It is a classical structure built in imitation of the Parthenon, but of somewhat larger dimensions, and occupies a most commanding position. We saw by the guide-book that it contained Victories and Walkyries, busts of heroes, and friezes painted to celebrate the early history of the German race. After the perfect harmony of the Ratisbon cathedral we had no appetite for German classicality, and paddled past, content to gaze from afar upon the noble proportions of the temple.

Although we had rain the night before, it was hotter than ever as the sun mounted high in the heavens, and before we had penetrated far into the heart of the great plain we found the air so dead and the heat so oppressive that we

RETURNING FROM MARKET, RATISBON

were obliged to paddle in self-defence, and by this means create a draught along the water. The glare of the sun was reflected into our eyes with painful brilliancy; a few dazzling clouds hung in the sky, apparently quite stationary. The pitiless force of the sun was never once hidden by a veil of vapor during the hours we paddled down the current, which scarcely rippled the surface of the water, as dense in appearance as molten lead. The town of Straubing, plainly enough visible when we left the hills, and

seemingly only a short distance away, avoided us for a long time with aggravating success. Now it would loom up in front of us, now on one side and again on the other, and often hid away behind us. At last, about noon, having quite lost our points of compass in the contortions of the river, we sneaked up to the will-of-the-wisp town, and, dodging around a point, came fairly upon it and landed there. We made it a rule in this part of the river, and, indeed, wherever towns and villages were frequent, to take our mid-day meal in some hotel or restaurant, for, unless we did so, we saw absolutely nothing of the shore life. By this time our standard for towns had become so high that we could not care much for Straubing, although the stay there refreshed us and interested us somewhat; but we were off down the sluggish stream, eager to reach the hills where we knew the current would be faster and the landscape more interesting. Near Bogen, a few miles below, at the hour in the afternoon when the heat of the sun seems more intense even than at full noon, the western sky was suddenly darkened, and a dense storm-cloud rapidly raised its jagged edge towards the zenith. Opinions varied as to the advisability of riding out the threatening squall, or going ashore to wait for it to pass. We paddled on for a considerable distance discussing this question, and finally decided to run ashore near a large farm-house resembling in character a large Alpine chalet. We landed not one moment too soon, for before we got our hatches fastened we heard the roar of the wind up-stream, and the next instant the squall tore down the river, lashing the water into a sheet of foam, and bending the trees like switches. Our loose rigging stood straight out in the blast, and the hastily-furled sails fluttered like clewed-up top-sails in an Atlantic gale. We had all we could do to keep the boats from being blown bodily along the rough beach. In a few minutes the violence of the galeabated, and a heavy rain set in. We made our little fleet as snug as possible and as safe as we could by lashing the masts together, and ran to the farm-house near by, where the farmer and his family welcomed us with dignified courtesy, and offered us the freedom of the house with such hearty good-will that we could not help making ourselves at home. It was a characteristic establishment of the better class, and the main building was of some antiquity, as the date 1683 on the lintel of the front door testified. This immense structure was mostly of wood, and a great shingled roof covered not only a large living apartment, with many bedrooms, but the stables for the horses and cattle as well. Most of the farm-work was evidently done by girls, and the farmer told us he employed them because they were almost as useful as the men, and their wages were only fifty guldens ($25) a year. A half-dozen of these girls, indifferent to the pouring rain, with short petticoats, tight bodices, and with kerchiefs on their heads, were carrying manure in hand-barrows when we arrived, and when they had finished this task, and had materially increased the huge pile that occupied the only front yard there was, they all had a vigorous scrub at the pump, and then came in and ate bread and milk with us, and chattered away as freely as if we were old friends. We were loath to leave this pleasant, pastoral company, but as the sky was bright again at sunset we felt obliged to be off. We did not succeed in persuading any one to take the money which we felt was due for the food we had eaten, so we dropped it in the poor-box near the forlorn little chapel, and paddled away to a camp on a dripping hill-side, where we found a delicious cold spring and a mossy bed for our canoes to rest on.

We had met at intervals since leaving Ratisbon great empty flat-boats towed up-river by horses, and an

LOCAL FREIGHT FLAT-BOAT

occasional one laden with shingles or other building material had drifted down past our camp before we started in the morning. As high up as Ulm we had seen these boats in process of construction, and had learned all about the cheap flat-boats which in the spring-time carry cargoes to the lower river, and are then broken up for the sake of their timber. We had expected to see much more of this kind of river life than we actually met with, but the fact is the competition of the railways has practically killed this kind of river commerce, and its glories are all in the past. The local business still continues to flourish, however, for many of the river towns have no connection with the railway, and depend almost entirely on the water highway for cheap transportation of freight. The day after the storm we ran across several of the great local freight-boats floating down with the current. These boats are ordinarily about 20 yards in length, 5 or 6 in beam, and with a depth of from 4 to 6 feet from the great flat, keelless bottom to the rail. The bow is high, and the stern-post is often carved and otherwise decorated. They are built of soft wood, the seams are calked with moss, and since paint is seldom used except on the perpendicular black stripes, which is the almost universalfashion for boats on the German and Austrian Danube, the life of the best of these craft is not often more than ten years. Each boat has a small, rude skiff for convenient use, and a supplementary scow large enough to carry considerable cargo, as well as afford open-air stabling for a pair of strong horses. On the down trip the horses lead a lazy life in their floating stall, but on the return they drag the empty boats up against the rapid current, trained to know every yard of the way, for the varying heights of the river and the conformation of the banks make a regular towpath out of the question, and the horses splash along through the shallows for miles at a stretch. The crew of these boats usually consists of an experienced skipper with two men and a boy. They all take turns at the steering-oar, and are constantly obliged to handle the immense sweeps to keep the cumbersome craft in the best channel. The work of baling water is no light one, and apparently goes on day and night with little intermission. They use for this purpose a great wooden scoop, or shovel, and throw the water out over the side from the floor of the rude little hut which shelters the bunks of the crew.

Two of us accepted a cheery invitation to go aboard one of these boats, and we spent the larger part of the forenoon lounging in the shade of the deck-house and indolently watching the ever-changing panorama on either side of the river. The skipper, a very fatherly old man, a shrewd observer, with a great knowledge of river life, was busy part of the time in tending a large tin kettle which was thrust, gypsy-like, into the side of a fire which was brightly burning on the tiles with which the boat was laden. As soon as we saw that the meal was almost ready to be served we made a move to leave, not wishing to interrupt this ceremony. But the old man detained us almost by force, and insisted on our eating before they began. He placed

ON THE TILE-BOAT

between us a large bowl of coarse, yellow-glazed pottery, gave us a wooden spoon apiece, and a thick wedge of black bread, which we broke, according to his commands, into the capacious vessel. When the soup was ready he poured it over the bread, filled the bowl to the brim, handed us each a bottle of beer, and bade us eat and drink until not a crumb or a drop remained. We were hungry, the soup was delicious, and the beer cool and refreshing, and we did not longer hesitate, but fell to at once. The only thing which interfered with our full enjoyment of the meal was the presence of a generous supply of beef in the soup, in chunksas large as our fists. Our maxillary muscles were not sufficiently well developed to enable us to masticate the phenomenally tough fibre of this meat, and we chose our opportunity when the broad back of the hospitable skipper was turned and slid it overboard. To our relief it went to the bottom like a sounding lead, and did not, as we feared, come bobbing up astern to bear witness to our insincerity. We gave our host a tiny American flag as a souvenir of our visit. He would take no money nor any of our stores, but was delighted with the Stars and Stripes, more especially as we had explained that the following day was Freiheit’s Tag, or Independence Day, in the great Republic of the West. We left him diligently digging a hole with his knife in the high stem-piece of the boat to plant the flag there.

Rowing clubs are numerous all along the river from Ulm to Vienna. Soon after leaving the flat-boat we landed at one near Deggendorf, a quiet old town with miraculous relics in the church, which attract many thousands of pious pilgrims annually. Later on in the day, as we were rounding a great bend in a solitary part of the river where we least expected to see anything afloat, we suddenly met a single-scull boat of the newest pattern shooting up the river like an arrow. A handsome athletic young fellow was pulling with all his might, evidently in training for a race. Our surprise was naturally mutual, for he no more expected to see a fleet of graceful, polished canoes than we did to see the Danube waters parted by the keen bow of a racing boat. He recovered from his astonishment first, and shouted heartily, “Hip! hip! Hip! hip!” We replied with the same salutation, for we had learned by this time that this call was not, as we had at first supposed, a playful imitation of the English cheer, but the common greeting in boating circles. We needed no further introduction, and could, indeed, have had no better one than our canoes, and we freely accepted the hospitalities of the Winzer Ruder Verein, whose tidy boat-house stands on the river-bank a mile or more from the village. The club has a membership of thirty-six, all of them sturdy young fellows of the neighborhood, with an enthusiastic love of water sports. A certain count, the local magnate, is the patron of the club, and contributes largely towards the training of the oarsmen, who compete with success in the regattas all over Germany. The jolly young fellows made so much of us, and received us so heartily into their brotherhood, that we had not the courage to explain that we were not real boating men at all, but only temporary members of the guild. Indeed, it is doubtful if they would have believed our statement, for we were quite as sunburned as they were, and our five days’ canoing had put us in first-rate physical condition. But on this, as on several other similar occasions, we had a lingering feeling of mental discomfort, because we could not help knowing that we were passing for what we were not, and never expected to be—sporting men.

THE poplars of Passau came in sight early on the morning of the Fourth of July, but we had no intention of celebrating the day, particularly as one-third of our party took only a languid interest in the event. Neither did we care to meet any more boating men, however agreeable they might be, for, besides the consciousness of our false position, we had a realizing sense of the value of our time, and almost begrudged the hours spent at these boating entertainments. We avoided the rowing club at Passau, and stole in behind a floating bath-house and hid our canoes away there. This move did not save us, however, for as we were crossing the bridge, two rowing men who had seen us come down-stream were on hand to waylay us, and before we could enter a protest we were whisked off to luncheon. The town is attractively situated on a high promontory at the junction of the Inn and the Danube, and is, indeed, as far as natural environments go, one of the most beautiful spots of the whole river. The town itself, or at least as much of it as we were allowed by our friends to examine, is full of interest, although not distinguished by any remarkable monuments of art. The unruly Inn, which is always ready to overflow at a moment’s notice, comes rushing into the Danube with a dirty yellow, rubbish-strewn flood, and gives the larger river a sturdy shouldering for a long distance down-stream. It is the contamination of the Danube by the Inn that changes its color below Passau. Above this town it is in ordinary seasons of a greenish color, and sometimes, in the deep, shady pools, of an intense and beautiful blue; but the Danube as we saw it from Villingen, near the source, to Vilkoff at its mouth, was always of nearly the same monotonous, pale color ofcafé au lait.

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