The Danube

Below Linz again we have something of a dramatic change in the scenery of the river. Behind us are the mountains, and for a while they neighbour us fairly closely on the left; but for some miles it is between willow-grown shores and among islets that the Danube finds its way. For a while the river runs in a north-easterly direction, as though against the Pfennigberg, but soon turns south-easterly again round it, and so reaches the long, islanded stretch which continues most of the way to the Wachau. Near where the river Traun comes in from the right, is, on the left, though hidden from view, the old town of Steyregg, or Steyereck, with a castle at one time the possession of a family, a member of which, at the Battle of Marchfeld, rescued the Emperor Rudolph the First, founder of the House of Habsburg, from a gigantic Thuringian knight who had unhorsed and wounded him.

At one of the mouths of the Traun, hidden behind islands, is Traundorf, famous for its crawfish. A little distance up it is Ebelsberg, scene of a sanguinary battle between the French and Austrians on 3 May, 1809. “From twelve to sixteen thousand men fell in this terrible conflict, and the banks of the Traun, from Ebelsberg to the Danube, were literally covered with the slain.” Here, too, in the Peasant’s War the insurgents were overcome, and lost two thousand men. And these are but two of the incidents in the stormy history of the town.

As has been said, the journey from Linz to the commencement of the Wachau is mostly through the willow-grown islands of a broad valley. It was possibly hereabouts that the Emperor Julian “the Apostate” reached the Danube on his remarkable march to assured Empire. Gibbon has summarized the story in graphic fashion. Having assembled a great army near Basle, he divided it into three unequal portions—one was to go through the northern parts of Italy, another through the centre of Rhœtia and Noricum:

“The instructions to the generals were conceived with energy and pre-cision; to hasten their march in close and compact columns, which, according to the disposition of the ground, might readily be changed into any order of battle; to secure themselves against the surprises of the night by strong posts and vigilant guards; to prevent resistance by their unexpected arrival; to elude examination by their sudden departure; to spread the opinion of their strength, and the terror of his name; and to join their sovereign under the walls of Sirmium.

“For himself, Julian had reserved a more difficult and extraordinary part. He selected three thousand brave and active volunteers, resolved, like their leader, to cast behind them every hope of a retreat; at the head of this faithful band, he fearlessly plunged into the recesses of the Marcian or Black Forest, which conceals the sources of the Danube, and for many days the fate of Julian was unknown to the world. The secrecy of his march, his diligence, and vigour, surmounted every obstacle; he forced his way over mountains and morasses, occupied the bridges, or swam the rivers, pursued his direct course, without reflecting whether he traversed the territory of the Romans, or of the barbarians, and at length emerged, between Ratisbon and Vienna, at the place where he designed to embark his troops on the Danube. By a well-concerted stratagem he seized a fleet of light brigantines, as it lay at anchor; secured a supply of coarse provisions, sufficient to satisfy the indelicate, but voracious appetite, of a Gallic army; and boldly committed himself to the stream of the Danube. The labours of his mariners, who plied their oars with incessant diligence, and the steady continuance of a favourable wind, carried his fleet above seven hundred miles in eleven days, and he had already disembarked his troops at Bononia [Widdin] only nineteen miles from Sirmium, before his enemies could receive any certain intelligence that he had left the banks of the Rhine.”

It was possibly somewhere on this stretch of the river that the “fleet of brigantines” was seized and the rapid voyage to Constantinople begun, but of the actual place of embarkation there appears to be no record. Certainly, with a favourable wind, and the energy of oarsmen, aided by the swift current of the stream, the expedition may well have made progress rapid enough to satisfy even the impatience of the astute Julian. Now, in place of the Roman brigantines, are seen the passenger steamers by which we moderns can do the same journey in about four days. The coming of the steamship has probably lessened the number of craft on the river, though as we journey along, we see sometimes a number of the great long barges with high-perched steering houses at the stern, and each with a neat little dwelling hut on the deck, generally noticeable for the attempt at “gardening,” made with boxes, pots or tubs, of flowering plants, and even occasionally of good-sized oleanders. These barges are towed, sometimes half a dozen at a time, by strong tug-steamers. Fairly extensive timber rafts, too, are seen, sometimes with as many as four or five steersmen at each end—every steersman working a very long oar-like board by way of rudder. Some of the tugs drawing these barges are armed at the prow with a kind of dredging apparatus, by means of which they can work their way along through unexpected shallows. For, deep as is the Danube in places, in others it is so shallow as to be scarcely navigable at times of low water.

The constant variations of depth make the navigation a matter of constant study, as it is sometimes impossible for steamers to pass under the bridges, while at low water, even in the navigable channel, there is in places but a foot of water beneath the keel. Passing down one stretch of the river we may find it to be a broad unbroken surface, and returning a few weeks later, see that surface broken up by long islands of white shingle.

Nature has provided a forecaster of what is to happen in this regard. On islets or banks we may occasionally see a solitary fisch-reiher, or heron, or may see one steadily flapping across the water ahead of us. From the captain of the steamer we learn that the bird is known, to those whose business it is to study the changing aspects of the river, as the “water maker,” for if it is found standing in the shallows with its beak up-stream, there is going to be high water, if pointing down-stream, then a period of low water is approaching. Such is the local lore, whether scientifically accurate or not I cannot say, and I certainly was not given the opportunity of seeing two neighbouring birds, the one fishing up, and the other down-stream!

Returning from the general to the particular, as we near Mauthausen, the first of the steamer’s stopping places after Linz, we pass the ruins of the castle of Spielberg, an old robber-knight’s hold, which, unlike most of those we see, was built down near the water’s edge. Some distance inland, on the right bank, on high ground are the monastery of St. Florian and the castle of Tillysberg, both places worthy of a visit from those staying in the neighbourhood, and both easily reached by railway from Linz. The large Augustinian monastery, which is the oldest in Austria, was built in memory of one of the martyrs of the Diocletian persecution. Florian, who was thrown into the river Enns with a stone tied to his neck, is said to have appeared posthumously, and given directions where his body was to be found. Where he was buried an altar was erected and later the altar was succeeded by a church, the church by a monastery.

The present extensive buildings were erected in the eighteenth century, but the crypt is said to date from the thirteenth. St. Florian’s, which has a valuable library of many thousand volumes, was visited by Dr. Dibdin during his famous “Bibliographical Tour,” and was described by him with enthusiasm. In the remarkable abbey church he was particularly struck by the “gorgeous and imposing” organ; “the pipes have completely the appearance of polished silver; and the woodwork is painted white, richly relieved with gold. For size and splendour I had never seen anything like it. The tout ensemble was perfectly magical. On entering, the organ burst forth with a power of intonation—every stop being opened—such as I have never heard exceeded—as there were only a few present, the sounds were necessarily increased, by being reverberated from every part of the building; and for a moment it seemed as if the very dome would have been unroofed, and the sides burst asunder. We looked up then at each other, lost in surprise, delight, and admiration. We could not hear a word that was spoken; when in some few seconds the diapason stop only was opened, and how sweet, how touching was the melody which it imparted!”

Tillysberg, two or three miles to the east of St. Florian’s monastery, takes its name from the great little Austrian soldier to whom it was presented in 1623, by the Emperor in whose cause he had been “atrociously successful.” The old castle which stood earlier on the site had for centuries been the property of warrior nobles, but Tilly demolished it, erecting (1630-32) in its place a large square building with four towers and as many windows as there are days in the year. The building was scarcely completed, when Tilly was mortally wounded, as we saw in an earlier chapter, in seeking to stay the victorious progress of Gustavus Adolphus, at a point some hundreds of miles further up the Danube. This great soldier and implacable foe of Protestantism was a remarkable person, described as follows by Schiller: “His strange and terrific aspect was in unison with his character. Of low stature, thin, with hollow cheeks, a long nose, a broad and wrinkled forehead, large whiskers and a pointed chin. He was generally attired in a Spanish doublet of green with slashed sleeves, with a small and peaked hat on his head, surmounted by a red feather, which hung down his back. His whole aspect recalled to recollection the Duke of Alva, the scourge of the Flemings, and his actions were by no means calculated to remove the impression.”

There seems to have been something of vanity, or at least of the pride that apes humility, in the old soldier, for a French marshal, wishing to see the successful Austrian leader, met him attired much as in Schiller’s description, mounted on a small grey horse, and armed with but a single pistol at his saddle-bow. When the new-comer saluted him, Tilly, observing his astonishment at finding him thus, said, “I perceive, Monsieur le Maréchal, that you think my uniform rather extraordinary; I admit that it is not quite in conformity with the reigning fashion in Paris, but as it suits my own taste, I am satisfied. I see also that my charger and this single pistol in my holster are matter of surprise to you; but, that you may not retire with an unfavourable opinion of Count Tilly, whom you have had the curiosity to visit, I will only remind you that I have gained seven decisive victories, without being once obliged to draw the trigger of that pistol; and as for my little hackney, he has never once made a stumble under me, nor winced in the performance of his duty.”

Mauthausen, which we were approaching when drawn off to these places seen away to the south, is a small and pleasant town, on the left bank, backed by hills in which are great rugged stone quarries. There is nothing more remarkable about the place than the legend that it owes its origin to the fact that in some mighty flood-time of the past, half of Aschach was carried away by the inundation, and floated down here, where it stranded and became known as Mauthausen.

Opposite the town the river Enns comes in, its greener waters being visible for some time before they finally blend with those of the Danube, and a little distance up it is the town of Enns, supposed to be on or near the site of an important Roman station. Like so many other of the places glanced at in a journey down the Danube, it has had a stormy history. Here in 791, Charlemagne is said to have encamped when, with an army moving along each bank of the Danube, and with a third one floating down the river, he started on a memorable punitive expedition against the Avars of Hungary. Again and again did Enns suffer in the conflict between the west and the barbarians. It was made a fortified town, say the chronicles, by Duke Leopold, who paid for the work with the money which he had received as ransom for Richard Cœur de Lion. In the Middle Ages it was celebrated as having been one of the most famous fairs in Germany.

Among the legends of Enns, is one which declares that St. Peter preached the gospel here in the year 49, and another which describes St. Mark and St. Luke as converting the townspeople to the Christian faith. The latter legend was duly inscribed on the city walls in verses that also told how it was here that St. Florian was thrown in the river, and that Maximilian the bishop was “always gentle towards the poor.” In the centre of the market place stands a tall detached tower erected by Maximilian the First, in the early part of the sixteenth century.

For several miles after the confluence of the Enns with the Danube, the journey continues among islands grown with willows and other water-loving vegetation, the river gradually nearing higher ground on the right, until the stream bends leftwards near where the modernized castle of Wallsee, white with red-tiled roofs, and a handsome clock-tower, rises handsomely among trees at the landing stage. The village is hidden from sight. Wallsee, where the Emperor of Austria stays, has extensive park-like lands on the same, right, bank of the river, while on the opposite side also are large pheasant preserves and hunting grounds. The castle—six or seven hundred years old—was bought by the Emperor a few years ago, and was then rebuilt. Close to the general landing place, is a special little chalet for the use of the Court.

For a time beyond Wallsee the scenery continues to be that afforded by willow-grown islands and low banks, but ahead are seen the mountains. Where the valley narrows and the hills are approached on our way to the town of Ardagger on the right, we pass one of the wire “ferries,” by means of which the current is made to take a boat across from shore to shore. Here, it is said, the Emperor Conrad the Second landed in May, 1147, to complete arrangements for getting his great force through the Wachau defile, with its terrible “Strudel” and “Wirbel,” when setting out on his disastrous crusade. How great a proportion of his horde he had here is not reported, but when he marshalled it in the great plain of Hungary, says Gibbon, there were fifteen thousand knights and as many squires, “the flower of the German chivalry”; altogether sixty thousand horse and one hundred thousand foot; while “under the banners of Conrad, a troop of females rode in the attitude and armour of men, and the chief of these Amazons, from her gilt spurs and buskins, obtained the epithet of the golden footed dame.” On the heights above Ardagger is perched a pilgrimage church dedicated to St. Ottilia, one of the patron saints of shoemakers. When I first visited Grein a large band of pilgrims—most of the women wearing white head kerchiefs embroidered in colours—who had been visiting the shrine, went on board the steamer to return to their own neighbourhood some distance down the river.

When Ardagger is passed we soon find ourselves again between grand rocky hills, among scenery similarly beautiful to that of the Schlägen between Passau and Linz. Here is a signal station, from which the steamers learn if the tortuous channel through the mountains is clear, for the navigable route amid the whirling waters is so narrow that the regulations do not allow two vessels attempting to pass the “cataracts” together. As we pass between the steep beautifully wooded hills, the village of Grein, a collection of white houses showing among greenery and backed by blue hills, is seen ahead of us in an angle where the river, after going almost due north, bends eastward again. On an abrupt rock, the Greinberg, to the left of the town is the large white “Schloss” of the Princes of Coburg-Gotha; once, I believe, the property of Prince Albert.

Either Grein has changed since it came to be a river port of call for the steamers, and was reached by the railway, or else Planché when he visited the place must have been in a bad mood, for, in contrast with his usual enthusiasm, he dismisses the town in a few ungenial words: “Grein is one of the poorest and smallest towns in Upper Austria, and the château is a large, gloomy building, originally built by Heinrich von Chreine, in the twelfth century.” To-day, Grein is known as “the pearl of the Danube.” I found it a quiet but charming town most wonderfully situated between hills, with a splendid view both up and down-stream; up between the wooded hills through which we have passed, and down towards those places of ancient dread—the Strudel and the Wirbel.

In autumn, when the wooded mountain sides have taken on the richly varied browns and golds of the passing leaves, this is a peculiarly beautiful bit of the river—and similar beauty continues in varying degree for the many miles that stretch from here almost to Vienna. Grein is a pleasant town, affording a capital “centre” for the holiday-maker.

For the pedestrian there are almost inexhaustible excursions on the mountains and up the Thals, through which cascading streams rush down to the Danube, or along the great river, while further points can be readily reached either by steamer or the railway which has recently been made along the north bank, linking its numerous towns and villages with Vienna and Linz. One of the quaintest things that struck me in Grein was when looking up a yard entrance I saw a fierce black dog, with tail erect, dragging at his chain as though straining for attack, only to find on closer examination that dog, chain, and kennel, were all painted by some local Wiertz! A pleasing sight to a lover of birds—one especially noticeable about Grein, though fairly common throughout this district—is the many nest boxes fixed on poles and in trees about the gardens. Here, too, and all along this part of the river, quaint dove-cot-like summits to the chimneys impart a decided picturesqueness to those useful but too frequently ugly outlets.

Inland from Grein about three miles is Bad Kreuzen, a hydropathic establishment for summer visitors, beautifully situated. The castle of Kreutzen was a goodly stronghold in past times, and, like Neuhaus, was used, notably when, in the early part of the sixteenth century, the Turks were devastating Upper Austria, as a place of refuge for those driven from their homes by the advancing enemy.

Passing down the Danube by the steamer affords a great variety of lovely scenery, but some parts of that scenery, beautiful as they are when seen in passing, are found to be far more beautiful when known with pedestrian intimacy. This applies particularly to where the river twists and winds among the mountains as through the Schlägen, and for the greater part of the way from Grein to Krems. A road, in the latter case, closely follows the windings of the stream, and in its turn is now closely neighboured by a railway which has been cut through rocks and mountain sides, and is carried by great stone embankments over the narrow valleys where many mountain brooks come down.

Just below Grein is a wild swirl of waters, the beginning of the “Greiner-schwall”; but even here, fearsome as the waters look, we may see a couple of girls navigating a heavy ferry boat, allowing the foaming water to take it onwards as they steer for the further bank. About a mile further down, and the channel is divided by the large island of Wörth, the main stream to the left forming the Strudel. Where, to the right, a broad stream sweeps round between the end of the island and the wooded slopes of the Rabenstein at high water, at low water is to be seen nothing but a bed of white shingle.

Towards the further end of the island rises an abrupt rock, with some ruined remains of a castle surmounted by a large crucifix. Certainly the tempestuous waters seem formidable enough, but after the many lesser rapids passed in the downward journey, they prove less thrilling than some earlier writers have led us to expect. A steamer, too, perhaps imparts more confidence than would a smaller, frailer craft. Now, the high-perched crucifix does not appear to claim the attention which it did of old; though there must be much of the olden danger still to those who come down these rapids in small boats and on rafts.

Of the Strudel an earlier writer said: “In front and in the centre of the channel, rises an abrupt, isolated and colossal rock, fringed with wood, and crested with a mouldering tower, on the summit of which is planted a lofty cross, to which, in the moment of danger, the ancient boatmen were wont to address their prayers for deliverance. The first sight of this used to create no little excitement and apprehension on board; the master ordered strict silence to be observed—the steersman grasped the helm with a firmer hand—the passengers moved aside—so as to leave free space for the boatmen, while the women and children were hurried into the cabin, there to await with feelings of no little anxiety, the result of the enterprise. Every boatman, with his head uncovered, muttered a prayer to his favourite saint; and away dashed the barge through the tumbling breakers, that seemed as if hurrying it on to inevitable destruction. All these preparations, joined by the wildness of the adjacent scenery, the terrific aspects of the rocks, and the tempestuous state of the water, were sufficient to produce a powerful sensation on the minds even of those who had been all their lives familiar with dangers; while the shadowy phantoms with which superstition had peopled it threw a deeper gloom over the whole scene.” This account, though vivid, is scarcely accurate, for the cross-surmounted rock forms part of the island, and can thus scarcely be described as being in the centre of the channel; and “steersman” should surely be “steersmen.” Timber rafts, as I have said, frequently have eight men steering at once, and the Danube passenger steamers when passing over such waters as this have as many as four men together at the doubled steering-wheel.

THE STRUDEL

A romantic story attaches to the Wörth Cross, for it is said that a Tyrolese nobleman, journeying along the river in 1540, was wrecked in the Strudel, but succeeded in getting on to the island. He saw his wife swept away by the flood, and so set up as a hermit on the island, and there he remained until a dozen years later, when his wife—who had been rescued from the water some distance below the Strudel and not unnaturally concluded that he had perished—discovered him. The reunited couple commemorated their escape and their reunion, says the legend, by erecting the cross.

Many rocks, here and further down, have been blasted away to improve the navigation; and this has no doubt made the Strudel less dangerous to appearance as well as in reality. Rocks used to be visible at low water dividing the rapids into three, and these and the submerged rocks were all named by the boatmen. They have, however, been removed by modern engineering so that when the water is even low enough to leave the bed of the Hössgang, or right branch of the river bare, no Strudel rocks are visible. The Hössgang is said to have originated in a farmer’s having cut an irrigating channel into the low-lying land that now forms the island, and to have been enlarged by the force of the impetuous current.

A little below the Strudel is the Wirbel, which was at one time more dreaded as a “whirlpool” than the rapids we have just mentioned, but the improvement of the navigation has done away with the second of these twin terrors of the old-time boatmen and now we have to be told when we are passing the one-time place of dread, for the tower-crowned rock that divided the channel and formed the phenomenon was some years ago entirely cleared away. More than sixty years ago Dr. Beattie declared prophetically that “if the rock called Hausstein were blown up it is probable that this whirlpool would entirely disappear.” How effectually this has been the case the present-day visitor acquainted with the old accounts of the terrible Wirbel will soon ascertain. Before dealing with the Wirbel it may be interesting to quote Planché’s account of his passage of this part of the river, describing it as it was before the channel had been cleared:

“As soon as a bend of the river has shut out the view of Grein and its château, a mass of rock and castle scarcely distinguishable from each other, appears to rise in the middle of the stream before you. The flood roars and rushes round each side of it; and ere you can perceive which way the boat will take, it dashes down a slight fall to the left, struggles awhile with the waves, and then sweeps round between two crags, on which are the fragments of old square towers, with crucifixes planted before them. It has scarcely righted itself from this first shock, when it is borne rapidly forward towards an immense block of stone, on which stands a third tower, till now hidden by the others, and having at its foot a dangerous eddy. The boat flashes like lightning through the tossing waves, within a few feet of the vortex, and comes immediately into still water, leaving the passenger who beholds this scene for the first time, mute with wonder and admiration. These are the Scylla and Charybdis of the Danube, the celebrated Strudel and Wirbel. The passage is made in little more than the time it takes to read the above brief description, and I could scarcely scratch down the outlines of these curious crags and ruins, before I was whirled to some distance beyond them.”

The second of these phenomena was the Wirbel, more truly described, it would seem, as an eddy than as a whirlpool. About a thousand yards below the Strudel there used to rise from the channel towards the right bank a rocky islet known as the Hausstein, the stream rushing against this part of it going to the right through a narrow channel known as the Lüng, and the rest forming the Wirbel on the left. “This has the appearance of a series of foaming circles, each deepening as it approaches the centre, and caused by the two opposite streams rushing violently against each other. [The Hössgang branch comes in again to the main stream almost at right angles.] ... The circle, within which the eddies perform their circumvolutions with amazing velocity, deepens as it approaches the centre, so as to form a basin nearly five feet in depth, and filling the neighbouring echoes with the increasing roar of its waters.” It certainly must have been a hazardous business getting rafts and boats past the Wirbel, especially at times when the Lüng was not navigable owing to the lowness of the water, and it is not matter for surprise that there are many records of wrecks. The destruction of the Hausstein removed the cause of the disturbance, and the terrors of the Wirbel have become traditional.

A German writer in 1780 went so far, indeed, as to declare that then those terrors were much exaggerated: “A great variety of circumstances concur to excite an idea of danger in both these parts of the Danube. Low mechanics are fond of speaking of them, and magnifying the danger, that they may increase their own importance in having gone through it. Others, more simple, who come to the place with strong conceits of what they are to meet with there, are so struck with the wildness of the prospect, and the roaring of the water that they begin to quake and tremble before they have seen anything. But the masters of the vessels are those who most effectually keep up the imposition. They make the passage a pretence for raising the price of the freight, and when you are past them the steersman goes round with his hat in his hand to collect money from the passengers as a reward for having conducted them safely through such perilous spots. When our master (who yet knew how very much it was for his interest to keep up the credit of his monsters) saw how little attention I paid to them, he assured me in confidence that during the twenty years he had sailed the Danube, he had not heard of a single accident.” That the “master” was going to the other extreme of exaggeration is shown by the fact that—besides fatalities in the Wirbel—two vessels had been wrecked on the sunken rocks of the Strudel only three years before that was written.

Many were the old methods of accounting for the Wirbel. A sixteenth century cosmographer declared “they have often sounded in this place, but the abyss is so deep that they can touch no ground. It is bottomless. What falls therein, remains under and never comes up again.” This was the kind of marvel beloved in the olden, credulous times, and other marvels no less wonderful were associated with the Wirbel. One learned author declared that there was a hole in the river bed here which received the whirling waters that after a long subterranean journey reached the great Hungarian lake known as the Plattensee, and in proof of the theory it was gravely asserted that some bold experimentalists had a vessel wrecked in the Wirbel—and in course of time a hammer that had belonged to a cooper on board was found (floating, says one account) in the Plattensee. The tradition of “unfathomable depth,” received a rude shock in the middle of the eighteenth century when a barge laden with pottery sank in the Wirbel, and the roof of the hut aboard remained visible!

Even as stories gathered about the whirlpool so did they around the neighbouring ruins, and especially in connexion with the towers that stood on the Hausstein, and a neighbouring rock—both of which have been done away with by the navigation improvements. It is not surprising that these various ruins—half a dozen within a mile or so—became the centres of legendary lore among the credulous peasantry. To quote from Dr. Beattie’s summary: “Each of these mouldering fortresses was the subject of some miraculous tradition, which circulated at every hearth. The sombre and mysterious aspect of the place—its wild scenery and the frequent accidents which occurred in the passage, invested it with awe and terror; but above all, the superstitions of the time, a belief in the marvellous, and the credulity of the boatmen, made the navigation of the Strudel and the Wirbel a theme of the wildest romance. At night, sounds that were heard far above the roar of the Danube issued from every ruin. Magical lights flashed through their loopholes, and casements—festivals were held in the long deserted halls—maskers glided from room to room—the waltzers maddened to the strains of an infernal orchestra—armed sentinels paraded the battlements; while at intervals the clash of arms, the neighing of steeds, and the shrieks of unearthly combatants smote fitfully on the boatman’s ear. But the tower in which these scenes were most fearfully enacted, was that on the Longstone, commonly called the Devil’s Tower, as it well deserved to be—for here, in close communion with his master, resided the Black Monk, whose office it was to exhibit false lights and landmarks along the gulf, so as to decoy the vessels into the whirlpool, or dash them against the rocks. He was considerably annoyed in his quarters, however, on the arrival of the great Soliman in these regions; for to repel the turbanned host—or at least to check their triumphant progress to the Upper Danube—the inhabitants were summoned to join the national standard, and each to defend his own hearth. Fortifications were suddenly thrown up—even churches and other religious edifices were placed in a state of military defence; women and children, the aged and the sick were lodged in fortresses, and thus secured from the violence of the approaching Moslem. Among the other points at which the greatest efforts were made to check the enemy, the passage of the Strudel and Wirbel was rendered as impregnable as the time and circumstance of the case would allow. To supply material for the work, patriotism for a time got the better of superstition, and the said Devil’s Tower was demolished and converted into a strong breastwork. Thus forcibly dislodged, the Black Monk is said to have pronounced a malediction on the intruders, and to have chosen a new haunt among the recesses of the Hartz mountains.

Another story associating the Evil One in the days of the Emperor Henry the Third, with this part of the river is told by John Aventinus, the sixteenth century annalist of Bavaria: “The Emperor departed from Regensburg and came by water to Passau: there he tarried during the Passion week, and till the holy feast of the Ascension. The next day after which, he again took water, and journeyed into lower Bavaria as Austria was then called. There is a town in Austria by name Grein; near this town is a perilous place in the Danube called the Strudel by Stockerau.[8] There doth one hear the water rushing far and wide, so falls it over the rocks with a great foam, which is very dangerous to pass through, and brings the vessel into a whirlpool rolling round about. The Emperor Henry went down through the Strudel; in another vessel was Bruno, Bishop of Wartzburg, the Emperor’s kinsman, and as the Bishop was passing also through the Strudel, there sat upon a rock that projected out of the water, a man blacker than a Moor, of a horrible aspect, terrible to all who beheld it, who cried out and said to Bishop Bruno, ‘Hear! Hear! Bishop! I am thine evil spirit! Thou art mine own, go where thou wilt, thou shalt be mine, yet now I will do nought to thee, but soon shalt thou see me again.’ All who heard this were terrified. The bishop crossed and blessed himself, said a few prayers, and the spirit vanished. This rock is shewn to this day; upon it is built a small tower all of stone, without any wood: it has no roof, and is called the Devil’s Tower.” Thus far the credulous chronicler Aventinus. The tragic sequel to this demoniac threat we shall learn a little further down the Danube.

These waters, so long the terror and wonder of those who used the river, have, as I have indicated, been greatly tamed by the removal of the obstructing rocks, but there were not wanting people who regarded the dangers as greatly exaggerated. The German traveller, Riesbeck, did so, as we saw a little earlier, but the traditional dangers long sufficed as an excuse for dwellers on the bank, and boatmen, too, to secure “tips” from passengers journeying down the river. The custom still obtained when Planché took his trip, for he says that as soon as the Wirbel was passed a boat put off from the village of St. Nikola and paddled alongside, when a man held out a box bearing a figure of the saint, that a few coins might be dropped in as a thank-offering for saintly protection during the passage of the dangerous reach. On board the regular passage boats—the Ordinari—which preceded the steamers, too, money was collected by the steersmen as soon as the Wirbel was astern, “and another ceremony likewise takes place, something similar to that customary on board a ship when passing the Line. The steersman goes round with the wooden scoop or shovel with which they wet the ropes that bind the paddles to their uprights, filled with water; and those who have never before passed through the Strudel and the Wirbel must either pay or be well soused with the element, the perils of which they have just escaped.” Was there no clamouring for compensation, no indignation at interfering with the vested interests of the tip-gathers, when the obstructing rocks were cleared away? At any rate, the passenger by steamer over these troubled but no longer terrible waters is not called upon for backshish or thank-offering. That the waters are troubled no one who passes over them will deny, for as the steamer passes over the Strudel we are—or imagine that we are—conscious of a distinct change in the level as we go over the “fall.”

As even those who take a more or less hurried journey along the Danube should make a stay, however short, in this neighbourhood, I will take up the story of the shore from Grein. Leaving that pleasant town by the road cut along the foot of the cliff, we get, looking back from the opposite corner of the “bay” which the bending river here forms, a picturesque view of the Coburg castle above the town, and the timber-grown hill to the left. The road is here cut along the very rock which in bold crags towers above our heads, while on the further side of the river are densely wooded hills. At the corner we are directly above the swirling waters of the Greiner-schwall, and after a pleasant walk of about a mile come opposite the western end of the Wörth island, with a capital view of the wooded rock surmounted by its cross, and on the left bank of the river the boldly perched ruins of the castle of Struden or Werfenstein. Before reaching these, however, we pass the opening of a narrow valley—the “Stillenstein Klamm,” which, before we have been long in Grein, is known to be one of the special view-places of the neighbourhood.

From this valley, beneath the high viaduct of the new railway which spans it just before it reaches the Danube, comes a small hurrying brook, the course of which should be followed by any lover of woodlands and water. Passing the mill that stands a little way up the valley, we may follow a path that keeps fairly close to the stream for two or three miles up to the very point where it emerges from beneath the Stillenstein itself—a great mass of rock, with a couple of pine trees growing on it, which has fallen at some immemorial period and got wedged between the opposite rocky sides of the valley. From the black cavern under this rock the stream emerges, at once as a cascade; and as an almost continuous series of cascades it continues all the way to the great river to which it adds its contribution. Here and there are pools in which many trout are to be seen “staying their wavy bodies against the stream.” The principal “fall” is where the water has got imprisoned between great rocks and falls over in a wedge-like shape, a mass of foaming white. The mountains rise steeply on either side as we pass up the “Klamm,” clothed from the very water’s edge—their boughs almost intermingling above it in places—with beech and pine and other trees. About the great grey boulders of rock are a profusion of ferns and mosses: the whole is like the beauty of some Devonshire lane and stream raised to the nth—a kind of lyric loveliness that uplifts and gladdens, where the grandeur of the great river to which the stream is hurrying has something rather of epic sweep and solemnity.

Returning to the bank of the Danube we pass below the ruined castle and through the small village of Struden, the road narrowing considerably between quaintly picturesque houses. Beyond Struden we come abreast of the old Wirbel of many terrors, but the rock which formed it has gone, and a great gilt inscription on the face of the cliff above us is its chief memorial:—

“KAISER FRANZ JOSEF
befriete die Schiffahrt von den Gefahren im
DONAU—WIRBEL
durch Sprengung der Hausstein Isel
1853-1866.”

Beneath this inscription is a tiny chapel on the inner side walls of which are a couple of inscriptions concerning the clearing of the river channel; the one surmounted by a view of the Hausstein island, the other by a plan of this part of the river before the improvements were carried out. A little beyond we reach the village of St. Nikola, the slender tower of its church rising picturesquely above the roofs of its houses, set amid trees and backed by the wooded mountains. Here comes in another mountain stream inviting to inland excursion. It is not surprising to learn that this is a favourite centre for artists, seeing that it is not only beautiful in itself but a centre from which many other varied beauties are to be reached. In this walk along the left bank, as one enthusiast has put it, the tourist may enjoy the scenery in all its perfection: “Castles, rocks, rapids, beetling precipices, romantic cliffs, and mountains, whose sweeping forests descend to the water’s edge, present themselves to his eye under every variety of combination—often compelling him to halt till he has paid again and again his tribute of admiration.”

ST. NIKOLA

The next place to be reached is the long and straggling village of Sarmingstein, with on a rock above it the ruins of a round watch-tower—all that is left of a one-time important castle that was long maintained as a refuge for non-combatants in time of war. The prosperous village seems chiefly given over to the timber and granite cutting industries, and here, as the steamer goes down the river, we may see the large, long barges being loaded with planks, the work being done by women. Some of the mountain sides here are entirely denuded of their timber; the tree trunks being slid down the steep slopes to the river-side. Through part of Sarmingstein the road narrows again closely between the houses as at Struden. Probably this was done owing to the scantiness of the land between the mountain side and the river, or it may have been to make it less easy for the passage of an enemy in the old and troubled times. One of the worst of the “high-water marks” which are seen ever and again in Danube-side towns and villages is placed against the side of a house in Sarmingstein, about twelve feet above the pavement. A number of houses are to be noticed along these river-side places without any living-rooms on the ground floor, this being doubtless a precaution against floods.

The long street which forms the village of Sarmingstein runs at the foot of a beech-clothed mountain, on which are pleasant paths with seats at intervals, from which may be had lovely views over the roofs of the place to the intensely green river. Among the wealth of wild flowers I was especially struck here by the beautiful cyclamen. Near the further end of Sarmingstein are timber mills worked by the Sarmingbach, which here cascades down through a narrow valley in a manner somewhat similar to that of the stream that rushes down from the Stillenstein. The roadway that is cut up through the woods on the mountain-side on the left bank of this small tributary of the Danube zig-zags about like the approaches to a Swiss pass. This beautiful village has found an enthusiastic panegyrist in Herr Carl Julius Weber.

Between Grein and Sarmingstein the villages are all on the left bank, on the right there being but occasional cottages, sometimes perched high on grassy patches among the woodland like Alpine chalets. Little more than a mile further down-stream is the pretty hamlet of Hirschenau on the left bank and on the opposite side the lofty ruins of Freyenstein, at one time one of the largest and most powerful of Austrian castles. Still between wooden hills we pass, with here and there small hamlets visible. At Isperdorf there appears nothing but a mere landing stage at the foot of a rocky pine-clad hill. The village of Isperdorf, where Charlemagne conquered Duke Thassilo of Bavaria in 787, is on the further side of the river Isper, which comes in from the north. This stream marks the boundary between Upper and Lower Austria on the left bank. Here the valley widens out as the Danube hastens to its confluence with the Ybbs, and soon we see the white castle or chateau of Persenbeug standing boldly on a rock by the water’s edge on the left. The town of Persenbeug lies further along, and is scattered somewhat over the flat peninsula round which the Danube here makes a sharp bend to the southwards; the road and the railway both cross the northern end of this peninsula, from which Persenbeug takes its name, corrupted from Bösenbeug, signifying a dangerous bend in the river, of which this might be regarded as the beginning.

SARMINGSTEIN

The Schloss Persenbeug, though much renewed, and looking modern in its creamy whiteness, represents one of the oldest buildings in Lower Austria. It was at one time a summer residence of the Austrian Emperors, and is associated with the story of the Devil and the Bishop the first part of which was enacted in the neighbourhood of the Strudel and Wirbel. To continue that story in the words of the old chronicler before quoted, after describing the passing of the Devil’s Tower he goes on, “Not far from thence, some two miles’ journey,[9] the Emperor and his people landed, proposing to pass the night in a town called Pösenbeiss, belonging to the Lady Richlita, widow of the Count Adalbero von Ebersberg. She received the Emperor joyfully; invited him to a banquet, and prayed him, besides, that he would bestow the town of Pösenbeiss and other surrounding places (that her husband had possessed and governed) on her brother’s son Welforic the Third. The Emperor entered the banquet room, and standing near Bishop Bruno, Count Aleman von Ebersberg and the Lady Richlita, gave the Countess his right hand and granted her prayer. At that moment the floor of the apartment fell in, and the Emperor fell through into the bathing chamber below it, without sustaining any injury, as did also Count Aleman, and the Lady Richlita, but the Bishop fell on the edge of the bathing tub, broke his ribs and died a few days afterwards. Another account says that others, including Lady Richlita, were also killed. This tragic incident, it is suggested by Planche, was really brought about by the machinations of the monks of Kremsmünster who laid claim to the castle and estates. They did not, however, succeed in getting possession of them, and Persenbeug had been successively the property of several nobles before, at the beginning of the last century, it was repurchased by the Emperor of Austria.

A little lower down-stream, on one of the arms through which the river of the same name reaches the Danube, is the attractive old town of Ybbs—its red-roofed houses dominated by a spired church and backed by low green hills. From the outlook point of “Kirl” is to be obtained a grand view of the Danube, and, away to the south, of the Austrian Alps and the lofty Schneeberg. A little beyond Ybbs the Linz-Vienna railway approaches close to the river and keeps near it for some distance. Having passed round the southern point of the Persenbeug peninsula—on which and on the further bank tall chimneys denote modern manufacturing activity—we go by the ruins of a Cistercian monastery at Säussenstein (on the right bank). Säussenstein takes its name from the rushing of the waters of the “Charybdis” which swirls round its base. Before the river turns eastward again, on the summit of a hill ahead of us are seen the twin towers of a church.

This is the pilgrimage church of Maria-Taferl, some distance inland from Marbach, which pleasant little town seems chiefly to exist as a point of approach for the place of pilgrimage. In something under an hour’s walk, the last part of it up a broad hillside avenue, the roadway of which is formed into wide steps, we may reach Maria-Taferl—and if the atmosphere be suitable may have a widely extensive view in both directions of the “Imperial Danube’s rich domain” and of the distant Austrian and Styrian Alps. The view is, indeed, said to extend for a hundred miles, from Hungary to Bavaria. When I climbed it lowering rain clouds cut off all but the nearer view of the river. The village that has sprung up around the pilgrimage church is like nothing so much as a huge bazaar for the sale of souvenirs and picture postcards to pious pilgrims and curious visitors. On special occasions—particularly in September—it is a point to which large crowds of devotees converge. It is said that as many as one hundred and fifty thousand pilgrims have visited the shrine in a single year; some of them perhaps inspired by the promise of the distich which runs—