Danu

“ Here, among lofty rocky mountains, we are in a centre of romance and of legend. To a craggy rock, standing about twenty feet above the water that eddies round its base, attaches a story of love and revenge; the ruins of Galambócz (Golubacz) on the left, and of Lászlóvár on the right, remind us of the days when these were rival fortresses, guarding what was recognized to be “the key of the Danube” ”

“ After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, the Danube enters a region of singular loneliness and desolation, where its waters spread away on all sides regardless of a main channel, and the country becomes a swamp for miles upon miles, covered by a vast sea of low willow-bushes. ”

“ Happy to slip beyond the control of stern banks, the Danube here wanders about at will among the intricate network of channels intersecting the islands everywhere with broad avenues down which the waters pour with a shouting sound; making whirlpools, eddies, and foaming rapids; tearing at the sandy banks; carrying away masses of shore and willow-clumps; and forming new islands innumerable which shift daily in size and shape and possess at best an impermanent life, since the flood-time obliterates their very existence. ”

“ Where were they?—bright Greek and delicate Persian, ravening Hun and haughty Latin, swift Scythian and black-browed Tartar, brute Mogul and patrician Roman, whose bones lay buried there, unmarked, unparted, in the community of the grave?
The Danube rolled along its majestic waters, while centuries and cycles passed; sweeping onward under the same sun that once flashed on the diadem of Darius; flowing in solemn melody through the night under the same stars which the wistful eyes of Julian once studied in the still lonely watches of his tent. ”

“ The shores of the Danube here are extremely beautiful. The valley where it spreads out, is filled with groves, but where the hills approach the stream, its banks are rocky and precipitous, like the Rhine. Although not so picturesque as the latter river, the scenery of the Danube is on a grander scale. On the south side the mountains bend down to it with a majestic sweep, and there must be delightful glances into the valleys that lie between, in passing down the current. ”

“ As the Danube moves majestically between ever recurring islets, green with willow and birch, and wooded heights crowned with ruins of castles and monasteries telling of times long past, the veil of romance, with which legend invests everything, seems to become heavier and more variegated. ”

“ By-and-by, from behind these knolls, the Danube made his appearance; not broader, certainly, than he had seemed to be at Fischamend, or even above it, but evidently deeper, I think, more rapid;—and altogether, with a degree of majesty about him which attaches to the one object, that gives its peculiar character to a living landscape. The Danube is, indeed, a magnificent river; albeit the people who inhabit his banks are only just beginning to find out that he may be turned to more accounts than that of mere beauty.
The interval between Hainburg and Presburg is but a single post ”

“ It was autumn when I journeyed down the Danube, but even then, at every place I stayed and along such stretches of the river as I explored afoot, the wealth of flowers was such as to suggest how much greater it must be in spring and summer. And it may be said that, impressive as is the ever-changing panorama seen from the comfortable steamers, the river becomes the more endeared to us the more we can explore of such details as cannot be seen, or can be but glanced at from the water. ”

“ On the opposite side of the river—with which it is connected by an iron bridge of over 550 yards—is Párkány and a little beyond, also on the left side, the river Garam (Gran) flows into the Danube. The river winds considerably during the next few miles, and looking back, the magnificent cathedral that we have just passed shows even more strikingly picturesque than as it is approached down-stream—especially when seen against a gorgeous crimson sunset sky. The hills draw together and the scenery once more becomes variedly beautiful. ”

“ If we looked to the right, we could trace the windings of the Danube for twenty miles, his current filled with green, wooded islands; white cities lie at the foot of the hills, which, covered to the summit with grain fields and vineyards, extended back one behind another, till the farthest were lost in the distance. ”

“ This scattered town, with its broad roads, its tree-grown front, exercises a peculiar fascination over the visitor. It is not particularly beautiful in itself, it has no interest-compelling associations, no buildings of great importance, and yet—it grows on one. It is true that it is beautifully situated near the junction of the river Cerna with the Danube, that the views up towards the Kazán and down to Ada Kaleh, and across the broad swift-running river to the Servian hills, are all fine. ”

“ The Danube is so fiercely agitated by the stormy wind, that it rises into waves like a sea. We are suffering lamentably from cold; unable to warm ourselves, we stand gazing ruefully at the place where the stove stood—once upon a time.
At four o’clock we reached Drenkova without accident, but completely benumbed: we hurried into the inn built by the steamboat company, where we found capital fare, a warm room, and tolerably comfortable beds. This was the first place we had reached since leaving Pesth at which we could thoroughly warm and refresh ourselves. ”

“ Shortly beyond Silistria the Danube leaves Bulgarian territory, after which Rumania is on both sides of the stream, for the land on the right, the Dobrudja, extending from the Danube to the Black Sea, was awarded to Rumania by the Treaty of Berlin. Both sides, too, become flat alike. The river is still greatly diversified by islands covered with bushes and reeds—“more resembling a sea studded with innumerable islets than a river”—while the avi-fauna is particularly rich, immense flocks of wild swans, wild geese, pelicans, herons, and other waterfowl being often seen. ”

“ The mouldering towers that totter upon the crags of the Danube, on the contrary, are surrounded by scenery rude as the times in which they were reared, and savage as the warriors who dwelt in them. Nothing seems changed but themselves. The solitary boat that now and then glides by them, is of the same fashion as that on which their marauding masters sallied down, perhaps three hundred years ago. The humble cottages that here and there peep through the eternal firs, and the church that rears its dusky spire upon some neighbouring hill, are of the same age. ”

“ Beyond, the left-hand shore extended north-west and north, to the mountains of the Balkan, “the sentinels of an enchanted land,” and thence to the dark, swift rolling Danube. To the right, the mountainous shores stretched in a continuous range towards the site of Sinope, the ancient capital of Pontus and the birth-place of Diogenes. Towards the north and north-east was one broad expanse of water, which, so far from presenting a gloomy appearance, rippled its tiny waves before the breath of a gentle breeze, and basked in the rays of an unclouded sun. ”

“ Island, near Buda-Pesth—quite a miniature paradise, frequented by a great many strangers, who come here to get the benefit of its excellent baths. Of the numerous affluents of the Danube the Theiss is the most important; it has its sources in the country and empties into the Danube on Hungarian soil, near Titel. It is navigable for steamships. The Save and Drave are after the Theiss the largest tributaries of the Danube. All these rivers send their waters, through the medium of the Danube, into the Black Sea. ”

“ Yet the fact is that much of the beauty of the Upper Danube may [Pg viii] be explored by the holiday-maker who has but a fortnight or three weeks to spend, for the river has a length of nearly two thousand miles from where it rises in the duchy of Baden to where it joins the Black Sea, crossing or bordering in its course the States of Bavaria, Würtemburg, Austria, Hungary, Servia, Rumania and Bulgaria, and touching at the northernmost of its various mouths the vast territory of the Russian Empire. ”

“ Below, on the Danube, which runs very rapidly here, darting with the speed of an arrow through the pontoon bridge, lay a new steamer, that had just arrived, laden with strangers; then the extensive view of the flat but wooded country, and meadows overflowed by the Danube; of the embankments and streets swarming with human beings, and mountains clothed with Hungarian vines—all this was not a little strange and foreign. Then the pleasant contrast of living in the same house with the best and most friendly people in the world, and finding novelty doubly interesting in their society. ”

“ The Danube carries fleets of grain and timber ships all summer; they go round by Byzantium."
"The people are well off by your account," said Balbinus.
"They are," Proculus boasted. "It is a cold country, but they will soon be as well-housed as people in Gaul or Britain and they have even a superabundance of clothing and food. Furs are good and cheap, wool and flax plenty. Everybody is well-fed, all the slaves are fat, no one poor anywhere." ”

“ Continuing through a rich agricultural plain we pass Dályai, and at Vukovár, a town of over twelve thousand inhabitants, reach the centre of one of the chief Hungarian fruit districts—with many plum-orchards and vineyards. (Hungary exports dried plums to the value of over half a million sterling each year, while the national spirit, Slivovitz, is prepared from plums.) Here the Danube trends more directly to the east, and for some distance flows more or less parallel with the Save, which runs at the further side of the range of hills we see to the south. ”

“ From the Magyar The scenery of the Danube as we reach the Hungarian frontier has taken on a new beauty, for there is, as it were, a natural boundary to the ancient kingdom where a spur of the Little Carpathians comes down to the left bank of the river, while a lower range of hills on the right marks off the Vienna valley that we have left from the far larger one on which we soon enter. ”

“ At the Iron Gate the Danube quits the Austrian Dominions and enters those of Turkey. The country on the south continues for some time mountainous, then hilly, and by degrees sinks into a plain: on the north is the great level of Wallachia. In its course towards the Black Sea, the Danube divides, frequently forming numerous islands, especially below Silistria. Its width where undivided now averages from fifteen hundred to two thousand yards, its depth above twenty feet. Before reaching its mouth, several large rivers flow into it, as the Alt, Sereth, and Pruth. ”

“ We find, as we had every reason to expect, that northern Germany and Scandinavia were peopled by a pioneer folk not yet completely agricultural. The Danube people represent the farmers of the steppe whose migration probably went on more slowly and gradually, and who always remained more homogeneous physically and culturally. They may, or may not, have reached the Danube valley as early as the Germans and Scandinavians arrived [Pg 201] at the Baltic, for they had far less distance to march. They spread out westward and northward. Here we trace them by their pottery. ”

“ From the German From the Walhalla we have a glimpse of the kind of country through which for many miles the Danube winds its tortuous length. On the left bank are generally the lower hills of the Bayerischer Wald, though for a part of the way these recede to some distance; on the right, “low sedgy and Dutch like,” is an almost unbroken plain extending far to the south. ”

“ Augustus, it was, who made the Danube the northern boundary of the Roman Empire. It extended like a broad and impassable moat from the Schwartzwald to the Euxine, and, like the Rhine on the East of Gaul, served to keep the barbarians of the north confined within their primeval forests. All along the Danube from its source to its delta are still found countless traces of what were once important military outposts, flourishing towns and centers of advancing civilization and culture. ”

“ I first came on the Danube at Budapest in the evening after dinner and saw, close in front of me, what looked to be some curious electric-light sign. It seemed odd in war time, and I stared for a moment before I saw that this strange design was really the black, opposite bank with its zigzag streams of lamps.
Few cities have so naturally beautiful a drop-curtain, and, instead of spoiling it with gas-works' and grain-elevators as we should do, the Hungarians have been thoughtful enough to build a tree-covered promenade between the Danube and the string of hotels which line the river. ”

“ Prince Eugène has been so good as to say all the things he could to persuade me to stay till the Danube is thawed, that I may have the conveniency of going by water, assuring me that the houses in Hungary are such as are no defence against the weather, and that I shall be obliged to travel three or four days between Buda and Esseek, without finding any house at all, through desart plains covered with snow; where the cold is so violent, many have been killed by it. ”

“ On the banks of the Danube, thousands of men, perched on little horses, wrapt in rat-skin coats, hideous Tartars with immense heads, flat noses, chins furrowed with wounds and scars, jaundiced, hairless faces, are rushing down helter-skelter on the provinces of the Lower Empire, overwhelming everything in the whirlwind of their advance. ”

“ Even when we have been up and down its broad streets, and its “Rings”; have visited the fine museums; have inspected some of the many statues—Budapest bids fair to become known as a city of beautiful sculpture—have wandered about the attractive Városliget or public park, it is as though we were insensibly drawn back to the Danube; to the lovely park-like Margaret’s Island; to the fashionable promenade along the left bank, where for a time in the afternoon it is as though everybody in the place walked up and down ”