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
