The rain still continued, and after a brief pause at Linz we paddled on in search of a camp. The shores were marshy and uninviting, and as the gray twilight deepened our prospects were far from encouraging. The light had almost gone from the sky before the camp finder turned the bow of his canoe across the stream in the direction of what appeared to be a backwater with a pleasant grassy bank in the shelter of a wood. With our eyes fixed on this goal we were paddling hard to stem the current which threatened to sweep us past the chosen spot, when we suddenly shot from the turbid flood of the main stream into the crystal-clear water of the Traun, at the mouth of which we had fortunately selected our camp-ground. We had become accustomed to the rain by this time, and as we were snug and dry when once inside our tents, we were more or less indifferent to the weather in camp. The next morning as we were cosily cooking our breakfast in the shelter of the great sketching umbrellas, a line of lumber rafts surged past the camp, scarcely a yard from the bushes on the bank, the raftsmen giving us a cheerful greeting as they went along. We were anxious to continue the acquaintance, but made no haste to follow them, because, in our ignorance of the rapidity of the current, we fancied we could easily overtake them. When we paddled out into the stream a few minutes later, not an
PUMP AT PÖCHLARN
object was in sight on the broad surface of the Danube except a hideous, puffing tow-boat, which left a trail of black smoke behind it, and churned the river into a sea of vicious waves. As it turned out, we never once overtook the rafts while they were drifting down-stream. We passed them several times after they had tied up to the bank for the night, and they as often floated along near our camp in the morning while we were still at our toilets or at breakfast. We learned to know all the raftsmen by sight, but never succeeded in spending a moment in their company until we happened to land at the same village, their last station above Vienna, and within sight of that city.
After leaving Linz we began to look forward to the great bugbears of this part of the river, the Greiner Schwall, the Strudel, and the Wirbel, famous rapids and whirlpools whose very names are sufficient to strike dismay to the heart of the boatman, and bring confusion to the mind of the philologist. Friends of ours who had more than once made the trip from Donaueschingen to Vienna had given us dramatic descriptions of the terrors of this passage, and the oldest cruiser of them all had confessed that he had never ventured to run these rapids, but had always intrusted himself and his canoe to a native flat-boat. The long-shore people wherever we had stopped for the last day or two had volunteered warnings of the dangers that were awaiting us, and we made an unusually early camp the day we left the Traun in a delightful spot opposite Grein, so as to be prepared to take our chances with the river monster in the early morning. Accordingly, after storing our traps with unusual care, and diligently studying the map, we boldly paddled forth bright and early the next day, and rapidly approached the gorge just below the town. As we came near we saw before us a narrow chasm, scarcely a hundred feet wide, where the river forces its way between precipitous cliffs on the one hand and a lofty, rocky island on the other, with piled up ruins of old castles frowning from the crag on either side. We had no time to hesitate, and no power to stop the onward rush of the canoes, and were in the surging sea of yellow billows before we realized it. The canoes behaved like a charm, shipping not a teaspoonful of water, and riding the waves like water-fowl. So far as our experience went, we were unable to distinguish the Greiner Schwall, the Strudel, and the Wirbel apart, for they seemed like one long rapid. Half-way down, finding that the canoes kept their course with very little guidance, we whipped out our sketch-books and made hasty notes of the scenery in a spirit of bravado which might easily have had unpleasant results.
Long, straight reaches between wild hills carried us to Ybbs—the old Roman Pons Isidis—at the mouth of the river of the same name, and thence to Pöchlarn where we landed for our mid-day meal at a river-side inn with pretty waitresses who made our stay a joy, and on our departure decorated our coats with nosegays in souvenir of our visit. It was at Pöchlarn that Kriemhild, on her journey to Hungary, was so brilliantly entertained by Rüdiger, one of the heroes of the “Niebelungenlied.” Our experience proves that the traditional hospitality of the time has lost none of its charm in the lapses of many centuries.
It was but a short run from here to the heavily-wooded heights where the Benedictine monastery of Melk dominates the surrounding landscape with its magnificent pile of buildings, the most imposing edifice along the whole course of the Danube, and celebrated in song and story since its foundation in the eleventh century. From its grand terrace the full majesty of the river is disclosed to view, as the broad, shining sheet of water extends from the plain far beyond Pöchlarn to the shadowy reaches of the pass below,