This morality of the Red Indian order so astonished us that we did not readily offer the excuse that our boats could carry but one person apiece, but we sweetened our refusal of the gift by an abundance of tobacco and a few old clothes, hastily launched our canoes, and retreated down the river.
The railway from Budapest to Belgrade crosses the Danube at Peterwardein, little less than a day’s paddle from Vukovár, and the iron bridge is the last one of the ugly series that disfigures the river at intervals from its source. Peterwardein, the Gibraltar of the Danube, is a great fortress, elaborately intricate in construction, towering high above the stream, and overlooking the modern town of Neusatz opposite, at the mouth of a branch of the Franzens Canal. A bridge of boats connects the fortress with the town a short distance below the railway, and is actually the last bridge over the Danube. The commercial life of the river seemed to revive again at the mouth of the canal, and as we sailed past the vine-covered hills of Carlowitz and the town of that name, our old enemies the freight steamers puffed up-stream, leaving a dangerous wake, and fouling the sweet air with noisome smoke.
On the perfect summer morning when we left our lovely camping-ground on a meadow below Carlowitz, and drifted down into the silvery light of morning which glorified the river, the hills, and the distant landscape, we were in the mood to enjoy exactly what the Danube offered for our entertainment. On one bank peasants gathered in large parties at every convenient spot, and were engaged in various domestic operations, quite as frank and unconscious in their actions as if they were in the shelter of their own homes. From the villages at some distance back from the river whole families migrate at frequent intervals to temporary camps by the water’s edge, bringing with them their live-stock, cart-loads of corn, and their accumulated washing. While the women are busy with soap and mallet, the men winnow grain, and carry it to the current mills to be ground, and the children watch the pigs and fowls, who are enjoying in their way this brief outing. On the opposite shore may sometimes be seen, on a level piece of public land, great collections of ricks of all sizes and shapes, when the neighboring farmers assemble to thresh their harvest in common, each according to his own means and methods. Some beat it out with flails and pitchforks, others drive horses around on it, and a few make use of the improved machinery of English manufacture. Here it is readily loaded on lighters, to be towed up to Budapest or Vienna, or perhaps to be floated down-stream to the English steamers on the Black Sea. From one group to another, from one shore to the
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other, we went as slowly as the resistless current would let us, fascinated by the cheerful busy life, and always finding each new scene more attractive than the last. Here the Servian women were beating their coarse garments, and hanging them untidily to dry on the framework of the carts. A few rods lower down, at a bivouac of Saxons, piles of beautiful white linen and the freshest of blue garments contrasted agreeably with the squalor of the neighboring camp. These peasants we found polite but reserved; the Servians were usually noisy and talkative, and the Magyars cheery, sympathetic, and communicative.
Far down the glassy reach beyond Ó Szlankamen to the east a long range of flat hills now appeared, marking the course of the sluggish Theiss, and on the opposite bank we saw great rocks, scarcely distinguishable from the hard mud bluffs, but marking a distinct geological change in the landscape. Here on the scorched hill-sides frequent villages were baking in the hot sun, and copper-covered monstrosities of church-spires flashed and glistened in the brilliant light. A ruined castle towered high above the river where the hills crowd the stream out of its course, and then the river broadened into a lake-like expanse, and stretched away until the left bank, always flat and without a break, lost itself entirely in the distance, and sky and water seemed to meet as at the sea horizon. Far away to the south bold blue peaks, the sentinels of the northern range of mountainous Servia, showed where Belgrade stands; and, in pleasant perspective, high bluffs on the right bank, with here and there a church spire, were reflected with all the glories of the midsummer sky in the perfect mirror of the majestic stream. A wonderful sunset glow colored all the landscape as we encamped under a high bluff, in full sight of Semlin and the Servian capital beyond. We fancied we could see in the glowing distance slender minarets behind the great fortress which guards the frontier, and in the perfect quiet of the lingering twilight imagined we could hear the hum of the busy towns. The song of the shepherd on the opposite meadows echoed sweetly as we lay by the camp-fire that
