GOLUBÁÇ
From the broad reach just below Bazias the whole horizon to the south and east appears to be a solid wall of rocky heights, and is without a break visible to the eye. For about twenty miles the river winds gently across a pleasant valley, divides around a large island, and then sweeps straight down towards the huge barrier, which extends to the right and left as far as the eye can see. As we paddled along in the quiet current past the Servian town of Gradistje, and came nearer and nearer to the mass of rugged peaks which cut sharply against the sky, we grew more and more impatient to discover the course of the river through the chain, and unconsciously increased the rapidity and the force of our stroke until we sped along as if paddling a race. Suddenly, as we were passing the end of the large island, the landscape opened to the eastward like the shifting scenes on a stage, and the river, sweeping past a high isolated rock in mid-stream, was seen to plunge with accelerated speed directly into a narrow cleft between immense limestone cliffs, and to disappear in the depths of the gorge. Guarding the entrance to this defile, the ruin of the Castle of Golubáç, on the Servian shore, piles its towers high on a spur which juts out boldly over the river, and shades a pleasant little green meadow by the water-side. The foundations of the castle are said to be Roman, and there is a tradition that Helen, the Empress of Greece, was imprisoned here; but the ruins now visible are those of the fortress built by Maria Térésa in the middle of last century. Along the Hungarian bank the famous highway of Count Széchényi, leading from the town of Moldova just above to Orsova, at the Roumanian frontier, shows the straight line of its cuttings and embankments but a few feet above the water. The smooth, perpendicular cliffs are perforated by numerous caverns, one of which tradition has marked as the place whence issue the swarms of vicious flies which persecute the cattle in the summer-time. A local legend attributes the origin of these flies to the body of the dragon killed by St. George.
The green meadow under Golubáç invited us to a pleasant camp, for night was fast coming on as we finished our sketching, and we were loath to leave the charming, romantic spot. But one of our party, unable to resist the impulse to penetrate the gathering gloom of the defile, had drifted on and was lost to sight. The whole sky was tinged with the coppery red of sunset when we set out to overtake him. The river whirled and rushed and wrestled with our paddles as we floated on into the deepening twilight. Now and then a great boiling under our very keels would throw us out of our course, and make the light canoes bound along with an unfamiliar and disturbing motion. On and on we went, unable longer to see a map, and with no means of determining where and when we should come upon the dangerous rapids and whirlpools that lay somewhere in our path. Frequent camp-fires sparkled at the water’s edge, and from one to another we paddled, waking the echoes with the shrill notes of our whistles, until at last, just as we had concluded to give up the search, certain that we had passed our companion in the darkness, we heard his welcome hail, and were soon in camp.
The plaintive song of a peasant girl, spinning from a distaff as she walked through the rustling maize-field behind our camp, brought us to our feet long before we had slept off the effects of our sixty miles’ paddle of the day before; and, eager to be at the rapids, we ate a hasty breakfast and were off down the reach, very like the Hudson in scenery, to the little coaling station of Drenkova, where we had been told to take a pilot. We trimmed our canoes with unusual care, tested our paddles, stowed away all loose articles, and put everything in fighting trim. Although we did not propose to undergo the humiliation of following a pilot through the rapids, we thought it best to take all reasonable means to find the best channel, and we therefore landed at Drenkova, and consulted the agent of the steamship company there. He could give us but very few directions which were of any use, but offered us a pilot, and advised us strongly not to attempt the passage alone. But the sight of puffing steamers slowly dragging loaded barges up the stream was to our minds satisfactory proof of the nature of the obstructions, and, a little impatient at the delay, we pushed off, followed by repeated cautions and confused directions. From our long experience with the Danube, we had come to believe that it was a thoroughly well-behaved and well-regulated river, whose mild tricks were easily understood, and whose current would not endanger the veriest tub that ever disgraced a navigable stream. We were only too anxious, then, to see what the river could really do in the way of making navigation difficult and dangerous; and, besides, never having tested our canoes except in the choppy seas of the sudden wind-storms, we were ready to risk a good deal to find out how they would act in the baffling currents and waves of a real rapid.
ROUMANIAN PEASANT GIRL
Just below Drenkova the Danube bends to the south, and makes its first angry dash over the ledges of rock that stretch between the sheer cliffs on the Servian side and the rocky, wooded heights opposite. The river was about its average height on the day we went down, and no rocks showed above the surface. A strong head-wind so disturbed the water that we were unable to judge of the run of the currents, nor exactly tell where the rapids really were until we were in the midst of them. To add to our difficulties, several steamers were towing up-stream, and the wash from their paddles, necessary to be avoided at all times, increased the turmoil of the rushing waters. There was nothing to do, then, but to take our own course far enough away to avoid the steamer wash, if possible, and still near enough the main channel to escape the whirlpools, which we had been told were the greatest dangers of the passage. Between this Scylla and Charybdis the way was not easy, but we paddled steadily forward, breasting the waves, throwing spray mast-high, and plunging along with great speed. Suddenly, between two of the canoes a great vortex appeared, and with giddy revolving motion seemed to rush on viciously in chase of the foremost boat. Never were paddles used with greater vigor or better skill, and the dainty crafts swept gracefully around on the outer ring of the whirlpool, just out of reach of the resistless clutch of the swirl, until the yawning vortex gradually closed up again and its force was idly spent. The Danube had given us a notion of what it might do if trifled with.
A second rapid followed the first, not far below it, at the end of a broad reach surrounded by high mountains, and although we were not conscious of any great increase in the speed of the current, we heard in a few moments the roar of the Greben rapids—the longest and most difficult of navigation above those at the Iron Gates. As we came near, we saw a line of white water reaching across from shore to shore, apparently without a break. We were speedily approaching this rank of tossing waves, where jets of glittering spray flew high in the air, when we fortunately saw a steamer passing up near the Servian shore, and paddled rapidly across to find the channel, where we would be less likely to meet the only enemy we feared—the whirlpools. Before we had time to deliberate on the best passage among the rocks we were in the midst of the tumbling, dashing waters, and almost before we caught our breath again we were in a comparatively still pool under the immense crag of Greben, which, pushing far out into the stream and narrowing the channel, causes the current to flow with great swiftness over the jagged ledges of rock that dam the river at this point. In our exhilarating dashes through the waves we had not shipped a spoonful of water, although our decks had been constantly awash, even to the very top of the coamings. As we neared the last pitch of the river at this point, we had acquired such confidence in our canoes that we dashed boldly into the roughest of the leaping waves, fired with enthusiasm for the unaccustomed sport, and filled with the excitement of our adventure. The canoes fairly leaped from crest to crest of the billows, and we could not see each other for the screen of dashing spray. A moment or two of active dodging and very hard paddling and we came out breathless at the landing of a temporary station where the international corps of engineers are quartered while the great work of improving the navigation is in progress.