Bringen die Donau zu weg,”
which may be Englished—
“Brigach and Breg
Set the Danube on its way.”
At the town in which is the “source” is a beautiful estate belonging to Prince Fürstenberg, a park which has been described as more like an English park than any other on the Continent, and on the lake are many and various waterfowl including, says one veracious chronicler, swans which are the lineal descendants of the first ever introduced into Germany, it is supposed from Cyprus at the time of the Crusades. This is a curious statement seeing that swans are indigenous over the greater part of Europe. Museum, picture galleries and library are here, but for our present purpose the centre of interest is the spring or source, which has been enclosed, decorated with flowers and ornamented with allegorical statuary representing the Baar—the name of the parish—holding the young Danube in her arms “and whispering instructions for her journey.” Here, too, is an inscription recording the length of the river and the height of the source above the sea-level—
“To the sea, 2840 kilometres” (= 1775 miles).
“Above the sea, 678 metres” (= about 2250 feet).
Steps lead down to the water, and there in accordance with an ancient custom the visitor is expected to drink of the Danube, though he is no longer expected to follow the mediæval plans either of leaping into the stream or pouring into it a cup of wine as an oblation or charm. From the source “the water, which is pure and limpid” is carried by a conduit to the Brigach, and at the point of junction the word “Donau” is inscribed—to remove any lingering doubts from the minds of those inclined to favour the St. Georgen heresy.
At Donaueschingen the ill-starred Austrian Princess Marie Antoinette, a child of fourteen, rested on her journey from Vienna to Paris—marriage and the guillotine.
Of the many hamlets, villages and small towns that the Danube passes, it will not be possible to say much, except where we pause to learn some ancient legend, some scrap of history, or to indicate things of special beauty or interest that are to be seen. In its first few miles the course of the river takes us, as Mr. C. E. Hughes puts it, through “part of the Hegau, the land of towering, castle-crowned peaks, the land of legends and traditions innumerable;”[1] through Pfohren, with its Duck Castle, so named because it was built in the water, now fallen from its castle dignity, in a field near the river, and Geissingen with its old covered bridge. Most of the way from Donaueschingen to Ulm the railway closely follows the course of the river. Next comes Immendingen—whence the railway branches south through the mountains of the volcanic Hegau which forms the dividing watershed between the Danube and the Rhine where the two rivers most nearly neighbour each other.