Through the defile their pent-up currents pour.”
From the German
Below Linz again we have something of a dramatic change in the scenery of the river. Behind us are the mountains, and for a while they neighbour us fairly closely on the left; but for some miles it is between willow-grown shores and among islets that the Danube finds its way. For a while the river runs in a north-easterly direction, as though against the Pfennigberg, but soon turns south-easterly again round it, and so reaches the long, islanded stretch which continues most of the way to the Wachau. Near where the river Traun comes in from the right, is, on the left, though hidden from view, the old town of Steyregg, or Steyereck, with a castle at one time the possession of a family, a member of which, at the Battle of Marchfeld, rescued the Emperor Rudolph the First, founder of the House of Habsburg, from a gigantic Thuringian knight who had unhorsed and wounded him.
At one of the mouths of the Traun, hidden behind islands, is Traundorf, famous for its crawfish. A little distance up it is Ebelsberg, scene of a sanguinary battle between the French and Austrians on 3 May, 1809. “From twelve to sixteen thousand men fell in this terrible conflict, and the banks of the Traun, from Ebelsberg to the Danube, were literally covered with the slain.” Here, too, in the Peasant’s War the insurgents were overcome, and lost two thousand men. And these are but two of the incidents in the stormy history of the town.
As has been said, the journey from Linz to the commencement of the Wachau is mostly through the willow-grown islands of a broad valley. It was possibly hereabouts that the Emperor Julian “the Apostate” reached the Danube on his remarkable march to assured Empire. Gibbon has summarized the story in graphic fashion. Having assembled a great army near Basle, he divided it into three unequal portions—one was to go through the northern parts of Italy, another through the centre of Rhœtia and Noricum:
“The instructions to the generals were conceived with energy and pre-cision; to hasten their march in close and compact columns, which, according to the disposition of the ground, might readily be changed into any order of battle; to secure themselves against the surprises of the night by strong posts and vigilant guards; to prevent resistance by their unexpected arrival; to elude examination by their sudden departure; to spread the opinion of their strength, and the terror of his name; and to join their sovereign under the walls of Sirmium.
“For himself, Julian had reserved a more difficult and extraordinary part. He selected three thousand brave and active volunteers, resolved, like their leader, to cast behind them every hope of a retreat; at the head of this faithful band, he fearlessly plunged into the recesses of the Marcian or Black Forest, which conceals the sources of the Danube, and for many days the fate of Julian was unknown to the world. The secrecy of his march, his diligence, and vigour, surmounted every obstacle; he forced his way over mountains and morasses, occupied the bridges, or swam the rivers, pursued his direct course, without reflecting whether he traversed the territory of the Romans, or of the barbarians, and at length emerged, between Ratisbon and Vienna, at the place where he designed to embark his troops on the Danube. By a well-concerted stratagem he seized a fleet of light brigantines, as it lay at anchor; secured a supply of coarse provisions, sufficient to satisfy the indelicate, but voracious appetite, of a Gallic army; and boldly committed himself to the stream of the Danube. The labours of his mariners, who plied their oars with incessant diligence, and the steady continuance of a favourable wind, carried his fleet above seven hundred miles in eleven days, and he had already disembarked his troops at Bononia [Widdin] only nineteen miles from Sirmium, before his enemies could receive any certain intelligence that he had left the banks of the Rhine.”
It was possibly somewhere on this stretch of the river that the “fleet of brigantines” was seized and the rapid voyage to Constantinople begun, but of the actual place of embarkation there appears to be no record. Certainly, with a favourable wind, and the energy of oarsmen, aided by the swift current of the stream, the expedition may well have made progress rapid enough to satisfy even the impatience of the astute Julian. Now, in place of the Roman brigantines, are seen the passenger steamers by which we moderns can do the same journey in about four days. The coming of the steamship has probably lessened the number of craft on the river, though as we journey along, we see sometimes a number of the great long barges with high-perched steering houses at the stern, and each with a neat little dwelling hut on the deck, generally noticeable for the attempt at “gardening,” made with boxes, pots or tubs, of flowering plants, and even occasionally of good-sized oleanders. These barges are towed, sometimes half a dozen at a time, by strong tug-steamers. Fairly extensive timber rafts, too, are seen, sometimes with as many as four or five steersmen at each end—every steersman working a very long oar-like board by way of rudder. Some of the tugs drawing these barges are armed at the prow with a kind of dredging apparatus, by means of which they can work their way along through unexpected shallows. For, deep as is the Danube in places, in others it is so shallow as to be scarcely navigable at times of low water.
The constant variations of depth make the navigation a matter of constant study, as it is sometimes impossible for steamers to pass under the bridges, while at low water, even in the navigable channel, there is in places but a foot of water beneath the keel. Passing down one stretch of the river we may find it to be a broad unbroken surface, and returning a few weeks later, see that surface broken up by long islands of white shingle.
Nature has provided a forecaster of what is to happen in this regard. On islets or banks we may occasionally see a solitary fisch-reiher, or heron, or may see one steadily flapping across the water ahead of us. From the captain of the steamer we learn that the bird is known, to those whose business it is to study the changing aspects of the river, as the “water maker,” for if it is found standing in the shallows with its beak up-stream, there is going to be high water, if pointing down-stream, then a period of low water is approaching. Such is the local lore, whether scientifically accurate or not I cannot say, and I certainly was not given the opportunity of seeing two neighbouring birds, the one fishing up, and the other down-stream!