The next place to be reached is the long and straggling village of Sarmingstein, with on a rock above it the ruins of a round watch-tower—all that is left of a one-time important castle that was long maintained as a refuge for non-combatants in time of war. The prosperous village seems chiefly given over to the timber and granite cutting industries, and here, as the steamer goes down the river, we may see the large, long barges being loaded with planks, the work being done by women. Some of the mountain sides here are entirely denuded of their timber; the tree trunks being slid down the steep slopes to the river-side. Through part of Sarmingstein the road narrows again closely between the houses as at Struden. Probably this was done owing to the scantiness of the land between the mountain side and the river, or it may have been to make it less easy for the passage of an enemy in the old and troubled times. One of the worst of the “high-water marks” which are seen ever and again in Danube-side towns and villages is placed against the side of a house in Sarmingstein, about twelve feet above the pavement. A number of houses are to be noticed along these river-side places without any living-rooms on the ground floor, this being doubtless a precaution against floods.
The long street which forms the village of Sarmingstein runs at the foot of a beech-clothed mountain, on which are pleasant paths with seats at intervals, from which may be had lovely views over the roofs of the place to the intensely green river. Among the wealth of wild flowers I was especially struck here by the beautiful cyclamen. Near the further end of Sarmingstein are timber mills worked by the Sarmingbach, which here cascades down through a narrow valley in a manner somewhat similar to that of the stream that rushes down from the Stillenstein. The roadway that is cut up through the woods on the mountain-side on the left bank of this small tributary of the Danube zig-zags about like the approaches to a Swiss pass. This beautiful village has found an enthusiastic panegyrist in Herr Carl Julius Weber.
Between Grein and Sarmingstein the villages are all on the left bank, on the right there being but occasional cottages, sometimes perched high on grassy patches among the woodland like Alpine chalets. Little more than a mile further down-stream is the pretty hamlet of Hirschenau on the left bank and on the opposite side the lofty ruins of Freyenstein, at one time one of the largest and most powerful of Austrian castles. Still between wooden hills we pass, with here and there small hamlets visible. At Isperdorf there appears nothing but a mere landing stage at the foot of a rocky pine-clad hill. The village of Isperdorf, where Charlemagne conquered Duke Thassilo of Bavaria in 787, is on the further side of the river Isper, which comes in from the north. This stream marks the boundary between Upper and Lower Austria on the left bank. Here the valley widens out as the Danube hastens to its confluence with the Ybbs, and soon we see the white castle or chateau of Persenbeug standing boldly on a rock by the water’s edge on the left. The town of Persenbeug lies further along, and is scattered somewhat over the flat peninsula round which the Danube here makes a sharp bend to the southwards; the road and the railway both cross the northern end of this peninsula, from which Persenbeug takes its name, corrupted from Bösenbeug, signifying a dangerous bend in the river, of which this might be regarded as the beginning.
SARMINGSTEIN
The Schloss Persenbeug, though much renewed, and looking modern in its creamy whiteness, represents one of the oldest buildings in Lower Austria. It was at one time a summer residence of the Austrian Emperors, and is associated with the story of the Devil and the Bishop the first part of which was enacted in the neighbourhood of the Strudel and Wirbel. To continue that story in the words of the old chronicler before quoted, after describing the passing of the Devil’s Tower he goes on, “Not far from thence, some two miles’ journey,[9] the Emperor and his people landed, proposing to pass the night in a town called Pösenbeiss, belonging to the Lady Richlita, widow of the Count Adalbero von Ebersberg. She received the Emperor joyfully; invited him to a banquet, and prayed him, besides, that he would bestow the town of Pösenbeiss and other surrounding places (that her husband had possessed and governed) on her brother’s son Welforic the Third. The Emperor entered the banquet room, and standing near Bishop Bruno, Count Aleman von Ebersberg and the Lady Richlita, gave the Countess his right hand and granted her prayer. At that moment the floor of the apartment fell in, and the Emperor fell through into the bathing chamber below it, without sustaining any injury, as did also Count Aleman, and the Lady Richlita, but the Bishop fell on the edge of the bathing tub, broke his ribs and died a few days afterwards. Another account says that others, including Lady Richlita, were also killed. This tragic incident, it is suggested by Planche, was really brought about by the machinations of the monks of Kremsmünster who laid claim to the castle and estates. They did not, however, succeed in getting possession of them, and Persenbeug had been successively the property of several nobles before, at the beginning of the last century, it was repurchased by the Emperor of Austria.
A little lower down-stream, on one of the arms through which the river of the same name reaches the Danube, is the attractive old town of Ybbs—its red-roofed houses dominated by a spired church and backed by low green hills. From the outlook point of “Kirl” is to be obtained a grand view of the Danube, and, away to the south, of the Austrian Alps and the lofty Schneeberg. A little beyond Ybbs the Linz-Vienna railway approaches close to the river and keeps near it for some distance. Having passed round the southern point of the Persenbeug peninsula—on which and on the further bank tall chimneys denote modern manufacturing activity—we go by the ruins of a Cistercian monastery at Säussenstein (on the right bank). Säussenstein takes its name from the rushing of the waters of the “Charybdis” which swirls round its base. Before the river turns eastward again, on the summit of a hill ahead of us are seen the twin towers of a church.