I "-< 
 
 &*& 
 
 
 
 %a\lM-3V^ 
 
 ra 
 
 CO <-= 
 
 e- 5 
 
 r% A$dO$lr>. ,^OfCAl}FO% 
 
 *^!^ ^*N *>^i rs. 03
 

 
 JFictton, fact, emir JFancn Scries 
 
 EDITED BY ARTHUR STEDMAN 
 
 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE
 
 .fiction, .fact, anfr JTanqi 
 
 MERRY TALES. 
 
 BY MARK TWAIN. 
 
 THE GERMAN EMPEROR AND HIS EASTERN 
 NEIGHBORS. 
 
 BY POULTNEY BlGRLOW. 
 
 PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN THE 
 DANUBE. 
 
 BY POULTNEY BlGELOW. 
 
 SELECTED POEMS. 
 
 BY WALT WHITMAN. 
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHIA: THE STORY OF HIS LIFE. 
 BY WALT WHITMAN. 
 
 DON FINIMONDONE: CALABRIAN 
 SKETCHES. 
 
 BY ELISABKTH CAVAZZA. 
 
 THE MASTER OF SILENCE: A ROMANCE. 
 BY IRVING BACHICLI.ER. 
 
 WRITINGS OF COLUMBUS. 
 
 EDITED BY PAUL LEICESTER FORD. 
 
 Other Volumes to be Annonncid. 
 
 Bound in Illuminated Cloth, each, 75 Cents. 
 
 -jf* jf For Stilf by nil Booksellers, or sent postpaid, on re- 
 ceipt of price, by the Publishers, 
 
 OHAS. L WEBSTER & CO., NEW YORK
 
 X 
 ' 
 
 X - 
 
 Caribet AT VISEGRAU CASTLE. Chapter \\\.
 
 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 
 
 BY 
 
 POULTNEY BIGELOW 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES L. WEBSTER & CO. 
 1892 
 
 146030
 
 Copyright, 1892, 
 CHARLES L. WEBSTER & CO. 
 
 (All rights reserved.) 
 
 PRESS OF 
 JENKINS & McCowAN, 
 
 NEW YORK.
 
 I 
 
 EDITOR'S NOTE 
 
 THE idea of cruising the whole length of the Danube 
 in an American sailing canoe had for many years been 
 cherished by Mr. Bigelow, but not until the summer of 
 1891 had the opportunity presented itself to make the 
 journey. His canoe voyages in this country, the West 
 India Islands, and in parts of Europe other than the 
 Danubian districts, had convinced Mr. Bigelow that 
 the traveler who was able to carry with him his bed, 
 his food, his library, and his clothing, without exhaust- 
 ing his physical powers, was well equipped for learning 
 something new. The canoeist, in his opinion, was the 
 only traveler who could boast of the full combination 
 of advantages thus enumerated. 
 
 It was Mr. Bigelow's original intention to write a 
 descriptive and historical book on this great interna- 
 tional highway, and with that object in mind he invited 
 an artist friend to accompany him for the purpose of 
 making a series of drawings. When their whole voyage 
 was completed other plans developed; and Mr. Bigelow 
 therefore abandoned his first purpose, and has limited 
 himself to a briefer description of the trip and to dis-
 
 vi EDITOR S NOTE 
 
 cussions of Danubian politics in the light of information 
 gained at first hand. A few rough drawings which he 
 made on the way were not intended for more than the 
 diversion of his children, but he has been requested to 
 allow these to be reproduced for the purpose of illus- 
 trating this volume, and as giving remarkably lifelike 
 pictures of the racial types along the river. 
 
 The readers of Mr. Bigelow's companion-book on 
 The German Emperor, and His Eastern Neighbors, and 
 those who peruse the present work, will soon discover 
 that their author regards the Danube as a European 
 highway which, like its American counterpart, the 
 Mississippi, can never attain full development until it 
 owns but one master from source to mouth. The 
 author's opinion as to who this master shall be is pretty 
 clearly suggested in the following chapters. 
 
 Credit is due the " Centtiry Magazine " and " Harper s 
 New Monthly Magazine "for portions of this book which 
 have been reprinted from their pages.
 
 TO 
 
 A DEAR HUNGARIAN FRIEND, 
 
 GERSTER LAJOS
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Incidental to the First Day on the Danube . 17 
 
 II. The Watch on the Rhine 26 
 
 III. Ilohenzollern Caslie 34 
 
 IV. Dams and Rapids 42 
 
 V. The Fortress of Ulm 47 
 
 VI. A Rare Old Town in Havana 55 
 
 VII. One or Two Suggestions to the Canoeist . 63 
 
 VIII. The Danube Waterman 71 
 
 IX. The Capital of the Holy Roman Empire . 77 
 
 X. Priestly Miracles 82 
 
 XI. Cai-ibe,; in the Strudel and Wirbel .... 98 
 
 XII. Why We All Love the Magyar 102 
 
 XIII. A Night of Revelry near Budapesth . . . 117 
 
 XIV. Entertained by Hungarian Peasants . . . 132 
 XV. Some Noble Gypsies 142 
 
 XVI. The Szegedin Harvest 154 
 
 XVII. Servian Public Opinion 164 
 
 XVIII. Caribee Shoots the Rapids of the Iron Gates 171 
 
 XIX. In a Bulgarian Water-Mill 193 
 
 XX. A Turkish Bit of River 204 
 
 XXI. My Friend, the Bulgarian Agent . . . . 217 
 
 XXII. The Jew from a Danube Point of View . . 226 
 
 XXIII. Russia at the Mouth of the Danube . . . 240
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Caribee at Visegrad Castle Frontispiece 
 
 Launching the Canoe Caribee 24 
 
 Portrait of Max Schneckenburger 28 
 
 Climbing to Hohenzollern Castle 39 
 
 Approaching a Dam 44 
 
 Caribee on Shore with Tent Up 57 
 
 Plan of the Original Rob Roy Canoe 65 
 
 Plan of Canoe Cai ibee 73 
 
 Hungarians Dancing 134 
 
 Gypsies Dancing : 149 
 
 In the Whirlpools of the Iron Gate 173 
 
 Caribee at Trajan's Tablet ... 183 
 
 Servian Fisherman on Horseback 195 
 
 Turkish Sailor Paddling a Dugout 201 
 
 In the Kalafat Cafe 205 
 
 Angry Turkish Skipper 207 
 
 Caribee Borne by Bulgarian Porters 209 
 
 Water Carrier, Bulgaria 210 
 
 Greek Priest in Bulgaria 211 
 
 Girl in the Market, Widin 212 
 
 Turkish Porter 214 
 
 Bulgarian Gens d'Arme 215 
 
 Bulgarian Official 218 
 
 Bulgarian Loafer 219 
 
 Turkish Emigrant 222 
 
 Watermelons for Sale 223
 
 xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Jews at a Russian Railway Station 227 
 
 Russian Peasant 228 
 
 Roumanian Peasant 230 
 
 Herdsman of Moldavia 233 
 
 Russian Cab Driver in Galatz 235 
 
 Russian Railway Conductor . 237 
 
 Roumanian Peasant and Her Baby 241 
 
 Russian Sentinel 242 
 
 Home from Market 245 
 
 Roumanian Officer 248 
 
 Parish Priest in Roumania 257
 
 PREFACE 
 
 SUCH instruction or amusement as the reader 
 is able to extract from these pages is due in the 
 first degree to the kind friends who smoothed 
 my social progress and gave me access to 
 political opinions worth reflecting. 
 
 Many of these gentlemen I cannot mention; 
 for in Poland, Russia, and Bulgaria, people who 
 think do so with great risk. 
 
 The members of the Lia Rowing Club of 
 Vienna, the Neptune Rowing Club of Buda- 
 pesth, the Donau Rowing Club of Ulm these 
 three placed Caribec and her crew under pro- 
 found obligations. Their members entertained 
 us in the best spirit of fellowship, and gave us 
 a new type of the well-trained oarsman and 
 the high-bred gentleman. 
 
 The Danube Steamship Company showed 
 me many courtesies, thanks to Lieutenant- 
 Colonel von Deines, the German Military At- 
 tache in Vienna. 
 
 Amongst the many to whom, in this regard, 
 I am debtor, are Dr. Wm. Howard Russell,
 
 XIV PREFACE 
 
 the first of war correspondents ; the late Ser- 
 vian Finance Minister, Myatovitch ; Professor 
 Carl Abel, the Orientalist ; Messrs. Luther and 
 Schlotterbeck, who are engineering the Iron 
 Gates Works ; Demeter Ghika, the Roumanian 
 diplomate ; Mr. Heinz, the chief engineer of 
 the Franzens Canal ; Professor Waldstein, of 
 the American School of Archaeology at 
 Athens ; Professor James Bryce, M. P. ; George 
 von Bunsen, of Berlin ; Dr. Bamberger, of the 
 German Reichstag ; Colonel Frederick Grant, 
 the American minister in Vienna ; Dr. Carl 
 Schrader, member of the German Reichstag ; 
 Professor Pultsky, of the Budapesth Museum ; 
 Pultsky Agost, member of the Hungarian 
 parliament and a host more whose names it 
 is a pleasure to recall as I write. 
 
 P. B. 
 
 The Century Club, 
 Neiv York, May, 1892.
 
 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 DOWN THE DANUBE
 
 PADDLES AND POLITICS DOWN 
 THE DANUBE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 REMARKS INCIDENTAL TO THE FIRST DAY 
 ON THE DANUBE 
 
 '"T^HE light had faded from the longest and 
 JL brightest day of the year 1891 when three 
 very tired men lay down to sleep upon the 
 bottom boards of three well-thumped canoes. 
 They had started that same morning from the 
 place usually accepted as the source of the 
 Danube, had tumbled their boats over seven 
 dams or weirs, had escaped the rocks in the 
 rapids, had feasted their eyes upon meadows 
 glorious in wealth of flower color, had passed 
 below grim ruins many of feudal castles, chat- 
 ted with the people on the banks and more 
 cleanly, intelligent, and friendly population it 
 would be difficult to find in Europe and had 
 finished the day a little below Tuttlingen, a 
 17
 
 1 8 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 town forever famous in that here was educated 
 the author of the "Watch on the Rhine." 
 
 While our three canoeists are adjusting the 
 angles of their anatomical structure so as to 
 sleep sweetly upon a bare board, let me retrace 
 the features of the first day's navigation of the 
 Danube, the first of -the many that are to carry 
 us, we fondly hope, " from the Black Forest to 
 the Black Sea." 
 
 The little town of Donaueschingen, perched 
 high in the invigorating air of the Black Forest, 
 has been arbitrarily designated the source of 
 the Danube. The prince who owns most of 
 the land in the neighborhood has built an orna- 
 mental stone basin for a very powerful spring 
 that gushes out close to his palace, and has 
 erected a portentous slab, notifying all the 
 world that this is the genuine source of the 
 greatest of European streams, that it is 2,840 
 kilometres to the Black Sea, and 678 metres 
 above tide-water. I ventured to point out to 
 an intelligent Black -Forester who stood with 
 me by this monument that the real source of 
 the Danube was higher up, but he regarded my 
 statement as outrageous. " Gott in Himmel ! " 
 said he, piously. " Here lives the prince; here
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 19 
 
 is his palace; here is the official statement cut 
 in the stone. What more do you want ? " 
 
 I was silenced, but could not help feeling 
 that if an enterprising promoter could secure 
 some other prince, get up a stock company, 
 hire a spring further up, build a summer hotel, 
 call the place "Danube High Spring," or 
 "Danube Source Original," carve it in stone, 
 and make the rival prince hold court at the 
 summer hotel, in three seasons Donaueschingen 
 would be bankrupt. 
 
 Nevertheless, we rejoiced in considering this 
 place the source, for even if there are others, 
 none of them is more picturesque, more ven- 
 erable, more clean, or more full of kindly peo- 
 ple. The prince has given the town a park, 
 every bit of which is full of beaut}', and as the 
 little town seems built upon it, one cannot 
 move from the front door without feeling that 
 here at least the delights of country life are 
 joined with those of a little city. It is a place 
 to spend a long summer with one or two friends 
 addicted to pedestrianism or the bicycle, for 
 the roads are excellent in all directions, and the 
 scenery a little of all, from the grandest to the 
 prettiest. 
 
 To us, however, the value of Donaueschingen
 
 2O PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 consisted mainly in the fact that it held our 
 three canoes, and that they were to be launch- 
 ed here on their voyage down the Danube. 
 And, for that matter, the people of the town 
 appeared to share our feelings, for as we work- 
 ed upon our tiny craft in the courtyard of the 
 Gasthaus zum Schiitzen, we gradually became 
 the centres about which a large proportion of 
 the population, both male and female, hovered 
 and asked questions. The host took great in- 
 terest in our work, mainly, we hope, from per- 
 sonal sympathy perhaps, also, because, of 
 those who came, many remained to talk it over 
 in his beer-room. 
 
 Among a people so^Jamed for woodwork 
 and clocks as those of the Black Forest it was 
 not surprising that they should enjoy a novelty 
 that appealed directly to their most widely 
 practised craft. The three little boats were 
 alike in dimensions, weight, and rig, all being 
 made on the banks of the East River, New 
 York. The weight of each is eighty pounds 
 net, to which is added that of two masts and 
 sails, a brass folding centre-board, a nickel rud- 
 der that drops nine inches below the keel, 
 camping kitchen, steward's pantry, tents, and 
 clothing for day and night. When the canoe
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 21 
 
 is fully loaded it exceeds considerably the 
 weight it represented on the stocks, but is never 
 more than can be conveniently carried by any 
 two of us for a reasonable distance, as, for in- 
 stance, around a dam, or onto high ground 
 when going into camp. 
 
 This point of weight is the most vital one in 
 a cruising canoe, for it is only by being so light 
 that it can accomplish so many objects. We 
 learned to value this element on the first day, 
 for we had seven dams to pass, some of which 
 forced us to " carry." Of course, had our boats 
 weighed as much as some English sailing ca- 
 noes, we might have procured the service of 
 people living in the neighborhood, and thus 
 achieved our object; but the carrying of canoes 
 by inexperienced hands is not al \vays well for 
 the boats. 
 
 Our party passed twenty-one dams before 
 reaching the navigable part of the river. We 
 never accepted any assistance from the people 
 on the banks, although it was generously of- 
 fered. We found that one of us at bow and 
 another at stern were quite sufficient, and that 
 we saved much wear and tear and gained 
 enormously in time by carrying them ourselves. 
 
 The canoes are fifteen feet long, thirty inches
 
 22 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 wide, and leave a space of about one foot be- 
 tween the bottom board and the deck. At 
 bow and stern are water-tight compartments 
 reaching about three and a half feet from each 
 extremity, and giving space enough for the 
 clothing and stores of any reasonable camper- 
 out. The remaining eight feet of the boat 
 means a clear space for him to stretch himself 
 at night two feet longer than a steamship 
 berth, and quite as wide. Sleeping on wood 
 seems discouraging work, but one's bones soon 
 become adapted to it. The luxuriously inclined 
 can spread a blanket or woolly garment in lieu 
 of spring mattress. The sides of the canoe 
 shelter the sleeper from the wind, and in case 
 of a shower he has a series of deck hatches that 
 fit nicely each to the other, and keep a large 
 part of him dry. For the rest, he can pull a 
 rubber blanket over the boat, and be quite sure 
 that no harm will result. This is, however, a 
 makeshift, which we adopted in order to avoid 
 the weight of our tents until we had passed all 
 the dams. For the same reason we sent on our 
 masts and sails to Ulm, and proceeded in " light 
 marching order." 
 
 Our boats are entirely of wood broad flat 
 oak keel, an infinite number of little dainty oak
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 23 
 
 ribs, on to which the sides are copper-riveted. 
 The decks are of mahogany, and in general 
 they represent an amount of elasticity and 
 strength never before combined in boats of 
 their weights and dimensions for a cruise of 
 this kind. 
 
 As to stores and dress, that question is easily 
 solved in a country like Germany. We have 
 the authority of the cook and of the purser of 
 our party in saying that it is unnecessary to 
 bring from home more than the mere boat. 
 Any little town in the fatherland can supply 
 the needs of our party as well as London or 
 New York; and at Donaueschingen we bought 
 an excellent spirit stove; pots, pans, plates, 
 etc., of enameled iron; and of course a long 
 sausage, coffee, tea, sugar, lemons, bread, but- 
 ter. Germans make and use large quantities 
 of preserved meats and soups, and it must be a 
 small town indeed where a canoeist cannot fill 
 his pantry satisfactorily. This item is the more 
 important in that the intending canoeist who 
 reads this may not merely save himself the 
 customs duty on the frontier, but the freight as 
 well. 
 
 But come an end to prefaces ! It is already 
 past 8 o'clock, and we have been up since 5,
 
 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 making final dispositions for the cruise. All 
 Donaueschingen is gathered about the inn, on 
 the bridge, and along the embankments of the 
 stream ay, even the uniformed representative 
 of the military department is there to wish us 
 God-speed, to say nothing of a clever young 
 lady from Boston, to whom two of us are in- 
 debted for hav- 
 ing our nation- 
 al ensigns neat- 
 ly laced to our 
 miniature flag- 
 posts. 
 
 One shove of 
 the paddle, and 
 we are clear of 
 the bushes and 
 in the strength 
 of a current car- 
 rying us at the 
 rate of two and a half miles an hour. The 
 stream passes through the beautiful park, and 
 we are for an hour or more starting up swans, 
 whose headquarters are in the park lake, but 
 whose enterprise carries them for many miles 
 down the river. 
 
 Our first day is crowded with the sensations 
 
 Caribee WAS SLID OVER THE IRON RAILINGS, 
 
 AND INTO THE HEADWATERS OF THE DANUBE, AT 
 DONAUESCHINGEN IN THE BLACK FOREST.
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 25 
 
 that contribute to happiness a bright day, 
 with just enough of passing cloud to save the 
 skies from monotony; a body of clear, crisp, 
 eddying water beneath, just lively enough to 
 make one have an eye to the paddle lest one 
 be caught foul in swinging around a sharp 
 corner; banks of grass retreating from the river 
 until they merge themselves in the leafy re- 
 cesses that crown the distant mountain-tops of 
 the Black Forest; and flowers! who could do 
 justice to the wealth of gorgeous coloring that 
 sets its fragrant limits on the edges of this 
 stream ? From the decks of our boats we feast 
 our eyes upon such an expanse of floral beauty 
 as only California could match; and as our 
 craft skirt the shore we can enjoy the charming 
 details of this picture by picking our boats full 
 of these sweet ephemeral treasures without so 
 much as leaving our canoes, or even slacking 
 their speed.
 
 26 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE WATCH ON THE RHINE AND OUR FIRST 
 CAMP ON THE DANUBE 
 
 XTEIDINGEN, Gutmadingen, Geisigen, 
 -L ^i Immendingen, Mohringen, Tuttlingen 
 all these are passed before reaching our first 
 camp. But of these Tuttlingen is our darling. 
 We have not passed a village that could not 
 have made us happy for many days; each with 
 its ruined castle, its mediaeval tower, its steep 
 gables, its colored tiles, its quaint belfry, its 
 tidy and cheery peasants; but all this, and more 
 too, is united in Tuttlingen. This little town 
 also has its feudal castle, its ruined battlements, 
 its legends, and its quaint gables; but it has 
 more than this it has the proud distinction of 
 having educated the poet who made United 
 Germany. The war-song that has made all 
 Germans merge their local differences in one 
 great purpose the common fatherland; that 
 united Bavarians and Prussians, Saxons and 
 Wiirtembergers in 1870; that brought victory 
 over the French, and an imperial crown to the
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 2/ 
 
 House of Hohenzollern that song is " Die 
 Wacht am Rhein," written at the age of twenty- 
 one, by a lad whose schooling was obtained in 
 Tuttlingen. It is needless to say that his name 
 is Max Schneckenburger. 
 
 The people of Tuttlingen are now raising the 
 money needed to place here a worthy monu- 
 ment to the man who has made their town fa- 
 mous. They have placed a square pedestal up- 
 on the bank of the stream as a mute invitation 
 to help on the noble work. Of course we 
 brought our mite from across the Atlantic, and 
 promised to stir our friends up also. In Tutt- 
 lingen is a committee of the leading citizens, 
 who are prepared to receive and acknowledge 
 contributions. 
 
 Little is known of Schneckenburger. He 
 died in 1849, when only thirty years of age. 
 His father blacked boots and lifted trunks in a 
 village tavern near Tuttlingen, but was obvi- 
 ously of superior character, for he eventually 
 became a small merchant and married well. 
 Max did not go to the university his father was 
 too poor but in Tuttlingen he was thoroughly 
 schooled, and then sent to Switzerland, where 
 the post of errand-boy was given him in a gro- 
 cery store. His short life was one of hard work
 
 28 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 and small earnings, far from his beloved father- 
 land, and seeing of the world only what ap- 
 peared in the course of trips made as a com- 
 mercial traveler. His widow assures us that 
 a day never passed that Schneckenburger did 
 
 MAX SCHNECKENBURGER, 
 
 WHO WROTE "DIE WACHT AM RHEIN " IK 1840, WHEN TWENTY-ONE 
 YEARS OF AGE.
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 29 
 
 not kneel in prayer for his fatherland; and his 
 motto, chosen at the age of fifteen, was this 
 word alone, " Deutsch." In 1840 he wrote " Die 
 Wacht am Rhein" as an indignant protest 
 against the French pretensions of that time, but 
 the battles of Gravelotte and Sedan had been 
 fought before his country was made to know 
 the source of their inspiration. Schnecken- 
 burger is another of the many names that hu- 
 manity loves to honor, but which, alas ! human- 
 ity discovers long after its honor has ceased to 
 be of any material consequence. 
 
 We supped in Tuttlingen while our boats 
 were hauled up by the river's bank; but as we 
 supped, Tuttlingen assembled to see us start. 
 We shall never know by what mysterious agen- 
 cy we were made to become at once the creat- 
 ures of fam& and in the very shadow of 
 Schneckenburger ! Was it the contribution to 
 his monument ? was it interest in the American 
 canoes ? was it the hope of seeing us capsize at 
 the big dam between the bridges ? I believe 
 that the love of Schneckenburger made all 
 Tuttlingen interested in us, although several 
 kindly Tuttlingers warned us against the dam. 
 At any rate, as we paddled off in the twilight 
 toward the roaring that indicated the fall of wa-
 
 3O PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 ter, the two bridges were crowded with specta- 
 tors, not to mention the sides of the stream 
 and every window. We had, however, already 
 passed five dams, and therefore felt more com- 
 fortable than might have been the case liad this 
 been our first. The canoes were headed for a 
 bunch of roots, snags, and reeds that had lodged 
 on the crest of the fall about the middle of the 
 stream: we jumped out here, having the snags 
 to hold on to, so that we might not be carried 
 away down the falls. The next thing to do 
 was to select a clean bit of water down which 
 to shoot the boats, while we held in our hand 
 the end of a painter about forty feet long. The 
 boats did their part well, dived prettily into the 
 river below, drew up short when they reached 
 the end of their tether, waited patiently until 
 we picked our way carefully from stone to stone 
 down the ragged slope of the dam with trou- 
 sers tucked above the knees, and finally jumped 
 along merrily when we \vere safely aboard. 
 
 The people waved hats and handkerchiefs 
 when we passed the barrier, and wished us 
 " Gliickliche Reise." We replied with an enthu- 
 siastic cry of " Schneckenburger soil hoch le- 
 ben ! " and the hills rang with such cheers as 
 had never before gladdened the valleys of the
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 3! 
 
 Black Forest. Men, women, and children ran 
 along the banks after us, wishing happiness to 
 the three strangers who had come many miles 
 to worship at the shrine of Schneckenburger. 
 That night we drank the health of Tuttlingen's 
 great poet, and for many days thereafter our 
 toast remained that of Tuttlingen: " Schneck- 
 enburger soil hoch leben ! " 
 
 A few minutes below Tuttlingen we shot our 
 boats over another dam our seventh then 
 hauled them up in a fragrant meadow that 
 formed a sharp point into the river, sponged 
 out the few drops of water that had come into 
 them, and lay down to rest in the bottom. A 
 pair of boots rolled up in an odd pair of trou- 
 sers made a very good pillow; an ulster was 
 ready in case the night became colder; an In- 
 dia-rubber blanket was also at hand in case 
 of rain; the monotonous roar of the waterfall 
 dinned pleasantly upon our tired senses, to 
 which there came, later on, the prattling treble 
 of maidens' voices wondering what manner of 
 boats these were, and what manner of men 
 could live therein. But we were too drowsy to 
 note even what manner of maiden had come 
 across the moonlit meadows. We fell asleep 
 under the ruined battlements of three mediaj-
 
 32 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 val castles Wasserburg, Luginsfeld, and Hon- 
 berg, of which the minstrel sings: 
 
 " No banne r floats upon its keep; 
 
 No warders line its wall; 
 The shouts of war and wassail sleep 
 
 In Honberg's roofless hall. 
 The furze and lichen flourish wild 
 
 In love's neglected bower, 
 And ruin frowns where beauty smiled 
 
 In Honberg's lofty tower." 
 
 Here was the place to dream of gallant 
 knights and ladies fair, of bloody battlements 
 and ghostly dungeons, for each of these three 
 castles has legends enough to start a Walter 
 Scott with raw material. We cared for noth- 
 ing save close communion with the bottom 
 boards of our several canoes until the sun burst 
 upon us next morning from over the opposite 
 mountains. 
 
 One of us this is no place for personalities, 
 and I suppress names rather favored the idea 
 of cooking breakfast in the boat as being a com- 
 pact thing to do, and one that prevented the 
 cooking vessels from being lost. With this ob- 
 ject in view he placed the spirit stove between 
 his knees on the floor of the canoe, and it being 
 a very powerful double-action one, he balanced
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 33 
 
 the coffee-machine above and the pot of hot 
 milk beneath, the idea being that both would 
 come to the boiling-point at about the same 
 time. Unfortunately they did, and with an ex- 
 plosion that could not be escaped. The boil- 
 ing coffee sputtered violently out at the top; 
 the milk squirted as violently below. The bare 
 legs of the experimenter, to say nothing of his 
 arms and other parts of his thinly-clad person, 
 were savagely scalded. His involuntary antics 
 to escape the persistent torrent of boiling milk 
 and coffee only endangered himself and boat 
 still more, and had it not been for the timely 
 intervention of the rest of the party, the spirits 
 would have gone blazing from stem to stern, 
 and made a bonfire of boat and cargo. That 
 experiment resulted in filling every cranny of 
 one boat with coffee grounds and milk, and im- 
 pregnating everything about with a flavor of 
 these misplaced ingredients, not to mention 
 damage done by scalding the experimenter. 
 Henceforth, it is needless to say, our kitchen 
 was in the open air; a new cook was appointed, 
 the old cook allowed to wipe the dishes, and all 
 hands have gained by the results of that first at- 
 tempt to cook breakfast for three between two 
 knees in the bottom' of one canoe.
 
 34 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 HOHENZOLLERN CASTLE 
 
 BY 7 o'clock we had cooked another break- 
 fast, disposed of it, washed and wiped 
 our dishes, packed our boats, and entered upon 
 the second day of the journey an even more 
 interesting one than the first, for now the 
 mountains close in tighter upon the little river, 
 the banks are rocky and run up sharp from the 
 water's edge. Every bend is the opportunity 
 for a castle, and as these were built about a 
 thousand years ago, they are now highly pic- 
 turesque if not practical monuments. The 
 Rhine suffers seriously in comparison with the 
 first five hundred miles of the Danube, but no- 
 where more than in this neighborhood, for not 
 only has the Danube ruins as striking and ex- 
 tensive as those of the sister stream, but she 
 has more of them. And what in our eyes adds 
 still more to the charm of the Danube is the 
 virginal character of its rock and forest a rug- 
 ged grandeur not yet vulgarized by villas and 
 summer lodging-houses and in addition the
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 35 
 
 picturesque peasantry whom we see crowding 
 the bridges at noon, laden with scythes, rakes, 
 and forks, stalking like an army of rebellious 
 rustics out into the hay-fields after their mid- 
 day dinner in the village home. The most se- 
 cluded part of the Rhine between Mainz and 
 Bonn has about it the flavor of being prepared 
 for Saturday afternoon visitors; is infected with 
 suburbanism; is pretty, but painfully self-con- 
 scious. The Danube, on the other hand, is 
 more like a rustic and ruddy nymph, ignorant 
 as yet of her charms. She disports herself 
 where the average tourist does not pass; the 
 Baedekers and Murrays have nothing to say of 
 her many secluded nooks. It is only by water 
 that her charms can be seen to advantage, for 
 at times her banks are so steep and rocky that 
 it is not possible to build a foot-path along the 
 edge of the water. 
 
 The day is bright, a pleasant breeze playing 
 in the leaves as we paddle, or rather drift along; 
 for so much claims our attention that even the 
 current is too rapid for us. Kallenberg Castle 
 is a fine square ruin, and we are thinking that 
 it is better in its way than the Drachenfels of 
 the Rhine, when Bronner Castle looms up more 
 imposing still. Here we draw ashore for a
 
 36 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 lunch under the trees, and the epicure may like 
 to know that it consisted entirely of cold salmi 
 sausage, black bread, butter, cold milk, and 
 bottled beer. The dietarian may also care to 
 to hear that we were none the worse in con- 
 sequence. 
 
 This is a day of castles; each turn brings us 
 to one, and each is more striking than the other. 
 Wildenstein, Wernwag, Hausen, Falkenstein 
 these are some of the more stiking ones that 
 greet us, ending with the ruins of Dietfurt, be- 
 low which we pitch our second camp. Each 
 castle is in itself material for an exhaustive 
 chapter. The fine elevation of rock and forest; 
 the little clustering village; the old bridge, 
 with the statue or image of a saint over the 
 middle arch; the massive church, that seems 
 to have been built originally as a fortress; the 
 ruin itself, with its history of by-gone sieges 
 and quaint childish legends all these made us 
 wish to stop for a week or so at each hamlet, 
 sketch every courtyard, trace every legend, 
 measure every stone. And most of all did we 
 wish to stay in dear little Gutenstein, at the 
 " Gasthaus zur Sonne," with its jolly fat host, 
 its round little panes of glass, its black-oak 
 timbers, its low ceiling, its venerable benches
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 37 
 
 and tables, the talkative locksmith, whose little 
 daughter slept in his lap while he sipped his 
 beer, and who told us that his wife was making 
 hay while he looked out for the shop a veri- 
 table Rip Van Winkle, who no doubt got his 
 deserts when his Gretchen came home. The 
 fat host wished us "Prosit!" as he banged 
 each well-filled mug before us; his wife wished 
 us a good digestion as she brought us three 
 huge pancakes steaming hot from the kitchen. 
 " God greet you !" was the welcome we had 
 received on entering; and the good old man 
 waddled all the way down to the water's edge 
 to see us off and wave us his wish for a " happy 
 journey." Here was a host after our own heart; 
 he treated us as part of his household, laughed 
 at our jokes, and would have wept with us had 
 we wished him to. Yet we had to leave. 
 
 The next day we are up and off early again, 
 after a refreshing sleep in our boats, a dip in 
 the river, and a good breakfast cooked in camp. 
 Yesterday's scenery seems to us too good to 
 be matched, but the experience of our third 
 day teaches us that the most beautiful is always 
 one step beyond. 
 
 Leaving the camp near Dietfurt at 7, the 
 river hurries us along several exhilarating 
 
 146030
 
 38 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 rapids, then makes one or two sharp curves, 
 passes between perpendicular rocks, and into 
 what might be a very deep lake, surrounded by 
 bold and bewitching banks, suggesting a little 
 Yosemite Valley a very little one indeed, but 
 still impressive. Here and there is room for a 
 patch of meadow, where bright peasant maidens 
 are tossing the hay about, and these lend an 
 agreeable contrast to the great rock walls and 
 the forest-capped peaks that appear beyond. 
 The boat drifts lazily along here, for the cur- 
 rent has been mysteriously absorbed. The 
 nooks in the rocks abound with flowers whose 
 brightness is reflected in the water with ex- 
 quisite effect. We are now on Prussian terri- 
 tory, and here is the park of the Hohenzollern 
 prince whose candidacy for the Spanish throne 
 was made by France the excuse for war in 1870. 
 A few miles more and we are at Sigmaringen, 
 another imposing castle on a height of great 
 strategic value, above a pretty little town, clean 
 and picturesque. We have left behind us the 
 Grand Duchy of Baden, and are passing through 
 Hohenzollern, now associated with the present 
 greatness of the German Empire. For a thou- 
 sand years the name has been borne by a race 
 of fighters whose lances and battle-axes have
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 
 
 39 
 
 given way to magazine rifles and the methods 
 of Moltke. The name has been carried far 
 from the little Danube country northward to 
 the Russian border, 
 and to Holland ; to 
 the west it has thrown 
 its arms around Stras- 
 burg ; and eastward 
 it has driven the Holy 
 Roman Empire to be- 
 yond the centre of 
 German influence. 
 
 The castle to which 
 all the branches of 
 this much - divided 
 stock look, as to the 
 ancestral home, lies 
 a few miles from Sig- 
 maringen, the road 
 winding along a tum- 
 bling brook, whose 
 mouth is near the foot 
 of the ruins of Diet- 
 
 furt Castle, to a point where the water on one 
 side flows to the Danube, and on the other into 
 the Rhine. 
 
 In the broad valley shortly beyond this point 
 
 THE DAY ON WHICH I CLIMBED TO 
 THE TOP OF HOHENZOLLERN CAS- 
 TLE WAS VERY WARM.
 
 4O PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 rises a solitary peak crowned with the battle- 
 ments of Burg Hohenzollern. For miles on 
 every side it is the most striking feature of the 
 country, and rising as it does straight up out 
 of a great plain, and commanding an unob- 
 structed view of all surrounding approaches, it 
 represented, down to our century, a military 
 position readily appreciated. 
 
 It has been twice in ruins, and twice built up 
 again by the united efforts of all the family. The 
 present castle was commenced in 1850, with a 
 view not merely of preserving the cradle of the 
 Prussian kings, but equally to represent in South 
 Germany a military stronghold of some value. 
 While, therefore, the architect has been given a 
 free hand, in order to make the outward appear- 
 ance harmonize with the geographical situa- 
 tion, all the requirements of modern warfare 
 have been taken into account in the construc- 
 tion of the massive zigzag of defensive wall. 
 
 A company of infantry were tramping out to 
 drill as we came under the walls, which made 
 us rather wonder where they could all find 
 standing-room together for the purpose, until 
 we discovered a little terrace cut out of the 
 side of the slope, somewhat like the one on the 
 Quebec citadel.
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 4! 
 
 The day was hot, our coats were off, our 
 waistcoats loose, and sleeves rolled up as we 
 sought the public room of the castle, where 
 a retired sergeant provided mediocre food at 
 rather high prices. 
 
 Of course the "Kastellan" showed us the 
 castle, but the rooms being modern, the in- 
 terest is rather with historic association than 
 with the objects themselves, precious as many 
 of them are. The present Emperor has not 
 visited the place since his advent to the throne, 
 and it has never been much lived in by any of 
 the royal family. A reason naturally suggests 
 itself in the distance from Berlin, the smallness 
 of the space available for an imperial suite, 
 and the absence of entertainment in the neigh- 
 borhood. 
 
 Hohenzollern is by far the most complete 
 and imposing castle on our line of progress, as 
 well as the most interesting historically. Wiir- 
 temberg had the audacity to occupy it with her 
 army in 1866, supposing, of course, that Prus- 
 sia was no match for Austria, and that Hohen- 
 zollern would ultimately fall to her share, but 
 for this enterprise she has paid heavily.
 
 42 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 DAMS AND RAPIDS 
 
 FROM Sigmarimjen on we have a rare treat 
 in the way of exhilarating rapids, though 
 at no time did we meet any water that could be 
 called dangerous, or any rocks that were not 
 readily perceived and avoided. Rapids and 
 dams always give the canoeist fair warning by 
 making great noise, and if there is any reason 
 to anticipate difficulty it is wise to step ashore 
 and reconnoitre before getting into the troubled 
 water, unless, as occasionally happens, the 
 whole situation can be taken in by standing up 
 in the boat. 
 
 None of us paddled over more than four dams, 
 and at each of these the canoe attempting it 
 got a bump or two on the rocks. As a rule we 
 stepped out into the water on the edge, gave 
 the boat a long line, and let her jump the dam 
 where the water seemed freest from obstruc- 
 tion. Perhaps this method is not quite free 
 from risk, but it is sufficiently so for the canoe- 
 ist.
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 43 
 
 At Riedlingen (our sixteenth dam), for in- 
 stance, one of the boats sticks fast half-way 
 down, and threatens to swing around broad- 
 side on. There is nothing to do but jump in to 
 the rescue, which in this case means wading in 
 water that is very cold and reaches above the 
 waist. But the canoe is not hurt. Of course 
 the canoeist wears no shoes and stockings in 
 the boat, and is otherwise prepared for jumping 
 into the water at short notice. 
 
 Our third night is rainy, our camp in a mead- 
 ow immediately below a picturesque little place 
 called Zell. Although our tents are awaiting 
 us in Ulm, we manage to spend a fairly com- 
 fortable night by stretching a rubber blanket 
 over the well of the canoe and protecting our 
 heads with a straw hat. At four next morning 
 our chef member gives us a splendid breakfast 
 of hot coffee, boiling milk, fried bacon, bread 
 and butter, which, after a dip in the Danube, 
 quite restores our spirits, and sends us merrily 
 bobbing along down stream to revel once more 
 in a day of rapids, castles, monasteries, dams, 
 and haymakers. 
 
 Near Zwiefaltendorf Castle, another massive 
 ruin, a few minutes below camp, are a number 
 of cascades that come tumbling into the Dan-
 
 44 
 
 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 ube through a tangled wild of shrubberry, rocks 
 and exquisite flowers a mass of roaring foam 
 about which the most delicate vegetation clus- 
 ters as though quite used to the blustering of 
 the waterfall. This little bit alone would make 
 famous any neighborhood where tourists resort, 
 
 BY STANDING UP IN THE CANOE IT IS SOMETIMES POSSIBLE TO LOOK OVER 
 THE EDGE AND JUDGE WHETHER IT IS SAFE OR NOT TO SHOOT THE 
 DAM OR WEIR. 
 
 but on the Danube it is only one of the hundred 
 delights in store for the patient traveler. 
 
 Our seventeenth dam is under the ruins of 
 the castle of Rechtenstein, of which there still 
 remain the walls of a massive square tower. 
 One of us is intently admiring this castle while 
 passing his boat over the dam, when his paint-
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 45 
 
 er gives a tug that nearly carries him off his 
 legs. The canoe has pivoted on a rock; the 
 double-bladed paddle has been caught by the 
 rush of the stream, torn from its fastening on 
 deck, and is madly careering down the torrent. 
 Here is another occasion when moments are 
 precious, for that paddle must be overtaken be- 
 fore the next dam, or be lost forever. 
 
 How, exactly, that canoeist righted his boat, 
 got into her, and off, he can scarcely recall. 
 The slope of the dam was made up of slippery 
 rocks, difficult to find, and still more difficult 
 to hold on to, yet the paddle was overtaken just 
 in the nick of time. And this is an experience 
 that has convinced our party, at least, that it is 
 worth while carrying a spare paddle. 
 
 In a few minutes, however, we are under 
 another feudal castle, the well-preserved tow- 
 ers of Ober Marchthal, and here, at our eight- 
 eenth dam, one of us again narrowly escapes 
 shipwreck, for we find the fall not an easy one. 
 One of the boats took the plunge at the right- 
 hand side of the dam, near the mill, and found 
 the shoot so strong and steep as to bury not 
 only her bow but a good part of the rest of her 
 under water; and to add to the awkwardness 
 of the situation, she was caught in an eddy and
 
 46 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 jammed up against the side of the mill wall, 
 from which issued several miniature cascades 
 that played into the well of the boat. This 
 could not be endured. Yet the dam was a bad 
 one to creep down. Luckily two millers came 
 to the rescue. They brought a long pole that 
 reached from the top of the wall to near the 
 edge of the water; down this pole the canoe 
 skipper dropped, while the millers held fast the 
 upper end, and the canoe was rescued at the 
 expense only of a good ducking to both crew 
 and cargo. From our day's experience.we de- 
 termined henceforward never to shoot a dam 
 without having our two forward deck hatches 
 on and our paddles stowed below. 
 
 But we are soon to have done with dams, for 
 at noon of the fourth day we pass the last one 
 at Oepfingen, marked as the twenty-fifth dam 
 in some books of travel, but rated by us only 
 as the twenty-first. We have obviously passed 
 over several that we treated as rapids, for by 
 repeated calculation we have been unable to 
 discover more than the number mentioned. 
 Let us add parenthetically that we had excel- 
 lent high water.
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 47 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE FORTRESS OF ULM 
 
 THE spire of Ulm minster is before us now; 
 the river widens on receiving the cold, 
 clear, pale green Alpine waters of the Iller close 
 above the town; the outlying forts appear on 
 our left; soon the town walls, with the concom- 
 itants of a first-class German fortress the bu- 
 gle call, drum roll, march,- march of a pontoon 
 detachment. We rush under the railway bridge; 
 one of us nearly runs down a bathing establish- 
 ment; and at last, after four days of primitive 
 Black Forest stream life, we pull up at the float 
 of the first rowing club on the river, justly 
 named the Danube Rowing Club. 
 
 The committee of the club have made us 
 their guests during our stay, and leave nothing 
 undone to confirm in us our regard for the Ger- 
 man sportsman. The club at Ulm has a dozen 
 good racing and practice boats, singles, doubles 
 and fours, some made in England, some in 
 Frankfort. The quarters are adequate and 
 tastefully decorated, though the club suffers
 
 48 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 from having no boat-builder in the town itself, 
 being obliged therefore to send along distance 
 for repairs at least as far as Frankfort. We 
 discovered, however, that the president, in ad- 
 dition to being one of the crack oarsmen of Ger- 
 many, is no less famous as a mechanical genius, 
 and we can never adequately express the grat- 
 itude our party feels toward him for helping us 
 put our boats into good shape after the batter- 
 ing they had received in these past four days 
 of dams, rocks, and rapids. 
 
 Ulm is a most interesting town to explore 
 full of quaint steep gables, crooked little 
 streets, houses that nod across the way to one 
 another, five centuries crowded together in as 
 many acres of stone and timber, and often 
 crowded to death; for the town chronicle tells 
 us that in 1635 15,000 of the people died, that in 
 1800 every eleventh man was carried away by 
 disease, yet 100 years ago the town numbered 
 less than 14,000, and to-day only about double 
 that number. Now, with a Prussian command- 
 er, the sanitary condition of the place is prop- 
 erly attended to, although, from a commercial 
 point of view, the town suffers considerably 
 from having all the space before its walls sub- 
 ject to the rules of war no one can build with-
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 49 
 
 in cannon range unless he promises to tear his 
 building down when war begins. This is nat- 
 urally discouraging to manufacturers. 
 
 Before the voyages of Columbus, Ulm num- 
 bered 50,000 prosperous people, and she is the 
 first town of the Danube that can say that her 
 prosperity as a town was ruined by the discov- 
 ery of America. It seems strange, at this day 
 and in this place, to think of this little for- 
 tress as being a great port for the trade of the 
 East, and yet so it was. Cargo boats went down 
 from here to the Black Sea, carrying the manu- 
 factures of western Europe, and bringing back 
 the treasures of the East, even from China; but 
 all this came to an end with the dis'coveries of 
 Columbus, and the diversion of Eastern trade 
 around the capes. 
 
 Ulm is famous also for having witnessed one 
 of the most extensive and disgraceful surrenders 
 in this century a century, by-thc-way, par- 
 ticularly marked by great surrenders. On the 
 2Oth of October, 1805, the notorious Austrian 
 commander Mack, followed by sixteen generals 
 and 36,000 men, marched out as prisoners of 
 Napoleon, who had on this occasion routed, 
 killed, or taken prisoner 90,000 men, with a 
 loss to himself of scarcely. 1,500. It was, I be-
 
 50 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 lieve, in consequence of the number of prison- 
 ers taken by the French in this campaign over 
 50,000 that Napoleon adopted the plan of dis- 
 tributing them amongst the farmers in the in- 
 terior of France, in order to make up for the 
 conscripts he had called out. 
 
 It would be interesting to know exactly 
 how much Napoleon owed to his talent as a 
 soldier, and how much to his good fortune in 
 having had against him men of inferior capac- 
 ity; for of Mack he wrote, six years before the 
 campaign of 1805, " A man of the lowest medi- 
 ocrity I ever saw in my life." He was never 
 able to use such language of Wellington, Gneis- 
 enau, Bliicher, or Scharnhorst; and had he met 
 them when First Consul, there would have been 
 no Mack and no Austerlitz in 1805. 
 
 But Ulm has another feature more glorious 
 than any that war has created a Protestant 
 minster rising from out of this city of wars and 
 sieges. For many miles around, this mostgrace- 
 ful as well as most lofty spire is a conspicuous 
 landmark, protesting as a sacred messenger 
 against the barbarous battlements within which 
 it is confined. We naturally spent much of our 
 time in this splendid church, listening to the 
 music of the great organ, entranced by the ar-
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 51 
 
 chitectural illusion of the vast Gothic pile, the 
 infinity of depth and height suggested by the 
 multitudinous pillars, the soft caressing light 
 from the stained-glass windows, the solemn re- 
 pose that falls upon every object within its 
 spell; and then ! to step outside into the city 
 of mines and counter-mines, of powder maga- 
 zines and Krupp guns, to walk the streets where 
 every fourth man is a soldier and the rest liable 
 to service the idea is revolting. And yet 
 Ulm is not exceptional: are not Strasburg and 
 Cologne two German fortresses ? 
 
 In taking leave of Ulm we leave behind us 
 the river of the dam and paddle, and enter upon 
 the stream whose flow is interrupted by nothing 
 more serious than a few rapids and whirlpools, 
 and is consequently to us the Danube of sail as 
 well as paddle. Our departure from the float 
 of theDonau " Ruderverein " was attended with 
 every circumstance calculated to stimulate the 
 vanity of men less modest than canoeists. For 
 the members laid aside their business, congre- 
 gated at the club-house, raised their glasses 
 collectively and individually in our honor, ex- 
 pressed warm affection for the President of the 
 United States, joined in toasting the Queen of 
 England, and drank perpetual concord among
 
 52 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 the three nations we represented. The Royal 
 Canoe Club of London, the New York Canoe 
 Club, the Ruder-club Donau, each in turn was 
 made the subject of enthusiastic eulogy and the 
 pretext for another "Kriigerl "; and we are quite 
 sure that if the sentiments expressed by the 
 boating men who gathered together on that oc- 
 casion are any test of the general feeling of the 
 three countries theyrepresented, then Germany 
 has in England and the United States a triple al- 
 liance compared to which that with Austria and 
 Italy is as a bond of straw. 
 
 We tore ourselves away; not that there was 
 no more beer in Ulm, or that our list of toasts 
 was exhausted, but it was already late in the 
 afternoon, and time was precious. So, hoist- 
 ing sail for the first time, and giving three 
 hearty parting cheers, we turned our bows out 
 into the swift current and shot down toward 
 the middle arch of the stone bridge. We were 
 accompanied by two members, who very 
 cleverly paddled a square-sided, fiat-bottomed 
 canoe, built only for one, and which rested 
 dangerously low in the water. The supernu- 
 merary paddler sat on deck immediately be- 
 hind his mate, and both managed very skill- 
 fully. Like all Germans, these two were
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 53 
 
 expert swimmers, or the sport would have 
 been risky in such a stream. 
 
 At Giinzburg we went ashore for supper, 
 and entertained our German escort. They 
 sent their canoe back to Ulm at a cost of fifty 
 pfennigs, or twelve cents, and had no more 
 trouble until they got back to the railway sta- 
 tiona very convenient arrangement indeed, 
 it struck us. For, so far as our experience 
 goes, the canoeist is better treated in Germany 
 than in America or England; the fares are 
 low, and the boats carefully handled. We 
 sent our boats, for instance, from Flushing to 
 Donaueschingen from the western edge of 
 Holland to the Black Forest a distance of 
 about 450 miles, for 12.90 marks each, or about 
 $3.25. The boats arrived without a scratch, 
 although they were not crated. 
 
 Giinzburg was our first landing in Bavaria; 
 we left Wiirtemberg behind with Ulm, to say 
 nothing of Baden and Prussia before that. 
 We seemed indeed to be doing quick work, to 
 cross in four days as many frontiers, and in no 
 quicker boat than a canoe. The change, too, 
 was complete ; the peasants became more 
 conservative in clinging to their broad hats 
 and metal buttons. Everv house had a niche
 
 54 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 in which the gaudily painted image of a saint 
 reposed ; and in the guest room of the tavern 
 our beer was sipped beneath a crucifix that 
 reached from the ceiling to the window-sill. 
 In the gateway of the town wall a lamp burned 
 night and day before the Virgin Mary. On all 
 sides was the evidence of complete devotion to 
 religion. 
 
 In this place, full of quaint bits of mediaeval 
 architecture, we had supper of gulash and 
 beer, a few more toasts to the pretty Kellnerin, 
 to the " Watch on the Rhine," to German 
 oarsmen, and to the family of storks that had 
 their well-poised nest on the steep gable over 
 the way, and who peered curiously in the di- 
 rection of three little canoes which three un- 
 Bavarian-looking men had left in charge of 
 the bathing-master of Giinzburg. We parted 
 shortly before the last light had faded from 
 the long day. Our German friends took the 
 train to Ulin. We paddled out into the broad 
 rushing stream, and pitched our camp on a 
 little point of meadow-land just large enough 
 to accommodate the boats comfortably, with a 
 grove of trees between us and the world of 
 possible disturbers.
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 55 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 A RARE OLD TOWN IN BAVARIA 
 
 WE had at last the luxury of tents, Not 
 such as are used on shore, that smell 
 of fermented grass and mud; that require a 
 dozen pegs and awkward poles; that are 
 clumsy to rig and clumsier still to stow away. 
 No; our tents do not touch the ground at all; 
 come in contact with nothing but what is clean. 
 The top is hung between the foremast and the 
 mizzen; the sides fall gracefully about the well 
 of the canoe, and are buttoned at convenient 
 intervals along the edges. The top is so high 
 that the canoeist sits comfortably on his floor, 
 can read and write, sketch, or mend his trou- 
 sers, and when he lies down to sleep, secures 
 such a pleasant circulation of air as no land- 
 tenter ever had. Sleeping in his boat, the 
 moisture of the ground does not affect him; 
 nor need he feel nervous in regard to ants, 
 beetles, earwigs, scorpions, and the many rest- 
 less insects that delight in camps; not even a 
 mosquito can get at him. For the sides of this
 
 56 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 tent are of two different materials one of 
 "cheese-cloth," that excludes mosquitoes and 
 admits the air; the other of duck, that protects 
 against bad weather. Each can be used in 
 turn, or both together, according to circum- 
 stances. 
 
 From behind our tent we snapped our fin- 
 gers at the murderous mosquito music, and fell 
 asleep to wake at four next morning. And if 
 ever the early bird found profit, here was a 
 case in point, for on this morning we reached 
 Lauingen a place of importance when this 
 stream was the frontier of the Roman Empire, 
 and when Caesar's legions ruled along the Rhine 
 and Danube as do those of England along the 
 Indus and the Ganges. The place to-day pre- 
 serves interesting traces of every century of our 
 era, and that artist must be hard to please who 
 could not spend a useful summer here with a 
 white umbrella and a box of colors. The 
 houses of the town have had difficulty in finding 
 standing-room within the huge walls; many of 
 the streets are narrower than our sidewalks, 
 and even these have their sky obscured by 
 many-tiered buildings, whose successive stories 
 neach out foot by foot above one's head. The 
 old town wall is almost .hidden by the dwell-
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 
 
 57 
 
 ings that have overrun it like creeping plants 
 the citizens living in it, under it, on it, 
 and against it. Hardly a corner that is not 
 worth a study, hardly a house that would not 
 give material for a chapter. It was a very rich 
 town once, and its burghers men of taste, who, 
 like those of Venice, spent their wealth in 
 
 Caribfe is HAULED UP ON SHORE FOR THE NIGHT ; THE CANOE TENT is 
 
 RIGGED, AND THIv SKIPPER IS MAKING A FEW NOTES BY CANDLE LIGHT 
 BEFOKE LYING DOWN TO SLEEP. 
 
 splendid 
 their city 
 
 houses and 
 famous. 
 
 monuments that made 
 
 Lauingen suggests one of the once rich cities 
 of northern Italy, the creation of merchant 
 princes who thought no tax too heavy if it 
 made their home more beautiful, and amidst
 
 58 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 whom to be an alderman was to be an artist as 
 well as a patriot. Facing the central square is 
 a town hall of noble and harmonious propor- 
 tions, fit to embellish a great capital; on one 
 side, a lofty clock tower that would lose noth- 
 ing of its effect were it in Florence and called 
 a campanile. Ancient and noble mansions are 
 here in abundance, each with its carvings and 
 massive arches, reminding the spectator of a 
 greatness that is past. And to complete this 
 picture of beyond the Alps, there runs along 
 one side a stone arcade, whose well-carved pil- 
 lars and arches shield the pedestrian from the 
 sun and rain. 
 
 Lauingen gave birth, at the end of the 
 twelfth century, to a man whose mechanical 
 talent \vould to-day have led him to discover a 
 simpler method of telegraphing or a cheaper 
 fuel than coal, and have made him the honor- 
 ary member of leaded societies. This was 
 Albertus Magnus, one of whose pupils was 
 Thomas Aquinas. A mass of stories is still 
 current of the extraordinary things he made; 
 for instance, an automaton which could move 
 and speak, and which one of his pious pupils 
 afterward destroyed, thinking he was thereby 
 serving God and spiting the devil. We know
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 59 
 
 of him nothing but legends, and these prove 
 only that he understood the forces of nature 
 better than the people who denounced him. 
 He once entertained his emperor with fruit 
 produced in the midst of winter, which to his 
 generation was abundant evidence that he was 
 in league with the evil spirit. 
 
 In our day, however, the town has sought to 
 atone for past neglect by erecting in the beau- 
 tiful market-place a bronze statue worthy of 
 the first scholar of his day as well as of Lauing- 
 en's early fame. 
 
 The scenery from Ulm downward, though 
 offering no striking elevations, is anything but 
 dull. The effect of long flat reaches of water 
 or meadow is always suggestive and full of 
 varied color; the sky seems to unfold more ot 
 its mysteries to us then. Or is it that our at- 
 tention is less diverted by nearer objects ? 
 But no part of the Danube can be monotonous 
 when moving in tiny canoes that feel the twist 
 of every eddy, that dance to the music of 
 every rapid, that rush with impetuous zeal 
 down slopes of pale green shallows, and that 
 narrowly escape being sucked into the back 
 current at the river corners. Let us admit 
 that the Danube can be grander at some points
 
 60 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 than others, but uninteresting never. Even 
 with an overcast sky, the effect produced by 
 moving with a volume of water so vast, so ir- 
 resistible, must be ever impressive something 
 like that produced by the never-changing, yet 
 never the same, waves of the ocean. So one 
 with the river had our canoes become that we 
 scarcely noted the rapidity with which the 
 landscape shifted, until we sought to mark 
 down the features of a castle, or one of the 
 huge water-mills, whose wheel hung between 
 two anchored barges, and whose plash-plash 
 paddle sound warned us against collision. 
 The note-book of Alfred Parsons mentions 
 that along this flat reach, "for a long way 
 above and below Ulm, the banks are lined 
 with small willows and coarse grasses; oc- 
 casional bunches of forget-me-not and some 
 iris and valerian are the only flowers. On a 
 hill-side below Donauworth, I saw bright pink 
 dogroses, campanulas, geranium, veronica, 
 epipactis, Turk's-cap lilies, pink coronilla, 
 which is abundant, and a tall white composite 
 with groups of daisy-like flowers and a leaf 
 like the tansy; also a white erigeron." 
 
 The river here, and all the way to the moun- 
 tains of eastern Bavaria, is sought to be " reg-
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 6l 
 
 ulated " by the construction of stone dikes 
 intended to keep the main channel clear, and 
 prevent in a measure the consequences of 
 floods. We were favored with fairly high 
 water, however, and the dikes were therefore 
 not so high but that we could occasionally get 
 a glimpse of the meadows from our decks. 
 From Hochstadt to Donauworth we passed 
 ground which in 1704 was the scene of the bat- 
 tle of Blenheim, so called after the little village 
 of Blindheim, about two and a half miles north- 
 east of Hochstadt. It "was a glorious vic- 
 tory." It did Europe the doubtful service of 
 propping up the Hapsburg dynasty for a few 
 years, and made England forget all about 
 treacherous Jack Churchill by directing her 
 attention to the great Duke of Maryborough. 
 The pompous lines of Addison have helped to 
 make respectable the butchery of that day by 
 exalting the " mighty soul " of the conqueror, 
 and making the world believe that here was 
 " glory." 
 
 The simple people of the neighborhood for 
 many years after pretended that ghosts of the 
 slain returned on the battle's anniversary to 
 haunt this spot. 
 
 At Donauworth we stopped long enough to
 
 62 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 admire its ruins of tower and wall ; the beauti- 
 ful coloring of the old houses, that straggled 
 back from the Danube along a sluggish stream 
 that entered here; pretty gardens; black-tim- 
 bered bridges in short, another of the many 
 places from which we parted with regret. We 
 staid here sketching and exploring until the 
 sun had set, and then moved on reluctantly to 
 find a place where we might go ashore and 
 sleep comfortably in our canoes.
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 63 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 ONE OR TWO CANOE POINTS WORTH NOTING 
 
 NOW, to find a good camp site along the 
 upper Danube requires presence of 
 mind, quickness of decision, and, above all, 
 knowledge of what is needed. The Danube is 
 a swift stream, and while a camp-finder is 
 making up his mind, his boat may carry him 
 below his objective, whence it is not easy to 
 paddle back. The camp must not be low, for 
 fear of malaria; it must not be high, for we 
 have to carry our boats; it must not be in the 
 bushes, for we dislike insects and yet a little 
 shelter is a good thing. Fortunately in our 
 cook we have combined not only the camping 
 experience of two wars, but a genius for rapid 
 selection, to which the rest of us are only too 
 glad to pay tribute by appointing him a chooser 
 of camps as well as cJicf dc cuisine. When the 
 evening shadows warn us that we are near the 
 end of our clay, our camp-finder paddles a bit 
 ahead of the other two and reconnoitres for a 
 landing-spot with an eye that sees not merely
 
 64 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 height and depth, bush and beach, but intu- 
 itively detects what is beyond. On landing 
 there is but one feeling in every breast to 
 sacrifice everything to the comfort of the cook. 
 His boat is first hauled out, carried up to the 
 softest spot, carefully sponged, covered with 
 its tent, and disposed for the night. While 
 one of us helps here, the other, who is intrusted 
 with carrying the pots and pans, quickly places 
 the spirit stoves in position, spreads out a few 
 deck hatches to serve as trays, disposes on 
 these such articles as our cook may need, 
 opens up the butter and milk, sees that the 
 soup-stirring spoon is handy, that the salt- 
 cellar is full, and that no ants are in the sugar. 
 By this time cook's tent is in order, he enters 
 the kitchen, and the remaining two hurry to 
 attend to their canoes, animated by the cheer- 
 ful rattle of the kitchen utensils. The three 
 boats are drawn up close to one another, ac- 
 cording to the nature of the ground, the stern 
 being a trifle higher than the bow, as our heads 
 are at the after end, and a little slope is good 
 in case of rain. Clothing for the night is laid 
 where it can readily be got at, tents are raised, 
 the boats propped so that they will not roll 
 over; perhaps we have a swim, if the cook
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 65 
 
 permits ; but eventually we are assembled 
 around the flame on and over which our soup 
 depends. Everything goes well with soup, as 
 well as into it, but some things go better than 
 others, particularly canned meats and " ex- 
 tracts." We found that of all our stores noth- 
 ing did us so much good as our pan of soup 
 along with a large piece of strong German 
 bread. 
 
 The utensils are all cleaned before turning 
 
 SKETCH OF MAC GREGOR's ORIGINAL Ro'> Koy, 186^. LFNGTH, 15 FEET; 
 
 WIDTH, 28 INCHES; DEPTH, 9 LNCHES; WEIGHT, So POUNDS. 
 
 " The Rob Koy was built of oak with a deck of cedar My hap- 
 
 gage for three months was in a black bag, one foot square and six incites deep. 
 A paddle seven feet long with a blade at each end, and a lug sail and jib 
 were the means of propulsion." Quoted from MticGregor's " One 'Ihoit- 
 sand Miles in a Rob Roy Canoe," 
 
 in, so that cook may have nothing to complain 
 of, and early in the morning he prepares us 
 another meal sometimes, by way of a special 
 treat, making us a dish of genuine Yankee 
 corned - beef hash in addition to the usual 
 coffee ; then comes the washing up, furling of 
 tents, stowing of baggage, a slide down the 
 banks, and off for another day.
 
 66 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 Our camping-ground that night was on a 
 clean meadow well situated above the point 
 where the pale green water of the Lech runs its 
 icy Alpine current into the darker and warmer 
 Danube. We feasted here on eggs and soup, 
 and curled into our sleeping-boxes shortly 
 after 9. At 6 next morning we had our morn- 
 ing swim before luxuriating in our breakfast of 
 coffee and bread, to which was, on this occa- 
 sion, added a mess of fried fresh fish. 
 
 The Danube was full of interest next day. 
 The song of the cuckoo greeted us. There 
 was no steamship travel here, and the few 
 barges that struggled up the stream drawn by 
 horses appeared to be doing very hard work. 
 The stream was carrying us at the rate of 
 about six miles an hour, while we did not 
 touch a paddle or hoist a sail, and we could 
 hear the clinking of the pebbles as they rat- 
 tled in the bottom of the stream. We might 
 have fancied ourselves far from human life 
 were it not for the flat-boats that ferried peas- 
 ants, and also loads of hay and droves of cattle, 
 from one side to the other, swinging across by 
 means of a cable which spans the river, from 
 which runs on a trolley a lighter line made fast 
 to the boat. We frequently passed such ferry-
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 67 
 
 boats containing, besides many people, two 
 loads of hay, with teams complete, the horses 
 enjoying the cool rest upon the river apparent- 
 ly as much as the peasants, who saluted us 
 with their pious "God greet you ! " 
 
 Toward noon we passed under the arches of 
 a stone bridge at Neuburg, a town that is 
 built about and upon a wooded bluff that runs 
 up strikingly from the river, crowned by castle 
 and towers, and betokening another mediaeval 
 stronghold. Here our boats nearly met with 
 disaster ; first, from the eddy, that caught one 
 of the canoes below the bridge and swung it 
 with such force against the stone quay of the 
 town as to make a dent in the bow and a tre- 
 mendous jangling amidst the kitchen utensils 
 in the stern locker. The stream is furious, 
 and no little care is required to make a landing 
 on a narrow shingle beach below this wall. 
 We succeeded, however, in getting ashore, and 
 in pulling the boats' noses up a little, and were 
 clambering up the stone steps to hunt up an 
 inn, when down through the same bridge came 
 a huge raft, the crew gesticulating wildly to 
 the effect that they were going to make fast at 
 this point. Had they come five minutes later, 
 we would have been unconscious of the danger,
 
 68 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 and our boats would have been torn away or 
 ground to splinters by the irresistible mass 
 that was hurrying down. We rushed to our 
 boats by leaps and bounds, pulled them as far 
 ashore as the narrow beach allowed, then 
 plunged into the river to press against the raft, 
 and help the crew in their efforts to clear our 
 tiny boats. The situation was most critical. 
 It was only a matter of a few inches more, but 
 these meant life or death to the canoes. The 
 crew worked with a will we strained every 
 muscle. The population on shore saw our 
 peril, and gave us their sympathy : and, in 
 short, the boats were saved. 
 
 As we sat at dinner listening to the daughter 
 of our host, who entertained us with Viennese 
 waltzes, we determined never again to be 
 pinched between a raft and a stone wall. Neu- 
 burg detained us only long enough for a stroll 
 amidst its old walls, in its many handsome but 
 neglected buildings, with the traces of past 
 greatness. The river bore us on again, and 
 soon we passed Ingolstadt, the next Danube 
 fortress below Ulm a city of uniforms, pon- 
 toons, guns, and drums an interesting place 
 historically, but choked with the spirit of mod- 
 ern war.
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 69 
 
 The first place we reached after breaking 
 camp next morning was the prettily situated vil- 
 lage of Vohburg, which still maintains the cus- 
 tom of paying 50 guldens (about $25) to each 
 maiden of blameless reputation upon her mar- 
 riage. We passed from the water's edge 
 through a dark passage under a massive tower 
 of the old town wall, which is now in ruin, and 
 climbed up through the crooked streets to what 
 was once the citadel, and where now stands the 
 church about which clusters the interest of Voh- 
 burg to the outside world. The approach to 
 this church leads under another ruined tower, 
 the spaces of which are filled with pictures and 
 figures of sacred character, before which are 
 praying-benches that invite the faithful to pause. 
 
 Below our pretty little Vohburg the river sud- 
 denly parted company with the flat fields, and 
 with a rapidity most surprising whirled us 
 around a sharp mountain spur, hurried us be- 
 tween steep, rocky, and thickly wooded hills. 
 Another quick bend was made, and we paddled 
 in betwixt eddies under the crosses and spires 
 of one of the richest monasteries of Germany, 
 devoted to the glory of St. Benedict, and called 
 Weltenburg. The chapel was built at a time 
 when everything that every art could furnish
 
 70 PADDLES AXD POLITICS 
 
 and money buy went to making church edifices 
 splendid. Clouds are built out above the altar, 
 over which angel figures climb and look down 
 with lifelike agility upon the spectator. What 
 parts of the edifice are not ornamented with 
 stained-glass windows, chapels, or costly col- 
 umns, are covered with paintings. One of these 
 represents Columbus discovering America, with 
 the Virgin Mary on the forecastle, and a Ben- 
 edictine monk marking the channel. The pro- 
 fusely decorated altar is of course the central 
 feature in this display of wealth; and it would 
 be hard to exaggerate its impressiveness as a 
 decorative feature rich, harmonious in form 
 and color, exquisite carving and modeling, a 
 very palace of devotion.
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE /I 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 DANUBE BOATMEN GERMAN LIBERTY 
 
 AFTER a too short rush down this splendid 
 stretch, the river opened out, and we 
 saw before us, perched on a hill above Kelheim, 
 what looked like a Roman temple. It was the 
 so-called " Hall of Liberation," erected to the 
 memory of the men who freed Germany from 
 the domination of Napoleon in the beginning of 
 this century. It was under a very hot sun that 
 we climbed the steep hill above Kelheim ki or- 
 der to testify our sympathy with German inde- 
 pendence. The temple is a very costly dome, 
 inside of which are slabs bearing the names of 
 such as the King of Bavaria recognized as the 
 liberators of the fatherland. We were struck 
 by the names of many Austrians and south Ger- 
 man military mediocrities, and the absence of 
 such as really did make their country free. 
 Wellington is conspicuous by his absence; so 
 the noble Boyen and Liitzow. The man whose 
 far-sighted legislation lifted Prussia from out of 
 the results of Jena is not to be found here
 
 72 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 we mean Stein nor his able successor, Har- 
 denberg. The poets and thinkers, the patriotic 
 spirits that stirred the people to heroic ex- 
 ertion these were the ones that fought Katz- 
 bach and Leipzig; but they are not noticed 
 on these pagan slabs. Schiller and Korner, 
 whose songs of liberty fired the German heart 
 and sent every school-boy into the army; 
 Arndt and Jahn, Uhland and Fichte names 
 that in 1813 did more for German success than 
 a fresh army corps of these this Bavarian mau- 
 soleum says nothing. 
 
 We needed a glass of beer to wash away the 
 effects of this hot climb, and this we enjoyed at 
 a little water-side inn frequented by the boat- 
 men of the river an honest, intelligent, and 
 hardy race of men, interesting to meet, for 
 their life is full of change and not without dan- 
 ger. The fact of our coming in canoes and not 
 by land made us the more welcome, for, as one 
 of them said to us energetically, " I am an old 
 water-rat, and wish to be nothing else." It was 
 therefore as " fellow-craftsmen " that we invited 
 them to share our beer and tell us of their life. 
 And indeed it adds much to the charm of this 
 river to see their great rafts curving around the 
 bends, and kept in the current by a number of
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 
 
 73 
 
 sweeps at bow and stern, so long as to reach 
 beyond the eddies, and heavy enough to re- 
 quire many hands to control them. Whole 
 
 lauof C/tRIBK 
 
 H H Water-tight holds, with hatches on deck, to carry light freight only. 
 W W W Open well, 8 feet long, covered when required by removable 
 
 deck-plates. 
 
 C Folding centre-board, like a fan. 
 
 B Rudder that lowers when sailing and is hoisted up when paddling. 
 H Back board, against which I recline and behind which is the pantry 
 
 the coolest part of Caribee. 
 
 families live on these rafts, and the rude frame 
 huts knocked together for their shelter are hap- 
 py homes to some for weeks and weeks during
 
 74 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 the long descent. Many a traveling mechanic 
 gets a lift, and his board besides, by volunteer- 
 ing at the sweeps of one of these huge floating 
 caravansaries, and this mode of traveling is 
 much patronized, for it is obviously more agree- 
 able than plodding along the dusty highway. 
 Many of the flat-bottomed but sharp-nosed 
 barges that go down this stream never return, 
 being rudely built, and ultimately broken up 
 for timber. Others that we passed are intended 
 to last longer, and had in tow a second and 
 smaller barge, in which were a pair of stockily 
 built horses, at present enjoying the river view 
 over a trough of feed, but who soon w r ill be 
 struggling up the tow-path, splashing through 
 the mire, now floundering up to their bellies at 
 points where the river is over the banks, now 
 clambering like cats along the foot of the rocks, 
 always keeping a tight strain on the long line 
 that pulls their barge; and woe to horse and 
 rider if any misstep hurls man and beast down 
 into the dangerous current ! When many 
 teams are pulling at one heavily laden boat, the 
 effort to save one may endanger the lives of all. 
 These river-side rough riders waste little time 
 in prayer at such a moment, but whip out their 
 knives and cut loose the rope of the fallen ones,
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 75 
 
 quieting their conscience by the reflection that 
 it may be their turn to-morrow. Loss of life in 
 this manner is not uncommon, for, owing to the 
 sudden swelling of the river after a rain, and 
 the great difficulty of maintaining a tow-path 
 in good condition, the work of man and beast 
 along the Danube partakes much of picking 
 one's way across a very bad and little known 
 country, for the path is never twice the same 
 to even a veteran teamster. 
 
 But while these men have some of the cow- 
 boy's recklessness and roughness, they have, 
 too, the warm heart that usually beats in tune 
 with courage. When our party boarded one 
 of these great scows, they were immediately 
 made the guests of the boat. Beer was brought 
 forward; they were compelled to share in the 
 noon-day dinner of beef, so generously dis- 
 pensed that even a canoeist could not eat it all, 
 and some of it had to be dropped secretly over 
 the side, lest the feelings of our hosts might be 
 hurt by the thought that their food had not been 
 duly appreciated. 
 
 From these people we borrowed a good idea 
 in the way of protection against cold, wind, and 
 rain a garment good to sleep in, sleep on, 
 stand in, or paddle in, falling below the knees;
 
 76 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 one long- piece, through which the head is 
 thrust at the middle, leaving one half to fall in 
 front, the other half behind. The sides are 
 open, and there are no sleeves. It sounds as 
 though the ventilation had been too generous- 
 ly cared for, but such is not the case. On the 
 contrary, it is the favorite overcoat of the Dan- 
 ube watermen, and we promptly got the ad- 
 dress of a tailor at the head-waters of the river 
 Traun, in the Tyrolean Mountains, and had 
 three sent clown to us in every respect like 
 those of our good friends the Danube raftsmen. 
 We camped that night in sight of the spires 
 of Regensburg Cathedral an event that en- 
 couraged us to wash our flannel shirts with 
 great energy, for on the forenoon of the next 
 day we made our entry into the whilom capi- 
 tal of the Holy Roman Empire, called by the 
 French Ratisbonne, and famous as the starting- 
 place of many crusading columns who sought 
 Jerusalem by way of the Danube.
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 77 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE CAPITAL OF THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 
 
 " There came a bold crusader, 
 
 With fifty harnessed men, 
 And he embarked at Ratisbon 
 
 To fight the Saracen. 
 This gallant knight, Sir Gottfried hight, 
 
 Leads forth a noble band, 
 Whose flag shall wave triumphantly 
 
 In Judah's hallowed land." 
 
 WITH the exception that the Saracen 
 had rather the best of it as far as the 
 flag-waving in Judah was concerned, this po- 
 etic version is correct enough in illustrating 
 the early importance of Regensburg as a ship- 
 ping-point; it was, in fact, the first town above 
 Vienna to send a regular packet once a week 
 down the river (in 1696); and considering the 
 state of the river then, and, above all, the moral 
 view of highway robbery entertained by the 
 landed gentry along the banks, this enterprise 
 was no light one. 
 
 Few towns, I fancy, combine within their
 
 78 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 walls so many buildings of interest, and so 
 many memories dear to mankind. We sat 
 down upon the pavement in the market-place 
 to muse of these things, our backs to a church 
 wall, and our hats full of freshly picked straw- 
 berries from the basket of an equally fresh peas- 
 ant lassie, who delighted in seeing us eat her 
 fruit. But the monument most interesting 
 to a canoeist is the stone bridge, claimed by 
 Regensburgers to be the strongest in the world. 
 At any rate, the span between the piers is no 
 wider than the buttresses, and the river rushes 
 through so turbulently as to create very risky- 
 looking whirlpools and rapids below. The en- 
 gineer troops of Ingolstadt have to take pilots 
 when they pass this town, and we were strong- 
 ly urged to do the same; but we had no room, 
 and consequently determined to try for our- 
 selves. We succeeded by choosing the right- 
 hand arch, and our success was in spite of the 
 devil; for his share in its construction was very 
 great, as every Danube sailor will attest. 
 
 The story runs that while the cathedral was 
 in course of construction, the chief architect 
 intrusted to a very clever apprentice the task 
 of making this bridge. The young man felt so 
 confident that he offered to span the Danube
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 79 
 
 before his master had finished the cathedral. 
 But he finally found that he had undertaken too 
 much, for the sacred pile went up with great 
 steadiness, while the bridge moved with great 
 difficulty. The youngster finally vented his 
 discouragement in blasphemous wishes that the 
 devil might take over the job. 
 
 No sooner spoken than a venerable monk 
 appeared and offered to do the work. In his 
 sandals were cloven hoofs, and a tail whisked 
 under the sacred garb; but nevertheless a bar- 
 gain was made, and it was agreed that when 
 the bridge was done, the devil was to have the 
 first three living things that crossed. 
 
 The devil kept his word. All the material 
 came to hand with such devilish rapidity that 
 the morning broke upon a completed bridge. 
 
 It was May-day, and of course a great crowd 
 was present, each eager to be first in crossing 
 so new and magnificent a thoroughfare. The 
 devil, delighted with his bargain, rubbed his 
 hands under the second arch from the shore, 
 and waited for his victims. 
 
 "Stop!" said the architect to the crowd. 
 " Stand back ! In the opening of this bridge 
 we have a solemn ceremony to perform before 
 it can be pronounced safe. Jacob," said he, with
 
 8O PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 a wink to his foreman, " let the strangers take 
 precedence." 
 
 At these words a rough wolf-dog, followed 
 by a cock and a hen, was set at large, and 
 crossed the first arch of the bridge. At the 
 same time a dreadful noise was heard under the 
 piers. The mangled remains of the three ani- 
 mals flew in all directions, and the devil was 
 seen to disappear, screaming, "Cheated ! cheat- 
 ed of my fee ! " The monks now sprinkled holy 
 water on the bridge, and the happy people re- 
 joiced. 
 
 The second arch of the Regensburg bridge, 
 as if to prove the legend, is still savagely bent 
 upon destroying the boatman venturing be- 
 neath it; and as we had no desire to measure 
 the strength of our paddle with that of the 
 devil's pitchfork, we carefully avoided it, and 
 advise all others to do the same. 
 
 The graceful Gothic spires of Regensburg 
 cathedral now rapidly faded away behind us, 
 and we passed down stream toward a rocky 
 promontory on which has been built a temple 
 to German fame, called the Walhalla. The 
 proportions are those of the Athenian Parthe- 
 non, and the situation is admirably chosen for 
 the display of its striking beauty. All the
 
 DOWN THK DANUBE 8l 
 
 branches of the German family are here united 
 in one sentiment of pride and gratitude touch- 
 ing the deeds of their ancestors, and it is emi- 
 nently gratifying that Bavaria, of all German 
 states, should set the example of honoring the 
 work of Germans as citizens of a great empire 
 rather than as subjects of petty princes.
 
 82 PADDLTS AND POLITICS 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 PRIESTLY MIRACLES 
 
 ONE of the most beautiful little towns in a 
 country famous for such things is Deg- 
 gendorf, nestling charmingly at the feet of the 
 so-called Bavarian Forest, close to the mouth 
 of the Isar and half-way between Regensburg 
 and the Austrian frontier. Bavaria has few 
 places so well adapted to amuse the stranger, 
 and none that so singularly reflects the piety 
 of her peasantry. Baedeker is strangely unin- 
 teresting about it: he merely says, "152 km. 
 Deggendorf (322 m.); Friedrich, z. \ l / 2 m.; 
 (6,357 E.) etc.," adding drily that its trade and 
 industry were flourishing. This by no means 
 satisfied me, for I was in quest of a peculiarly 
 picturesque trade and industry under the pat- 
 ronage of the pope at Rome, the fame of 
 which drew me ashore quite as much as the 
 hope of a good dinner at the Friedrich. 
 
 Caribee was sailing close to the shore, a 
 sharp lookout being kept ahead for a good 
 landing place, when a voice hailed me from
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 83 
 
 what proved to be the boat-house of the local 
 rowing club. There was a good float to it, 
 and a member who was at that moment over- 
 hauling a boat, invited me to make use of the 
 club quarters. Nothing better could I have 
 wished for. Caribcc was comfortably stowed; 
 I inspected the premises which at that time 
 boasted of only two single scull shells, and 
 after having answered his questions about the 
 canoe, he began to answer some of mine about 
 Deggendorf. 
 
 I got from him this story one which I had 
 unearthed some time ago in the British Muse- 
 um, but which became doubly interesting 
 from being repeated by the lips of a Deggen- 
 dorf citizen in the most modern of rowing 
 costumes. 
 
 "Thousands flock here every year for abso- 
 lution on account of the objects preserved in 
 this little church which are supposed to work 
 miracles." 
 
 " Don't you believe they really work mira- 
 cles ?" I asked. 
 
 He looked at me quizzically I thought he 
 winked. His answer was evasive. 
 
 ' The peasants believe it." Then he pro- 
 ceeded:
 
 84 PADULES AND POLITICS 
 
 " In 1337 there was a massacre of the Jews 
 here. This is the way it happened : 
 
 " The Jews were accused of having bought 
 of an old woman a sacramental wafer which 
 she had stolen. This wafer they scratched, 
 and punched and beat in every imaginable 
 manner. One night the mother of God, so the 
 people say, complained loudly about this out- 
 rage. The night watchman overheard her, 
 and he in his turn carried the news to the 
 Elders of the town. 
 
 " Of course the greatest indignation pre- 
 vailed, because every one was bound to be- 
 lieve the mother of God, particularly when she 
 sent a message through the night watchman. 
 The Christians swore, every man of them upon 
 the crucifix, not to rest until every Jew in 
 Deggendorf was destroyed. The very lord 
 of the castle came down with his armed men 
 and helped in the general murder. Not a sin- 
 gle Jew escaped. The houses they inhabited 
 were first thoroughly plundered and then 
 burned to the ground." 
 
 This seemed to me very wicked, and I said so 
 to my boating friend. " Yes, I suppose it was," 
 replied he; "but then it was very popular, be- 
 cause every man in Deggendorf, from the lord
 
 DOWN' THE DANUBE 85 
 
 in the castle to the stone-breaker, was prob- 
 ably deep in the Jews' debt and this was a 
 short way of settling all claims between debtor 
 and creditor.* 
 
 * It is curious in this connection to turn to the 7th 
 chapter of Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella, about the 
 persecution of the Jews in Spain and the founding of that 
 devilish institution called the " Inquisition." On page 
 239 we read: " But all this royal patronage proved incom- 
 petent to protect the Jews when their nourishing fortunes 
 had risen to a sufficient height to excite popular envy, 
 augmented as it was by that profuse ostentation of equipage 
 and apparel for which this singular people, notwithstand- 
 ing their avarice, have usually shown a predilection. 
 
 " Stories were circulated of their contempt for the Cath- 
 olic worship, their desecration of its most holy symbols, 
 and of their crucifixion, or other sacrifice, of Christian 
 children at the celebration of their own passover. 
 
 " With these foolish calumnies, the more probable charge 
 of usury and extortion was industriously preferred against 
 them, till at length, towards the close of the fourteenth 
 century, the fanatical populace, stimulated in many in- 
 stances by the no less fanatical clergy, and perhaps en- 
 couraged by the numerous class of debtors to the Jews, 
 who found this a convenient mode of settling their accounts, 
 made a fierce assault on this unfortunate people in Castile 
 and Aragon, breaking into their houses, violating their 
 most private sanctuaries, scattering their most costly col- 
 lections and furniture, and consigning the wretched pro- 
 prietors to indiscriminate massacre, without regard to sex 
 or age."
 
 86 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 " During the conflagration the sacred wafer 
 rose from a Jew's house and dropped into the 
 apron of a Christian blacksmith. Hereupon a 
 newly ordained priest from a neighboring vil- 
 lage bore the holy object with all honor back 
 into the church whence it was originally stolen. 
 
 " This massacre gave great satisfaction to 
 the temporal and spiritual rulers of the time; 
 particularly to the pope, who issued a special 
 indulgence to all those who had helped mas- 
 sacre the Jews on that occasion." 
 
 A learned German professor writing of this 
 place says that in 1815 he found here at one 
 time 10,000 pilgrims, all seeking indulgence for 
 sins committed. He states that the limit of 
 years for which indulgence at that time could 
 be purchased was only 387,560 years. To me 
 that amount of time seemed quite enough for 
 all practical purposes. 
 
 At that time most of the people had to sleep 
 in the open streets, so crowded was every part 
 of the town. "The first to enter the church 
 after the pastor was believed to receive the 
 greatest indulgence. Naturally therefore," 
 adds the professor, ' ' there was plenty of punch- 
 ing in the ribs, bloody noses and blue bruises 
 in the contest at the narrow door. The
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 87 
 
 market-place reechoed with cries of pain and 
 the cursing of those straining to get priestly 
 indulgence; and much laughing there was 
 when a peasant woman lost her fine head- 
 dress in the scrimmage." 
 
 This extract from Professor Schultes's classic 
 little book suggests that the author was not 
 " orthodox " at heart; particularly as he states 
 that of two honest priests who subsequently 
 sought to set bounds to the imposition, one 
 was exiled and the other sent to jail. He 
 points out that the money contributed to the 
 Roman Church by the pilgrims is very con- 
 siderable, and that the clergy would be very 
 sorry to have the anniversary of this historic 
 massacre celebrated in any other manner. 
 
 My rowing friend said that thousands came 
 even now, but he could not give me the exact 
 number. The official figures that I have 
 found recorded in odd books on the subject 
 fluctuate between 60,000 in the year 1766, and 
 100,000 in 1837, which was of course an espe- 
 cial feast, being the five-hundredth anniver- 
 sary of the glorious murder. 
 
 I was hungry by this time, and strolled up 
 into the quaint little town looking for the inn. 
 The old walls are still there and the hu<je
 
 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 gateway as well. The market-place looked as 
 it might have looked on the day of the memo- 
 rable massacre, and there was the identical 
 church into which the holy wafer was carried. 
 The building itself is not very striking, but 
 there are very curious pictures on the walls 
 depicting the story of the Holy wafer accom- 
 panied by a running commentary that I shall 
 seek to reproduce. 
 
 But first my dinner, which is another mira- 
 cle for I had soup, two meats, game, vege- 
 tables, pudding, coffee, segars, and beer ad 
 libitum, the whole for two marks, being equiv- 
 alent to fifty cents. And let me add that all this 
 was of the best, for this part of Bavaria is fa- 
 mous for high living. 
 
 Now, once more to our miracle church, and 
 let us make believe that we are profound 
 archaeologists making a discovery. The sub- 
 stance of the wall paintings has been embod- 
 ied in an exceedingly rare little duodecimo 
 volume, the preface of which indicates that it 
 was written, if not published, in the great year 
 1776, when American independence was pro- 
 claimed, and when Adam Smith published his 
 " Wealth of Nations." It is properly equipped 
 with the Censor's imprimatur and whatever else
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 89 
 
 can heighten its importance with priest and 
 people. It is so very convenient in shape, and 
 so full of woodcuts, that it was doubtless in- 
 tended as a pilgrim's pocket guide. The title 
 begins thus: " Das Obsiegende Glaubens Wun- 
 der des Ganzen Christ. Churlandes Baiern," 
 etc. The curious can find a copy of it, care- 
 fully protected in a venerable leather pocket, 
 in the library of the British Museum, but so 
 valuable is it that the reader must go into a 
 special room before being allowed to open the 
 precious volume. 
 
 There are ninety-seven duodecimo pages, 
 the first twenty-three relating the story of the 
 miracle, the balance being prayers appropri- 
 ate to the pilgrimage, a full list of the many 
 authentic and officially registered miracles 
 performed here in the years 1/69 to 1775 in- 
 clusive, and finally a list of all those who took 
 the communion here in the first sixteen years 
 of this century, thus proving that one edition 
 at least is as recent as 1817. 
 
 We can now appreciate the paintings on the 
 walls of the Deggendorf church, for they are 
 not only reproduced in bur little volume, but 
 there is along with the woodcuts an official 
 account of how it all happened.
 
 QO PADDLKS AND POLITICS 
 
 Chapter I. is headed: " How a God-forgetting 
 Christian woman several times obtained the 
 sacramental wafers by perjuring her soul, and 
 afterwards sold them to the Jews." And the 
 picture depicts her kneeling at the altar, but 
 instead of swallowing the emblem she is slyly 
 placing it in a handkerchief, " Schnupftuch." 
 This we are told was done by her ten times in 
 the year 1337. 
 
 The next picture suggests five violently agi- 
 tated men trying to stab with a knife one of 
 four eggs. The legend explains it: " The 
 sacramental wafers are being pricked by the 
 godless Jews until the most holy blood flows. 
 They prick it with a shoemaker's awl, that is 
 still in existence." 
 
 The third picture represents four men about 
 a table, on which is a child, and the meaning 
 of it is, according to the accompanying text, 
 that " The holy wafers are scratched by the 
 rascally Jews until the blood runs. This tor- 
 ture produces a little child. One of these 
 thorns is still preserved." 
 
 The fourth picture represents four men 
 standing near an oven with this legend below: 
 " The holy wafer is shot into a baker's oven, 
 but it preserves the form of a little child and is
 
 DOWN THE DANUBK 9 1 
 
 not injured. The stone door of this oven is 
 still to be seen." 
 
 Picture five represents four men hammering 
 at four egg-looking objects. This is the le- 
 gend beneath: " The hands of the cruel Jews 
 seize the hammers and smite the holy emblems 
 several times upon a smith's anvil, but without 
 effect. The base of this anvil can be seen to- 
 day." 
 
 In the next picture one of four men has 
 every appearance of seeking to balance upon 
 his chin a doll. The explanation reads: " To 
 bring their wickedness to a climax and to hide 
 the sacramental emblems as well as their 
 crimes, these Jews, in their accursed thirst for 
 vengeance, try to swallow- the holy wafers. 
 But once more a little child opposes them, 
 with hands and feet, for this bread was not in- 
 tended for dogs." 
 
 The seventh picture shows a woman stretched 
 at full length on the ground, while in the back- 
 ground four men are dropping something into 
 a well. The story reads: "The holy wafers 
 are thrown into a well. The water is poisoned, 
 so that many Christians die in consequence." 
 
 The eighth chapter is worth quoting in full: 
 "These foolish fellows returned from the well in
 
 92 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 glee, thinking they had done the business well. 
 They thought they had trampled on the great 
 and only God, but instead of that they were 
 themselves trampled upon, from life into death; 
 from death into Hell. 
 
 " For the God who knows all was able to 
 free himself from the leather bag (into which 
 the wafer had been placed), although it was 
 firmly tied. He swung himself up and showed 
 himself to the Christians, and in consequence 
 the well was closely watched. 
 
 " But the Christians who had taken an oath 
 together, fell unexpectedly upon the Jews. 
 And since these obstinate Jewish monsters 
 could not be brought to any sense of modera- 
 tion (Gelassenheit) by humane treatment, all 
 of them, without exception, were put to death, 
 some by means of daggers, some by means of 
 knotty clubs. 
 
 " And now, after murdering the murderers 
 of the sacramental God, and freeing the town 
 of this race of God-stealers, these same Chris- 
 tian citizens called a newly ordained priest, 
 who was born in Nieder Altaich. He put on 
 his priestly robes and went with them to the 
 well. . . . Andlo! the miracle! When the 
 priest arrived with the enthusiastic citizens all
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 93 
 
 ten wafers flew up into the air, and thereupon 
 each one settled upon the vessel which the 
 priest held out for this purpose. 
 
 "In this manner did the sacramental God 
 give himself up as a gift to the inhabitants of 
 this place, for they had proved themselves the 
 hearty champions of his Godhead and his true 
 faith. 
 
 " The sacramental God allowed himself to 
 be carried into the small and poor church here, 
 where he still abides to the present day in the 
 midst of innumerable acts of mercy and as- 
 tounding miracles." 
 
 The interesting feature of this quaint little 
 story is not so much that the Jews were mas- 
 sacred to a man in the year 1337, for at that 
 time the murder of a Jew was, all over the 
 civilized world, as popular a pastime as killing 
 an Apache Indian is sport to-day for the 
 orthodox cowboy of Arizona. The fact that 
 the high clergy and temporal rulers of the 
 day relished the massacre is equally easy to 
 understand. We can almost appreciate the 
 reasons which induced Pope Innocent the VIII. 
 to protect the Deggendorf pilgrimage by a 
 special Bull signed in 1489 when the rumblings 
 of the Reformation were already ominous.
 
 94 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 But it is somewhat surprising that such a book 
 should receive official sanction as late as the 
 year 1816, and that to the present day the 
 Roman Catholic clergy should lend its counte- 
 nance to a story calculated to intensify the Jew- 
 baiting propensities of their communicants. 
 
 The Jews of Germany, who represent a very 
 large number of intelligent and industrious 
 voters, surely have a right to demand that such 
 prejudice as exists against them in all countries 
 should not be heightened by ridiculous false- 
 hoods propagated by the people's clerical 
 leaders. 
 
 My friend of the boating club regretted, he 
 said, the spirit that prompted this pilgrimage, 
 but added that it was to the town a source of such 
 great pecuniary profit, that no one of its citizens 
 dared criticise the institution in any way for 
 fear of incurring unpopularity. He would be 
 simply boycotted. 
 
 While on the subject of miracles, I might 
 mention, by the way, that I can scarce recall a 
 place along the Roman Catholic Danube that 
 did not enjoy some reputation of this sort, 
 though few so completely as romantic little 
 Deggendorf. A rival village, Ober Altaich, 
 according to the learned Professor Schultes (p.
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 95 
 
 339) preserves some hay that fed the ass on 
 which our Saviour rode; some crumbs from 
 the last supper; some of St. Peter's tears; a 
 section of the title upon the crucifix; some of 
 the fish which our Saviour ate, and many other 
 remarkable miracle-working relics. 
 
 In Neustadt, between Ingolstadt and Re- 
 gensburg, the staff of St. Magnus was credited 
 with the miraculous power of frightening away 
 rats, provided it was properly waved to the 
 four quarters of the heavens. At Sossau is the 
 Virgin Mary's picture which in 1534 miracu- 
 lously escaped from the hands of the wicked 
 Lutherans, and was rowed up against the cur- 
 rent by a crew r of angels. Near Niederachdorf 
 is preserved a drop of our Saviour's blood, 
 which attracts hosts of pilgrims. Bogen, not 
 far above Deggendorf, has a miracle-working 
 statue of the Virgin. It was discovered one 
 fine morning swimming up the river, and was 
 reverently conveyed to the chapel of the castle, 
 where it showed its gratitude by performing no 
 end of marvelous things. The pilgrims who 
 flocked to Bogen were almost as numerous as 
 those that sought Deggendorf: even emperors 
 are said to have come to worship here. Pas- 
 sau has a statue of the Virgin believed to shed
 
 96 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 real tears an object of enormous veneration. 
 At Maria Taferl near Poechlarn, in Austria, 
 stood an oak-tree which a peasant sought to 
 cut down, but ineffectually. 
 
 At the first blow he cut off one foot, and at 
 the next he cut off the remaining one. This 
 was so discouraging that he looked up, saw 
 the Virgin Mary, repented of his impiety, was 
 promptly healed, and went off to tell the tale 
 to his fellow-peasants. The result was a 
 chapel, streams of pilgrims, and much profit to 
 the clerical treasury. 
 
 The traveler looks for these tales south of the 
 Alps; but the degree to which they flourish in 
 Germany, to say nothing of Austria, I confess 
 caused me some surprise. It marks a great in- 
 tellectual gulf between Protestant Branden- 
 burg and Roman Catholic Bavaria. The one 
 sees in Luther the man who gave to Germans 
 the right to think, at least in regard to the 
 future life. The other regards the monk of 
 Wittemberg as nothing more than a sacrile- 
 gious beast. 
 
 When Bismarck in 1870 attacked the Roman 
 Catholic priesthood, he embarked upon a cam- 
 paign compared with which that of 1870 was a 
 mere skirmish. The Iron Chancellor had in
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 97 
 
 the war against France only bodies and 
 bayonets to oppose him, and a Moltke did his 
 fighting. In the " Kulturkampf " or religious 
 war which followed, he had against him the re- 
 ligious traditions of a thousand years, actively 
 organized and manceuvered by a priesthood 
 well trained for the fight to which they were 
 invited. Bismarck was completely beaten 
 after nearly ten years of struggle, and signal- 
 ized his surrender by sending to the Vatican in 
 1882 a special Prussian Envoy with the white 
 flag of truce. As I sailed away from the little 
 boat-house of Deggendorf, Caribee remarked 
 to me in confidence that Bismarck would never 
 have made such a mess of his religious crusade 
 had he first made a canoe cruise down the 
 Danube with his eyes open.
 
 9$ PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 CARIBEE SURVIVES THE WHIRLPOOLS CALLED 
 STRUDEL AND WIRBEL 
 
 FROM Deggendorf on, the scenery becomes 
 mountainous, rocky, even wild; particu- 
 larly between Passau and Linz, where the river 
 reminded us forcibly of the Hudson Highlands 
 between Haverstraw Bay and Newburgh. We 
 have parted with the black soil and luxurious 
 peasants of Straubing, and come now amongst 
 people whose habits are more those of moun- 
 taineers, where lumbering is the chief industry, 
 and where settlements are few and far between. 
 Every sharp river corner carries on its crest the 
 remnants of a feudal castle, whose tower still 
 remains in token of its former grandeur and 
 political importance, and a picturesque protest 
 against the free commerce on the Danube. 
 
 At the frontier of Austria we were ordered 
 to stop, to come ashore, to show our passport, 
 and to pay sixteen kreutzers apiece quite in 
 the spirit of the castles whose ruins we were 
 passing. None of our boats were searched,
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 99 
 
 however, and we were assured that the tax was 
 merely a formality connected with passing into 
 Austria. No such tax was demanded on pass- 
 ing into Holland or Germany. The tax is, to 
 be sure, small in amount, but a grievous one in 
 principle. 
 
 In the midst of this wildest and most beauti- 
 ful part of the Danube a stretch that may be 
 said roughly to include Deggendorf and Diir- 
 renstein is the strikingly situated village of 
 Grein, in the midst of a cluster of ragged peaks, 
 each overlooking the stream, each with a ru- 
 ined tower on it, and each meaning that here 
 once ruled a robber knight who lived by the 
 wrecks on his shores; for here are the famous 
 rocks that cause the eddies and whirlpools and 
 rapids called Wirbel and Strudel. We slept 
 the night opposite Grein a rainy night, not 
 calculated to raise our spirits. After a cheer- 
 less breakfast, one of us floundered along the 
 frequently flooded tow-paths in the hopes of 
 getting a glimpse around the corner of this 
 much-talked-of ground of clanger; but it was 
 useless, for an island (Worth) interfered. 
 
 We jumped into our canoes, resolved to make 
 the best of it, stopped our ears to the warnings 
 of friends on shore forgetting for the moment
 
 IOO PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 that a party of recent canoeists transferred their 
 boats to a Danube barge at this place stuffed 
 our most valuable papers inside our waistbands, 
 and pushed out into the stream in search of the 
 enemy. Our hatches were fastened on with 
 particular care, our sails and spars carefully 
 lashed to the deck. Nothing was omitted to 
 prevent a capsize, or at least to render one 
 harmless. 
 
 As we reach the dreaded corner, around 
 which we anticipate the gyrating monster to 
 lie in wait for us, each grasps more firmly his 
 trusty blade, plants his feet solidly, and watches 
 keenly the signs of the stream. Grein disap- 
 pears, with its castle, its spire, its many holy 
 shrines, at which the Danube boatmen pray 
 before venturing on these troublous reaches. 
 The spire of St. Nikolai peers up ahead the 
 little church built by the offerings of such as 
 have escaped the terrors of the Strudel. As 
 we hold our canoes amidst the eddies here, 
 and think of what is before us, a dismal boom- 
 ing sound greets our ears, and convinces us 
 that now at last our fate is present. Two reck- 
 less members of our party made sketches of 
 St. Nikolai as we bob up and down in the rapid 
 stream before her rocky ledge, and the other
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE IOI 
 
 notes the square tower of lofty Werfenstein, 
 that stretches itself up and over the black 
 water. An ominous word, this Werfenstein 
 the rock-Jiurler and one that has sunk many 
 a good ship before its own ribs were cracked. 
 
 The booming', muffled, roaring sound grows 
 louder. Will this preliminary torture never 
 cease ? Surely the worst must soon be upon 
 us; for we have passed St. Nikolai, and beyond 
 us is another robber castle, that gives us 
 another shiver as we think of the cruel wrecks 
 it has caused. We pass another spire, another 
 crucifix. The roaring still continues, and the 
 water grows normally smooth. Can this be the 
 lull before the storm ? we ask ourselves. 
 
 No ; we have, without knowing it, passed 
 both Strudel and Wirbel, and the booming roar 
 comes from the boiler of a powerful tow-boat 
 blowing off steam against the bank!
 
 102 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 WHY WE ALL LOVE THE MAGYAR 
 
 IT was a hot day, but not disagreeably so. 
 A light breeze swelled the sails of Caribee 
 as I glided wing and wing at the rate of about 
 eight miles an hour down the Danube which is 
 here three miles wide. It was my first day in 
 Hungary; I seemed to have suddenly jumped 
 into a country thousands of miles different from 
 anything else in Europe. Every bend of the 
 river furnished an agreeable surprise, and the 
 day was too short for the many different things 
 I had to do. In one hand was my tiller, in 
 the other note-book and pencil; between my 
 knees were my big ordnance maps, and my 
 toes handled the main sheet. At such times 
 as this I felt the value of toe training, for with- 
 out other crew than myself hands are too few 
 for the duties that fall upon one person. The 
 weather was fortunately of the most propitious, 
 and I found little difficulty in managing every- 
 thing in the boat without shifting my comfort- 
 able seat. Indeed, when cruising in the West
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE IO3 
 
 Indies, where the trade wind blows steadily 
 and softly I have had to do all this and hold 
 besides a sun umbrella over my scorching head 
 all of which indicates that canoeing may be 
 regarded as one part of a liberal education. 
 
 Huge water mills, sometimes as many as 
 thirty in a row, were notable features, though 
 in the Hungarian stretches villages are so rare 
 or at least removed so far back from the stream, 
 that these noisy mill wheels appear often to be 
 the only landmarks of civilization. The mill- 
 ers speak German, of course, though their 
 names are now well magyarized; that is to say, 
 the Bamberger and Neumann of Austria be- 
 come here Vambery and Nemenyi. These 
 mills are constructed by hanging a huge wheel 
 between two barges anchored in the swiftest 
 part of the current. The main barge contains 
 the grain and machinery for grinding and is 
 the dwelling of the miller and his family. At 
 a distance the whole thing looks much like the 
 nursery version of Noah's Ark with an improve- 
 ment resembling Fulton's original steamboat. 
 They are at any rate picturesque features of 
 the stream, and, what is more to the point, as- 
 sist the canoeist in finding the strongest part 
 of the channel.
 
 104 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 Nature conspired with man to make my first 
 day in Hungary one of happy memory. The 
 shores were never dull here a group of dam- 
 sels in gay colors have come down to the 
 stream for a swim and perhaps some laundry 
 work; further on I hear the plaintive music of 
 the shepherd's pipe, and steal up behind him 
 as he stalks meditatively along playing with 
 all his soul, unconscious of the pleasure he is 
 giving to others besides himself. At intervals 
 are seen great herds of cattle, horses, hogs; 
 sometimes they are in the water, and we sail 
 under their very noses to the great amusement 
 of their keepers. Music is in the air wherever 
 there is a Hungarian, and when we come upon 
 a little group, their presence is made known 
 first by their bursts of song or speech. How 
 can there be criminals in a country where 
 every one makes music from the heart ? 
 Surely, thought I, no Hungarian can be in 
 prison for a sordid offence, and the further I 
 sailed on this happy stream the more did I feel 
 confidence in this thought. 
 
 Lazying along in this fashion I approached 
 a group of men at a point where there was no 
 other sign of a village. It was obviously a 
 holiday of some sort, for these Hungarians had
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 10$ 
 
 an extravagant number of bright buttons on 
 their jackets ; they were not barefooted, but 
 wore very handsome top boots which were 
 obviously not for comfort, as the thermometer 
 abundantly proved. On their heads were little 
 round black felt hats, clean and tidy ; their 
 trousers were so loose and short that I mistook 
 them for skirts particularly as they are made 
 of white cotton. Their eyes were strikingly 
 brilliant and small. They had done their best 
 to make their long, straight, black hair lie 
 smoothly. Their fierce little mustaches were 
 trimmed with military precision and sharply 
 waxed. They looked soldierly, manly, enter- 
 prising, independent a good sort to be with 
 and so I ran my bow ashore. 
 
 They spoke to me in their own tongue, and 
 finding that I was not Hungarian, one was 
 soon discovered who knew German. With him 
 I spent a couple of highly interesting hours. 
 He piloted me to a little settlement called Do- 
 burgaz, I believe, where there was an inn at 
 least a public house capable of furnishing 
 cheese, bread, sausage and excellent rough 
 country wine. My host of the riverside, for he 
 treated me with characteristic Hungarian kind- 
 ness, proved to be something of a local swell.
 
 106 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 and wore trousers and boots of the national 
 Hungarian Hussar pattern, with twisted braid- 
 ing down the front of the thigh. He confided 
 to me that he was chief of the local fire com- 
 pany and had command of thirty-eight volun- 
 teer firemen a number suggesting a probabil- 
 ity that the whole male population of the village 
 must be enrolled in this excellent service. 
 The public house rapidly filled as I sat, for the 
 news had gone abroad that a canoe had just 
 arrived from America. 
 
 Here was a wine room packed full of peas- 
 ants on a hot day in August. Here was in 
 their midst a stranger waif knowing not a word 
 of their language. I could not help thinking, 
 with some mortification, how different my re- 
 ception would have been had I been a Hun- 
 garian seeking refuge in a country tavern in 
 either England or the United States, under 
 similar circumstances. In the first place the 
 smell would have been offensive here I 
 noticed nothing of the kind. Half of the pa- 
 trons of our Anglo Saxon tap-rooms would have 
 been stupid from drink here not a man suf- 
 fered; in fact my peasant host had his three 
 clean and well-dressed little daughters about 
 him at the table. The peasants in Doburgaz
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE IO/ 
 
 treated me with obviously natural politeness, 
 showed not the slightest disposition to bore 
 me with impertinent questions, and above all, 
 exercised well-bred restraint in criticising the 
 stranger within their gates. Tell me, ye 
 canoeists, ye cyclists, ye pedestrians of my 
 native land, which one of you can match my 
 story! And when I tell you that the good 
 people of Doburgaz are a sample of all the 
 people along the Hungarian Danube in their 
 courtesy to the stranger, will you not agree 
 with me that it is a very paradise for the 
 canoeist ? 
 
 In parenthesis I may as well say that the 
 cyclist and pedestrian had better try some 
 other place, for the roads are too bad alto- 
 gether, not much better than the dirt roads of 
 America, chokingly dusty in dry weather, un- 
 fathomably muddy at other times. 
 
 Before leaving the village community my 
 Hungarian host asked me to come and inspect 
 his fire department, to which I of course cheer- 
 fully agreed. The key was sent for, and soon 
 the whole village marched in procession to a 
 little shed which contained the old-fashioned 
 hand-pumping fire engine. My opinion was 
 kindly asked upon this machine, to which I
 
 108 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 was able honestly to reply that, after an in- 
 spection of the best fire engines of London 
 and New York, nothing in my opinion could 
 surpass the one of Doburgaz for finish, beauty, 
 and cleanliness. The chief and his staff 
 seemed satisfied with this, and as it was now 
 time to start, the good people escorted me to 
 the place where I had left Caribee, and bade 
 me good-bye amidst many manifestations of 
 good will. 
 
 Here is one little glimpse of the Hungarian 
 my first one. 
 
 Not many days afterward another glimpse 
 was offered me, this time in a different social 
 class. Caribee was sailing along pleasantly 
 through the magnificent mountain gorge above 
 Visegrad, and I was reading in my note book 
 about the splendid ruin that rears its rugged 
 head above the pretty place. It is one of the 
 many medieval strongholds that revive tales 
 of savage conquest, Christian slaughter, and 
 final desolation. The Austrian Emperor I 
 beg most humble pardon, I should have said 
 the King of Hungary has extensive shooting 
 forests near here; and the late Crown Prince 
 Rudolf, whose tragic death was then on every
 
 DOWN -nil-; DANUBI-: 109 
 
 one's lips, had occupied his last moments in re- 
 storing the grand old pile for a summer resi- 
 dence. Its commanding position in the midst 
 of scenery that eclipsed everything that I had 
 so far seen on the Danube made me wish to 
 climb up these rocky sides. 
 
 As though my very wish had been divined, 
 I had not more than formulated this desire in 
 my own mind than I noticed in my path a 
 Thames skiff rowed by a young man in boating 
 flannels, and an exceedingly graceful young 
 lady correspondingly attired. The coxswain 
 was a lady who proved to be the mother of the 
 gallant crew, and she, as spokesman of the 
 party, greeted Caribee, invited its crew ashore, 
 urged us to partake of refreshments in a charm- 
 ing villa by the water's edge, introduced us to 
 a party of most attractive acquaintances, 
 pressed us to spend the night under her hus- 
 band's roof at least to stay to supper; in 
 short, behaved toward us as to a long-lost son 
 returned again. 
 
 It would have been breaking faith with 
 Cai'ibee to have spent a night anywhere but 
 on the bottom boards of her floor, and we 
 naturally declined all conflicting engagements. 
 It was also against our principles to sup any-
 
 110 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 where but in camp. But what we could we 
 did; we begged to see the mighty ruin under 
 the most favored conditions, that is to say, in 
 the company of such kind hosts. So off we 
 trudged up the steep mountain side, chatting, 
 singing, laughing as though we had known 
 each other for years instead of minutes. In 
 the party were several young ladies from 
 Budapesth, obviously high bred, beautiful in 
 face and figure, charming in manner, clever in 
 conversation, women who had spent the win- 
 ter in the round of court entertainment, and 
 now climbed rocks with the agility of ante- 
 lopes. There was something unaffectedly 
 jolly about this impromptu party, something 
 rompy, and at the same time thoroughly 
 " correct." 
 
 In America the type is known, the girl who 
 forsakes formal conventionality in summer 
 and captivates ballrooms in the winter; who 
 drives with her male friends, canoes with 
 them, flirts with them, does everything she 
 chooses, but never chooses to do anything 
 which either could regret. This type still 
 lives in America, the despair of the British 
 matron, the bugbear of the Faubourg St. 
 Germain. Her innocent and charming co-
 
 DOWN TMK DANUBE III 
 
 quetry I found again on the Danube; the same 
 grace of movement; the habit of free inter- 
 course ; ease in conversation ; piquant yet 
 modest banter all this and much more for 
 these young ladies of Hungary were accom- 
 plished to a degree that would have made a 
 Boston blue-stocking envious. 
 
 Arrived at the top, a picnic was improvised 
 by roasting some ears of corn that had been 
 brought along. The rambling ruin was ex- 
 plored; and this afforded another good oppor- 
 tunity for the display of agility. The story of 
 the castle was retold, but I shall not refer to a 
 guide-book at such a moment as this. 
 
 Coming down the mountain I found myself 
 bounding through the thickets, leaping from 
 rock to rock, dodging rotten branches with two 
 companions who were bent upon demonstrat- 
 ing the unquestioned fact that man is inferior 
 to woman in all exercises requiring grace and 
 speed. Fortunately I had been brought up in 
 an equally mountainous and rocky country, or 
 I should have been hopelessly disgraced in 
 their eyes. But it was delightful to watch them 
 fly through the underbrush, every step inviting 
 a catastrophe. Their hats hung at their backs, 
 their long tresses waved behind them, their
 
 112 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 skirts got many a rent, their faces glowed with 
 exhilaration they were very living wood- 
 nymphs sporting with a clumsy mortal whom 
 they were leading to destruction ! Our wild 
 dance soon brought us to the rendezvous near 
 the base, and we found ourselves alone, evi- 
 dently far in advance of the main body. To 
 reconnoitre, I climbed into the branches of a 
 tree; but this my graceful partners could not 
 stand, so they too climbed with me, racing for 
 the top brancii. They climbed like middies, 
 and enjoyed it vastly more. Soon we heard 
 the voices of the others, and decided to stay 
 where we were in order to give them a surprise. 
 Imagine the situation, my dear chaperons of 
 sober latitudes; two beautiful leaders of fash- 
 ion perched with me in the top of a forest-tree 
 calmly awaiting their chaperons, for the pleas- 
 ure of giving them a pleasant little surprise. 
 In my ignorance of Hungarian good sense I 
 thought the older ladies of the party would 
 faint with the shock when the surprise struck 
 thcm. They did nothing of the sort; on the 
 contrary, they thought the young people rather 
 clever for having climbed so well. 
 
 We had rather a time of it getting down, as 
 one partner caught in a broken branch, and at
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 113 
 
 one moment threatened to remain a prisoner. 
 She managed to get clear, however, and all the 
 way to the river's bank we kept up the race, 
 laughing and joking over the day's adventure. 
 
 Just one more little glimpse of Hungary 
 the subject is so pleasant ! Nor let the reader 
 imagine that these examples I cite are ex- 
 traordinary I can duplicate them indefinitely. 
 Japan gave me my first idea of what Hungary 
 might be, and Herman Melville has left an 
 immortal tribute to nature's gentlewoman in 
 his delicious tale of the South Seas, called 
 Typee. But the best of the far East is tame 
 compared with the Hungarian Danube. Wo- 
 man may be physically and spiritually an an- 
 gel; but she cannot people one's heaven if her 
 mind cannot furnish intellectual companion- 
 ship. The Magyar maiden is as graceful, as 
 refined, as gentle as the Daimio damsel; she is 
 as proud, as active, and as stately as the choic- 
 est of Melville's Happy Valley. She is all this 
 and vastly more, for her mind is richly stored, 
 and her accomplishments reflect centuries of 
 artistic training. 
 
 But this is a digression. I was sailing lei-
 
 114 PADDLKS AND POLITICS 
 
 surely along the river below Budapesth, the 
 evening my heart-strings were wrung by part- 
 ing with the good fellows at the Neptune Club. 
 The soft light of the waning sun was dancing in 
 the little waves about my bows; pretty peasant 
 girls were pounding linen along the shores with 
 skirts gracefully tucked up above the knees; I 
 was sighing over my desolate state, and wonder- 
 ing if I should ever again dance as I had danced 
 once before, when hark ! the strains of a gypsy 
 band greeted my excited ear. Yes, it was the 
 real gypsy music, and it was dance time at that. 
 I quickly passed the point that had concealed 
 the object of interest from me, and saw ahead 
 a picnic in full swing; such a picnic as only 
 Hungary can create. Handkerchiefs waved, 
 as I came nearer. I fumbled in my side-pocket, 
 pulled out an American ensign as big as my 
 mizzen, and hoisted it with as much speed as 
 was consistent with considerations of safety. 
 The waving on shore continued, not merely 
 with handkerchiefs, but shawls, napkins, 
 aprons, anything that promised to attract at- 
 tention. I sailed close along shore, wondering 
 what the excitement meant, and, when near 
 enough, was hailed by a gentleman of the 
 party. He said that he was deputed by the
 
 DOWN THK DANUBE 115 
 
 rest of the company to invite me ashore to 
 share in the picnic ! 
 
 Politeness made me feebly protest against 
 invading their happy entertainment, but in the 
 end I lowered my sails, made Caribee fast, and 
 was shaking hands with my new-found host. 
 He was a barrister from Budapesth. The com- 
 pany consisted of intimate friends, also from 
 the same city, celebrating together some anni- 
 versary. I presented him with my card, he pre- 
 sented me with his. Then followed formal pre- 
 sentation to the ladies, commencing with the 
 most venerable, and descending to Miss , 
 who was to make her debut in society the next 
 season, and who, no doubt, made a huge suc- 
 cess. At any rate I shall never forget her 
 dancing. We had not known each other five 
 minutes when away we flew with the gypsy 
 music under our heels, stamping, shouting, 
 spinning, reeling, swaying, singing, turning, 
 and twisting in the dance of dances, the elixir 
 of perpetual youth, the inspiring Tschardasch. 
 
 Little Miss danced like an angel, and 
 
 overlooked all my blunderings. 
 
 But I had almost forgotten the feasting in the 
 pleasure of the dance. There was of course a 
 splendid lunch: cold chickens, salads, fruit, and
 
 Il6 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 plenty of good wine. The host rose in the midst 
 of the meal, and, with raised glass, referred to 
 the pleasure they felt at having a stranger 
 amongst them to whom they could show Mag- 
 yar hospitality. It was then my turn, but what 
 could I say? My heart was too full for speech. I 
 told them that their big table, strong as it was, 
 would break into splinters did it have to sustain 
 the weight of gratitude I felt for all the kind- 
 ness I had received from the brave and beau- 
 tiful Hungarians; that I was carrying home 
 with me memories of a land where all the men 
 were manly, all the women angels; that heaven 
 must be full of Hungarians, and that I could 
 imagine no greater beatitude than cultivating 
 the friendships I had formed amidst so happy 
 a people. 
 
 A cynic might think I was rhapsodizing. But 
 then who cares what a cynic thinks ! 
 
 I need not give any more illustrations of the 
 hospitality I met with amongst these generous 
 Magyars. To have the key to one Hungarian 
 heart is to have the key to all. You approach 
 them as a chance stranger; you part from them 
 in tender friendship.
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 1 1? 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 A NIGHT OF REVELRY NEAR BUDAPESTH 
 
 WHEN a stranger comes from a far coun- 
 try with a bare card of introduction the 
 man to whom he presents it is apt, if he dwells 
 in this part of the world, to see how little he can 
 do in the way of entertainment and yet not ap- 
 pear mean. He probably consults his wife, and 
 in the end gets up a little dinner in his guest's 
 honor. He may, in addition to this, send the 
 stranger a few complimentary cards to func- 
 tions of questionable interest ; and heaves a 
 sigh of relief when a card of farewell is left at 
 his door. 
 
 So much for our latitudes ! 
 
 On arriving in Budapesth for the first time in 
 my life, I had the meagrest possible card of in- 
 troduction to a Hungarian gentleman. It was 
 given me by a friend in Vienna who had but a 
 slight acquaintance with either of us. I have 
 no right to publish private names and will 
 therefore affectionately call him Lajos, which is
 
 Il8 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 the Hungarian equivalent for Louis. Now I 
 must not fail to add that Lajos is a man over- 
 burdened with official cares ; of enormous 
 social duties that I had no claim of any kind 
 whatsoever upon him excepting the universal 
 desire of the tourist to plague the good-natured 
 native. 
 
 As I look back upon those marvelous Dan- 
 ube days from the confined workshop in which 
 I am sorting my notes, Magyar faces crowd 
 upon me strong, manly, liberty-loving types 
 of high-bred and courteous gentlemen. It is a 
 proud recollection, that of having known such 
 men in such a part of the world, where the 
 future of Europe and civilization is at stake, 
 and where the battle with Russian barbarism 
 may some day be fought. And from this throng 
 of worthies one stands out with particular 
 prominence the genial, rotund, joyous Lajos; 
 always worried, always joking ; always work- 
 ing, always singing ; the one who never dic- 
 tates and whom all love to follow. 
 
 Am I wrong? If I am, Lajos himself is the 
 only one who will accuse me of my error. 
 
 Every hour of every one of the happy days I 
 spent in the Hungarian capital is associated 
 with the goodness of Lajos. I will only refer
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE I IQ 
 
 to one day, however, by way of illustrating 
 what the Magyar means by hospitality. 
 
 Under date of Aug. 2, 1891,! find this memo- 
 randum in my note book: "Started at II 
 o'clock for an excursion up the river with Lajos 
 and his guests. He says we shall be back 
 early this evening." 
 
 We did not get back until the following 
 morning at 7, but that by the way ! 
 
 Lajos had secured a beamy and comfortable 
 steamer, had invited about fifty, had loaded his 
 craft with luxuries of cellar and pantry, and 
 had provided a band of gypsies capable of fid- 
 dling the very conscience out of a bishop. 
 There were old and young in the party ; fa- 
 thers and sons, mothers with daughters as 
 beautiful and graceful as themselves and that 
 is saying a great deal in a country where beauty 
 increases with years, and youth is born with 
 beauty. Muscular members of the famous 
 Neptune Rowing Club were with us and one or 
 two gallant officers who had won laurels in '48 
 fighting for the liberties of their country. The 
 gathering was one which for grace and beaut}' 
 on the dancing floor could not have been 
 equaled at the hops of Newport or West Point 
 can one say more ? I never for a moment
 
 120 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 suffered for my ignorance of the melodious 
 Magyar, for everyone appeared to speak with 
 ease at least three languages besides their own. 
 If I have one of the gentle sex looking at this 
 page, permit me to say that the fashionably 
 dressed dames of Piccadilly and Fifth Avenue 
 appear dowdy postively behind the times 
 compared with the ladies of Budapesth. Here, 
 at least, every woman is an artist in dress. 
 This being a subject on which I am apt to get 
 out of my depth, I hasten to add that I know a 
 very competent authority on this point a 
 woman at that, and one not at all biased, as I 
 may be. 
 
 No sooner on the boat than at once com- 
 menced the music and the feasting. Lajos did 
 not tell me so, but I learned subsequently that 
 all of the catering for this large and very hungry 
 party was personally superintended by his sister, 
 a young lady who embodies all that is national 
 and lovely in the Hungarian character. As I 
 have mentioned no names, and no one knows 
 to whom I refer, I may explain what the Hun- 
 garian young lady counts as the usual ac- 
 complishments of her sex. Of course the com- 
 mon education of the ordinary schools, the 
 smattering of literature, history, etc. Then she
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 121 
 
 is invariably a good musician not a piano 
 strummer, but one who grows up in an atmos- 
 phere where music is the interpreter of daily 
 feeling. The Hungarian sings as we dull mor- 
 tals talk. Some sing better than others, but none 
 sing as badly as our performing amateurs. 
 Then as a housekeeper, what a treasure is the 
 Hungarian ! She can teach her cook every- 
 thing worth knowing, relieve her when neces- 
 sary, manage the house into the bargain, and 
 never once let her guests suspect that she ever 
 gives it a thought. Where the Anglo-Saxon 
 mistress retires to her bedroom to cry with 
 vexation, the Hungarian lady fills the house 
 with her melody, and concocts a new sauce to 
 the tune of a tschardasch. It makes my blood 
 boil to hear my countrywomen speak of such 
 women as household drudges because they 
 manage their own houses ! They would be 
 put to the blush could they see some of those 
 they thus allude to on the floor of the ballroom. 
 Indeed, nothing, I am convinced, would con- 
 duce so much to making our girls happy and 
 physically vigorous, as to give them some of 
 the useful occupation enjoyed by their own sex 
 in Hungary. 
 
 The feast was, like all Hungarian feasts, de-
 
 122 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 licious. It was the breakfast, to be followed 
 by many more meals before finally separating. 
 How Mile, de Lajos possibly managed all 
 these spreads, especially as she danced every 
 minute that she was not superintending the 
 service, remains still a mystery to me but 
 that she did this is well attested. 
 
 The gypsy band was composed of three vio- 
 lins, a 'cello, a basso, and the famous national 
 instrument that looks roughly like an enor- 
 mous zither, and is played by striking the 
 strings with soft hammers. The music made 
 us impatient, even at such a feast. One after 
 the other, feet began to pat, and before the 
 meal was done couples were adrift amongst 
 the tables, carried away by the musical magic. 
 
 Here was the first triumph of the gypsies, a 
 people who care nothing for money and 
 everything for success. They commenced by 
 dragging us from well-filled tables, and for the 
 whole of that day, and the whole of the night 
 they played at us, around us and into us with- 
 out a sign of weariness, resting only at inter- 
 vals for food and drink. 
 
 The gypsies were playing, it seemed, for the 
 very love of their art more even than for the 
 dancers. They warmed up to a condition of
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 123 
 
 mental intoxication as the wailing violin led 
 them in cadences from one mood to the other. 
 One moment the measure was martially heroic, 
 the next the leader's eyes half closed as the 
 harmony floated away into a love song; again 
 it awoke to a ballet-like movement, then it 
 changed once more to the despairing cries of a 
 rejected lover; after this, perhaps, a savage 
 hymn would weave itself across the time of the 
 motive; but in the end there was always one 
 conclusion the capriciously regular, the sav- 
 agely tender, the buoyantly plaintive, the way- 
 wardly winning, the most captivating of har- 
 monies, the most maddening of ecstasies the 
 rapid, surging, swaying, tossing, inflammatory 
 tschardasch ! 
 
 It is all this, and vastly more. What a poor, 
 cold-blooded wretch like myself can feel is 
 small, of course; but that little something is 
 an ocean beside the puddle of exhilaration rep- 
 resented in the average ballroom of our fash- 
 ionable life. 
 
 Why, the very players in Hungary succumb 
 to the spell they themselves create. Their 
 eyes speak the emotions they are invoking 
 upon their listeners; they burst into song like 
 happy children, and sway in unconscious
 
 124 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 rhythm to the cadence of their instruments; 
 their faces lighten and darken as the mood 
 sweeps over their strings. Can dancers tire 
 while the players are putting their very life 
 into the sounds that stir their blood ? 
 
 At last, however, the gypsies themselves 
 leave their seats; they can no longer keep 
 themselves down while twinkling feet are 
 flashing before them. First, the leader is seen 
 moving amidst the couples, singing, swaying, 
 fiddling madly, drawing his intoxicating bow- 
 up to the very ears of those he selects for this 
 much-coveted distinction. The second and 
 then the third follow, keeping all the while 
 perfect accord one with the other, yet none 
 apparently conscious of the other's presence. 
 All are animated by the same spirit, and that 
 to a gypsy appears to be sufficient. 
 
 What is the tschardasch ? I do not know 
 save that it is the most completely satisfactory 
 dance in the world. The lady rests her hands 
 lightly upon the cavalier's shoulders, he in 
 turn holding her at the belt. Otherwise the 
 two dancers do not come into personal con- 
 tact. Fortunately for me the muscular activity 
 incident to canoeing the Danube from Donau- 
 eschingen to this point made me feel fit for a
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 125 
 
 boat race; and a tschardasch being only one 
 degree more wearing that a four-mile pull in 
 twenty minutes, I was able to enter into the 
 dance with less chances of mortification than 
 most outsiders. Gentle hands and engaging 
 language little by little overcame habitual shy- 
 ness, and before I knew it my feet were nim- 
 bling about as freely and happily as those of the 
 rest myself recklessly indifferent as to how 
 far my movements were in accord with the 
 best traditions of the masters in this art. 
 From the dancing I saw, it seemed to me that 
 the Hungarian national dance is one that can 
 be danced in a hundred different ways, accord- 
 ing to the strength, agility, age or fancy of the 
 performer. The couple may move sedately 
 from beginning to end, their feet working as 
 methodically as in a common waltz; if they 
 please, however (and they generally do), each 
 couple soon finds elbow room necessary, and 
 makes energetic use of it. 
 
 As the music becomes more exciting, the 
 spirits of the dancers rise; the}- break away 
 from one another, and dance off and on with 
 the prettiest of fancy steps, each as it were 
 coquetting with the other, the lady eluding 
 and then approaching her cavalier. They
 
 126 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 dance, now demurely, now wildly; hands are 
 raised; hats and handkerchiefs are waved; 
 shouts ring out; the steps are sometimes like 
 those of a reel, at other times like any kind of 
 a jig; but throughout most perfect time is kept; 
 that is to say, perfect harmony with the mad 
 music of the gypsies. 
 
 If my recollection serves me I danced every 
 dance without exception from beginning to 
 end, and I have already said that we danced 
 the day and night. Under no other condition 
 could I have done such a thing. 
 
 At some time in the afternoon an elaborate 
 dinner \vas served, at which much was eaten, 
 more was drunk, and many speeches made. The 
 Hungarians never drink excepting to a senti- 
 ment, and hence it is that I never saw a 
 drunken man during the many days I spent in 
 their company. Many were the toasts pledged, 
 and some that touched me deeply because of 
 the kindly things said by my host, to which 
 of course I was expected to answer as best I 
 could. We bumped to the glory of Hungary; 
 the friendship of our respective countries; the 
 memory of the immortal George Washington; 
 the brave Kossuth, and his fellow-patriots of 
 '48; the Triple Alliance and the King of
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE I2/ 
 
 Hungary (who is sometimes known as the Em- 
 peror of Austria). All who spoke did so with 
 grace and fluency, and it would be indeed a 
 fortunate gathering in my own country that 
 could have brought forth better after-dinner 
 speeches under corresponding circumstances. 
 
 There was plenty of singing, of course, much 
 merriment, and no end of private toasts to in- 
 dividual good health. 
 
 In any other country it might be expected 
 that half at least of the company would be 
 overcome but here was nothing of the kind. 
 Strange as it may sound, not a single Hun- 
 garian showed the slightest trace of the wine 
 consumed; not a word or action was out of 
 harmony with the habitual good breeding and 
 delicacy of the true Hungarian. The dancers 
 might shout and laugh and sing and commit the 
 most extravagant steps, but not one was guilty 
 of offending any of the ladies present. 
 
 After the dinner we had segars, brandy and 
 coffee, and then more music but there were 
 some who thought that we might find a larger 
 dancing space on shore. It was already dark, 
 but our Lajos promptly had the boat brought 
 to land, and one of the party was deputed 
 to hurry to the nearest village to see what
 
 128 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 dancing space could be secured More music 
 and dancing followed until he returned with 
 the news that he had secured a peasant's 
 threshing floor for our use. 
 
 So then we all marched to the village, pre- 
 ceded by torches and the gypsies. The 
 way was not easy to follow, but by the help of 
 ship's lanterns we at length reached the barn- 
 yard, and were \velcomed not only by the pro- 
 prietor, but by no less personages than the 
 mayor and chief judge of the place. Here 
 was another evidence of the popularity which 
 Lajos enjoyed in the neighborhood of his 
 native town. 
 
 The gypsies ensconced themselves cozily at 
 one end of the room; boards spread on bar- 
 rels were soon loaded with flagons of good 
 honest red wine, and in a trice the whole party 
 was once more spinning about as though this 
 was the first dance of the evening, and time 
 was very short. Our floor was but dirt well 
 beaten down by generations of bare feet; the 
 sides of our hall were open to all the world, 
 and for that matter the whole village had 
 turned out to watch the revels, and listen to 
 the beloved music of the gypsies. The scene 
 was weird in the extreme trees, houses, peas-
 
 DOWN THE DAXUBK 1 29 
 
 ants, gypsies, dancers, all glinting in the wavy 
 light of the fitful candles that were disposed at 
 intervals. Of course the magnates of the vil- 
 lage were called upon to drink by the hospi- 
 table Lajos; they made us a speech of welcome 
 to which we responded in terms of friendship. 
 On my part I could but say that the boundless 
 hospitality I had enjoyed at the hands of 
 Magyars was a type of the good relations ex- 
 isting between their government and mine, a 
 friendship which I ventured to hope, without 
 committing our foreign department, would 
 never be disturbed. The justice and mayor 
 treated the ceremony as seriously as though 
 peace and war hung in the balance, and when 
 the last drop was drained there could have 
 been no native of that village who did not feel 
 that peace had been reestablished in spite of 
 the McKinley Bill. 
 
 Dance, dance, dance there was no end to 
 it; nobody wanted a seat, nobody wished to 
 stop, except now and then to pledge his part- 
 ner in a bumper. At last, however, I do not 
 know at what o'clock, the signal was given to 
 return on board the steamer; whether the 
 hour was too late for the village, or that the 
 wine was exhausted, I shall never know.
 
 130 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 With the gypsies at our head, the whole vil- 
 lage carrying lanterns on our wings, and the 
 prettiest partner in Hungary on my arm, we 
 once more threaded our way to the river bank, 
 and amidst singing and cheering and many 
 kind messages, pushed off into the stream. 
 
 Another supper was awaiting us on deck; 
 once more the music put wings to our feet in 
 short, when we touched the landing stage of 
 the capital it was only in time for breakfast of 
 the following day. We separated I at least 
 did with the feeling that henceforth my hap- 
 piness must be made up of memories; that 
 never could so much exhilaration be crowded 
 into the same space of time anywhere else in 
 the wide world. All \vhom I knew on that 
 eventful night had become dear friends, and to 
 part from them was hard, very hard. 
 
 But part I had to, and within a few hours I 
 was once more at the float of the Neptune 
 Rowing Club. The lockers of Caribee were 
 stored, and with ensign flying, and sails spread 
 to the fresh breeze, we sailed away once more 
 down the mighty stream out amongst the un- 
 certainties of another day. Some of the mem- 
 bers of the club escorted us a short distance 
 and left us after giving three hearty cheers.
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 13! 
 
 Sadly I worked my way down through the 
 bustling shipping of this restless port, almost 
 regretting that I was not capsized by one of 
 the many tugs dashing about me. I wanted 
 an excuse for putting back. 
 
 So good-bye, Budapesth, Queen of the Daji- 
 ube, and mistress of every heart ! Good-bye, 
 my jolly oarsmen of the Neptune, and, finally, 
 God bless the roof that shelters the family of 
 our good Laios !
 
 132 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 HOW THE HUNGARIAN PEASANTS ENTER- 
 TAINED US 
 
 IN the southwesterly corner of Hungary, 
 near the Slavonian border, and not far 
 from the meeting of Bosnia and Servia, Cari- 
 bee was stowed comfortably away in a shed at 
 the mouth of the Franzens Kanal, while her 
 skipper danced for ten hours with the most 
 graceful peasant girls that he had so far en- 
 countered. The good Lajos of Budapesth once 
 more turned up as guardian angel, and under 
 his chaperonage I made the acquaintance of 
 Monostorszeg, a village whose people are not 
 Hungarian, not Turkish, not Bosnian, not 
 Servian, but who illustrate the good qualities 
 of all. Lajos says they are Szokaz, whatever 
 that may mean. I hope it is complimentary, 
 for they dance like angels, have beautiful olive 
 complexions, dress to perfection, are as active 
 as antelopes, speak in melodious notes, wel- 
 come the stranger with every manifestation of 
 good will, and behave with tact and good 
 breeding. What more can I say?
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 133 
 
 Our particular host on this occasion was a 
 prosperous peasant who had spent twenty 
 years of his life in jail for brigandage, a hand- 
 some, soldierly looking man. who seemed to 
 command great respect, and who, I was as- 
 sured, was an ornament to the society in 
 which he now moved. Lajos, at any rate, 
 spoke well of him, and that was enough for 
 me. , 
 
 We invaded his ranch shortly after noon., 
 but as it was harvest time, old and young of 
 both sexes were out in the fields. Swift mes- 
 sengers were, however, immediately despatch- 
 ed to announce our arrival, the gypsy band 
 was summoned, wine and food was ordered, 
 and, before the news of the day had been ex- 
 changed and digested, the spacious courtyard 
 began to fill with the honored guests of our 
 brigand chief. Wine, food, and music arrived 
 as if by magic. With the first strain of the 
 fiddle nimble feet commenced to pat, and soon 
 the great earth floor was waving in a mass of 
 gorgeous coloring, for no one in Monostorszeg 
 cared a fig about the harvest as compared with 
 a dance on the threshing-floor. 
 
 As the time wore on toward evening the; 
 great gates of the yard swung open for pigs,
 
 134 
 
 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 cattle, and other animals seeking the accus- 
 tomed shelter at sundown. Great was the sur- 
 prise they manifested at seeing the transforma- 
 
 THK PEASANTS COMMENCKD TO DANCK. 
 
 tion that had taken place. The dancers were, 
 however, not in the least disconcerted; the)' 
 danced to one side as the beasts crossed the
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 135 
 
 ballroom floor, then closed up again, and went 
 on to the merry time. 
 
 At last arrived the landlord's daughter, 
 perched on top of a huge load of hay drawn by 
 oxen. She was of rare beauty, and about eigh- 
 teen years old. She was greeted with enthu- 
 siastic welcome, being evidently a favorite; 
 and from her lofty perch she smiled down upon 
 the upturned faces with the frank smile of a 
 child accustomed to receive worship of this 
 kind. To describe her is to describe all of the 
 beauties who danced on that memorable Satur- 
 day until the first hour of the following Sabbath. 
 She was barefooted, but then all the Szokaz 
 girls have beautiful little feet, as well as hands. 
 She tripped down from the top of the hay with 
 remarkable agility, and immediately shook 
 hands with her father's guests. 
 
 Her dress consisted of a single piece of mus- 
 lin or cheese-cloth, that draped her splendidly 
 moulded form with classic elegance, and in no 
 wise hampered the native grace of her motions. 
 A girdle about six inches wide sat loosely about 
 her, and served to heighten, if possible, the 
 statuesque character of her attire. The garment 
 as a whole was diaphanous, at first perhaps 
 startlingly so, but was worn with such complete
 
 136 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 innocence anc artless grace as to excite only 
 admiration in the impartial critic. Along the 
 hips from the belt downward was a broad band 
 of open work revealing the delicate skin be- 
 neath, and suggesting somewhat the garment 
 of Cleopatra, as exhibited recently by fashion- 
 able actresses. Her appearance was the more 
 interesting to me as she was obviously in her 
 every-day field-dress, and not even a boating- 
 man could have wished anything more untram- 
 meled. On the day following she went to 
 church in a costume bewildering from the mul- 
 tiplicity of barbarous adornments of a costly 
 nature; but such an array inevitably produces 
 self-consciousness, even in a beauty of Hun- 
 gary. 
 
 The dancing here was, if possible, a trifle 
 more wild than on any previous occasion; the 
 peasant girls had finished their work for the 
 week, were full of rollicking spirit, and danced 
 with an energy and grace simply irresistible. 
 
 It was after midnight when we said good- 
 night to our partners. From high noon to that 
 hour the fiddling never flagged; nor, for that 
 matter, the eating and drinking. It seems to 
 me now, as I look back on that tropical sum- 
 mer, that I danced myself through the heart of
 
 DOWN THE DANUBK 137 
 
 Hungary, and was a faithless partner to C ar- 
 id ee. 
 
 The ball was opened by six maidens who, 
 with hands on one another's shoulders, formed 
 in line and danced a jig time in unison, sway- 
 ing back and forth, to one side and the other, 
 pattering their little bare feet with exquisite 
 effect in fact, reproducing a picture of Japan, 
 probably the only, country that can match 
 Hungary for grace in woman. Pretty soon 
 men took their partners, and the national 
 tschardasch was struck up. Ah, what a dance 
 that is ! Wilder and wilder grew the music; 
 more and more madly moved the little feet; 
 hands were clapped; happy shouts pierced the 
 air; the couples separated, and returned, cut- 
 ting fancy figures of the most coquettish nature 
 in mock efforts, the one to elude, the other to 
 win the partner back again. All were happy 
 as children in the delight of the moment, and 
 Mrs. Grundy, for the time being, appeared to 
 have taken a back seat. 
 
 No one was drunk on that night, though the 
 generous Lajos made wine free to all, from the 
 brigand chief to his emptiest guest. The in- 
 toxication that seized upon old and young alike 
 sprang entirely from the naturally enthusiastic
 
 138 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 nature of all who live under Hungarian influ- 
 ence. 
 
 Some people think they know what excite- 
 ment means, when they have heard college 
 boys after a foot-ball match; there was a time 
 when I thought no enthusiasm could match 
 that which burst out at the corner of the old 
 fence " 'neath the elms " when dear old Yale 
 beat Harvard in the four-mile boat race. I 
 have seen reverend dignitaries of the Church 
 shouting themselves red in the face, as they 
 encouraged their college boats in bumping 
 matches on the Isis or the Cam. But these 
 manifestations of feeling, compared with what 
 I saw on the Danube, were as the efforts of a 
 night-light to the full blast fires of a trans- 
 atlantic steamship. 
 
 In one very effective dance a large ring was 
 formed by both sexes and all ages. The mai- 
 dens placed their hands on the men's shoulders, 
 these in turn holding the belts of the fair ones. 
 The music played a lively national reel, and all 
 danced the measure in perfect time, though 
 the greatest freedom prevailed as to the par- 
 ticular steps permitted. At times the whole 
 circle closed with a rush, and again flew apart 
 to its greatest extent. Now the dancers swayed
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 139 
 
 around in one direction and then back in the 
 other. The clever dancers became at once 
 conspicuous by the variety which they intro- 
 duced into their steps, and some would have 
 done credit to the corps de ballet. 
 
 The fashionable dancing-floor of modern life 
 is to me rather a sad picture of mistaken en- 
 joyment. No one but the very young appears 
 to be having a good time, and not all of these. 
 Here, however, everyone seemed happy as 
 happy could be, and nimble Lajos the happiest 
 of them all. I could not resist the contagion 
 of spontaneous joy on all sides of me, and, so 
 far as I know, made no particular efforts in 
 that direction. 
 
 When darkness came on a few candles were 
 disposed here and there, two on the table 
 where the food and wine were displayed, two 
 under the narrow veranda which ran along 
 one side of the house, and perhaps one or two 
 more. Compared with the spaces requiring 
 illumination, the light was not strong, and for 
 much of the time we were dancing in the dark 
 amidst the different articles of husbandry usu- 
 ally collected about the threshing-floor of a 
 peasant estate. 
 
 Around the circle of revelers stood fathers
 
 140 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 and mothers holding babies aloft, for, appar- 
 ently, there was here no fixed age of coming 
 out. When the mother joined in the dance the 
 father held the chick, and he in his turn danced 
 when his wife was through. The best of good 
 nature prevailed, and the courtesy between 
 peasant and peasant was as noticeable as that 
 toward the invading stranger. 
 
 When the formal feast took place late in the 
 evening healths were drank with vociferous 
 enthusiasm. Our ex-brigand host poured out 
 his soul in a welcoming speech; we drank to 
 his prosperity, his beautiful daughter, to Hun- 
 gary, to Kossuth and to many others that I 
 cannot remember. 
 
 In what other country could strangers in- 
 vade a village of free peasants, invite them to 
 a ball, treat them to wine, dance with their 
 sweethearts and wives for ten hours, behave 
 with reckless indifference to every considera- 
 tion save the enjoyment of the moment, and 
 say good-bye at midnight without having been 
 able to notice the faintest trace of undue famil- 
 iarity, let alone rudeness, on the part of any- 
 one present ? Each peasant appeared to un- 
 derstand perfectly what a well - bred host 
 expected of him, and I felt, when parting for
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 141 
 
 the night, that I was leaving behind me a so- 
 ciety more enlightened on what pertains to the 
 amenities of social intercourse than I have been 
 able to find at the average of " crushes " in the 
 large cities of either hemisphere excluding, 
 of course, always Japan. 
 
 It is almost impertinent to add that the Hun- 
 garian lady is modesty itself, and that every 
 woman in Hungary is a lady in this regard. 
 The so-called " smart " world has much to 
 learn from the peasants of the lower Danube, 
 for there are girls who do not have to be 
 "fast" in order to show the glories of their sex 
 to the best advantage. For real style and 
 good company I will back my Szokaz angel on 
 the load of hay against the belles of a New 
 York or London drawing-room; and for manly 
 graces the Piccadilly buck is a baby compared 
 with my ex-brigand of Monostorszeg. 
 
 Good-night, then, sweet girls of Hungary. 
 Happy are the Magyar husbands, and if they 
 are not it must be that they are strangely un- 
 grateful !
 
 142 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 SOME NOBLE GYPSIES 
 
 IT was at the close of a glorious day in Au- 
 gust, somewhere near the junction of the 
 Francis Canal and the Hungarian Danube, that 
 I first made the acquaintance of a gypsy family. 
 Of course I had seen plenty of them in other 
 parts of the world who has not ? But on the 
 occasion I now speak of, the gypsies were, so 
 to speak, at the height of their civic existence, 
 I might almost say at the headquarters of their 
 tribal organization. 
 
 The gypsies, like the Laplanders, the North 
 American Indians, and other strange families 
 of the great human race, do not like to be stared 
 at. They are proud and shy in their own way; 
 and to the stranger apt to be offensive. When 
 I was first allowed to enter a Lapp hut; hold a 
 Lapp baby in my arms; bask in the crackling 
 smile of a Lapp maiden, and extract autographs 
 from Lapp chiefs, I felt that I had not visited in 
 vain the Arctic regions of Norway. 
 
 In the British northwest territory of Mani-
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 143 
 
 toba I once was so fortunate as to draw a noble 
 red man into forensic argument. His speech 
 I did not understand; but in so far as sonorous 
 language, dignified carriage, dramatic gesture, 
 modulated inflection and flashing eyes can as- 
 sist an orator, I am quite sure that for once at 
 least I had to do with one of nature's Glad- 
 stones. I prized my experience highly be- 
 cause the American Indian hates the white 
 man instinctively. 
 
 For that matter the Lapp shares this feeling 
 of animosity, and for the same reason. Both 
 have been for generations crowded slowly but 
 surely out of the territory they consider as 
 their property; both are always in the wrong 
 when seeking justice at the hands of their white 
 despoilers; both have come to look upon every 
 white man, whether Norwegian or American, 
 as one of the enemy. 
 
 The gypsy sympathizes with the Lapp and the 
 Indian, for he too is a prowler I mean a 
 nomad. He hates every government that does 
 not spring from the consent of his immediate 
 family. Policemen, tax-gatherers, game-keep- 
 ers all such parasites of civilization are to him 
 odious. He needs plenty of room, he likes to 
 pitch his camp where he chooses, light his fire
 
 \44 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 without interference, live his own life in his own 
 way. 
 
 In the closely settled states of Europe he 
 cannot do this in a dignified manner; all the 
 conditions under which he is obliged to move 
 force him into the category of tramps and vaga- 
 bonds; the people he meets look upon him 
 askance as one who steals anything he can lay 
 hold of, from children to chickens. His love of 
 liberty is not understood and what savage can 
 sustain the reputation of dignity when he is 
 only seen through the dust of suburban roads ? 
 
 In Hungary the gypsy is understood and by 
 no means despised. His music the Magyar 
 adores. There is land enough for all here, and 
 camping out in the open is not treated as a 
 crime against society. The Magyar is a fight- 
 ing man, a sportsman, a lover of out-door life; 
 to him the gypsy is a rational creature; and in 
 return the gypsy of Hungary shows nobler 
 qualities than in those countries where he is the 
 object of constant and petty persecution. 
 
 We drove to this settlement, and here I 
 must again tell how much I am indebted to 
 my dear Lajos. His real name I have con- 
 cealed, for he shares with most good men the 
 quality of shyness. Lajos had already done
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 145 
 
 more than the kindest of friends when he 
 piloted us amidst the pleasures of Budapesth. 
 But he was not content to stop there, and 
 when I reached the mouth of the famous canal 
 that joins Danube and Theiss, whom should I 
 see at the first lock but the happy face, the 
 sparkling eyes, the laughing mouth of Lajos ! 
 Remember, please, that Lajos is a very im- 
 portant official in the Hungarian capital; that 
 he is an overworked director in a great steam- 
 ship company; that his time is golden. 
 
 But then there is but one Lajos ! 
 
 He had chartered a wagon to drive to the 
 gypsies. There were no roads to charter, or 
 we should have had one. There was, how- 
 ever, plenty of soil, and no proprietary rights 
 obtruded themselves. Our wagon had four 
 wheels and a wickerwork body, somewhat like 
 the country wagon in vogue all over Austria 
 and Germany much used for hunting parties. 
 Our driver wore the little national round black 
 felt hat; his dress was a loose cotton shirt, 
 very open in front, a broad leather belt, short 
 white cotton trousers, loose enough to make 
 two skirts. Like the rest of the Magyar na- 
 tion he wore fierce little mustaches, and looked 
 fit for a crack cavalry troop.
 
 146 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 Our horses took their own line across coun- 
 try, for it made little difference to us whether 
 our wheels were off or on the trail. Our jour- 
 ney reminded me of some excursions I once 
 made on the edges of Dakota, when we steered 
 by compass over the virgin prairie. The har- 
 ness of our team was very light Dutch collars 
 and rope traces. The animals took their own 
 gait, now trotting, now galloping, for they 
 seemed to have a perfect understanding with 
 their driver that they were going as far as the 
 gypsy settlement, and that the sooner they 
 covered the distance the better for them as 
 well as for us. 
 
 During the w r hole of my Danube cruise at 
 least as far as the Turkish part I have noticed 
 so much gentleness and willingness on the 
 part of the horses, that I am disposed to con- 
 clude that they are cared for in a particularly 
 humane and sensible way. In spite of the fact 
 that Englishmen and Americans appreciate a 
 good horse, there is an enormous amount of 
 unconscious cruelty practised in those coun- 
 tries, the result of which is seen in the large 
 proportion of spiritless or vicious beasts that 
 were once promising colts. Whether this 
 cruelty springs from ignorance or heartless-
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 147 
 
 ness, the results are the same. There are few 
 big stables in England or America where the 
 visitor has not to be warned against kicking or 
 biting beasts in the army as well as elsewhere. 
 Here, and all over Germany, the stranger can 
 go amongst horses as securely as amongst 
 cows and sheep. Often as I have entered 
 groups of cavalry horses in the German army, 
 never yet has anyone thought it necessary to 
 suggest that I should take precautions against 
 kicks or bites. 
 
 We bounced along over the Hungarian 
 fields, floundering through hog wallows, dodg- 
 
 O O O <- 
 
 ing holes, and at last drew up on the edge of a 
 grove. Here we alighted, and in a few mo- 
 ments noticed a cluster of rudely made huts 
 this was the gypsy camp. 
 
 The king of the tribe, with his queen, greet- 
 ed us in the most solemn and gracious man- 
 ner. Each kissed my hand in turn, pressing 
 it afterward to the forehead. The other mem- 
 bers of the family recognized in this a sign 
 that we were to be treated as guests, and im- 
 mediately manifested a disposition to gratify 
 all our legitimate desires. 
 
 The huts were not interesting. They were 
 such as any squatters, provided with a few
 
 148 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 boards, would have built under similar circum- 
 stances. The people themselves absorbed my 
 attention first of all, the little baby asleep in 
 the kneading-trough, surrounded by self-satis- 
 fied geese, who clucked their heads all around 
 its cradle, picking up the crumbs from the last 
 meal. Near by was the proud father with a 
 huge axe like an executioner's. He w r as en- 
 gaged in shaping another wooden trough. In 
 fact, the whole village was engaged in this in- 
 dustry, for a large number of wooden troughs 
 were heaped up ready for the market; and 
 lumber was piled near by, out of which more 
 troughs were to be carved. These gypsies, at 
 least, had a visible means of support, and a 
 very useful one at that. They were not horse 
 traders, and obviously had stolen no children 
 or if they had, the latter were of their own 
 race. 
 
 And what splendid children they showed 
 me ! Strong, sinewy, graceful little boys and 
 girls, with beautiful big eyes, features of re- 
 fined classic mould little people such as we 
 loved to see in fairy books as princes and 
 princesses, and how they could dance ! 
 
 I asked the gypsy king if he would not favor 
 us with some music and dancing. No sooner
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 149 
 
 was my request made known than, as though by 
 magic, the penetrating note of a violin was 
 heard. It was quickly tuned; a venerable gyp- 
 sy minstrel took his seat on the stump of a 
 tree; a few bars were struck; the children be- 
 gan to pat the floor; the music quickened; the 
 
 THE KING OF THE GYPSIES MAUIi HIS PtOl'LE DANCE KOK US.
 
 ISO PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 children paired off; boys and girls faced each 
 other; the time was a weird jig measure soon 
 the little settlement was dancing madly, ab- 
 sorbed in the intoxicating delight of the fierce 
 movement. Eyes snapped, muscles played, 
 feet flew in and out. The crazy reel became 
 contagious; one after the other the older mem- 
 bers forgot the dignity of the host, and whirled 
 away with twinkling feet to compete with 
 the little ones for the white stranger's ap- 
 plause. Wilder and wilder fiddled the old 
 man; more and more madly danced the young- 
 sters. They clapped their hands; they burst 
 out into cries of triumph and encouragement, the 
 boys slapped their legs, then clapped their 
 hands over their heads as though they were 
 beating tambourines; they knocked their heels 
 together as they flew about; they slapped their 
 feet on either side; they indulged in every 
 acrobatic eccentricity consistent with main- 
 taining the dance rhythm in short, they did all 
 that a negro clog-dancer does and vastly more. 
 Nor did the little girls fall behind the boys in 
 grace and agility. Their behavior was less 
 boisterous, but their legs flew up and about 
 with a dexerity and case seldom surpassed on 
 the serio-comic stage. They trod the most
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 151 
 
 complicated of step measures with delicious 
 assurance and rapidity and when, at last, the 
 fiddle ceased, the applause from the spectators 
 was most vociferous and prolonged. 
 
 For my part I was simply amazed by the 
 marvelous dancing I saw in this gypsy encamp- 
 ment. Looking about at fathers and mothers, 
 however, I found no occasion to wonder that 
 the children were beautiful and well-shaped. 
 A young mother with whom I had a chat here 
 was one of the finest creatures I had ever seen 
 not mere common beauty, but features of ab- 
 solutely classic symmetry, lines which we con- 
 sider the embodiment of high breeding in 
 womankind. Du Maurier has reproduced the 
 queen of the London drawing-room, and ideal- 
 ized the highest product of modern good so- 
 ciety. Even he, a man of the world and a 
 thorough gentleman, has not put on paper a 
 type of woman more beautiful in expression, 
 more classic in lines, more sinuous in move- 
 ment, more erect in carriage and lastly 
 more aristocratic in bearing than the mothers 
 of the little urchins \vho danced for me in the 
 most savage corner of Hungary. 
 
 It was delightful to see the loving interest 
 taken bvthe brothers and fathers in the women
 
 152 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 and children and they were men worth look- 
 ing at. Not one appeared to be less than six 
 feet high. Their figures were slight but strong; 
 their features were marked by the same signs 
 of breeding and beauty characterizing the 
 women; they were pictures of good health. 
 They wore their hair flowing in waves upon 
 their shoulders; slight mustaches curled to the 
 corners of their mouth, and a short wavy beard 
 shaded the lower line of the face. Their ex- 
 pression was full of dignity and gentleness, 
 blended with melancholy. Several of them 
 might have been studied from the life and treat- 
 ed as the ideal Hamlet. The Christs of Ary 
 Scheffer and Dore were suggested to me as I 
 looked into these interesting faces. From 
 another point of view the features of these gyp- 
 sies were those of the Arab chief as we know 
 him on canvas at the highest stage of his 
 civilization. 
 
 Had I met these men in the halls of a 
 seat of learning, dressed in academic gowns 
 and surrounded by the insignia of their ex- 
 alted profession, I should have exclaimed: 
 " How fortunate the college that has drawn 
 to its support men whose face and bearing 
 so amply reflect the calm of philosophic in-
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 1 53 
 
 quiryand the wisdom of accumulated knowl- 
 edge ! " 
 
 Yet here they were, cutting kneading troughs, 
 dressed in a single piece of home-made stuff, 
 living like the native of two thousand years 
 ago, and ignorant of conventional knowledge 
 to a degree that suggests the Egyptian dark- 
 ness that gave them birth. 
 
 Such are the contradictions of life. Gypsy 
 sages who do not know the alphabet; Oxford 
 dons living for the sake of their stomach. Latin 
 and Greek do not give a man wisdom, and 
 around the fire of these gypsies were heads 
 that belonged to philosophers and prophets.
 
 154 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 HUNGARIAN HARVESTERS ALSO A LITTLE 
 SPORT 
 
 LAJOS, like most generous spirits, is so 
 modest, that it was only indirectly that 
 I learned of his heroism during the great floods 
 of the river Theiss, near Szegedin, in 1879. 
 When the news of the suffering reached him in 
 Budapesth, he did not wait for committees or 
 subscription lists, but, loading a steamer with 
 meat, drink, and blankets, away he puffed for 
 the scene of disaster, and for days and nights 
 exposed his life in saving others, ministered to 
 their wants and brought sunshine into scores 
 of families living in the valley of the shadow 
 of death. 
 
 Lajos thought I might like to look at Szege- 
 din, that being a thoroughly typical center of 
 Magyar life, whereas Budapesth is rather cos- 
 mopolitan than Hungarian. So away we 
 steamed from the Danube to the Theiss by the 
 famous Francis Canal.
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 155 
 
 On the first night we were the guest of the 
 governor of the district. I mention this to il- 
 lustrate the hospitable disposition of the peo- 
 ple. The night following we spent at the 
 house of the chief engineer of the canal, a 
 Hungarian gentleman, who spared no pains in 
 ministering to our happiness. His charming 
 wife and amiable daughters received us like 
 members of the family; the evening meal, an 
 elaborate dinner, was served on the veranda, 
 looking out upon a fragrant garden full of 
 many varieties of luscious fruits and fragrant 
 flowers. Our health was drunk in wine of ex- 
 quisite quality. Our host had in his house 
 ample evidence of his skill as a sportsman 
 heads of bears, wolves, deer, and many others. 
 In his stables I found horses of excellent 
 blood. 
 
 A feature of his establishment that impressed 
 me most pleasantly was a bath-house located 
 beneath the overflow, at the side of the canal 
 lock. Here the bather worked his way with 
 an effort into the rushing waterfall, and held 
 on tight to the wall of rock, while his whole 
 frame tingled with the shock of the cascade. 
 Swimming has its charms, but for exhilaration, 
 and at the same time an appetite-provoking
 
 156 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 tonic, nothing I know of can exceed the buffet- 
 ing I got under the weir of this Hungarian 
 lock. 
 
 On the following morning our host of the 
 night before became the guest of Lajos on 
 board of the steamer, but, hearing that I was 
 fond of shooting, he brought along some fowl- 
 ing pieces and an ample supply of cartridges. 
 The guns were ranged at the forward rail; we 
 sat and chatted under the awning under the 
 hurricane deck. Our boat made scarcely any 
 noise, a light breeze was against us, and we 
 had a capital view of the broad stretches ahead 
 of us. The country was full of wild fowl, and 
 the guns were rarely idle. We popped away 
 from morning till night, scarcely stopping for 
 the noble lunch which Lajos provided. At 
 every bend new sport greeted us hawks, 
 herons, coots, wild duck, loons, hell divers, 
 gulls of many kinds these were some of the 
 game we bagged. Our spry little steward was 
 kept busy in the dingey rowing off to find what 
 we had brought down. Before the day closed 
 I made up my mind that this canal was worth 
 revisiting with a canoe, a gun, and a re- 
 triever. 
 . Szegedin is more Hungarian than Budapesth,
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 157 
 
 as Kieff is more Russian than St. Petersburg. 
 It spreads itself over the great alluvial plains 
 of the Theiss valley in squares and streets as 
 broad and long as those of a Western town. 
 The streets of Szegedin are, however, kept 
 clean, the buildings show much taste, the 
 shops indicate widely distributed prosperity, 
 and the noble river looks as though it never 
 could have behaved otherwise than as a docile 
 transporter of produce through the heart of 
 this splendid granary. 
 
 Szegedin appealed to me most sympathetic- 
 ally, however, when my good Lajos drove me 
 a few miles away to what appeared to be a 
 town of golden domes, from the midst of which 
 rose vast clouds of incense. The inhabitants 
 one might imagine to be engaged in Oriental 
 worship from the humming sound that wafted 
 toward us in the morning stillness. The scene 
 reminded me of a visit I once paid in Pekin to 
 the great Lama Temple, the sacred city of 
 Buddhism, in which a vast multitude of crouch- 
 ing priests drone away their lives in repeating 
 monotonous nonentities. The great plain of Pe- 
 kin is like that of Szegedin the gilded domes 
 of both countries appeared to me veiled in 
 atmospheric density but there the parallel
 
 158 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 ceased. As we came nearer to the golden city 
 I saw that great stacks of straw were here 
 congregated; that the prayerful hum proceeded 
 from steam-threshers, and the cloud of incense 
 from the chaff of the winnowers blending with 
 the engine smoke. My dream had passed, but 
 left a still more pleasing reality. 
 
 We jumped out and wandered from dome to 
 dome, from stack to stack. Here the govern- 
 ment maintains a large threshing tract, which 
 serves in a measure as an agricultural ex- 
 change. Peasants drive to this point from 
 many miles, bringing with them their families 
 and as much grain as their teams can haul. 
 They camp out here for the busy season, and 
 combine with their own work as much more as 
 can add to the profit of their stay. 
 
 First of all, they reserve their threshing- 
 ground by driving a distinguishing stake into 
 it, their right being respected as completely as 
 that of a passenger leaving his satchel on a 
 railway seat. The next thing is to thresh and 
 winnow their load, which they may do either 
 by paying one of the great steam-threshers, or, 
 if they cannot afford that, by acting in the pa- 
 triarchal manner: that is to say, the pair of 
 horses is driven round and round over the grain
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 159 
 
 until the berries fall out. These are then 
 swept up and tossed into the air by the shovel- 
 ful. The chaff blows away while the berries 
 fall in a clean shape to the ground. These are 
 then put into sacks, and are ready for market. 
 
 The steam operation is of course the one an 
 American prefers when he runs a farm for 
 profit. But the Yankee doing Hungary in a 
 canoe is happy to take an object lesson in agri- 
 culture as practiced in the days of Pharaoh. 
 And, in truth, in a country where horses are 
 as abundant as in Texas, where father, mother, 
 sisters and brothers work together in the fields, 
 where labor is very cheap and machinery very 
 dear, there is much to be said for the patri- 
 archal system. 
 
 I questioned one group, consisting of two 
 men, one woman, one boy and two horses. 
 This party, working together, earned six gul- 
 dens (say three dollars) a day. If each of the 
 group shared equally, that would give fifty 
 cents apiece for the day's work a moder- 
 ate reward, to be sure. Yet, considering what 
 fifty cents will buy them there, I am not sure 
 that they would be happier if transplanted to 
 New Jersey or Long Island. 
 
 The woman w r ore but a single piece of cot-
 
 160 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 ton belted at the waist a garment which did 
 not materially interfere with the free swing of 
 her graceful body as she tossed the red berries 
 aloft. All were of course barefooted, and the 
 men wore a garment only a shade less simple 
 than that of the women. 
 
 Here, by the way, and for that matter along 
 the lower Danube in general, the women share 
 the outdoor work of men. They do not, how- 
 ever, show to disadvantage in consequence on 
 the contrary, I venture to think that the hand- 
 somest of the continent are to be found along 
 this great waterway handsome not merely in 
 feature and expression, but exhibiting in 
 every movement of their graceful and erect 
 figures the evidence of wholesome physical 
 exercise. In North Germany there are too 
 many good women bent in the back, pre- 
 maturely wrinkled and dragged to the earth 
 by drudgery. Such spectacles did not force 
 themselves upon me during this journey, I am 
 happy to say. How much is due to education, 
 how much to blood, how much to climate, I 
 dare not determine. There is, however, in the 
 woman of this neighborhood a something 
 which makes man unwilling to see her harmed. 
 She works in the open air because such work
 
 DOWN THE DAM' UK l6l 
 
 develops her physical powers, but no Hunga- 
 rian would like to see her burdened to a point 
 where toil begins and elasticity ends. 
 
 Every traveler visiting the West Indies notes 
 the elastic tread and excellent physical pro- 
 portions of the black women there, due princi- 
 pally to the constant open-air exercise they 
 get. And as this exercise is of a light and 
 wholesome kind largely that of carrying 
 sugar-cane upon the head, the result is as splen- 
 did as could be desired. But the poor black 
 of Barbadoes can never vie with her white sis- 
 ter of the Danube in one of the qualities that 
 appeal to the highest grade of civilized man. 
 The negro mouth, nose, eye, hair, finger-nails, 
 and a hundred other distinguishing features will 
 
 o o 
 
 remain as they have been, and make her a poor 
 competitor at best in an international beauty 
 show to which Magyar maidens are admitted. 
 
 The peasant group we interviewed had 
 finished their own load, and were now doing 
 work for another by contract. The steam - 
 threshers, two of which I noticed as being of 
 English make, appeared to be fully employed 
 as well, showing that the relative merit of 
 steam and man power here was not deter- 
 mined. In Roumania and Russia I saw steam
 
 l62 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 power likewise in close competition with that of 
 men and horses. In Russia the sight struck 
 me more than elsewhere, because the famine 
 was well appreciated by the dealers. It was 
 early in September of 1891; prices were high, 
 and the farmers might be regarded as directly 
 interested in securing the fullest possible crop 
 at the earliest moment. At Reni, or the Russian 
 Danube, harvesting was in full swing when I ar- 
 rived; the town was full of Jews, who pounced 
 upon the incoming peasant's wagon like chick- 
 ens on a cockroach, and from the violence 
 of their gesticulation appeared to be insisting 
 either upon his life, or his load of grain. Here 
 I saw peasants driving round and round over 
 their wheat an empty cart with three horses 
 harnessed to it abreast, a very slow and labo- 
 rious way indeed. At another peasant's en- 
 closure, the head of the family had harnessed 
 three horses abreast to a "stone boat" or 
 toboggan-shaped sled. On this vehicle was 
 seated his pretty wife who held in her arms 
 a baby about six months old. Round and 
 round they went, the baby enjoying it hugely. 
 The husband was probably too poor to afford 
 a steam machine, and was probably owing his 
 present crop for unpaid taxes.
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 163 
 
 We strolled amidst the golden hay stacks of 
 the Szegedin threshing fields until noon, 
 when the peasants lit their camp-fires and pre- 
 pared their dinner like the gypsies; we too 
 felt hungry, so bidding good-bye to the bare- 
 legged men and the untrammeled maidens, we 
 jumped aboard our light wagon, flew back 
 over the bumpy roads to the Hotel Tisza, had 
 a royal meal, drank a farewell bumper, and 
 then once more joined Caribce and the Danube. 
 
 Here it was that I said good-bye to Lajos, 
 God bless him !
 
 164 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 SERVIAN PUBLIC OPINION 
 
 AT Semendria I went ashore, for the sake of 
 meeting a Servian banker recommended 
 to me as a good judge of the present condition 
 of his country. As every one knows, Semen- 
 dria is the Chicago of Servia, and as grain is 
 one of the principal items in the trade of the 
 country, the bankers of this town fix the quo- 
 tations for all the rest. 
 
 But first let me recall once more the beauty 
 of the stream all the way from Belgrade to this 
 place the beautiful slopes covered with vines; 
 the fields of grain; the horses, cows, pigs, and 
 sheep that trooped to the water for a bath; the 
 melodious peasantry who seemed always sing- 
 ing or piping. Judging only from the canoe 
 deck, I seemed to sail along a land full of all 
 that makes a nation prosperous and happy. 
 As I landed at the Belgrade swimming bath, 
 and handed my passport to an official, I was 
 met by these proud words:
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 165 
 
 " The stranger needs no passport the Serbs 
 are a free people." 
 
 Belgrade being the first city which the 
 stranger sees coming from up the river, and, 
 besides that, the capital of the country, this 
 proud speech made a deep impression on me. 
 From the river, too, Belgrade is one of the 
 most imposing cities in the world in both 
 strength of position and beauty. It rises from 
 the water's edge in terraces of roofs, gardens, 
 towers, battlements, and minarets. The gor- 
 geous light of the rising sun was bathing it in a 
 soft embrace of gold and orange as I paddled 
 toward it from Semlin, and I could not but 
 fancy myself approaching an oriental paradise. 
 
 But I should have done better to paddle on, 
 for the town itself suggests the rule of a Servian 
 Tammany Hall. The streets are bad as bad 
 can be; some pretentious modern buildings are 
 to be seen, but they only serve to make the 
 remnants of Turkish rule more squalid; prices 
 are very high; soldiers appear to own the place 
 I was glad to get away. 
 
 I had some of the same feeling in Greece 
 that I would have enjoyed the Acropolis more 
 had I known Athens less. To gaze at its glori- 
 ous proportions from the sea is pleasure pure;
 
 l66 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 to approach it through the brick and mortar 
 of a sham civilization is to me almost blasphe- 
 mous. 
 
 In Belgrade a friend holding official position 
 told me that western Europe was wrong in 
 thinking the Serbs under Russian influence. 
 As a rule, it is well to be shy of all people in 
 official position, because such people acquire a 
 certain professional bias which compels them 
 to seek, not the truth, but the views of their 
 superiors. This opinion, then, I thought little 
 of until I reached Semendria, and had a talk 
 with my banker friend. He was a patriotic 
 Serb, a man who had seen the world, who knew 
 the people worth knovcing, and talked freely 
 with me. 
 
 " Do you look upon Russian influence as 
 dangerous ?" I asked. 
 
 " It is a constant source of anxiety to us, but 
 the Russian generally overdoes his part. He 
 is so sly as to overreach himself. His ruble 
 can do much in a country that has been for 
 generations demoralized by Turkish misrule; 
 but, thank God, it can not do everything ! " 
 
 " What is to oppose it ? " 
 
 " Our national spirit is very strong, strange 
 as this may appear. Our people are free and
 
 DOWN" THE DANUBE l6/ 
 
 independent peasants you may travel into 
 every corner of Servia, and wherever you go 
 you will find a peasantry living comfortably, 
 jealous of their liberty, and enthusiastic in the 
 cause of Servian nationality. The Greek Church 
 is strong, but the national spirit is stronger. 
 
 " The Eastern question, in my opinion," con- 
 tinued he, " will not be settled until the Serb 
 has fought with Greek and Bulgar, and recov- 
 ered national sway over the Serbs, now forced 
 to submit to the rule of enemies. We do what 
 we can to keep the national spirit alive we 
 have organized societies in neighboring states, 
 particularly in the Turkish provinces, all de- 
 voted to fostering Servian life and literature. 
 Our work is not easy, for our people are not all 
 as well educated as we could desire, but still 
 we do make progress, and are ready to fight 
 for what we deem a holy cause." 
 
 " But as to Russia, what is it that checks their 
 propaganda ? " I asked. 
 
 " The best of all checks," he answered, " our 
 pockets. Our trade interests lie up the river 
 toward Austria and Germany. We send each 
 year from Semendria about two hundred big 
 barges, each holding three to five hundred tons 
 of grain, up toward Germany. Our sales are
 
 168 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 made up there. Our trade demands that Ger- 
 man be our language. The Austro-Hungarian 
 Empire treats us well; we have everything to 
 hope from that quarter, and nothing to fear. 
 
 "What could Russia do for us? She will 
 not trade. She does not represent liberty. The 
 up-river countries represent trade, and Ser- 
 vians need not feel sorry at the prospect of 
 being as liberally governed as Hungary." 
 
 " If that is the case," I asked, " why this 
 constant intrigue on the part of Russia ? " 
 
 " The Russian intrigue continues because 1 our 
 people are haunted by the dread of Russian 
 conquest along the lower Danube. Many of 
 them believe that Russia will eventually cap- 
 ture Constantinople and that she will then be 
 the mistress of all this part of the world. Her 
 friends she will reward her enemies she will 
 enslave. If Servia help Russia, think they, 
 then Russia will give us back our great na- 
 tional territory. 
 
 "Personally, I do not believe in Russian 
 gratitude of this kind. Moreover, I do believe 
 that if Servia could see some clear sign from 
 Vienna or London, or, better still, from Berlin, 
 it would have a very good effect. If the Ger- 
 man Emperor once for all proclaimed his de-
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 169 
 
 termination to maintain the status quo on the 
 Danube, as against Russia, he would at once 
 put an end to the intrigues now undermining 
 our vitality. Germany and Austria together 
 are clearly entitled to the chief voice in Dan- 
 ubian matters, and when this voice is raised all 
 the little states will promptly recognize the side 
 on which their interests lie. Russia will crawl 
 back across the Pruth, or, if she chooses to con- 
 test, very well all the Danube countries will 
 then know under which flag to range them- 
 selves." 
 
 My friend assured me that he spoke for the 
 material interests of Servia, and that German}' 
 was losing a splendid opportunity in not doing 
 all in her power, at this time, to assure ever}' 
 Danube state of her protection. 
 
 This is only one Serb, to be sure, but his 
 language I have heard repeated often and often 
 by different people in corresponding positions 
 along the shores of Bulgaria and Roumania. 
 They, one and all, dread the invasion of Rus- 
 sian barbarism; they long for vigorous utter- 
 ances from Berlin; they hesitate they negotiate 
 with the Czar's agents they do what they can 
 to gain time, and preserve in the meantime ap- 
 pearances of at least official friendship. But
 
 I/O PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 during this anxious period enormous military 
 forces are raised and maintained; trade is much 
 hampered by protectionism carried to barbarous 
 extremes; capitalists seek safer fields for in- 
 vestment in short, the poor people could not 
 be much worse off in actual war.
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 CARIBEE SHOOTS THE RAPIDS OF THE IRON 
 GATES 
 
 THE 1 8th of August was a very hot day in 
 the year 1891, at least to me. There 
 was scarcely a breath of wind; I had been 
 paddling from 7 in the morning until nearly 
 noon; the Servian shore seemed as uninterest- 
 ing as the Hungarian, and even the singing and 
 piping of the peasants on the banks failed to 
 stimulate me. Two frontier soldiers on the 
 Hungarian side promised a momentary diver- 
 sion. They shot out at me from behind a reedy 
 island, one rowing, the other steering. Oh ! 
 for a fair wind I prayed, what a dance might I 
 then have led them though when they had 
 headed me off, and I noticed two rifles within 
 convenient reach, I remembered that frontier 
 guards along this river have a reputation for 
 shooting on slight provocation. 
 
 Our conversation was as follows: 
 
 GUARD: Where from? 
 
 CARIBEE: Budapesth.
 
 1/2 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 GUARD: Where going? 
 
 CARIBEE: Black Sea. 
 
 The guards gave a few suspicious and dis- 
 satisfied grunts, pulled away to their island, 
 and left me to work along as before. 
 
 Fortunately not for long, for a sharp turn in 
 the stream brought me face to face with one of 
 the grandest bits of scenery in the world. A 
 spur of the Transylvanian Alps crosses the Dan- 
 ube here, between Bazias and Turn-Severing, 
 and forces the stream between rocky sides that 
 spring precipitously to the sky. I felt as 
 though entering some cavernous region of 
 which this was the portico. So lofty are the 
 rocks, and so narrow the river, that light fails, 
 and the vista appears to end in blackness. The 
 very threshold of this mighty pass is suggestive 
 of disaster, for here is a lofty solitary rock in 
 mid-stream looking like a stony warning to those 
 venturing beyond. Its very name Babakai 
 in Turkish means " warning." On my right are 
 the extensive ruins of a once mighty fortress 
 which hundreds of years ago protected Chris- 
 tian Hungary from the inroad of the Moslem. 
 In fact there is scarce a point of military ad- 
 vantage between Vienna and the Black Sea 
 that does not mark the desperate efforts made
 
 DOWN TIFK DANUBE 
 
 173 
 
 in time past to shut out the Mohammedan in- 
 vasion. I was able to count nine splendid 
 towers, still standing, to attest the importance 
 of this once mighty stronghold. 
 
 The wind blows fresh and fair as Caribee en- 
 
 Curibee IN THE WHIRLPOOLS AND RAPIDS OF THE IRON GATES. 
 
 ters the passes; and although as a rule it is 
 better to furl sail when surrounded by steep 
 mountains, this seemed an occasion when an 
 exceptional risk might be run. So with both 
 wings spread we flew into the Iron Gates. 
 The sailing warmed my blood, and nature
 
 1/4 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 once more spoke sympathetically to me; the 
 music of the cattle and the shepherds' pipes on 
 shore seemed delicious ; the boys and girls 
 swimming out to meet me seemed like creat- 
 ures of a pleasing mythology. On we sailed, 
 looking now at Servia, now at Hungary, and 
 feeling that with so much beauty between them 
 they surely ought to be good friends. But the 
 defile into which we sailed is about seventy- 
 five miles long: darkness overtakes us before 
 we are more than over the threshold; we there- 
 fore pull Caribce ashore, camp for the night 
 and dream of a glorious morrow. 
 
 At 7 on the following morning Caribec 
 moved once more out into the " Iron Gates." 
 The ninety kilometers to Orsowa would have 
 been easy ones but for the wind, which came 
 out dead ahead and rather strong. It made the 
 water of the rapids very lumpy, so that it was 
 almost impossible to detect the channel. On 
 this day I carefully furled my sails and pro- 
 posed to rely wholly on my paddle. As I had 
 not heard of any canoe which had ever run 
 these rapids, and could get no information on 
 the subject from the secretaries of the principal 
 English and American canoe clubs, I went 
 ashore at Trenkowar, on the Hungarian side,
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 1/5 
 
 and made inquiries in regard to them of the 
 resident agent of the great Danube Steamship 
 Company. 
 
 This company maintains a very large fleet 
 of excellently equipped steamboats, trading 
 the whole navigable length of the stream that 
 is, between Regensburg and the Black Sea. 
 The Iron Gates are a source of great concern 
 to them, for the whirlpools here are the result 
 of the very shallow water, which necessitates 
 a transfer of goods from large to small boats 
 indeed, at some stages no boats can pass at 
 all. For some years efforts have been making 
 to blast the rocks which encumber the channel, 
 and to make it navigable at all times. It is 
 greatly to be hoped that these efforts will be 
 successful. To-day, however, the most enthu- 
 siastic engineer can only hope he can hardly 
 be confident. 
 
 The Vienna manager of this steamship com- 
 pany had kindly given me a letter of introduc- 
 tion to his different agents along the river, and 
 as Trenkowar was a point where vessels bound 
 eastward usually took pilot, it seemed proper 
 to go ashore and reconnoitre. 
 
 The agent was most polite, but for some time 
 failed to grasp what I wished. To my question
 
 1/6 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 whether I could get down in safety, he said he 
 thought so; there would be a steamer along 
 soon ! Then I told him that I had my own 
 boat; to which he said he would furnish me 
 with a pilot. But I had to protest that there 
 was barely room for me, let alone another. 
 This he could not believe, so I took him to the 
 shore and let him admire the beautiful lines of 
 Caribee. 
 
 " Then," said he, " you must wait for the 
 freight boat, and place your canoe on her." 
 
 This was shocking. Had I come so far to 
 get upon a coarse freight boat ? I told him 
 that I wanted to paddle my own canoe through 
 the rapids. " Gott bewahre ! " was his pious 
 ejaculation. " It has never been done, it can 
 never be done. It is ' toll kuehn.' You will be 
 drowned, and your body never recovered ! " 
 He offered to let me go down and back for 
 nothing on one of his steamers, in order to con- 
 vince me of my folly; but that would have 
 consumed the best part of the day. 
 
 The water was not far below normal height, 
 and as I had taken Caribee through many ap- 
 parently desperate places in safety, I felt per- 
 haps too confident at the prospect ofDanubian 
 whirlpools.
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 1/7 
 
 The good agent shook me warmly by the 
 hand, gave me his blessing, and gazed sorrow- 
 fully at me as the swift current hurried me 
 away. 
 
 It was after 9 in the morning when I bade 
 good-bye to Trenkowar. In less than fifteen 
 minutes Caribee had safely passed through the 
 rapids of Kozla and Doika without particular 
 difficulty. There was something delightful in 
 the sensation of battling with the turbulent 
 water, especially to feel that the buoyancy of a 
 little canoe was more than a match for the 
 snatching eddies of the furious current. On 
 both sides of me the great black mountains 
 went up from the river 1,500 to 2,000 feet, add- 
 ing gloom to a landscape already forbidding 
 enough. The scene was very lonesome, and 
 where I happened to catch sight of a human 
 dwelling it seemed as though the inmates must 
 have strayed here by mistake. The poet Ovid, 
 according to some accounts, spent part of his 
 exile in these regions, but this I cannot believe 
 after having paddled down this portion of the 
 river. It is as desolate and majestic as the far- 
 famed Saguenay, which flows into the lower St. 
 Lawrence. 
 
 At half an hour before noon I was approach-
 
 1/8 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 ing the Izlas rapids, which are said to be very 
 bad, particularly as they are followed immedi- 
 ately by a series called Tachtalia-velika, TacJi- 
 talia-mala, and the Greben, all of them coming 
 within a stretch of only two or three miles. 
 And with a stream running about ten miles an 
 hour, there is not much time to think between 
 leaving one set of rocks and jumping into the 
 next. For these rapids are formed by a mass 
 of jagged rocks scattered over the bottom with 
 so little reference to the convenience of the 
 traveler that it is extremely difficult to find a 
 channel, however small. The moment you 
 have luckily passed between two threatening 
 rocks you are pretty sure to find another 
 straight ahead, and when you look around for 
 a channel in some other direction, you can see 
 nothing but a confused mass of foam bubbling 
 up savagely all about. 
 
 Just before pitching into the Izlas rapids I 
 went ashore in a back eddy on the Hungarian 
 side, and climbed to a point from which I had 
 a bird's-eye view of the stream. It was inter- 
 esting as a picture, and \vhen I came down I 
 fancied that I had in my mind a satisfactory 
 chart of the rocks to be dodged. 
 
 It was exactly noon when I pushed off from
 
 DOWN THE DANUBF, 1/9 
 
 this point, nibbling some sausage and black 
 bread by way of lunch. 
 
 I struck out boldly for the first opening in 
 the rapids, and when the downward rush seized 
 me I thought it most exhilarating sport. In 
 the next moment, however, I had before me a 
 line of foam stretching across my path on either 
 side as far as I could see; though for that mat- 
 ter so swift was my descent that it was out of 
 the question to work far to either side. There 
 was nothing to do but ride a straight line for 
 it, rise to the fence at all hazards and trust to 
 luck for the issue. The counterpart to stick- 
 ing close in the pigskin was having my toes 
 snug and fast on the little ribs of the canoe, 
 my back well planted for hard work when the 
 strain came, being balanced for quick dodging, 
 and, above all, keeping a cool grip on the 
 paddle. 
 
 At the first great wave of foam Caribee rose 
 superbly. No hunter could have made a more 
 splendid lift, and as her bow rose I sought, 
 by throwing my weight aft, to make her work 
 easier. For just a moment she hung trembling 
 on the top of the broken surge, then down she 
 plunged on the other side, burying her pretty 
 forward skin up to the waist and spraying me
 
 l8o PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 with foam. The idea of seeking a channel was 
 now quite lost sight of, and my efforts were di- 
 rected to keeping out of the centre of the whirl- 
 pools. 
 
 Of mere rocks I was not afraid, for the canoe 
 was so light and the pressure of water so great 
 that she could almost be trusted to take care 
 of herself on this score. 
 
 The whirlpools are, however, dangerous. 
 They seem infinite in number, their circles 
 overlap at times, and nothing but the most 
 anxious care kept Caribee from being nipped 
 by one. My plan was always to play off one 
 eddy against the other a good rule in the 
 stream of politics as well. I sought to force 
 my boat between the whirlpools, or, if that was 
 impossible, then across their points of intersec- 
 tion. In that way I managed to neutralize 
 much of their spite, and, thanks to the excel- 
 lent training of Caribee, I never once failed. 
 
 A very nasty feature of the rapids was the 
 large amount of broken water that sprang up 
 into sharp and high waves which attacked the 
 canoe so savagely as to suggest that they were 
 shot up from the bottom of the river by some 
 devilish sprites who have a grudge against 
 boats. These waves do not extend themselves
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE l8l 
 
 any more than the whirlpools, but they are, in 
 their sphere, quite as bad. At one time I was 
 caught in a mass of turbulent water while a 
 paddle steamer was passing, and the effect was 
 such that I did not enjoy the movement in the 
 least. 
 
 By 2 o'clock I pass some more majestic 
 ruins overlooking the Danube at the very 
 southernmost point of Hungary, and immedi- 
 ately afterward am struggling with the Juc 
 rapids, the only ones between Greben and the 
 Khasan Pass, a distance of four hours as I 
 traveled. On this day I paddled only when 
 it was necessary, and the rapids gave me 
 plenty to do. For long stretches I had com- 
 parative rest and the very height of happiness, 
 for I was then stretched out comfortably in 
 the bottom of my boat, marveling at the beau- 
 ties of nature so prodigally bestowed. No puff- 
 ing railway snorts along either bank of this 
 grand river, at least in this neighborhood. The 
 magnificent roadway on the Hungarian side is 
 not only a great monument to engineering en- 
 terprise, but calculated to throw into stronger 
 relief the ruggednessof the surrounding mount- 
 ains. 
 
 But time spins on rapidly under such condi-
 
 182 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 tions. My ship's watch in the bottom of the 
 boat marks half-past 4 before I am aware of 
 it, and the river, contracting suddenly to a 
 few hundred yards between perpendicular cliffs, 
 calls me to my duties as navigator, for now 
 comes the worst bit of the day. We have at 
 last reached the Khasan Pass, through which 
 the water rushes and boils at the rate of eleven 
 feet to the second, the fall being seven and a 
 half feet in every five hundred fathoms (Aus- 
 trian Klafter). This section is, really, not so 
 bad as the Iron Gates proper, which are to 
 follow, but the black walls are close and for- 
 bidding; the wind at the time was blowing 
 sharply against me and making the channel 
 difficult to find; a storm of some sort was 
 brewing up in the mountains, and to add to my 
 work the wash of a mail steamer made the 
 other waves worse than usual. But Caribee 
 proved as faithful here as further up, and with 
 nothing worse than a wholesome drenching I 
 passed the worst of the rapids in safety. 
 
 I now coasted close along the Servian shore, 
 admiring the remains of the military road which 
 the Roman Emperor Trajan carved out of the 
 rocks here about one hundred years after Christ. 
 The sketch I made shows the holes from which
 
 183 
 
 heavy beams propped up the wooden planks 
 which reached out over the black stream. The 
 wooden parts have long ago been used up at 
 fishermen's fires, but the arched roof of rock 
 still remains overhanging the stone pathway 
 
 Caribee AT TRAJAN'S TABLET. 
 
 beneath to prove beyond question that in the 
 days of Trajan the Danube was regarded as of 
 vast commercial, as well as strategic, impor- 
 tance; in fact, that the Rome of two thousand 
 years ago was willing to make greater sacri- 
 fices for the development of commerce along
 
 184 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 this stream than the Europe of to-day. An 
 exception must be made in favor of Szechenyi, 
 the generous Magyar, who in 1830 began the 
 highway which does to-day for Hungary what 
 the work of Trajan did for the people of his 
 time. 
 
 The remains of this work of Trajan's help 
 us to realize that there was a time when, from 
 the Black Sea to the head of the river, the 
 whole Danube country was under one strong 
 government, and that its whole shore-line was 
 policed by the legions of Rome as jealously as 
 England to-day guards her Indus. Sensual 
 vice in later centuries made cowards and idiots 
 of the Roman leaders, and when that time came 
 the Danube was lost. Barbarous mobs broke 
 through atone point and then another; Roman 
 civilization was rooted out of existence as 
 though in one night, and at points where it had 
 been growing for hundreds of years. A few 
 marble arches and scraps of household utensils 
 are now about all that remain to mark the site 
 of cities which in the days of imperial Rome 
 wsre as important in their way as Liverpool 
 and New York are to-day. 
 
 Caribce stopped awhile at a point on the Ser- 
 vian shore by the side of the great Roman
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 185 
 
 roadway, where a long inscription carved in 
 the living rock commemorated the finishing of 
 this noble enterprise. The letters are largely 
 obliterated, for the fishermen have in centuries 
 gone by built their fires on this convenient 
 ledge, and it is but within recent years that 
 public action has rescued what remains. A 
 masonry buttress now prevents any further de- 
 struction, save that caused by time. A peasant, 
 with a shaggy lamb's-wool hat on his head, 
 and clothed in the single tunic and wide trou- 
 sers of the country, was preparing his supper as 
 I passed. His dress is similar to that which 
 his ancestors wore when Trajan cut his name 
 on the rocks here. His fishing implements 
 most likely have not changed in the last two 
 thousand years. He probably felt much ag- 
 grieved when forbidden to cook his supper 
 against the precious tablet of the Roman em- 
 peror not that he objected to Trajan's person- 
 ality, for he may never have heard the name 
 but because he was prevented from doing what 
 his ancestors had regarded as their right for a 
 thousand years. 
 
 This man had probably never seen a rail- 
 way train, or been aboard a steamboat. The 
 chances are that his ancestor in the days of
 
 l86 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 Roman rule enjoyed larger advantages of an 
 educational nature than he to-day in an age 
 that pretends to pity the poor heathen of ante- 
 phonographic times. If we can call to mind a 
 picture of the West Indies when they shall 
 have been handed over to a negro govern- 
 ment, or of India \vhen the last redcoat shall 
 have been withdrawn, we can understand why 
 Servia to-day may have to look back twenty 
 centuries to recall that she was once a pros- 
 perous and a civilized country. 
 
 The Khasan pass is short, narrow, and swift, 
 and we are too soon done with it. Its dark 
 walls are monuments that speak to us of the 
 past, the present and the future of this inter- 
 esting part of the world. The day of Trajan is 
 past, because in Rome the politicians were 
 without patriotism, the citizens without energy. 
 Servia has not yet roused herself to rebuild 
 this road, for she has not yet recovered from 
 her period of Turkish slavery. On the other 
 side of the river, however, is a land full of fire 
 and young blood, patriotism and courage. 
 Hungary has taken up the work which Rome 
 abandoned, and her people are to-day the 
 guardians of the lower Danube. The Szechenyi 
 road is a symbol of their enterprise. We see
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 187 
 
 it again in the strong efforts they are now 
 making to render this reach of the river safe at 
 all times of the year. The work would move 
 more rapidly did Servia see her way to co- 
 operate more effectually, but a beginning has 
 at least been made and those who are im- 
 patient at the slowness with which the work 
 proceeds must bear in mind that Servia, in 
 common with the other Balkan states, is so 
 preoccupied with questions of self-preservation, 
 that anything beyond that can receive scant 
 attention. 
 
 It is nearly dark when Caribcc emerges 
 from this long pass. The lights of Orsowa soon 
 show themselves; I slip in behind a steamboat 
 that is moored to the embankment; hurry up 
 to an open-air restaurant of which I have 
 heard; get a table close to the gypsy fiddlers 
 who are here making a temporary paradise of 
 an otherwise uninteresting place; order dinner; 
 meet some good friends; in short, after twelve 
 hours of pretty hard river work, enjoy a most 
 welcome rest. 
 
 The Iron Gates proper are below Orsowa, 
 and constitute the grand finale to the seventy- 
 five miles of dangerous navigation in this part of 
 the Danube. It was at 7 o'clock in the morn-
 
 1 88 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 ing that Caribee pushed off for the final strug- 
 gle. There was no companion of any sort on 
 this occasion not even a pilot. Her rigging 
 was made fast so that nothing should wash off 
 into the water. I had been up since 5 o'clock, 
 stowing away stores and arranging my affairs 
 with a special eye to campaigning amidst the 
 outer barbarians. All heavy luggage I shipped 
 back up the river, carrying with me nothing 
 but a sailor's bag, and carefully putting out of 
 the way any book or letter likely to be em- 
 barrassing to a police officer. 
 
 Immediately below Orsowa is Turkish terri- 
 tory, the island of Ada-Kaleh; a perfect bit of 
 Moslem life separated from all the world by 
 the rushing Danube at the junction of three 
 states. At Orsowa were Hungarian troops 
 pacing the frontier. Within half an hour Rou- 
 manian pickets appear, guarding their territory 
 as though from a plague, while immediately 
 across the stream, which is here comparatively 
 narrow, a Servian sentinel is marching up and 
 down before his guard tent. Before many 
 hours I shall be greeted by the military uni- 
 form of the Bulgarian police but that is antic- 
 ipation. 
 
 About two miles below the Turkish island is
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 189 
 
 a frightful reef across the stream, called the 
 Prigrada. There is an exceedingly narrow 
 channel through this bed of rock, well defined 
 upon my government map, but impossible for 
 me to find as I hurry along. The speed at 
 which I am traveling must be very great, to 
 judge by the shores, but to calculate exactly 
 under the conditions existing was neither 
 practicable nor safe. The official books say 
 that the water passes here at the rate of fifteen 
 feet in the second and such water ! My first 
 intimation of the great obstruction here was a 
 white line of angry foam extending apparently 
 entirely across the stream. The first wave was 
 so high that I could get no general view of the 
 whole rapid, and had I desired to alter my 
 course it was impossible to do so now. There 
 being, so far as Caribee was concerned, no 
 channel, we had to take our own line. We 
 rushed down, past the point where Trajan 
 threw his great bridge across the stream; past 
 the colony of workmen engaged in blasting out 
 the projected channel. I could plainly see 
 some of my friends on shore who waved their 
 hats to the big national ensign I had hoisted 
 on my mizzen. One plunge into the foamy 
 crest, one shiver, one toss, and once again I
 
 190 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 was in the midst of whirlpools, tossing and gy- 
 rating in a confused tangle, creating counter- 
 currents and dashing the blinding spray furi- 
 ously into my face. The whole forward deck 
 of Caribee was constantly washed, and my 
 paddle had to leap quickly from one side to 
 the other to prevent getting from bad into 
 worse water. The waves here were very much 
 higher than elsewhere, and altogether the work 
 was, if possible, more difficult. Fortunately, 
 however, as in so many difficult situations, the 
 danger passed away just when I thought it was 
 really becoming serious. 
 
 The worst being over, and the wind fair, sail 
 was hoisted, and away we flew in the strong 
 current; but not for long. There were other 
 whirlpools ahead which had to be faced, but I 
 concluded to run through them with all sail 
 spread, as they were not in the midst of high 
 waves and broken water. I judged that with 
 the smooth skin and the very light draft of 
 Caribee great speed would insure safety, and 
 that I might skim across the top of a whirlpool 
 and be out on the other side before the savage 
 monster could make up its mind to swallow 
 me. This view proved sound, and though at 
 each one there was always an uncomfortable
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 191 
 
 deviation from the course, suggesting an in- 
 cipient rotation, my speed and build carried 
 me, in each case, triumphantly through. 
 
 I did run aground on one of the many shal- 
 lows below the rapids, and had to be very 
 spry in order to prevent her getting broadside 
 to the current, but in the end I was once more 
 aboard and sailing along peacefully. I hope 
 Caribce felt proud of herself at any rate I 
 did for her. She was the first of all canoes to 
 pass the Iron Gates, and did it handsomely. I 
 doubt if a heavier boat could have managed so 
 well, unless going, as I did, without reference 
 to any channel. 
 
 In parenthesis I may add that, after having 
 gone down the rapids of the St. Lawrence, I 
 am satisfied that they bear no comparison with 
 those of the Iron Gates for difficulty to the 
 canoeist. 
 
 The canoeist who proposes to follow in the 
 wake of Caribee must hurry, for work is now 
 going on here which has for its object the 
 blasting out of a deep channel along the Ser- 
 vian shore, through which ships may pass at 
 all seasons. At present no locks are contem- 
 plated, and the stream in this channel will be 
 necessarily so swift that great power will be
 
 IQ2 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 needed to haul the vessels up; probably steam 
 engines on the banks. The chief engineer, 
 Mr. George Luther of Brunswick, has under- 
 taken an enormous job, largely influenced by 
 the glory of achieving success in an enterprise 
 promising so much prestige to his country. 
 Contractors who know, assure me that the 
 work has proved so much more expensive than 
 was at first anticipated, that the parties now 
 engaged upon it will lose money, even if they 
 succeed. The more honor, therefore, to Mr. 
 Luther and his backers.
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 193 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 IN A BULGARIAN WATER-MILL 
 
 THE previous night I had spent on the 
 Roumanian shore, a night made hideous 
 to me by the frontier police, who had first 
 sought to carry me off to the station house; 
 then vociferously ordered me away from their 
 shores, and finally, after drinking everything 
 I had, including my methylated spirits, had 
 taken themselves away. I left that camp at 
 half-past 5 in the morning, after a refreshing 
 swim. Breakfast I concluded to postpone for 
 fear of attracting the police and exposing my 
 larder to a raid; so, with a crust of bread in 
 my hand, and an open tin of sardines in the 
 bottom of the boat, I hoisted sail, skimmed 
 disdainfully past the guard hut of my torment- 
 ors, steered for the Servian side of the channel, 
 and went ashore at a spot called Kusjak. 
 There are only six houses here, but one of 
 them was an inn, where presided a handsome 
 Servian woman, who in\dted me to make my- 
 self at home. All the Servian women I have
 
 194 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 so far seen are handsome this one singularly 
 so. Her table was in the shade in front of her 
 house; the cloth was of a pretty red and white 
 pattern, with napkins to match. Everything 
 about the place was clean and neat yet who 
 could her customers be but peasants ? As I 
 sat at her door, cart after cart passed, each 
 one drawn by a yoke of oxen, and commanded 
 by an erect, dark-browed and handsome Serb, 
 wearing a huge black lamb's-wool hat copied 
 from Robinson Crusoe. A coarse white cotton 
 shirt fell from his shoulders, exposing a strong 
 neck and hairy chest; loose trousers of the 
 same material came to below his knees; a 
 broad red belt encompassed his waist; on his 
 feet were sandals. There was nothing in the 
 whole " outfit" that was not, in all probability, 
 raised or made on his farm; and for that mat- 
 ter it is equally probable that the peasant who 
 passed this spot in the days of the Emperor 
 Trajan wore a hat and tunic, belt and sandals 
 similar to those of the one that passed me on 
 a very hot morning in August, in the year 
 1891. 
 
 The pretty landlady soon brought me a 
 mess of deliciously fried fish, and a big bottle 
 of excellent red wine. My second course con-
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 
 
 195 
 
 sisted of a cup of black Turkish coffee. Be- 
 fore parting she presented me with three 
 big bunches of luscious grapes, and a jug of 
 wine. Her bill, including everything, was 
 only two francs yet to hear her talk was 
 worth more than that. As I sat here enjoying 
 
 ON' THE SERVIAN SHORE, NEAR KUSJAK. THE FISHERMAN ON HORSEBACK 
 HAS JUST CAPTURED A STURGEON, AND IS GALLOPING FROM HOUbE TO 
 HOUSE, LOOKING FOR A PURCHASER. 
 
 the novel oriental life about me, a fierce Serb 
 rode up on his pony. He had a huge sturgeon 
 lashed to his saddle, behind, and was hurrying 
 to find a customer before it was too late. He 
 was evidently well up in the pretty landlady's 
 graces, for though she did not buy his booty, 
 she gave him a little glass, which he raised
 
 196 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 gallantly to her good health; then off he 
 dashed at a mad gallop, followed by tender 
 glances from a pair of Servian eyes. I rather 
 envied that fellow; he looked so proud, as the 
 tail of his sturgeon flopped up and down be- 
 hind him and then he would be back here 
 again some day, while I 
 
 After a short hour here I was again afloat; 
 soon passed the Servian frontier for good, and 
 coasted along the Bulgarian shore. At this 
 point of transition my attention was diverted 
 from the dreary-looking quarantine buildings by 
 two pretty maidens, who tripped lightly down 
 to the edge of the water, smiled pleasantly, 
 and wafted a kiss to Caribec. As though by a 
 common impulse, each tossed off her little red 
 jacket; then two red skirts slipped to the 
 ground. The young ladies stood then in 
 gauzy chemises but not for long. With a 
 quick motion of the shoulders, these two final 
 garments disappeared at their feet, and they 
 posed like two triumphant models inviting ad- 
 miration. Then out they skipped toward me, 
 waving their arms, tossing their hair, laughing 
 merrily. They made straight for Caribee, 
 with the obvious intent of capturing ship and 
 cargo, and might have succeeded in doing so
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE IQ7 
 
 had I not sternly turned my face the other 
 way, and paddled furiously toward the Black 
 Sea. 
 
 On I paddled, for the wind that helped me 
 in the morning was dead ahead now, and at 
 half-past 6 I concluded to camp, having been 
 twelve hours in my boat. The shores were 
 not propitious they looked marshy. A huge 
 water-mill was clappering away by the Bul- 
 garian shore; the miller hailed me good even- 
 ing, as I came near; he spoke German; looked 
 like a good fellow happy thought ! Why go 
 ashore at all ? Why not hitch Caribce to the 
 water-mill ? 
 
 The miller gave permission; I pulled up on 
 the land side I had nearly said the port side 
 of his craft; he helped me to unload my 
 kitchen arrangements, and in other ways, as 
 well, showed his friendliness toward the 
 stranger. He was a Bulgarian, but spoke 
 some German, and we got along famously to- 
 gether. 
 
 First, ho\vever, I must have my swim. So, 
 with a run I take a header aft of the wheel, and 
 strike for shore. But I had miscalculated my 
 powers in a six-mile current, and was carried 
 far down the stream into the darkness before I
 
 198 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 finally succeeded in getting ashore, a long dis- 
 tance from the point where I made my proud 
 plunge. Of course, there was nothing to do 
 but to trudge back along the mud a simple 
 thing in itself. On this occasion the news of 
 my arrival had apparently spread, for I found 
 that many Bulgarians of both sexes and all 
 ages had come to the shore since my plunge, 
 for the sake of seeing the stranger and his 
 craft. The situation was very embarrassing, 
 but what could I do ? and besides, the inno- 
 cent sportiveness of the maidens I had seen 
 further up reminded me that the awkwardness 
 of the situation sprang wholly from a social 
 bias contracted under a false system of educa- 
 tion. In Japan I had been forced to counte- 
 nance situations that were shocking at first to 
 me, but wholly innocent to that most refined 
 race of people. Here was I now amidst a peo- 
 ple apparently as natural, in some respects, as 
 those of Japan or the South Sea Islands. 
 
 So on I trudged through the curious throng, 
 answering their greetings with corresponding 
 good humor, and seeking to create the impres- 
 sion that this was the costume in which I habit- 
 ually took my evening stroll. 
 
 It was not so easy getting aboard again, on
 
 DOWN THK DANUBE IQ9 
 
 account of the swiftness of the current and the 
 distance of the mill from the shore. I started 
 well up the stream, however. The miller threw 
 me a rope as I came abreast of him, and soon 
 I was once more dressed and making my even- 
 ing meal of bread and soup. 
 
 Seven more fierce-looking Bulgarians arrived 
 while I was cooking on the floor, and my host 
 explained that they, too, were his guests, who 
 lodged on the water with him. They all wore 
 high Robinson Crusoe hats, loose cotton tunics 
 and trousers, broad belts, but nothing on their 
 feet. They sat cross-legged in a circle about 
 a huge iron pot which hung over a bed of char- 
 coal. The fire was built in a wooden trough 
 filled with sand. 
 
 These men were probably very peaceable 
 members of society, who were profiting by the 
 excellent harvest; but the most exemplary 
 must look wicked when they wear black lamb's- 
 wool high hats in a Bulgarian mill which is 
 lighted by a single candle only strong enough 
 to reveal gleaming teeth and shifting eyeballs. 
 
 There was a little boy in this mill the son 
 of my host. He had a burning fever, and was 
 restlessly turning from side to side upon a pile 
 of corn-sacks. His mother had gone for a.
 
 2OO PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 doctor, who must have lived far away, for she 
 did not return until the following- morning. 
 Unfortunately, I had no medicines with me, but 
 the boy relished my fragrant vegetable soup as 
 a change from his daily mess of corn-meal. 
 
 This Bulgarian miller must have been very 
 poor indeed, for he had no bed or separate 
 room for his wife and child; they and their 
 seven lodgers all slept in the same room, mak- 
 ing themselves as comfortable as possible on 
 the empty bags, and, of course, not changing 
 their garments. The noise of the mill-wheel 
 made conversation next to impossible within 
 the house, and the vibration was such that I 
 could not imagine myself sleeping there. 
 
 However, I made a good meal, sharing my 
 luxuries with my host and the little boy, and 
 at eight o'clock left the seven fierce lodgers 
 crouched on their haunches about the gypsy 
 pot. With the aid of my host's lantern I work- 
 ed my way cautiously along the boards to 
 where Caribce was moored. Giving her twenty 
 feet of painter, I slipped down into her well, 
 bade good-night to my Bulgarian friend, and 
 quickly dropped astern through twenty feet of 
 oriental darkness. The miller pressed me to 
 stay on board of his house-boat, vainly seek-
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 
 
 2O I 
 
 ing to make me feel that I should there be 
 safer and more comfortable than in my canoe. 
 Politely but firmly I declined his offer, my 
 ostensible reason being that I should be crowd- 
 ing his guests to no purpose. As a matter of 
 
 fact, I could 
 
 not have been 
 coaxed by any 
 amount of per- 
 suasion to 
 spend a night 
 in that floating 
 mill. The heat 
 there was op- 
 pressive, and 
 my skin invol- 
 untarily itched 
 at the thought 
 of the fleas that 
 undoubtedly 
 had come 
 
 aboard with the seven fierce lamb's-wool lodgers. 
 Nor was rigging my tent such an easy thing 
 as it looked, for Caribce kept slewing from side 
 to side, forced by the eddies that formed be- 
 hind the mill. I had to half stand up to reach 
 the mainmast and fasten the forward end, and 
 
 SEAMAN FROM A TURKISH SHIP PADDLING A 
 DUGOUT CANOE.
 
 2O2 PADDLES A!\ y D POLITICS 
 
 the after end was nearly as bad. Then to over- 
 haul sleeping-gear, make room in the well for 
 my legs, and yet spill nothing in the water 
 all this required some care. Of course I knew, 
 when I lay down at last to sleep, that there 
 were such people as river pirates, and that all 
 Bulgarians were not as humane as my miller. 
 It would have been easy enough for a malevo- 
 lent wretch to cut my painter while I was 
 asleep, and cut my throat, too, if it seemed 
 desirable: it had been done before, and with 
 less prospect of booty than Caribee promised. 
 
 So I tucked my long-bladed knife in my 
 sleeve, as I turned onto my right side, and fell 
 asleep as peacefully and happily as though 
 brigands existed only in picture-books. My 
 back rested gently against the tender ribs of 
 the little craft, the motion of the water rocked 
 me, and as the waves lapped along her sides, 
 the sweetest of lullabies could not have had 
 more magical effect. I slept like a tired child 
 until the next day's sun burst through my cur- 
 tains, and the miller's wife greeted me with an 
 invitation to breakfast. 
 
 She had returned in the small hours of the 
 morning, fondly believing that she had brought 
 with her the dose that would heal her little
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 2O- 
 
 boy. Her face shone with happiness as she 
 told me of her success in finding the doctor 
 and securing his medicine.
 
 204 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 A TURKISH BIT OF RIVER 
 
 THE pale little boy with the big helpless 
 eyes haunted me as I steered Caribee 
 out into the current, a fair light breeze swelling 
 my sails toward Kalafat. The very name sug- 
 gests the Arabian nights, but I was too hun- 
 gry to think of anything else as I approached 
 the town. It seemed as though the whole 
 population of the interior had formed an en- 
 campment of ox-teams at the river's edge, and 
 was occupied exclusively with freighting -ships 
 with hard red wheat. Here, at least, was no 
 famine, whatever might be the case in Russia; 
 and it was natural for me to conclude that 
 most of these ships were chartered for the 
 starving people of the great Czar but in this 
 I was much mistaken. 
 
 The bullock carts I saw here, as elsewhere 
 in Roumania, creaked very much as they mov- 
 ed, for they had no tires. They carried very big 
 loads, however, and in a country without rocks 
 wear very well.
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 
 
 2O5 
 
 Seeing Kalafat in the height of the shipping 
 season is deceptive, for the ships along shore 
 instinctively made me anticipate paved streets 
 and a good hotel. I gave my canoe over to 
 the keeper of the floating bath, an institution 
 
 IN THE CAFE AT KALAFAT : A BIG TURK GIVING ORDERS TO A SLIM AND 
 IMBECILE-LOOKING WAITER. 
 
 where I always found German spoken, and 
 then, smoothing my dress out for the sake of 
 appearances, struggled up a high dirt bank. 
 On the edges of this I found ruins of batteries 
 that reminded me, for the first time, that I was 
 on a battle-field of the late Russo-Turkish War.
 
 206 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 Once on this plateau, I stumbled about over 
 very irregular ground, hoping to reach the 
 heart of the city. Finding, after passing through 
 the settlement from end to end, that I was in a 
 straggling village, I inquired for the best 
 hotel, and was told, in German, that Lloyd's 
 had that reputation; and to Lloyd's I accord- 
 ingly hurried. It was a very dirty house, but 
 as I took a seat at one of the out-of-door tables 
 I did not mind that. Near me sat a homesick- 
 looking gentleman, and to him I appealed 
 when I discovered that the waiter and I had no 
 speech in common. My lonely friend was an 
 Italian grain merchant. He ordered a very 
 bad breakfast, but that was no fault of his. He 
 told me all I ever knew or expect to know of 
 this dirty place. 
 
 The population appears to be, according 
 to him, made up of three-fourths Jews, one- 
 fourth Greeks, and the balance " Europeans." 
 His arithmetic confused me, but he left no 
 doubt as to his opinion regarding Jews and 
 Greeks. His use of the word " European " 
 manifestly suggested that he did not regard 
 the countries east of the Adriatic as worthy of 
 serious treatment; in fact, we have a counter- 
 part of his feelings in the way Americans of
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 
 
 207 
 
 the South and West draw the line sharply be- 
 tween " white men " on the one side, and 
 negros, greas- 
 ers, Canucks, In- 
 dians, and Dagos 
 
 _;, K 
 
 ?S^ 
 
 , 
 
 on the other. 1 
 remember a lit- 
 tle girl of half 
 Italian, half Irish 
 parentage w h o 
 protested once 
 in regard to her 
 choice of par- 
 ents: "Myfather 
 was a ' Dago,' 
 but my mother 
 was ' white ! ' ' 
 
 This " dago " 
 friend of mine 
 was, neverthe- 
 less, a charming 
 companion, who 
 exiled himself 
 here once a 
 year for the sake 
 of the grain trade, as many another lives the 
 life of a cowboy or miner in Nevada or Mon- 
 
 TURKISH SKIPPER AT KALAFAT, WHO IS 
 ANGRY AT HIS CONSUL.
 
 208 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 tana, praying in his heart for the day of de- 
 liverance. 
 
 As we sat and chatted, there walked in the 
 captain of a Turkish ship, a fine fellow indeed, 
 with a tremendous turban on his head and a 
 sash of gorgeous red. Near him was a tall, 
 bony savage from Montenegro, whose dress 
 reminded me of Albania short, spreading 
 white skirts, a red loose fez, long and elabor- 
 ately worked leggings, and a big belt bristling 
 with pistols and dirks. He would have made 
 a panic on the New York Produce Exchange, 
 yet his business here was simply to buy grain. 
 All were not so picturesque as these two, for 
 the Jews and Greeks dressed for the most part 
 after the western fashion. It was a motley 
 crowd, however, that jostled about the river- 
 side, as I made my way back to the bath- 
 house. Each nationality seemed to have a 
 representative, although the cosmopolitanism 
 that resulted smacked more of Castle Garden 
 than of Paris. 
 
 The economic importance of Kalafat to 
 Roumania seems to be in the fact that it loads 
 thirty big barges here every year, in which 
 respect it has just twice the importance of 
 Cetate a few miles further up the river. But
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 
 
 209 
 
 when the vessels have floated away, and the 
 peasants' wains have creaked off to the villages, 
 and the corn brokers fled to seek other victims, 
 then must Kalafatbe indeed a desolate village, 
 populated principally by tax-gatherers, sol- 
 diers, and customs guards. 
 
 Smoking is a bad habit, but I am sorry for 
 the man who cannot indulge himself occasion- 
 
 BORNE BY BULGARIAN PORTERS. 
 
 ally. This reflection was mine on that beauti- 
 ful morning of August, 1891, as I reclined lux- 
 uriously upon the floor of Caribec, crossed my 
 bare feet upon the upper deck, gazed out upon 
 miles and miles of glassy river and meditatively 
 smoked myself into a Turkish paradise. 
 
 Behind me Roumania with its frontier pickets 
 and bad breakfast was quickly forgotten as the
 
 2IO 
 
 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 Danube current bore me nearer the shores of 
 the Sultan's empire, to the Bulgarian fortress 
 called Widin. Through the merciful medium 
 of smoke there rose before me from the bosom 
 of the stream a city of transcendent beauty, of 
 palaces and castles ; minarets and towers; 
 strange battlements and oriental cupolas. I 
 
 CARRYING WATER FROM THE RIVER, WIDIN, BULGARIA. 
 
 counted eight mosques shining in the golden 
 sunlight; in fact, the city seemed at every 
 angle brilliant with color and precious stones. 
 I have seen descriptions of Pekin, Stamboul, 
 Damascus, and other oriental cities, which ap- 
 peared enormously exaggerated when tested 
 by actual residence; but none that I have read
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 
 
 211 
 
 is too highly colored to match my first impres- 
 sion of Widin. 
 
 In the dancing sunlight every outline sug- 
 gested neatness, cleanliness, prosperity. The 
 people of both sexes disporting themselves in 
 the water beneath the 
 walls of the citadel, sug- 
 gested a simpler and 
 perhaps more innocent 
 state of society than 
 that of to-day. Deep- 
 sea vessels, with high 
 prows and poops and 
 enormous topsail yards, 
 such as an Othello may 
 have commanded in the 
 days of Venetian splen- 
 dor, were moored in a 
 picturesque cluster un- 
 der the guns of the town, 
 as though still anticipat- 
 ing a sudden attack from 
 
 the enemy across the river. I was floating 
 toward what appeared to be the Turkey of 400 
 years ago the Turkey of conquest, the Tur- 
 key whose Pashas were the dread of Europe, 
 whose cavalry scoured the plains of Vienna, 
 
 PRIEST OK THK GRP.KK CHURCH. 
 SKETCHED AT WIDIN.
 
 212 
 
 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 whose fleets held the Mediterranean as part of 
 the Sublime Porte. 
 
 But I pulled in under the overhanging spars 
 of the Turkish ships (Krelasch is, I believe, 
 the local name), and found, as I almost ex- 
 pected, a floating 
 bath-house kept by 
 a Hungarian gypsy 
 who spoke German. 
 She told me her hus- 
 band had gone away 
 on business, but that 
 she would take good 
 care of my boat. 
 
 She did but I did 
 wrong in coming 
 ashore. From the 
 midst of a cigarette 
 cloud and far out on 
 the Danube I should 
 have remained con- 
 tent with the sunlit 
 minarets, the frowning battlements, the flitting 
 caiques, and dimly seen forms of oriental maid- 
 ens. All this at least made a picture of ro- 
 mance when seen from a distance when close- 
 ly inspected all was ragged, dirty and smelly. 
 
 L 
 
 SKETCHED IN THE MARKET, WIDIN.
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 213 
 
 The town is a gathering of wretched huts, 
 planted indiscriminately all over the space 
 within the walls. A few thoroughfares wind 
 through the place, on which the shops front 
 shops which represent little more than a board 
 shelter, one side completely open to the street. 
 In these hutches sit the cobblers, tailors, tin- 
 smiths, and other tradespeople, carrying on 
 every variety of local manufacture in the open 
 air, in sight of all their customers. Widin 
 still remains oriental in form, though Bulgaria 
 struggles bravely to cast off Turkish allegiance 
 and enter the family of European nations. 
 One of the mosques I peeped into suggested 
 either poverty or indifference on the part of 
 the congregation, for the only evidence of 
 comfort, to say nothing of wealth, was in a 
 few rugs on the floor. 
 
 The shops contained only what was needed 
 in the daily life of the town and neighborhood, 
 obviously very primitive needs. I looked par- 
 ticularly for oriental carving or decoration, 
 any work of art that I might take home as a 
 keepsake, but could discover nothing better 
 than cheap stuff of French or German manu- 
 facture. 
 
 Russia has set the fashions for the military
 
 214 
 
 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 of Bulgaria, though the peasantry and towns- 
 people cling to the dress of their ancestors. 
 The native cafes were full of picturesque Turks, 
 and some of the peasants whom I met coming 
 in to market, were not only 
 highly picturesque, but of 
 fine figure as well. The 
 troops here seem to be 
 very dirty and badly dis- 
 ciplined, though physical- 
 ly of good proportion. 
 Their barracks were in 
 keeping the yard dirty, 
 fence-palings down, many 
 windows smashed. 
 However, far from 
 blaming the Bulgar- 
 ians for the generally 
 
 shiftless appearance of their troops, one might 
 rather wonder that they produce even what 
 they do ! 
 
 At the restaurant " Eiffel," which I learned 
 was the Delmonico of Widin, I saw some Bul- 
 garian officers, dressed almost exactly like 
 those of Russia. They had more swagger 
 about them than those of Germany or France, 
 but I did not mind that, for I notice that the 
 
 TURKISH PORTER AT WIDIN.
 
 DOWN TPIE DANUBE 
 
 215 
 
 weaker the government the more swagger it 
 seems to expect from its representatives. 
 Roumania and Servia keep Bulgaria company 
 under this head. 
 
 The " Eiffel " restaurant in Widin is perhaps 
 even worse than that of Kalafat; democracy 
 seemed to have made some headway since 
 1877, for the waiters puffed 
 tobacco smoke as they took 
 the guests' orders, and re- 
 clined at full length on a 
 bench in the lull of business. 
 
 When the Danube steamer 
 is announced, however, there 
 is considerable life in the 
 place. A file of troops march- 
 es to the landing stage, ac- 
 companied by a detail of cus- 
 toms officers; the agents of 
 the steamship company ap- 
 pear in full uniform ; the 
 Turkish porters and steve- 
 dores are on hand to assist, 
 and the balance of the popula- 
 tion looks on. The trade here 
 should be considerable, for it is the first depot 
 of the Austrian steamship company where the 
 
 A BULGARIAN GENS-D*- 
 ARME SKETCHED IN THE 
 STREET AT WIDIN.
 
 2l6 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 up-river stuff is transferred to deep-sea vessels; 
 then, too, here is a population officially stated 
 to be about 14,0x30. In spite of all this, the 
 place is not able to support an inn fit to sleep 
 in, and the passengers who left the boat ap- 
 peared in a minority as compared with the 
 warlike customs guards, who demanded their 
 passports and rummaged their luggage. Per- 
 haps trade would improve here, if there were 
 fewer custom-house obstructions and more 
 security. 
 
 The place was well fortified during the war 
 of 1877 between Turkey and Russia, but the 
 works are not now kept up. I saw some 
 pieces of artillery lying about on the walls, 
 but no evidence that any one attached a value 
 to them. In fact, the wandering tourist here 
 can scarcely feel that war raged here as late 
 as 1885, when the Servians sought to take the 
 town by storm. To-day the signs of decay 
 and decrepitude are so many, that it is start- 
 ling to be told that Osman Pasha made this 
 his base when marching to occupy Plevna in 
 July of 1877, leading 30,000 men to that mem- 
 orable fighting ground.
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 21? 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE POLITICAL AGENT OF BULGARIA SAYS 
 SOMETHING ABOUT RUSSIA 
 
 WHEN I made arrangements for cruising 
 down the Danube, I was under the 
 impression that Turkey included Bulgaria, and 
 that my passport must therefore be stamped 
 with the Ottoman seal. The geographies, 
 almanacs, and encyclopedias fortified my view, 
 and the Turkish Consul in London told me 
 that Bulgaria was to Turkey what Texas is to 
 the United States. 
 
 This seemed conclusive, but it was not. 
 
 In Paris, or Petersburg, or Vienna, or Ber- 
 lin it is not well to be too positive at this 
 moment at any rate let us say that it was on 
 the way to Turkey, I was so fortunate as to 
 make the acquaintance of a most able and 
 amiable Bulgarian. He was acting as the 
 diplomatic representative of his country, and 
 during the time which I spent in one of the 
 four indefinite capitals I had many instructive 
 hours with him.
 
 218 
 
 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 Russia has of late taken to kidnapping or 
 assassinating Bulgarians who express opin- 
 ions at variance with those of the "commit- 
 tees " which she " unofficially " supports. As 
 
 I write, the pa- 
 pers are indig- 
 nantly com- 
 menting on the 
 murder of Dr. 
 Vulkovitch, at 
 Constantinople, 
 under circum- 
 stances which 
 leave little 
 doubt that Mus- 
 covite money 
 from police 
 headquarters 
 did the dirty 
 job. 
 
 My Bulgarian 
 fr ie n d , there- 
 fore, took no 
 
 pains to advertise his whereabouts. His name 
 was not in any directory, nor was his address 
 known at the United States Legation. We 
 dined frequently together, but he took pains 
 
 THE BULGARIAN OFFICIAL WHO DRESSES LIKE 
 A RUSSIAN AND EXAMINES PASSPORTS.
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 
 
 219 
 
 that it should be at a different place each time. 
 My acquaintance with this interesting diplo- 
 mate I owed to a mutual friend in London, 
 whose letter I bore, and whose name ensured 
 for me a generous wel- 
 come. 
 
 When he learned that 
 I was about to visit his 
 country, he said: 
 
 " Have you a pass- 
 port ? " 
 
 I answered that I had. 
 "Is it Bulgarian ? " 
 I answered no. 
 " Then," said he, " it 
 will be of no use to you." 
 This opened my eyes, 
 for the first time, to the 
 real and not merely im- 
 aginary weakness of the 
 Turkish rule. I asked 
 him what I should do. 
 He told me not to wor- 
 ry, he would write me a letter that would pro- 
 tect me where a Turkish seal would be laughed 
 at, and he did so, to my great comfort. 
 
 One night he proposed, as a toast, " The 
 
 COMMON SIGHT ALONG THE 
 BULGARIAN SHORE.
 
 220 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 German Emperor." He drank it with obvious 
 sincerity; so plainly so, that I begged him 
 afterward to explain to me how it happened 
 that he emptied his glass with such fervor. 
 
 He looked at me closely for a moment, 
 leaned forward on his elbows after the manner 
 of a man suspicious of eavesdroppers, then 
 told me a story sounding something like 
 this: 
 
 " I am a Bulgarian, and love my country. 
 My education I owe to Americans, that is to 
 say, Robert College in Constantinople, where 
 most of the leading men of my country go to 
 study. 
 
 "We have achieved, after many years of 
 struggle and bloodshed, something that passes 
 for national independence at least so far as 
 Turkey is concerned. She has kept us in slavery 
 for centuries, and as a consequence our people 
 arc far behind what they should be in educa- 
 tion and enterprise. But in spite of the mis- 
 rule and social demoralization we have suffered 
 a demoralization, by the way, common to 
 Servia and Roumania as well the Bulgar has 
 preserved the tradition of an honorable ances- 
 try, and awaits with confidence the dawn of 
 national liberty.
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 22$ 
 
 " Now you understand why I raised my glass 
 to William II., German Emperor, Protector of 
 the Danube."
 
 226 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE JEW FROM A DANUBIAN POINT OF VIEW 
 
 ONE night I was the guest of a large landed 
 proprietor in the richest agricultural dis- 
 trict of Hungary. He held a high professional 
 position in the country, and was altogether 
 what is called a leading man. 
 
 Being myself about to inspect the Jew of 
 Russia, and feeling a righteous indignation 
 against persecution of any sort, I was struck 
 by hearing him refer to the Jew in Hungary 
 as an " unmitigated pest." This characteriza- 
 tion seemed very harsh. I took the first op- 
 portunity of drawing him out on the subject, 
 and made a note immediately afterward of the 
 conversation. 
 
 "I speak only for Hungary for the great 
 majority of the people here. The Jew to us is 
 a pest. What he is to Russia, to America, or 
 to other countries, I cannot measure. Here he 
 is not desirable, and, in my opinion, our gov- 
 ernment would be doing a wise thing if it shut 
 him absolutely out of the country.
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 
 
 227 
 
 " The Germans do not suffer as we do from 
 the Jews; they are more thrifty, more mercan- 
 tile in their habits than we are. In the parts 
 of Hungary where the people are of German 
 
 JEWS AT A RUSSIAN RAILWAY STATION. 
 
 extraction the Jews do not thrive so well as in 
 the rest of the country. Our Magyar people 
 are generous, unsuspicious and confiding. The 
 Jew comes to them with a smile upon his face,
 
 228 
 
 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 promises to help them when they get into debt, 
 sells them the goods they fancy, tells them to 
 never mind about payment at the time, coaxes 
 them to run up an account, gives them a great 
 
 RUSSIAN PEASANT SELLING HIS LOAD OF WHEAT TO THE JEW, RENI, MOUTH 
 OF THE DANUBE, 1892. 
 
 deal of credit in the beginning then, after the 
 poor people have been wheedled into a fool's 
 paradise of credit, the Jew presents his big bill.
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 22Q 
 
 His debtors cannot meet it in ready money: 
 they have not kept even a record of it. Incon- 
 sequence, they must sell their cattle or crops 
 to meet the obligation to the Jew. 
 
 " This is his grand opportunity. He has now 
 got the peasants where he wants them. They 
 are now easily induced to pledge their cattle, 
 their crops aye, their very homesteads to 
 meet the accumulation of little debts marked 
 against them at the Jew's store. The peasants 
 who once fall into the Jew's clutches by giving 
 mortgages rarely get out. They have to keep 
 on trading at the Jew's store; they are exposed 
 to every form of veiled usury, and lead the bal- 
 ance of their lives in serfdom not to an aris- 
 tocratic Magyar, but to the Jew." 
 
 Of course I protested that the Hungarian 
 must learn thrift in order to elude the wiles of 
 the Hebrew. 
 
 " That may be, but meanwhile our country 
 is suffering. You in America have driven out 
 the Chinese because you disliked them. You 
 will soon protect yourself against the Jews: if 
 you do not it will be because you dare not. 
 The Jews have got now the whole of your ne- 
 gro population in debt to them, and hold them 
 in a slavery quite as complete as any exercised
 
 230 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 by their former masters. The Jew is prac- 
 ticing in all your Southern States the same 
 wiles that have made him the bond creditor of 
 the peasantry here.'' 
 
 ROUMANIAN PFASANT, NEAR THE RUSSIAN BORDER. 
 
 I was forced to admit that the Jew was flour- 
 ishing in America to an amazing extent, par- 
 ticularly amongst the negroes, and, of course,
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 231 
 
 if we maintained the right to exclude the prod- 
 uct of alien labor, it was but logical to ex- 
 clude the foreign laborer into the bargain. 
 
 " Aside from the mere money aspect of the 
 question, the Jew is disliked in Hungary be- 
 cause he appears exclusively in a mercenary 
 role to the great mass of the people. His only 
 object is money. He has no other interest in the 
 community that he invades but to extract from 
 it what money he can, and then move some- 
 where else. The great national questions that 
 agitate our people fall coldly upon Jewish ears. 
 If we go to war, the Jews get rich on contracts 
 while the Magyar spills his blood in the line of 
 battle. The Jews evade military service as 
 they seek to evade legitimate taxation. They 
 shift about; they do not identify themselves 
 with the community. The gypsy also shifts, 
 but he is full of generous qualities. The Jew 
 shifts only to plague some other spot." 
 
 " But would you seriously advocate anti- 
 Semitic legislation in Hungary ? " I asked. 
 
 "Most decidedly and most radically. I 
 would do nothing for love of revenge, but sim- 
 ply determine that after a reasonable period 
 no Jew should be seen in Hungary. Of course, 
 I do not expect to see this happy day. The
 
 232 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 Jews control most of our newspapers; they are 
 also well represented in influential positions, 
 and the very generosity of temperament which 
 makes the Magyar an easy prey to his credit- 
 or, makes him play the humanitarian to a fatal 
 degree. The great ambition of a Magyar is to 
 pretend that he is a cosmopolitan superior to 
 prejudice. This works in the Jew's favor at 
 present." 
 
 My host told me many more things about 
 the race he detested. I had heard similar ex- 
 pressions from other quarters, but attached lit- 
 tle importance to them. Coming, however, 
 from the mouth of a serious, responsible and 
 capable Hungarian patriot, under such circum- 
 stances, they led me to compare notes with 
 others. Strange as it sounds, I found no Chris- 
 tian in Hungary who did not express himself 
 as forcibly as my host. Lawyers, merchants, 
 men about town, soldiers, traveling agents, 
 officials with one accord they spoke of the 
 Jews as a pest, an injury to their country, call- 
 ing for strong governmental interference. 
 
 In Russia I heard the Jew characterized by 
 American and English merchants to say 
 nothing of consuls. Their language, when 
 boiled down, left as residuum the opinion that
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 
 
 233 
 
 the Czar had done but one good thing since he 
 came to power namely, abating the Jewish 
 nuisance. This view struck me very much, for 
 I was not prepared for such language, except- 
 ing in the mouth of a Russian official. In the 
 course of my 
 Russian wan- 
 derings I talked 
 with plenty of 
 Jews, for they 
 crowded all the 
 railway trains" 
 and seemed the 
 only prosperous 
 people along 
 my line of trav- 
 el from Reni 
 through Odessa 
 and Kieff. 
 
 As a rule they 
 wore a lock of 
 hair in front of 
 each ear, be- 
 sides allowing the hair to grow long else- 
 where. Their head dress was a uniform cap 
 of cloth with an extensive vizor. A long 
 black alpaca ulster came to the ankles. On 
 
 SKETCH OF A ROUMANIAN COWBOY.
 
 234 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 their feet they wore riding boots. Seeing 
 them uniformly crowding the railway stations 
 I might have been pardoned for suspecting 
 them of being emigrants seeking a neighboring 
 country. But in conversation they proved de- 
 void of any desire to leave Russia. They spoke 
 to me freely of their hard lot, the cruelty of 
 Russian law, the hope of the future. When I 
 told them of the grand prospect Baron Hirsch 
 held out to them of having land of their own in 
 the other hemisphere, they promptly repudiated 
 all desire to enter into any such enterprise 
 in fact, none of them showed any particular in- 
 terest in the Hirsch colonization scheme. What 
 they wanted was to stay where they were, move 
 about among the Russian peasants, live the 
 life of itinerant brokers anything but settle 
 down to the hard life of the colonist. 
 
 Not one could I induce to talk politics. The 
 moment I referred to the prospect of war, the 
 condition of the Russian troops, my Jewish 
 friend, hitherto so communicative, immediately 
 closed his mouth tight, drew his open palms 
 up under his ears, rolled his eyes, and said: 
 "Excuse me that is forbidden;" "The police 
 do not expect us to discuss this" and no ef- 
 forts of mine could move him.
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 
 
 235 
 
 One of the leaders of the Russian revolu- 
 tionary party, a friend of George Kennan, told 
 me that the Jews were of no use to them. They 
 were unreliable. Their love of money was such 
 
 THE CAB-DRIVER AT GALATZ, WHO DROVE ME TO THE RUSSIAN BORDER. 
 
 that they would make a trade of selling secrets. 
 They would take no risks in the cause of lib- 
 erty, and gave no assistance to the patriotic 
 band working in all parts of the world for their
 
 236 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 country's deliverance. "Jews did most of the 
 smuggling," he said; "and it was easy to hire 
 Jews to take goods into the country every- 
 thing but printed matter. 
 
 "The Jew knows the law," added he. "If 
 he is caught smuggling silk he goes to prison. 
 If he is caught smuggling a revolutionary pam- 
 phlet he goes to Siberia." 
 
 I found the same distrust of the Jew amongst 
 the Polish patriots of Warsaw. All admitted 
 their cleverness, but none would employ them 
 for fear of being betrayed for money. They 
 gave me several instances to justify their feel- 
 ing, and assured me that the Jews were doing 
 nothing to strengthen the hope of reform in the 
 minds of earnest Russians; on the contrary, 
 they felt sure of profiting, whichever party pre- 
 vailed, and were incapable of any patriotic 
 emotion. 
 
 In these latter days thousands of dollars have 
 been paid by foreign governments for alleged 
 information furnished by Jews but officers in 
 charge of secret service funds have assured me 
 that such information is rarely well founded. 
 
 What the Russian thinks of the Jew we know 
 too well. Two papers are printed in London 
 alone publishing to the world the intolerance
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 
 
 237 
 
 in this regard that animates the government of 
 the Czar. I did not quite realize the full force 
 of this until one night I took my seat in a rail- 
 way carriage, prepared to make a night of it 
 
 THE RUSSIAN RAILWAY CONDUCTOR AT RLNI, ON THE DANUBE
 
 51 
 
 238 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 A Jewish trader was preparing for the 
 form of enjoyment when a Russian traveler en- 
 tered. He looked around, saw that he couli 
 not get a good stretch for his legs without dis' 
 turbing one of the passengers, noticed that onu 
 of these passengers was a Jew, and ordered hir 
 out of the carriage. Tne Jew ventured to prc; 
 test; the Russian seized him by the colla 
 promptly kicked him out on to the platforrr 
 seized his gripsack, dropped it after him, the 
 bowed to me politely and spread his blanke 
 for the night, cursing at the impudence of th 
 late occupant. The whole proceeding occupie 
 but a few seconds, and seemed to call for no 
 comment on the part of the officials. The 1 , 
 ejected Jew made no complaint. He picked 
 up his traps and was soon seen climbing into! 
 another compartment, where I hope he found 
 a more friendly reception. 
 
 Now, it is of course very dangerous to gener- 
 alize from the little experience that a traveler 
 can hope to acquire when only passing through 
 the country. In my case I do not pretend to 
 more than relate a brief episode for what it is 
 worth. But it seemed to me odd, not that I 
 met people prejudiced against the house of Is- 
 rael, but that amidst all classes and all peoples
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 239 
 
 Poles, Russians, Hungarians, Roumanians, 
 nerchants, officials, Nihilists, patriots even 
 mongst English and Americans doingbusiness 
 n the country, I could find no one who cham- 
 )ioned the cause of the Jew. I write only what 
 saw and heard.
 
 240 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 RUSSIA AND GERMANY IN THE BALANCE 
 
 German Emperor shares, with the 
 JL best-informed men in his army, the be- 
 lief that Russia intends to attack him at the 
 earliest convenient opportunity. It is not the 
 Czar who is urging war. Those who know that 
 monarch well scout the idea. He loves peace 
 and quiet, and does not wish to be disturbed. 
 How long he can make his personal wishes pre- 
 vail we cannot say, for he may have to choose be- 
 tween war and disquieting agitation. His min- 
 isters, who see more clearly than their master, 
 realize that the economic condition of Russia 
 has been going from bad to worse under a sys- 
 tem of protection and repression that has no 
 parallel in modern times. Commercial enter- 
 prise is hampered by a swarm of police, who 
 are able to levy blackmail upon any tradesman 
 who is not "protected." Inquiry of every kind 
 is carefully stifled, and even French newspa- 
 pers are "blacked out" by the censor if they 
 contain news contrary to police wishes. Pop-
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 
 
 241 
 
 ular discontent exists, and it is the object of 
 the government to divert attention from do- 
 mestic affairs to the 
 enemy beyond. Rus- 
 sia's active hatred of 
 Germany dates from 
 1878, and is one of 
 the many legacies of 
 the Bismarck era. 
 Every one remem- 
 bers that the Russian 
 army was in sight of 
 Constantinople, and 
 was prepared to take 
 possession, when 
 England interfered. 
 The Russians re- 
 turned from the war 
 expecting to receive 
 at the Berlin Con- 
 gress, in a diplomatic 
 way, all that they 
 had given up on the 
 battle-field. In this 
 they were mistaken, 
 
 and their ambassador returned from Berlin to 
 tell his people that the fruits of the war of 
 
 ROUMANIAN PEASANT WOMAN.
 
 242 
 
 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 1877 had been lost to them through German 
 perfidy. From that day to this, hatred of 
 Germany has been preached as the national 
 gospel of Russia, and in this hatred have been 
 
 in T 
 
 THE RUSSIAN FRONTIER. 
 
 included Jews, Poles, Swedes, Finns in short, 
 all the unorthodox whose civilization draws 
 inspiration from the western neighbor. " Rus-
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 243 
 
 sia for the Russians ! " is now the cry, and the 
 orthodox Russian Church shouts louder than 
 any one in the congregation. 
 
 The famine which spread over part of Rus- 
 sia last year does not abate this cry of revenge. 
 On the contrary, there is not a peasant who 
 does not believe that in some mysterious way 
 the heretic Jew or German is responsible for 
 his misery; and for that matter German and 
 Jew are one to him, for both are unorthodox, 
 both un-Russian. With this aspect of the case 
 in mind, it seems strange indeed that the gov- 
 ernment of Russia should be acting in a man- 
 ner to alienate the sympathy of subjects on her 
 western frontier. It is possible that the Czar's 
 ministers disapprove of the extreme measures 
 taken in the Baltic provinces to expunge the 
 German language and the Lutheran faith, but 
 they know the power of the orthodox clergy, 
 and dare not resist the only expression of what 
 has to pass for public opinion. 
 
 The famine in Russia was, after all, real, al- 
 though it is equally true that there is always a 
 failure of crops somewhere in a country so vast. 
 I lost no opportunity, during the height of the 
 newspaper discussion of the subject, to make 
 inquiry in proper quarters regarding the nature
 
 244 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 and extent of the alleged distress. The gov- 
 ernment seemed incapable of giving friends of 
 Russia any satisfactory idea of the situation, 
 and, worst of all, did not inspire any great con- 
 fidence in the breasts of sympathizers. One 
 day a minister reported that the famine was of 
 no serious character; soon afterward the press 
 announced that twenty millions of people were 
 perishing. In any event, the situation is not 
 cheering, famine or no famine. 
 
 If, however, a famine really exists on a large 
 scale, then is there all the more reason to ex- 
 pect war. The peasant suffers first; next suf- 
 fers the storekeeper, who supplies the few 
 things the peasant cannot make himself; next 
 suffers the wholesale dealer, who gets no more 
 orders; next suffer the merchant and the 
 banker of the capital and the seaport; at last 
 suffers the only one worth considering the 
 government, which feels it finally in the con- 
 fession of hundreds and thousands of police 
 officials that the peasant has been taxed to his 
 last copeck. At this point the news becomes 
 serious, for the government is a costly one, 
 and only money can sustain it: money for the 
 interest on a huge public debt; money for the 
 huge military machine; money for the police;
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 
 
 245 
 
 money for the imperial family; money for secret 
 service; money to maintain political jails; 
 money to guard prisoners on the way to the 
 mines of Siberia. When the government finds 
 that money is wanting to sustain its prestige, 
 
 A ROUMANIAN MAIDEN CARRYING HOME FROM THE KAIK A ROLL OF MATTING. 
 
 and that empty stomachs are growling, it may 
 choose war as the lesser evil. 
 
 Germany is not blind to the dangers that 
 threaten her, particularly from France. She 
 will have one army on the Rhine, another on
 
 246 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 the Vistula. Von Moltke clearly foresaw the 
 intention of Russia to attack, and never failed 
 to urge upon William I. the military necessity 
 of forcing the war as soon as possible. His 
 reasons, of course, were purely military. " Rus- 
 sia," he argued in 1875, " is arming against us; 
 each year she becomes more formidable. We, 
 on the contrary, remain stationary. Our duty 
 is to fight now, while the heroes of 1870 are 
 still fresh, and not wait until they are retired 
 from active service." Von Moltke saw more 
 clearly than Bismarck. William I. was old, and 
 relied on his prime minister, who kept telling 
 him that Russia was Germany's natural ally; 
 that Russia must be humored at any cost. On 
 the part of the venerable William I. there were 
 strong family reasons dictating friendship for 
 the Russian Czar; but this does not explain 
 Bismarck's apparent indifference to the fact 
 that, for the last fifteen years, Russia has been 
 cultivating hatred of Germany, second only to 
 that prevailing in France. 
 
 The present German Emperor foreshadowed 
 Russia's attitude of to-day three years before 
 he came to the throne. He has been nearly 
 four years in power, and has not only not de- 
 clared war, but has not made a single warlike
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 247 
 
 demonstration of a practical kind. His mili- 
 tary family, if I may use the expression, are 
 ready to anticipate the blow of Russia; but 
 Germany keeps the peace because her Emperor 
 is too conscientious to precipitate the conflict. 
 Personally he is deeply pained by the hostile 
 attitude of the Russian government; his efforts 
 in the direction of closer commercial inter- 
 course have been met by sullen objection; he 
 has been treated with personal discourtesy by 
 the Czar; his own people are outraged by the 
 daily account of persecution to which Germans 
 in Russia are subjected; he knows that the line 
 of the Narew, the Niemen, and the Vistula is 
 fortified by a chain of strong forts, and that 
 Kirghis Cossacks patrol all the roads crossing 
 his frontier. He is perfectly well aware that 
 France is ready to cooperate with Russia, and 
 that her forces are better organized than ever 
 before. 
 
 The German Emperor is not unpopular in 
 Germany. This fact cannot be too strongly 
 presented, because many important conse- 
 quences flow from it. He has clone many 
 things to disquiet moderate Liberals; has done 
 things indicating a disposition to assume re- 
 sponsibility which might better be shared with
 
 248 
 
 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 Parliament. He has made many impromptu 
 speeches which a prime minister would cheer- 
 fully have recalled; he has written texts which 
 a strictly constitutional 
 ruler would wish rele- 
 gated to privacy. 
 Granted all this and 
 much more, for the 
 sake of argument, let 
 us come to what he has 
 positively done, in order 
 to understand why, in 
 spite of this, he is Em- 
 peror in the German 
 heart as well as in the 
 German army. He has 
 shown himself accessi- 
 ble to complaints from 
 all classes of the com- 
 munity, and has inter- 
 ested himself in reme- 
 dies; he has abolished 
 
 IN inn COKSO AT GIURGEVO: ROU- 
 
 MANIAN OFFICER PROMENADING, the special laws against 
 
 socialism with most ex- 
 cellent results; he has removed much of the 
 irritation on the French frontier; he has met 
 the grievances of the Polish Prussians in the
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 249 
 
 same spirit ; he has shown a liberality in 
 dealing with the press and platform agitators 
 unknown in Bismarck's day; he has inaugu- 
 rated a commercial policy which, if not free 
 trade, is a complete denial of the principle that 
 one class has a right to enrich itself at the ex- 
 pense of another; he has drawn together the 
 trade relations of Germans so wisely that 
 Vienna, Budapesth, and Berlin seem now like 
 sister cities of a free federation, and has spread 
 the blessing of commercial freedom more 
 widely than was ever before known in Europe; 
 he has instituted legislation for the benefit of 
 wage-earners and wage-payers, not as a social- 
 ist, but in the spirit of arbitration and fair play. 
 In iill of this he has moved independently, 
 fearlessly, moderately, and in opposition, not 
 merely to the teachings of Bismarck, but to the 
 school of politicians created for him by that 
 master of medievalism. Not only this, but he 
 has interfered energetically on behalf of the 
 soldier in the ranks; has insisted upon his 
 troops being treated with proper respect by 
 officers, and particular!}" by corporals and ser- 
 geants. He has vigorously put down gambling 
 and fast living among his officers; he has at 
 last interfered on behalf of the overworked
 
 250 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 school-children, and is the first to say that a 
 teacher shall not cram the pupil's brain at the 
 expense of general health. 
 
 All this sounds as though a stroke of the 
 pen could make such reforms real, but it is not 
 so. All academic Germany sets its face against 
 school-reform, and the utmost exercise of tact 
 and persistence is necessary on the part of the 
 Emperor to make his proposals bear fruit. 
 These instances suggest some of the reasons 
 why Germans respect their Emperor. There 
 are others of a negative kind. For instance, 
 we have yet to hear of anything he has done 
 for the gratification of selfish tastes. He is a 
 plain liver; he has never indulged in the vices 
 sometimes associated with royalty; no officer 
 in his army can say that the Emperor taught 
 him to gamble; in his family he is exactly 
 what a German would wish him to be, and 
 the keenest sportsman could not wish a better 
 companion. Finally, he is a thorough soldier: 
 he has served from the ranks up; he can do 
 sentry duty with a guardsman, and can also 
 manceuver combined army corps according to 
 the principles of strategy and modern tactics. 
 He has his faults, and none sees them so well 
 as the German general and the German par-
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 
 
 251 
 
 liamentarian. But he has elements of strength 
 and popularity which vastly outbalance any 
 faults so far discovered and this is what out- 
 side critics are apt to ignore. He has sources 
 of strength totally closed to the Czar. The 
 Kaiser is a man of flesh and blood; he feels as 
 a German; his work is 
 in harmony with the 
 spirit of German prog- 
 ress; his failings, such 
 as he shows, are Ger- 
 man. There is no Ger- 
 man who does not ad- 
 mire him in his private 
 relations, even though 
 differing from him in 
 matters official; and we 
 all know that in times 
 of political danger the 
 people are drawn to the 
 man of strong personal 
 
 character rather than to the cautious and color- 
 less figurehead. 
 
 The forces behind William II. are such as 
 have never been cultivated in Russia, whose 
 Czar lives in hourly dread of assassination, and 
 whose people are so many items of an official 
 
 A PARISH PRIES F IN ROUMANIA.
 
 252 PADDLES AND POLITICS 
 
 budget, so many units in a military report. The 
 German Emperor walks about the streets of his 
 town as fearlessly and naturally as any other 
 man, although the life of his grandfather was 
 twice attempted. One day, in November of 
 1891, he was walking with a guest through the 
 narrow and crowded thoroughfare of a city not 
 far from Berlin. The sidewalks were narrow, 
 and, as the Emperor is a fast walker, he fre- 
 quently had to step out into the street to pass 
 other pedestrians, and especially clusters of 
 people who stopped for a chat. His companion, 
 who had been in Russia, was struck by the 
 democratic manner in which the German Em- 
 peror rubbed in and out amongst porters, fish- 
 wives, peasants, and the rest of the moving 
 crowd, chatting the while, and acting as though 
 this was his usual manner of getting about. 
 He was struck still more by the fact that no 
 precautions against a possible murderous fanatic 
 appeared to have been taken, and ventured to 
 speak of this. The Emperor laughed heartily, 
 and said: " Oh, if I had to stop to think of such 
 things, I should never get through with my 
 day's work." 
 
 It is with this man that Russia will have to 
 reckon when her Cossacks start for Berlin; and
 
 DOWN THE DANUBE 253 
 
 this man is strong, not merely because he rep- 
 resents a strong army and a strong political 
 administration, but because in him center the 
 feelings of unity and development, of pride of 
 achievement, and of promise of a still greater 
 future which lie dormant in the hearts of those 
 who regard Germany as the bulwark of civiliza- 
 tion against barbarism Europe against Asia. 
 
 THE END.
 
 SOUTHERN R A n a 
 
 305 De Neve Drive p a r k 1' L ! BRARy PAC,L,TY
 
 University of California. Los Angeles 
 
 
 L 005 485 756 
 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A 001 292 465 o