Francis Davis Millet - The Danube from the Black Forest to the Black Sea

BY
F. D. M I L L E T
AUTHOR OF A CAPILLARY CRIME ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY
THE AUTHOR AND ALFRED PARSONS
[Image unavailable.]
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
Copyright, 1892, by Harper & Brothers .
All rights reserved.

Wenn ich dann zu Nacht alleine
Dichtend in die Wellen schau,
Steigt beim blanken Mondenscheine
Auf die schmucke Wasserfrau
Aus der Donau
Aus der schnen, blauen Donau.
Beck.

THE DANUBE
FROM THE BLACK FOREST TO THE BLACK SEA

A T the head of a pleasant little valley high up among the bristling mountain-tops of the Black Forest, a tiny stream of clear water comes tumbling down the rocks, and, gathering strength and volume from an occasional spring or a rivulet, cuts a deep channel into the rich soil of the hayfields, and dances along gayly over its bed of glistening pebbles. To the north, west, and south the bold summits of the water-shed, heavily clothed in dark masses of coniferous trees, make a rugged, strongly accentuated sky line, and to the east delightful vistas of sunny slopes and fertile intervales stretch away in enchanting perspective to the hazy distance. This little stream, the Brigach, with its twin sister, the Brege, which rises about ten miles farther to the south, are the highest sources of the mighty River Danube, the great water highway of Europe since earliest history, celebrated for ages in legend and song, gathering on its banks in its course of nearly two thousand miles to the Black Sea the most varied and interesting nationalities in the civilized world, and unfolding in its flow the most remarkable succession of panoramas of natural beauty known to the geographer. The Black Forest Railway, which crosses the mountains from the valley of the Rhine into the upper valley of the Danube by the way of Triberg, mounts the western escarpment of the range by a series of steep grades, curves, and short tunnels, in the midst of beautiful scenery of a semi-Alpine character, and, after the divide is reached, follows the course of the Brigach to Donaueschingen, a tidy little town in the Grand Duchy of Baden, usually called the source of the Danube, and, for the greater part of the year, the head of navigation for small boats on the upper river. A mile and a half below Donaueschingen the Brigach and the Brege join, and the stream here receives the name of the Danube.