Chapter II

Straubing--The Bridge--The Hauptstrasse--The Stadtthurm--The
Pfarr, or Collegiat Kirche--Story of Agnes Bernauer--The
Ramparts--The Atzelburg--Ober Altaich--Bogenberg--Kloster
Metten--The Natternberg--Deggendorf--The Gnade Zeit--Confluence
of the Isar and the Danube--Rafts from Munich to Vienna--Nieder
Altaich--Hengersberg--Osterhofen--Hoch-winzer--Hofkirchen--Kinzing--
Hildegartsberg--Vilshofen--Collegiat Stift--The Sandbach--New Road
to Passau--Maximilian Joseph I., late King of Bavaria--Louis I., the
present Monarch--Statue of a Lion--Approach to Passau.

Straubing is pleasantly situated on the right bank of a small arm of the river, or, as it might be called, a canal, through which part of the noble stream has, of late years, been conducted to the very walls. In front of it, the mountains, which, as I have already mentioned, have retreated from the left bank, form a fine amphitheatre, in the centre of which, the insulated Bogenberg rises like a pyramid. Like most cities of any size and antiquity in Germany, Straubing is divided into an Alt-Stadt and a Neu-Stadt. The old town is conjectured by some to have been the Serviodurum Augusti of the Romans, the seat of the Castra Augustana, etc., and traces of some entrenchments, supposed to be Roman, are still to be seen just without the walls. The name of “Straubinga” (“Curtis Regia”) first occurs in an instrument, dated A.D. 902. About forty years afterwards, we hear of the deeds of the noble knights of Straubing and Stein. At the latter end of the tenth century, Henry III. obtained the surname of Pious, by presenting Straubing to his brother Otto, Bishop of Augsburg, who left it to the cathedral and chapter of that place. It was governed by an officer called a Vice Dom, till the commencement of the thirteenth century, when New Straubing was built, and the old town re-annexed to the Duchy of Bavaria. Frederick the Handsome, of Austria, besieged and took it in 1319. In 1332, Louis the Bavarian lay before the town from the 4th of July till the 24th of August, when, provoked by its obstinate resistance, he threw a bridge over the Danube, by Kagers, and, making a desperate assault at the Spital-gate, succeeded at last in carrying the place by storm. His son, Duke William, first husband of Matilda of Lancaster, built the castle on the Danube, A.D. 1356. It is now converted into barracks. In 1393, Straubing was entirely destroyed by fire, and the conflagration having begun at a joiner’s, no person of that trade was permitted to reside in the city from that time till the year 1540. It was most vigorously defended against the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, in 1633. The burgomaster, Höller, an excellent marksman, shot upwards of thirty of his best officers from the ramparts. In 1635, Straubing was visited by a dreadful pestilence. In 1704, it was taken by the Austrians, and, in 1780, the best half of it fell a second time a prey to the flames. The loss was estimated at more than a million of florins.

Straubing in its present state is cheerful and tolerably regular, but more like a Dutch than a Bavarian town; the bridge across the Danube is pretty, and the gate which terminates it fantastic. On entering the Hauptstrasse or High-street, the eye is attracted by a quadrangular tower, forming part of the Rath-haus or Guildhall, and much prized by the Straubingers, who consider it the most ancient relic in the place; but it seems to have been a terrible annoyance to Professor Schultes, who neglects no opportunity of expressing his antipathy to it, and astonishment that any reverence for its antiquity should prevent the removal of a building, which hinders people from looking through the town like a telescope. This Stadt-thurm as it is called is two hundred feet high, and is now surmounted by a tin spire, with four smaller pinnacles at the corners. There are two Latin inscriptions upon it, one proclaiming its erection in 1208, and the other its renovation in 1783. The largest building in the town is the Pfarr, or Collegiat Kirche, commenced about 1432, and finished in 1512. In a small chapel in the churchyard of St. Peter’s, in the Alt-stadt, is a red marble tablet, on which reclines the effigy of a female surrounded by the following inscription, “Anno Domini, +MCCCCXXXVI+, +XII+ Die Octobris, Obiit Agnes Bernauerin. Requiescat in pace.”

The fate of this unfortunate lady has furnished the subject for a tragedy to the Count of Torring Seefeld, and one more deeply affecting is scarcely to be found in the page of history.

Albert, the only son of Duke Ernst of Bavaria, was one of the most accomplished and valiant princes of the age he lived in. His father and family had selected for his bride, the young Countess Elizabeth of Würtemberg. The contract was signed and the marriage on the point of taking place, when the lady suddenly eloped with a more favoured lover, John Count of Werdenberg. The tidings were brought to Albert at Augsburg, where he was attending a grand tournament given in honour of the approaching nuptials, but they fell unheeded on his ear, as his heart, which had not been consulted in the choice of his bride, had just yielded itself, “rescue or no rescue,” to the bright eyes of a young maiden whom he had distinguished from the crowd of beauties that graced the lists. Virtuous as she was lovely, Agnes Bernauer had obtained amongst the citizens of Augsburg, the appellation of “the angel:” but she was the daughter of a bather, an employment considered at that period, in Germany, as particularly dishonourable. Regardless of consequences, however, he divulged his passion, and their marriage was shortly afterwards privately celebrated in Albert’s castle at Vohberg. Their happiness was doomed to be of short duration. Duke Ernst became possessed of their secret, and the anger of the whole house of Munich burst upon the heads of the devoted couple! Albert was commanded to sign a divorce from Agnes, and prepare immediately to marry Anna, daughter of Duke Erich of Brunswick. The indignant prince refused to obey, and being afterwards denied admission to a tournament at Regensburg, on the plea of his having contracted a dishonourable alliance, he rode boldly into the lists upon the Heide Platz, before the whole company declared Agnes Bernauer his lawful wife and duchess, and conducted her to his palace at Straubing, attended as became her rank. Every species of malice and misrepresentation was now set at work to ruin the unfortunate Agnes. Albert’s uncle, Duke Wilhelm, who was the only one of the family inclined to protect her, had a sickly child, and she was accused of having administered poison to it. But the duke detected the falsehood and became more firmly her friend. Death too soon deprived her of this noble protector, and the fate of the poor duchess was immediately sealed. Taking advantage of Albert’s absence from Straubing, the authorities of the place arrested her on some frivolous pretext, and the honest indignation with which she asserted her innocence, was tortured into treason by her malignant judges. She was condemned to die, and on Wednesday, October 12th, 1436, was thrown over the bridge into the Danube, amidst the lamentations of the populace[14]. Having succeeded in freeing one foot from the bonds which surrounded her, the poor victim, shrieking for help and mercy, endeavoured to reach the bank by swimming, and had nearly effected a landing, when a barbarian in office, with a hooked pole, caught her by her long fair hair, and dragging her back into the stream, kept her under water until the cruel tragedy was completed. The fury and despair of Albert on receiving these horrid tidings were boundless. He flew to his father’s bitterest enemy, Louis the Bearded, at Ingolstadt, and returned at the head of an hostile army to his native land, breathing vengeance against the murderers of his beloved wife. The old duke, sorely pressed by the arms of his injured son, and tormented by the stings of conscience, implored the mediation of the Emperor Sigismund, who succeeded after some time in pacifying Albert, and reconciling him to his father, who, as a proof of his repentance, instituted a perpetual mass for the soul of the martyred Agnes Bernauer. Albert afterwards married Ann of Brunswick, by whom he had ten children.

The ramparts of this town are now almost entirely demolished, and the fosses turned into kitchen-gardens. The former were once planted with mulberry-trees, but they were destroyed during the late war, when Straubing, though not absolutely stormed or invested, suffered considerably from the constant passage of troops, and the skirmishing in its neighbourhood. The Straubingers are more celebrated for good living than hard work.

“On y mange et digére
Compère, compère;
On y fait bonne chere
Voilà tout le mystère!”

is the quotation of Prof. Schultes, and may with great propriety be applied to many bodies corporate, of more pretension than the humble one of Straubing.

The whole country was lighted up by a glorious sunset as we entered the town to satisfy our curiosity and our appetite, and some time before we returned from those important occupations, the “twilight grey” had “in her sober livery all things clad.” We had determined on passing the first night on board, in order to reach Vilshofen by breakfast-time the following day, as from that place we understood the scenery would become too interesting to admit of haste, or travelling after dark, and preparations had been accordingly made by our little crew. The sides of the zille were boarded up, and straw and boat-cloaks so arranged as to make us a very comfortable couch, upon which we had no sooner stretched ourselves than the word was given, and by the light of the stars we dropped gently down the river, passing the Atzelburg and Hockstetter-hof on the right bank. The former, also called the Aciliusburg, is conjectured by some to have been the retreat of the Roman Consul Acilius, when exiled for the _crime_ of Christianity, and originally named from him Acilia Augusta. In its neighbourhood are some entrenchments believed to be Roman. Reibersdorf, Kleinau, and Ebling are villages on the right bank. Near the latter the small stream of the Aitrach joins the Danube. On the left is Lenach, remarkable only as having been purchased by the monks of Altaich in 1139, for ninety-five Pf. Pfennige, about five shillings, English.

Notwithstanding the precautions we had taken, I was too cold as well as too curious to sleep; and as the moon got up so did I, and, seating myself by the cabin door, looked on the gradually brightening landscape, and listened to the songs of the boatmen who, as they lazily plied their unwieldy paddles, warbled in their own peculiar style--a style rendered familiar to London ears, by the interesting “Rainer family,” for it is not confined to the Tyrol--several wild but pleasing melodies. It is very provoking that the English should be, perhaps, the only people who have no idea of singing in parts; an untutored boatman, peasant, or soldier of almost any of the continental nations will suddenly strike in with an extemporary and very creditable bass, though the air be led off by an utter stranger to him. On the banks of the Main at Aschaffenburg, and at Möhdling in the Wienerwald, I was particularly struck with this pleasing talent, and have noticed it repeatedly both in France and Switzerland. The complaint that the English are not a musical nation is in my opinion better borne out by this circumstance, than by the alleged deficiency of celebrated composers, or the want of taste in the mixed audiences of our Concert Rooms and Theatres. There is certainly no comparison between “the native wood-notes wild” of a Devonshire ploughman, and those of a Bavarian bauer.

We soon came in sight of Ober-Altaich, a celebrated Benedictine kloster. A Druidical altar is said to have been destroyed here by the holy Parminius, who, with his own hand, cut down the oak under which it stood, and caused a chapel to be erected upon the spot. The convent was founded by Duke Uttilo II. A.D. 731, who brought thither twelve Benedictine monks and an abbot from Reichenau, in the Lake of Constance. The Hungarians destroyed it in 907, and it was a ruin for nearly two hundred years, when Count Frederick of Bogen rebuilt it, and, with his wife and sons, so liberally endowed and patronised it, that in the thirteenth century there were no less than one hundred and eighteen monks here, most of them of noble birth; and the dignity of prince was granted to its abbots by Louis the Brandenburgher. In 1634, Ober-Altaich was burnt by the Swedes, but shortly afterwards rose from its ashes, more magnificent than ever,--a circumstance, says Schultes, not at all surprising when you consider that, in spite of their vow of poverty, the holy brotherhood enjoyed an annual income of thirty thousand florins (between four and five thousand pounds sterling,) an immense sum for this part of Germany, where a florin in the hands of a native will go nearly as far as a pound in England. Passing the mouth of the little Kinzach, and the villages of Saut and Hundersdorf, we at length approached the long-seen Bogenberg. Upon its summit lie the last crumbling relics of an old fortress, the Stammschloss[15] of the once-dreaded Counts of Bogen. Germany in the times they flourished was, as the Legate Cupanus described it in his letters to Rome--a den of thieves. The deplorable state into which the whole empire was plunged by the quarrels between the popes and the house of Swabia, the almost total annihilation of the imperial power by the death of Conrad IV., and the interregnum that followed the death of Richard King of the Romans, in 1271, is vividly described by contemporary writers, one of whom, in the language of scripture, exclaims, “In those days there was no king in Israel, and every one did that which was right in his own eyes.” “The earth (says another) mourned and languished, Mount Lebanon was shaken from its foundations, and the moon was turned into blood[16].” The terms noble and robber were synonymous, and the higher the rank the more lawless and rapacious were the deeds of the titled ruffian. The castle of Bogen was admirably adapted for a bandit’s hold. Seated upon the apex of a pyramidical rock, inaccessible but by one narrow pass on its eastern side, which a handful of determined men might keep against a host, and commanding a view over nearly half the dukedom of Bavaria, its lawless lord watched from its battlements, like a vulture, the approach of his unsuspecting prey, and, pouncing upon it, bore it up in triumph to his mountain eyrie, where he feasted at his leisure in security. The domains of the Counts of Bogen extended from Regensburg to the Ilz, and from the shores of the Danube far into Bohemia. Their friendship and alliance were sought by King and Kaiser, by the Dukes of Bavaria, and the Markgraves of Austria; and their feuds with the Counts of Ortenburg deluged the land repeatedly with blood. But bigotry and superstition lost them what rapine and murder had won. Their revenues filled the coffers of greedy abbots, and their castles were gradually transformed into convents. An image of the Virgin was one day seen floating upon the Danube, and drifting ashore near the little market-town of Bogen, which lies at the foot of the mountain, on its western side, rested on a stone on the bank. Count Answin, struck with so _miraculous_ an occurrence, presented the castle of Bogen to the kloster of Ober Altaich, which his brother Frederick had founded. Forty years afterwards, Count Albert I. of Bogen was wheedled out of the castle of Windberg by another holy fraternity; and about the middle of the thirteenth century the family became extinct, by the death of Count Albert IV., who had followed the unfortunate Emperor, Frederick II., to the Holy Land. Ludmilla, the mother of this last Count of Bogen, was a Bohemian Princess; and, on the death of her husband, Albert III., Louis II., Duke of Bavaria, becoming enamoured of her from report, offered her marriage, provided, says the chronicle, he should like her upon a personal acquaintance. Ludmilla consented to this proposition, and the duke visited her accordingly. Suspecting, however, the sincerity of his protestations, she one day requested him, as in a joke, to plight his troth to her in a tapestried chamber, and to consider the figures of three knights, worked in the hangings, as witnesses of the contract. The duke, to humour this apparently childish fancy, smilingly held up his hand, and took the oath required of him, when, to his utter astonishment, three living knights, “good men and true,” stepped out from behind the tapestry, where they had been purposely concealed by the cunning Bohemian, and compelled the ensnared potentate to ratify his pledge[17]. The church of our Lady of Bogen, erected in honour of the miraculous image before-mentioned, stands beside the ruins of the castle, and from six to eight thousand pilgrims have been known at one time to congregate about its far-famed shrine. It has been several times injured by lightning, and its roof carried away by the high winds, a natural consequence of its exposed situation. A thunderstorm burst over it on Whit-Tuesday, A.D. 1618, during one of these meetings, and the lightning having fired the steeple, such confusion ensued, that fourteen persons were crushed to death[18]. The Bogenberg and its vicinity have been fertile in miracles. A ridiculous story is told by Æmilius Hemmauer, a prior of Ober-Altaich, about a moving altar, and in the little market-town is shown a tooth of St. Sebastian, over which water is poured into a goblet; and it is gravely asserted that whoever drinks of this water, need fear no infectious disorder for twelve months to come. The little rivers Bogen and Menach join the Danube near this spot, and on the opposite shore are the villages of Absam and Hermansdorf.

As the Danube approaches its confluence with the Isar, its banks become bolder and more interesting; a crowd of villages present themselves, amongst which the most important are Pfelling, whence a considerable quantity of wood is sent to Vienna; Irlbach, the principal depôt for the corn of the Dunkelboden, before the Danube washed the walls of Straubing; and Wischelburgh, on the site of the Roman Bisonium, destroyed by the tremendous Attila.

Kloster-Metten, on the left bank, according to the legend, owes its foundation to the following circumstances: A herdsman of Michaelbuch, named Gamelbert, awaking from a deep sleep, in which he had been indulging beneath a tree, found, to his surprise, a book lying upon his breast. On examination he found it was written in English, and, though he knew just as much of the language as the beasts that were grazing before him, he immediately commenced reading it, and was so edified by its contents, that he abandoned his flocks and herds, and, repairing to Rome, became a Christian priest. On his way thither he baptised a boy, whom he named Utto, and desired his parents to send the lad to him when he became a man; they did so, and Gamelbert made over to him the care of the souls of the worthy inhabitants of Michaelbuch. Utto, however, had no great affection for his new calling, and leaving the poor souls to take care of themselves, crossed the Danube, and wandered into the Waldes, where he built a hermitage, in honour of the Archangel Michael, near a spring, which is still called Utto’s Spring, and amused himself with sundry curious pranks, amongst which was the rather difficult one of hanging his axe upon a sunbeam! Charlemagne, hunting in the neighbourhood, caught the holy hermit in the fact, and, astonished, as well he might be, by so extraordinary a performance, promised to grant him any boon he might be pleased to ask. Utto requested that a convent might be built on the spot, and Kloster-Metten was erected at the command of Charlemagne.

On the opposite side to Kloster-Metten, suddenly rises the remarkable Natternberg the only rock on the right bank from Prufening to Pleinting, a distance of upwards of eighty English miles. It is nearly three hundred feet high; and on its summit are the ruins of another castle, which belonged to the Counts of Bogen, who made it their residence in 1232. The curious appearance of this mass of granite, standing in solitary majesty upon this extensive plain, and cut off, as it were, from its giant brethren of the Böhmer-Wald by the bright and trenchant Danube, has given rise to many speculations amongst the geologists of Germany; but while the learned are at loggerheads respecting this natural phenomenon, the honest people who reside in its neighbourhood, and who, therefore, surely have a right to a voice on the subject, have settled the question completely to their own satisfaction. The Devil, say they, hating the Deggendorfers, for their piety, determined to destroy them outright; and, with that intention, brought a rock from Italy, (none in the neighbourhood, I presume, being suitable to his purpose,) with the malicious intention of hurling it upon the devoted town of Deggendorf, and crushing it, with all its inhabitants, into the Danube. Passing opposite to Kloster-Metten, “half flying, half on foot,” with this formidable missile under his arm, the bells of the convent rang for the Ave Maria! The virtue of the holy sounds was immediately felt by the arch apostate. “Gnashing for anguish, and despite, and shame,” he dropped the mountain “like a hot potatoe,” and there, where it fell, it stands to this day; an immutable proof of the power of bell-ringing, and a monument of the piety and narrow escape of the Deggendorfers. In the castle, on its crest, Duke Albert of Austria besieged his faithless favourite Peter Ecker, A.D. 1347; and Henry of Landshut was educated within its walls, from which circumstance he obtained the additional sirname of the Natternberger. The castle was reduced to its present ruinous state by the Swedes, and now belongs to a Count of Preising. From the little place, called Fischerdorf, at the foot of the mountain, the town of Deggendorf is seen lying in a beautiful valley, surrounded by hills that rise in circles, each above the other, and having in front the Danube; here broader than in any other part of Bavaria, (nearly one thousand two hundred feet,) across which is a wooden bridge, supported by twenty-six piers, but built so slightly, in order that it may be easily removed to give an annual passage to the ice, that Schultes says, it shakes under the curvetting of a single horse. Of the ancient history of Deggendorf very little is known, its records having been all destroyed; some by the Swedes, under Bernhard von Weimar, and the rest by fire, in 1638.

Pilgrims, from all parts of Germany, flock to Deggendorf upon Saint Michael’s eve, which is a celebrated Gnade-zeit, (time of grace,) when absolution is granted to all comers, in consequence of some miraculous circumstances that, in the year 1337, attended the purloining and insulting of the Host by a woman and some Jews; who, having bought the consecrated wafer from her, scratched it with thorns till it bled, and the image of a child appeared; baked it, vision and all, in an oven; hammered it upon an anvil, the block of which is still shown to the pilgrim; attempted to cram it down “their accursed throats,” (I quote the words of the original description,) but were prevented by the hands and feet of the vision aforesaid; and finally, despairing to destroy it, flung it into a well, which was immediately surrounded by a nimbus, etc. I should not have noticed these disgusting falsehoods, but for the melancholy fact, that the circulation of this trumpery story was considered a sufficient cause, by the _pious_ Deggendorfers, for the indiscriminate massacre of all the wretched Jews in the place; which infamous and bloody deed was perpetrated the day after St. Michael, sanctioned by _Christian_ priests, who, in grand procession, carried back the indestructible wafer to the church, and solemnly approved, in 1489, by Pope Innocent VIII., who issued his bull for the general absolution abovementioned[19]. Above fifty thousand pilgrims assembled here in 1801; and as late as 1815, so considerable were their numbers, that the greater part of them passed the night in the streets of the town, and in the fields in its neighbourhood.

The moon had set before we passed Deggendorf, but the night was light enough to see the “Isar rolling rapidly,” through its many mouths, to join the mighty Danube; and the spire of Plattling in the distance, a tolerably sized market-town, where there is a bridge across the former river, and the post-house, between Straubing and Vilshofen. Below this bridge, the raft-masters of Munich, who leave that city every Monday for Vienna, unite their rafts before they enter the Danube. They descend the Isar upon single rafts only; but upon reaching this point they lash them together in pairs, and in fleets of three, four, or six pairs, they set out for Vienna. A voyage is made pleasantly enough upon these floating islands, as they have all the agrémens without the confinement of a boat. A very respectable promenade can be made from one end to the other, and two or three huts erected upon them afford shelter in bad weather and repose at night.

Isargemünd, situated in one of the many islands, at the confluence of the rivers, is the only village on your right till you reach Thundorf, where there is a ferry over to Nieder Altaich; on the left are the Halbe-meile-kirche, and two or three small hamlets.

Nieder Altaich, another Benedictine convent[20], and, at one time, the most important that the order possessed in Bavaria; its annual income being not less than one hundred thousand florins; stands at the foot of the frowning Böhmer-wald, which here again bends its bushy brows upon the bright river. Saint Parminius is said to have acted the same scene here which has already been described in the notice of Ober Altaich. And Uttilo II., not contented with having founded that kloster, brought hither an equal number of monks from the same monastery of Reichenau, and established them in a like manner. Its abbot soon became the richest in Bavaria; but the Hungarians, in the tenth century, ravaged the country with fire and sword, and Nieder Altaich suffered the fate of its prototype. In 990, however, it was rebuilt, and still more richly endowed by the Emperor Otto, and Henry Duke of Bavaria. Saint Gotthard came barefooted from Reichersdorf, where he was born in 965, of humble parents, and from a monk became abbot, and lastly, bishop of Hildesheim, where he died, A.D. 1035. The monks of Nieder Altaich, it appears, gradually forgot the pious lessons and fair example of Saint Gotthard; which, during his life, had materially improved the reputation of the community; for in 1282, we find them making a riddle of their abbot with arrows, from an ambush on the river side, as he is crossing the ferry to Thundorf[21]. The abbots, themselves, also, were many of them unworthy successors of that holy man. One of the last superiors of this kloster, for instance, by name Augustin Ziegler, not contented with expending annually upwards of ninety thousand florins, ran the fraternity into a debt of nearly one hundred thousand before he was _invited_ to retire from the cares of office, and live in peace at Straubing, upon a slender annuity. In the “Topographischen Lexicon von Baiern,” 2s., 508., is the following account of this worthy prelate, who seems to have formed a very tolerable idea of the “otium cum dignitate,” which should bless an abbot of Benedictines. “Besides his valet he had two pages. On his name-day all the principal persons of the government of Straubing assembled in the grand refectory of Nieder Altaich. A band of trumpets and kettle-drums was in attendance, from daybreak, facing his chamber window, and the moment his Excellency (for he had purchased the title of a privy councillor) opened his eyes, the pages undrew the curtains of cloth of gold, amidst a flourish from the trumpets and kettle-drums without, while a battery of small mortars proclaimed in thunder to the surrounding country, the dawning of the name-day of this important personage.” His conduct, however, soon became so notorious that he was compelled to resign, and retire upon an annual allowance of two hundred ducats and ten eimers of wine. Ten times has this kloster been burned down, and rebuilt each time more magnificently; till at last, if we may believe Lackner’s account, the very oxen of the community eat out of marble mangers--“pecora fecit in marmore pabulari!”

A little beyond Nieder Altaich, upon the same bank, is the town of Hengersberg, with its old castle, given, in 1212, by Altnann von Helingersberg to Saint Mauritius, then abbot of that kloster. The Danube formerly flowed over part of the bank, and, what is now the lazzar-house, was, at that time, the river toll-house. At Hengersberg, the Danube again turns from the Bohemian mountains, as wearied with its unavailing efforts to penetrate the giant line; but the gentle eminences which still skirt its left bank are enough to preserve its superiority to that of the right, which, all the way from Ratisbon, with the solitary exception of the Natternberg, had not presented one hillock to break the long, low line of shore, more in keeping with the sluggish stream of a Dutch canal, than with the rapid waves of the “boiling Danube,” an epithet, by the bye, more descriptive than any other of its singular current, which, whether running fast or slowly, keeps up a constant whirling, eddying, and bubbling, accompanied by a low hissing sound which (pardon, gentle reader, the humble comparison) reminded our English ears of nothing so much as the singing of a tea-kettle. After passing a handful of villages, whose almost unpronounceable names shall be presented hereafter, in their due order, to the curious in consonants, we glided by Osterhofen, a little town on the side of a small hill, a short distance from the shore. It is one of the oldest towns in Bavaria, and was the site of the Castra Petrensia. The Avars, who desolated the banks of the Danube during the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, here suffered a serious defeat; and the victory having been gained on an Easter Sunday, the town took the name of _Oster_-hofen, and still bears in its arms a Paschal lamb. In the meadow where the battle was fought, and named from that event, “Oster-wiese,” stood Kloster Oster-hofen, erected in honour of, and gratitude for, the defeat of the barbarians. Hither Uttilo II. brought some more of his friends, the Benedictines; but the barbarians returned in 765, thirsting for vengeance, and gratified it by razing the Kloster to the ground. It was rebuilt, but the rest of its history is neither clear nor interesting. The indefatigable Uttilo is supposed to have been buried here, where also lie, according to report, which may be said to _lie_ also, nine of the eleven thousand virgins who suffered martyrdom with Saint Ursula at Cologne.

Below Osterhofen, on the left, are the picturesque ruins of the Castle of Hoch-Winzer, or Ober-Winzer, over the little town of the same name. Both town and castle received this appellation from the considerable vineyards which flourished here; but who the Lords of Winzer were, or what feats they achieved, Schultes says he has not been able to discover: all that is known about them is, that they lie buried at Osterhofen. The Pandours reduced the castle to its present ruinous condition in 1741[22]. Flinschbach, built, in 1230, by the Counts of Bogen, and three or four other villages of still less note, on each side of the river, enliven the scene, till the ruins of the Castle of Hofkirchen rise on the left bank; in the fourteenth century, the residence of the powerful Counts of Ortenburg, the sworn enemies of the Counts of Bogen, and the terror of all navigators of the Danube. What, with barefaced plundering, and the exercise of a self-erected right, called “grundruhr,” which literally signifies grounding, scarcely a vessel escaped the clutches of these robber lords. This right of grundruhr entitled them to take possession of every vessel, with its crew and cargo, that grounded upon any bank, shoal, or island, within their domain. If it but grated on the sand, or brushed the shore, it was immediately pronounced “grundrürhrig” by the armed vassals of the noble bandit, who were continually on the watch, and who made no scruple of chasing the unfortunate schiffers till they drove them aground, and then coolly laid _legal_ claim to their property.

Nearly opposite Winzer is Kinzing, or Kinzen, the Castra Quintana, or Augusta Quintanorum Colonia of the Romans, upon a small height, from whence a little brook leaps into the Danube. Several miracles are related of Saint Severinus, who resided here during the fifth century, how he saved the place from inundation, by planting a cross on the river’s bank; how he brought his dead friend Sylvin to life again, in the wooden church that stood outside the walls, and how Sylvin took it in exceeding ill part, and insisted on dying again immediately. “I beg of thee, I conjure thee,” exclaimed the indignant Sylvin, “not to rouse me from the rest which God has appointed for me! Why hast thou awakened me? Why hast thou brought me back into a world, into which I never more wish to return?” The Saint, I suspect, looked uncommonly silly on receiving this unexpected rap on the knuckles: his apology, if one he made, has not come down to us. The _fact_ is related on the authority of a young peasant girl, who hid herself in the church, on purpose to witness the miracle which she suspected was about to be performed; and it would be the height of impertinence, under such circumstances, to inquire into particulars.

By the time we had reached Kinzing,

“Morn, her rosy steps in th’ orient clime,
Advancing, sowed the earth with eastern pearl;”

And as we made the point which brought us in view of the fine old ruin of Hildegartsberg, the sun rising immediately behind it shot his glorious rays, like golden arrows; through the loop-holes and windows of its bare and blackened walls, that frowned still darker from the blaze of light behind them. It was a scene in which the spirit of that daring artist, Turner, would have revelled. My companion, who had given me tolerable proofs during our passage from London to Ostend; that he could “sleep in spite of thunder,” was awakened by my raptures; and we stood, at the head of the boat, gazing at the beautiful picture, and basking in the welcome beams of “the great lamp by which the world is blest,” till the river, suddenly taking a new direction, brought us again into the shadow of the left bank, and showed us Vilshofen, with its long light bridge and pretty gardens laughing in the sunshine, at the farther extremity of the valley we had now entered. Little appears to be known about Hildegartsberg further than that it was like so many other castles on the Rhine, the Danube, etc., the hold of some robber knight, noble, or priest, of the middle ages, and destroyed by Duke Albert of Austria, in 1346.

That most delightful of all chroniclers, Froissart, who commenced his interesting annals shortly after this period, gives a lamentable account of the brutality and avarice of the nobility and clergy of Germany. “When a German hath taken a prisoner,” (says he,) “he putteth him into irons, and into hard prison, without any pity, to make him pay the greater finance and ransom.”[23] Again, “They are a covetous people above all other. They have no pity if they have the upper hand, and they demean themselves with cruelty to their prisoners. They put them to sundry pains, to compel them to make their ransoms greater; and, if they have a lord or a great man for their captive, they make great joy thereof, and will convey him into Bohemia, Austria, or Saxony, and keep him in some uninhabitable castle. They are people worse than Saracens or Paynims; for their excessive covetousness quencheth the knowledge of honour;”[24] and Schmidt[25] tells us, that an archbishop thought he had a fair revenue before him, when he built his fortress on the junction of four “roads.”

Nearly facing Hildegartsberg is Pleinting, a small market-town, at which the plain stretching from the gates of Regensburg, along the right bank of the Danube, at last terminates, and the beauty of the river really commences. The road from Straubing runs beside it, upon a sort of terrace, and the sight of a post-chariot whirling along, recalled our wandering thoughts from the dark but interesting ages into which the contemplation of ruined tower and cloister grey had led them, to the less romantic, but, in our situation, equally interesting prospect, of a good inn and a capital breakfast. Alas! it seemed as if neither were to be found in Vilshofen, or, at least, that it was decreed we should not meet with them. Gilt lions, red stags, white horses, and blue bulls; apples and orange trees, as a herald would say, “proper;” crowns and coronets, and heads every way worthy of them; suns, moons, and stars, “yea, the great globe itself,” swung to and fro in the morning breeze, in every direction, and in endless variety; but in vain, from spot to spot, “with courteous action, they waved us to a more removed ground.” The exteriors of these caravanserais alone were promising. If “houses of entertainment” they were, that quality seemed entirely restricted to the outside. Their newly white-washed walls, and neatly painted green doors and shutters, surmounted by one of the glittering ensigns aforesaid, but served to make the dark gulf of the long, low-roofed, rambling, unfurnished, smoky speise-saal, appear more dreary, dirty, and uncomfortable; and it was some time before even hunger, that least ceremonious of all sensations, could induce us to make the plunge. Having at last screwed up our courage to the sticking-place, we rushed into--the Moon, I believe; made the hostess stare, by drinking four or five “portions” of coffee, which turned out better than we expected, and ate a most respectable quantum of tolerable “butter brod” and half a dozen eggs; for the whole of which we paid twenty kreutzers (about sixpence English) each, being then charged at least double what would have been demanded of their own countrymen.

Vilshofen was the Villa Quintanica of the Romans, and is situated at the confluence of the river Vils with the Danube. Rapoto, Count of Ortenburg, fortified it in the eleventh century; and its history from that period is little more than an unbroken narrative of takings and retakings, plunderings and burnings, down to the end of the last war. Its principal trade is in beer; for a particular sort of which beverage it has been long celebrated: and its principal building is an ecclesiastical establishment, for which I cannot find an English name to my liking, that owes its foundation to the following circumstance:--Heinrich Tuschl, knight of Saldenau, upon ocular proof of his wife’s infidelity, condemned the miserable woman to be walled up alive, abjured the company, and shunned the sight of females, and left the greater part of his property in 1376 to found this establishment. Upon the charter was written:

“2 Hund an ain Bain;
Ich Tuschl bleib allain.”

“Two dogs to one bone;
I Tuschl bide alone.”[26]

Having re-embarked and passed under the wooden bridge, on the centre of which is a crucifix, we passed by Hacheldorf, which forms a kind of suburb to Vilshofen, and the market town of Windorf, famous for boat-building. Near Hansbach the little Wolfach falls into the Danube; and below this spot the river boils over numberless sunken rocks, many of which show their white heads above the water, studding the stream in all directions. Shortly afterwards the river narrows, and a slight fall, or what our sailors call a race, ensues. The watermen, who magnify the little difficulties of this navigation into the most astounding dangers, call this “das gefürchtete Sandbach!” The cottages on the banks now assumed a Swiss appearance, being all of wood, with galleries across their gables, and far-projecting roofs. A slight change was also perceivable in the costume of the women; the little black silk cap, with its long ribbon streamers, had given place to a dark-coloured cotton handkerchief, bound closely round the head, and tied in a knot behind, the ends hanging down. The impetus given to the current by the little fall now carried us merrily along, to the great delight of our lazy boatmen, who made it a point of conscience not to wag a finger when they could possibly avoid it, past Gaishofen, where a small stream called the Gaisach joins the Danube, and Heining on the right bank, and Dobelstein (formerly called Engelberg) on the left. For a new road cut through the rocks on the very brink of the river, by which nearly six English miles are saved in posting to Passau, Bavaria and its visiters are indebted to Maximilian-Joseph, the father of the present monarch, Louis I. who, treading in the footsteps of his excellent sire, inherits not only his crown but the affection of his people; and by his unbounded kindness and liberality to the professors of the fine arts, has obtained throughout the continent the honourable addition to his style, of “the King of the Learned.” In the tour, of which this descent of the Danube formed a part, I travelled nearly all over Bavaria, and had the gratification of hearing the praises of its king from all lips and in all places; not the mere mouth-homage which betrays itself by the cold precision of the language in which it is couched, but the ebullition of feeling rushing pure from the heart, and leaping the barriers of ceremony in its honest ardour. “Our king is a good fellow,” is the homely but expressive phrase in which his character is invariably summed up by all who speak of him. Shortly after he came to the throne, he disbanded an expensive body-guard, and on being questioned as to the policy of the act, he replied, “We are at peace; why should I burden my people with an unnecessary expense? as for myself, I want no regiment to protect me, my fellow-citizens are my body-guard.” In a very handsome new street erecting in Munich by his order, there is an unseemly gap occasioned by an antique isolated house standing edgeways in the centre of the modern buildings. On expressing our surprise that it was allowed to remain there, we were told that it belonged to an old general, who had resisted every proposal for its demolition, and it having been suggested to the king to compel him, his answer was, “No, no, let him have his way; he is an old man, and has perchance but a few years to live; I will not abridge their number by annoying him.” His majesty frequently takes a country walk alone, or with but one attendant, and, dressed like a farmer, chats freely and jocularly with the peasantry; never leaving them, however, without some mark of his bounty.

I cannot be expected to vouch for the truth of these anecdotes as far as regards their details or the exact expressions used, but they are amongst the many in general circulation; and an excellent modern tourist has justly remarked, that “an anecdote in general circulation, even though not strictly true in point of fact, will commonly be accordant to the character of the person of whom it is related, and will thus be a correct, though perhaps a fictitious illustration of his mode of acting.” The person of Louis is worthy his noble character; intelligence and spirit are visible in every line of his countenance; a high forehead, large and deeply-set dark eyes, to which a profusion of black hair, pushed carelessly off the temples, and dark upturned mustachios, would give something like an expression of fierceness, were it not for the benignant smile which plays about his mouth when addressing you. His queen, too, is renowned for her beauty and affability; and, in short, a more handsome and deservedly popular pair never graced a continental throne.

But to return to the Danube, from whence I have wandered to pay my humble tribute of praise to one of the best of monarchs. By the side of the new road before mentioned is the statue of a lion-couchant upon a pedestal, and placed upon a jutting rock, with an inscription beneath it stating the chaussée to have been made by command of Maximilian-Joseph I., King of Bavaria. In a few minutes after you have passed this monument, the towers of the church of Maria-hilf appear above the hills, and shortly afterwards the cathedral of Passau, and the old fort of Oberhaus on the opposite height, are seen rising over the foliage of an island in the centre of the river. The approach to the city between the island and the left bank is most beautiful; and whoever is acquainted with the scenery of the Rhine will immediately acknowledge, that it has not improperly obtained the appellation of “the Coblentz of the Danube.”

FOOTNOTES (CHAPTER II)

[14] Professor Schultes says, the date on the tombstone is incorrect, and that it should be October 12th, 1435, as Albert married again 1436. The bridge from which she was precipitated, was that which crossed the old arm of the Danube, and no longer exists. The present bridge passes over the new branch of the river, that washes the town and connects its northern side with the Island called the Donauwiese, in which the famous Sossau fair, which began on the Sunday after Michaelmas, and lasted eight days, was formerly held.

[15] The original castle of a particular family--the cradle of the race. _Schloss_ is, however, a most convenient word, as it not only stands for a castle or a palace, but for those buildings which are both or neither. The _chateaux_ of France, and the _seats_ or _mansions_ of England.

[16] The Archbishop of Cologne, in a Letter to the Pope.

[17] Henry Döring has a ballad on this subject, entitled, “Die Zeugen,” (the Witnesses.) Vide ‘Ruinen oder Taschenbüch zür Geschicte verfalener Ritterburgen und Schlosser, etc. Wien, 1826. 1 Sammlung.’ One might be pardoned for supposing the proverb of “Walls have ears,” to have arisen from this adventure.

[18]
“Tausend sechs hundert zehn und acht,
Am dritten Pfingstag, nach Mittnacht.
Schlug das Wildfeur oben ein,
Lief aus dem Thurm in d’kirch hinein;
Die kirch gesteckt voll Kirchfarther war
Der brennets viel: zwey sturben gar.
In diesem Schreken, Strauss, und Brauss
Drang alle welt zur Kirchen auss;
Der gross Gewalt erdruckt ohnverschon
Vier manns und zehen weibsperson
Da liegn ihr in zwey Grabern todt
Drey Mann, sibn Weiber: tröst sie Gott.”
‘Hemmauer,’ a. a. O. 357.

[19] The whole of these circumstances, from the stealing of the Host to the granting of the Bull, are represented in paintings on the walls of the church. Nearly the same story is told at Bruxelles of three miraculous wafers, which were stolen and stabbed by Jews, in 1369; and for which imputed crime, several of that persecuted people were burnt alive, by order of Duke Wenceslaus. The author of ‘Les Délices des Pays Bas’ tells us, that, “Les hosties et les marques durent encore aujourd’hui, et ne souffrent pas qu’on les approche _sans je me sçai quelle horreur toute sainte_. On les garde pour un gage particulier de la protection divine envers la ville de Brusselles.” Vol. i. p. 121. It appears that the Deggendorfers owed the Jews a considerable sum of money; it is, therefore, most probable that the story was got up to enable them, as the debt grew troublesome, to wash it out in blood. Vide ‘Das obsiegende Glaubenswunder des ganzen Christl. Churlandes Baiern willsagen _unlaugbarer_ Bericht, etc.’ 8vo. Deggendorf, 1814.

[20] “So soon another,” says Schultes, “I think I hear the traveller and the reader exclaim, who may not be acquainted with the magnitude of this order.” And then he proceeds to give, from Hemmauer, the following list of popes, priests, emperors, kings, etc. who had, up to that time, embraced the Order of Saint Benedict: viz. “Sixty-three popes, two hundred and twenty-three cardinals, two hundred and fifty-five patriarchs, sixteen thousand archbishops, forty-six thousand bishops, twenty-one emperors, twenty-five empresses, forty-eight kings, fifty-four queens, one hundred and forty-six imperial and royal children, and four hundred and forty-five sovereign princes and dukes!” Donaufahrten, tom. i. 8. 374. note.

[21] Memoriale, seu Altachiæ inferioris memoria superstes, ex tabulis, annalibus, diplomatis, etc. 6. Joan. Bapt. Lackner etc. Fol. Passavii, 1779.

[22] Schultes says, in 1740; but this must be a mistake, as Maria Theresa was not crowned Queen of Hungary till the 25th of June, 1741; and it was after that ceremony that, clad in deep mourning, with the crown of St. Stephen on her head, and the scimitar at her side, she made the affecting address to the Diet, which, rousing the whole nation, brought its numerous tribes from the banks of the Save, the Drave, the Teiss and the Danube, to the royal standard. These troops, under the names of Croats, Pandours, Sclavonians, Warasdinians, and Tolpaches, exhibited a new and astonishing spectacle to the eyes of Europe. By their dress and arms, by the ferocity of their manners, and their singular mode of combat, they struck terror into the disciplined armies of Germany and France. Vide Coxe’s ‘History of the House of Austria,’ 8vo. vol. iv. p. 442.--Baron Riesbeck, who also dates the circumstance 1740, says, “When the Hungarian nobility took the field for their _king_ Maria Theresa, the first sight of such troops struck the French army with a panic. They had, indeed, often seen detachments of these ‘_Diables d’Hongrie_,’ as they used to call them; but a whole army, drawn up in battle array, unpowdered from the general to the common soldier, half their faces covered with long whiskers, a sort of round beaver on their heads instead of hats, without ruffles or frills to their shirts, and without feathers, all clad in rough skins, monstrous crooked sabres, ready drawn and uplifted, their eyes darting flashes of rage sharper than the beams of their naked sabres, was a sight our men had not been accustomed to see.” (It must be remembered that Riesbeck, though a German, writes in the character of a Frenchman.) “Our oldest officers still remember the impression these terrible troops made, and how difficult it was to make the men stand against them, till they had been accustomed to their formidable appearance.” Pinkerton’s Collect. vol. vi. p. 112.

[23] Liv. i. ch. 433.

[24] Liv. ii. ch. 125.

[25] Geschichte der Deutschen.

[26] The canons or prebends of this establishment have the word “allain,” (“alone,”) inscribed upon their arms, their clothes, and their houses. Schultes tells us that a wag Latinised it “Solus cum sola.”