Chapter III

Our camp was pitched very near the boundary line between Baden and Hohenzollern, and a short distance above Sigmaringen, the residential town of Prince Hohenzollern. We were prepared to meet a certain degree of stateliness in the tiny capital, and our anticipations were strengthened by the sight of a well-kept park on the river-bank long before the town came in view. There were summer-houses and pleasure-boats and other indications that the place belonged to somebody of importance in the neighborhood. Further, the natural scenery was marred by the conversion of a large overhanging limestone cliff into a mortuary slab in memory of a princess who died in 1841, and whose virtues were set forth in metal letters a foot long. We expected, then, to find the town distinguished by equal pretensions and bad taste, knowing too well how much destruction can be wrought in these modern times by the engines at command of every long purse. To our surprise and delight, however, the panorama which spread out before us as we approached Sigmaringen was one of great beauty, and the town, imposingly situated on a high promontory, made an unusually fine focus in the composition. We found on near acquaintance that the architecture, though not unpleasing, was by no means particularly interesting, and we did not delay there longer than was necessary to purchase a few stores.

About forty miles by rail and road to the north of Sigmaringen is the great castle of Hohenzollern, the seat of the imperial family of Prussia. The present castle is of modern construction, having been begun by Frederick William IV. and finally completed in 1867. It is remarkably bold in situation and commanding in appearance, and, although it has seldom sheltered any of the imperial family of late years, is kept up with great care and is garrisoned by quite a large force of troops.

Sigmaringen marks the lower limit of the series of rocky gorges into which the river plunges near Friedigen, and soon after leaving the town we came into a more pastoral region again, similar to that of our first day’s cruise. The flora changed somewhat, and fewer varieties of plants were noticeable. Alfred Parsons makes the following remarks in his botanical note-book: “Below Sigmaringen the meadow flora becomes more like that of England, but still with campanulas and purple sage; also occasionally a bright crimson dianthus with clusters of flowers. In an ash wood beneath which we camped was an undergrowth of _Spiræa aruncus_, all in bloom, five or six feet in height; in the wood also were Turk’s-cap lilies, Jacobs-ladder, tall, pale-yellow phyteuma, and commonly, near the river, gelder-rose bushes and clumps of forget-me-nots and white water-buttercups. The general impression of the flora is a greater prevalence of purple and blue flowers.”

Frequent villages dot the hill-sides on either side of the broad, fertile valley, and the river begins to feel a new tyranny of man in the partial canalization of its channel. The current now increased in speed between the artificially straightened banks, and, counting the kilometre marks as we swept along, we found we were making seven and a half kilometres (nearly five miles) an hour without lifting a paddle. A more satisfactory mode of progression never fell to the lot of any traveller. Perfect summer weather, a comfortable canoe to lounge in, beautiful landscapes on all sides;

and a vigorous current under the keel which gave an exhilarating sense of added strength, much like that felt when riding a spirited horse. Nothing more could be desired except, perhaps, unlimited time in which to enjoy such pleasant recreation. Haste was, indeed, a slight drawback to our enjoyment. We did not dare delay, for the season was already in its full prime, and we knew that the gales began in the lower river as early as the first week of September; besides, one of the party had only a limited number of weeks at his disposal. Under other circumstances we would have spent a day or more at Riedlingen, where we found most interesting architecture along the river-front and saw a party of nuns at work in a hay-field. We had a little more social success with them than we did with their coreligionists, the monks at Beuron, for they turned their great, cool, flapping head-dresses in our direction, and actually seemed temporarily interested in our canoes, and in us as well.

A threatening storm drove us to seek shelter at dinnertime in a rural gasthaus in a little priest-ridden hamlet where a morose landlady gave us excellent bread and milk in rude earthen bowls, and was prevailed upon to part with some of her store of fresh bread and eggs. The peasants came hurrying into the village to escape the rain, their creaking carts piled high with hay and the sturdy little horses white with sweat. It was a ready-made picture from “Hermann and Dorothea.” We had occasion to regret in the night that we had not brought our tents, for it rained steadily for hours, and the rubber blankets rigged on the paddles made an inefficient shelter against the driving storm. But we were none the worse the next morning, and as soon as the ring of scythes of the women mowing in the next field woke us from our sound sleep we were up, cooked breakfast, and were soon off down pleasant reaches with overhanging rocks and occasional ruins frowning down from the pinnacled crags.

Every mile or two we passed a village, each more picturesque than its neighbor, and all with sonorous names that suggest places of great importance--Rechtenstein, Obermarschthal, Munderkingen, Rottenacker. Each village had its weir and its mill, and sometimes two of them. Various accidents occurred, none of them of a startling nature, and none resulting in anything worse than temporary

inconvenience. The Admiral of the fleet, trusting too much in his knowledge of river navigation, swamped his canoe in a weir, and would have been in a sad strait but for the timely assistance of some mill hands. The canoes got some heavy bumping at times while we were shooting rapids below the weirs; but there was little or no injury done to them, and the only actual loss of property was one favorite brierwood pipe--a loss which will appeal to the sympathy of every smoker who has tried the pipes of central Europe. We happened to reach Rottenacker at noon, when a great procession of rustics, armed with every imaginable kind of haymaking implements, was crossing the bridge to their labors after the mid-day meal. They halted on the bridge, looking for all the world like a detachment from Monmouth’s army, and watched us run the canoes over the weir. They gave a hoarse shout of approval of our skill, and after we had dashed down under the great wooden bridge they marched off in almost martial array, and scattered over the broad meadows like skirmishers. An hour later we reached the last weir on the river at the village of Oepfingen, and, confident from the appearance of the water that the canoes would float on it with our weight, we triumphantly paddled over the crest and shot safely into the boiling pool below. We had counted in all only twenty-one weirs and dams, although the different accounts of expeditions in the upper river give the number as twenty-five between Donaueschingen and Ulm. In all probability the unusually high water covered some of the smaller ones, and we consequently failed to make a record of them.

Below the last weir the river is monotonous and the country not particularly interesting. Turnip-topped church-spires rise above the red-tiled roofs of villages clustered on the hill-sides, and but for these features of the landscape the river might be the Thames or the Avon. Soon, however, several vigorous streams add their waters to the main current, its speed and strength rapidly increases, and its course is regulated into a straight and canal-like channel. Not realizing the speed of our progress as we floated along, we came in sight of the village of Erbach on the hills to the left of the river much earlier in the afternoon than we expected, and at the same moment saw, far beyond in the blue distance, as faintly outlined as a delicate cloud-form, the great tower of the Cathedral of Ulm breaking the low horizon line. We at once took to our paddles and increased our pace, urged on by the sight of our goal for the night and the beginning of our cruise in the navigable river. In full sight of the city, some two miles away, we passed the Iller, rushing in with a broad, pale-green flood and a strange hissing noise like the escape of gas from soda-water, and then the Danube, reinforced in strength and in volume, tore along with almost angry speed, and showed great swirls where the pale waters of the Iller wrestled with the opaque yellow of the larger stream. We saw by the white waters at the buttresses of the railway bridge as we dashed past that we had to deal with a current far more powerful than any we had yet navigated, and accordingly approached the left shore with some caution, as there was a high wall along the water’s edge and only an occasional practicable landing-place. With all our efforts to stop our head-way we found ourselves obliged to turn the bow up-stream and paddle hard to keep from being swept past the town. In this way we came alongside the float of the Donau Ruder Verein (Danube Rowing Club), and landed, welcomed by a delegation from the committee of the club, who had heard of our intended visit. They gave us a hand to carry the canoes up to the boat-house and made room for them on the padded trestles.

The club boat-house is a fair-sized building, well enough constructed for the purpose, and conveniently fitted up with quarters for the crews and stowage room for the boats, which number nearly a score, several of them from famous makers in England, but mostly of German build. Notwithstanding the disadvantages of rowing in so rapid a current, and the difficulties of launching and landing the boats, the members practise with great enthusiasm, and the club has a remarkably good record in the boating annals of Germany. The committee placed all the resources of the institution at our command, and not only gave us every assistance in repairing the slight damages which our canoes had suffered in the rough treatment they had received at the weirs, but made other generous offers of hospitality. The president, who is a mechanical genius of considerable fame as well as an enthusiastic sportsman and a traveller, was devoted to our interests, and made every moment of our stay agreeable. Before we departed our ex-cook presented the club with his famous coffee machine as a slight acknowledgment of their kindness to us. We have never learned how much the ranks of the Donau Ruder Verein have been decimated by the use of this dangerous invention.

Ulm, whether it be approached by land or by water, has the uninteresting external appearance of any modern military stronghold, for it is surrounded by great fortifications, and an elaborately constructed citadel occupies the whole of a flat point opposite the town on the right bank of the river. The old town itself, once the military barrier is passed, is a marvel of architecture and a maze of narrow, crooked thoroughfares, many of them scarcely worthy to be dignified by the name of streets. The wonderful cathedral, next in size to that at Cologne, with the loftiest stone tower in the world, is not to be adequately described within the limits of this narrative, nor was it, indeed, thoroughly examined by us on this hasty visit. The town offered so much to occupy our attention and command our admiration that we could only pause to study briefly each superb monument of ancient art and hurry on to the next. The restless river with its rushing current had communicated its nervous haste to our spirits, and within twenty-four hours we had seen the town, repaired and repacked our canoes, adjusted the appliances intended for use in the large river below, and were waiting only for the farewell festivities in the boat club to come to an end in order to launch our canoes to the “Hip! hip!” of our sporting friends.

The president of the rowing club, with an enthusiastic young friend, accompanied us in our start from Ulm, in one tiny, home-made canoe which floated scarcely an inch above the water. Their scorn of the dangers of the curling flood filled us with admiration, but we could not affect the indifference which is born only of long familiarity with the Danube, and proceeded with our usual care. Great yellow billows surged against the stone piers of the old bridge as we shot with dizzy speed through the shadow of the arch out into the broad stream below. It began to rain, but we paddled all the harder in order to reach the village of Günzburg as early as possible, so that we might have time to dine and afterwards make camp before dark. The rain did not in anywise diminish our ardor for sleeping in the canoes, for we had passed a feverish night in a stuffy hotel bedroom and longed for the air and freedom of our camp.

The stork’s nest on the highest gable of the interesting old town was scarcely visible in the twilight when we paddled away after a jovial dinner with our friends, who were to ship themselves and their canoe back to Ulm by train. As we pushed out into the stream the distances were so exaggerated by the dim light that the Danube now looked like a broad lake or an arm of the sea, and the strongly eddying current twisted our paddles with a vicious persistence that warned us to be circumspect in choosing a landing-place in the uncertain light. Luck more than judgment directed us to a pretty little secluded meadow where, for the first time, we made camp in regular order, tents and all.

The question of choosing camp was, as we now fully understood, a more or less difficult one, for, as the three canoes were seldom very near together on the river, it would be practically impossible to fix on a desirable place by common agreement at the time of camping. We therefore appointed the most experienced camper a committee of one to choose the camp in the future, and agreed to abide by his decision. A special instinct, or at least an accurate and ready judgment, must be the absolute qualification of the one who chooses halting-places along a river like the Danube, for the current, running as it does from three to six miles an hour, makes it impossible to make the selection at leisure. Before there is time to weigh the reasons for and against the spot the stream has carried the canoe past the landing-place, and return is practically out of the question. We demanded of our camp grounds more and at the same time less than the ordinary cruiser. First, they must be in as agreeable a landscape as possible, for as we spent several hours of daylight there we wanted to sketch and to enjoy the scenery. Then they must be so situated that the canoes could be drawn up readily and prepared for the night without carrying the traps too far. On the other hand, sand, turf, or smooth surface of the ground, though desirable, was, fortunately, not an absolute necessity, as they would have been if we had not slept in our canoes. Further, as we used spirits for cooking, we did not have to consider the question of wood, and the absence of fire made our camps very little objectionable to the farmers. Indeed, we were made welcome to temporary occupation in every instance but one, and on that occasion the farmer evidently thought we intended to remain all summer long, for he began to talk about the second crop of grass. A largess of German coin of the value of ten cents made him waive all objections and give us the freedom of his meadow.