Читать книгу The Danube from the Black Forest to the Black Sea онлайн

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MAX SCHNECKENBURGER, AUTHOR OF “DIE WACHT AM RHEIN”

[From an old portrait]

had spread far and wide, and it was the hour of leisure, so the Tuttlingers had assembled by thousands along the banks and on the bridges to see the mad strangers come to grief in the cataract on the great weir. The sight of the black masses of people stimulated us almost to rashness, and, without mutual consultation, we steered straight for some snags which had caught on the angle of the weir, and jumping out into the knee-deep water, each of us shot his canoe over at the end of the painter fastened to the stern and, holding the line, scrambled down the incline where the water was shallowest, jumped into his canoe and swept away under the second bridge. All this was done in very little longer time than it takes to tell about it. When the three canoes appeared almost simultaneously in the smooth water below the second bridge, shouts of “Hip! Hip!” and “Glückliche Reise!” echoed from the hill-sides to the towers of Honberg Castle. We replied in chorus “Schneckenburger soll hoch leben!” and dramatically disappeared in the gathering darkness. A half-dozen youths, ambitious to discover where and how we were going to pass the night, followed us along the bank, and we were loath to make our first camp until we had gotten rid of them. We accordingly paddled on and on, scarcely able to see the banks, and at last found an apparently secluded spot and landed. We hauled up the canoes into the dew-drenched meadow, made our simple preparations for the night, and lay down in the snug, warm cockpits. The first night in camp is never a very restful one, and the unaccustomed and somewhat cramped berth with all sorts of sharp projecting corners and the hardest of floors, did not assist our slumbers. Nor did the visit of a bevy of peasant girls who had ventured out from a neighboring farm-house, which we had not noticed in the darkness, help us to lose consciousness as they stood for a long time in the moonlight chattering in soft voices and repeating the story of our exploit at the great weir, which had evidently been related to them by the youths whom we had successfully dodged when we landed. The heavy dew obliged us to cover up our berths in some way, and we tried the rubber blanket as the proper article for such a purpose. This was far too hot. Then we tried the deck hatches, which shut down so closely that they left no room for us to turn over and, besides, were as hot as the rubber blanket. So we passed the night between fitful naps and impatient struggles with temporary roofs. The sun had not begun to dissipate the river fog before we had taken our plunge and were ready for breakfast. By general understanding, the experienced cruiser, or Admiral of the fleet, was expected to do the cooking, and he had made elaborate preparations for this duty. The other two hungry members of the expedition watched the operation of preparing this first breakfast with eager interest, listening meanwhile to the words of wisdom which came from the chef as he sat in his canoe wedged into the narrow cockpit by all the paraphernalia of his temporary trade.