Happy to slip beyond the control of the stern banks, the Danube here
wanders about at will among the intricate network of channels intersecting
the islands everywhere with broad avenues down which the waters pour with a
shouting sound; making whirlpools, eddies, and foaming rapids; tearing at
the sandy banks; carrying away masses of shore and willow-clumps; and
forming new islands innumerably which shift daily in size and shape and
possess at best an impermanent life, since the flood-time obliterates their
very existence.

Properly speaking, this fascinating part of the river's life begins soon
after leaving Pressburg, and we, in our Canadian canoe, with gipsy tent and
frying-pan on board, reached it on the crest of a rising flood about
mid-July. That very same morning, when the sky was reddening before
sunrise, we had slipped swiftly through still-sleeping Vienna, leaving it a
couple of hours later a mere patch of smoke against the blue hills of the
Wienerwald on the horizon; we had breakfasted below Fischeramend under a
grove of birch trees roaring in the wind; and had then swept on the tearing
current past Orth, Hainburg, Petronell (the old Roman Carnuntum of Marcus
Aurelius), and so under the frowning heights of Thelsen on a spur of the
Carpathians, where the March steals in quietly from the left and the
frontier is crossed between Austria and Hungary.

Racing along at twelve kilometers an hour soon took us well into Hungary,
and the muddy waters--sure sign of flood--sent us aground on many a
shingle-bed, and twisted us like a cork in many a sudden belching whirlpool
before the towers of Pressburg (Hungarian, Poszony) showed against the sky;
and then the canoe, leaping like a spirited horse, flew at top speed under
the grey walls, negotiated safely the sunken chain of the Fliegende Brucke
ferry, turned the corner sharply to the left, and plunged on yellow foam