is quarter of the Black Forest was inhabited, the source of the
Danube might have suggested some of those sublime images which Armstrong
has so finely described; at present, the contrast is most striking. The
Spring appears in a capacious stone Basin in front of a Ducal palace,
with a pleasure-ground opposite; then, passing under the pavement, takes
the form of a little, clear, bright, black, vigorous rill, barely wide
enough to tempt the agility of a child five years old to leap over
it,--and entering the garden, it joins, after a course of a few hundred
yards, a stream much more considerable than itself. The _copiousness_ of
the spring at _Doneschingen_ must have procured for it the honour of
being named the Source of the Danube.

277. _The Staub-bach_. [XII.]

'The Staub-bach' is a narrow Stream, which, after a long course on the
heights, comes to the sharp edge of a somewhat overhanging precipice,
overleaps it with a bound, and, after a fall of 930 feet, forms again a
rivulet. The vocal powers of these musical Beggars may seem to be
exaggerated; but this wild and savage air was utterly unlike any sounds
I had ever heard; the notes reached me from a distance, and on what
occasion they were sung I could not guess, only they seemed to belong,
in some way or other, to the Waterfall--and reminded me of religious
services chanted to Streams and Fountains in Pagan times. Mr. Southey
has thus accurately characterised the peculiarity of this music: 'While
we were at the Waterfall, some half-score peasants, chiefly women and
girls, assembled just out of reach of the Spring, and set up--surely,
the wildest chorus that ever was heard by human ears,--a song not of
articulate sounds, but in which the voice was used as a mere instrument
of music, more flexible than any which art could produce,--sweet,
powerful, and thrilling beyond description.'--See Notes to 'A Tale of
Paraguay.'

278. _Memorial near the Outlet of the Lake of Thun_. [XIV.]

Dem
Andenken
Meines Freundes
ALOYS REDING
MDCCCXVIII.

Aloys Reding, it will be remembered, was Captain-General of the Swiss
Forces, which with a courage and perseverance worthy of the cause,
opposed the flagitious and too successful attempt of Buonaparte to
subjugate their country.

279. _Engelbery_. [XVIII.]

The Convent whose site was pointed out, according to tradition, in this
manner, is seated at its base. The architecture of the building is