make out anything
clearly in the darkness, but I felt sure the object, whatever it was,
was borne onward by the stream.

It was a generally-expressed opinion that something must have happened
farther down the river to relieve the pent-up waters. Very shortly
official news arrived, and spread like wildfire, that the Danube had
made a way for itself right across the island of Csepel into the
Soroksar arm of the river.

Csepel is an island some thirty miles long, situated a short distance
below Pest. The engineering works for the regulation of the Danube had,
as I said before, closed this Soroksar branch, and the river, in
reasserting its right of way to the sea, caused a terrible calamity to
the villages on the Csepel Island, but thereby Hungary's capital was
saved.

[Footnote 22: The Danube at Buda-Pest. Report addressed to Count
Andrassy by J.J. Revy, C.E. 1876.]

CHAPTER XXXII.

Results of the Danube inundations--State of things at
Baja--Terrible condition of New Pest--Injuries sustained by the
island garden of St. Marguerite--Charity organisation.

Though Buda-Pest had escaped the worst of the threatened calamity, the
state of the low-lying suburbs of the town on both sides of the river
was very serious, and, as it turned out, weeks elapsed before the waters
entirely subsided. The extent of the Danube inundations in 1876 was far
greater than the flood of 1838; the latter was localised to Buda-Pest,
where, from the suddenness of the catastrophe, the sacrifice of life was
far greater than at present. But on this occasion the mischief was wide
spread indeed. From Passau to Orsova the banks of the Danube were more
or less flooded. The havoc below Pest was wellnigh incalculable. The
river had in places spread itself out like a small sea, inundating lands
already in seed; this was specially the case at Paks, where both banks
of the river are equally low--as a rule, the left side was the more
flooded the whole way along.

At Baja the destruction to property was most serious. Some very
important works had just been completed, and these were all swept away
two days after the Danube had burst over the Csepel Island at Pest. It
is a matter of interest to note the travelling rate of the flood, which
from being ice-clogged was less rapid than one would suppose. Baja is
120 miles below Pest.

The works here referred to were in parts a canal, to feed the old
Francis Canal, which connects the Danube