et through in time. And during the fight
our canoe slipped down from its shoulder to its breast, and had the time of
its life among the struggling waves. But the Inn taught the old river a
lesson, and after Passau it no longer pretended to ignore new arrivals.

This was many days back, of course, and since then we had come to know
other aspects of the great creature, and across the Bavarian wheat plain of
Straubing she wandered so slowly under the blazing June sun that we could
well imagine only the surface inches were water, while below there moved,
concealed as by a silken mantle, a whole army of Undines, passing silently
and unseen down to the sea, and very leisurely too, lest they be
discovered.

Much, too, we forgave her because of her friendliness to the birds and
animals that haunted the shores. Cormorants lined the banks in lonely
places in rows like short black palings; grey crows crowded the
shingle-beds; storks stood fishing in the vistas of shallower water that
opened up between the islands, and hawks, swans, and marsh birds of all
sorts filled the air with glinting wings and singing, petulant cries. It
was impossible to feel annoyed with the river's vagaries after seeing a
deer leap with a splash into the water at sunrise and swim past the bows of
the canoe; and often we saw fawns peering at us from the underbrush, or
looked straight into the brown eyes of a stag as we charged full tilt round
a corner and entered another reach of the river. Foxes, too, everywhere
haunted the banks, tripping daintily among the driftwood and disappearing
so suddenly that it was impossible to see how they managed it.

But now, after leaving Pressburg, everything changed a little, and the
Danube became more serious. It ceased trifling. It was half-way to the
Black Sea, within seeming distance almost of other, stranger countries
where no tricks would be permitted or understood. It became suddenly
grown-up, and claimed our respect and even our awe. It broke out into three
arms, for one thing, that only met again a hundred kilometers farther down,
and for a canoe there were no indications which one was intended to be
followed.

"If you take a side channel," said the Hungarian officer we met in the
Pressburg shop while buying provisions, "you may find yourselves, when the
flood subsides, forty miles from anywhere, high and dry, and you may easily
starve. There are no people, no farms, no fishermen. I warn you not to
continue. Th