s 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
into the wilderness of islands, sandbanks, and swamp-land beyond--the land
of the willows.

The change came suddenly, as when a series of bioscope pictures snaps down
on the streets of a town and shifts without warning into the scenery of
lake and forest. We entered the land of desolation on wings, and in less
than half an hour there was neither boat nor fishing-hut nor red roof, nor
any single sign of human habitation and civilization within sight. The
sense of remoteness from the world of humankind, the utter isolation, the
fascination of this singular world of willows, winds, and waters, instantly
laid its spell upon us both, so that we allowed laughingly to one another
that we ought by rights to have held some special kind of passport to admit
us, and that we had, somewhat audaciously, come without asking leave into a
separate little kingdom of wonder and magic--a kingdom that was reserved
for the use of others who had a right to it, with everywhere unwritten
warnings to trespassers for t