lower part
of the Traun See is always, even in the most rainy season, perfectly
pellucid; and the Traun pours out of it over ledges of rocks a large and
magnificent river, beautifully clear and of the purest tint of the beryl.
The fall of the Traun, about ten miles below Gmunden, was one of our
favourite haunts. It is a cataract which, when the river is full, may be
almost compared to that of Schaffhausen for magnitude, and possesses the
same peculiar characters of grandeur in the precipitous rush of its awful
and overpowering waters, and of beauty in the tints of its streams and
foam, and in the forms of the rocks over which it falls, and the cliffs
and woods by which it is overhung. In this spot an accident, which had
nearly been fatal to me, occasioned the renewal of my acquaintance in an
extraordinary manner with the mysterious unknown stranger. Eubathes, who
was very fond of fly-fishing, was amusing himself by catching graylings
for our dinner in the stream above the fall. I took one of the boats
which are used for descending the canal or lock artificially cut in the
rock by the side of the fall, on which salt and wood are usually
transported from Upper Austria to the Danube; and I desired two of the
peasants to assist my servant in permitting the boat to descend by a rope
to the level of the river below. My intention was to amuse myself by
this rapid species of locomotion along the descending sluice. For some
moments the boat glided gently along the smooth current, and I enjoyed
the beauty of the moving scene around me, and had my eye fixed upon the
bright rainbow seen upon the spray of the cataract above my head; when I
was suddenly roused by a shout of alarm from my servant, and, looking
round, I saw that the piece of wood to which the rope had been attached
had given way, and the boat was floating down the river at the mercy of
the stream. I was not at first alarmed, for I saw that my assistants
were procuring long poles with which it appeared easy to arrest the boat
before it entered the rapidly descending water of the sluice, and I
called out to them to use their united force to reach the longest pole
across the water that I might be able to catch the end of it in my hand.
And at this moment I felt perfect security; but a breeze of wind suddenly
came down the valley and blew from the nearest bank, the boat was turned
by it out of the side current and thrown nearer to the middle of the
river, and I soon