| A Cruise Across Europe; Notes on a Freshwater Voyage from Holland to the Black Sea Contributor(s): Maxwell, Donald (Author) |
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ISBN: 0217759025 ISBN-13: 9780217759021 Publisher: General Books OUR PRICE: $14.85 Product Type: Paperback Published: February 2012 * Not available - Not in print at this time * |
| Additional Information |
| Physical Information: 0.06" H x 7.44" W x 9.69" (0.16 lbs) 30 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907. Excerpt: ... THE LAND OF THE WILLOW FOREST Between Buda-Pesth and the Transylvanian Alps there stretches the great plain of Hungary, a fertile land, thinly peopled and impenetrated in many. parts by railways. Through this for five hundred miles the Danube finds a course dividing into many channels and cutting up the flat land into innumerable islands. Vast swamps intersected by backwaters extend along the region of the river. These are so frequently flooded that the villages are situated miles inland or on the spurs of hills which appear 1 here and there along the southern boundary of the plain. Day after day, as the Walrus made her way through the lonely land, she seldom passed signs of human habitation. A steamer now and then L paddled noisily among the islands, startling the waterfowl and sending up a wave along the green shore, but its passage savoured of the incongruous. It was a visitor from another world. Its advent intensified the stillness of Nature, as a match flaring in the gloom deepens the night. Great forests of uncut willows, fantastic in sunlight and ghostly in shade, clothed the islands and the shore. Sometimes the stream carried the boat along the fringe of a flooded glade. Dark and mysterious caverns of foliage, gaunt arms and black writhing trunks reflected mass for mass their dark images in the glassy floor of water. Then an opening would disclose a broad expanse of level meadow land, yellow with buttercups and planted with goodly trees; the well-kept grounds, it might be, of some country seat. But the eagle hovering high overhead or the stork solemnly observing the movements of the Walrus held undisputed possession of the estate. Wild ducks seemed to be as plentiful as sparrows in London, and unceasingly the shrill croak of countless hosts of fro... |