Everywhere along the Danube one hears stories about the activities of the Devil in days gone by and of his determined efforts to thwart the works and projects of those whom he regarded as his natural enemies. In Ratisbon is shown a bridge which he is said to have built in exchange for the soul of his employer. Owing, however, to the superior shrewdness of his employer, he lost the remuneration he so greatly coveted. Further down the river, near Deggendorf, is a great mass of granite which the Devil is said to have brought all the way from Italy in order to destroy the town, because its people were too religious to please his Satanic Majesty. But just as he was about to drop his massive load on the unsuspecting inhabitants, the Ave Maria bell was sounded in the adjacent monastery when the Evil One was forced to let fall his burden before he could compass his purpose. At another point is shown a rock known as the Devil’s Tower, and at still another is a curious mass of rock which, from its peculiar formation, is called Teufelsmauer--Devil’s Wall. * * * * * According to a time-honored ballad _There came an old Crusader_ _With fifty harnessed men_ _And he embarked at Ratisbon_ _To fight the Saracen._ These Crusaders and others that followed them down the Danube on their way to the Holy Land so exasperated the Demon that “he plucked up rocks from the neighboring cliffs and pitched them right into the channel of the river, thereby hoping to arrest their progress. But in this he was completely deceived; for after the first rock came plunging down amongst them, every man made the sign of the cross, and uniting their voices in a holy anthem, the fiend was instantly paralyzed, and slunk away without further resistance. So huge, however, was the first stone he threw that for ages it caused a swirl and a swell in this part of the river which nothing but the skill and perseverance of the Bavarian engineers could remove.”[6] As the Danube moves majestically between ever recurring islets, green with willow and birch, and wooded heights crowned with ruins of castles and monasteries telling of times long past, the veil of romance, with which legend invests everything, seems to become heavier and more variegated. Here are elf-haunted glens and primeval forests which were once declared to be the home of the Erl-King. There is the dark cavern where the lindwurm, like the one slain by Siegfried, lay in wait for his prey, and at still another spot is the lakelet where Hagen met the swan-maidens on his return with the Nibelungs to the lands of the Huns. Further down the stream are the Strudel and Wirbel, the Scylla and Charybdis of the Danube, for ages the reputed trysting-place of all kinds of phantoms and monsters. But here in _Imperial Danube’s rich domain_