From Walhalla to Passau, near the Austrian frontier, we had a splendid opportunity, as our little steamer glided along the sinuous Danube, to observe the attractions of the celebrated Dunkelboden, so called from its dark, fertile soil. Much of the country through which we passed was a broad, unbroken plain, dotted with small farmhouses, pretty villages adorned with chaletlike homes, and white churches surmounted by quaint, salmon-colored steeples. Arrived at Passau I embarked for Vienna on one of the trim and commodious steamers of the Danube Steamship Navigation Company. The appointments and service of these boats are all that could be desired and are fully equal to the best of the excursion steamers on the Hudson or the St. Lawrence. Indeed, for one who desires perfect rest, combined with comfort, while sailing on the most romantic and picturesque waterway in Europe, I know of nothing I can more cordially recommend than a few weeks’ excursion on the Danube. From time immemorial travelers have sounded the glories of the Rhine. I should be the last to depreciate the many and great attractions of this noble river on which I spent so many happy days, but truth compels me to declare that the Danube, not only in scenic beauty and grandeur, but also in historic and legendary association, far surpasses what the Romans were wont to call _Rhenus Superbus_. On the way from Passau to Vienna I spent all my time on deck, as I did not wish to miss any of the countless objects of interest which here make the course of the Danube so famous. What with historic towns and villages, crenelated and machicolated castles--some still inhabited, others long since in ruins--there was much to engage one’s attention. If the massive walls and somber towers of these moss-covered old castles could speak, what tales could they not tell of love and romance, hate and revenge? What stories could they not tell of wars and sieges when the crossbow, halberd and the broadsword were the chief weapons of offense and defense? And how much would they not have to relate of the lawlessness and cruelty of the robber-barons who sallied forth from these almost inaccessible strongholds to confiscate passing vessels or to pillage the surrounding country. Manzoni, in his vivid pictures of the _prepotenti_, as portrayed in his masterly _I Promessi Sposi_, gives one some idea of the insatiable rapacity of the titled brigands of the period which we are now considering. Good old Froissart was right when he denounced them as “people worse than Saracens or Paynims”; as men whose “excessive covetousness quencheth the knowledge of honor.”