As we go on down the river, ahead of us on a hill-top is seen a massive building--long, indeed, a feature of any wide view taken from this part of the country. This is another great monastery lying some miles from the right bank of the Danube. An easterly turn of the river again brings us to a widened part of the valley, with a bridge ahead connecting Mautern on the right bank with Stein on the left. Mautern is a small old town with little to show of its antiquity, thanks to the frequency with which it has been the scene of battle. To mention but the chief occasions: it was here that Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, defeated the Austrians in 1484. Here, in 1805, the Russian General Kutusof was forced to retreat before the French under Murat, and having crossed the Danube, promptly burnt the bridge. Four years later when Napoleon was making his second advance on Vienna the Austrians themselves destroyed the bridge. About three miles inland from Mautern, its bulk showing, as has been said, clearly against the sky from the summit of an isolated hill, is the great Benedictine monastery of Gottweih. Less splendid than Mölk, it is yet more strikingly situated. Though founded in the eleventh century the present edifice dates from the eighteenth. It is notable for its grand library of old books and manuscripts, and thus drew the attention of the Rev. Thomas Dibdin when making his celebrated “Bibliographical, Picturesque and Antiquarian Tour in France and Germany” about ninety years ago. The abbot of Gottweih, whom Dibdin interviewed, had been there during the Napoleonic wars, and his words seem to make more real for us the time when this stretch of the Danube was again and again the scene of fierce fighting. It was probably at the windows of the great library that the abbot stood with his bibliographical visitor when he said: “Look at the prospect around you--it is unbounded. On yonder wooded heights, on the opposite shore of the Danube, we all saw, from these very windows, the fire and smoke of the advanced guard of the French army, in contest with the Austrians in their first advance to Vienna. The Emperor Buonaparte himself took possession of this monastery. He slept here, and the next day we entertained him with the best _déjeuner à la fourchette_ which we could afford. He seemed well satisfied with his reception--but I own that I was glad when he left us. Strangers to arms in this tranquil retreat, and visited only as you may now visit us, for the purpose of peaceful hospitality, it agitated us extremely to come in contact with warriors and chieftains. Observe yonder, that castle, so tradition reports, once held your Richard the First, when detained prisoner by the Duke of Austria.” [Illustration: STEIN]