... the Hercynian forest where the boar Roamed and the tribes withstood the swords of Rome There springs a little stream that grown doth pour Through mountains dark, and plains, the herdsman’s home, In swirling volume to the far Euxine Sea. _From the German_ If it cannot be said of the Danube as it was said of the Thames that it is “strong without rage, without o’erflowing full,” it can certainly be said that, like the Thames, two separate places claim to be the source of the river. These two places are St. Georgen and Donaueschingen--both of them in the Duchy of Baden, both of them in the district of the Black Forest (part of the great Hercynian forest, which in the time of Cæsar stretched from the neighbourhood of Basle into the boundless regions of the north), and both of them claiming that they are situated at the very place where the mighty river starts upon its long journey. Unfortunately for the claims of the former place, the stream that runs thence to Donaueschingen is named the Brigach; and it is only when that river joins with the Breg, which also rises not far from St. Georgen, that the name Donau or Danube is used. Geographically perhaps, the source of a river being supposed to be that one of its streams which starts at the point furthest from its mouth, St. Georgen might be entitled to the honour, but custom and sentiment have long since granted it to Donaueschingen; and as that place embodies the river’s name, it is likely long to hold the honour--even as Thames Head will continue in the view of most people to have a better title to being considered the actual source of the Thames than Seven Springs. The rivalry has not unjustly been described by one writer as a matter of Tweedledum and Tweedledee, for when the opposing advocates seek classical support the St. Georgenites can put Tacitus into the witness box, while the Donaueschingites can subpœna Strabo. It is a pretty little quarrel, and we may leave it at that. Another point that need not trouble us over its conflict of testimony is that of the derivation of the name, though it may be noted in passing that it has been variously derived from “Donner,” thunder; from “Tanne,” a fir tree; and from Celtic words “Do Na.” The last suggestion was surely put forward by an ingenious Donaueschingite, for once admit it, and the claims of St. Georgen are reduced to the ridiculous. It is at the point where the Brigach and the Breg join that the Danube begins, and there at Donaueschingen is where our story of the river on its journey to the sea may also best begin. An old distich runs-- “Brigach und Breg Bringen die Donau zu weg,” which may be Englished-- “Brigach and Breg Set the Danube on its way.”