Approaching hillier country as it nears Linz, the Danube trends again to the north-east, and Ottensheim is seen on the left with its handsome chateau rising from among a leafy mass of trees and forming a picturesque “bit.” The town was mostly destroyed by fire about a dozen years ago. A little further along on the right is Kloster Wilhering with an extensive and once widely powerful Cistercian Abbey founded in the twelfth century, but the present buildings were erected in the eighteenth. It is backed by the Kirnbergwald--the pines of which are seen for most of the rest of the journey to Linz. Here the river enters a beautiful valley with varied woodland-grown hills on either side, with the high Pöstlingberg crowned with its pilgrimage church showing ahead. Beyond Buchenau, with its compact church on the left, is seen on the right the Kalvarienberg, or Mount Calvary, the little chapels and crucifix of which together offer a place of pilgrimage for the citizens of Linz. With its falling waters, its craggy rocks and pine trees, it forms a pleasantly picturesque spot. From Ottensheim to Linz, it may be added, the railway keeps closely along the left bank. By wooded hills, the high Pöstlingberg on the left, and the lower yet steeply impressive height, close-grown with fir, on the right, the river reaches Linz on the right bank, having Urfahr on the opposite side, with which it is connected by an ugly lattice iron bridge, over nine hundred feet in length. Linz, the capital of Upper Austria, is a clean, prosperous-looking town, the straight lines of its buildings contrasting strongly with the delightful irregularity of Passau; and its air of modernity gives no suggestion that as Lentia it was one of the Roman stations on the Danube. Possibly when the Huns destroyed it they did so with thoroughness. At the western end of the broad valley through which the river continues for many miles, and backed by the hills, Linz is picturesquely situated, though it is necessary to climb the hills to appreciate this properly. There are a number of churches, a handsome museum, and other fine buildings, but the town itself does not claim long attention, except as an admirable centre for beautiful excursions on both sides of the river. The fine Franz Joseph Platz is seen at its best when, crowded with the stalls and carts of market time, it presents a lively and picturesque scene. The Trinity Column in the centre of it was erected early in the eighteenth century to commemorate the deliverance of the town from two scourges--the Turks and the plague. Pestilence in the olden times seems, indeed, to have been so constant a menace to many of these towns that it is matter for wonder that people were left to take part in the no less constant warfare.