Below Linz again we have something of a dramatic change in the scenery of the river. Behind us are the mountains, and for a while they neighbour us fairly closely on the left; but for some miles it is between willow-grown shores and among islets that the Danube finds its way. For a while the river runs in a north-easterly direction, as though against the Pfennigberg, but soon turns south-easterly again round it, and so reaches the long, islanded stretch which continues most of the way to the Wachau. Near where the river Traun comes in from the right, is, on the left, though hidden from view, the old town of Steyregg, or Steyereck, with a castle at one time the possession of a family, a member of which, at the Battle of Marchfeld, rescued the Emperor Rudolph the First, founder of the House of Habsburg, from a gigantic Thuringian knight who had unhorsed and wounded him. At one of the mouths of the Traun, hidden behind islands, is Traundorf, famous for its crawfish. A little distance up it is Ebelsberg, scene of a sanguinary battle between the French and Austrians on 3 May, 1809. “From twelve to sixteen thousand men fell in this terrible conflict, and the banks of the Traun, from Ebelsberg to the Danube, were literally covered with the slain.” Here, too, in the Peasant’s War the insurgents were overcome, and lost two thousand men. And these are but two of the incidents in the stormy history of the town. As has been said, the journey from Linz to the commencement of the Wachau is mostly through the willow-grown islands of a broad valley. It was possibly hereabouts that the Emperor Julian “the Apostate” reached the Danube on his remarkable march to assured Empire. Gibbon has summarized the story in graphic fashion. Having assembled a great army near Basle, he divided it into three unequal portions--one was to go through the northern parts of Italy, another through the centre of Rhœtia and Noricum: “The instructions to the generals were conceived with energy and pre-cision; to hasten their march in close and compact columns, which, according to the disposition of the ground, might readily be changed into any order of battle; to secure themselves against the surprises of the night by strong posts and vigilant guards; to prevent resistance by their unexpected arrival; to elude examination by their sudden departure; to spread the opinion of their strength, and the terror of his name; and to join their sovereign under the walls of Sirmium.