“For himself, Julian had reserved a more difficult and extraordinary part. He selected three thousand brave and active volunteers, resolved, like their leader, to cast behind them every hope of a retreat; at the head of this faithful band, he fearlessly plunged into the recesses of the Marcian or Black Forest, which conceals the sources of the Danube, and for many days the fate of Julian was unknown to the world. The secrecy of his march, his diligence, and vigour, surmounted every obstacle; he forced his way over mountains and morasses, occupied the bridges, or swam the rivers, pursued his direct course, without reflecting whether he traversed the territory of the Romans, or of the barbarians, and at length emerged, between Ratisbon and Vienna, at the place where he designed to embark his troops on the Danube. By a well-concerted stratagem he seized a fleet of light brigantines, as it lay at anchor; secured a supply of coarse provisions, sufficient to satisfy the indelicate, but voracious appetite, of a Gallic army; and boldly committed himself to the stream of the Danube. The labours of his mariners, who plied their oars with incessant diligence, and the steady continuance of a favourable wind, carried his fleet above seven hundred miles in eleven days, and he had already disembarked his troops at Bononia [Widdin] only nineteen miles from Sirmium, before his enemies could receive any certain intelligence that he had left the banks of the Rhine.” It was possibly somewhere on this stretch of the river that the “fleet of brigantines” was seized and the rapid voyage to Constantinople begun, but of the actual place of embarkation there appears to be no record. Certainly, with a favourable wind, and the energy of oarsmen, aided by the swift current of the stream, the expedition may well have made progress rapid enough to satisfy even the impatience of the astute Julian. Now, in place of the Roman brigantines, are seen the passenger steamers by which we moderns can do the same journey in about four days. The coming of the steamship has probably lessened the number of craft on the river, though as we journey along, we see sometimes a number of the great long barges with high-perched steering houses at the stern, and each with a neat little dwelling hut on the deck, generally noticeable for the attempt at “gardening,” made with boxes, pots or tubs, of flowering plants, and even occasionally of good-sized oleanders. These barges are towed, sometimes half a dozen at a time, by strong tug-steamers. Fairly extensive timber rafts, too, are seen, sometimes with as many as four or five steersmen at each end--every steersman working a very long oar-like board by way of rudder. Some of the tugs drawing these barges are armed at the prow with a kind of dredging apparatus, by means of which they can work their way along through unexpected shallows. For, deep as is the Danube in places, in others it is so shallow as to be scarcely navigable at times of low