It was an exceedingly hot day, and the river for the next dozen miles or so was not very interesting, as its channel had been confined between dike-like banks through a great steaming marsh. Every two hundred metres of the distance is marked by a numbered post, and from our low position these were often the most prominent objects in view. The hissing of the water, which began at the confluence of the Iller, was always plainly heard, but the water was so muddy that we could not discover whether or not the cause of the sound was, as it is said to be, the rolling of pebbles on the river-bed. The reaction from our brief but busy visit to Lauingen put us in rather a quiet frame of mind. The drowsy heat was not stimulating to the ambition for sight-seeing, and we scarcely looked at the hills where the battle-fields of Höchstädt and Blenheim are located, they were so far away from the river and the events seemed so very long ago. We had more interest, moreover, in the near foreground with its occasional clusters of brilliant bloom. Alfred Parsons says of this region: “For a long way above and below Ulm the banks are lined with small willows and coarse grasses; occasional bunches of forget-me-not and some iris and valerian are the only flowers. On a hill-side near Donauwörth I saw bright pink dog-roses, campanulas, geranium, veronica, epipactis, Turk’s-cap lilies, pink coronilla, which is abundant, and a tall white composite with groups of daisy-like flowers and a leaf like the tansy; also a white erigeron.” [Illustration: _The Bell tower_ _Lauingen._] The glorious, lazy afternoon was well on the wane when we came to Donauwörth, a blaze of richly-colored roofs and lichen-stained walls and with an enchanting skyline of gables and towers. We left it with reluctance before we had seen half of its beauties. The restlessness of the Danube had begun to eat into our souls and, without our knowing it, had created in us a new appetite--a craving for constant motion. [Illustration: Donauwörth.]