The Danube is never really monotonous, for, apart from the ever-changing landscape, the life on the bank offers endless interest to the observer. We had drifted for a couple of days through a broad, flat country, and never had experienced a dull moment. Although we were not impatient for a change of scenery, we began to look forward with pleasant anticipations, soon after leaving Vohburg, to the chain of hills that formed the horizon to the east and north, promising narrow gorges and rapid water. Except for our increasing eagerness for progress as the hills began to take definite shape in detail towards the middle of the forenoon, we should have undoubtedly landed at Eining, a little cluster of houses on the right bank, near which are the remains of the great Roman frontier station Abusina, which, from its topographical situation, and also from its geographical position near the most northerly point of the river’s course, was chosen as the chief outpost of the Danube provinces against the German barbarians. This station was maintained with two or three interruptions from its establishment in 15 B.C. until the end of the fifth century. Across the river are distinctly visible the outlines of Trajan’s wall, which extended from this point to Wiesbaden on the Rhine. We were much interested by what we could see of these remains, for we knew that to be but the first in the long series of similar monuments along the Danube to the Roman occupation, which never fail to excite the wonder of the traveller at the enterprise and persistent courage of the great Roman general. Near at hand, too, is Vergen of the “Niebelungenlied,” where King Gunther and his Niebelungen crossed the Danube on their way to Budapest and the court of King Attila. It was at this spot that Hagen tried to drown the priest of the expedition because the water witches had predicted that the holy man alone out of the 10,000 in the expedition should return safe to Worms. The facts of history and the fascinating figments of tradition seemed to draw for us across this smiling valley a frontier clearly defined in our imaginations, beyond which limit we were to enter upon a new phase of our journey. [Illustration: FROM ULM TO STRAUBING] The Benedictine abbey of Weltenburg, with its crenellated walls and extensive façades, placed in exactly the right spot on the river-bank, like the composition of the theatrical drop-curtain, stands at the head of a narrow, rocky gorge, about four miles in length, more grand and impressive than any on the river above. Weltenburg is an easy excursion from Kelheim, and divides the attraction of the neighborhood with the Befreiungshalle, or Hall of Liberation, near the latter place. Knowing this fact, we were not surprised to find in the midst of the mournful relics of past grandeur the liveliest kind of a beer-garden, with a half-acre of tables under shade trees in the court-yard, and regiments of stone mugs waiting to be filled at the convenient tap of