It was now nearly eight weeks since we launched our fleet in the head-waters of the Danube, and, with the exception of a few days spent at Vienna, Hainburg, Budapest, and on the Franzens Canal, we had passed the greater part of our time, day and night, in the canoes. On the upper river, where we cooked over spirit-lamps because we were never able to have a fire, we had no great inducement to sit up after dark, and consequently sought our snug beds in the canoes very soon after dinner. After we reached Hungary, however, we found it not only practicable but more convenient to use wood for cooking, and from the frontier downward we always had the proper and agreeable accompaniment of every comfortable bivouac--a cheerful fire. But it also happened that all through Hungary we found so much to interest us we could never manage to stop for the night before dark; and since it always took us two hours or more to make camp, cook and eat our dinner, and tidy up afterwards, we were obliged to continue our custom of turning in (literally) as soon as possible, in order to be able to rise at daybreak. The evening we camped in sight of Belgrade, the dewless, balmy air of the river so soothed our nerves, and the glowing landscape was such a pleasure to our eyes, that we lay in the firelight and, regardless of the morrow, watched for a long time the glittering constellations as they slowly came in sight; and when at last we slept, we dreamed of Turks and sieges and the turmoil of belligerent races, whose territory now lay within reach of a few paddle strokes. [Illustration: Ó SZLANKAMEN] The happy chant of Servian girls marching down the steep paths in the bluffs, laden with jugs for Danube water, was our accompaniment as we paddled along in the early morning towards the steamer-landing at Semlin, the last Hungarian town on the right bank of the Danube, a busy little commercial place with all the fascinating characteristics of a frontier town. A populous market-place, numerous cafés of the Turkish order--the first we had seen--and a population largely Servian, with more barbaric types, and wearing costumes plainly transitional between the Hungarian and the Turkish, kept us interested longer than we anticipated, and well repaid the delay. [Illustration: SERVIAN WOMEN] From Semlin to Belgrade is but a half-hour’s paddle down a bend behind the Krieg’s Insel and across the clear, green stream of the Save. Above the great fortress which occupies the whole area of a high promontory at the junction [Illustration: FORTRESS AT THE JUNCTION OF THE DANUBE AND THE SAVE--BELGRADE]