The Danube from the Black Forest to the Black Sea — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The Danube from the Black Forest to the Black Sea
John Stuart Mill · en
Our _batterie de cuisine_ consisted of three spirit-lamps of different
sizes and styles, a few plates and cups of white enamelled ironware, a
tin kettle, coffee-pot, teapot, and water-can, knives, forks, spoons,
and ladle. These necessary articles, together with the hatchet, a few
tools and copper nails, medicines and general stores, we soon learned to
distribute properly among the three canoes, and thus divide the weight
and amicably share the trouble of transportation. It was astonishing how
much the canoes would hold, and every time we unpacked them we always
marvelled at their loading capacity. In addition to the outfit described
we often had to carry fresh meat, vegetables, milk and wine, and a large
store of burning spirits, to say nothing of a great many canned
provisions. The limit seemed to be fixed only by the weight we were
individually willing to struggle with.
Our experiments with the canoes in the inn-yard and the rearrangement of
our luggage occupied us most of the whole afternoon of the long summer
day, but we had daylight enough left in which to see the town and stroll
through the extensive park with its lakes and its sociable swans, and to
gaze from afar on the inhospitable looking palace of the Princes of
Fürstenberg, who have arbitrarily declared for their own glorification
that a large spring in their pleasure-grounds is the actual source of
the Danube. They have surrounded the spring with expensive masonry, and
erected a stone tablet with an inscription giving the information, among
other things, that that spot is 678 metres above sea level and 2840
kilometres from the Black Sea by way of the Danube. The hotel where we
stayed is at the southern end of the fine stone bridge connecting the
two sections into which the Brigach divides the town. Conveniently near
to the hotel is a large flight of stone steps leading down to the water,
and here we proposed to launch the canoes early the next morning and
make our start, a few yards above the source of the Danube, according to
the prince’s tablet, and about 2000 yards above the junction of the
Brigach and the Brege, where the stream is first christened the Danube.
CHAPTER II