The final preparations for our cruise occupied more time than we anticipated, and it was quite eight o’clock before the canoes touched water at the foot of the slippery stone steps. A large proportion of the inhabitants of Donaueschingen gathered on the bridge and near the landing to see us off, and a dozen eager volunteers helped us carry our boats and launch them into the yellow stream. A few minutes sufficed to stow the traps, for we had sent the sails and tents and various other articles by rail to Ulm, thinking they would be more trouble than use on the upper part of the river, with its succession of dams and weirs. Then, amid the “Hochs!” and “Glückliche Reises!” of the multitude, we scrambled in, each in turn, and pushed off. We firmly believe that no one in the great crowd of spectators detected that two of us were handling a double-bladed paddle for the first time--not even the two ladies from Massachusetts whom we met at the inn, for their hearty interest in our trip, and their enthusiastic admiration for the canoes, doubtless blinded them to the observance of our awkwardness. The swelling, curling stream bore us merrily out of sight of the town, and only an occasional paddle stroke was necessary to keep the bow in the right direction. Boys and girls ran along the shady path trying to keep pace with us, and we saw on the highway a carriage with our lady friends, who loyally kept sight of us for several miles. A very short time sufficed to familiarize us with the management of the canoes, so we could thoroughly enjoy the beauty of the landscape and indulge in the unalloyed feeling of satisfaction at our successful start, and we swept on through the great alternating patches of sunlight and shadow, under trailing boughs of large trees and past beds of tall rushes. In a few moments the Brege came in with a volume of water about equal to the Brigach, and then the real Danube rushed on, already quite majestic in aspect, through fields kaleidoscopic with myriads of flowers, reflecting in its pools the clear blue of the sky with brilliant summer clouds, adding new charms to the landscape at every turn. A number of swans from the park at Donaueschingen swam just ahead of us nearly to the first village, Pforen, with its dominating church edifice and huge wooden bridge. When they reached this self-imposed limit of their excursion they rose into the air with great flutterings and splashings, wheeled around and passed us so near at hand that we could feel the air from their great wings, then sailed away in graceful flight to their home in the secluded islands of the park. Large white wing-feathers danced along down stream; and when, many weeks afterwards, we dismantled our canoes on the shores of the Black Sea, we found one of these carefully stowed away in an angle of the underpart of the deck, and, with mock ceremony of a message from the Swan of the Source to the Sturgeon of the Sea, threw it to the strong north wind.