A WEEK-END ON THE DANUBE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3134, 11 September 1922, Page 2

A WEEK-END ON THE DANUBE.

(Hy Collinsou Owen.)

Of all forms of travelling I think dial a voyage by river steamer is the pleasantest. 1 speak after a recent trip of someI king over five hundred miles on the Danube, from -Belgrade to V ienna, which took just over two days, and proved to be an ideal lazy week-end. The steamer casts off at Delgrade at the very spot where the war started—where in IDI4 “an Austrian army, awfully arrayed, boldly by battery besieged Delgrade.’’ 1 was not sorry to see the last of Belgrade, it contains little or nothing of interest—except a pleasant little club and its inhabitants—to offset its most notable features of steep hills and appalling pavements. The Danube, far from being blue, is of a chalky color. The scenery, while only occasionally grand or magnificent, is, on the whole, impressive. A striking feature of the long journey is made by the hundreds of watermills which lie moored in the strong current on either side of the broad stream, all looking like Noah’s arks, and patiently grinding away the corn of the great plain of Hungary. At my table in the steamer saloon we were a mixed lot—'English, Trench, Serbian, and a pink young German matron who never ceased talking about her baby, her husband, and every other uninteresting subject that chased across her mind. Her voice blended with the throb of the steamer, ami mercifully one learned to forget it. There was one elderly man of sober aspect whose face seemed vaguely familiar to me. He was very modestly—almost seedily - dvssed, and wore a pair of khaki trousers with his black jacket. Suddenly it dawned on me who he was —none other than General X.., a famous Trench soldier whom 1 had met in the days of Salonika. At one point in the journey he pointed away Beyond the river bank, and said, H " just over there, about ten miles away, that I interned von Mackensen.” Budapest looked very beautiful in the evening sunlight. It was Sunday, and the river was crowded with happy canoeing parties, The girls all apparently pretty, and the-men looking very odd and ferocious, with close-cropped oi shaven heads, and brown bodies clad only in bathing costume. Jn spite of all the troubes of Central Europe, about which we hear, so much, Budapest evidently knows how to enjoy itself.