GREAT WATERWAY

Taranaki Daily News, 7 November 1930, Page 11

GREAT WATERWAY

STEAMERS ON DANUBE. HUNDRED YEARS OF TRAVEL. It is just one hundred years since the first steamship went down the Danube from Vienna to Budapest. Lord Cowley, then British ambassador in the Austrian capital, took a special interest in

navigation on the Danube and in 1830 became a shareholder in the Donau-Dampfechiffahrts-Gesellschaft, a commercial company still in existence.

The first steamer on the Danube was the work of two Englishmen; Pritchard and Andrews, the plan being drawn by James Brown. The machine; of 60 h.p., came from the factory of Boulton and

Watt, at Birmingham. The steamer had a length of 53 yards and was called “Franz 1.” after the Austrian Emperor, who even in 1813 had taken an interest in Danube navigation “without the .assistance of horses.” ' The first journey down to Budapest took 15J hours, while the return journey up to Vienna, owing to heavy gales, lasted five days. To-

day it takes hardly five hours by raiL , The Danube, despite its great navigable length, still has not, ths great importance as a water-way which it deserves. Perhaps when the canals between the Rhine and Main, and the Main and Danube are completed, it will •become a'., great -maritime connecting link in Central Europe.