FATHER FABER ON IHE DANUBE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 239, 30 November 1877, Page 15

FATHER FABER ON IHE DANUBE.

The saintly Oratorian, who blended the fancy of a poet with the fervour of a religious, wrote the following on the "Beautiful Blue Danube" : — • No language can possibly describe the superb scenery of to-day's journey. It far transcends anything I ever saw or conceived cf woodland or of river scenery. It is the part of the Danube where the waters break from the great basin of Hungary through the mountains. When we first left Orsova the hills were one green wilderness of massive and unbroken foliage, and the views up the valleys were very sweet indeed. But soon huge and shadowy cliffs began to show themselves among the woods, and once or twice the Danube pressed her waters through awful walls of sheer precipice. At first I thought it like the Rhine, only much, very much superior, beause of the woods, instead of miserable, tame, formal vineyards ; but presently the magnificence and almost fearful grandeur of the scenery drove the Rhine utterly out of my thoughts. The woods were principally deciduous trees, with an immense profusion of walnut, and they were all matted together with wild vines, clematis, and very large white convolvulus, while between her banks the river writhed and boiled over bars of rocks, effectually forbidding all navigation. But now the cliffs receded, and there came some miles of incessant wood, with beautiful valleys, through whose woody gates we obtained exquisite glimpses up the mountainous glens. One in particular I remember, of consummate loveliness. It was on the Servian shore ; and far inland there rose a huge mountain in shape like a crouching lion, and the valley broadened out, and left the mountain standing alone against the sky. Then came a large sea-like bay, with a Servian village and church on a tongue of green fields. The broad river went by gently, wheeling solemnly in glossy eddies. It was a scene of perfect loveliness. Not a feature could be heightened or improved, then came the cliffs again, no longer white and hoary, but a deep mottled red. For the next hour.l was well nigh beside myself ; had it been the time of many coloured autumn, instead of brown-leaved June, with its heavy green, I should have lost my senses. Red cliffs, masked in indefinitely various degrees by foh'age, or standing abrupt uke walls, or shooting up into spires and pinnacles, like castles, here receding from the view, there throwing themselves forward and shutting the waters up into a narrow, turbulent rapid ; these were the features of the scenery. To describe them is quite impossible. At last we turned from the cliffs and saw the deep wooded hills above Drenkova, backed by the deep dull crimson of a stormy sunset, and we arrived absolutely wearied with the strength of the impressions made upon us by the scenery. Such a glorious and divine mingling of grandeur and loveliness of Nature's smiles and frowns, as decks the royal Danube all this day's journey, I never saw in my life ; and I believe I shall never forget the silent astonishment in which I travelled for many hours. I almost envied the birds who were free to drop anywhere in the leafy wilderness, or on the rocky ledges, or to suspend themselves in the air over the middle of of the Danube.