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Show The Danube 183 Deutscher Acre Lloyd Airplane view at the mouth of the Diina, a stream that brings sand and clay from the great plains of Russia and builds up land on the shore of the Gulf of Riga, an arm of the Baltic. The black band across the middle of the picture is the Diina. The photograph wastaken at low tide when the sand banks are exposed. Il. Tue DanuBe Next to the Volga in size among the streams of Europe is the Danube, a river stately and winding that hasits rise as a mountain stream in the Black Forest. Down through Germany it goes and across the border into Austria, flowing through a region of castles and romance. The castle country of the Danube lies above Vienna, -between that city and Linz. Here, on both sides of the river, are the ruins of ancient strongholds perched high up on the cliffs, strongholds that were for the most part the seats of rich robber barons of the Middle Ages, for the lords of the Danube Valley were no better than those of the Rhine. 184 The Great Streams of Europe Ewing Galloway The Ringstrasse, Vienna, the famous street built on the ground where the ancient walls stood in the days when Austria’s capital was a walled city. On theleft are the Parliament Building and the Rathaus or City Hall. A wealth of stories clings to each one of these ruined castles, but of all the tales that haunt the Danube banks the most romantic is that of Castle Diirnstein, a splendid old pile on a jagged rock forty miles west of Vienna. Here in 1192-93 Richard the Lion Heart, King of England, was kept a prisoner for fifteen months by Duke Leopold of Austria, and the account of how he becamea captiveillustrates the methods used by someof the old-timelords. Richard was returning home from the crusades, and in the course of his wandering came to Dirnstein. Worn out from muchtraveling, he sought rest and shelter there, and Duke Leopold’s castle keeper, very inappropriately named Engelhart (Angel Heart), decided that this homebound crusader would be rich prize, for well he knew him to be the king of England. He opened thehalls to Richard, set |
