A Holiday Down the Danube with Punt and Tent

by Algernon Blackwood

Different kinds of men like different kinds of holidays, but as a boy I always had a natural longing to get off somewhere in a boat and go as fast as possible and run as many risks as possible; and I find that as a man my love for this sort of sport has strengthened rather than weakened. So, when my holidays came round last year I chose three friends of similar tastes and started off for a tour of exploration down the Danube in a punt.

We bought our tents in London⁠—ordinary little A tents, with pegs and poles to cut wherever we happened to be in camp⁠—and cork mattresses, and mackintosh groundsheets to put under them, and good warm blankets to put over ourselves, and then took the train for Ulm. Our boat we hoped to buy in Ulm. These purchases were not very expensive. Cork mattresses, that ought to last a careful man a lifetime, cost about 8s., and ground sheets, with holes round the edges to pass string through when using them to wrap up kit in, can be bought for a few shillings.

The subject of tents, of course, is a big one, and the result of my own experience in many kinds is that the gipsy tent, which can be made by any boy himself, is the best, cheapest, and most comfortable one in the world. It is the net result of generations of camping out by the gipsies, and gipsies know their business. It gives more room than any other kind, for the sides bulge outwards, and it is less likely to blow down. On this particular occasion, however, having to start at a day’s notice, and having the little A tents ready to hand, we elected to lose no time making new tents, but to start with what we had.

At Ulm, the sight of the Danube tearing and foaming along in its great sweep through the town filled us with delight. We soon found a secondhand fisherman’s boat, which we bought for a few pounds (this is the chief expense, but remember it saves hotels, tips, rent, and endless extras of travelling, and is well worth a price), and began to pack her. She was flat-bottomed and 20 feet long, about 3 feet wide, and the ends, bow and stern, were covered in and sloped upwards, square-nosed like a Thames punt. With all our luggage and our four big bodies on board she only drew a matter of four to five inches of water, and the whole way down this river, which is full of very unexpected shallows and shingle-beds, we ran aground only once.

The boat was very heavy, and steering was a matter to be learnt, and Ulm is not a good place to begin practising, for the river sweeps under two bridges before you can learn how to hold the huge paddles (7 feet long and weighing 12 lb.), much less how to manipulate them. But Fortune favoured us, and we swept under the arches on the crests of foaming waves, and Ulm was out of sight in less than five minutes.

The current here, and for many miles below Ulm, is so swift that, with easy paddling, the boat travels at a rate of ten or twelve miles an hour, and it is quite impossible to land without first turning completely round and paddling against the stream. This lets the boat down stream at a pace that makes it possible to grab the shore or the willows and jump out.

Our provisions will interest campers. We had a side of bacon and 10 lb. of good English tea; sacks of dried milk (Just-Hatmaker Process), which only needs dissolving in hot water to be ready for use; several pounds of oatmeal; several huge loaves of black bread (keeps moist longer than white bread); a sack of potatoes, and the usual extras of sugar, jam, cheese, and so forth. Eggs, butter, chickens, and the like we could always buy at the villages as we passed them. Here, then, was fare for a king, and, with frying-pan, stew-pot, tea-pail, and filter for the dirty river water, we had everything complete. Fortune did the rest for us, and supplied perfect weather and a racing river swollen with recent rains. And, as one of us was married and had brought his wife with him, we were sure of having good cooking and the dishes always properly washed up and spick and span. Make no mistake about it, a woman is not a bore in camp. The right woman is an immense addition to a camping party; only be sure first she is the right woman.

Ulm lies on the borderland of Würtemberg and Bavaria, but the river soon carried us flying into the latter country. Two hundred yards wide and very deep, the water rushes along with a hissing, fizzing sound that is said to be heard only on the Danube. On no other river have I heard it. Some say this peculiar noise, like the escaping of steam, is caused by the great speed of the water tearing the shingle along the river-bed. I cannot say. I only know it adds to the interest, and makes you feel you are dealing with something that is very much alive and kicking.

The middle of the river we found to be the safest channel. Even here there are whirlpools and strange eddies; but close in shore the steering is very difficult indeed, and the danger from sunken snags and sudden shallows made it wiser to stick to the middle. The steering strokes are the same as those used in a canoe. I had once before been down the Danube from its source to Buda-Pesth (1,000 miles) in a Canadian canoe, and compared with the lightness of that craft, and the instantaneous way in which she answered to the least turn of the paddle, steering in this huge flat bottomed punt seemed a very severe kind of exercise. So many turns of the paddle are necessary before the bows answer. Perhaps the current meanwhile is sweeping you sideways, or a whirlpool jumps up under the boat, or you strike a back-eddy, or something strange happens to complicate the impetus and direction of the boat, and, lo! she does not answer to your stroke. You have to lift the huge paddle and strain every muscle again to repeat your stroke and bring her round. In the end she always comes round, but if a rock, or a bridge, or a rapid is close upon you, this loss of time is a serious matter! A canoe answers at once, of course, like a living thing. But this old punt was a dignified old lady, and wanted coaxing and pushing and much persuading. Banging her violently was no use. She taught the steersman patience as well as skill before he had done with her.

To name the endless succession of towns and villages we passed through in our swift journey across Bavaria would not interest you much. We did not linger among the houses long, except to buy provisions. The people stared, asked endless questions, and followed us down to the boat. In the villages no one knew anything about the river beyond a few miles above and below their particular dwelling-place. Certainly none of them knew that it rose in the Black Forest and ended in the Black Sea, and when we told them we were going to Vienna they stared, open-mouthed, at us, and thought we were not telling the truth. There are scarcely any boats on this part of the Danube; no steamers and no pleasure-craft. A few fishermen’s punts may be seen close in shore, but the stream is too terribly swift for boats, and even to cross the river and make a point opposite you are obliged to start well above it or you will be swept down half a mile below your destination.

Wild life haunts the shores everywhere. We saw deer jumping into the water after sunrise; foxes walking quietly along the shingle; every sort of water-rat, stoat, easel, and otter; snakes swimming across; hares sitting among the grassy banks, and fawns peering at us from the under growth as we rushed by, and showing no signs of alarm. Wild duck were very plentiful, and we saw storks in great number, fishing, solitary on a shingle-bed, or standing with twenty others in a group; hawks, buzzards, plover, grey crows, and, lower down, cormorants were very plentiful indeed, and quite tame. They never moved till we were close upon them, and we passed hundreds of plover sound asleep on little shingle-beds that did not even wake as we raced past them.

We usually camped about six o’clock, either on an island or in a grove of trees. Wood was plentiful, and we were always ravenous. Bathing was a cold operation, and swimming needed care, for the icy water and the tearing current were not things to be trifled with. In the early mornings the camp was often swathed in mist, but soon after breakfast it cleared away and the sun beat down fiercely and dried everything in a very short time.

Sometimes, when we camped too near villages, the police would pay us a visit. The sight of two tents and four foreigners without passports was often too much for their equanimity, and they would threaten to arrest us and hold our baggage till we could prove who we were and show that our intentions were not dangerous to the great German Empire. Some of these men were officious and anxious to show their authority, but in the end they all went away looking rather foolish with their helmets and bayonets. We never had any serious trouble, and once we came across a really intelligent policeman, who saw at once we were only holiday-making, and was greatly interested in our journey and tried to help in every way.

The peasants were invariably nice and kind, bringing us milk and eggs and fresh water and bread, and sometimes partaking of our humble fare. At night we lay round a good fire and discussed the events of the day and made plans for the next, but by nine o’clock we were always in bed and asleep, and the moon shone down on a peaceful little camp under the trees, with two white tents, a smouldering fire, and the old punt nosing about among the reeds and rushes where she was tied up at the bank.

Just below Passau the river Inn comes in, turbulent, roaring and dancing, from the Tyrolese Alps. Its icy waters do not mingle for half a mile with the bigger river, but run alongside, a different colour and much swifter. Then the two gradually make friends and join hands, and the Danube, proud of its new friend, gains fresh impetus and hurries along into the great gorge that marks the frontier of Austria.

Here the whole gorge is filled up by the river, and camping spaces are very scarce. We found a narrow ledge at the foot of the wooded sides, where we landed with some difficulty behind a big rock that sent the current whizzing out into midstream and left comparatively quiet water just behind it. At the very same spot, a week before we got here, a terrible accident had taken place. A boat, with five members of the Regensburg Rowing Club, all experienced oarsmen and well used to the river, had upset at this exact spot, having been caught sideways in their light boat by the eddies from this very rock, and turned over before they could extricate their feet from the straps into which men stick their toes in this sort of outrigger shaped boat.

The cox managed to free himself and, making use of a whirlpool that flung him towards the shore, was swept into the bank and crawled out; but the other four men were pinned down by the boat and drowned like rats in a trap. All of them had been down this stretch times without number. It was late in the evening, and no help was near, for the place is lonely and boats pass very rarely indeed. The boat eventually rose to the surface, and the bodies, thus released, were tossed upon the shore and recovered in the morning, with the exception of one man, whose body was carried down through whirlpools and rapids for another fifty miles before the river gave it up. We saw the boat lying in the Customs House at Engelhardzell, the frontier village, and it was a mournful sight to see. All the way down we had heard this sad story of the accident, and many were the warnings we received to be careful; but in our old punt the danger was small, and a little care and common sense was all that was required to prevent disaster.

Vienna was now getting within hail, and the country became very much more civilised, and camping-grounds were not so easy to find. Steamers, too, became a daily excitement. They come tearing downstream with a string of heavily laden barges behind them, and they allow one precious little time to get out of the way. In narrow parts they are a real danger, for they are not on the look out for small craft, and, besides, have all they can do to steer themselves. The barges in tow make big waves, and once, when we were caught in a narrow sideway, the old punt jumped about in a way that amused us vastly until we took a wave in over the side and ran the risk of soaking our bread and potatoes before we were ready for them. But, even then, the old punt behaved with the greatest dignity and looked quite offended at being made to dance so violently. I believe nothing could have upset her short of an Atlantic roller.

Ruined castles, once of impregnable strength and position, now became frequent. In olden days the barons who dwelt in them used to stretch iron chains across the river and hold up the traffic and rob every boat that passed. Before their day, again, the Romans haunted these shores, and most of the towns we passed have Roman remains of one kind or another.

Just before reaching Vienna we stopped at a little village and got ready for the journey home, for our holiday time was over and we had to hurry back in the train. We gave our provisions away⁠—bread to one boy, tea to another, a pot of stewed apricots to a third, and the axe, lanterns, filter, sugar, potatoes, and remains of the oatmeal to a family who were so pleased to get them that they afterwards brought us down a basket of fresh ripe peaches as a present in return. The old punt we gave to the land-lord of the little inn where we put up for the night, and we all felt as if we were parting from an old friend who had proved her friendship in a very satisfactory way⁠—by not leaking a drop and by carrying us for 400 miles on one of the jolliest journeys we ever had.