SIXTH DAY. 103 



journey ; and as soon as we bad lunched, measured the slain 

 birds, and finished our interchange of notes, we went on deck 

 and there remained almost throughout the rest of the passage. 



First we ran through the now pretty familiar stretch of 

 the river from the woods below Mohacs down to Apatin. In 

 the early part of the afternoon the sultriness \vas rather op- 

 pressive, the great heat indicating the approach of another 

 storm, while heavy clouds were towering up in the west, and we 

 already heard, though indistinctly, the rumbling of the thunder. 



Passing by Apatin without stopping, we went on towards 

 Draueck ; the intermediate " auen," whose inner parts we now 

 had a pretty fair knowledge of, but which we had not yet seen 

 from the main stream, affording some wonderfully picturesque 

 views, especially the last woods just before the Hullo marsh. 

 The narrow belt of trees which divides this huge swamp from 

 the Danube, and through which we could occasionally get a 

 good glimpse of the mountains to the west and of broad 

 sheets of water, also interested us much ; and we determined 

 to devote an entire morning to this marsh on our way back 

 from Slavonia in a week's time. 



About five o'clock in the afternoon we reached Draueck, 

 one of the grandest and most beautiful spots I have ever 

 seen ; for the dark lofty " au " woods that run along both 

 banks are entirely composed of high trees, and have a 

 strikingly imposing character. Here the Drave, an exceed- 

 ingly large stream, comes in at right angles to join the Danube, 

 and the united streams flow onward in a direct continuation 

 of the course of the former river. 



We also had the good fortune to see an exceedingly beau- 

 tiful natural spectacle just at the junction of the rivers, for the 

 long-expected storm now bprst with full force. A furious 

 gale roared through the woods, hurling the branches from the 

 trees, the waves where the two streams met were lashed by 

 the wind, and rose high up against the steamer, the thunder 



