130 



AUSTEIA-HUNGARY. 



and the broader valleys abound in swamps and small lakes, whicb act as 

 " regulators " when the rivers become flooded. The peasants make no use of the 

 turf as fuel, but they are imprudently active in converting the bogs into produc- 

 tive land. The small lakes are utilised with considerable success for breeding 

 fish. It would be far more prudent to allow tlie bogs to remain as they are, for a 

 considerable amount of rain falls in Bohemia,* and the bogs, by sucking it up 

 like a sponge, regulate the flow of the rivers. Rivers which formerly never 

 overflowed their banks have done so since the drainage works have been begun. 



The Vltava and the Elbe effect their junction below Prague, and soon after, 

 near the bold rock crowned with the ruins of Schreckenstein, the united river is 

 joined by the Eger from the Avest. It then enters the gorge through which it 



Fit^. 80. — Lake Eegion ix Southeux Bohemia. 

 Scale 1 : 375,000. 



10 Miles. 



escapes from Bohemia. The smiling landscapes of its upper course give place to 

 bolder scenery. On both banks rise the basaltic cones of the Mittelgebirge, 

 succeeded by the grotesquely shaped sandstone masses of Bohemian and Saxon 

 Switzerland. Picturesque towns are seated upon the winding river, and castles 

 crown the heights looking down upon this gateway of the Elbe, which forms both 

 a geographical and political boundary, separating Bohemia from the lowlands of 

 Germany. 



Inhabitants. 



Two thousand years have passed away since Bohemia and Moravia were in the 

 possession of the Boii and other tribes, usually called Celtic. Near Olmlitz and at 



* Eainfall in inches : — Bodenhach, at the gate of the Elbe, 23-6 ; Trautenau, near the source of the 

 Elbe, 40-6 ; Prague, 15-7 ; Budweis, on the Upper Vltava, 24-4. 



