Now let us see which side the Danube took in the controversy in the spring of 1876.  On the 17th of February the public mind had been almost tranquillised by the gradual fall of the water-level, but appearances changed very rapidly on the morning of the 18th, for alarming intelligence came to Buda-Pest from the Upper Danube.  It seems that a sudden rise of temperature had melted the vast deposits of snow in the mountains of the Tyrol and other high ranges which send down their tributary waters to the Danube.  A telegram from Passau announced the startling news that the waters of the Inn had risen eleven feet since the afternoon of the previous day, and further news came that the Danube had risen twelve and a half feet in the same time.  Following close upon this came intelligence of a disastrous inundation at Vienna which had caused loss of life and property.  The boats and barges in the winter harbour of the Austrian capital had been dragged from their anchorage, covering the river with the debris of wreckage; in short, widespread mischief was reported generally from the Upper Danube.

There was a prevalent idea that Buda-Pest had been saved by the flood breaking bounds at Vienna, but events proved that our troubles were yet to come.  There was a peculiarity in the thaw of this spring which told tremendously against us.  It came westward—­viz., down stream instead of up stream, as it usually does.  This state of things greatly increased the chances of flood in the middle Danube, as the descending volume of water and ice-blocks found the lower part of the river still frozen and inert.  Even up to the 21st the daily rise in the river was only six inches, and if the large floes of ice which passed the town had only gone on their course without interruption all might still have been well.  Unfortunately, however, this was far from being the case.  It seems that at Eresi, a few miles below Buda-Pest, where the water is shallow, the ice had formed into a compact mass for the space of six miles, and at this point the down-drifting ice-blocks got regularly stacked, rising higher and higher, till the whole vast volume of water was bayed back upon the twin cities of Buda and Pest, the latter place being specially endangered by its site on the edge of the great plain.

The authorities now devised plans for clearing away this ice-barrier, which acted as an impediment to the flow of the river.  They tried to blow it up by means of dynamite, but all to no purpose; and it soon became apparent that the danger to the capital was hourly on the increase.  At Pest the excitement and alarm became intense, for the mighty waters were visibly and inexorably rising.  We saw the steps of the quay disappear one after another; then the whole subway of the embankment became engulfed.  Ominous cracks appeared in the asphaltic promenade of the Corso, and the public were warned not to approach the railings, lest they should give way bodily and fall over into the water, which was lapping at the