e loss of
life had been very considerable, owing to the sudden nature of the
calamity on that occasion. The recollection of this terrible disaster
within the living memory of many persons kept the inhabitants of
Buda-Pest very keenly alive to any abnormal rise of the Danube waters.
There were, besides, additional circumstances which created uneasiness
and led to very acrimonious discussions. In recent years certain
"rectifications" had been effected in the course of the Danube, which
one-half of the community averred would for ever prevent the chance of
any recurrence of the catastrophe of 1838. But there are always two
parties in every question--"Little-endians" and "Big-endians"--and a
great many people were of opinion that these very "rectifications" were,
in fact, an additional source of peril to the capital.

The case stands thus: the river, left to its own devices, separates
below Pest into two branches, called respectively the Soroksar and the
Promontar; these branches continue their course independently of each
other for a distance of about fifty-seven kilometres, forming the great
island of Csepel, which has an average width of about five kilometres.
By certain embankments on the Soroksar branch the _regime_ of the river
has been disturbed, and according to the opinion of M. Revy, a French
engineer,[22] this has been a grave mistake, and he thinks that the
Danube misses her former channel of Soroksar more and more. He further
remarks in the very strongest terms upon an engineering operation "which
proposes the amputation of a vital limb, conveying about one-third of
the power and life of a giant river when in flood--a step which has no
parallel in the magnitude of its consequences in any river with which I
am acquainted."

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 ris