7 he has been king of Hungary.
During his reign the industry, trade, agriculture, and general
prosperity of his dominions have been enormously developed. And the most
remarkable of all is that he still carries his head high, is smart and
upright, and works as hard as a labourer in the Danube valley.

The fortunes of Austria and Hungary are still more closely united with
and dependent on the great river Danube. Certainly in the north we have
the Elbe and the Dniester, and in the south several small rivers which
enter the Adriatic Sea. But otherwise all the rivers of the monarchy
belong to the Danube, and collect from all directions to the main
stream. The Volga is the largest river of Europe and has its own sea,
the Caspian. The Danube is the next largest and has also its sea, the
Black Sea. Its source is also "black," for it takes its rise in the
mountains of the Black Forest in Baden, and from source to mouth it is
little short of 1800 miles.

The Danube flows through Bavaria, Austria, and Hungary, forms the
boundary between Rumania and Bulgaria, and touches a small corner of
Russian territory. It has sixty great tributaries, of which more than
half are navigable. Step by step the volume of the main stream is
augmented. We can see that for ourselves on our way through Europe. At
Budapest, which is cut in two by the river, and where five handsome
bridges connect the banks, we seem almost to be on a lake. The Elizabeth
Bridge has a span of 950 feet. Farther down, on the frontier of
Wallachia, the river is nearly two-thirds of a mile wide; but here the
current is slow; creeks of stagnant water are formed, and marshes
extend far along the banks. And at the point where the Rumanian railway
crosses the Danube, we find at Chernovodsk a bridge over the river which
is nearly 2-1/2 miles long and is the longest in all the world. Not far
from here the waters of the Danube part into three arms and form a broad
delta at the mouth. There grow dense reeds, twice as high as a man, on
which large herds of buffaloes graze, where wolves still seek their
prey, and where water-fowl breed in millions. If we look carefully at
the map, we shall see that Central Europe is occupied mostly by the
Danube valley, and that this valley, with its extensive lowlands, is
bounded by the best-known mountains of Europe; in the north by the
mountains of South Germany and Bohemia and the Carpathians, in the south
by the Alps and the mountains of the Balkan